What's in a Noem... I mean Name

 So, it appears that the weekend is going to start off with springtime temperatures with daily highs only reaching up into the mid 80s (F).  That will change as we move into the week, but even then our high temps are only predicted to be in very low 90s (F).  The chance of rain is minimal at best.  If our highs were higher, I'd say this was a normal August, but they're not.  This is good for my electric bill just like last year's cold winter was bad for my gas bill.

Yesterday was mostly unproductive.  I did some chores, only one load of laundry.  I feel I should have done more.  However over 1000 new words were added to the new book, so writing wise, yesterday was good.  I finished the chapter "If you hum a few bars," and moved into the next chapter "reel to reel."  Remember, this is a musical mystery, and I can tell you there will be an "intermezzo time" next up on the writing agenda.  I am trying to keep a good balance going between two stories, one of Eli's mother, who died when he was five, and, of course, the murder mystery.  The idea of having a musical code which needs to be deciphered has been replaced with something more... interesting.

I am scheduled to work today.  

I also tried to find the clip from South Park where Kristi Noem's face falls off, sadly, the only clip I could find was her recruitment video, the one where she shoots the puppies, so consider that a cautionary warning.

My sister called yesterday to ask if I'd seen that the new guy in charge of the IRS is now the old guy, Billy Long, after 2 months.  I hadn't.  Scottie Bessent is now in charge of the IRS.  Billy, who was approved by the Senate, now has to be approved to be the Ambassador to Iceland.  That sounds like a demotion to me.  Perhaps Billy's bribe to the Orange Anus just wasn't big enough for the job he got.  There's also the possibility that Billy just wasn't corrupt enough to suit Orangie... nah, it probably has to do with the fact that he goes by Billy.  Let's be honest.  Billy is not a brass knuckle kind of name.  Nope, it's more of a stealing one of grannies checks and forging her signature kind of name.  Not that Scottie's a much better name, but Scottie's a super billionaire and in Orangie's book, that puts him near the top of the "Billionaires I want to be friends with" list.

Price Increase in aisle 1... 2... 3.......

 Good Morning World!

On this sunny Friday morning, the outside temp is sitting a comfy 64 (F).  The forecast for today is: mostly sunny and our chance of precipitation is 1%, now, that's pretty damn low.  We all know what that means, don't we?  My first load of laundry is in the washer.  The drying rack awaits.

Yesterday was pretty doggone good.  I vacuumed up all the Howie hair upstairs, and there is a lot.  Got lots of words written.  A fairly decent upper body workout was done, 239 calories were burned off.  Enough pulled pork was cooked to last for the next few days.  And I did 20 minutes on walking pad.  I like it.  It is really a mini-treadmill, except it folds up.  It will stay down in the writing room.  Yesterday I set it up in front of the desk, on the area rug.  That I didn't like, so I'm going to relocate it behind the desk onto the hardwood floor.

A BJ's Wholesale Club opened up about half a mile from where I work.  It's one of those membership clubs that sell discounted products.  Right now a promotion 1 years membership cost $15 and I'm thinking of joining, what with the cost of everything going up.  My neighborhood Giant supermarket offers points for every dollar you spend, so $100 = .10 off a gallon of gas.  However, they also offer promotional items where, for example, if you buy a 4 ounce bottle of Pom you get 40 points. There have been times when I've gotten up to a $1.00 off the price of a gallon of gasoline.  That's nice.  With food prices set to go through the roof, the points might be better than the discount card... that is unless my neighborhood Giant decides to change the way their point system works.  The higher prices would let you rack up the points faster.  

And prices are going up.  I took this picture on Wednesday, the day the tariffs went into effect.  The new "low" prices are now higher than the old "high" prices.  Every aisle is filled with these price mark-ups.

And, speaking of the Orange Anus, did everyone get a chance to see him announce how the job numbers released by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics were wrong?  He used a chart with a graph pointing upwards and said the numbers were great.  Oh, and he said that they used numbers that hadn't been available before.  Social media went wild since apparently someone gave him access to a large piece of poster board and a sharpie.

And finally, evidently Kristi Noem, aka Ice Barbie has a real cranky hair up her butt because of how she was physically portrayed on South Park.  She's not complaining that in the episode she shot a puppy every 8 or 9 seconds, or about how ICE brutally kidnaps people, or about her violent recruitment video.  In fact, she's saying they ignore those terrible things about her... they didn't.  Nope, ICE Barbie's upset because after all of facial work she's had done, hair extensions, and cheek implants, they made fun of how she looks.  And the Orange Anus put this loser in charge of Homeland Security.

Anora

 Well, Thursday has started out all bright and sunny and warm.  Temps are in the mid 70s (F).  Our projected high is in the low to mid 90s (F) and we are under a heat advisory.  Thunderstorms are not in the forecast, at least not until Saturday and Sunday.  This is what summer is:  hot sunny days.

Yesterday was interesting.  I did a short, low impact upper body workout.  Muscles need time to recover. My main goal is to maintain the muscle mass that I have and, possibly, maybe grow a few more muscle cells.  I've seen men in the 90s who look like big babies because they decided to just sit around and let their bodies atrophy with the years.  That's not going to be me.

I also spent some time chatting with an Hewlett Packard tech who finally got my color printer to work.  Something happened when I switched internet providers and I couldn't get the wifi to work.  He had me connect it with a USB cable to my laptop and then remotely went in and reset it.  The printer is still under warranty, a good thing since it took him about 15 minutes.  I watched as he typed different numbers on different screens and truthfully, there is no way I could have gotten it working again.  Now it prints fine.

I watched Anora last evening.  It won the Palme d'or at Cannes, and the Oscar for Best Picture.  It's about a sex worker who meets and marries the goofy, spoiled son of a Russian oligarch.  It's explicit at times, not X rated, but there is plenty of T& A for those of you who appreciate that sort of stuff; believe me, Black Swan was far more explicit, or Beautiful Things.  Anyway, once they get married the movie turns into a sort of slapstick/screwball comedy.  Oh, and there is a love story, but not between Ani and the rich kid.  I liked it a lot.

Also last night, South Park premiered it's 27th season... and it went after the Orange Anus in a big way.  I tried to find the clip on YouTube where Orangie strips down naked and climbs in bed with Satan who rebuffs him.  Orangie's small genitalia are mentioned several times.  I cackled.  I laughed.  I guffawed.  Video clips were all over Threads, so I suppose they're all over both Zitter and Bluesky.  And what makes this episode so great is that there's no mention of the Epstein files.  Nope.  But Orangie in bed with Satan who rejects him is golden.

And, as everyone should have expected, the Wall Street Journal did drop another tasty piece of dirt about the Epstein files.  Tell me, is any body really shocked to find out that Pammy Jo told Orangie his name was in the files back in May.  Of course, most of us already knew he was quite aware of how his name simply permeates those files, so her dropping that bit of info was no surprise to him.  And because Mikey Johnson shut down Congress for the next month the administration is left with trotting out old chestnuts like Hillary's emails.  August is going to be juicy.