Pammy Jo's Burn Book

36  days until Spring.  This is my way of saying that the temp here in Central PA is 29 (F).  The day is supposed to be partially sunny, with a high temp in the mid 30s (F).  This is not bad for mid-February.  Temps are predicted to slowly, but continually rise.  This is a good thing.  I turned my thermostat back down to 70 (F), and in a week or so I'll be setting it at 69 (F).  

And yesterday was a good day.  Much time was spent editing about 3 pages.  I like to think of this as an enhancement stage.  Some details get added, other dropped.  The first two chapters take place in Rumplestiltskin's which was a bar located in Hummelstown, PA.  They had live music on weekends.  Sadly, the bar was torn down to make way for a strip mall.  I couldn't find any existing pictures of Rumpelstiltskin's but I do remember the dance floor. 

I got a good workout in yesterday morning.  A loaf of bread was also baked.  I didn't work on the aquariums as much as I wanted, that will happen today.  

Here's some not so surprising big news:  Zuck is moving to Florida because California is going to pass a 5% wealth tax.  He's not alone, and you know, I'm thinking that having so many billionaires located in one place might not be such a bad idea.  He'd rather spend $250 million on a beach front property in a state that gets devastating hurricanes than pay 5% to California.  Just because people are wealthy, doesn't mean that they're smart.

And this also happened yesterday:

For those who don't know, that's Pammy Jo Bondi testifying before Congress yesterday, though testify is not the write word.  Standing behind her are some of the victims of Epstein's sex trafficking ring.  She refused to acknowledge them.  She lied and Ted Lieu, a Congressman from California called her out for it.  Ted has the receipts.  She had what's called a burn book with her.  A burn book is a binder with tabbed pages containing insults, a reference book, if you will, that allowed her to personally attack every Congressman in the room.  For example, she called the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and antisemite.  This is so much like something Orangie would do.  The only one to praise her was Gym Jordan.  He kissed her ass.  To paraphrase Pammy Jo, that hearing should have been used to praise Orangie and talk about how high the Dow and the Nasdaq were instead of focusing on Epstein's child trafficking.

And the El Paso airport is open again.  Evidently the Department of Defense shot down a party balloon because they thought it was a drone.  The stupid is truly beginning to bubble.

Sheer Stupidity

 Say hello to Saturday and the day is going to be sunny, but chilly, with our high only climbing up into the upper 30s (F).  That's fine with me.  I work this afternoon.  The weathers to cold for spring planners, but wait until Thursday.  Temps are supposed to be in the low 50s (F), and that will bring out the early bird curb appealists. 

Yesterday was a laundry day.  I also worked on the book.  But that's about it.  I made my version of celery potato soup using some scraps of beef that had been in the freezer.  It was fine.  I spent some time on social media, but not much. I like to stay quietly informed.  If I spend too much time looking at comments I tend to get aggravated.  

Howie did Howie things.  That means I have a new pile of sticks and twigs on my kitchen counter that he's bartered for snacks.  

I'm scheduled to work this afternoon.  The only day I start working before 2 is Sunday, those days tend to be slow.  Being the first Saturday of the month, we do our Kid's Workshop.  It's a nice concept, teaching kids how to work with kid tools.  They get their little orange aprons and put together a very simple project.  We usually get over 300 kids.  Projects that need to be painted are the worst; we end up with paint smears all over the store, on appliances, carpet samples, you name it, little painty fingers leave their mark.  The store is very busy, and since they're in the store most parents will buy something.  That's the real reason for Kid's Workshop.  It's all about the sales.  This is a promotional picture, no real children were involved.

And, of course, the tariffs begin today.  Will they do anything to make the rich richer?  Nope.  Many think they run for a few weeks, prices will go up, and then the Orange Anus will claim victory and either reduce them greatly, or put an end to most.  Oh, and prices might come down slightly, but they will never again be what they are today.  This is really all about impressing the cultists and making money for the billionaire boys club.

I understand Zuckerberg is getting a divorce.  Now we know why he got that shitty perm; he wants to look young and nerdy again.

Elonia got into government computers yesterday, places he shouldn't have been.  Social Security numbers?  You can bet he'll be selling them to the highest bidders because he doesn't give a shit about people.  Someone said he's going to do to the US Government what he did to Twitter, wreck it out of sheer stupidity.

Ham Loaf

 Once again, the forecasters missed the mark on high temps yesterday... sort of.  They did say low to mid 30s (F), and they were right about the low part.  We hit a high of 31 (F).  So, is that low enough?  And we had snow over night.  They're prediction for this afternoon?  Like a broken record, with a bad skip, they're telling us we should hit the mid 30s (F).  Tomorrow, however, our temps are supposed to climb into the 40s (F).  Guess it's time to dig out the Bermuda Shorts.

I did get a nice little leg workout in yesterday.  And cleaned downstairs.  I've also been moving some furniture around, end tables, lights, nothing big, nothing you night think of as a redecoration.  These changes are not because I have this inner urging for something different, rather they're because Howie's balls sometimes roll either behind or under and I spend to much time on my hands and knees reaching either around or beneath in order to continue playing.  

I also get to go to work today.  I had 2 measures last week, it will be interesting to see if any of them have sold.  January and February are the slow times, more so this year since it's colder than the past 3.  No one wants to have installers tramping in and out of their house when the temp is 31 (F) outside.  If you're heating with oil that can add mucho buckos to your heating bill and we're all paying too much already to those billionaire leeches that own big oil and gas.

I made a small ham loaf for dinner last evening.  What's a ham loaf you ask?  Well, it's a meat loaf that's made with ground ham instead of ground beef.  The ham is left over from Christmas.  I froze the left overs for just this sort of thing.  I top it with Swiss cheese.  Believe me, it's quite tasty.

I read that supposedly hard right Republicans are upset with Elon Musk, saying his agenda is different from the goals they're aiming for.  That might be true, and it might not.  Like the Orange Anus, they do love their billionaire leaders.  But you also need to take into account that more and more countries are giving Elonia grief.  This is a good thing.  The last thing the world needs is to be run by selfish, self-centered billionaires.  It will be interesting to see how the Religious right deals with them, because the last I heard, Zuck, thanks to his Asian wife, was pretty much of a Buddhist, and Elonia seems to be drunk with Arianism (Nazi religion), and the Orange Anus worships himself.  I wonder when the Evangelicals who voted for Orangey are going to start realizing this, and when they do, will they protest.  I don't think they understand yet how rough this crowd is going to be on Christianity. 

  

Bits

 We did not get any rain yesterday.   The temperature peaked at 90 (F), and to hear people coming up to the paint desk, you'd think it was well over 100 (F).  I so much wanted to tell them that 90 (F) is warm, not hot, but I did the professional thing and simply nodded my head and said, "is it?"

Yesterday, he real estate agent handling the house next door had an open house.  I have no idea how busy many people stopped by to actually view the property.  So far 626 people have looked at the property on Zillow and 48 of them have saved it, which is probably a good sign.  However, seeing it up close and personal is a lot different than looking at rooms professionally staged.  The temps were in the high 80s (F) during the open house so they would have needed to have the ceiling fans going.  There is no ceiling fan in the attic, so temps up there would have been scorching.

I'll be going down to that Fish Place in Lancaster in about an hour.  I've got a 30% off coupon.  That's good.  I need to get more plants.  The one I put into the big tank is thriving, so it's time to add more, as well as the naked marble statues.

And even though the weekend is usually quiet on the political front, yesterday was not without it's bits of excitement.  CNN releasing a information that Fani in Atlanta had texts and emails showing that orders for breaching election machines had come straight down from the top (that means the Orange Anus probably gave the order).  However, we all need to keep in mind that Trump rarely DMs or texts, it's almost always done by an aide in order to put blame where he wants it to go.  This means he will surely say the directive did not come from him, and that everyone else was acting outside his wishes.  You know?  It was everyone else's fault and he's just an innocent lamb.

And Zuck texted that it was time to move on, that there was not going to be any kind of match between he and Musk.  This should have been expected.  What it does is paint Musk to be an even bigger buffoon people thought, and a lot of people seen him as nothing more than a bloated windbag.  I'd liked the bit where Zuck claimed Musk wanted to have a trial match in Zuck's backyard.  That was hooting hilarious.

Indian Jones and the Dial of Desitny

 Well, the end of the work week has arrived.  This means I am scheduled to work tomorrow.  Yippee.  

For the past 2 days the weather has been hot, or perhaps I should say rather warm since both Wednesday and Thursday our thermometers have climbed into the low 90s (F).  They're nothing like what they have down south where the temps are in the low 100s (F).  Of course, we're just at the beginning of summer, things will probably start cooking when we get later into July and August.

I finally got in a decent dumbbell workout (53 minutes) and bike ride (14.02 miles) yesterday and felt so much better.  I find that when I get the workouts in I feel much better.  When I don't I tend to want to take naps, not a good thing.  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against taking a nice nap, it's just that they need to be taken in serious moderation.  I have no plans on sleeping away the rest of my life.

Last evening I went to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and I liked it... a lot.  I'm sure many of Harrison Fords action shots were done by a stunt double, but for an 80 year old man he was rather impressive.  I suspect one of the problems some people might have is seeing people they consider to be old staring in an action movie.  Get over it, people. The storyline was good.  Mads Madsen played the villain well, smooth and slick, and slimy.  

One thing I found fascinating about the movie is that there really is an Antikythera though I doubt very much if it was built by Archimedes, and though only one has been found, I suspect there were more in the ancient Greek world.

And probably the only really big and very joyful news is that Elon Musk is flipping out about Threads.  While I'm not wild about Mark Zuckerberg, I have no problem seeing Musk's ruination at his hands.  One thing I am seeing, and hope you are, too, is people posting good advice about the haters.  Be certain that Libs of TikTok will show up in your feed.  When they do and try to incite you with inflammatory comments and videos do not respond just mute them.  The fewer responses they get, the more they find themselves muted, the less often they will show up.  This is how you use the algorithms to your benefit.

Zuck vs Musk

 Well, here it is Friday and it hasn't stopped raining.  Well, not completely.  I guess if I were describe it, I'd say we were showery with occasional periods of steady rain.  It was so steady this morning Lily didn't want to go out.  Sooner or later her bladder will force her out into the rain.  I have a towel ready.  Honestly, she loves being dried off, so I'm surprised she's not going out more often.

Lets hope today is more productive than yesterday.  Not that yesterday was a waste, it just seemed as though every hour or so I felt the need to take a quick catnap.  I'm blaming it on the rain, the dizzles never seemed to let up.  It's not that I didn't get anything accomplished, I did:  a 52 minute dumbbell workout, and a fast walk on the treadmill.  However, the afternoon bike ride didn't happen.

As everyone knows by now, the little submersible imploded explosively.  Not everyone is sad.  A number of news outlets are reporting on the lack of sympathy many are directing towards these very wealthy individuals.  Some are calling it schadenfreude (enjoying the misfortune of others).  I don't doubt part of it is that the extremely wealthy are not well liked, and they really don't care if you like them or not.  The vast majority of humans on this planet are not even blips on their radar, so when something bad happens to five of them no one really feels sorry for them.

And speaking of the uber wealthy, I understand the cage match is going to take place.  What cage match, you ask, scratching you head.  The one between Zuck and Musk!  Evidently there are some really hard feelings between the two of them.  If I were a gambling man, and I'm not, I'd probably put my money on the skinny ginger rather than the bloated South African.

And, of course, the House of Representatives continues to unravel.  Really, everything those cultists are doing now is geared to trying to maintain a hold on their base voters.  Now they're trying to expunge the two impeachments against the Orange Anus.  This is what you would expect from a cult.  The small percentage of voters they are trying to please will never get them the presidency.  They did poorly in the last election, and they'll do even worse in the next one.  For them to understand that, would mean they understood the American people.  That's something that will never happen.  Which is why the party is dying.

Apollo

 And the weekend, Holy for some, begins with cold temps.  There is a freeze warning in Central PA for tonight, though the temps are only supposed to drop into the mid 30s (F), nothing that's going to doom any of the blooms in my garden.  

I saw where Instagram now wants to charge a $15 monthly verification charge.  Supposedly this is so that your followers know it's the real you and not some bozo masquerading as you.  In reality, this is nothing more than dippy doo Mark Zuckerberg trying to suck the money out of your bank account.  Pure greed manifests itself in so many different ways, for more and more social media accounts it shows its ugly head in the form of verification services.  Musk's doing the same thing, or at least trying to do the same thing at Twitter.  Will Zuckerberg be successful?  Well, not with me, though I know there are those out there who will pay the charge in order to boast that they have been verified by Instagram as... well, I guess that will prove your not a deep fake.

A number of hours were spent yesterday afternoon on the big tank, cleaning it out, vacuuming the gravel, scrubbing down the sides.  Right now it's empty of decorations and plants.  I can't tell if having all of that swim space pleases the fish or not.  New decorations have been order.  I'm going smaller this time, though still sticking with the Greek / Roman imagery.  There will be statuary.  And a clam shell that will open up.  I ordered the first statue yesterday.  It's Apollo, naked of course.  I don't know for certain, but I'm thinking there is some unwritten law which states Greek and Roman statuary needs to be naked.  It's shipped this morning and to my super duper surprise it's not coming from China.  Nope.  My statue is coming from Greece.  Now, ain't that nice.

And down in Tennessee the Republicans kicked two black Democrats out of the legislature because they attended an anti-gun rally.  Three Democrats actually attended the gun-control event, but they Republicans let the white Democrat stay.  Those two men have now stepped onto the National stage.  Those stupid Republicans?  Well, they since they don't make mistakes they're going to be eating shit sandwiches until they get voted out of office.

And the Clarence Thomas shit?  He's now saying those 20 years for free vacations to expensive places were a personal gift, that they had nothing to do with the fact they were given to him by a white, ultra-conservative billionaire.  I'm thinking Thomas is going to end up eating more shit sandwiches than those Tennessee lawmakers.

Recovery

 I hope everyone is having a good weekend, those that aren't working, and for those that are, may the hours pass fast.

Here in Central PA, yesterday started off great, much was being accomplished and I was feeling quite satisfied until mid-afternoon.  And then?  Son of a bitch.  I was preparing to continue my walk through Pompeii, had my cute jogging sneakers on, the Senso earbuds hanging from my shoulder, however, when I went to turn on the little laptop connected to the TV the old familiar screen didn't pop up.  Nope.  I got a blue screen and an error message:  

Well, damn.  The culprit?  An update that went... awry might be an acceptable word to use.  The recovery process was not arduous; however, it did entail resetting the little laptop which took too much time.  Almost an hour.  Now that doesn't sound like much, but my momentum was thrown completely off.  By the time the reset was complete, it was time to make dinner and feed the dogs, and for about an hour and a half I was cranky.

I must say, though, reading the bits and pieces of the affidavit that had not been redacted buoyed my spirits.   I found it interesting that the process to get the documents Trump stole stared in May of 2021, much earlier than I had thought.  The fact that there were handwritten notes on some of the documents is important.  In fact, so much damning information was released in the redacted version, one can't even begin to imagine what was blacked out.

Karl Rove saying the best thing Trump could do right now was to shut up and let his attorneys handle this was worth a hardy har har har.  Trump shut up?  

And almost right on cue, Hunter Biden's laptop reared its ugly head in MAGA LAND. The too, too pale Mark Zuckerburg told Joe Rogan that the FBI had asked that they limit the amount of importance that little turd was getting on Facebook because they were certain it was part of a Russian disinformation program.  Of course, MAGAs only heard the part they wanted to hear, the bit of Russian plot to skew the election was totally lost on them.  Think about it.  They're more upset by was Zuckerburg said than the fact that a very treasonous Trump was probably peddling intelligence secrets the Russkies and the Saudis think he was important.

Let's be honest, this will take the Republican party a longer to recover from than my little laptops Bitlocker issue.

Greed

 Hello sunny Sunday!  Slow day!  And a workday, too.  I'm scheduled to work tomorrow as well.  Rain is in the forecast.  This is how it goes.

I was talking about Climate Change with an associate... let me rephrase that, a conservative associate, who told me that there is not concrete evidence that the climate is changing.  His logic?  That Earth has been here for millions of years, has gone through so many different changes, and we as a people, have only been keeping records officially for a few hundred years.  When I pointed out that core samples taken from the ice provide an excellent record of past climates, he said, "but they were only taken in certain areas, they don't show what the climate was like all over the world."  There's not getting around stupid.  He also doesn't understand why we should take actions now when, as he says, "there's no definitive proof."  As a true conservative, he'd rather corporations make money that will he believes will 'trickle down.'

As some of you may have seen, Jack Dorsey is no longer the CEO of Twitter.  He wants to focus on Square, a financial services company.  Twitter management is in a bit of chaos, not because there are certain losers (I'm speaking of you, Loser #45), who would like to be reinstated, rather, they're trying to figure out how to monetize the social media platform.  That's right.  They want to sell more ads.  This is Greed in America.

Jack Dorsey, notice I chose a picture with him wearing a shirt

I don't know about you, but I'm really getting fed up with ads.  I have an Instagram account and I can remember where ads were sparse.  Not any more.  Instagram is owned by Meta, which is, as most of you know, Facebook, and Meta is monetizing the hell out of Instagram.  This is Greed in America, the Zuckerberg version of Greed.  Meta tracks the number of times people click on ads, so if people would stop clicking, eventually the number of ads would go down.  Of course, that will never happen because there are dumb shits out there who will see and ad for Quaker Oats and think, "wow, Quaker Oats, I wonder what that's about."

Mission Accomplished

Yesterday was a day for getting things done!  Mowed the lawn - early, since they were calling for possible showers and thundershowers.  We got some showers late in the day, but nothing else.
Two loads of laundry washed and folded.  Dishes hand washed.  I have a dishwasher, but unless I'm cooking something big, usually resort to Palmolive.
Got the grocery shopping done.  Time for another BIG bag of Beneful. 
Half the floor in the computer / gym / cycling room got 3 coats of paint.  Only half because I move everything from one side of the room to the other side.  It looks nice.  Color is called Breeze Way..., sort of a swimming pool color.  The dogs only walked on the wet paint once!
It's nice when you accomplish more than you plan.
Earlier in the week Facebook took a shit in Mark Zuckerberg's pants.  Was it enough to wipe that smug little smile from his face?  Probably not.  What I thought surprising was people being... shocked.  Excuse me, people.  The lifespan of a social media network is evidently not that long.  Remember My Space.  Everybody wanted to be a part of My Space.  I think some are still on it.  I bring up Facebook because yesterday Twitter took a dive.  Oops.  People just don't seem to be signing in as often.  That's hurts advertising.  What is happening to all of the followers?  Well, duh, you don't need to sign in any more.  Look at the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  His every Tweet gets reposted almost immediately.  Before he began dominating the Twitterverse, you might read something and say, "gee, that's interesting."  But the Idiot Jerk?  Everybody knows he lies, and Twitter is the easy forum he has for spreading those lies.  If his main goal was to kill Twitter, he should get a "Mission Accomplished" medal.  He could wear it like all those phony medals dictators seem to enjoy wearing.
In case you missed it, yesterday he took credit for the economy in a Tweet.  Of course, he forgot to mention that the last time the economy was this good was in 2014 - when Barack Obama was president.  Ooops.

I just lost $15 billion dollars

So, what target is the Idiot jerk aiming for next?  My money says Instagram, which means he'll be able to do it with pictures.