Chowder

Thursday, and the skies are sunny and the temp is sitting at 75 (F).  That's lower than yesterday morning, though yesterday's high did get up to 98 (F) again.  One thing that did change was that the Hight Heat Warning was suddenly extended to include today.  Today's forecast is for slightly cooler temps and thunderstorms are supposed to move through the area this evening bringing with them cooler temps.

I did managed to get two of my smart plugs connected yesterday, but then power went off for about 2 seconds and one of them lost connection.  I didn't really put a lot of effort into it because it's just not that important.  And, as I reevaluate things, I've decided to throw the Alexa I have upstairs out.  I never, ever use it.  I have one downstairs that I will occasionally use to play music, but that's about it.  I'm not one of those people who talk to their Alexas; I know some people who are forever asking silly questions.  I would rather be more dependent on my phone or computer than a device which might be sending all sorts of information to Bezos' world.

I did get a nice workout in yesterday.  I also made some New England Clam Chowder for dinner.  I try to keep mine healthy by using olive oil rather than butter when making my roux.  I also switched away from V8 to the store brand vegetable juice.  Food prices are going up.

I saw that the Orange Anus got the CIA to say his attack on Iran's nuclear building facilities created significant damage.  Don't believe it.  He needed some sort of false verification in order to save face.  

Also interesting is the fact that his administration is no longer going to give intelligence briefings to Congress.  This is how authoritarians like Putin work, they control the information getting out to the public.  This lets them lie at will.

Someone posted that real estate stocks in New York City were dropping because Mamdani got the Democratic nomination.  If this is true, it really is fascinating because they are acting like he's already won the election.  It's also why I'm calling this Republican propaganda.  Of course, Christian Nationalists are flipping out.  For them, like the great de-churching, this is one more sign that their religion no longer has the power it used to have.  This does seem to be the case.  Perhaps if after Martin Luther the church hadn't continued to splinter, or perhaps if the Evangelicals hadn't made Christianity so selfish, but those things happened.  Perhaps if they had pushed love and compassion rather than hatred, but than love and compassion take away the ability to pass judgement.  Sometimes I wonder if it was always meant to fail.

Puppy in a Box

 Friday morning and it's 39 (F) outside, that's getting close to 0 in Celsius.  Don't worry, we're going to be warming up over the next few days.  Then another cool down will hit us, though are low temps are not supposed to go below 40 (F), which is still close to 0 in Celsius.  I think that there are times when the temperature looks better in Fahrenheit than in Celsius. 

Yesterday turned out to be a blah day, not much accomplished.  I think it's because there's a puppy in the house.  Howie goes outside quite frequently.  We're in the house training stage of puppydom.  This morning we were up at 0500 in order for him to do his business outside.  Mission accomplished.  He's actually younger than I thought.  I looked through his papers and he'll be 2 months on on October 12.  He was evidently crate trained, too.  The big box I brought him home in is set up to the new chair with a blanket inside.  When he gets tired, he goes and lays in the box.  When I'm upstairs and he's downstairs, he goes and lays in the box.  As long as he's happy. 

I had a problem with one of the LED lights in my range hood and clicked on the "Contact Seller" button on Amazon.  I filled out the form, and clicked the submit button.  However, instead of going to Vesta, the form went to Squarespace, which forwarded that form to Vesta and charged me $30 plus tax.  I complained to both my credit card company, and to Amazon, and now there are 2 fraud active fraud investigations as to how this happened.  Vesta claims ignorance, but I'm fairly positive that their page was set up to go through Squarespace right from the beginning.

And as the election gets closer, Trump is becoming more extreme.  I liked the bit about how he's going to let people deduct the interest on their car payments from their income tax.  His cultists believe he's capable of doing this.  He's not.  But then a number of them think he was sent by God.  They don't understand that he's taking a blunt ax to Christianity in order to save his ass.  Believe me, if Christians thought the Great Dechurching was a problem before Trump, wait until they see what happens to their religion after he's gone.