The Heel of Democracy

 So, what's in store for Central Pennsylvanians today in the weather department?  Pretty much the same as yesterday.  We should have a high in the upper 80s (F) and we have a 50% chance of precipitation.  The sky did manage to squeeze out some minor showers yesterday afternoon, barely enough to wet the ground.  This means I'm going to have to go out and water my veggies later.

Nothing much happened yesterday.  I had lunch with my cousin and her husband at a Russian restaurant called Tatyana's.  It was way over-priced.  The presentation was nice, but the food was in no way distinctive.  We will not be eating there again.

I tried moving the walking pad over behind my writing desk onto the hardwood floor.  House that are over 120 years old usually don't have level floors and my house is no exception.  The difference is much, perhaps 1/8 inch, however it was enough to lift the back of the pad off of floor so when I walked you could hear a bumping sound.  The walking pad has now been moved back onto the carpet.  When it's open, this is what it looks like.

While I do occasionally look at Bluesky, mostly I comment on Threads.  One of the people I follow is Governor Newsom of California.  I have to tell you, his offices is doing some Grade A trolling of the Orange Anus.  He seriously mocks the hell out of that 79 year old pedophile by posting Threads like this:

So, because today is a day ending in Y I'm betting the Orange Anus is going to have another press conference this afternoon.  I was talking to my sister and she said "Dave, he's on every f*****g day!"  This is just like those dark days during Covid, when Orangie gave daily updates, when he suggested possibly injecting bleach into someone's vein might cure the disease.  While he didn't make a lot of sense back then, the truth is he makes even less sense today.  As in those Covid days, he always has several ass kissers backing him up, individuals who are no doubt tranquilized to keep their expressions minimized, no eyerolls please.  They stand their like mannequins, neither nodding agreement nor frowning in distaste as he talks about things like... grass.  He says he knows a lot about grass because he owns golf clubs.  Everything is self-gratification for him.  And every day his dementia dances in front of the camera so critics can cut out sound bites to mock him.  He is, by far, the worst president this country has ever had, and for that he and his party need to be ground into the dirt by the heel of Democracy.

The Big Reveal

 Good morning!  Our temps today are once again predicted to climb into the low to mid 80s (F).  Yesterday?  Well the forecast was kind of off, we had mucho grande clouds.  We even had drizzles in the afternoon and early evening.  Today, supposedly, cloudiness is predicted to be at a minimum, there is bright sunshine outside at present. 

So I actually used the walking pad yesterday.  I like it, however, there is one teeny problem.  Where as the treadmill had all of the controls in front of you, the walking pad has an app.  They want you to download it into your phone.  Not me.  I'm a bit funny about which apps are in my phone: nothing financial, no apps with Chinese above the English wording.  You know, those apps that might provide access to the slim amount of personal data I already have in my phone.  So, I put the app on a tablet.  The max speed on this pad is 6 miles per hour, that's a jog not a walk.  I hate jogging, so that will never happen.  Those with max speeds of 4 mph are less expensive, take that into consideration if you're thinking of investing in one.

I did file a complaint yesterday about the probably fake account I was direct messaging, not that I think it will do any good.  The account has "no content available," which means it was either deleted or Threads shut it down for breaking community rules.  I did send a message to the person, however since he doesn't follow me on Instagram, it went into his "message request" folder where it will sit for 3-4 weeks unless his PA either reads it or deletes it.  He is not known for his social media presence.  And, since this is turning into a nothingburger, I've decided to post the first part of a conversation that went on for almost week, one that was totally focused on Eli and Max.

So, I saw this morning where the Orange Anus wants to have another census in order for Republicans to cheat better.  This is a timely process and if it does happen in say, oh... 11 or 12 months a majority of Americans will know the numbers have been fudged.  The biggest problem for conservatives is that they simply don't realized that in a country that is armed to the teeth they need to have a majority of the people behind them.  Right now Orangie's approval rating sits at 38%, that's every Republican.  About 10% of that number is stupid people.  And now his tariffs are upon us.  Higher prices will continually erode his approval rating.  Any moment now he's going to say "let them eat cake," and we know what happened the last time those words were spoken.

Big Balls

Our skies are overcast and our morning temp is 70 (F).  If the weather forecasters are correct, we're not going to break out of the 70s (F) today.  The chance of precipitation inches up a few degrees, but is still negligible.  Both temperature and humidity will be slowly climbing over the next few days.  By Sunday, we should be in he high 80s (F) and the dew point also be high.  By Tuesday, however, rain should be moving into the picture.

Yesterday was... different.  I don't usually follow celebrities on social media since most of their posts are done not by them, but by their personal assistants and are in one way or another promotional.  However, back on July 24 a celebrity posted a bit about a project he was involved with which I found interesting.  Even for non-celebs I always click on their profile to check their bona fides.  There were direct links to both this person's Instagram account and the project he was involved with, so I followed.  Two days later, I received a direct message to my Threads account from someone in this person's organization welcoming me, asking for my preferred pronouns, and where I was located.  I provided the correct pronouns, the same generalized location I give everyone (Central PA), and added a bit about the Eli  and Max mysteries.  Over the next few days a number of direct messages went back and forth concerning Eli and Max, and then the messages stopped.  I waited a day and sent another message, no response. I clicked on the account and found out that it has been entirely deleted.  Wow.  While there is no longer an account, I still have the DMs.  I've taken screen prints of them and emailed them to myself.  Was this a fake account?  Might someone working for this celebrity be on a fishing trip?  The messages all revolved around Eli and Max, how interesting it was that they were together for 19 years, and that they solved murders.  There were no questions about personal information, no requests that I call a specific phone number.  I'm actually enjoying the mystery part of this.  Either today or tomorrow, I will DM this celebrity's profile on Instagram and detail what happened.

Anyway, my walking pad came yesterday.  It folds up nicely.  Now all I have to do is decide in which downstairs room I'm going to put it.

And for those who haven't heard yet, Big Balls was assaulted.  You all remember Big Balls?  The 19 year-old who worked for DOGE?  The one who had access to all of our data?  It happened around 0300 in DuPont Circle.  For those who don't know, DuPont Circle is a prominent gay neighborhood in Washington, DC.  Did I tell you that the police response was at 0300?  Supposedly, 10 black youths were attempting a car jacking.  That's right, there were 10 of them.  Supposedly, a woman was involved and Big Balls pushed her into (?) the car and told her to lock the doors... must have been a very old car.  Anyway, when the police arrived there was no sign of the youths, just a shirtless Big Balls looking like he may have been smacked in the face.  Oh, and the youths stole his IPhone.  IPhones are extremely difficult to sign into without the password.  Did I tell you DuPont Circle is very gay area of DC known for it's bars and bath houses?  Did you also know that DuPont Circle is also considered to be one of the safest places in DC?  Could it be that this group of 10 black youths might just have been after Big Balls?

Mohawk

 Well, we had another cool wakeup this morning, with our outside temp a comfortable 60 (F).  If the long range forecast holds out, over the next 2 weeks only one day will have temps reaching the 90 (F) mark.  There's not a lot of precipitation in the forecast, which means daily waterings of the tomatoes, but that's fine with me.

Yesterday was uneventful mostly because I work the entire day.   We did have a senior customer who sat and talked for about twenty minutes.  She was very nice.  While she didn't tell us how old she was, I'd estimate she was easily in her mid 80s (F).  I showed her pictures of Howie, and she said she'd seen many colored Labradors before, but never one that was red.  We did have her laughing, which made me feel good.  I do think there are times when seniors go out just for the socialization, that's why I talk to all of them.  Some of them are quite interesting.

My local Giant supermarket had a deal on Spam last week and it turns out that Howie loves the stuff.  It's a little pricy at $4.59 for a 12 ounce can, so it's a treat he's only going to be getting on special days, like today.  What makes today special for Howie?  It's his birthday.  He's one year old today.  So instead of cake and ice cream, he's going to get Spam, and more than just 2 or 3 slices.

About 50% of all the carpets we sell in the store are manufactured by Mohawk.  The company has taken a stand on the tariffs.

Supposedly the great orange home improvement retailer I work for said that they weren't going to be raising prices because of the tariffs. However, first there was Procter & Gamble and now Mohawk, who knows what other prices are going up as well.  My feeling is that price increases will quietly be passed onto our shoppers.

For those cultists who are still lost in the haze of hate surrounding the Orange Anus, the Find Out stage is going to kick in quickly.  Halloween and Christmas depend on China cheap prices.  These cultists are not even preparing for higher prices.  I can give you an example of these price increases.  I bought a walking pad on 7/31, yesterday, while at work, I showed it to a friend and to my surprise the price had increased by $100.  These price increases are going to be everywhere.  Americans are going to be paying a lot more just so that billionaires can get a tax break and earn more money.

Pirro Wine

 Last night was great sleeping weather!  When I woke up this morning our outside temp was 58 (F).  Today's high is once again only supposed to climb into the low 80s (F)  No rain is in the forecast, or I should say we have a 1% chance of rain today, tomorrow, and a 4% chance on Wednesday.  Thursday it's up to 6%.  This means I will be watering my little garden, which is down to just tomatoes.

I did manage to get in an upper body workout yesterday before I headed off to work.  A small one.  I did something to my lower back about a week ago and it was in a really cranky mood for several days.  That has now passed.

A new Walking Pad was ordered, it will be arriving Tuesday.  Because it folds, I'll be keeping this piece of exercise equipment downstairs.  It will fit in quite nicely under the futon in the living room.  The thought had occurred to me that I might walk and play video games at the same time.  That might be interesting, especially in combat situations.

The increase for my car insurance came in the mail yesterday.  As expected, my rate did go up with the  new car.  A nice surprise was that the cost only went up by $13 a year, which is $1.08 a month.  Both the insurance agent and I were surprised.  I was expecting a much higher increase and evidently so was he.

And Jeanine Pirro is now the interim US attorney for DC.  This calls for a glass of wine or 10, depending on if you're happy or not.

For those who don't know, Jeanine is another Orange Anus pick who comes from Fox Entertainment; Rupert Murdoch must be pleased to no end with his ability to influence American politics.  Anyway, Jeanie's a wino, a conspiracy theorist whom Fox actually took off the air for a bit because of her insane views, and a wino.... oh, wait, I already said that.  Every Republican voted for her.  

Howie's Rocks

 Good morning world.  Here in central PA our outside temp is 77 (F).  The sun is still shining, but that's going to change.  Much rain is in the forecast.  Showers are to begin sometimes this morning, followed by storms and thunderstorms this afternoon and this evening.  Rain is always appreciated, especially in what are traditionally our dry months.  Our green lawns will not be turning brown this summer.

Yesterday was a good day for getting things done.  I started off the day by baking a loaf of bread, and went on to do 4 loads of laundry, clean out the big aquarium, and vacuum up tons of doggy hair using the vacuum with the cheap bags.  I finished one chapter in the new book and began another:  Can you hum a few bars.  It's an old joke, so I'm not expecting all of you are going to get it.

Today is not going to be a chore intensive.  Though things do need to be done.  I'm thinking of buying a walking pad, which is like a treadmill but much smaller, some are foldable.  The treadmill I tore apart and turned into a raised garden was just too massive.  I do like walking, it's good for my lower back.  I might not be able to stop the arthritis, but I may be able to slow it down considerably.  I don't want to be one of those seniors who lets aches and pains infringe upon my daily life.

I believe I've mentioned before that Howie likes to bring stones and rocks into the house and trade them for puppy  cookies.  Well, a while back I decided to save them.  This is Howie's rock pile.

For those of you who missed it, Proctor & Gamble is going to be raising prices.  Some of the products sold by P&G are Tide, Downey, Mr. Clean, and Swiffer.  These are all products that the great orange retailer I work for sells in our cleaning department.  While our corporate headquarters has said they're not going to raise prices I'm betting these increases will be passed onto the customer.  And we only sell a smidgen of the products P&G's going to be raising prices on.  So remember, every time the Orange Anus shrieks about how much money his tariffs are raising, he's talking about your hard earned money.  Remember, those billionaires running this country don't give a shit about you or how difficult it is to make ends meet.