Humid and warm, chance of more rain. Sun came out yesterday and it got HOT… like summertime hot… so I think Spring has sprung, and Summer is here. Just a bit earlier than usual, perhaps.
Didn’t do much yesterday, despite the sunshine. Spent the morning doing auction stuff, spent the afternoon on the same, and waiting for D2. She had an eye appointment, but missed it. Forgot to come home, if you can believe it. Rescheduled.
Dinner out had more impact on the wallet than I expected. The prices were higher. Still get a lot of food, but prices definitely increased. Which is what we expect due to real inflation being somewhere around 30%. I just thought they would hold the line a bit longer.
Today has ‘drive around and pickup things’ written all over it. Then I’ll stack things.
Stack some of your own.
nick
“Dinner out had more impact on the wallet than I expected.”
I’m still complaining about a local place that advertises their onion ring on billboards. Three years ago I finally stopped. Onion rings Tower of Hanoi style and two beers with mandatory tip, $35. Rings were not good. I do better onion rings.
OTOH, stopped at a Mexican place coming back from the airport about the same time. Family owned, decor not fancy but good photos and porcelain-top Coca-Cola tables like you see in Mexico. Not cheap, but very good. I’ve been back.
Yeah, I’m cheap, but I’m also a fair cook with a freezer full of beef. Can’t justify an indifferent meal served by indifferent staff who think they are a bargain at $20 per hour, and $6-7 a bottle beer puts it even further on the no-deal side.
Last summer we hit a place like that in South Texas where the menu prices “were subject to change without notice” and we got clipped for about 20% more than I anticipated plus a mandatory 15% large party tip because we were seated at the table for eight despite being a party of four.
Also known as the “gringo surcharge”.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html
Pretty much every story above the fold…
6 years for the truth to come out. Some of us knew (felt strongly we were right) all along.
FBI. IRS. DOJ.
Burn it all down.
n
Yeah, Deep State. Trump tho.
Here’s the thing. Trump. I’m jus’ sayin’.
Including Perkins Coie.
Nah, this was the kind of place that would pack in the Parrothead demographic who would be too drunk to notice the difference of the prices in the bill than on the menu. I’d say sports bar but there weren’t really enough TVs.
High overhead.
So much vibrancy
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12089579/Texas-boy-12-charged-murder-shooting-dead-Sonic-employee.html
n
“We conclude that the department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law”
– the newspeak makes me want to puke. “missteps” to describe falsifying evidence… attacking political rivals
n
>> Tia Kabir, 19, flew to Bali from Australia to get ‘angel energy’ inked on her left forearm
And she thought the tattoo artists in Australia were bad…
“Ruger SFAR .308 rifles”
https://ruger.com/products/sfar/models.html
Hubba, hubba. Me want one. Saw this rifle in the March Guns and Ammo magazine.
My dad and I and four more of our male relatives are heading to Montana early Thursday morning for a long weekend of fly fishing the Missouri river in rowboats. Gonna be cold early and warm in the afternoons. I am taking my extra long insulated Eddie Bauer rain jacket as it can suddenly drop 40 F in those canyons. In fact, 7 or 8 years ago, it was 70 F at noon and snowing on us at 3 pm one fine day. One of the other guys had his guide row him out, he could not get warm. I will wear waders the entire time but my nephews will wear wade pants, too cold for me. That is the side effect of long term heart problems and heart medicine.
I am hoping that the snow melt holds off another week. When it hits 80 F in those mountains, the Missouri river starts to catch a lot of snow melt and can rise a foot or two a day. The fish stop biting when it gets over five feet deep. We practice catch and release like most of the fishermen along the river.
“Biden’s New Emissions Control Standards Prove EVs are a Tough Sell”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/05/16/bidens-new-emissions-control-standards-prove-evs-are-a-tough-sell/
“The Biden administration released new emissions control standards for vehicles. Billed as the “most ambitious climate regulations” ever, they have captured headlines, but technical realities and high costs have both rules headed straight for a brick wall.”
“The light-duty category covers cars, trucks, and vans, and requires 67% of all new car sales to be electric by 2032. The heavy-duty category covers 18-wheelers, buses, and other work-related vehicles and requires half of new buses and a quarter of new truck sales to be electric by 2032. For comparison, last year, electric vehicle sales made up 5.8% of new car sales and less than 2% for heavier trucks. These proposed standards are not ambitious but rather represent a new level of regulatory lunacy.”
If you want an electric vehicle, go for it. Just don’t make me buy one and don’t make me subsidize yours.
But, if we ever get the Shipstone battery (lasts for years without recharging), I will jump over then.
The auto press rumor mill has been buzzing for two days about Toyota introducing a Maverick competitor based on TNGA – think Camry/RAV4/Highlander.
That will sell, especially if they offer all of the TNGA powertrain options and a true sub $25k basic model delivered with just the 2.5 L 4-cyl engine.
A Maverick is just a reskinned Ford Fusion. The only question about whether to believe the rumor is if the agenda will allow Toyota to proceed.
“But, if we ever get the Shipstone battery (lasts for years without recharging), I will jump over then.”
zero point energy will be here about five years after fusion.
“But, if we ever get the Shipstone battery (lasts for years without recharging), I will jump over then.”
zero point energy will be here about five years after fusion.
Sweet, we have a target millennium !
“In the year 2525,
If trucks are still alive,
If 4-wheel drive can survive…”
Lynn says:
I remember reading some of those stories, but I can’t remember the author or book titles. Can you help me with those? Thanks!
Shipstones are from Robert Heinlein’s “Friday”.
Shipstones are from Robert Heinlein’s “Friday”.
Aren’t Shipstone batteries mentioned in a couple other of Heinlein’s book also ? Maybe just the short stories. My memory sucks.
“Move over, U.S. dollar. China wants to make the yuan the global currency.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/move-over-us-dollar-china-wants-to-make-the-yuan-the-global-currency/ar-AA1bfyVd
“Newsan, one of Argentina’s biggest home appliance retailers, imports most of its products from China. Until now, it was paying for fridges, TVs and parts in U.S. dollars, the currency of international trade. But last month, as part of a bid to relieve pressure on Argentina’s dollar-strapped economy, Newsan started doing something new: settling deals in Chinese yuan. “The yuan is becoming increasingly relevant as currency for international trade,” said Luis Galli, chief executive of Newsan. “But beggars don’t get to choose. This deal was born out of necessity.””
Very little happens and then the rest of it happens very quickly.
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
Watch the Saudi’s. A petroyuan will be epic and a huge blow to the Dollar. China’s capital controls and “You can’t get no Ice Cream” attitude are then the major stumbling blocks. The Russki’s are already talking about inventing a oil/gold/commodity trading currency, too.
I also note with disquiet that China’s dollar holdings are down more than 20% from a coupla years ago…
Fools.
https://www.rt.com/news/576340-serbia-weapons-mass-shootings/
“China says ready to ‘smash’ Taiwan self-rule as US prepares major arms package, sends advisers”
https://apnews.com/article/us-china-taiwan-military-b7d7f4e8ee181301b0b0ceefc1dce74b
“BEIJING (AP) — China’ is prepared to “resolutely smash any form of Taiwan independence,” its military said Tuesday, as the U.S. reportedly prepares to accelerate the sale of defensive weapons and other military assistance to the self-governing island democracy. A recent increase in exchanges between the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries is an “extremely wrong and dangerous move,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Tan Kefei said in a statement and video posted online. China’s People’s Liberation Army “continues to strengthen military training and preparations and will resolutely smash any form of Taiwanese independence secession along with attempts at outside interference, and will resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Tan said, in a reference to Taiwan’s closest ally, the United States. China claims the island of 23 million people as its own territory, to be brought under its control by force if necessary.”
We are going to have to just stand by and watch this happen.
We have lost power here at the office a dozen times now this afternoon. All my UPSes have run out of power 2 or 3 times. I wanted to put a 48 kW Generac on natural gas here at the office but the wife vetoed it. It was going to cost $35K connected to the natural gas pipeline at the front of the office property.
“‘We’ve got a lot of work to do’: Biden and McCarthy have new negotiators but no deal”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/weve-got-a-lot-of-work-to-do-biden-and-mccarthy-have-new-negotiators-but-no-deal-210911843.html
“Democratic and Republican leaders walked out of the Oval Office Tuesday afternoon announcing a new structure for the debt-ceiling talks but apparently little closer to a deal as they seek to avoid potential default as early as June.”
Ain’t gonna happen. McCarthy is between a rock and a hard place. His final offer is on the table.
My domain renewed a few days ago. I signed up with DreamHost in May of 2002. Crazy.
Today an e-mail from Time magazine or some part of it arrived and it said “We have updated our Terms of Use.” Effective yesterday. You can opt out of their arbitration nonsense, it’s some sort of Google forms/survey page. Well. ok. Mom had a subscription. Mom will be dead three years come the end of August. Her subscription expired a minimum of five years ago. Terms of use, whatever.
So I dug into my domain stuff. Deleted both of Mom’s addresses. They came to me, she didn’t do e-mail.
While I was at it I deleted a couple of discussion lists. I had set them up for a friend years ago. Didn’t cost anything but some time. He died in ’15 and both lists have had zero traffic since other than a virus sending spam once in a while. I posted to both lists about two and a half years ago that if no one is interested, the lists are going away in a few months. Get the archives while you can! That caused a few weeks flurry of e-mail traffic. A few days more than three weeks. Really. And then, nothing. So, bye.
I had a thing called RemindMe where you could have it send you a reminder. Give the dog his pill, and post to the mailing list “Happy B’day Joe!” messages. It was pretty cool. It broke. DreamHost did something to cgi-bin and it broke the program. That is all gone.
I had a chat program too. It never stopped working, folks faded away… That’s gone.
Just clearing out the clutter. I have more to do. Not much, a few things like “fixing some font sizes”.
Oh, boo-hoo, they have to raise the dept ceiling again or “we are all gonna die” or something. Shut it down. And without back-pay. And without the shirty(-r) stuff like barricading National Parks like a toddler having a temper tantrum.
How about instead NOT sending a ton of money to Ukraine and everywhere else to be laundered? How about shutting the effing border and not giving the illegal aliens EBT and a place to live? They’re illegal, they can’t get a job (if you obey the law).
How about getting rid of swaths of .gov, like the EPA, the FDA, NPR, PBS and .edu to name a few?
But no. The limit will be raised.
Again.
It’s not going be nice when it all crashes.
If for no other reason that when the EBT stops, the Diversity in the cities will be upset and what about all the illegals now here?
Yes. I can’t think of any titles. My memory isn’t bad, usually, but between allergies, allergy meds, and exhaustion, I ain’t thinkin’ too good.
>> zero point energy will be here about five years after fusion.
And fusion five years after the Jesus truck.
And come to think of it, haven’t heard anything lately about the Tony tractor-trailer, nor about the autonomous semis that were supposed to be running on I-10.
McCarthy will need Gaetz and The Witch, both of whom represent FL districts steeped in a tradition of pork Defense Dept. spending. Tough call.
>> China’ is prepared to “resolutely smash any form of Taiwan independence,” its military said Tuesday, as the U.S. reportedly prepares to accelerate the sale of defensive weapons and other military assistance to the self-governing island democracy.
First Russia’s actions in Ukraine have the US sending arms to Zelinskyy and next China will have us sending to Taiwan.
Anyone see a pattern developing here?
Who’s gonna supply us when our cupboards are bare?
>> zero point energy will be here about five years after fusion.
And fusion five years after the Jesus truck.
And come to think of it, haven’t heard anything lately about the Tony tractor-trailer, nor about the autonomous semis that were supposed to be running on I-10.
Reputedly 30 of the Tesla Semis have been sent to PepsiCo who is now evaluating them.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-semi-production-price-revealed-pepsico/
The Cybertruck is supposedly coming out in June. Don’t hold your breath.
https://electrek.co/2023/05/16/close-look-tesla-cybertruck-prototype-shareholder-meeting/
Why, all of our doughty NATO and ANZAC allies, of course.
Arnold has a new movie called FUBAR coming out on Netflix on May 25. It appears to be a takeoff on True Lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6A56zcGeWE
From:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/arnold-schwarzenegger-interview-netflix-fubar-terminator-conan-1235491977/
Serious heat and humidity are due on Friday according to the local Faux News last night.
And not everyone in the office needs a Threadripper.
SteveF says:
The cupboards are mostly bare already, as attested to by @CdrSalamander. And the Fleet is under-provisioned and under-maintained. It’s going to be a BAD day when that happens.
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com
“Screw your freedoms” pretty much ended his career.
CBS has a “True Lies” series. Or did.
Jamie Lee Curtis isn’t available cheap anymore, however. Disney was lucky to g et her for Madame Leota in “The Haunted Mansion” before she took home the Oscar.
“Everything Everywhere All At Once” showed Curtis still has it for action scenes.
Did my pickups, dropped in at my favorite toy store and chatted for a while. They are seeing an increase in “almost robberies” in that the bad guys start to get set, but my buddy’s reactionary move puts a stop to it before it happens. He’s got steel cages around his safes and everything goes back in the safes at night so if they want to rob him, it will have to be strong and during the day. ‘course everyone in the place is armed.
Hit the bins on my way home. They changed the pricing again. Now the misc bulk weight is back to what it was, but “media” and books are counted individually at 69c each or 2 for $1. DVDs are not worth 50c each. At the old rate they were 20c each on average. CDs are about the same. LP records might have gotten cheaper – nope but they did stay the same. Books used to be 50c or 3 for a dollar.
Keeping in mind that if the items don’t sell in the approximately 4-6 hours they are in the bin, they go in the trash, trying to double the price or triple the price is nuts.
n
But beggars don’t get to choose. This deal was born out of necessity.””
well, yes, but, our blessed governement are struggling how to survive until next election withour money and trying to bring some consumer goods on installments cheap, subsidizing also interest rate for that.
Also by play the geopolitical card, if you dont lend us we go to China and if China, who gave here money request to interexchange on yuans, thats ok.
Also there is a naval base on Tierra del Fuego, err, a port, sorry. Our blessed governement doesnt love US but goes to Miami on holidays, or NY, or whichever . And they say they know US due this trips
50% of electorate doesnt like them, 50% loves them, but we went downward since 1950. Still, we are far from other countries, just this year or last Chile was near here.
will see
Serious heat and humidity are due on Friday according to the local Faux News last night.
And not everyone in the office needs a Threadripper.
Oh man, I will cancel my order then.
The biggest user of electricity in the large office building is our two 10 kw strip heaters. I have 400 amps of service just so I can serve those two monsters at 60 amps and 230 volts each. If I ever replace the two air conditioners, I will be putting in heat pumps.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/06/uk/coronation-king-charles-key-moments-ckc-gbr-intl-scli/index.html
I am so glad that King Charles embraces the future and put a GoPro on top of his crown. Those videos should be awesome.
Wait, am I going to be drawn and quartered now for the previous comment ?
If so, I withdraw the deprecation of the crown.
@Lynn
You can make fun of the royals all you want.
We paid the dues. Coupla times.
fell asleep again. Off to bed, mind the gap…
n