Warm and moist, but supposed to be clear today and then possible T-storms on Sat. It was nice all day on Thursday.
I did get a few small things done, but having kid appointments and taxi service in the morning and evening limited me a lot. I sorted auction items, cleaned the house, and hit the grocery store for allergy meds.
And since they had meat on sale, I bought the limit. Vac pack pork loin back below $2/lb. Prime sirloin steaks, $6.99/lb. Chicken and hamburger were back up from last week. The chicken especially has been inching up. Someone in comments elsewhere mentioned their eggs were $8/dozen, so I looked. Even our free range brown eggs weren’t more than $6. The store branded 18 pack I buy was ~$4.50. I’m out of freezer space at the house, and not going to the BOL until Saturday evening. Whoops. I crammed the steaks in, and will find room for the pork later today, even if I have to take bread out of the freezer. Better to store meat than bread. Also portioned and vac sealed the cooked hamburger and sent it to freezer camp.
I ordered RBT’s Astronomy Hacks for my wife’s Christmas gift (thanks for the reminder), and printed the manual for the telescope.
As part of my house cleaning, I finally assembled and installed a ladder rack for my pickup. It’s kinda cheap, and generic, but it’s easy to mount and dismount the support, and will be a great option when I have something long to move. I’ll probably leave the support at the cab end of the bed in place but remove the tailgate one, depending on the wind noise. I might have to mod the attachment system too as the j-hook doesn’t look particularly sturdy, but for now, it’s better on the truck than in the box in the foyer. It was less than $10 at auction due to the box being trashed, and a poor picture on the listing.
I’ve got all the stuff that pushed thru the week to do today, if I can, and possibly cooking a dish for the potluck. My wife will be home with the in-laws getting ready for the weekend with guests at the BOL. Then they will head up after school, while I stay home.
All life is suffering – according to the Buddha, but I’m not buying it. There are days though that do try our patience. Then I remember that these are the good old days, and things have been and will be, orders of magnitude worse.
Every day above ground is a good day.
Stack some things on this fine day.
nick
I have no reason to NOT believe that some foreign powers have done much research and effort into accomplishing some disturbing change in the balance of life. Could Covid have been a mistake that got away? What else is being developed? The possible scenarios are frightening.
And in other news, first post, beat Mr. SteveF, again. What a way to start the day.
Off to Dollywood today with friends from Atlanta. I do enjoy the Christmas shows and the lights.
By all the evidence, it seems entirely likely. The unpleasant question is: what is the next thing that will escape the lab?
To which end: I am currently reading the “Black Tide Rising” series by John Ringo. This is from Lynn’s 6-star list. It uses exactly this scenario: An engineered virus gets released and causes the “Zombie Apocalypse”. While the ZA is a trite idea, it serves the purpose of giving you a reason for lots of military action, plus an apocalyptic world for the characters to live in. Definitely a good read.
@Lynn: Trixie rules!
Will lessons be learned? Or will the lesson learned be the use of genetically modified organisms as weapons? Was Covid truly accidental or a trial run?
So many disturbing possibilities. Especially for some rogue nations with insane leaders. Could the next world wide conflict be fought with no explosives? Explosives can be controlled, biological not so much.
70F and saturated, with light overcast. D1 home from school with sore throat, body aches. Negative wuflu test though.
I really liked the Black Tide Rising series, with one exception, the story of his brother’s adventures on land. For someone so competent to F up so badly seems odd.
And there are weird things in the narrative that Ringo just uses without even thinking – “three bags full” for example.
AND call signs are meant to avoid confusion so the daughters would need different names… they are WAY too similar.
But a fast and enjoyable read.
n
Hmmph. You obviously haven’t been listening to the BBC science podcasts. If you had, you’d know that the “lab leak” hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked. Educate yourselves!
Do you mean the US or some other nations?
Hmmph. The only person allowed to beat me is Mistress Anastasia.
“Am I a masochist?”
“Beats me.”
n
Please point out to me some nations, rogue or not, with sane leaders. Let’s limit it to nations with a GDP greater than Ethiopia.
I’ll wait.
While out with the spawn yesterday we were playing one of my games, “Spot the cameras”. We noticed that the (nice) neighborhood that surrounds her school has new cameras on every single street that enters the neighborhood. They are tastefully painted brown/bronze poles with a cam (looks like a trail cam) and a solar panel.
I shared with her that they were probably ANPR cams, explained what that was, why you might want to do that, and we talked about negatives like tracking, data retention, and differences in privacy laws for cams and meta data, and for the US vs other countries.
Then I came home and found the company.
https://www.flocksafety.com/products/flock-cameras
Love the intarwebs.
n
EFF’s take on them
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/flock-license-plate-reader-homeowners-association-safe-problems
Note that Flock says “Flock Safety provides an affordable, effective, and ethically-engineered force multiplier”. “ethically- engineered.”
https://www.flocksafety.com/about/ethics-center
Lotta vagueness and weaseling.
n
Sane people don’t aspire to rule over men.
n
Well, the distance between conspiracy and fact was a bit longer for this story, but once again…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/elon-musk-releases-twitter-files-part-ii
the “conspiracy theorists” were right. They were banning and suppressing conservatives.
n
@lpdbw
“I’ll wait.”
You might lose weight while waiting.
And Jack lied to Congress.
You must have the patience of a saint.
>> https://www.flocksafety.com/about/ethics-center
Lotta vagueness and weaseling.
You expected otherwise?
Written by PR drones and vetted by the lawyers.
You spelled “sneak preview” wrong.
Sam “Sticky” Brinton has been charged with another theft of women’s luggage. Date not clear, but in Las Vegas. Seems like the thing has a thing. Any bets they won’t find more?
Lord Of War / Epstein / Basketball
A lot of time helping our friend with her twins.
Big snow. A lot of time shoveling, sow blowing, kid watching (twins plus our own) and keeping the children on task. Private school closed for snow two days, public schools three.
Got twins caught up and well rested for the umpteenth time to have the children undermined and sabotaged by the alcoholic angry father yet again. I am pushing pretty hard on the mother to file police reports on his behavior. She’s stuck in believing when he stops drinking for a couple days. The impact on the children is ruinous.
Rabbits are good. By year end I will have processed 48 rabbits I raised. Plus two or four (I don’t remembe) sheep and six goats I purchased from a friend. Deep freeze is full and we eat rabbit weekly.
@SteveF
Serious / not serious question.
How the h e double toothpicks did you restrain yourself when you were providing love, comfort, structure, parenting to that child?!?
I love these twins so much. I care and empathize for the mother. I’m doing my darnest not to project my childhood experience and impact of growing up under alcoholic parents. But hoo boy. I’m not feeling very Christian that’s for sure.
Jenny, I have a bad temper, I think that most people should be dead, and I’ve been able to kill with my hands since I was 15. I had to learn to control myself early. By the time I was taking care of neglected kids, it had become a habit, so my actions against the bad parents were thought out rather than impulsive.
Not that I didn’t want to grab a couple of parents by the neck and slam their faces into a door frame…
In regard to previous discussions about MS Office subscription discounts, see this article at CNET: https://www.cnet.com/deals/get-a-lifetime-license-to-microsoft-office-2021-for-windows-or-mac-for-just-30/
I’ve done similar purchases (I think they were from the same company, StackSocial) without issues. Fully licensed, no nagging, just download and install. Did it last with Office 2019.
This is not the “Office 365” version, but the standalone/install-on-your-computer version.
Defrosted the chest freezer this morning. There are 14 3-lb vac packs of thick sliced bacon, all bought on sale; is it possible to actually have enough bacon?
Pearls Before Swine: Pineapple on Pizza
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/12/09
No, ham and pineapple on pizza is the best !
I wouldn’t say ham and pineapple on pizza is the best. But the first time I had such was on Maui from a local pizza joint. With Canadian Bacon. Can’t say if the pineapple was fresh or from a can but there was a field of pineapples behind the place.
There were no leftovers for breakfast.
is it possible to actually have enough bacon?
–I guess it depends on your timeline…
Ham, pineapple, AND onion. That is the best way to eat fruit on a pizza.
n
BTW, anyone looking for a stocking suffer, Big River has the “Rayovac Virtually Indescructible LED Tactical Flashlight, Bright Heavy Duty Flashlight for Camping Gear and Hiking, Water Resistant EDC Flashlight, Pack of 1, Black” on sale for $14.99 each. I bought five more this week. My nephews and niece are calling me Uncle Flashlight. I like it since it is tough, water proof, and takes two AA batteries.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0716D98GQ?tag=ttgnet-20/
I thought USB 3 ran at 6GB like SATA. I copied my D:\ drive to a Seagate portable hard drive. The fastest I saw was a hair over 100 Mb.
But I was using Explorer so who knows. Making the pretty progress display might slow things down. Maybe the little Seagate drive is just a slow spinner.
D:\ is copied to the portable drive. I also copied the Thunderbird and the Mozilla folders from c:\ to backup the profiles.
Now to mess with a batch file using xcopy to make it all “one click”. And if it’s already there go to the next file.
I had this working with Win98Se to a network drive. That was a long time ago.
I tried the 2TB drive on Moa this morning. Nothing happened beyond the PC saying the device is ready to use. Not a surprise, I suspected the drive was failing when I replaced it with an SSD.
And while there, I double checked the load on the UPS via the software. And looked to see what was plugged into the battery side of the UPS. Then I stopped Slim Server. Or “Logitech Media Server” as they call it now. So… the UPS load dropped 4 watts. From 95 watts to 91.
Oh, and all HDs here are SSD. The little Seagate USB drives are the only spinning rust.
Then Windows Update butted in and yeah buddy, crank the load up to 123 watts. To do what? Just download the updates? I have no idea.
Anyway. Batch file using xcopy. I can do this.
Ick, no. Onion sucks. Yeah, it’s a Me thing, I hate the crunch. Now white onions simmered into the gravy while making beef stroganoff? Pure sugar.
Swap the onion for pickled jalapeno slices and I’m good.
is it possible to actually have enough bacon?
–I guess it depends on your timeline…
Ham, pineapple, AND onion. That is the best way to eat fruit on a pizza.
I love onion on a pizza. But the wife hates it with a passion. So I go without.
The funny thing is that her mother used to eat raw white onions like an apple. She would bite into them and eat an entire chunk. She grew up poor on a farm with six brothers and sisters and they ate everything. She really like butter and onion sandwiches on white bread too.
She really like butter and onion sandwiches on white bread too.
– on white bread TOAST, with salt. Yum.
But then I love ‘green onions’ (some people call them “spring” onions, dipped in salt and eaten raw…
n
My Dad would eat onions like it was an apple.
IIRC lotta vitamin C in onion, critical for people that don’t live where citrus will grow.
n
“FTC sues to block Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard”
https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/ftc-sues-to-block-microsoft-acquisition-of-activision-blizzard
“Microsoft has indicated it will fight the lawsuit in court.”
“The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. regulatory authority, announced (opens in new tab) on Thursday that it is suing to block Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. The deal, valued at almost $69 billion, would see Microsoft add Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, and King to the existing Xbox first-party development teams.”
“In its press release, the FTC points to Microsoft making Starfield and Redfall exclusive games as a reason that Microsoft cannot be trusted. Both games, in development at Bethesda Game Studios and Arkane Austin respectively, are new IPs that are being developed exclusively for Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC.”
Ah, Microsoft brought this on themselves.
“Kyrsten Sinema goes independent, scrambles Senate”
https://www.axios.com/2022/12/09/kyrsten-sinema-democratic-party-independent-senate
“Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said in remarks published at 6 am ET Friday that she’s leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent.”
I wonder if Manchin will go independent also.
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
An annoyance: On the Amazon Vine thing I ordered a pressure gauge. Hooks up to an outside faucet. As a curiosity, as a check to see if the gauge on my well is accurate. Like all of a $15 value.
This thing arrives. Looks very nice and well made. But….
Remember how cars had a pin at zero on the speedo? Same thing here but the needle is on the wrong side of the pin. I could fix this if I could figure how to open the case.
Ok, so let’s return it. Ok, and no, eff that. Use to be I could take stuff to the Post Office or to the local “we ship UPS and FedEx” shop. I’m not taking it to the UPS store in Marble Falls 17+ miles from my house.
There’s no option for an Amazon delivery dude to pick up the package.
So… something for the pile of scrap metal.
What a waste.
Dunno. But this was in the RGV, Plenty of orange groves around.
I think Dad just liked onions. He had a dog. Tet-chon is how you say it…. pit bull. Just about the sweetest dog ever. I have a pic somewhere of my nephew riding the dog like a pony. Ok, the kid was three.
Anyway, Dad would sit there eating an onion and share so the dog could take bites. Pretty cool to watch.
No. Manchin is once again de Facto President as a Dem, possibly even more powerful since he decides what comes out of evenly split committees under the power sharing rules without a majority party.
Sinema probably did it under orders from the Chair of Hensley Beverage in a deal she couldn’t refuse. IIRC, the Senator is up for reelection in 2024, which is already looking like a tough Dem year in the Senate. Of course, this year was supposed to be tough too.
@RickH, are you monkeying around with the Comments template? Comments posted starting at 17:00 are preceded by a ‘bullet point’ and the text is shifted to the left.
Starts with this comment…
paul says:
9 December 2022 at 17:00
Bacon? You can NEVER have too much!
Pineapple on pizza? I really like Hawaiian pizza, and I have since before we lived in Hawaii for 2 years. Onions? I spell it “on-yums”, and I like them, too. Especially in thick-battered onion rings. SO good! There’s a nearby burger chain called “Bubba’s 33” that does a very good job on them.
But then, I like just about anything on pizza, except anchovies. Fish does not belong on a pizza!
RickH: the Office 21 offer from Stack Social doesn’t work for me. The order form says “Coupons cannot be used with this sale”, even though I didn’t enter a coupon code.
>> Big snow. A lot of time shoveling, sow blowing, kid watching (twins plus our own) and keeping the children on task.
Missed opportunity for Ray who is off-line today.
@Alan – Haven’t done any changes to the site for quite a while. But, as you say, the ‘dots’ are there.
May have been a plugin update of some sort – those happen all the time. But, I’ll get rid of it.
>> Got twins caught up and well rested for the umpteenth time to have the children undermined and sabotaged by the alcoholic angry father yet again. I am pushing pretty hard on the mother to file police reports on his behavior. She’s stuck in believing when he stops drinking for a couple days. The impact on the children is ruinous.
@Jenny, has the mother, or someone (you?) on her behalf, been in contact with a local DV support organization? A quick search shows a few in your area. Speaking from experience, they can be a good source of information, especially if there are plans to get the police/courts involved. At that point she should get connected with a ‘victim’s advocate’ as well. Make sure she’s thought through alternate housing arrangements, including DV shelters if these actions inflame the husband. It’s sad to have to say it, but Google will tell you that in many cases, a restraining order is just a piece of paper, and as the saying goes, when seconds count, help is only minutes away. Sounds like a horrid situation and kudos to you for helping as best you can.
Try this if you like eating whole onions:
https://thecookful.com/baked-vidalia-onion/
@Ken Mitchell
Must not have been Maui.
>> @Alan – Haven’t done any changes to the site for quite a while. But, as you say, the ‘dots’ are there.
May have been a plugin update of some sort – those happen all the time. But, I’ll get rid of it.
Hmm…thought I submitted this comment but I don’t see it…strange…
@RickH, yes, the ‘dots’ are gone now, however, if it matters, the left-hand margin is still shifted ~¼ inch to the left. Also, “END” takes me now to the bottom of the page, not to Add Your Comment. And the right-hand column formatting looks ‘off.’
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/12/09/twitters-trust-and-safety-council-resigns-in-protest-and-elon-musk-evaluates-their-performance-n671303
Some people think that “pith them like a frog and hang them on a fence” is cruel and unusual punishment.
I disagree.
It’s not punishment at all, so such objections are irrelevant.
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/12/09/jack-dorsey-tried-to-fact-check-elon-musk-about-what-wasnt-a-crime-at-twitter-it-was-a-bad-idea/
Some alleged people make maggots look like good citizens.
Comments have a bullet point?
– a double –dash– at the beginning of a line will be converted to a single dash and doesn’t activate the bullet point button, or indent the text. That is what I do when I’m trying to separate points.
–d double dash with no following space stays a double dash
-fg single dash with no following space stays a single dash
OTHER things the comment editor does, when I’m b!tching about it changing text, three periods in a row will be converted to an ellipsis. “ the quote character gets changed to opening quotes and closing quotes ” when you type the ” quote character a second time.
The changed characters aren’t really an issue, but they do change the behaviour of the backspace key, when removing an ellipsis or quote mark because they don’t undo the changed characters.
Minor things.
nick
added– so Rick, I think the comments were acting normally (with the substitutions) until you did whatever to suppress the bullet point character.
Rick:
Within the last few hours, as I type this, the “Previous/Next Post” block has moved to the right margin, pushing the Post links and comment links to the bottom right of the page, below the text of post and comments. Only for today’s page, funnily enough, previous pages appear unaffected.
This is using Brave, at full screen, and persists even when you reduce text size. even as low as 50%.
G.
Made a sausage skillet tonight. Onions, red bell peppers, potatoes, and Heartbrand Akaushi Smoked Beef Sausage.
Was doing pretty well until I noticed the label on the sausage claimed that “portion’ was 2 oz.
WTH? 12 ounces is a single serving some days, and makes two most days, but there is no way that package makes six servings.
Flatonia, Texas is about thirty miles from Austin. The rot is spreading.
Rabbits are good. By year end I will have processed 48 rabbits I raised. Plus two or four (I don’t remembe) sheep and six goats I purchased from a friend. Deep freeze is full and we eat rabbit weekly.
Wow, that is a lot of meat. I love cabrito soup. I imagine that the dogs are full too as I suspect that you butcher them on your property.
To which end: I am currently reading the “Black Tide Rising” series by John Ringo. This is from Lynn’s 6-star list. It uses exactly this scenario: An engineered virus gets released and causes the “Zombie Apocalypse”. While the ZA is a trite idea, it serves the purpose of giving you a reason for lots of military action, plus an apocalyptic world for the characters to live in. Definitely a good read.
@Lynn: Trixie rules!
Yes, she does. If I remember correctly, the engineered zombie virus is the Flu with a Rabies payload. “shudder”.
drwilliams writes:
No, we lived in Mililani in the center of Oahu. Nice place, but terribly expensive.
@rick, Geoff is correct, something moved the sidebar and the next / prev. FF on win8. I haven’t changed any settings of zoom levels.
n
CSS stylesheet got borked, maybe.
@SteveF
I can’t say you’re wrong. You have admirable restraint.
@Alan
We are working on getting mom to do these things. She’s highly intelligent, well educated, gainfully employed in a professional field. And as deep in denial and blindly optimistic as can be. I know that she is completely and utterly exhausted and overwhelmed, she’s got no personal reserves left. We‘ve been hesitant to get anything initiated because if she’s not ready for it, it could all go very much worse in an eye blink. There’s a support system waiting to take in her and the children the moment she says yes.
@lynn
Dogs love slaughter days. Recently I ran several gallon bags of gobbets and nasty bits (had been in the freezer) thru the meat grinder. Lungs were repulsive. Blended the mess together with oats, spread it on a cookie sheet and slow cooked it on low heat.
Nasty meat brownies. Lung, liver, kidney, fat, gobbetty bits. From three species. Lots of tail wags.
I put a new $267 AGM battery from Autozone in my truck last night. Starts faster and keeps the inside lights on way longer than ten seconds. But my start-stop system is not working yet, it has not worked in over a year. The total vehicle three year warranty ran out at the end of October so I decided it was time. I am now ready for a big cold snap.
Hmm….hadn’t noticed the right sidebar borkiness, and the next/prev moving to the right column.
Usually those things are specified by the theme, but I haven’t made any changes to the theme. There must be a plugin that is overriding some theme CSS.
For now, the dots will return. I’ll be goofing with the other stuff late tonight (just got home) and tomorrow, so don’t be alarmed by temporary changes to things.
Another project …. not that I don’t have enough projects already….
Quick testing indicates that the ‘emoji’ plugin (the thing that allows you to ‘emoji’ comments) is causing the sidebar screwups.
It’s been temporarily disabled for now. The ‘thumbs up/down’ things are still there.
Tomorrow I will look into why that plugin is borking things. I suspect they are overwriting some ‘standard’ CSS styles. That’s not a good thing for plugins to do. If they want to have some CSS rules, then (in most cases) they should be uniquely named, not overwriting the ‘basics’ CSS.
They might get to stay on the ‘naughty’ list and be permanently banned. But more testing tomorrow.
Weird that it just happened. Oh well. I’m sure you’ll find the reason and smash it into bits.
n
Very strange to see ‘style’ articles about Ivanka that are full of praise and compliments. I’ve noticed several recently.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11517979/Ivanka-Trump-41-flashes-taught-stomach-shows-slender-figure-leaves-gym-Miami.html
Somewhere, someone reversed a policy. I wonder why.
n
@Jenny, sounds like you have a solid plan ready to execute. Two points: try leaning on the professionals to help guide her past go and when she decides, as much as possible help them “disappear” and maintain OpSec.
Also, once the PD are involved, any ‘incident’, no matter how trivial warrants a police report. Lastly, you should be able to have the PD note her/your(?) phone numbers in their 911 system as priority response calls.
Apologies if any of this is repetitive, just sticking to key points. Ask questions if needed. Be safe.
No, ham and pineapple on pizza is the best !
what!!
what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you love the cakes, who ahead with my blessings
@alan
thanks – this is helpful and confirms our thinking.