Return of the UFOs.

I'm starting to get a sense that it's time for the UFOs to come back. They have a cultural moment every twenty to twenty-five years, and I think they're due. 

Why do I think so? Oh, they radioed me through my tinfoil hat. You should get one. It blocks the CIA but lets in the aliens alerts. Kind of a police radio for ETs. 

No, it's actually a couple of real things. For one, in the last twelve months I've had assignments for various books centering on space creatures, either nonfiction (such as, about Roswell or Area 51) or fiction (aliens-among-us stuff). Book publishers have their faults -- their many, many, many faults -- but they often are right up front with this stuff. Our cultural vampire phase and zombie phase came out of book series; the apocalypse phase too, and whenever we're in a mood for swashbuckling or historical drama you can bet it started on the bookshelves and went into movies and TV after. And I am seeing a ton of BEMs and LGMs and ETs and UFOs (or UAPs, as the navy calls them now) coming down the cultural chute. 

Don't count me among
the Little Green Men.

Usually there is a real-world prompt that gets things moving. I think the main one now is the Webb Space Telescope, which is getting people who like space stuff excited enough for it to spill over to the rest of us. Less so the talk of Mars missions and new missions to the moon. They are boosted by nationalism again with China and Europe and the US and others wanting a taste of space glory -- and nationalism is the only thing that got humans into space and on the moon, by the way -- but those goals keep being pushed off and seem less concrete. Webb goes live in July and we expect some amazing things.

Culturally, this means more X-Files type shows, maybe some ALFs or Mork and Mindys or My Favorite Martians, although undoubtedly the darker, grittier, versions. Our fictional aliens have been with us for decades, but I predict a strong resurgence of alien-themed cultural artifacts. I think a lot of it died down because the ubiquity of personal cameras in phones meant far fewer UFO sightings for a while, because tales of things that happened would have inevitably meant lots of pictures from various people. However, they're coming back. 

Here's where I would say "Keep watching the skies." Honestly, though, I am not convinced that there's ever going to be a useful workaround to the universal speed limit of light speed, so I think it's very unlikely we'll ever be visited by aliens. So instead I'll say "Keep watching the TV." That's where you'll see most of our visitors from outer space.  

And don't bother with the tinfoil hat. That was a joke. Tinfoil underwear, however, is very useful for stopping the FBI's omega rays that sap one's essence. 

Irony.

If anyone you know is confused by what irony actually is, if they have for example spent time listening to Alanis Morissette and been misled, please refer them to this blog entry. Seldom does life give us as fine an example of irony as I am about to reveal. 

I was on an errand in another town and saw this place--looked interesting. 

I usually fill up on bacon and sugar, like a man, but how about a nice smoothie for a change? (I know, they often have a ton of sugar -- why do you think I like them?) More Life really is all-in on the theme; I got this snap at the sign on the wall inside. 

Indeed, Health Is Wealth, in that if you have no health, you are as poor as a pauper, however much money you have. So let's go in and-- Hey...

Closed? In the morning? But wait -- what's that lower sign say?

There you have it -- More Life has been closed by the county department of health. 

Not ironic enough for you?

Guess which business in this picture is still alive, as it were....

Pate.

Alas, poor Yorick, fellow of jest

For joshing, no doubt was the best

Now for sure his skull is shiny

As mine old scalp, or baby heinie

I drive the car and mirror glance

To see one tailgate there perchance

And lo! My hairless head is seen

Within the glass of my machine

The mirror taunts my fuzzless pate

As hairless as a china plate

My father, his hairline did bequeath 

His will did list no hair beneath

My follicles failed, all tired, old

Before their time and left me cold

Now hats, beneath which I must hide

For warmth that nature won't provide

A collection of caps that grew in size

As hairline crept north from my eyes

The sand trap in the rear grew vast

Sahara size, I found, at last

So, cover up that scalp with cloth

To hide the skin that nature's sloth

Has left me high and dry and bare

With just a stray hair here and there

Alas! Poor hair! I knew you when

But now is now, and that was then

At least by one fear am not haunted

Could not grow man bun if I wanted. 

Pear-shaped.

No, the title above does not refer to my waistline, but my weekend. 

Margaret Thatcher brought the expression "go pear-shaped," as in to fail, to Americans when she used it in a meeting with President Reagan. According to the IELTS site, the origin of the phrase is uncertain. One story "goes back to 1940s when RAF pilots used to get frustrated in case their endeavour to create a phenomenal aerial route went pear shaped instead of perfectly circular. Another story is related to WWI when observational balloons wouldn’t get inflated as designed but go pear-shaped."

Non-optimal, unless you are
an actual pear

What happened was, my wife threw her back out (another odd expression) in a knitting injury. That is, she bent over to pick up her knitting bag and got a stab of terrible pain. I had to stay home all day Saturday, as there was no way she could handle Thing 1 and Thing 2 without me. She was much better Sunday, and better still today. But that shoved all my usual running around town to Sunday, and so I never had a chance to prepare anything for the site today. 

But fear not! Today we're all orange-shaped and back in business. I hope to see you all here tomorrow. 

Kafka IRS.

Just over a week ago I ran what I called a work of art in Pointillism, designed to reflect my frustration while on hold with the Internal Revenue Service. 

I would like to point out that the United States government, through its collection agency, is proving to have that incredible combination of malice, inconsistency, and incompetence that makes for the worst kind of authority. Their stupidity has now cost me money and is likely to cost me more that I don't really owe, just to make them go away. 

In a nutshell:

1) I got a return for tax year 2020, but huge bill for 2021. Hmm... what changed between 2020 and 2021? Note that my wife was unemployed a good hunk of 2021 but was not collecting unemployment insurance or any other compensation in that time. We figured we'd be getting a return again, but no. In fact, with the money we'd paid out for various emergencies at the end of 2020, we were unable to pay the tax in a lump.  

2) When my accountant filed my taxes, he instituted an easy payment plan that the IRS will allow. You can pay whatever you are able per month, as long as it's paid up in a reasonable time. Downside: It requires a processing fee of $225. When you file your taxes, he told me, the IRS reviews the application and lets you know in 30 days if it accepts the plan.

3) So I waited to hear whether plan was accepted. I waited through April and May and most of June. 

4) In mid June I received bill from the IRS with penalties and fees and threats, demanding the whole amount. I sent an anxious text to my accountant, who failed to get back to me for a couple of days, so I texted him again. He assured me I must have misread the letter, so I emailed him a copy. Then he told me he could not help, because maybe the IRS screwed up, but he is not allowed to discuss my return with them. I thought the main point of having a CPA do your taxes was to have someone to act as an interlocutor with the IRS if things went sideways, but apparently not. 

5) I tried to deal with it by phone, but could not get through to the IRS. I'm sure my call is very important to them, but after spending almost an hour running into telephone trees like George of the Jungle, I decided to try the online contact option. Isn't that always easier? If you want help from Amazon (for example), you're much better off contacting them by email.

6) BUT, to deal with the IRS online, I had to prove my identity with driver's license, birth certificate or passport, Social Security card, a phone bill with current address--at least two serious forms of ID and one not-so-serious. All this to access ID.me system that they use, in a country where requiring an ID to vote is considered the equivalent of murder. I mean, I appreciate the IRS trying to keep scammers from getting my information, but I had trouble finding my birth certificate and my passport has expired. When I finally got it all scanned in, entered, and done, I had to wait for a video callback on my computer. Wait time was almost two hours. I hung around working for an hour and change, but had to take the junior dog out to pee (40 minutes left on the clock). We were outside for five minutes, and when I came back the call had bailed for "unknown" reasons. 

7) Back to the phone! I tried to call and after half an hour of weeding through branches got thrown off phone tree for call volume. How about that.

8) And I just gave up. I called the banker and arranged to have money removed from my piddling IRA to pay the bill. Four days later it was set, and I paid the IRS online immediately (that didn't require proof of identity). I didn't even try to fight the penalty and interest charges at that point. I was afraid they'd keep rolling up the charges and ruin our credit rating. 

9) Two days later I got a letter from the IRS that claimed to contain a payment voucher (although it says nothing about how much to pay or how much is owed) and/or an inquiry voucher (to mail in if I have a question, because it's 1920, I guess). I have no idea if this means that they have now approved the payment plan although I just paid off the balance in full. However, it may mean that even though I have just paid it all off, the IRS may think I also owe them the $225 fee for the payment plan I did not use. I would bet that whole $225 that I will get a bill from the IRS for $225. 

The IRS is like some kind of pagan god. It is inscrutable, it has a bad reputation, it may be appeased with massive sacrifices but it may not accept them as adequate anyway, and it can easily destroy a human being -- or at least a middle-class sucker with no resources to fight them--and that's when it's just being stupid, not actively evil. 

A sane country would have adopted a flat-tax plan, which would require a simple form and probably 1/100th of the employees, but that would leave no room for graft and political favors. The Internal Revenue "Service" should be abolished, the empty buildings destroyed, and the grown sown with salt so nothing can ever grow there again. 

Cursing and cussin'.

I've shared here the story before of a friend who said having a child turned her into Yosemite Sam, because she had to replace all her naughty language with G-rated or at worst PG-rated words. 

The patron saint of swearing
without actually cursing

We generally know that most such mild appellations are euphemisms because of their similarity to the actual naughty words -- as George Carlin pointed out, shoot is just shit with two O's. Shucks goes all the way back to 1847, and is used the same way. See also sugar, which I think is a more recent interjection invention.

Some cuss words that we think of as pretty mild, however, are even worse than the ones we actually use. Some are straight-up blasphemy, like zounds! (short for "God's wounds!" meaning the injuries of Christ's Passion and death) and odds bodkins! (which was "God's body!"). The British blimey! is the shocking expression "God blind me!" to express shock, and egad! is the milder "oh, God!"

To get more into Yosemite Sam territory, we have the swear word drat!, which is the kind of thing that would get you laughed out of the biker bar. But drat is thought to be a contraction of God rot -- in other words, hoping that the person would be divinely condemned to rot, likely in hell. Thus, the Snidley Whiplash "Drat you!" is even worse than an effenheimer. Consarn's origins are a little fuzzier, but are considered to be connected to damn, and thus another hope that the hearer would be sentenced to eternity in hell. Compared to that, telling someone to perform an impossible biological function on one's self, while likely painful, would only be of temporal disquiet. Dadgum is also a spoonerism for God damn -- think of that next time the kids make you watch Cars. That Mater is one foul-mouthed tow truck. See also gosh darn, gul durn, gul dang, etc.

It's kind of funny how we went from thinking that the wrath of God was less of a curse than telling someone to, say, doody in his hat, but there we are. (Doody, by the way, as a euphemism for, well, poop, is also of mysterious origin, which is probably not much consolation to the many fine Doodys of County Mayo in Ireland.) When Deadwood was running on HBO, I read that while the idea of bad language was captured by the show, the actual Western bad language would have been more blasphemy, less biology. But I never saw the show, so I can't confirm. 

I could go on with this doody all day, but I leave you with this amusing list from The Tennessean of fifty swear-word replacements for when you're trying to keep it family-friendly. My favorites on the list, which I will undoubtedly use, are: 

William Shatner!

Frack!

Zoinks! 

However, they did put a few on that list that also have blasphemous origins, like gadzooks! ("God's hooks," as in what He hung on on the cross) and crikey! (a euphemism for "Christ"), as well as blimey! You just have to hope the toddlers around you don't have an Old English Dictionary available.  

Endorsement deal!

Welcome, friends, to another little chat with Fred, founder of everyone's favorite cryptocurrency, Fredcoin. Well, anyone who is anyone, that is. 

I'm happy to report that we have an endorsement from very high up--as high as you can get in this country. It is so gratifying to know that people do pay attention, you know? That they do see when you're working hard and doing things right. And here at Fredcoin, we never fail to not do things wrong. That's why, if loving us is wrong, you don't want to be right. Right? 

Anyway, here is the endorsement: 

I would like to thank the late President Woodrow Wilson for endorsing Fredcoin, even though he hated the Constitution more than any other president until the modern era, and even though he is dead. Wilson and I share something in common, in that my image is on Fredcoin, and his was on the famous $100,000 treasury note issued in 1934. 

That puts us both in select company with another famous American, the great Art Linkletter. 

Which will be worth more ultimately, the Fredcoin, the US Treasury Note, or the money from the Game of Life? It's a footrace at this point.

Meanwhile, I am hoping to get the coveted endorsement from Mr. Linkletter, the beloved entertainer who died in 2010. That would really send the value of Fredcoin soaring. Keep your fingers crossed, Fredcoin fans!

Time for plan B.

 

On one hand, the Great Peach Preserves Incident convinced Barbara that canning was not for her.
But on the other, she received a call to go work for SpaceX a few days afterward. 

Power glower?

For the last decade we have been treated to "power poses" -- people doing full body gestures that supposedly boost their confidence -- based on spurious research that was challenged as far back as 2013. You all know that I'm against anything that encourages jackasses to behave with more jackassery, so this is an issue that cheeses me off. 

The idea, which came from a minuscule study (n=42), is this: If you stand in a power pose like a superhero for a period of time, you will gain the confidence that your body is demonstrating. For example, before a big job interview, you might stand like Superman in the elevator on the way up, arms akimbo, as if telling the villain that this evil ends right now. Then, full of confidence, you go in and wow everyone and get the job. 

Note how Marvin's power pose makes him look more manly.

But Scientific American took this theory on in 2013. In "The Dark Side of Power Posing," psych professor Jay Van Bavel wrote, 

If you are already lacking self-confidence, you might reason that the ends justify the means. Acting like a heartless jerk for a few minutes may be a small cost to pay for your dream job or a promotion, right? Although it is tempting to conclude that power posing might be a way to trick our nervous system into feeling powerful, research by Pablo Briñol, Richard Petty and Ben Wagner has shown that that this strategy might actually backfire among the people who need power the most. In a paper published prior to the power pose work described above, they examined the possibility that power posing might make people more confident in their own thoughts–even if those thoughts were negative! As predicted, Dr. Briñol and his colleagues found that power posing increased self-confidence, but only among participants who already had positive self-thoughts. In contrast, power posing had exactly the opposite effect on people who had negative self-thoughts. In fact, it actually decreased their self-confidence as potential professionals. In other words, power posing backfired among half the participants. 

I think it would decrease my self-confidence because I would feel like an idiot.

Here are a couple of other problems I've had with this whole business:

1) Superman can get away with standing in a power pose because he is freaking Superman. Meanwhile, in reality, people really getting into a fight don't stand around waiting to be pummeled. They adopt postures to attack or defend, not stand straight up like a punching bag, which is what they would become in short order.

2) It's mostly used after the fact by assholes to rub their opponents' noses in the dirt, not to show confidence in an event beforehand. Noted America-hater Megan Rapinoe, grown rich playing a child's game like so many other creeps, likes to use a "power pose" after scoring a goal, not before doing so, when it would be foolish. In a lot of other sports, perhaps even in women's soccer back in the seventies, such behavior would have earned her an elbow to the mouth. Part of the reason we have so much showboating in sports now is that the policing of this kind of behavior has been heavily penalized. I miss the days when a showboater could expect a pitch to the head, a poke in the eye, or a stick to the solar plexus. Nobody likes an asshole.   

So those are my thoughts, and I welcome your agreement or disagreement, but don't go making a silly pose before we argue, or I will take your picture and turn it into a meme. 

Thank you, Stanley!

I would like to use today's space to thank Stanley Wheeler for interviewing me for his excellent blog. It was excellent before I got there and I hope it will recover its excellence afterward.

Stanley, Idaho's greatest son, is the author of a number of books in genres including fantasy, Western, and hard-boiled detective. He is a pioneer of "flintlock fantasy," regarding which I recommend you check out an interview with him on the Liberty Island blog.  

He's also a fellow Bleatnik, weighing in on important issues along with the rest of us on the Great Lileks's site, such as: What happened to all the motels? Why is foreign money so hilarious? Why do so many advertising mascots want us to eat their fellows? What is the main cause of gazebo collapse? And so on. 

What could be better than tomahawks AND
dragon fire?

Finally, I wanted to thank Stanley for his thoughtful questions. This is one reason why I don't interview people for my own blog -- because my questions would probably all be like:

Why are girls so crazy?

A longstanding topic for boys -- why are girls so crazy? -- is one that often persists well beyond the age of youth. And it probably goes back to the time of the first humans. Ogg couldn't figure for the life of him why Lilg said she loved him but treated him like dirt so often. Why she nutty as cuckoo? Ogg wondered. 

That's just typical battle of the sexes, boys being dopey stuff. Well, it used to be. Now I think girls have even more reasons to be crazy. Many such reasons exist in the modern era, such as social media, cyberbullying, and teen magazines. But we also have to count books, specifically books targeted at female readers. Here are three books that, while fake, provide representations of the kind of books I mean. 

Sweet but clumsy Hillary Hippo has a number of
silly misadventures when she goes shopping.

Besties Aisha and Tammy, who love detective stories, get on the case
when a dognapping ring steals Aisha's standard poodle, Miss Curlz. 

Book 5 of the Bluud and Thuunder series finds vamp tramp Katey Damian at odds with her lover Stormi Winds when the Sistahhood suffers a new attack by Rothschilde and his enforcer, Clerisy Bitchop. Can the Sistahs kill their way through their enemies and find a place to be free at last?

I know children change quickly -- but seriously, who could handle going from one to the other in six years? At least half of the teen girls' books I've seen lately aren't even girl-meets-boy books; they're girl-meets-girl books, and the males are at best useless and more likely evil. In the last decade it's gotten even worse than I could imagine, and I'm a catastrophizer. 

This is an important thing to note: Books marketed to women are not like the books made for teen girls. Certainly there are some, the kind that get made into movies with dark shadows and washed-out colors, but far more are typical love stories, more Hallmark than hellion, including mysteries called cozies and even a thriving subgenre of Amish romance books. 

So the next time a teenage girl is driving you crazy, bear in mind that it's not just hormones, it's not just peer pressure, and it's not just social issues -- it's also a mindset in the publishing world designed to make them angry and eager to reject everything.

Baby feets!

We were very happy the other day to meet our friends at the dog park. Our dogs were also happy to see their dog, who has been close with Tralfaz for years, was a great friend to the late Nipper, and now is like an auntie to baby dog Izzy. 

And speaking of babies, it was our first chance to meet their new human baby!

The baby, of course, was the pinnacle of cuteness, riding on her mom in a front carrier. When last we'd seen this baby, she was still doin' time on the inside. Now she's a free baby, and all is well. 

I'm not sure that the baby was happy to see us, though. The problem was, the mom is not especially tall, but our dogs are large, and they both are able to reach the baby's feet dangling down out of the carrier. And as we all know, baby feets are indescribably delicious. 

I'm happy to report there was no biting or nibbling, but there were a number of licks on the bottom of baby's socks, and I don't think she cared for the experience. Did it tickle? Did she even notice it? Was she just feeling fussy for no reason relating to the feets? What babies are feeling is often mysterious, at least until they erupt in one fashion or other. 

Anyway, I think we can agree that of all the things in the animal kingdom, mammal babies got the best feets. Bug feets, not so cute. Some bird feets are quite excellent, especially those of the world-renowned blue-footed booby, but on the whole, mammals are tops. 

Maybe that's part of the serpent's curse from Eden in Genesis 3:15 -- 

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

They will strike at your head,

while you strike at their heel

And you got no cute feets!

Lost masterpieces of art.

 

Georges Seurat, Man on Call with IRS

Stained glass, Cathedral der Zutenheim, St. Dude

Rembrandt van Rijn,
Nederlands Meisje (Dutch Babe)

OK, so I was on hold with the IRS and playing with the photo software. What of it?

He did that.

I was gassing up my little car the other day -- a painful operation, especially here in deep blue New York, when I noticed a couple of things at the pump. 

I'm not 100% sure that the removed sticker on the price line was one of those "I Did That" Joe Biden stickers that have been irritating the president, but I'm almost 100% sure that the one to the left of the window is. 

This isn't the first time I've seen them in New York, either. Now, I will note that geographically, most of New York State is pretty red, including a fair bit of Orange County, where I live. Across the river is Westchester, where rich people who couldn't care less if gas hit $10 a gallon live, but the OC is a little closer to the bone. That's why they had to gerrymander our Congressional district a while back to link us up with part of Westchester; we kept sending the wrong people to Washington. 

People have said if you cut off everything north and west of Albany you'd have a really conservative state, so much so that Buffalo would be a blue outlier. I am inclined to think it could be true, especially as of this year.

Here's another sticker I saw at the pump, one that was also new but courtesy of the management:

Hmm.

At first I thought this warning was for people trying to get gas out of the pump without paying, although I am not sure how this would be done. I think you have to pay in advance if you're using cash at this station. And if you don't, how would they know you're unauthorized before you try to skip out? 

A little digging tells me that this may be a notice to warn off people who plant credit card skimmers. Because it's not hard enough to pay for a tank of gas that would have doubled the value of my first car; now I have to give my credit card up to thieves. So I'm glad the station is being proactive -- but are they, really? This isn't much of a warning. "You try anything and... we'll make it not work" isn't much of a disincentive to thievery. "You plant a skimmer on this machine and we deliver 5,000 volts through you" would be. 

Alas! That much juice would probably be dangerous around all that gasoline. It's not a perfect world, is it? And so many attempts to push it that way result in more problems. 

Update on Fredcoin.

My friends, once again I, Fred, of Fredcoin, write to you in the hope of assuring you that Fredcoin is the safest cryptocurrency investment you can make. And here I go: Fredcoin is the safest cryptocurrency investment you can make. There! I said it!

The latest news about the drop in the value of Bitcoin and the layoffs at Coinbase indicating an upcoming "Crypto Winter" should in no way indicate shakiness on our part here at Fredcoin. Our value remains what it always is, and that is the value that it has always been! Surely there's no more rock-solid guarantee than that. 

Look at that honest face!

I would especially like to take this time to refute the scurrilous, nay, infamous remarks of our competitors, most of all those hornswoggling rascals at -- ugh! it pains me to say the name! -- HodagCoin. 

BOO!

The CEO of HodagCoin, Hans Hinderminder, has dared to refer to Fredcoin using such libelous terms as "fake money" and "not real" and "funny-looking." Well, Hinderminder, let me just say, you're not exactly Cary Grant yourself, you know. Plus, HodagCoin is a failed crypto from a failure of a sham of a company with a failed investment profile and a faily fail fail failure of a CEO. On the Street they say the portfolio is mostly Blockbuster and Bank of the United States, but surely even Hinderminder isn't that stupid. OR IS HE?

In short, friends, don't listen to the whispers of those who would steal your money and leave your children hungry, like that carpetbagging bastard Hinderminder. Instead, listen to your old pal Fred, who tells you that the Key to success is using Fredcoin for savings, investment, spending, and Green Stamps. Yes, tell that old Hodag to kiss your shorts! Tell him, "Me for Fredcoin!" You'll be glad you did. 

The test.

I've been feeling like crap. Worse than crap. Since Saturday, like day-old crap. My throat hurt. My upper palette felt like I'd been playing the Bonham drum solo from "Moby Dick" on it, and my uvula like Charles Laughton had been kicking it like the bells of Notre Dame. My breath was short. I was itchy all over. Actually, really itchy on my lower abdomen. Some kind of new creeping crud? Roving jock itch? Sounds like the worst Scotsman you could meet. "I be Jock McItch from Clan McItch, and I be roving across this abdomen."

Maybe this stream of thought will demonstrate that I was not sleeping very well, either. 

By fortune, I had been in the drugstore last week and, on a whim, picked up a box of COVID-19 tests. My wife was a little concerned that I might have the Chinese Death Virus, and suggested I take the test. Well, why not? Let's see if the Wuhan Wonders scored another goal against the Americans, shall we?

This was in the drugstore in the seasonal aisle, near the towels and swimsuits and pool toys and whatnot for travel. I doubt you're supposed to show the TSA your negative COVID test to get to your gate, so I suppose we're on the honor system. Still, it's good to know that you're not sick before you leave home. It's bad enough when you get sick at your destination and have to get home that way.

By the way, it's weird how pharmacies used to double as malt shops, but is it any weirder that now they double as baby shopping malls? You can get your meds, makeup, shampoo, milk, chocolate bars, seasonal clothing, greeting cards, toilet paper, and potato chips all in one go. 

Anyway. 

I liked taking the test, because it was like a junior chemist set. 

Better than a pregnancy test, because I didn't have to pee on anything. There was nothing in the instructions against peeing, but I didn't think it would help. On that topic, swishing the swab around my nostrils was rather like cleaning out two tiny little toilet bowls. Satisfying, but disgusting. 

Next the swab goes in the little vial, swishes around there, then the vial drips out into the test strip--exactly three drops. ("Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.") Then wait 15 minutes. If you look before 15 minutes, you could get a false report; if you wait more than 30, ditto. So this is all very scientific. 

And at last, the results:

No Chinese Death Virus! 

So why have I been feeling so sick? Well, as it turned out, the itch on my abdomen resolved more clearly into three large welts, so I think I was bitten or stung by something poisonous -- one of nature's little bastards, like sweat bees or something -- while I was out with the dogs. I have a sensitivity, if not an outright allergy, to yellowjacket venom, and I wonder if it caused an allergic reaction that has given me allergy-like symptoms (not a closing of the throat as with anaphylaxis, but a mild version, with a sore throat). Or it could just be a damn cold. Those are going around, I hear.

So, I'm slathering up with steroid cream and calamine lotion, taking pseudoephedrine and cough drops and diphenhydramine and lots and lots of coffee, and soldiering on. What more can a man do?

Everyone makes mistakes.

 

Enabled-bodied citizens.

This is a complete disgrace. (h/t Instapundit)

Everything about it is disgusting, from the smug can-do look of the woman in the picture to the exhortation not to be ashamed that you are using heroin. "Let's Prevent Overdose" is the intention, and yes, it is a real New York City Department of Health program. They want you to be careful with the needles you use to inject illegal drugs into your veins (which can be in interesting places like your bumhole and your eyeball when other veins are not available). They want you to be able to get free Narcan on the taxpayer's dime while you render yourself useless. They act like fentanyl is the problem, not the fucking heroin.

There's so very much here to hate, and for such very good reasons, that it's hard to know where to start. So I'll just focus on the main thing: 

DON'T BE ASHAMED THAT YOU ARE USING.

Why not? Heroin is the most awful drug out there. Drunks, stoners, pill poppers, crackheads, and methmouths all look down on heroin junkies. Compared to someone using heroin, the others are models of functional addiction. By taking heroin, you are guaranteed to be supporting the enemies of your country, the beasts that ravage Mexico, the creeps whipping up fentanyl, the punks that turn poor neighborhoods into no-fly zones and shoot up block parties -- in short, every kind of evil human being on the face of the planet. 

KEEP YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY SAFE.

If there is anyone in your life who gives the slightest damn for you, heroin ensures that you will wring that person dry as a twenty-year-old lemon. No stone will be unturned in the quest to take everything from that person and transfer it to the people I described in the previous paragraph. 

If you shouldn't be ashamed that you are using this monster of a drug, what in this world can you actually be ashamed of? On the list of things for which one may be ashamed, it is above genocide and school shootings and rape and below pretty much everything else.

BE EMPOWERED THAT YOU ARE USING SAFELY.

I have seen the low cunning in the eyes of the Big H user, the look that keeps asking itself "Is he buying it? Is he buying it?" And I can say without reservation that no one is safe around the heroin addict.

Municipal morons who put together campaigns like this will tell you they're saving lives. Sure, until the next time. Addicts are the greatest liars on this earth, and there is no point in coddling them in any form. It just makes it easier for them to skip along that road to hell. It does them no favors.

Don't be ashamed that you are using. Yes, be very, very, ashamed, so ashamed that you can't even look in the mirror, and then go do something about it and win back your self-respect. No one has to die from this garbage. And no one should be lying about what it is, either. 

Maybe that smug "can-do" woman should have had her arm up like the woman in the famous World War II poster. With a needle sticking out of it. 

Terror in the streets!

Longtime readers may recall that late Golden puppy Nipper had a pathological fear of garbage cans, so bad that I could not walk him on Tuesday or Friday mornings, when the garbage men were due. I could sometimes get away with it on "recycling" day, which was Wednesday -- those little box-like cans didn't set him off so much.

New Golden puppy Izzy, I'm glad to say, does not fear the garbage cans. He's wary of them, and I think that's fair; they're a lot taller than he is and they must put off the smell version of a KISS concert in terms of sensory overload. But he does not fear them.

However! Yesterday morning we encountered something on the street so terrifying, so horrible, that he recoiled in panic. I thought he might break free and run all the way home, if necessary dragging my bloody arm still attached to the leash. 

I got a picture of the item that scared him so badly. I include it below the break for informational purposes. If you are easily alarmed, I caution you, proceed only if you must. 

A little nick.

 

That crazy Lou -- always taking things too far. 

Extruder alert?

A curious granola bar situation arose the other day.

 

To wit: The same box of Nature Valley granola bars, one bar filled only half its wrapper. Above, the sad unfinished product; the other, a typically robust cuboid of dark chocolate and nut goodness. What happened?

Nature Valley, located somewhere in the vast General Mills wilderness, is usually much better about its manufacturing. I suppose there could have been an issue with the extruder that lays the hot granola mix into trays; perhaps the cutter that turns the slab into individual bars was at fault. (As someone who has watched a number of episodes of Unwrapped, I consider myself something of an expert on this.)

The worst possible cause, I suppose, is that somewhere along the line a mouse or rat nibbled on the top bar before it got into its wrapper. I find it highly unlikely. And yet, the mere thought of it prevented me from eating that one. 

I suppose I could have located some mouse hairs from someplace, draped them on the shriveled granola bar, and called my lawyers (Greef, Sorrel, & Payne) and set them loose in Nature Valley. But that would be wrong. I really do doubt that this was caused by vermin; why drag more vermin into it?

Besides, Nature Valley seems like such a pleasant, peaceful place on the commercials. Full of sugar, yes, and corn syrup, but very pleasant. I have no desire to disturb it for filthy lucre. 

Tip off.

Had an embarrassing moment at the dog groomer when picking up humongous pup Tralfaz yesterday. She runs a no-credit-card business, so I always bring cash, and come prepared. Well, guess what? I had enough to cover the charge for the bath and trimming and all, but only a few singles left -- and I like to tip generously, at least when the person involved had to wrestle my 110+ pound hairball of a dog and wind up buried in dog hair during the drying. But I forgot to check the wallet before going to get him. What a dumb thing for me to do!

No, she doesn't take
Fredcoin either.

Tipping doesn't usually cause me concern. Mom, who was good at math, told me that one tenth of the bill and half again is 15 percent for the waiter, so I've never had to use a calculator in the restaurant. I'm more concerned when I order takeout online and get poked to add a tip. If I have to get out of the car and fetch the food, there is no waiter. But if I don't include a tip, will the staff spit in my food? What do you do?

There are also other times when you are not clear about tipping. The old rule of thumb was a buck a bag for the bellboy, but that was long ago and inflation has had its way. Plus, most hostelries now don't even have bellpersons; you're lucky if they have a cart they'll let you use. I think I saw a hotel ad that showed the mom and dad pushing the cart while the daughter runs ahead to unlock the door, a subtle way of saying "Don't expect us to manhandle your crap for you." For me that's just as well, because I don't know what the going rate for a bellboy is now. 

If you're in a hotel and not on an expense account, and you order room service, I think you are expected to tip the server $500 if he performs CPR on you after you see how much they charged for a muffin and coffee.

Other areas are not so complicated. Drive-through car wash? A buck for each of the dryers. Barber, at least a fiver. Coffee shop counter? I think not. Local pizza place? Any change from the bills; extra buck or two for quick service. Stores where they ask you to donate to whatever the cause of the month is when you check out? They're usually unimpeachable charities, like for puppies and sick children and veterans, but I still get irritated when they ask. The cashiers always sound sorry that they have to ask. So yeah, I may give, but that's not really a tip anyway. Just feels like one.

The dog barber (grooming is now a taboo term, I guess) always, always, always gets a tip, because even if she did not do a great job (which this one does), I have no idea how bad my dog was in my absence, and I put nothing past my beasts. I assume my dog caused trouble and tip accordingly.

Running short on cash was embarrassing, but I told the lady that I would literally mail her her tip. And I will, in a thank-you card. (I don't believe she uses PayPal or any of the other services like that.) As I said, anyone who can wrestle with Fazzy and come out on top deserves something. 

Not a fan.

A friend of mine, a football enthusiast, when asked if he is a Giant fan, likes to say that he is actually a small air conditioner. 

I thought of that joke when I saw this by a neighbor's trash can.

Maybe that fan stand no longer works, but it looked like a nifty thing to me. As a cook who has set off the smoke alarms on multiple occasions, I could use something like that. Those three fans would clear the room faster than everyone's favorite fictional jazz group, the Fred Key Trio!

From the mind of Mike "Flangepart" Weller

I think a fan stand like that would have been helpful in my childhood, when we lived in the city and had no air conditioning. I do not miss that. The box fans helped, but you basically had to stay right in front of them. The three-fan unit would have covered the room, I think, circulating the air in every corner.

It was years before Dad got a window A/C unit, for use only in the master bedroom and only at night. We kids slept on the floor of the room. Later, as the price for energy and the units themselves came down, the other bedrooms got A/C -- but still only at night. 

All the houses around here have central air, and I wonder if that led to the three-fan unit being thrown away. The family is new to the neighborhood, after all. "No need for you, fans! We have central air now!" 

I'd ask them, but it never looks good to ask someone about their garbage. I'd rather write about it here, in public.

I would not have parted with the fans. On several occasions in this house we have found ourselves suddenly without air conditioning -- when we moved in and the weather got hot and we found out the condenser had never been hooked up; when the cheap unit that came with the house completely crapped out; and when we discovered recently that the replacement unit had been leaking coolant for years because it was installed improperly. All these things were unexpected.

Just saying that, while there are many things I am nostalgic for from the days of my youth, nights with no air conditioning are not among them. 

Chipmunk off the stone block.

My neighbor has a retaining wall made of large stones, and mine is the mirror image of his. These were put in place because our houses were built on a slope. 

The one thing he had that I did not were chipmunks living in the wall. UNTIL NOW.

I saw one of the little critters going in and out of the holes. And, as with the yellowjackets that have nested in the wall in the past, you know that when you see one, there are others. 

So I made inquires. 

They say chipmunks don't cause structural damage, so I shouldn't treat them as a problem. I suppose they're okay -- but I have my concerns. I used to be a single man, you know, and found that cuteness did not usually equate with harmlessness. 

Well, if Christmas comes and I hear any singing about hooooola hooops, I'm calling animal control. 

Latvia #1!

My wife, the master yarn crafter, was watching a video online about Latvian mitten knitting by a woman who had studied the art. 

It would appear that Latvia is especially renowned for its mittens. Who knew?

Well, a lot of people, I guess. Ravelry has a ton of pages devoted to it, and don't even ask about Etsy. And of course there are books, like Lizbeth Upitis's Latvian Mittens: Traditional Designs & Techniques.

As the kiddies would say, It's a THING!

Here are some now!

Of course, that begs the questions: Why mittens? Why Latvia? Why now? 

Flag of Latvia

The CIA World Factbook says that the former Soviet Union republic only has mild winters, and indeed the nation's Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre confesses to an average winter temperature of about 24 degrees Fahrenheit -- not exactly the Arctic freeze one would associate with the need for the world's finest knit mitts. So it's not a matter of cold-weather survival that has made Latvia #1 in mittens. 

Latvian version of the
foam #1 finger
(artist interpretation)

According to Latvians.com, a site dedicated to Latvians and their culture:

Latvia is famous for the fact that the oldest mittens have been found here by archaeologists. They are estimated to be approximately ten centuries old. The tradition of knitting mittens stems from the cold weather of Northern Europe; although it is worth mentioning that centuries ago mittens played a decorative role as well. By fastening them behind the waistband, they were worn in summer as a bijouterie and adornment. For several centuries they were the main form of gift and endowed with magical significance.

Nowadays Latvian mittens, so diverse in their colours and patterns are still an essential part of our winter clothing. Although there is always the possibility to wear synthetic gloves, the originality, tradition, warmth and sense of Latvia that is knitted into a mitten will be always worth a compliment.

But it isn't just the craftsmanship, even the one-upmanship, that might come from knowing your mittens are better than someone else's that make mittens so important in Latvia. There is also a tradition connected to weddings, according to this Latvian site: 

An ancient Latvian wedding tradition says that unmarried girls have to fill up their hope chests before entering the marriage. It’s an old tradition, that was respected by their mothers and grandmothers, so from early childhood girls were taught to knit, embroider, crochet and sew to be able to fulfill their chests with knits and other handicrafts. Knitted mittens were one of the most important things of the chest and also an indicator of girl’s skills. They represented patience and imagination, because every mitten had to be knitted in a different design using different patterns, otherwise the brides were laughed at. The most lavish chests contained several hundred pairs of hand-knitted mittens. This could not have been done if not the rich and diverse Latvian ethnographic culture. Each pair of mittens has its own story, his own unique pattern and what is most important – each pair of mittens holds his own meaning and comes with it its own wish.

As these mittens were given as a gifts, every girl was trying to do their best and was competing among themselves to create as many as possible creative patterns, color compositions and shades.

That seems to have created an atmosphere as brutal and bloody as one of our more crushing competitive events, like the Super Bowl or the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Can you imagine being a bride and getting laughed at on your wedding day because your mittens suck? 

"Ha! Ha! What is on those mittens, Hello Kitty? Are they from the ostruble store?" 

"You should never know the kiss of true love with mittens like that!"

"We laugh at you, bride! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Think of the pressure! As someone who has the manual dexterity of a left-handed ox, I'm glad I was not born a Latvian girl. My wedding would have gotten more laughs than the Depp-Heard trial. 

So it seems that this is just one of those things. It started out to keep warm, and turned somehow into an important cultural statement, like the shtreimel. I've seen ultraorthodox Jewish men wearing those fur hats in the summer on the Sabbath, and if you ask me, when July rolls around, I'd rather have mittens fastened to my waistband than a fur hat on my head. 

Quite the chat.

Atheist explaining to God why He is not real.

 

Bug off.

Man, there are so many bugs out there, I've been getting eaten up like a missionary at a cannibal convention. 

Even more annoying at the moment than the evil mosquitoes are the gnats, who like to fly into my eyes and nose and sometimes ears, making me feel like Father Delaney trying to bless the house in The Amityville Horror. 

At least these aren't biting gnats. They appear to be fungus gnats. And what are fungus gnats? 

Fungus gnats (Orfelia and Bradysia species), also called darkwinged fungus gnats (Sciaridae), are dark, delicate-looking flies similar in appearance to mosquitoes.... They eat organic mulch, leaf mold, grass clippings, compost, root hairs, and fungi.

 

So now I feel extra proud about putting down all that mulch last week.

Gnathole

Truth to tell, the gnats were extra bad this year even before the mulch event, probably because it's been so rainy. We live close to a stormwater pond, which is nice because it is built to prevent flooding, but lousy because it means there's nothing we can do to stop the bugs from multiplyin' like John Travolta's chills. I take care of any standing water around the property, of course, and use other mitigation techniques, but the bugs are too much for me in the end. 

It amazes me how much non-biting bugs can be annoying. To humans, at least. The dogs don't seem to care about the gnats. You see a cow in a field with flies all over the place, all they do is swish the tail once in a while; they don't run away, or get up on their hind legs and MOOOOO with fury. 

I remember being at a relative's cabin in the woods as a boy, and while the adults were having drinks and talking about boring adult things, I went in the yard to practice fungo hitting. It was a cool day, overcast but not rainy. As I was tossing the Wiffle ball and swinging the bat, and missing, the bugs took notice; the more I sweated, the more they closed in. The more frustrated I got and annoyed I got, the more I sweated, and the more covered in bugs. I had to give up. 

To this day, I suck at baseball. Do I blame the bugs? That would be silly. Yes, yes I do.