Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1444
Political ranting, half-a-ramen, building permits, Scratch Acid box sets, stupid time-wasting games, disappointing friends.
Morning morning. Wooo middle of a five-day week, 6:30 AM every day boy I love this. Just great. Didn’t go to back to sleep. Probably should have.
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Didn’t watch the SOTU last night, because why. But I was keeping an eye on things on Bluesky for a bit. Saw that Rep Al Green heckled and got kicked out. Good for him. Had a brief, fleeting moment where I thought that maybe the Congressional Democratic Coalition had made a brilliant, secretive plan to heckle Trump, one-by-one, until they were all kicked out. I have no idea why I thought, even for a moment, that the Dems would do something so daring and decisive, something that at least had a snowball’s chance in hell of breaking through the media landscape. But naw dawg, they wore pink and white. For easter or some shit. I am never going to vote for a single one of them in a primary ever again. I’ll continue to hold my nose in a general, but seriously, they can go screw.
Kinda think maybe we need a new party? I know, I know. So dumb. But all it has to do is win like four seats, caucus with the dems when it’s normcore shit and hold their feet to the fire on shit that matters. Can’t alas, come from battleground states like mine. Needs to come from somewhere (ahem New York) with ranked choice voting.
Elise Stefanik going on about Ronald Reagan give me a fucking break she was twelve. And that guy sucked. Why do we pretend otherwise? Oh Rachel Maddow’s so great until you want to talk about that book she wrote, detailing exactly all the ways Reagan sucked. No, we are gonna pander to a non-existent Reagan loving centrist, cool. Cool. Have fun.
Got into an absolutely depressing text message convo with an old friend who was going on about Biden’s illegal immigration wave and government waste and who knows maybe tariffs will work this time and I always had the dude pegged for a big of a crank when it comes to government and a boring-ass capitalist, but not an illegal immigration cook who both-sides the two parties. I cannot convey how depressing it was, how much it illuminated the brain rot in so many Americans. He kept defending this or that Trump action and I’d be like “I mean we can debate the merits but can we start by acknowledging it is blatantly illegal?” But no, no we can’t. Because he didn’t care if it was illegal. And I guess I understand that, to some extent. I think it should be illegal to set fire to Tesla Supercharger stations but I still think it’s hilarious. But then, when someone says “but it’s illegal” I still have the brain left to say “yes, you’re right. They should be prosecuted for it.”
He does not.
Anyway that was bleak. I am not a politician. I do not feel an obligation to convince these people, aside from telling them they are dumb and mocking them. I am not the patient convincing type. I don’t want your poison spread into my life. So I just texted:
So convenient it’s an entire political philosophy around improving one’s personal circumstances. Just not a single word about help. Seems pretty clear cut to me: when a political bent is entirely about improving one’s own station, I have no time for it. If you can’t state what you think you should give for what you think you should get its nothing. If you can’t state what those who have more should do for those with less, it’s sophistry. Spending half my life listen to people go on about me me me me me MY TAX DOLARS OW MY EYE. Tedious and brainwashed.
I do not regret it.
Before he descended into some good old-fashioned xenophobia, it was nominally a thread about how to invest in this world to protect your savings. But I just can’t get into it. A) I reject the idea that anything can be predicted in this environment, Secretary of Commerce himself said he thought the tariffs would be lifted today and it does not seem to be happening. No one knows anything. B) there is outright theft and insider trading going on, you can’t trade against people who will literally manipulate the markets, that “crypto reserve” thing the other day, aside from being a dumb-ass policy, was so utterly rife with insider trading there is no beating that. C) It is icky.
All that being said, what are you gonna do: I don’t believe the VIX was built for this time. Cash won’t work cuz inflation’s gonna get worse. Stocks won’t work because his roving eye of Sauron will kill anything he doesn’t like, and you’re trading asymmetrically against thieves who can manipulate the market, and tariffs are gonna kill stocks anyway. Best we could come up with was real-estate. And REITs. And Gold. God. Kill me now. I rather be poor.
Listening to the Blackouts this morning, influential old Seattle punk band from whence came Paul Barker, the long-time better half of Ministry, and the legendary drummer Bill Reiflin, of Ministry and late-period REM, RIP, gone from us too soon. So sad. They are great. I will put them on some mix tapes for you. You’re welcome.
Just about have this building permit thing locked down, I think. Got all my subs to give me their licenses, they asked for my Worker’s Comp COI, provided that, so I think I am good? Emailed the plumber about the ice maker vent. Emailed the garage door people finally getting the garage door fixed at Chore House, very exciting. Also getting an estimate on windowed doors because I want to see the sun when I am working. Did my insulation-and-OSB order for the week. Did not accidentally order plywood this week. God, what am I going to do with four pieces of pressure-treated 3/4” plywood? That shit is wet and weighs a ton.
Big shout out to Mike Gatti, who, via GMHHAY Slack, sent me a TikTok video of a woman illustrating the fact that you can literally pull apart a pack of Manchurian ramen into two halves, like the whole pack is perforated. Been eating that shit since I was a toddler, had no idea. Amazing. So I made myself a half-serving bowl of ramen at lunch yesterday, perfect. I made a bunch of my broth, and cooked half the noodles, then took 1½ cups of broth and boiled my veggies in it, which is the whole thing here, you know? I want my soupy garden carrots and celery. Anyway, it was just great and today I think I can cook the noodles and the carrots in a single pot, at the same time, and finally make a single-pot gourmet ramen with homemade broth. U Jelly?
Bought an $80 ice maker for the basement, so I can make my NA G&Ts every night without having to trudge up the stairs to the kitchen. It is pretty cool. It doesn’t refrigerate the ice, it just makes ice, dumps it into a basket. The ice melts through the baskets into a reservoir, and the machine picks up some water and makes some more ice when there’s enough. It is fast. I like it. Emma is distracted by the sound, because she thinks it sounds like popcorn being popped, and I am keeping the ice maker over by the popcorn maker so she gets all excited. So I am trying to figure out when to turn it on to get my ice ready, then turn it off. Because I only need enough ice for a single, tall, pint-sized, refreshing NA G&T. It really is a nice little treat. I held off on buying the thing for, oh, six years, cuz it seemed decadent. But I guess that ship has sailed.
I am done with the fruit game, their physics engine can go screw. Now playing a game called Mini Motorways now, because I am filled with existential dread and if I sit at a computer with nothing to do I will freak out about the state of the world and how i am wasting my life. I have a lot of work calls this week but I have not had a lot of work product to do, save for some lingering SOC issues, so I’ve had these little breaks of 20-30 minutes where I think I might explode in horror if I don’t occupy my mind. So thank you, Mini Motorways.
This is, of course, an indictment of Civ VII that I am playing weird-ass casual games instead of Civ VII but I just.. I can’t look at that screen it is too much a visual mess. Apparently there was a dot-1 release yesterday that had some more “continuing UI improvements” but.. I dunno, I just don’t think I care. I can’t even bring myself to watch Civ VII Youtube content to learn more about the game. This happened to me with Civ IV. I played a bit and I was like “nah, not for me.” But I am realizing what a crutch Civ has been in my life these oh, last five years of Trump-Covid-Trump terror. And I am pretty bitter I have to go without it now. Though I suppose I could just keep playing Civ VI. But like John Cusak said in Grosse Pointe Blank, you can never go back home. Though I guess you can shop there.
Any day now that Scratch Acid box set I ordered like six months ago is gonna show up on my doorstep and everything is going to be better. And that Cindy Lee record WTF where is it I ordered that thing the day it went on sale and my friends already have their copies waaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Congratulations to Jane who finished an entire regemin of antibiotics, only spitting up one dose.
Here have a smoooooth playlist for today. It’s all right baby come lay by the fire I will make you forget all those troubles.
Until tomorrow.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.