Tag: Kinda Cool

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Jesse got to ride in the nice car yesterday…

I get to spend some time cleaning the nice car today.

Jesse had a Vet appointment yesterday. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that it had been a while since I last drove the station wagon and we’d had a cold snap.

OOOppps. The combination, and I suspect the age of the battery in that vehicle combined to “Surprise!” Make the car not start.

Goody!

I thought about using the nice car to jumpstart the wagon but If I’m going to have to pull the nice car out of the garage grab jumper cables start the wagon, then put the nice car back in the garage, get the dog loaded in the wagon, and do all that in less than 5 minutes so I can make the appointment. 

Too much stress!!!!

Ah well, Jesse was going to be riding in the nice car sooner or later. I flip down the rear seats, toss a blanket on top of the  platform and load him up. 

He was mostly good. As usual, he wouldn’t settle down and kept pacing like he couldn’t get comfortable. Coming back from the Vet, I tried having the rear seats in their normal position. In a way that might have been better because Jesse tried to curl up and lay down. Something kept him from staying curled up or getting comfortable for more than a minute or two.

It might have been the stop & go traffic or just that he was too spun up from the excitement of going somewhere.

I suspect, that if we were on a long freeway trip he’d find a way to curl up. Lately as long as he can see me he seems to be content.

We had an incident last Friday with another dog that was totally out of control whose owner had zero control over. As is always typical in these situations, the idiot owner was letting their dog run free off leash. Great!!!! 

Their dog really came after Jesse and I both. To his credit, Jesse kept himself between the aggressive dog and me. Jesse’s attitude toward me changed on Friday. I’d had enough of this aggressive dog biting and snapping at both Jesse and I and got aggressive back. I made a sound Jesse has only heard once or twice, on those occasions it was directed at him because he was out of control. This time he looked up at me and realized I wasn’t angry with him, I was fixated on the other dog and when I moved toward the other dog Jesse moved with me.

It only took him a moment to connect the dots he and I were going to fight this dog together. The dog’s owner finally got their fat ass to where Jesse & I were making a stand and her dog ran off up the street, the minute she reached for its collar.

She offered a lame weak “sorry” to which I bellowed “Sorry my ass! Your dog attacked us, it went out of its way to follow us and was waiting for any opportunity to bite one of both of us.” I was very mad about it. We were less than 300 yards from our house. Jesse picked up on my being pissed off. He checked to see if I was angry with him and when he figured out I was yelling at the lady, (another human,) it seemed to give him pause.

At this point her dog ran in front of a delivery truck narrowly missing being hit and causing the delivery truck to lock up the brakes on a downhill run. 

Jesse & I continued our walk. I needed to clear my head, and perhaps so did Jesse. On the walk, I noticed Jesse was sticking much closer to me than usual. Every subsequent walk since, Jesse hasn’t been pulling on the leash or trying to drag me up or down the mountain. He’s been paying more attention to where I am versus where he is and we’ve been waiting on each other. He’ll wait for me to navigate rough terrain and he’s not dragging me into the underbrush but I’ll wait on the trail for him to investigate intriguing smells in the underbrush. 

Somehow the whole incident on Friday changed the dynamic between us.

That change in dynamic also carried over to the Vet visit.

He was more obedient and relaxed. Oh he didn’t like being there and really hates waiting for anything but he was more mellow. He got on the scale with no production then sat when I asked him to, 69 pounds! He laid down next to me in the waiting room and was mostly obedient even when he heard the kitten in a cat carrier and really wanted to know what that thing was. He was good with the Vet, & the Assistants. I was super impressed. The only thing that was annoying was him doing this high pitched whine that he does when he’s anxious or not getting his way. 

People in the waiting room were laughing when I was talking to him. “Jesse stop that whining. Look you can talk about it all you want but the whining is really annoying.” For some reason he chose that moment to “Talk” and it was like he was back talking me. We became the entertainment in the waiting room.

He’s got a clean bill of health. I’ve got the documentation that he’s had his boosters, so now I can take him to the groomer.

When we got home he was tired, I also noticed his head seemed a little warmer than usual. I think the booster they gave him may have made him feel a little punky. He napped the rest of the afternoon and wasn’t interested in his usual sunset ritual. He tends to want to be outside on the deck to watch the sun set and I guess he’s keeping an eye on the critters.

Last night he was curled up on the couch next to me with his head on my thigh. He wasn’t interested in rope, or ball, or anything other than my scratching his ears every once & and while.

Even this morning, he’s not fully himself but I can see him improving since we’ve gotten out of bed.

I know, too much information about the dog.

You know what? The Dog is way more interesting than the Washington D.C. follies!

Have a great day!

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Ahhh, That’s MUCH Better!

I broke out the Looney Tunes DVDs.

Bugs bunny 4

Odd as it may sound, watching Bugs Bunny and all the rest of the looney tunes characters makes a lot more sense than watching anything about the government.

There is a part of me that likens Bugs Bunny to Donald Trump, in that Bugs really knows how to get under someone’s skin and Bugs always comes out on top.

I can say that watching Looney Tunes is probably more productive than watching hearings wondering why our lawmakers don’t slap the shit out of Merrick Garland.

I was listening to the hearings and thought I’d like to drive to DC, walk into the hearing and say, “Excuse ME!”  I’d slap the shit out of that fuck Garland, then tell Jim Jordan, “I’ll be standing right here if you need my services again sir!”

I’d never do it but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done! Garlands testimony is beyond maddening. As a citizen, his attitude toward answering questions posed to him by congress really pisses me off.

Those representatives, are OUR proxies. His disrespect toward them is disrespectful to Us.

S l500I know I’m hard on the idiot Congress but damn it! If they won’t or can’t do the job, then I’d be perfectly happy to step in and demand answers and respect from that nasty fucker.

Watching Bugs Bunny is far more calming and productive.

After all it’s a foregone conclusion that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will come of these hearings. There will never be any accountability. The FBI, IRS, and every other part of the Government will still be corrupt and will just keep getting worse.

Watching a cultural and creative high point of America is satisfying and makes me smile!

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A Good Day

I did the usual chores, played a video game or two, watched Foundation on Apple TV. Then I made dinner, went out to the deck to eat and watched the sunset.

The moon rose gently over the mountain then hung behind the trees at the top of the ridge for a few minutes.

It was one of the perfect photographic shots that you miss because your phone is inside and probably won’t catch the image. You think for a minute and realize that by the time you grab the SLR, the moon will have moved on and the shot will be gone.

So you do the only rational thing.

You sit still, take another drink of your adult cocktail and enjoy the the moon moving up behind the treeline ascending to its proper place in the heavens. You store the image in your head, just like your ancestors did for the preceding million years.

That was my evening.

When I came in and was cleaning up the kitchen the pup came in and had some swelling above one eye. I think he took a wasp hit or was bitten by something while we were out walking. He sticks his head in bushes sometimes so it’s possible he ticked off a wasp or bee.

He came to show me. I’ve washed his face with a cool damp rag, I cuddled him next to me on the couch for a while. As expected, the area is a bit sensitive but the cool rag seemed to sooth it.

I’ll have to keep an eye on it. If the swelling is gone or reduced by morning it’ll be fine otherwise I may have to take him to see the vet.

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I dropped the hammer on a PlayStation5

I know a lot of folks won’t get it. But there are those who will.

There are a lot of things I like more about the Playstation than the Xbox 360. To be fair, my Xbox is 6 years old or so. Part of this is about technology improvement and part of this is about the PlayStation’s operational philosophy and quality of the simulation environment.

Microsoft altered the Xbox interface several years back, and I HATED the new interface! I hated the changes so much, and that there were OS and Game updates so frequently that I kind of just stopped even turning the system on.

The Costco bundle is pretty nice, and their return policy is generous. I can see that I’ll be purchasing some additional storage for the system. But I’ve lost a few hours enjoying the game included with the bundle. There’s an interesting thing about the PlayStation 5 that I didn’t really consider. It’s large, I mean really large but I get it there’s a lot more surface area to dissipate heat. Let’s face it, these games do a ton of computing to render the playing environment. So I can see why this system is as big as it is. You sure can’t miss seeing the device.

Gaming is fantastic, streaming works fine, the BluRay player function works fine too. I was surprised to find that I can’t access my local DLNA video server via the PlayStation. OR perhaps I haven’t found the secret handshake to connect to the DLNA device.

Oddly, Sony BluRay players can access the DLNA, I’d have expected that the PlayStation (also made be Sony) would have the same function.

As I said, Perhaps I’m missing something.

The hours that I’ve “lost” playing the game have not been lost in vain. The puzzles and interactive storytelling that are affected by my choices in the game have sparked my brain in ways that have no consequences. My creativity is being stimulated and that’s helping my overall sense of well being

In the games, I can screw up SOOOO bad and just press restart, versus incorrectly solving puzzles like poorly worded “real world” Government instructions, and screwing up my life…

Playing like this is allowing my brain to do stuff in a lighter way. If the game gets frustrating… I can turn it off. I don’t have to worry about getting lost in the games because they’re mental breaks. I’m playing video games instead of watching television shows, or movies, or God Save me watching the news!

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Bidenomics Is working!

I was in the barbershop and somehow I’d missed that The President had actually used the term. The solemn newscaster was trying very hard to talk Bidenomics up but was having a hard time reading his script. I’d bet that newscaster will be working for one of the conservative outlets soon or he’ll blow his brains out. Cognitive Dissonance is a real bitch for any honest person to maintain, eventually they’ll snap one way or another.

Up to this point I’d thought the term was pure sarcasm from Conservatives. When I found out it wasn’t satire or sarcasm I about fell out of the barbers chair.

My Barber grumbled about how tough his finances had become.

His rates are a bit higher than the chain haircut places. I’ll pay the price to be in a male space where I can have a straight razor shave and not smell the stench of hair chemicals. I have him line up my beard with a straight razor and I get a good hair cut and beard trim / shaping.

Yes, it’s more expensive than the chains, but it’s a monthly ritual where I get value for the dollar, and it makes me feel good about myself.

All that being said, not everyone understands the value or has the cash to partake of it. (Technically I don’t have the cash but I’ll eat ramen and hotdogs a couple nights a week for a month to be able to afford doing something nice for myself, egg salad sandwiches are inexpensive to make despite the cost of eggs these days. I’m not wealthy enough to contemplate a luxury item like tuna or cat food.)

If I had a family to feed or a shit paying job that I had to commute to, then I might make a different choice. Apparently, a lot of my barber’s clients have been forced to make a different choice.

Whether the families are going to the chains or Mom is cutting everyone’s hair is unknown, but business is down.

I’ve seen other evidence of business being down too. The last couple of Costco’s I’ve been in were crowded, but not as crowded as pre-covid & Biden. Even my Home Depot isn’t as busy as it was in 2019 and 2020. Either everyone got their projects done or don’t have the time (due to a second job,) and/or money to do those projects anymore. I’ve noticed in both stores that there are still empty shelves. The pet store is very often out of the large size treats for my dog. I’ve taken to looking for the big sizes in every store I shop in.

The Barber grumbled, “If this is his idea of working, we’re screwed!”

I replied, “But it is working, and it’s beautiful.”

Point of interest… It can be scary making a provocative comment to a Barber while he is holding a razor to your throat. Think Sweeney Todd!

I continued, “Every single thing the Biden administration has done since seizing power has been to degrade, destroy, reverse, or otherwise undo any of the prosperity of the Trump years. Literally the Biden Administration has reversed even those policies that were working effectively, and in so doing has created chaos. They haven’t cared that killing working policies has damaged their administration, or that the President’s approval rating is the lowest of any President in decades. The administration has consistently gone about erasing or expunging all traces of Trump, and they’ve done so with a single minded fervor that rivals Chairman Mao’s purges. I don’t personally want Trump as president again. But I can’t have any respect for an administration that cancels working policies simply because of whose name is on those policies. When I think about it The Biden Administration seems to have elements of a proto-dictatorship. They’re not quite there, but give them another 4 years and they’ll probably find a way to move closer to dictatorship. Remember some countries suspend elections during declared national emergencies, be it military, natural disaster, or financial difficulties…”

My Barber went back to straightening the beard line at my throat, “Okay, I’m following you there but how is Bidenomics working?”

I smiled and waited for him to stand up with the blade away from my throat, “That’s simple, Bidenomics is demonstrably working. Your proof is many people in the country, maybe half, specifically those who are traditionally conservative and work for a living in flyover states are suffering. This is clearly punishment from the Democratic Party for America’s rebellious voting in 2016, when everyone was supposed to vote for Hillary. Bidenomics is working exactly as designed. It was supposed to destroy the economy, increase financial stress across the board, create a greater divide between the ‘Haves and Have Nots’, screw up retirement for boomers, and keep people angry and polarized. All of this potential strife must be in place before the 2024 election. That way, if by some chance, a Republican who is not under full control of the political machine in Washington is elected, rioting can commence instantly. The administration having Joe Biden claim Bidenomics is working is quite possibly the only true thing said in the White House during this administration.”

“I don’t know if I believe your assessment. I do think you’re one of the scariest people I know. Your ability to think in such a diabolical and evil way is terrifying. Here, have a beer,” my Barber said opening a brew.

“Thank you, I’m an amateur. The truly terrifying people are those who live this shit 24/7 in Washington DC. They’re called the United States Government.”

At which point we both had a good laugh.

My Barber went back to his work on my beard, and the conversation turned toward wondering if our sexual escapades of the past would come to haunt us in the future.

The question, “Have you ever wondered if your aggressive sex from years ago might be considered sexual abuse or even rape by todays standards,” led to another fun conversation that could only be had in a safe male space.

Have a good weekend!