Bullet Points:
** I got an emotional support animal. It’s a chicken. It came fried with a biscuit and gravy for dipping.
** The lifetime WNBA ban of Brittney Griner, whose balls were hanging out (according to Caroline Levitt), could impact Big Mike Obama, who might be stripped of the title “First Lady.” I don’t make the news, I just report it. Maybe it could be changed to First Catamite. It would be woke, wouldn’t it?
** If the neighbor’s cow jumps my fence and gives birth in my yard, it’s not legally my cow or my calf. It should also apply to people who jumped the wall.
** If there were vampires in Appalachia.
** Wall Street Journal: “India is digging in its heels and resisting pressure from the U.S. to curb purchases of Russian oil, despite threats by President Trump to retaliate by imposing higher tariffs on India. Last week, President Trump announced that he would impose a 25% tariff on Indian imports to the U.S. in retaliation for India’s large-scale purchases of inexpensive Russian oil. Then, on Monday, the president said he would be “substantially raising” tariffs on Indian goods—on top of the 25% duty—because of the “massive amounts” of Russian oil that India buys. India has nonetheless refused to back down and has suggested that it intends to continue to buy Russian oil. Political observers said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is calculating that Trump will decide that ties between the two countries are ultimately too critical to jeopardize in a trade spat.”
**There was a time when I subscribed to The Atlantic, which has always been left of center. I read leftist opinions in an attempt to understand how they think (Sun Tzu). In this article, which has a paywall, what you can read of it is a question about “entitled” baby boomers. I don’t expect you to subscribe to The Atlantic, but the question of the “rise of socialism” in the 18-30 class (generation whatever) seems to be tied to boomer-envy. The article, at its core, appears to be an anti-Trump propaganda hit piece (aren’t they all?)
** If you can’t use your EBT card to buy snacks, what good is it?
** Elsa asks that you leave a comment about something stupid that you did (you can leave it in your VM comments below).
Lines
Lasers reveal a 1,000-year-old Indigenous road near Chaco Canyon that is aligned with the winter solstice.
Researchers have found a sacred road system near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, revealing the cosmological and spiritual significance of these ancient pathways. A team from Dartmouth College used advanced lidar technology to identify a new road running parallel to an existing one at the Gasco site. Their research points to these roads being built for Indigenous rituals, not for transportation. The paths seem to align with significant celestial events.
People of a certain age (to whom fifty years feels like yesterday) say – “1000 years, hold my beer.” At the same time, we lack precise information about what people were doing 1000 years ago. Or 2000 years ago, or more.
Summit
The location is being hashed out. Putin wanted Chicago (Mordor-on-the-Lake), but all the rooms had been booked by democrats who fled from Texas.
Putin may have used his meeting with Witkoff to propose a long-range strike moratorium, which would allow Russia to stockpile long-range drones and missiles and renew devastating large-scale strikes against Ukraine after the moratorium expires. A strike moratorium will also handicap Ukraine’s ability to continue its long-range strike campaign aimed at attriting the Russian defense industrial base and wartime economy. Russia has significantly scaled up its drone and missile production in 2025, allowing Russia to rapidly increase the size of its strike packages that it launches against Ukraine.
Whether the cruise missile/drone attacks are significant strategically or merely aim to harass the Ukrainian public is another issue. Hitler’s V-1 and V-2 attacks didn’t reduce London, but they had a psychological impact on a war-weary British public.
Putin likely claimed to Witkoff that Russia’s territorial ambitions are limited to the seizure of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts. Putin is likely attempting to frame Russia’s seizure of the four oblasts as inevitable to push Ukraine and the West to capitulate to the Kremlin’s demands. Russia’s occupation of the four oblasts is neither inevitable nor imminent, as Russian forces will face serious operational obstacles in what are likely to be multi-year endeavors.
Russian objectives are not limited to the occupation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts; however, despite the Kremlin’s attempts to frame Russia’s war aims as such to make its demands seem more reasonable. Russia has not abandoned its more extensive, original war aims. Putin’s war aims are also not limited to territory. The Kremlin is engaged in a delicate balancing act between feigning interest in negotiations with Trump and conditioning Russian society to accept nothing short of Putin’s desired complete victory in Ukraine, no matter how long it takes.
Volcanos
The magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula last week has triggered activity at seven volcanoes in the area, according to the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
This is the first time in nearly 300 years that seven volcanoes have erupted simultaneously in the region, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Then there is this, closer to home.
We all know what’s going on because we’ve read RED MIST by Larry B. Lambert and Jules Smith…
Legends endure for a reason. Sometimes they survive to impel our cultural hubris. Occasionally, they endure because they instill a sense of focus on what was and perhaps a vision of what will be. They are always a reminder. When they come back to haunt us, things start to get interesting.
A couple in Iceland, deeply in love, visits a historic site, and suddenly, he throws himself into a volcano, burning to a crisp before her eyes. Thereafter, it is always raining.
The dwindling North Sea Oil supply is suddenly rejuvenated with a discovery, a vast oil field of light, sweet crude worth billions. Exploration, drilling, and pumping begin to breathe life into a faltering industry, and just as things seem to be going well, the oil is polluted with radioactive thorium.
US Army Special Forces operators in Iceland, participating in an exercise, are drawn into a crisis, and as NASA withdraws, they boldly face the challenge. All but one are rendered insane, and the memory of Red Mist turns into a quest for answers that the CIA already has.
In Texas, a political fixer is called on to deal with a situation and finds himself completely out of his depth.
In England, a psychologist’s life is turned upside down as a skald makes a disturbing prophecy.
In China, aggressive experiments into neutrino research create a completely unforeseen disaster and portend a global cataclysm of Biblical proportions.
Just when you’re sure that you have all the answers and are confident that the science is settled, it isn’t.
Once you’ve read RED MIST, you discover that there is still more – LOKI’s FIRE.
Five years have passed since the Norse Goddess Eir appeared in the red mist of the erupting Bárðarbunga volcano. Very little has been heard from her since she vanished from the safe house in Herefordshire, England.
The effect of neutrino research in China still results in volcanic eruptions, halting the planned forced expansion of the People’s Republic of China out of fear of forces that they don’t fully understand. However, they’re making moves to remedy that situation through the recruitment of assets that can get them what they want. The Long March has been delayed, but it can never be stopped.
In the Manila underworld, where nobody is quite who they seem to be, Mike Vega is working as an arms merchant against Chinese interests and eliminating meddlesome individuals in favor of those same interests.
French/Korean Sylvie Kim, working as an agent of the Chinese Fourth Bureau of Guojia Anquan Bu in the Philippines, has a mission, too, and that mission is Mike Vega.
Ilya Sergeivich Zavrazhin, an upwardly mobile operative of the Russian SVR, is under orders to beat everyone to the punch.
It is a land of chameleons embracing each other, where the laws of cause and effect are confusing, and the outcome is far from predictable. None of the actors has any genuine belief in Norse deities returned to Earth or in Loki’s Fire.
But that’s about to change.
What Happened to Europe?
(Telegraph) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: “All four pillars of the EU’s economic strategy and great power project now lie in ruins. Every domino has fallen. Europe subcontracted its energy supply to Russia, its defense to the United States, and its manufacturing supply chains to China.
The hurricane of events over the last five years has exposed the blind complacency behind those bad bets.
It is less understood that Europe also sub-contracted its aggregate demand to the rest of the world over long stretches of the last quarter century. It relied on an open global trading system, maintained by American power and its willingness to absorb limitless exports as the world’s market of last resort.
Europe surfed on the consumption of deficit states – chiefly the US – rather than generating its demand. It was always tempting fate. This neo-mercantilist bet has, at last, gone wrong as well.”
In Arizona
A DC Flush
President Trump is threatening a takeover of Washington, D.C., after a shooting in the city resulted in the death of a 38-year-old man, and a former DOGE employee was surrounded by 10 juveniles outside his car and attacked. This should have happened decades ago. Washington, D.C., has been a sewer for a very long time. The local government was corrupt, and the city had been dirty and crime-ridden, with the situation worsening in recent years. The takeover needs to be accompanied by a purge of the democrat apparatchiks. Accountability needs to be restored, and the only way I can see that happening is through a comprehensive overhaul from top to bottom.
There have been discussions of separating the government and administrative portion of Washington, DC from the slums. (Give the slums to Virginia or Maryland to administer.) I believe that slum clearance should be the goal, and it can be accomplished through draconian measures within the district if there is a will to do so. The rules are different there. Demolish, change the demographics, and the narrative.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
3
4
Hint: Despite high expectations and innovative features such as the ability to jettison the main float when engaged in combat, the aircraft was a dismal failure. After entering front-line service with the 12th Reconnaissance Squadron, the IJN canceled all remaining orders after the first 16 were delivered.
Parting Shot
End
Fried Chicken …..mmmm mmmmm, now you’ve done it , gonna have to make some soon , that sounds so good . This evening done deal .
I secretly suspect that “Cavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning” made in Harrison Ark. is the secret 11 herbs and spices used by the Kentucky Colonel . Taste some straight up in the palm of your hand , tastes like KFC . Not that KFC is by any means the best fried chicken or the standard , I’ve had fried chicken all over the world and if it is good I like it .
Have a safe and fun weekend
I ordered the seasoning and will give it a try.
Boats, got any recommendations for Chinese prepared chicken feet? Two items I’ve avoided are chicken feet and sea cucumber in broth.
Carry on avoiding them. Both are disgusting. Chicken feet are nasty. It’s the kind of stuff that the impoverished and the oppressed eat, on the order of guts and tripes and other bits of offal. People of the Chinatown class enjoy them. (By “class” in this case I don’t just mean socioeconomically, I mean ethnolinguistically as well. In a phrase, Cantonese speakers. I don’t care for sound of the language, which is objectively hideous. They on the other hand despise Mandarin speakers as foreign invaders. Now this is like some guy in England despising another Englishman called FitzWilliam because Fitz’ ancestors came over the Channel in 1066, but you get the point.)
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As to sea cucumbers, they puke out their own guts (much as some lizards shed their tails) to distract predators. Plus they are primitive radially-symmetric creatures (like starfish). Yecch. I once knew a paleontologist who specialized in radially symmetric lifeforms. He confided, “I hate going to the Society Dinner at our annual meetings because they ALWAYS serve sea cucumber soup.” (He was a white, northern European guy, if it matters). Once on a (rare) excursion into Chinatown we saw a food store with sea cucumbers re-hydrating in a metal tray on the counter. (They are often sold dried, and are hard as a rock. The store was helping customers save time by soaking them.) Anyway, the sea cucumbers were dark brown and looked to me like big turds. My girlfriend made a face, “That looks like a surgical tray full of amputated negro penises. Yuck.” I turned to her in surprise. She amended hastily, “Er, so I imagine.” That was disturbing, but I didn’t ask further. Any road, that became our term for sea cucumber. I didn’t like it before ANP, I won’t touch it now.
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Finally, “birds’ nest soup” is another Chinese delicacy. It really IS made from harvested nests of a certain kind of swallow. They nest in rocky caves and the nests are made of a combination of regurgitated fish and particularly viscous swallow saliva. Birds’ nest soup is puked-up fish and bird spit. Yum.
Ok… since we’re going there.. let’s add in Balut freshly dug out of the sand, then cooked special for you … along with rat on a stock … don’t even consider the Balit.. never ever eat… but the rat on a stick isn’t too bad… tastes like chicken feet…
Balut is eaten raw out of the egg… sigh…
Sambal rat (roast rat on a stick covered with sambal chilis) isn’t nearly as gross as balut. The rat is skinned (or the skin crackles from the fire), and the tail is usually excised before the cooking process.
I’ll eat pretty much anything, but draw the line at balut. Definitely NOT on my menu. A few years ago, before all the old people who regularly ate them started to die off, you could see, from one of the upstairs bedrooms of our house in Thailand, the rat hunters at work at night. Looking out across the rice paddies you could see them, wearing a light on a headband and armed with small crossbows, hunting the field rats. These rats are, generally, considered to be healthier and good to eat. Unlike the sewer and house rats which are definitely inedible. When he was alive one of my brothers-in-law frequently ate barbequed rat for breakfast.
No to the chicken feet , seen ’em , never eaten’em . Was sitting in a bar in Thailand talking to some crazy Austrian , while eating little balls of rice a bargirl kept feeding me . After a while , I looked at what she was doing , she was picking snails out of the shell with a toothpick and rolling it up in balls of rice and feeding them to me . About an hour later , stomach was rumbling , and you can guess the rest . Went back to the ship , the doc gave me some super immodium and 3 IV’s for dehydration . Felt much better , went to Quarterdeck to go down the Accom Ladder to hop a boat to go ashore and the Doc had put me on a medical hold list for 24 hours …f’n bummer. I still had 48 hrs of liberty to burn . Street food is a gamble , except in Singapore , very safe , very clean, and very good . Damn near everywhere overseas the produce is impressive , our produce is trash . Shwarmas in the mideast are very good , middle eastern food , I really liked .
I don’t know what the appeal of chicken feet is to Asian people. When I worked for the District Attorney in Orange County, California, among other people who worked for me, I had a number of Vietnamese and VietChinese (Culturally Vietnamese – ethnic Chinese “Boat People”) ladies who performed clerical duties. Every so often, I took them to lunch – inevitably to places that served Vietnamese-style food in Little Saigon. Vietnamese food is heavily influenced by the 85 years that the French ruled Vietnam (in much the same way that Mexican food is influenced by the time that France/Emperor Maximilian ruled Mexico). Since they knew where to go, the food was good. And they ALWAYS ordered chicken feet as an appetizer. It was a cultural favorite that I avoided.
I’ll eat the caramalised (the brown ones) chicken feet but not the steamed ones. These I find tasteless. Not much meat, but plenty of bones.
Those available in Little Saigon were all steamed.
Bummer about the 24h hold. That said, iffn you’re gonna get a disease from a Thai bar girl, gastroenteritis is probably the least bad among the possibilities, so there’s that.
When I think of various food poisonings I’ve had when young, I realize that prolly half of those would put me in hospital these days because I just don’t have the reserves any more. That said, I’m much better off now than during chemo. So at the time I worked in a third floor office and would preferentially take the stairs instead of elevator. After round #3 or so I couldn’t make to the second floor landing without having to stop and catch my breath. I remember thinking, “Crap. I’m never going to be able to get up even Mt Monadnock again!” (Monadnock is a small ~3100-foot peak in southern New Hampshire; because it is close to Boston and NYC, it’s apparently one of the most climbed “mountains” in the world. Anyway, the point is that Monadnock is just a bump in the scheme of the alpine world, and even that seemed beyond my abilities.)
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Here is Hugh Grant talking about an “experience” with hotdogs.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jVIZ3Kk3j2s
Yes, but Hugh did comment on how good they are. There may be a problem with the volume…
Mike , after 90 days at sea , most sailors will hit the closest bar and come up with a game plan . In the case of Pattaya , at the time I was there , we anchored out , lowered and rigged accomodation ladders (Accoms) and contracted people ferries , (think UB 40’s) to get the disembarked crew close to the beach, then you would take off your shoes and wade in from usually knee depth . As far as Bar girls go (have you been to Thailand , P.I. , Bali , Malaysia? ) they come with the turf , it is not all what you seem to imply with your Bargirl disease comment . Hooters por ejemplo? They are hostesses that draw in business . Later that night I checked into a very nice Hotel called the Montien , at the lobby bar , yes you guessed it , attractive Thai women , chat if you want , more if you want . You seem determined to start a flame up with me on the comments section on my friends blog site would you please stop . I am here to comment , and tell of my adventures and sometimes add some insight in such limited scope I have to enjoy with others on this pleasant, platform provided . I’m not a Navy Seal (but many Boatswainsmates were/are) nor a secret agent , nor a special operator , I am just a deck ape , that through serendipitous circumstances found myself in interesting situations that I like to share , many of which evidently resonate with some commenters here . Were you in the Navy ? Did somebody send you to find a Boatswains punch and did you find one ? Hope they provided one , wearing a Mary Soo Hong Kong BM crossed anchors ring , right in the forehead , Hindu style , that way they didn’t need to ask you how your night went .
It is said that the Australian bloke who owned the Purple Porpoise in Vientiene named the bar after his male part. I don’t have personal knowledge of the basis for his branding but I’m realiably assured it is the case.
Boatswain: I did not mean to offend you, though clearly I did. I apologize. I wasn’t implying anything about you personally.
To answer your question, I’ve been to Thailand (only Bangkok) and Malaysia, both Peninsular and Sabah, but not Sarawak.
Reply to Boatswains comment below regarding a Montien hotel. Do you mean the Montien Hotel in Pattaya or The Montien Hotel, Bangkok? I have not been to the Montien Hotel, Pattaya, but, when I was working full-time, many years ago, I used to regularly stay at The Montien Hotel, Bangkok, when in town for work. It is located across Surawong Road, just a short stroll from the Patpong Road bar area. The Montien Hotel, Bangkok, was, and is, the last time I checked, one of the high-end hotels. Not as glitzy, chrome, and flashy, as some of the newer one on Sukhumvit Road but still classy in a subtle, nuanced, manner. There were ladies there, in the lobby bar who, as you describe, offered conversation and other services. Like the hotel these ladies were also high-end. In my latter years, when in town for work, I stayed at The Davis Hotel, on Sukhumvit Soi 24. If you did not mind a short walk in the warmth and humidity it was a short stroll to the Phrom Phong BTS station. Likewise, a short stroll from the BTS station to the now long gone The Office Bar, a sports bar run by Bob Everett, an Australian, which used to be on a small side soi off Sukhumvit Soi 33.
I found this the other day https://www.dinnerin321.com/kentucky-fried-chicken/ I got to it from a short on either YT or fb. Some different ingredients from the Cavender’s, I suspect you’d need to do a taste test in your kitchen!
I’m one to talk … I’ve never made fried chicken!
I will report back as soon as I’ve tried Cavender’s. It’s not just the 11 herbs and spices, it’s the proportion/ratio that also matters. I’m on the road, and it should be delivered by the time I return home.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Grumman E-2 Hawkeye prototype
2. Lockheed F-94B Starfire
3. Loire 210
4. Kawanishi E15K Norm
Well done!
Reference Lasers And Chaco Canyon: The better the imagery, more and more historical archeology is shown. In the 60s and 70s, the USAF needed to train high altitude reconnaissance crews so flights targeting various portions of the US were flown. Sometimes, it was to assist in drug grow areas, which also trained the PIs, other times it was practicing a particular line or a request from some agency. One of those flights was a north south run on the eastern slope of the Rockies from the Canadian border to Mexico. The PIs found a huge number of circles along the entire front range. On closer examination, the circles were identified as campfire stones from times before the current Indians occupied the area.
*****
Interestingly, the photos didn’t identify the Medicine Wheel, which the Indians all spoke of and most American historians discounted. That wasn’t confirmed until hiker stumbled upon it. When I visited it several years ago, it was surrounded by a chain link fence to keep the tourists from taking rocks home. The fence didn’t stop the litter though.
Thwarted in their attempts to steal the rocks at the Medicine Wheel, the tourists then decamped to Oatman and infested the hotel. Or did the Texas Donks flee Chi-Congo for Oatman? Hard to tell from the photograph, that could go either way.
The donkeys at Oatman are entitled, protected, eat and drink free, are pushy and shit wherever they go – the very definition of a democrat.
I’ll be staying the hell out of Oatman then, thanks. There are enough Donks in Kans-ass without having to chase nearly to Donkey-fornia to see more of them.
Thanks for the info.
Picture of Oatman Hotel-I’m going with Oatman as where the Texas Democrats fled to avoid the redistricting fight in the state’s legislative Special Session. MSM had them fleeing to Illinois. Think I recognize the individual harassing the kid for a free handout in the upper part of the picture, as being the Senate Minority Party Leader.
The House Minority leader reminds me of an Oatman donkey, as does the famous Spartacus Booker. AOC has donkey teeth and a donkey laugh. It reminds me of the Lost Boys in Pinocchio who turned into donkeys.
Exactly.
Stupid things.
Does driving a tall truck under a low bridge in Casper, WY count?
Not without pictures.
Hey, we saw all manner of stupid things outside of Casper when we had gone up to a ranch in Lysite (West a piece) for the eclipse viewing. Never again will we subject ourselves to that level of general public stupidity. (Reminder to self: wait an extra day to let things clear out).
Sidebar: Went up to the Snowy’s for an overnight backpack into a lake…by the time we got up there it was 54degrees and dropping, windy (ok, IT IS Wyoming…but still), and it looked like snow was moving in, so we took a mini hike and decided the homestead looked better for these two days. (Not complaining, need the moisture the weather-soothsayers said we weren’t getting). Gonna be a bunch of crowded campers up there huddled around some smoky fire pits convincing themselves it’s just great. Heh. Altho, the Bear Bottom Bar and Grill (great burgers) was busy earlier than usual…the smart folks went “to town”.)
Stupid things – there’s the classic one of trying to avoid naps as a child when I should have been embracing them :)
There are few things more refreshing than a nap. And yes, kids fight you on that.
> lifetime WNBA ban of Brittney Griner
But Snopes (that honest, unbiased, and final arbiter of the Truth As We Know It) says this is an unfounded rumor. While we’re wondering what’s inside Griner’s genes, we might as well add Brigitte Macron to the list. Surely a standard DNA test would solve both the Griner and the Brigitte questions, yeah? Why won’t they go for it, just to shut up their lying, slandering, libelous detractors.
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But Madame Macron has hired a pair of vicious (this is a professional compliment) US-based PR/image/slander/libel lawyers, and sent Candace Owens a copy of a marriage announcement as proof (PROOF! I say) that Brigitte has always been a woman. Nota bene this is not even a marriage license, it’s essentially a newspaper clipping. Not that a license proves anything either. At this point I AM inclined to believe that Brigitte is a dude. “Her” French suit (which ultimately failed) against Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey also didn’t contest her fundamental dudeness. It rather focused on minutiae on the order of “You claimed I had fish at dinner on 30MAR1998, but I have PROOF that I had beef, so you are libelously spreading misinformation!”
Sometimes I wonder if we’ve run out of things to talk about.
Yet MikeC and LL always manage to dill that void for us.
Have you ever tried to eat a chicken foot, PaulM?
No, but they were effectively used as some weird voodoo in The Deep. Come to think of it, granddad loved pickled pigs feet, came in a jar. Gross.
The universe will provide dumb stuff to talk about. So the other day I got off the plane and headed to the bathroom. Someone had left a prescription pill bottle perched on the TP dispenser. I picked it up wondering if I should turn it in to lost and found (because it can be a big deal if someone misplaced their essential meds). Nope, it was empty. A prescription for tadalafil (like Viagra). The name on the bottle was something like “Richard Cumley”. Could be a real name, but could be a joke name considering the prescription. I was gonna post the actual name, but I looked it up just now, and the address of the pharmacy. It’s apparently a real person based in San Antonio, TX who has some sort of logistics gig in private industry. Ol’ Dick Cumley never did anything bad to me (that I know of), so redacting the real name.
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The universe is a silly place full of amusement, if only one is open to it.
You took Dick’s stiffener…without any remorse. And you didn’t cop to popping the reinforcer for your own benefit.
Was the bottle emply before or after MikeC picked it up…inquiring minds DO NOT want to know, but likely not…because “ancient Chinese fix” using salt, lemon, and some weird herb. Drink er down and yer all set. It’s true, saw on a YouTube ad.
May have been talked to death already, but how about the amazing coincidence of Mike Pence NOT being attacked by the deep state?
They love Pence. It would be like a cannibal bloodworm eating another cannibal bloodworm. It’s a thing that just isn’t done.
Cold-Walked into a room at a school I was interviewing to attend.
The guy says Hi Ed and I wondered how he knew my name the whole time.
When I left, I asked my how he knew my name.
Dad pointed to the “Hello, my name is Ed” sticker I was wearing.
Did the kids ever tape a “kick me” note to your back in Jr. High?
Actually, yes. But nobody did.
They’d have ended up in the famed and deadly Bonderanka death grip. You don’t need to explain that.
😁
Nametags and the like: While an impecunious medical student, I happened upon the Lands End Inlet in Wisconsin (what they called their outlet stores). Back then it was a real outlet that sold returns. They had a generous return policy and would take back even monogrammed items. So I was happy to discover a stack of button-down oxfords in my size, in decent colors (unlike their stuff today). I figured I could pick out the monograms, and I’d have stash of $5 shirts I could wear to school or work. Yay!
—
I got home and discovered that while I could pick out the threads of the monogram, it would leave a messy scar on the shirt, so I left the rest alone and just wore them around. A couple of months later some girl I didn’t know cornered me in the hallway and asked, “What IS your name?” Huh? I responded suavely. She elaborated, “I see you with all these monogrammed shirts, but they all say different things. What’s the deal?”
You didn’t reply that it was classified information?
I have one of those old blue tow truck driver shirts with the white oval red embroidery name tag that I found being used as a rag. I laundered it and found that it was a 2X (my size). The name is “Otis” – and I prize it. Occasionally, I wear it.
See…see…add that to the “Stories Abroad: My Adventures Without Even Trying” anthology.
Not that I care anything about the WNBA, but Mr. Grinner should have been banned when he was imprisoned in Russia for marijuana smuggling.
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The cheap shots by most of the players against Caitlin Clark should, in a sane world, result in assault charges against the players and conspiracy charges against the refs and WNBA officials and executives.
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And, well, there should be a drinking/betting game as to where the next green thing lands on the court. Waiting for someone to get one through the hoop.
Agreed…all the while those “certain” ones in the WNBA are whining how they aren’t getting paid enough when attacking (literally) the best thing that ever happened to the league, causing it to lose money. Can’t fix stupid (see WSF above).
If we renamed the league the TNBA (Tranny NBA) for guys who couldn’t hack the NBA, would it get more viewers?
When some of the players have Adams Apples…kind of a tell.
Sadly, adams apples are found in genetically female women who are born with higher testosterone. So a woman with an apple may or may not be a biological female.
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A simple DNA test, just checking the types of chromosomes, should be a requirement in these modern times. Are you XY? Yer a male, no matter how much of a weakling pussbag you are. Are you XX? Yer a female, no matter how butch you are. Any other chromosomal
constructions? Yer a genetic freak and a statistical anomaly small enough to not even merit the need for your own world.
There are genetic variants including XXY in the human pool. As a society we need to test and to make a determination whether it’s fair or appropriate to allow the variants (some are mules, meaning no genetic path forward) to compete on a level playing field with XX humans.
Dumb things – I high-centered (the entire floor pan was on the ground, supporting the vehicle)
my wife’s road car in soft sand on a dirt road out on the Cape, with my wife in the passenger
seat. Some nice people with a four-by and a rope came along and yanked us out.
*
I’m sure I’ve done stupider things, but that one springs to mind.
– Kle.
I live in the mountains, Kle. People do that all the time. They hike out to the pavement and flag people like me down, begging for a strap out. Don’t feel like the lone ranger.
Learned early on, due to Dad’s love of surf fishing, to always make sure there are boards in the trunk along with a shovel. Learned at the age of 7 how to build up structure under the tires. Which was really helpful when we moved to Florida and ran across sugar sand.
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If you’ve never encountered sugar sand, well, it’s fine, like sugar. Almost ‘carbonated’ sugar. It’s fine grained, loose, doesn’t pack well at all even when wet and is the bane of all who run across it. You get it from high winds picking up light sand off the beach and piling it high in the dunes. It’s like quicksand, except no water. All you can do is find boards or garbage to shove under your tires to get traction and keep going once you’re moving.
–
Oh, and the light sand holds solar heat very well so it feels like you’re walking across hot coals. Which is fun when a wind comes up and blows burning hot shards of glass against you.
I’ve used boards before. And I’ve torn down fences to use as road bedding before (sorry fence owner – at this late date). There are now plastic sand ladders – used to be metal – that are light and inexpensive if you contemplate the need. I think they’re 4′ lengths. I don’t have any, but the grit I routinely cross in Arizona is not that powder that the Lord High Executioner describes. The closest is the Pink Coral Sand in Southern Utah (Kanab area) that I’ve transited without the need for ladders more than once. (as recently as Mother’s Day 2025)
I’m usually pretty good off-road with road cars, but when
Jen is along I seem to have a drastically higher screw-up rate.
Distraction? Trying to show off? IDK.
*
I had done a lot of digging by the time the nice folks in the
Cherokee showed up, but they sure saved me 8 hours or so.
*
Beans, that sugar sand sounds a lot like this stuff. It had filled
in a dip at the bottom of a hill.
– Kle.
You ever stood in front of your engine, waiting for the IA to inspect all your work, basking in the warm glow of knowing everything is pristine and finally completely to spec…. only to realize when he gives you Ye Olde Hairy Eyeball Mark II, that dyslexia struck again and you safety wired *everything* with the twist exactly the wrong way?
.
Yeah. What’s worse is he didn’t smoke me for it, he gently walked me with a fatherly tone through how to tell the direction the vibration would shake everything loose, and thus how to tell without thinking “left” or “right” whether I was putting the twist correctly. I swear ever since then, there’s a slight twitch (and a triple-check).
A good instructor knows how to get a point across to a student. Loud histrionics is a poor substitute, unless the student is REALLY slow on the uptake.
Yeah, but I’m far more comfortable and familiar with being screamed at, having things thrown at me, and called everything but a child of G-d. I do my best to be kind and patient with my students because it’s terribly effective, (though I have learned to wield I Am Disappointed when necessary), but it doesn’t mean I’m at ease with being on the receiving end.
How about Mother’s Patented Dirty Look? Wife and DIL were shopping in Colorado mumble-mumble years ago, and two young Hispanic males started walking behind them while commenting, in Spanish, about DIL. Wife turned around and gave them that look – she took Spanish in high school and college, and spent time taking classes in Barcelona. They recoiled back, then made a quick exit stage left into the closest store.
I’m not a mother, but I have discovered that Mom Look and Mom Voice seem to be nothing more than a soul-deep emanation of “I am done with your fecal matter.” Or, at least, that’s what I was feeling when I was informed that I had made everyone in range decide to be very busy doing anything but being the focus of my matter of fact explanation that you can choose how you’re going to act, but you don’t get to choose the consequences of those actions.
Mi mama es de Venezuela, so I’m very familiar with the soprano rapid-fire Spanish and thrown items. I decided to take after my father, and go for lack of drama instead… no regrets on that front, even if it did take a while to master.