IS IT PIZZA WEATHER YET?

Sometimes a ground-dwelling rodent wants a change of career. I mean, what qualifications do you need? And perhaps you weren't qualified to be a weather man. Weather rat. Predictor of winter and person who ruins lives. As per hatemail you're now getting from various horrible idiots in red states who say that because you gave them six more weeks of winter, which was so woke man, and they can't afford their fuel bill, they're going to blow up your burrow and make sure you never work is the climate industry again. They've seen you at the liquour store, and they know where your children go to school.

That love letter from the Californian overjoyed that those dingbats are going to suffer for six more weeks thank you thank you thank you is nice, but it doesn't quite balance out the hate from places like Tennessee and Michigan. Which are filled with idiots.
And let's not even mention Pennsylvania.

Bad apples aren't born.
They're made.

Perhaps you should have become a mortician, like your cousin Larry. Dead people seldom write hatemail. Larry got a bomb threat only once. He has a house now. Real living quarters.


You live in what is basically a hole in the ground.
You're mother is very disappointed!
Bad son!

It is baffling to me why East Coasters, like those people in Pennsylvania, are so convinced that a large rodent that doesn't even eat bananas can accurately predict the weather, and then act all depressed and suicidal when six more weeks are "predicted".
Like, their pizza isn't bad enough?

They will eat the crappy pizza and not doubt the meaning of existence or want to drink lye, not even a shred of regret, but the weather rat destroyed everything they lived for?
What, are they completely and staggeringly insane?



By the way, it's over sixty degrees Fahrenheit outside here. Do I wear shortsleeves, or just man up, and roll the sleeves up if needed? It's a quandary.



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LISTEN TO THE TALKING HEADS

Now that it's light earlier I no longer have to stumble over frozen corpses in the dark when having the first pipe smoke of the day. I can step around them like a civilized person. Or, if necessary, walk down the centre of the street avoiding the living dead flaked out along the sidewalk with needles in their arms, who in summer will be photogenic for tourists from the fly-overs. Who are prepared to be appalled.

This early in the day and the year there aren't very many middle-of-the-country tourists avidly snapping pictures to show the folks back in Honkpatoma what horrors they witnessed in San Francisco among the drug-addicted liberals from Venezuela.


But this week we have more people in town. I've already seen the first few pods of very broad sportsfans visiting for the Superbowl waddling down streets gawking.
And I've had to cross the street to get around them.

Welcome, strangers. There's a Mickey Dees on Market Street. It might have what you're looking for. Which is what exactly? Water rodent gumbo? Lutefisk and grits?

There are also a few places with watery coffee if you want that.
Ignore the immigrant commies selling drugs.

Seeing as the New York Post and Fox News have over the last decade painted San Francisco as something out of Dante's Inferno, and we now have travellers from the rest of America fully prepped to see the depths of subhuman misery on the streets here and be deliciously shocked and horrified -- there are no foreign radicals with vials of fentanyl or kidnapping white teenagers where they came from -- we might as well embrace that. Let them know that alien sin, politics, and drugs are rife here. The coffee is too strong, there's no bacon on anything, and I swear there's idolatry and devil worship going on in every other alleyway. The streets are paved with garbage. Sourdough and soymilk everywhere!
Oh, the horror the horror!

Thank you for visiting.

Now go home.



First pipe of the day was very nice. Aged red Virginia and a little Turkish in a Peterson stamped "made in London". Their London establishment closed down in 1969, so it was manufactured over half a century ago. Obviously before I was a smoker.
I found it new, at a very good price, and promptly jumped on it. I have to wonder about the man or woman who went on a trip, bought a pipe as a memento, and never got around to smoking it. It's a classic piece, straight billiard military mount, smooth finish.
It's quite a groovy smoker.

Sadly, there were no fozen corpses with needles in their arms.
Maybe the idiots at Fox weren't telling the truth.
But please keep on watching.



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SOMETHING NASTY IN THE DISTANCE

Like many people I am fascinated by repulsive things: pineapple on pizza, drunken fratboys, exudates of several different kinds, tourists from the fly-overs, junk food, and diseases. You will often find us outside hospital emergency rooms, abattoirs, and restaurant garbage.
Or grammar schools, which are notorious hotbeds of loathsomeness.

Actually, if I really were so entranced by such stuff, I should eat salad more often and then gaze at my teeth in the mirror. And pineapple on pizza is sometimes splendid. Truly.

So let's not talk about the president and his confidants.


A few recent news articles have mentioned a disease in the tropics with an enormous fatality rate when it infects humanss. Which is mostly found among about half a dozen species of tropical fruitbats, though that might be an underestimate. Pigs are quite possibly also subject to it. A nurse in Bengal who caught the disease from a patient is still in a coma because of it.
There have been dozens of human deaths in three decades.

Nipah virus.

The primary host animal is the flying fox.
There is no vaccine yet.

Symptoms among humans are respiratory and encephalitic. Fatality is very likely. Recovery is often accompanied by neurological and personality changes, plus convulsive fits.

The most recent outbreak happened in West Bengal, this year.


While eating a late lunch I rolled what I had read about Nipah virus over in my mind. My meal was actually quite enjoyable, ma po tofu (麻婆豆腐 "pockmarked auntie soy bean curd") at a local chachanteng (茶餐廳 "tea dining hall"), with two hot beverages over which I dawdled.
Nipah virus is called 立百病毒 ('lap paak beng duk') or 尼帕病毒 ('nei paak ben duk').

So far no cases have been reported in China.
But it's on the radar.



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LET'S SPIN THIS!

Thanks to a public defender (attorney for a civic entity), I visited a Reddit stream where people were discussing our dear leader performing an act usually not considered, strictly speaking, political. Or normal. No, I am not talking about the well-founded allegations that he had congress with underage and unwilling persons of a different gender (it would have been equally reprehensible if they had been the same gender, whatever that is, if it had happened, which the highest government agencies and functionaries angrily dispute). But the purported fact that the president in a dignified manner very presidentially released control of his bowels at a presser recently, necessitating the temporary clearing of the oval office of all willing and enthusiastic witnesses and random fake news reporters honoured to be there.

Let us immediately squash ALL rumours that whatever he did was involuntary. The president ALWAYS knows exactly what he's doing, it's kind of like three dimensional chess.
Intentful. Brilliant. Huge.

It was, of course, an enormous succes.

It proves, diplomatically but forcefully, that we are better than the Europeans.

A key phrase stands out from a Wikipedia article which I read this morning: "Management may be achieved through an individualized mix of dietary, pharmacologic, and surgical measures.

Our president and his extremely talented team of serious professionals taking care of the nation are all about 'management', and additionally have great expertise in dietary and pharmacologic skill sets. They can think outside the box.

Especially if this becomes more common.

Meanwhile, the criminal Democrats, in an attempt to distract the public from any presidential victories like this stupendous clearing of the lower intestinal tract, just natter on about lists and ice, and keep dropping torpid lizards from palm trees in Florida! It'so unfair!

Iguanas are a great national resource. In order to safeguard iguanas, the United States must have control of Greenland. Will no one think about the children?

It's because of Obama and Biden.

A grand ballroom!



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FELLOW FEELINGS FOR THE FROZEN

If you fry the chopped meatballs with oily chilipaste and add plenty of hot sauce for the gravy, that meatball sandwich is a balanced meal; there's plenty of vegetable in it. Heck, it's good for you. Sound nutrition is very important. I also added some chopped ginger.

In solidarity with my fellow American's in the snow belt (everything from Reno to Greenland), I ate what I had, rather than putting on my parka and mukluks for the long trek to the corner store for a box of microwave pizza.

My friend Mordechai, a New Yorker living in New Jersey, had a meal so good it made him openly weep. Here's a partial quote: Butternut Squash Carpaccio, Dubai shake, lemonana, mushroom ravioli, linguini pomodoro, tiramisu. He probably had a triple espresso after all that, because he's a major coffee head.


It was low twenties during the day where he lives. We had low sixties.
We ponced around wearing our brilliant beachwear.
And sang happy songs.

There are upsides to not living in New Jersey.

Still, I'm slightly jealous.

He went out for lunch, obviously quite uncaring about snowmageddon.

In some parts of the country the snowpocalypse has brought normal life to a standstill. There's ice on the breakfast grits, ohmahgerd! the pipes are frozen, the minnesota hotdish is solid, I can't find my car, there's a mailcarrier's frozen corpse on the lawn, the shelves at the liquour store are entirely bare, they've boarded up the piggly wiggly, we're going to starve.
Not in New Jersey. They're used to a bit of cold. They'll simply wear undergarments.

And did I already mention the balmy low sixties in the Bay Area?

Such colourful beach clothing, festive!



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RABBIT RABBIT FEBRUARY 2026

Rabbit rabbit. It's good luck to say that first thing in the morning on the first day of the month. I do not know why this is so. Had I been in charge of handing out superstitions, it would have been "meatball meatball", because everyone loves meatballs.

In recent weeks I've seen several short videos from a gentleman who adopted a wild coyote because he believed it was a homeless puppy. These are rather entertaining, because the canine has gradually learned how to interact with his dog, cat, and wife, all of whom can snap, growl, and defend themselves.

Good thing he didn't have a family rabbit. Or other small fluffy critters.

That coyote actually seems quite nice. But a bit feisty. And it has teeth.

If there ever were pet hamsters and gerbils (or even rabbits) there, there aren't anymore,and in any case we'll probably never know.

Imaginary conversation: "Son, sometimes sacrifices have to be made."


That coyote has personality!

See, in this instance I count myself lucky that I do not have a cat, dog, or even hamsters or gerbils. If the opportunity presented itself I could adopt a wild coyote with no problems.

In later videos that coyote no longer has a lean and hungry look.
It seems happy and it's coat is glossy now.


Rabbit rabbit.



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DO YOU SMELL THAT? DO YOU SMELL THAT?

My apartment mate is convinced that our landlady is on the spectrum. She herself is on the spectrum oh boy bigtime, and I'm convinced that the old lady in the front apartment is also on the spectrum. Which makes me the only normal person building, and I've got some bad news for me. Which I'm not going to like one bit.

A few weeks ago when I made a Monty Python reference it was explained to me that many people born in this century just wouldn't get it. The bookseller, my apartment mate, and the landlady would. Spectrum and age.

[I've had several rewarding and informative conversations with people which where little more that extensive Monty Python quotes.]


A coworker significantly younger than mysef compared me to Grampa Simpson. Which means that next week when I see him again I shall have on onion tied to my belt.
Just because. The little snot.


A good place to start the long journey to becoming like me is the Monty Python Cheese Shop Sketch. Which will additionally introduce you to the terpsichorean muse and familiarize you with several different fine fromages. Assuming that you want to become like me.
Which perhaps you should. It's a hip and with-it gestalt.

Cheese was mentioned an awful lot at work recently. Delicious artery clogging heart-stopping cheese. Parmegiano Reggiano, twenty year old cheddar, New York Sharp, Edam, Gouda, Ilchester, Stilton, and various stinky Frenches.

Partly this may have been due to a fresh bag of snacks, crispy-crunchy, that were cheesy and delicious, but I like to think that it was mostly because of an inherent caseophilic tendency instinctive in many people.


Cheese-love is a natural and beautiful thing.

It humanizes the French.



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ALL DANCING OUTSIDE

All things considered, it could be warmer. Having gotten up before five o'clock and made the first cup of coffee, I stepped outside briefly and realized that although by the standards of Boston or the Great Plains it was positively tropical out there -- no snow drifts for the thousandth plus day in a row but who is counting -- it wasn't actually warm.
Not really tee-shirt weather.

In the good old days fifty degree weather was a good excuse to smoke the first pipe of the day indoors. Good thing it's not raining. I guess modern society, with its neurotic insistence that we step outside and enjoy a brisk walk and fresh air is healthier. It probably keeps our generation fit and militarily trim. Gosh darn I feel vigorous. Circulation going, alongside the smoldering bowl of red Virginia with a touch of Turkish and Perique, oh golly yes!

Actually there is no real need to get up so early or arrive at work an hour and a half before start-time, but I seriously hate rushing. It leads to mistakes and dropped stitches.
Dropped stitches are hard to pick up.

Plus I enjoy the quiet.


In theory I could make use of that time to dance a bit on the table tops with a lamp shade over my head, as was common during the fifties and sixties, but what I actually do is set some tea, turn on the machines, and get ready for work. Before anyone else gets there prattling and stumbling, and gets in the way.

Did people ever actually dance on table tops with lamp shades, or is that just a story? A fond idea of possibilities in an ideal world? It would presume that tables were stronger, and people had a better sense of physical coordination and balance than they do. Also, no glass areas within falling distance that they might crash into. Nothing breakable. So no computers or office equipment, no crockery or stacks of plates, no non-child safe drinking vessels or bottles. A version of the stone age, but with more plastic and rubber.

I note, by the way, that many coffee tables are glass topped.
Obviously not entended for dancing upon.


Also, pipesmokers in mid-burn do not dance. We glide serenely from ashtray to ashtray.
Like birds of prey. Graceful and harmonious. Contemplative.
I haven't danced in several years.


My lamp shades are not suitable for wearing.
So it wouldn't happen in any case.



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NEVER ON SUNDAYS

Looking over the memories from ages ago that Facebook thinks I need to revisit, I am struck by my own irredeemable nastiness. I am not a nice person, not family friendly, and excessively mean-spirited. Good lord, I could be a Christian!

Either that or I live in San Francisco.

Oh, wait.....


Item one (over a decade ago): Trying to flag down a cab at 2PM, I realize that most 20 somethings are scum who do not deserve to live. You guys are scum. Utter scum. You parents probably hate you also. Please die.
You are worthless pieces of garbage.

Item two (over a decade ago): Comment overheard on the bus: "you can tell a lot about a person by their underwear".

Item three (barely a decade ago): 1:20 AM: young Chinese woman with highheels, miniskirt, and Saturday night special, walking her squire down the street backwards. Will this end well?

Item four (pre-pandemic): Phone call from a sales centre in India offering me a stupendous deal on Viagra and Cialis, which they were certain I had been taking for a long time. Aside from not ever having used those substances, you can imagine how damned uncomfortable I made the gentleman on the other end of the line. Just because I have a land line does NOT mean I'm an alter kacker with limp dangle issues.

Item five (post-pandemic): An idea so bad it deserves to be made: Indiana Jones enlists the students of Hogwarts to fight Orcs.


A friend who lives in Israel has a nice calm life, with nothing exciting, ever. The closest he's come to any of this is that two mystics dropped by for dinner, per Facebook. Another friend, sometimes in New York, sometimes in New Jersey, has run out of good coffee beans. See, there can be excitement and interesting stuff happening without drunken taxi rides, underwear, guns, erectile function or dysfunction (your choice), or Harry Potter.

Well, maybe not the underwear. Wearing underwear is kind of necessary, as it prevents chafing, and provides an extra layer of protection in case you ride taxis or run into guns, erectiles, and Harry Potter.

I am certain, 100% percent, without a shred of evidence, that both of those friends wear underwear. Often. Probably regularly. And no I'm not going to ask them.

When I was a lad, my mother would tell me that clean underwear was very important in case I ended up at the emergency room. Which was a lecture many people received as children. It was probably the essence of proper parenting back in the day to warn kids to stay away from emergency rooms if they weren't spotless. The take-away is that you do not deserve medical attention otherwise. And, consequently, there may have been thousands, millions, of young people running around scrupulously avoiding anyone in hospital scrubs because somehow the nurse or technician knew that they hadn't been as protestant in their ablutions as both ironclad neurosis and the law absolutely required.
Deathly scared of ambulances too.

Correspondingly there were also fewer taxis, young Chinese women, and bad movies.


Nowadays we know that bad underwear is alright too.
Evil ruffles, daemonic lace, clips and straps.
The road to hell is paved with it.
Oh, the naughtiness.


It is to be hoped that the fellow being frogmarched backwards by the young Chinese woman (with highheels and a miniskirt) had, anticipatorily, put on his best underwear.
The stuff he usually wore on Sundays.



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I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE

He had seen her last week in Hawaii, and he was extremely surprised to now see her at the counter ordering a cake. She didn't come down to Chinatown very often, whenever he went to Hawaii she picked him up at the airport. She had a condo over there. But she didn't live in Hawaii all the time. They were old friends. Classmates. He didn't go further into the subject, and the other gentlemen may have realized he shouldn't ask anymore. The third gentlemen was distracted by his new phone. The algorithm kept giving him Maga crap, how did he prevent that?

Apparently, and I'm mentally filing this for possible future use, you need to log into your own youtube account. That way your preferences come up more often. And seeing as I myself never use my cellphone for internet browsing, or anything, really, that may not be quite as useful as it otherwise could have been.

The only thing my cellphone gets used for is barking brusquely in Cantonese. Wai! Nei hai pin go? Nei dim gaai koh ngo? 喂，你係邊個，點解你𠹭我？Hey, who are you, why are you calling me? Because, you see, I never take the accursed device out of the house and it's always spam. Often with an Indian at the other end if a live human being comes on. Which given that they don't recogize the language is rare, it usually hangs up before then.

I am not Indian. I am not Chinese. I am a Dutch American with a bad attitude.
And I enjoy frustrating AI and subcontinental pork.

In case you didn't realize it, I am adept at hanging up mid-sentence. Neither the bookseller nor my apartment mate, or many other friends, habitually carry their cell phones with them, and if we need to communicate with someone further away than the next room, e-mail or insta-message is best. Texting is a total waste of time.

People do send texts to my phone. I look at them days or weeks later, and do not recognize any of those people, also my name is not Martha or Ralph or Kevin. And I'm not bringing the Walters file this morning or any other morning.


I am so glad I missed your call.



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MMM, PROTEIN!

At one of the stores on my route today there are three juvenile cats. Almost full grown. Lazy. And unbearably lovable. Naturally I stopped to pet them. Twice. They were lying in the bins for plastic bags of some dried product which I cannot remember. Whereas their eyes, colouration, and the feel of their soft fur is still crisp and sharp in my mind.

Seeing as I like animals you can only imagine what my feed is like.
Crows. Raccoons. Foxes. Plust capybaras, coyotes, and rats.


The mountain lion which was roaming through another area of the city a few days ago, was, fortunately, not in my neighborhood. Pssp, pssp, pssp, does extra large puddy tat want scritchies? Come to papa! Wuzza, wuzza, wuzza!

Yeah, um, that might not have gone well.


It's hard to calculate where nice scritchy-witchy human ends and dinner begins.
Especially when the feline in question isn't habituated to humans.
We are, must not forget, ambulatory protein.

Probably taste just like fish.

The little girl and her dad were at the long table when I got to the bakery. She waved hello after her dad told her to, then returned to her electronic device. Which seems to be in English. He and I spoke Chinese. Many Chinatown kids start life in Chinese, and by the time school comes around switch to English. Sometimes second year of kindergarten. While that means that their relatives end up more able in English -- got to communicate effectively with the little creatures -- it also means that the children's abilities in Cantonese are not quite up to par. Leastways, they aren't that comfortable with it. Maybe it's because all of them have an elderly relative who only speaks Chinese, smells a bit of camphor and menthol sore muscle lotion, and has dried things hanging from the ceiling in their cramped Chinatown quarters. Fish, vegetables, and what the heck is that thing with eyes?

You will be pleased to know that while I do indeed have dried foods in my apartment, they aren't hanging anywhere, aren't staring right at you, and have plastic bags. And I threw out the laap yiuk (臘肉) from a few years ago; it was probably past its prime. The duck liver sausage (膶腸 'yuen cheung') is in the refrigerator, and was acquired more recently.



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THOSE THINGS, YOU KNOW, THINGS

While watching a video of a social celebration in which younger people, probably Spanish judging by the music, were dancing together without touching each other, I became aware of the various different ways people carry their breasts. Some women push them forward, aggressively, like a statement, while others seem almost apologetic that those are there. A number of them are conscious of them, almost regretful. As if they fear that they might be crippled by them. Others are baffled; what do I do with these things? Almost like people wondering what to do with their hands, but with double the quandary.

Meanwhile, there's that fast thumpy music informing their constant movement.


I suspect many pipe smokers experience something similar during the first few years, as they figure out how to be themselves despite having a wooden object defining their face and their presence. Where do I put it, how do I hold it, are people looking at it, why do I feel the eyes of the world upon me? Do I look like a silly person?

It's been years since I felt that way. Decades. One can't smoke in public anymore, and social gatherings these days aren't marked by the exquisite fragrance of your tobacco choice OR the brand of cigarette that expresses your unique individuality and adventurous spirit -- and that suave air that says you're a man or woman of the world and know the finer things -- but by something else, almost indefinable, such as your piercings, tattoos, and personal choice of body wash.

At meetings of the local pipe club the preening is rather subdued. Most of us do not have extroverted 'look-at-me' briars, almost none of us huff aromatics which make curvaceous women fall at our knees exclaiming that they LOVE the aroma of our pipe tobacco such as happened in advertising illustrations during the nineteen seventies, and not a single one of us have a Hugh Heffner thing going on. And by now most of us have figured out how to hold it in our mouths or hands so that it's enjoyable but not in the way. We are not conscious of people looking at us. Or being silly.


For some reason none of us have breasts. Or man-boobs.

Which is sad, because the presence of women would definitely add something, and as so few women smoke pipes most of us would be charmed by it. Possibly one or two would go home after the meeting and casually mention to their wives that they'd look quite splendid with a pipe here's a lovely old Dunhill group three billiard with a bruyere finish suitable for some nice soft luxurious flake precisely like Sir Bertrand Russell smoked ooh sexy! Albert Einstein preferred mostly virginia tobaccos with a mild slightly fruity top dressing.
And Gerald Ford smoked plain simply topped drugstore burley blends.
William Faulkner was a medium-full English-Balkan man.
As you would expect.


I imagine that many women take the simplest way out. They borrow their husband, boyfriend, or girlfriend's briar, maybe when he won't be home for a few hours, snag some of his tobacco from an open tin, then sit on the back porch with a cup of coffee enjoying the sunlight and a mystery novel. A few of them probably live alone with smoking equipment from a relative who quit years ago and a supply of tobaccos from the internet (probably Rattrays or Peterson's old Dunhill blends) and light up when they need to really go through that chapter on ommatidia and photo receptor cells.

Which is really a very great pity. We would like to have them over.
I'd love to hear about ommatidia and photo receptor cells.
Not surprisingly I'm fascinated by abstruse subjects.



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UNSEEN THINGS

It's raining now. Slight rain, more apathy made moist than anything else. The predictions are one tenth of an inch or something like that. Nothing to pop the champagne over. Earlier when having a smoke after dinner it had started while I was spying on the rats in the park. It did not disturb me or them. The leaves overhead shielded me, the shrubbery in which they scurried about must have kept them dry. Droplets. Inconsequential. Not as cold as it was over the weekend, when upon arriving home I noticed that my apartment mate had already gone to bed. She claimed it was the cold that made her do that, I suspect that she simply likes the company of her stuffed creatures, who are rambunctious and sharp-tongued toward each other.

It is not cold enough at present to force me into my own bed. I too have stuffed creatures. Including Norman, a hedgehog. And various frogs, in addition to a skunk (Irmgard), a raccoon (Gunther), and Prendergast.


Lunch had been something listed on the white board: bitter melon and fish slices with sauce over rice stick noodles (苦瓜魚片濕河粉 'fu gwaa yü pin sap ho fan') which was absolutely delicious. The waitress was suprised that I ate fu gwa, which I can understand, as many white people and little children largely loathe it. It's one of my favourite vegetables.
Great with fish or fatty pork and chilipaste.

The bookseller and I passed by the karaoke joint and a street preacher on the way to the burger place. Bear in mind, no one listens to barkers or street preachers except ironically.
It takes a degree of utter goobusness to shout about crucifixion on a dark street at night when its raining. Perhaps he lost a bet? Maybe his homies were taping him?

Hello to Tat Yee at the bar, where he had been for several hours already. Two cups of hot tea, one while the bookseller had Guiness, one during his shot of Jameson. Curling on teevee, for which the sportscommentators ideally should be The Swedish Chef and Groundskeeper Willy. I would follow it avidly throughout the year if that were so.
Everyone would. So it needs to happen.


There was a young lady sitting much further back in the bus with that type of ivory skin Northerners often have. From that distance I could not tell whether she had pouty lips or kissy cheeks. Probably not, because there wasn't a cluster of men melting around her. But the skin hue was clear and obvious, and quite interesting. I do not think that the bookseller noticed. If he had, I would have reminded him of Ayumu Kasuga (春日歩 'chuen yat pou') from Azumanga Daioh, called 'miss Osaka' by Chiyo Mihama.
Seen below smoking some Rattray's Marlin Flake.

At least, I assume she enjoyes Marlin Flake. Or possibly Capstan. Which means that the handsome Charatan pipe she is holding has to be pre-Lane, because the later Charatans were all so darn large. Much too extroverted, as if advertising a deficiency.

I have several Charatans that are of a sensible size.

One seldom (never) sees women smoking pipes in this city. I suspect that they do that in private so as not to startle the horses or the elderly. Discreet, diplomatic.



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IT'S PROBABLY THE DUTCH

Reading the Dutch news sites is always instructive, especially when they're discussing stuff that happens in the United States. Apparently those Dutch are now calling our beloved Vice President, J. D. Vance, who regrettably hasn't a drop of Dutch blood -- or any blood -- the "second bitch". How insulting and disrespectful for that baboon! I am utterly offended!
That's "Vice President Second Bitch" to you, mynheer!

The intercoursing nerve of those kaaskoppen!

And naturally that makes either Mike Johnson OR Stephen Miller the "third bitch". With their official titles. "Cringing House Speaker Third Bitch Mike Johnson" or "Secretary of Evil Third Bitch Stephen Miller". Respect, please!


Bear in mind that they're using English terms in some of their Dutch texts. This is to make sure that slow Americans will get the drift. They're good that way. And while there is definitely a Netherlandish word for 'bitch', it doesn't have the same flavour. Teef is just bland.
Tweede Teef means nothing. Unless you're breeding dogs.

The Dutch word for Texas is quite neutral. We have many words which start with 'sch'.
Not surprising, given how close Dutch and German sometimes are.

In other North America related matters, Raw Story reports that our beloved Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been more or less covering up the deaths of migrants in its detention facilities which do not at all resemble gulags or concentration camps. This is undoubtedly to protect us innocent Americans from facing the harsh realities of life.
Under our First Bitch, Second Bitch, and Third Bitch.


"I am not surprised that ICE, in addition to lying about its murders and leading smear campaigns against its victims, is also under-reporting deaths in its custody."
------ Robert Garcia, House Oversight Committee


For all we know, there may have been hundreds of deaths, but we'll very likely never know. Years from now we may discover mass graves, probably in Texas, which we will ascribe to space aliens, mercifully zapped by lord Jesus with death rays so that we were unharmed.
Because our government said so. And we can believe them.


In any case, Greg Bovino, Tom Homan, and Kristi Noem, as well as Gregg Abbott, will have been pardoned by the president, so whatever happened is immaterial.

A dead issue.



NAWOORD

Geraldo Lunas Campos died in ICE custody on Jan. 3 at Camp East Montana, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Several detainees at a Texas immigration detention facility claim in sworn court declarations that they heard a Cuban immigrant, whose death was later ruled a homicide, pleading for medication shortly before hearing what sounded like guards slamming him to the ground.

He is the third detainee to die at the detention center since it opened last year as a tent facility on the grounds of the Fort Bliss Army base outside El Paso.

Cuban immigrant's death at ICE facility ruled a homicide, autopsy report says: In an autopsy report released last week, the El Paso County deputy medical examiner determined that Campos died from "asphyxia due to neck and torso compression."

Quoted from ABC News.




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WANDERING INTO THE PERVERT APARTMENTS

There are times when the gay young blade strolls into the darker side of town, down near the rail road tracks, where sailors and loose women throng, lurking in the shadows and shaking their curvaceous legs. "Come on, big boy" they whisper, "I've had my shots, I am no longer infectious". They reek of cheap perfume.

This blogger, as a pipe smoker, likes to read about old tobacco blends that were common at drugstores and establishments that also sold liquour, chewing gum, and notions. In addition to the cheap perfume favoured by sailors and loose women.

Things like 'Maple Pinstripe', 'Rum Floozy', and 'Prince of Welsh'. Vanilla, chocolate, caramel, and a faint hint of lavender to suggest refinement. On a base of heavy Cavendish-treated leaf and steamed and toasted burley, made milder and easier by that processing.


There's yellow crime tape stretching around that entire corner. A man in a cheap business suit smeared with lipstick is sitting with his back against the wall, mouth slightly open, drooling. His eyes look vacant. Like a stockbroker.

It is unclear whether the person who engaged him, provided certain key services, and took payment, was a nautical person or a beatnik chick. Smoking imported cigarettes. Drenched in cologne. The entire intersection reeks. Fermentive, alcohol based, intoxicating.

At present I am looking at a container with an old codger blend in the newest iteration of the blender's art. Decades ago Middleton, then already a division of R.J.Reynolds, acquired the rights to Royal Comfort and added it to their portfolio of offerings for the discerning smoker.
A few years later a match blend was created for the by then discontinued product. Then the vikings raped, pillaged, and conquered, leaving many elderly pipe smokers bereft, hunkered down and beaten in a blasted landscape, without the products that they had relied on for their humble joy since Noah landed the Ark. The match blend was no longer made.

In the past year, Arango purchased the name, and tasked another company which does not wish to take responsibility with duplicating it. A few days ago I bought a tin, having fondly recognized it as a renewed version of the corner-stone of existence.

It's a cloying "European style cavendish". Brown, black, and a touch of blonde Virginia. Extremely mild and smooth. Vanilla, chocolate, and perhaps a hint of caramel. I've smoked a few bowls with great enjoyment. Little tobacco flavour or punch, and the added perfumes do not particularly impact the taste when one smokes it. It is, in a word, the perfect tobacco for tormenting Hector when I work with him again, as I love his reaction when he notices what I'm doing. His little face scrunches up in anguish and he wails, heart-broken, "why are you doing this to me?!?" His misery is palpable, audible, operatic.
He hates aromatics. Passionately.
Delicious.

This is a product which many old codgers on the pipe forums missed. Several of them have said that the best way of starting the day was with a cup of black coffee and a pipe filled with Royal Comfort.

Like many aromatics it is overly moist, damned well drenched, there is a faint chemical whiff to it, and it should not be smoked by educated people. It appeals to risk-taking teenagers, wanton women, and ex-Marines, plus other dubious types. It may take me very little time to go through this tin, I'll probably have to order more in a month of two.
I look forward to torturing people.


Perhaps I should drink my coffee black like a psychopath.



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THERE ARE MANY OTHER WORDS

Per Greg Bovino, there will be consequences for using terms like "gestapo", and "kidnapping" for actions that ICE takes. So henceforth I will not use those terms. Furthermore, he says that the name of the thug(s) who shot ten bullets into Alex Pretti will never be released. So effectively we have a secret police very much like the Gestapo, Stasi, or Cheka, but NOT actually "gestapo", just a kinder, gentler, and more red-blooded American Stasi and Cheka, operating on the streets of America, who can bust down doors, and shoot people at will.

Which is something we have always wished for. We looked at places like East Germany and Stalinist Russia for decades with envy. "Oh", we exclaimed, "if ONLY we had a gang of badly trained schoolyard bullies to terrorize people we don't like, such as for instance Anne Frank or Kurt Weil, even Albert Einstein, so that we could feel like our collective testicles were even half that size!"

Well, now that big tough he-men like Bovino, Noem, and Patel have stepped in, we do.
Truly we are blessed. Praise Jesus.


Terrible things happened during this past weekend.
It snowed on an important football match.
And it was Burns Night.

Plus Kyle Rittenhouse is horribly upset that people are using him for rage-bait (again).
Kyle is the gift that keeps on giving, why won't we just realize that?

Well, admittedly he's like that haggis you dumped in the trash after midnight and all of your drunken friends had left, but he's certifiably an all-American boy, and therefore manifestly chosen. An example to all of you horrid, HORRID! gay black communists. If ONLY you could be like him. Or like Greg Bovino, a man of stature and importance and whititude.
Who is NOT head of the gestapo OR a child kidnapper.

Those ethnic kids somehow instinctively recognized the goodness of those uniformed men, and willingly, almost lovingly, walked into their arms. It was the goodness of Christ that magically motivated them.


Also, J. D. Vance wishes that we would all co-operate with ICE, so that all-Americans like them can eat in peace in local restaurants or pee in gas stations. Why are we so cruel?


And there is no climate change. Snow in Texas proves that.

A handful of Republicans may be developing spines.



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FOND THOUGHTS ABOUT BURNS NIGHT

Last night was Burn's Night, which is an opportunity for people to celebrate bad poetry, get drunk, and clog-dance for Jesus while wearing no underpants underneath scratchy woolen skirts. For men a particular problem, because their delicate parts are not used to hard fibres irritating the flesh, unless they're religious penitents with a hair shirt thing going on. Which simply illustrates that many North Americans of European descent are a bit goofy. I mean, if you want to punish the flesh, why don't you simply eat standard white folks food? No flavour, no spices, and a vast array of repulsive textures ..... Oh wait, that explains both lutefisk and haggis. Plus Detroit pizza, but that stands no chance of ever becoming widespread.

Lutefisk and haggis, on the other hand ..... As good an excuse to get blotto as any.
You might want to make it last, because there will be left-overs.

As a Dutch American, I am certainly open to culinary practical jokes, because our entire cuisine is basically founded upon that. Or has names which indicate that the person in the kitchen was high as a kite or stark raving mad. Rather like the English with some of their dishes. In mediaeval times it lightened the burden of dried fish, salt pork jerky, fermented cabbage, and coarse ground groat porridge. But please understand that since then we got our hands on things like nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, and above all sambal, and we've never been the same.

Whereas Scotland and Iowa doubled up on severe culinary horror.

A better argument for there being Wisdom In The East is that China, India, and Japan have no version of haggis. Perhaps Tibet does -- apparently they thrive on boiled tealeaves and rancid butter poured into a goat hair bag (shag in the inside) shaken until frothy there -- but the vindaloo version of haggis was invented by Scots-Irish in Manchester, the healthy matcha or apple cider vinegar and tofu version hails from Berkeley, and the unbelievably popular vegan haggis are all white folks inventions. Typical.


Perhaps haggis needs to be aged. Like cigars, wine, and cheese. It's a Scottish answer to casu marzu. If you need to take a day off for your digestion to get back in order, we'll understand. We'll plan an intervention while you're gone.

I have not touched haggis in years.
Deservedly.



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TUMULT

In Minneapolis, Alex Pretti went to the assistance of a woman thrown on the ground by an ICE agent. Which resulted in him being peppersprayed and shoved to the ground, assaulted by a mob of ICE, and then being shot with at least ten bullets. Whereupon the Trump gang went into full spin and put out numerous lies trying to make themselves look good.
In what is, no bones about it, an extrajudicial killing by hired thugs.

Fascist hacks, patsies and flunkies went public with lies flatly contradicted by witnesses and numerous videos. Noem, Patel, and rabid chihuahua Bovino spun themselves silly.
Backed by Putin's bitch Bonespur Boy and the cretins at Fox.

All of this cheered on by the bot army, of course.
As well as Kyle Rittenhouse.


Every single work day this week I've had a full house of senile Nazis baying in the backroom. A herd consisting of a few demented Jews, several vicious Goyim, and an insane sober Irishman who might be a Cro-Magnon or full Denisovian.
Plus a libertarian who lies and obfuscates.
When he's not sneering.


You know someting? I'm a saint. An effing saint.
I have not killed anyone yet.


I watched the videos. I saw a murder. It was the second ICE murder I've viewed. And I've heard the Republican talking points. There are several Republicans who deservedly feature on everybody's "Feed These Bastards To The Sharks" list.

It's a Venn Diagram with substantial overlap.
We know who they are, and where they are.

At this rate, it may be incredibly soon.



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