HOT REAL ESTATE

Yesterday evening while smoking my pipe I was surprised, and quite pleased, at the low temperature. Pleased, because anything over mid-sixties affects my legs. Which are horribly problematic to begin with. Which they didn't used to be. They used to be lovely. And fully functional. Miracles of locomotivity.

Once I walked from the Richmond district all the way back to Nob Hill through dense fog with no problem, after dark. It was lovely. My friend the bookseller still does stuff like that.
No sweat, man. Literally, no sweat.

Tuesday, after returning from the CT scan at the hospital (near The Pan Handle) it struck me that it actually wasn't a great distance away and two decades ago I would have walked the distance. Of course two decades ago my legs weren't clogged up and I wouldn't have needed the scan. Back then I wasn't really aware that there was a hospital there.

Anyhow, barely sixty degrees outside. It looks like summer in SF is over, and liveable weather has returned. The tourists can freeze again. In their shorts and tee-shirts optimistically put on before they left the hotel.

The last smoke of the day was in a lovely GBD Pedigree 1, shape 2006, got from Pauline at Drucquers many years ago. Aged Virginias, touch of condimentals. It was stellar. Perfectly early Autumnal in mood-effect. Better than a McClelland flake.
Sorry, that makes no sense to you, I know.

GOLDEN GATE PARK

Think of it being rather like a forest creature out for a walk after enjoying his afternoon tea. Comfortable coat, stout shoes, flappity scarf. A lovely bright day but not warmer than is nice. Butterflies. Bees. Praying mantids. Late summer cicadas, like sparkly jewels in the tall grass. The first fallen leaves. Somewhere there are otters splashing in a stream. The fragrance of food from nearby dens. Field mice with hoops and balls trot past, respectfully nodding.


For perspective, it's mid to high eighties on the Gulf of Mexico, getting stormy a few miles out. Marginally cooler in Hong Kong, with mild typhoon type weather, and quite rainy. And please note that Hong Kong is much more liveable. There are far fewer right wing yobbos and religious nuts, and there is infinitely better food.

For comparison, low eighties during the day in Amsterdam.
Decent restaurants, nothing particularly exciting.
Hardly a righ wing yobbo anywhere.
No religious nuts.



Cuisine and an absence of right wing yobbos and religious nuts are very important.
Much of the United States is a subdivision of hell in that regard.
Some places abound in fried crap and nutballs.
Grease and Magaites.



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TOFU IS ALL-AMERICAN!

After recent farm reports, one thing is clear: America's little cupcakes (women, wives) will have to learn to cook. Tofu. Specifically tofu. Reason being that the farmers in the Midwest overwhelmingly voted patriotically for the orange wanker and his tariffs to make America great again, and no one outside the United States now wants to buy our soybeans, of which we produce far too large a quantity for the domestic demand. China is now purchasing its soybeans from places like Venezuela (our enemy over since the Iron Curtain) and other countries in Latin America (who have hated us since time before Christ).

Sadly, because of lefties in Berkeley, most Americans believe tofu can only be prepared by deepfrying it to the plank stage in safflower oil, or whipping it up in a blender with wheatgrass. Not so!

Tofu is purely excellent with bacon and barbecue sauce! Just dust it with cornflour (of which we also produce an undesireable surfeit), gild it in hot lard, drain it, and sauce it in the pan with with some coarse cut bacon and a jigger of Bourbon (again, an undesireable surfeit), and gently stir in some barbecue sauce. And, if you are Texan, add Cholula hotsauce.
From an American company, headquartered in Maryland.
Add chopped green onion to garnish.

Please note that this method can be varied almost infinitely. Instead of bacon, ground beef, shrimp, or chicken can be used. A splash of corn liquour (your uncle Bubba) or soysauce (made from American excess soybeans) are also good additions.
If you have children, add corn syrup for appeal.

Tofu is also great for breakfast, fried up with crumbled Jimmy Dean Sausage and chopped green chilies in a satisfying hearty scramble! Or with bacon and cheese (there is a big Wisconsin mountain of the stuff) over your hashbrowns!

[Note: I can't believe I used two exclamation marks while mentioning breakfast. I never eat breakfast.
Coffee, tobacco, and doomscrolling are how I start the day. TWO exclamation marks! Two!]


Think about sliced pressed smoky tofu sandwiches.
Or air-fried like okra, very Southern.

Tofu would also be great with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, for Halloween.
Mary in Mississippi probably likes it with pumpkin.
She goes a bit nuts every Autumn.

And for Thanksgiving! As a casserole!
Midwestern style.


Don't get me started on tempeh.
Texans would jes' love that!

Exclamation marks!
All-American!



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AND THEIR CHILI IS LOUSY TOO

Adding fuel to my raging dislike of Texas, the Texas State University in San Marcos recently expelled students for protesting at worhipful events lamenting the death of Charlie Kirk. The students were African American, and Kirk was on record numerous times defending racism, even advocating for it. They had abundant reason to protest.

Well, Texas and Greg Abbott are both shitholes. So the university folks probably realized that if they hadn't done so funds would dry up and howling mobs would burn them to the ground.

By the way, rumour has it that folks in Texas have unclean pleasure with pigs.

I've heard the same about Utah and goats, so I'm not sure.

But it's quite likely.


In other news, Mississippi is where folks from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida go to lynch black people. Demartravion "Trey" Reed, 21, was found hanging from a tree Monday evening, and as you would expect the local police claimed there was nothing indicating foul play. Black men suspended from trees is not uncommon in Mississippi, one would imagine. Nothing to see here folks, just move along.

Yeah, you know, all of The South is a shithole.
It's not just Texas. And Gregg Abbott.
Cotton picken' nasty.

The border wall is on the wrong side. And Mexico should glue the gates shut. They have the where-with-all to do that, and they have no earthly reason to allow gringos from Texas in, spreading diseases and getting drunk and disorderly in public.

Arkansas and Oklahoma aren't that lucky.


There are too many Texans in California. We should expell the bastards, and slash the tires on their pick-up trucks so they can't come back. Everywhere there are Texans, there is stupidity, vandalism, and syphilis. Tell ya whut.

Goes double for Mississippians.



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NOT A DESI UNCLE

My apartment mate has been tasked with feeding and looking after the downstairs cat while our landlady is on a trip. She has developed a very good relationship with the animal. Which is a middle-aged tomcat. It is quite the best relationship with a male person in years.
Which proves that there's hope.

Ladies! I too am a middle-aged male!
And I regularly clean myself!


In all fairness, I should point out that many of the people I know are also middle-aged and male. And are reasonably cleanly, to the best of my knowledge.
So the competition is out there.


I also nap frequently. As I did this afternoon after returning from Chinatown. A little lie-down because my legs ached. During which I dreamed. Brushstrokes on a large canvas, sharp lines and sweeps of misty cerulean blue, plus faint pale pink in the distance.

It was considerably better than the dream involving a youngish female pipe collector from Uttar Pradesh connivingly trying to get black mail material at a pipe show.
Good lord. Horrible woman. Quite unethical.

Uttar Pradesh is Hindu Nationalist heartland, so I have scant interest in ever going there. Although as a foodie, Awadh is very much on my bucket list.
The nawabs had fabulous kitchens.



Fly in. Have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Warqi paratha, tunde kabab, galawati kabab, shab degh, sheermal, yogurt drink with mint and salt, dam bhindi, kaju ka katli.
Smoke a pipe, chai and makhan biscuits, fly out.



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INTO THE JUDGEMENTAL WOODS

A number of the people with whom I have to associate in Marin County have, at this point, gone full freaking fascist, damned well nazi, and are loathsome to be in the vicinity of. No, I'm not going to point that out to them. Entirely unironically they would castigate me for hurting their precious feelings, and probably try to report me to some government agency tasked with locking up liberals or burning people at the stake.

Fortunately their social media presence is limited to the dark side. They were on Facebook, but my list of Facebook blocks is now very large, and growing. I do not block at random.
I block people who have shown fascist, nazi, racist, religious, or rightwing tendencies. Anybody who supports MAGA has been blocked, or will be blocked.

Over a dozen people have been blocked pre-emptively.
Plus my FB security level is rather extreme.
An abundance of caution.


Like everyone I get friend requests from others with whom I share interests, some of which are subtly commercial in intent, many not. I will look at their profile, their various 'likes' and listed affiliations, and search for any comments they have made elsewhere. Sometimes this leads to blocking the bastard and their friends. And nowadays, very rarely an 'accept friend request' click. There are too many lions masquerading as Christians out there.

As a for instance, if you are a Christian fan of lord Of The Rings, who smokes aromatic shite out of a churchwarden pipe, and ever spoke appreciatively of ethnic cleansing, that prick in Florida, or the golfball whacking gobshite, there is no chance in hell that I ever wish to speak to you or hear what you have to say. That goes triple for fans of certain influencers, whether they are dead or not.

Dungeons and Dragons nimnoos grudgingly tolerated. Misquided smokers of aromatics too.
Biblical literalists probably not. Netanyahuistas, mmm, no.
Trumpites? Oh please, be real.


It's getting to the point that regular cigar smokers or people who buy certain male grooming products are automatically suspect. They're probably disgraceful persons and losers.


By the way: one artisan pipecarver who does absolutely splendid work is on the list, has been for a long time. His politicals points of view are nasty garbage.




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FREE OF GOO

They ought to make a law in this city that every drinking establishment should be able to make an Irish Coffee on a moment's notice, so that I can use the teabags I always have with me, because I do not drink. Didn't have a drop of tea all day. What is this world coming to?

Because of my late afternoon medical appointment I did not go to the usual place for a meal at teatime today. Whatever I eat there, there are always a cup of regular Chinese restaurant tea and a hot Hong Kong milk tea, so I'm usally wired to the eye-brows when I waltz out of there to light my pipe and wander about. I went there yesterday instead. Which I had told them was going to happen this week, but they were never-the-less surprised.
Because it was a hot day (mid seventies) my appetite faltered.
Naturally I'm blaming the Republicans.
Everything is their fault.


I'm still rather peeved at having been told that people like me are entirely what's wrong with this country. By people who want the plantation back, whether or not their family ever owned one, but because they're white they think they deserve one and J.D. Vance promised!
As far as I'm concerned, burn the damned place down.
Make Scarlett homeless again.
Bitch.


The beer place was crowded, the karaoke joint had an off-key white woman screeching out the little red corvette song and was packed, and the bail-out bar was closed, probably because Miss Vivian's replacement may have thought that it was next week.

After getting back from being scanned in the fog-belt, I took a shower to rinse the goo off my legs. Washing off goo makes you feel like a new man. I recommend it.

With freshly goo-free gams I headed out to smoke a pipe while waiting for the bookseller. At some point I mentioned goo. We discussed it. Water-based. They didn't stick me into a machine, as he thought they would have, but they gooed me up good.
As I understand it, the angioplasties will not require goo.
Though I like goo, I'm glad to hear that.


Please note that the correct term for goo is gel, which is applied liberally so that the scanning technician can easily slide the transducer around over the questionable areas.
Which in this case are crotch to foot, both sides.
Three joints, one ball socket.
Acetabulum.


While I was puffing, several locals went by, most of whom I recognized and greeted. Also groups of visitors to the city, some in high spirits from post-conference inebriation.
Loud fly-over yobbos.




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CAKED UP TO A FARE-THEE-WELL

The only exercise the thinking man gets is wandering around with his pipe because his apartment mate (a Cantonese American woman currently reading mystery novels in her bedroom) is a non-smoker, throwing stones at idols and tourists, and flame-throwering frat boys and rightwing trolls. Well, everything beyond the walk with a bowl of flue-cured leaf is, unfortunately, rare. Consequently after a few decades his veins and arteries might not be sufficiently well-functioning in his lower extremeties, and he might need angiograms of mentioned lower extremities to see how bad it is.

Which is what today is all about. In horrible weather such as we're presently having (roughly seventy degrees and scant breeze), the legs feel like right bitches. So I'm not looking forward to hiking over to the wastelands to my cardiologists office for this later. I shall bellyache.

My apartment mate called in sick today, went on the internet to see if constant pain was exhausting (turns out that it is), and went back to bed. Her pain is computer keypad and mouse related -- though I think that there is also a psychological element there because her job is rather awful and she works with younger people who are seemingly idiots -- whereas mine is the lower extremities. I am used to awful circumstances and near-idiots.

Piece of cake.

A doctor or medical student will look at the illustration above and go "I know what that is!", after which they might think of high-sugar content desserts and pastries, and retire to the hospital cafetaria for a cup of coffee and a smoke.

Naturally, instead of thinking about a cross-section of a vein or artery as examined under a microscope, I am thinking about strawberry shortcake, as one would, because the human body is a thing of beauty.

Endothelium (a single squamous cell layer) as the innermost part, surrounded by an elastic layer, enclosed entirely by the tunica media (sort of permeable and muscle-like) and ultimately the tunica externa.

Biscuit dough, fresh strawberries, whipped cream.
Great with chilled coffee on a hot day.


Sadly, one can no longer smoke in the cafetaria, because the vegan wheatgerm freaks have taken over (it's a miracle that they still have anything with gluten), but in the good old days when I would have kicked the bucket because heart attacks were inevitable, surgeons had favourite pipe shapes because having a puff while writing up reports for the file after surgery was a given. It all depended on how it hung in the mouth, and how the surgeon in question clenched his or her smoking equipment. We live in sad times.



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SEETHED CRUSTIES

At the recent pipe club meeting I had to mention certain crucial truths to a friend regarding cleaning up used pipes. Among others, do NOT erase or diminish the brand stamping, what had been a rather nice Dunhill is now merely a good bang-arounder and cannot be admired. Same for that sandblast which now has a smooth rim, the GBD with a lovely new stain job, and a few others. Also, unless the interior is thoroughly messed-up, 're-caking' with carbon goo, while perhaps aesthetically pleasing, is not necessary nor desireable.
Plus pâté is gob's gift to a Dutchman I saw it first bitch.

Actually, I believe I was the only one who actually saw it. I drank in its visual totality, and appreciated its gestalt. It was delicious. Yeah, okay, it looked like a log of supermarket Braunschweiger, and was unprepossessing, but pâté, man, good.

Bernard, Neil, and Joel were also there, Mike showed up briefly, and a few others.

Conversations were animated and pipes were smoked.
Shallow philosophical questions got discussed.
The world's problems weren't solved.


One of the pipes I had with me was a lovely squatty Comoy bent bulldog which a friend had given me nearly a year ago. I'm fortunate that a few of my friends recognize certain shapes as ones that I will cream in my scanty lace panties over and generously part with. Now get that image out of your head, it's unseemly. Think crows and blinky things instead.

It is uncertain, and actually not at all likely, that we're all on the same page regarding pâté, Italian meat products, or smoked fishy substances. But I think we can all agree on cheese. Just as we can all agree that certain aromatic tobacco mixtures are good gob almighty what is that ghastly dreck and why am I now thinking of tattooed and pierced gentlemen who live in their mom's basement outside in her yard smoking their extrovert cheap Danish freehands and reading Kierkegaard? Precisely like the goobers from Spinal Tap? Or making ten page long comments on the staggering imagery of Gandalf and Frodo, and speculating that Smaug was a pipe smoker too?

Boys, if Smaug was a pipesmoker, he favoured classic products like MM 965, Balkan Sobranie, or Marcovitch. Not that horrid fruity garbage that, apparently, Gandalf and Frodo liked. So in a way he's actually the hero of the tale. Very likely not a hoarder of gold, but a book collector. He's been horribly misrepresented. Tolkien was a criminal.


There was an entire bottle of wine left over, which will probably be sipped a little and used in cooking, because a pork stew with anchovies frazzled at the bottom of the pan then seethed with wine is very good. Great over rice stick noodles. I'm just saying. Garlic and ginger.

What's left of the pâté is breakfast.




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SAINT DINGO

In the aftermath of the crucifixion (accidental second amendment demise) of Saint Dingo recently, the fascist rightwing is excoriating all heretics and demanding that the new ten commandments be put up in schools and tattooed upon the foreskins of all citizens.

"It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
5 april 2023

"There's a direct connection to inflation and the trans issue. You say, Dingo, come on. They couldn't be further apart. No, they're exactly the same. They're the same in this aspect—when you believe that men can become women, why wouldn't you also believe that you could print wealth? If you believe that someone can change their gender, why wouldn't you also believe that money is wealth?"
13 April 2022

"Why has he not been bailed out? By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out."
31 October 2022

"You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
13 July 2023

"Joe Biden is a dementia filled, bumbling, Alzheimers, corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America."
24 July 2023

"Jewish donors have been the number one funding mechanism of radical, open border, neoliberal, quasi‑Marxist policies, cultural institutions, and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews... and it's not just the colleges; it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it."
26 October 2023

"The chapter before confirms god's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters."
11 June 2024

"Kamala Harris is wired to be repulsed by the name of God. She mocks God. Again, everything Democrats love, God hates. If you're a Christian that votes to the Democrat Party, you are voting for things that God hates."
22 October 2024


You say that's only eight? Doesn't matter, most red staters can't count.

Anyway, I have been spoken to quite firmly about disparaging this new religion even in the slightest, because people I work close to, around, or with, and several of the senile old farts in the vicinity, are true believers, unlike my own heathen self, and will be violently offended. Might even report me to the unofficial as yet non-governmental bodies in charge of tarring, feathering, and burning witches.


Amongst others, an African American, two non-gentiles, a Latino, and several gentlemen of the Anglo Saxon cultural persuasion, hold these truths to be self-evident. As well as a man of god, nearly half a dozen amateur fellow travelers of that ilk, and several perpetually angry Irish-Americans.

Far be it from me to ever tell them "go intercourse yourselves, all of you dumb-ass mouthfeelers of the male regenerative organ". Heaven forfend! I am tongue-tied.


His visage gazes down at us from above.
The right hand of judgement.
In loving kindness.
Gandhiesque.



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UNCLEAN

The first old geezers in the backroom today included two repulsives of the ultra-MAGA non-gentile variety. I mention this because they seemed disappointed that the rightwing had lost control of anti-Semitism, and no longer dominates the field. As far as I'm concerned they can have it back. And it really doesn't surprise me that they feel that way, mixed-up though it is, because they are absolute white surpremicists, like overwhelmingly most of MAGA, without a sense of irony. As far as African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians are concerned, they are absolutely on the same page as Christian Americans.
Same page, same paragraph, same line.

The whiny and arrogant retired judicial drooge, the self-made bald degenerate, and the fat and sober insane Irishman. Plus a bald shitdisturber. All of them loud regular irrational fascist presences. I'm surprised that the subcontinental puts up with them, seeing as they roundly abuse and insult him, but he's Punjabi and therefore quite nuts, so I'm not surprised.

Anyhow, in between talking smack about the Democrats and wishing them all dead or locked up for commie offenses they watched the ballgame. Which every fascist slimeturds's favourite team of men with large shiny gold spandex booties won.
As Cartman might say: "totally homo-erotic man".

Like many Republicans, they pooh-poohed the June 14th attacks.
Whereas September 10 was an assault on civilization!

One that, in their considered opinion, Democrats from the top down were complicit in, and we should all bear that as a mark of shame for all eternity.

It's an idea that permeates the Republican side.

It will be enshrined alongside their ignorance, bigotries, and vengefulness.



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BREAKFAST IS FOR LOSERS

My morning routine for many years has consisted of strong coffee, smoking my pipe, and diving into the news-cesspit on the internet. Food is not part of the programme. Maybe pastry or a cookie several hours after getting up. Consequently I am virtually untouched by the peculiar cereal products Americans favour, which were invented strictly to keep them from masturbating or committing unspeakable acts early in the day. Which, seeing as normal people do not have such appetites at that hour proves that Americans are depraved.
Possibly congenitally.

You people need the flaked sawdust sugar confections that keep you from doing disgusting things in the morning. We Dutch, whether colonially born or Netherlands based, are cleanminded and rational. Just coffee. I speak for myself. As the example.
Some others might need a dry crust with cheese pairing.

Many people in this country also need a plate piled high with fried food. They are desperately fighting their bestial natures, and believe that indigestive bloating will pull their reproductive organs out of their minds. The English are that obsessed that they will do all that and take cold showers too in attempts to not go all royal navy or public school boy on each other.

We Dutch have our jaundiced eye upon you. Not from voyeurism -- we're far from being peeping Toms -- but because we are keen to know what you'll do next.
We just scrubbed those floors, you know.

We worry.



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ENGAGE THRUSTERS!

Through some bureaucratic cock-up, there is now a big box underneath my bed, which after consulting with my personal care physician will undoubtedly end up in the trash. It contains equipment (large scale) for the collection of a sample. Which I had already taken care of six weeks ago. Large print multi-page instruction for use booklet. Plastic jars and equipment for anchoring in place. The company that manufactured this bio-hazard marvel does not seem to have considered the logistics of their pet dinosaur. Undoubtedly there are some people who when they receive it are overjoyed. How thrilling to have such a device! It appeals to their anal personalities! Joy!

It looks clean, sterile, and positively Soviet in inspiration.
Like using it ranks you as a hero of the proletariat.
All that's missing is a listening device.


Or something satelite-linked to show its location at any given moment.
Perhaps a google-maps microchip.

I wonder if I should donate the entire thing to a neighborhood garage sale benefitting the poor and downhearted. Or as a contribution to the Firemen's Holiday toy drive.
Workplace Secret Santa! It's better than a chia pet!

The picture above does not show any part of it. It is an illustration of a valley landscape with traces of mist in early evening. There are frogs there, and some crickets. Plus buzzing insects. It is very summery altogether. No Prussian devices in sight.

It is entirely untouched by Midwest (Iowa) fecal matter collection technology. As most of this planet must, inevitably, be. Because there are companies out there which have NOT overthought things to an intercoursing fair-thee-well.

Their manual advises me to seek help if, in the process of satisfying their demands, I have difficulty getting up. And to consult with my doctor if I have Crohn's disease, foaming haemorrhoids, or diarrhea. It's a mercy that they didn't use the term 'bloody flux'.


Gentlemen, how about this: If I do have dysentery or gastroentiritis, I shall use your damned box, jar, prongs, tongs, scraper, and scoop for mineral particles and organic matter and have UPS deliver it to your facility forthwith. Does UPS know what those return labels are for? Are you giving them hazard pay? Guaranteeing that their children will be taken care of and educated if, heaven forfend, something in the truck goes disastrously wrong and the authorities use flamethrowers to prevent entire neighborhoods being wiped out?



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MISERY AND FOOD GO TOGETHER

Yesterday after doomscrolling I headed out for a late lunch. Tat Yee was sitting at his usual table having an early dinner. A weepy drama in Mandarin set in far Northern China during the Japanese period was on the telly, and it struck me that it wasn't just the period clothing that marked verisimilitude. The distinctive lighting, characteristic of the place, did too.

The people looked almost Van Goghian in their poverty and unhappiness. We're on episode 31. That it's being shown so far into the series proves that it's immensely popular. Viewers love misery, provided it's historically far enough back in time that neither they nor their parents actually experienced it.

We segued into episode 32. Corrupt oficials. Prison.

So lunch (蝦球滑蛋飯 'haa kau waat daan faan') was exceptionally good. The milk tea was hot and fragrant. The pipe smoked afterwards divine. This customer was chuffed.

Remarkably, several other customers had claypot dishes for their meal. Which seems more of a cold rainy day thing to me. They weren't watching the teevee, and their choices may have been informed by the unseasonal non-heat of the day.

It usually around eighty degrees in San Francisco at this time of year.
Yesterday was low sixties at best. Quite bearable.
Perfect Chinese bacon weather.
臘味煲。

Unlike the previous day, when I had counted "future heart attacks of America" walking down the street, all of them Caucasian, there were no whales in sight. Which was good, because in all honesty one cannot hug the whales. One doesn't know where they've been, they could topple over and crush one, and my arms are too short for that in any case.
There were nearly forty of them. In less than two hours.

Yes, I'm judgemental about many things.
Tattoos too. I dislike them.
And tourists.


KINDLY NOTE TO RED STATE VISITORS

You are all ugly, you eat too much, and your mom dresses you funny.
Plus some of you shouldn't vote, because you're doing it wrong.
Many of you could bathe, and dress more modestly.
Welcome to California, now go home.

I had expected better.
Y'all failed.



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TRUMPTARDS

It might be worthwhile to contemplate what the right wing really thinks. Here's what 'spite twit' had to say about 'limp pickle' a few weeks ago: "I don’t ever want to hear 'limp pickle' claim he is pro-Trump ever again. After this weekend, I’d say he has revealed himself as political opportunist and I have had a front row seat to witness the mental gymnastics these last 10 years. Lately, 'pickle' has decided to behave like a charlatan, claiming to be pro-Trump one day while he stabs Trump in the back the next. 'Wank' was only able to thrive thanks to the generosity of President Trump."
[End quote]

Her reaction to his death is just crocodile histrionics.


Mehdi Hassan has some cogent data for the right wing asshats:

The man who targeted and killed Democratic state Rep Melissa Hortman was a Trump supporter.
The man who targeted the home of Dem Governor Josh Shapiro was a Trump supporter.
The men who wanted to hang Mike Pence on Jan 6th were Trump supporters.
The man who targeted and killed the son of Obama-appointed District Judge Esther Salas was a Trump supporter.
The man who tried to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and assaulted her husband was a Trump supporter.
The men who were convicted trying to kidnap Dem Governor Gretchen Whitmer were Trump supporters.
The man who sent pipe bombs to the homes of Obama and Biden was a Trump supporter.
[End cite]


The people who are now screaming for violence against the Democrats and "libtards" are ALL Trump supporters. As are the majority of the people who are now saying that the Mossad was behind it. Many of them are also "Christians".

The people who were obscenely ecstatic about the murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman and their dog were all Trump supporters, Republicans, and Christians. Some of them sit in congress.

The people who stormed the capitol were Trump supporters, Republicans, and Christians.

As also were the white nationalists in Charlottesville.


Meanwhile, school shootings continue.


[Post edited]


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HE DESERVED IT

A despicable rightwing hack bought the farm yesterday, and it looks like everyone is sad that someone whacked him. Given that no one minds that he's dead, one can only conclude that it must be the optics. We would all have prefered it if he died of an unclean disease. He was a perfectly loathsome specimen, and I'm glad he's gone. He died doing what he loved: being an asshole.

From Wikipedia: "Dink spread falsehoods about voter fraud and the COVID-19 pandemic. In defending the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dink falsely stated that, during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, it "took President Barack Obama 'millions infected and over 1,000 deaths'" to declare a public health emergency. In actuality, when the Obama administration acknowledged the WHO's declaration of a public health emergency on April 26, 2009, there were less than 280 cases of H1N1 infection reported in the US, and the first confirmed death (of a Mexican toddler on vacation) would only occur the subsequent day, April 27."
[End cite]

Further, same Wikipedia article: "He was briefly banned from Twitter after falsely claiming that hydroxychloroquine had proved to be "100% effective in treating the virus"; he alleged that Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, threatened doctors who tried to use the medication. These falsehoods were retweeted by Rudy Giuliani... "
[End cite]

He was also heavily involved in, and subsequently an apologist for, the insurrectionist movement that culminated in the storming of the United States Capitol.

I'm glad the little angel is dead. Good riddance.
He got what he thoroughly deserved.
I'm sad he didn't suffer.

Ironically, he was a gun nut.

Utah, the state where he got shot, is a rightwing garbage dump filled with religious nuts. It has solidly backed Republican (fascist) candidates for over sixty years. Scenically it is beautiful (a desert), culturally it's a wasteland (a desert).


Little angel praised Kyle Rittenhouse, saying he did everything right, that he acted properly and morally and lawfully, and lauded him as a hero.


Which makes abundantly clear that he had no concept of right and wrong, no idea about proper actions, and not a clue whatsoever about morals and laws.
Ironic and appropriate that he got Rittenhoused.

Utah has extremely loose gun laws.
They're ultra butch there.


[Post edited]


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GRITS AND TOFU

Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks, and possible Twitter. Extremely brutally. Naturally I shall not divulge who they are. But it substantially overlaps everyone else's list. Except for the soybean and cornfarmers who are being bankrupted by current government policies, which they voted for, as well as the bastards whom they staggeringly still support, cheer on, adulate, and of whom they slavishly lick body parts.

Cheers of 'America, America' proudly ring out over the Midwest, where in the next twelve months farms will be repossessed by faceless banks, rural hospitals will close, and many people will resort to cannibalism, church sanctioned.

Large parts of The South too.

Note to Mike Johnson: Louisiana has top notch numbers for crime, syphilis, and illiteracy. Kudos. You might want to avoid Thanksgiving dinner at home this year.
Stay in the swamp, it's safer.

Most states are shitholes. All of the red states are.

Fortunately, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we have extremely low rates of inbreeding, outright stupidity, and drunken trailer park violence, compared to many other places in this country (see aforementioned red states). We're certainly not Texas.
We are also rather less likely to be hit by tornadoes and hurricanes.

In addition, we no longer have Elon Musk.

So we're ahead of the game.


As further icing on the cake, our public officials are far less likely to take RFK Jr. seriously, or advocate swimming in sewage (which might cure lice and pediculosis pubis, so Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Lousiana, Mississippi, and Texas, kindly take note), and have never recommended bleach enemas for autism or covid.



It drizzled here in SF a few times this week. The temperatures have been mellow, very pleasant. The food is excellent, we have many fine restaurants, no Fox News reporters infesting the place, and unlike New Orleans and Miami, no drug-addicted rapists from Arkansas puking their guts out in public places. Fortunately, hotel rates are sky-high.
So y'all can't come. Take a cruise in the Gulf of America instead.


NOTE: Norovirus, gangrene, polio, and measles, all benefit from apple cider vinegar.
Why, it's miraculous. Also cures covid. Try it, you'll be delighted.
And you will smell ever so much better!
No more hallitosis!



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IT WAS NOT MY WAY

This evening I realized that I now have more familiarity with the smooth water-based gel that makes the ultrasound doohickey glide around your dermis than most pregant women. I was scanned at Chinese Hospital last week, at my cardiologist office yesterday, and there are some scans scheduled for next week. Last week it was largely checking for any cancerous lumps. Yesterday it was "let's see if the old bastard still has a heart". Next week it's going to be "my heavens these legs are rotten, boy, we'll have to jam some balloons on long wires up there to make 'em float". In other words, preambulatory to the peripheral angioplasties.

'Preambulatory' is probably not quite an appropriate term here.
Seeing as ambulation is the problem precisely.
Hence the need for the tiny balloons.
And thin flexible wires.

My cardiologist has assured me that it's an in-and-out procedure, I'll be home the same day. Totally ignoring the undoubted need to give me Valium in order that I don't twitch on the table, which means that they can't release me on my own steam for at least six hours. So if they do it after lunch time I'll be there overnight watching the animal channel till dawn.

Last time I was there overnight it was hyenas hunting a zebra for their supper and lions opportunistically trying to steal the meat, which the hyenas did not appreciate.
I wonder who will end up eating what this time. And whom.

All of this came to mind more or less because Miss Vivian is getting ready to pop. Today was her last night before two months off to give birth. So of course the size of her tummy had me recalling the smooth water-based gel used to lubricate the head of the ultrasound device.

While smoking my pipe earlier I had from over a block away heard one of the four songs that should not be sung for dear life at karaoke bars, ever. Country Roads, Oakland Booty, Hotel California, and I Did It My Way. Any one of these is like hearing banjo music when canoeing down the Cahulawassee River.

The bookseller and I did not go to the karaoke bar tonight.
We decided there were too many hyenas there.
We are sadder and wiser men.


Do NOT think of that scene from Alien. That isn't normal childbirth.



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LIFE IS SWEET

Bizarly, it rained this morning. We're not supposed to have rain at this time of year, blazing heat is customary in the Bay area in September. Instead it's mid-sixties, cloudy, continuing chance of precipitation. Humid. Which reminded me of a person in Waalre (a small town in Noord Brabant near where we lived at the time) who was exceptionally proud of his large collection of sugar cubes. Hotels, restaurants, and cafés in Europe used to have their own paper-wrapped sugar for your cup of coffee. They had exercised choice and discernment over the exact dimensions, degree of crystalization and granulation, logo, and, if situated scenically, illustration. Old engraving style, simplification, water colour effect, contrast.

People would collect them. See, these are the sugar cubes we brought back from our trip to the sunny Zagtlozp Mountians in Outer Podjolskija. The Grand Hotel Pruderghast had an entire packaged set of six! Lovely colourized engravings. It's in mint condition!
A meaningful commemoration of the time that Graf Von Strudel slept there during the Strumplicz campaign. As is fondly remembered there. Es ist sehr meinungsvoll!

Seven years later, this contributed to the defeat of Napoleon.
So we cannot use this sugar. It has historic resonance.

You'll just have to visit Zagtlozpzamek yourselves.
And you will love the Grand Hotel Pruderghast!

BERGDORF AM SEE, GÄRENDER MÜLLGAU, NEVADA

People who live in very moist climates should probably not collect carefully packaged sugar cubes. It's attractive to the local wildlife. Ants and bees. I have this vision of Mr. Deeksen in Waalre eventually being consumed by ants as he tries to protect his precious collection from their massive invasion. House covered in black, vaguely twitching to the eye, as they take over the building in a dense moving layer of workers. And a day or two later, there's simply a pile of rubble there, under which his skull can be found, gleaming and polished. It's sort of silvery from the mandible scouring it received. Perhaps his death was mercifully fast from asphyxiation as the insects invaded his mouth and larynx. Followed by slow chomping, thousands of little jaws. Methodically.

Or perhaps he moved to the outskirts of Marrakech and rented a ramshackle abandoned French boarding school to house his collection, learned Arabic and Berber, and over the decades became a dessicated zombie that the locals told stories about in hushed tones. Sugar is a preservative.


The Netherlands is filled with Neurotic people who do obsessive things like learning foreign languages, preserving museum collections of mildews and slime molds, and establishing a long-lasting monopoly in sugar a couple of centuries ago. They also like hot sunny places which are dry, and disporting themselves in eccentric fashion, startling the natives.

Parts of California have weather patterns similar to Marrakech at this time of year. Do not be surprised if you run into Dutch tourists taking selfies with bears, mountain lions, and bikers. And asking if any of the local motels or fried food shacks have interesting sugar cubes.



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FUZZY AROUND THE EDGES

Up at a later hour today than yesterday. No appointments early, the only thing that needs to be done is laundry eventually. It will be mid to high sixties during most of the day. Perfect for wandering around with a pipe and tobacco, and a late lunch around teatime. Healthcare paid until the end of the year. Sufficient spending money left over. Coffee and chili sauce aplenty, enough pipe tobacco to last me till the government is violently overthrown and democracy returns. Mellow weather here, insufferable in the red areas. Where farmers are going bankrupt because of all the progams that DOGE axed.

So I'm ahead of the game, and doing better than many people in the heartland.

Some roofing business in the south lost a third of its trained staff to ice.
The proprietor supported Trump, so that's what he voted for.
A nearby business can't take on any new jobs.
Exactly the same reason.

This all counts entirely as "committing procreative acts in a circular fashion and subsequently discovering the surprising results". Bigly.

It's only a matter of time before large parts of the South (particularly Florida and Louisiana) are disaster zones, due to diseases, tanking economies, and climate changes.
For which any sympathy will be unwarranted, and unlikely.
They can go intercourse themselves.


I can think of very many Republicans who, when this is all over, should be hanged.



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SOMETHING LIKE A DROID

There are times when I rather wish we had tunnels here where dwarves mined mithril. With entrances on Nob Hill. We could do with a good balrog now and then. I have this fantasy that the hippie android apparition bicycling up hill encountered one such just as she crossed the intersection. Underneath that unique space age garb she has meaningful tattoos.
I would rather not have known that.

Sometimes people have lightsabers at home.
You know that by their looks.
And they're spiritual.

All of that too needs to encounter a balrog.

Dicordant nuts, meet discordant notes.

"They have taken the bridge and the Second Hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes; drums, drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A Shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. They are coming."

Best part of the book. Preceded by dullness, followed by interminable waffle.
I gave up part of the way through. I loathe disorganized religions.

Lunch today was excellent. Red fermented tofu pig knuckles gravy rice (南乳豬手飯 'naam yü jü sau faan'). Epic. One elderly uncle, two aunties, as the only other customers. Comfort food with no tourists.

Smoked my pipe down hill in an alleyway. Virginia flake.
A few bums, and a flock of pigeons. Peace.
Warmish weather, not hot.



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ARE MOLOTOV COCKTAILS OKAY?

Donald Trump and his bumpkin supporters wish to let prayer back into the schools. Never mind that they worship an entirely different deity, and the prayer-in-schools types would be doing that on the taxpayers dime.

The best reason for continuing to forbid prayer in schools is that doing otherwise would force children to aquiesce or participate in heathen practics, idolatrous rituals, damnable heresy, or witchcraft. At which point one would be justified both burning the edifice down and taking the administration to court. BTW: "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". And by the standards of everyone else, faith healers and fundamentalist preachers are close enough to practitioners of witchcraft that incendiary devices become religiously required. Y'all want to bring prayer back into the schools? Fine. Some of us will bring some other religious traditions back.
We've been itching to do that since the Treaty of Westphalia.
And particularly the Peace of Münster.

I bitterly remember group prayer as an exclusionist practice.
So I do not think kindly of religious types.

An argument could also be made that "Christian" children should not ever be educated. It is a waste of public money to make them fit for any other role than hard manual labour in the coal mines of Apalachia, Mississippi's cotton fields, or farm work in the Central Valley.

Do you want them to become like Karoline Leavitt?
Well, do you? Heaven forfend!

STORM IMPACT

Anyhow, the cardiologist's appointment this morning went very well. My bloodpressure is excellent. And I now have an appointment for ultrasound imaging on my legs (next week) in preparation for a discussion (early October) about angioplasties on the lower extremities, sometime later this year. Probably after follow-up on the full physical with my regular care physician in a few weeks. So I'll be running marathons in no time!

Well, actually, that will very probably not be the case.
But possibly fleeing from the howling mobs.
The world had better be ready.


Better than I was.



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THE RARE DEMOGRAPHIC

The reason that I am up this early is because I have a cardiologists appointment at nine o'clock. "Why on earth", I hear you ask "would an arguably sane man agree to a nine o'clock appointment two buslines away from where he lives?" Crazy optimism several months ago is why. "Surely I can manage", I said to myself, "that is not undoable, I'll just do it and get it over with". Also, seeing as my cardiologist and my regular care physician both have a largely aged Chinese American clientele, there's every chance that if I show up early I will not have to wait at all, might even be out of there before I'm supposed to be in. It's happened.

Elderly Chinese folks have all the time in the world.
They're old. Things must wait for them.

Sorry, uncles and aunties, that isn't how this works.
The early white guy gets the worm.


Yeah, I wasn't thinking. First day off after a few days at work. Legs hurt. Need more coffee. Want to laze around most of the day. Perhaps a late lunch, smoke my pipe, putz around a bit, doomscroll and go on a voyage of discovery through Wikipedia and literature in dead languages. Not anwhere near worms.

Instead, I wander around the neighborhood with a pipe while it's still dark and gloomy.

Sadly, there isn't a nearby pizza place open at this hour.
I may be the only one here that thinks it's the breakfast of champions.

Well, other than fellow Americans of the corvid or fratboy persuasion.
I need more friends in the first mentioned category.
It would improve my social life.



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