I actually had no idea the Academy Awards were gonna happen last night, until I was working down in my shop with NPR on the radio. They were saying that the King’s speech would be getting a lot of attention, and I thought maybe Elvis was coming out of his fake-death retirement to accept a lifetime achievement award or something. But apparently that was actually a movie. Then some rather typical NPR critic spoke about Oscar music, and was all agog over some “courageous composer who combined an oboe with a penny whistle.” Oh, such audacity. Christ, between guys like this, John Powers, David Edelstein and, most especially, Maureen Corrigan, sometimes I really understand why the teabaggers hate NPR so much.

Anyhow, I didn’t watch the ceremonies but that isn’t sheltering me from finding out who won – whether I want to know or not. Whereas I’m just plain unwilling to shell out the bucks to see a movie before it hits HBO (which I may have to drop pretty soon, too, but how can I give up Bill Maher, and, goddamn it, “Curb” is coming back in the spring and then it’ll be time for True Blood, and…), I frankly don’t give a crap about the Oscars, except I’m glad that Melissa Leo won, because I’ve always liked her, from way back in the Homicide days. Plus, she said “fuck,” so she’s clearly my kinda broad. And, she’s an old-timer (like fine wine and Richard Belzer, she only gets better with age) – like me, another great product of 1960.

Otherwise, it was a tough weekend for me. I’ve diagnosed myself with medial epicondylitis, aka, “golfer’s elbow.” No, I haven’t been playing golf, but it apparently is pretty common amongst those of us who use keyboards for a living (especially if we become weekend DIY warriors swinging had tools and twisting wrenches).

Despite my left arm being all but useless over the weekend, I managed to complete my homemade keyboard tray (made form scrap wood – it’s adjustable, slides in and out, and is kinda cool, if I do say so myself), get Cat 5 cable run to my office, stain an nail in the trim, and get things pretty much completed, except for painting the underneath and maybe mounting the plethora of power strips up out of sight). And I need to build some wall cabinets and/or shelves. And then…. Well, it never really ends, does it?

Also, my gut hurt all weekend. Possibly because I didn’t eat much more than almonds and was hitting the ibuprofen pretty hard, both for the arm and because my teeth hurt. And then my goddamn temporary crown (which is actually my old crown, slammed back on) fell off. So that hurt even more, though I managed to stick it back on.

So, to recap, all weekend I was cold and everything hurt. Pretty much sucked. Had SU lost to GT in hoops or avenged last year’s loss to Army (barely) in lax yesterday, it would have been even worse.

Oh, and, as I mentioned yesterday, I finally updated WP. Once I saw that it was named “Rheinhardt” for Django Rheinhardt, who was perhaps the world’s greatest gypsy guitarist (long, long before Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies), and who died of a brain hemorrhage long ago at a very young age (probably because he never seemed to take that cigarette out of his mouth). On the bright side, Stephane Grapelli is still with us.

Speaking of dead guys, Frank Buckles – the last surviving US WWI veteran died yesterday. Only 110. So sad.

Well, it’s already warm out, and supposed to get warmer still. That would be great, except, in looking at the radar, a hard rain’s a gonna fall (OK, actually it’s already falling).

I’m sure you’re all expecting me to mention how SU beat the despised Georgetown “what the f*ck’s a” Hoyas yesterday at the Verizon Center in DC, with a crowd that included big dog Bill Clinton, Syracuse’s not so favorite son Terry McAuliffe, and the Geico caveman (but where was Joe Biden?). But I know nobody else is interested, so I won’t bother. If I did, I might mention that, although Bill is a GT alum, I’m sure he was rooting for SU because, well, Georgetown, as we all know, sucks, and Bill doesn’t need any reminders of Monica Lewinsky. Terry, well, we have our differences, but, when it comes down to it, we’re all Orange (except on St. Patrick’s Day, when we’re all Green, unless we’re playing Notre Dame, in which case, f*ck it, we’re Orange). I’m assuming the caveman was rooting for GT, though, because he looks like one of their typical Neanderthal “fans” (except much more articulate – and clean).

At any rate, beyond the misguided youth who attend the school (presumably because they couldn’t get in anywhere else), Georgetown doesn’t really have fans, and, as such, the Verizon Center tends to be overtaken by orange clad SU folks (DC is the #3 SU alumni base – behind the motherland and New York City). After being absolutely embarrassed last season by what looked more like an SU home crowd, the evil folks at GT decided to keep tickets off the open market, requiring some ridiculous combination of donations to the school and tickets to four other (crappy) GT games in order to score tickets.

Of course, SU folks found a way, and were still well-represented. But I don’t wanna talk about the game, and how SU closed out February with a 4 game winning streak (quite the opposite of January, which they closed out with w 4 game losing streak, which saw them go from 18-0 to 18-4). Things weren’t looking good, but who gives a crap how you’re doing in January? Or February, for that matter. It’s March that counts. So we’ll see.

But, anyhow, I won’t bore you with SU basketball. Neither will I mention that, although our Friday snowfall was a paltry 6 inches (officially; more like 10-12″ here), it was enough to slide this winter in at #10 on the all-time list at 157″ (a long way to go – about three feet – to get to #1, though). But there’s been too much talk of weather and snow and winter, so I won’t bring that up.

Likewise, I’m sure everybody’s tired of hearing about my aches and pains. So I won’t tell you how I did something to my left arm, and now it’s all but unusable. Damn, it hurts. But you won’t catch me complaining about it. Not today anyway.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave much else. Oh, there’s Wisconsin and Libya and all that, I suppose. But, really who has time? Besides, it hurts to try and type with this damn arm of mine.

Nice to see Andy yesterday, and glad to hear he’s got some Internet access. Also glad to hear Travis got cookies (and an interview). Here, it snowed a bit. The drive in was a slight hassle, but not too bad (for the brief leg of the journey that I make on a godless, socialist, interstate highway, I happened to get on a few cars behind a godless, socialist snowplow, driven by a godless, commie-pinko State worker clearing the way, so that was very smooth (albeit somewhat slow) sailing. If you’ve never been behind a snowplow with both wings down (so that it plows an entire two-lane interstate including shoulder all at once), then you don’t know how impressive it is, with snow rooster-tailing off the wings and sandblasting (or I guess that would be snowblasting) the nanny-state guardrails and tossing out sparks (very pretty at night).

So that was good, except he plowed in the on-ramp a bit before I got on, which made merging a bit rough (special thanks to the asshole wouldn’t move over into the left lane BTW), though he did make up for it later on down the road by getting off at my exit, clearing the off-ramp for me, and setting a nice pick for the merge into traffic (you don’t mess with snowplows, unless you’re f*cking nuts) before he got back on the highway and headed off to do the southbound side as I waved, bid him adieu, and wished him well on the rest of what I’m sure was to be a long, glamorous day of plow driving and making millions of dollars a year sponging off the taxpayers. Solidarity, comrade! :fist:

The ride back home wasn’t too awful bad either. No snowplow escort, but the storm (such as it was) had mostly ended an hour or so before quittin’ time, and we didn’t get a shitload of snow, really. Not by our standards. I haven’t seen the official stats just yet (I know how that must disappoint you), but I’d venture to guess it was in the, oh I dunno, maybe eight inch range out there in civilization (our version of civilization, that is; to us, more than one barn and a fence to keep the cows out of the dirt road – so we can make that half hour drive to Sears to pick up cattle feed and gingham dresses for our lady folks and whatnot – is civilized; just ask Ed Koch. Hmmm. You know, he pronounces it as if it rhymes with “crotch” but I wonder if he isn’t actually part of the Koch Brothers conspiracy? Part of the advance team – kind of a Manchurian teabagger, worming his way in by pretending to be a gay, NYC Jew), with of course heavier accumulation out here in Hooterville, where I live. Hard to tell, ‘cuz it was all very wet and heavy and sloppy (speaking of Ed Koch).

I was a bit concerned about getting into my driveway (I took my show shoes out of the trunk somewhere along the line, and was afraid I’d have to leave the car at the end of the driveway and trudge through the snow to get the tractor). When I saw the driveway plowed in and that the UPS guy (who is normally very good at making the long trek up to the house and leaving things at the garage door) had said “f*ck this” and dropped my package off (in a plastic bag, which was good) by the mailbox (one more pass with the plow, and I’d not have seen that sucker ’til spring), I have to admit to feeling slightly daunted (gettin’ old, I guess). The snow was pretty deep, my little car doesn’t have a whole lot of clearance, and I have to slow down a fair piece to make the left turn into the driveway – especially since the road is a downhill grade at that point, and was rather snowy and slippery.

Of course, I shouldn’t have worried. Being a veteran of far worse conditions than this (and equipped with four snow tires), I rammed the sucker through with more or less no problem (even ’round the hairpin curve – pedal to the metal; it’s a bit like driving a boat – you don’t steer so much as swing around). Never – ever – underestimate the awesome power of the Hyundai. This is why we need to support and defend our South Korean friends: if Kim Jong “Tiny Elvis” il ever gets hold of even a handful of these mighty machines, we’re doomed to invasion and occupation.

Though I should fit in pretty good, as I already cut my own hair.

So, anyhow, I was able to get the driveway plowed out before Granny got home (which wasn’t hard because, being a lazy, commie-pinko public employee, she was busy working a 12 hour day for 8 hours pay – barking like a seal – and didn’t get home until late). It took me quite a while to get it done, what with the heavy snow and all, and by the time I said “f*ckit – good enough,” it had gotten pretty darn cold out. My hands were so cold they hurt (switched gloves mid-plow to try and warm them up, but that didn’t help much).

Here’s a useful tip: when your fingers are really, really frozen, don’t try running warm water on them to heat them up. Turns out, that hurts like hell. Seriously.

But never mind all that, ‘cuz I’m not one to spend a lot of time talking about the weather.

Not when it’s SU-Georgetown day, at least.

First off, congrats to Web for finishing his book. I didn’t quite catch what you meant yesterday until OKat straightened things out (I think I thought you meant you finished reading a book, which is a much bigger deal in these days of Palin, Bachmann, and Walker than it used to be). Hope you don’t mind, but I converted it to .mobi format, and sent it off it to my Kindle to read (though I have a few things on the reading list ahead of, it, and I don’t really seem to get far on anything in any given night, since after a few pages it tends to be lights out). I’m not terribly confident that I’ll actually understand it, but I’ll give it a shot. Shame it’s so short, though. 😉

Speaking of the oil, they’re saying that gas will be up to $4-$5 a gallon this summer. The justification at the moment seems to be that the price of oil is no longer being driven by the law of supply and demand, but that it has now become a commodity (you mean, it wasn’t always a commodity?), with prices driven by greed and speculation. Funny, I thought that’s how it always worked. I guess I need to read The Oil ConunDRUM.

The question is, how much will the Smart Electric Drive cost, and how will it do in the snow? It’s supposed to be good for 63 miles on a charge, which would get me back and forth to work with plenty to spare, even if it it turns out to get a bit less than that in our cold, rain, and snow.

Speaking of OKat, yes, indeed, in so many ways, Syracuse is the center of civilization (oh, sure, it’s no Enid – let alone Norman, but for the godless Northeast, it’s right up there). The Alpha and the Omega, really. Of course, we’ve been forced to hide it, to both keep out the riff-raff and to ensure that we can manipulate events without becoming part of theM. We’re a bIt like the Second Foundation in that respect (sorry for that allusion; I realize nobody will get it, but I’ve been re-reading Asimov’s Foundation Series, and had forgotten how much I enjoyed them, and reading in general – having given it up when the Internet was invented, and could no longer read more than a paragraph without clicking something.

Andy Cuomo gave a snide, snotty, condescending press conference yesterday on his medicaid “commission.” The more I listen to this CSMF, the more I’ve come to despise him. His old man should be as ashamed of him as Mike Wallace should be ashamed of his greasy little spawn.

I hate to keep doing the boring weather report, but, well, it’s all part of perpetuating the weather myth so that people will stay away. I mean, it’s either this, or basketball (and I have to save the SU-Georgetown game for tomorrow).

Anyhow, the latest storm is slowly creeping its way into the area at the moment, promising to make the Friday commute a real pain in the ass. Not much of a storm, really. In isolation, it would be no big deal, but coming late in February when we’re just a teensy-weensy little bit tired of this stuff makes it a bit more than your typical workday annoyance. Looks like we’re on track to get 5-10″ (which translates to a foot, easy, at my house), which means by the drive home tonight, this winter will be in the top ten for snowfall (and a lot more winter to go). Oh boy.

Oh well, time for more coffee while I can still afford it.

And so this week drags on. Hard to believe it isn’t Friday yet. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, from what I saw. After a very cold, below zero start, it was sunny, not windy, and darn near 30°. If you live where it’s warm all the time you won’t understand, but it was a day to lift your spirits and make you feel as if life was actually worth living. And it felt warm enough to put on a pair of shorts. Today is supposed to be warm(ish) too, but not exactly sunny (in fact, it’s supposed to cloud up and precipitate a little bit on us). And then there’s a “winter storm watch” for tomorrow. Depending on which way things go, we’ll either get 10″ of wet, heavy snow, rain, or (my personal favorite) a mix of sleet, freezing rain, rain, and snow. That’s on top of whatever we do or don’t get today.

Hooray for Hydrofracking, as a Marcellus Shale drilling site in PA blew the frack up last night.

Three workers were burned in what neighbors described as an explosion and fire last night at a Marcellus shale drilling site in Washington County.

The blast occurred at the Chesapeake Energy site off Meadowcroft Road and First Street in Avella, a community in Independence Township near the West Virginia border, state Department of Environmental Protection and county 911 officials said.

Five “frac tanks” — mobile steel storage tanks used to hold liquids — burned until 9:30 p.m., DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh said. She said the three gas wells were not affected by the flames.

“At approximately 6:15 p.m. a flash fire occurred, igniting natural gas liquids storage tanks on the Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, Powers well site in Avella….”
[…]
“I was eating dinner when all of a sudden there was an explosion,” said Katie Leeper, whose home is on a hill across the valley from the well. “I didn’t know it was an explosion at first, but the whole house shook and the windows rattled.

“I looked outside, saw all the neighbors, looked over the hill and saw the big fire.”

Another neighbor, Robert Dalesio, who said his house is 650 yards from the well, thought a plane had crashed.

“I first thought a C-130 (military transport aircraft) went down because they fly over here all the time,” he said. “There was a pretty good concussion. I looked over and saw the whole hillside on fire.”

I guess, in the interest of full disclosure, I ought to mention that the Marcellus Shale formation (which runs south from Central New York down into northern and western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, through western Maryland, most of West Virginia and into western Virginia and even into western New Jersey, parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, and underneath Lake Erie into Canada) is named for the place where I live now (which, in turn, is named for the Roman General Marcus Claudius Marcellus, famous for the capture of Syracuse after a two-year siege in 212 BC – Syracuse having been defended by all sorts of contraptions invented by Archimedes – possibly including a highly polished mirror used as a laser to set the Roman ships on fire – who was killed when Syracuse fell, against the orders of Marcellus because Archimedes told the Roman soldier who barged into his place to go away because he was busy, and the soldier – having no idea who he was – killed Archimedes on the spot. Oops).

I’m not sure if Syracuse (the one in NY, not the ancient city, which was actually considered a kingdom back in Archimedes’ time) was here first, and they thought naming this place Marcellus was funny or not (though it would be an awful coincidence otherwise).

The origins of the town (in terms of white folks) go back to 1794 or so, when, to pay off soldiers who fought in the revolutionary War, the fledgling US Government gave soldiers 600 acres each (assigned by lottery). Pretty good deal, no? Paying people with land that doesn’t actually belong to you. But who cares about the people who were already here? Anyhow, there was never any Native settlement in this specific area – it was all used as hunting and fishing ground – so at least I don’t live atop an ancient Indian burial ground. I hope. :paranoid:

None of the former soldiers actually settled here, having decided the land was worthless – heavily forested, and probably too difficult to farm – and they all sold their land off). Where I live was once part of Military Lot 14, originally deeded to John Dubois, who may or may not have eventually become the the Roman Catholic Bishop of NYC – haven’t found that out yet.

But I digress…

Anyhow, the shale formation that has oil companies and certain greedy land owners salivating is named for an outcropping here in my little town. You can look it up on Wikipedia and even see a picture (though, I warn you, it’s a picture of rocks, which isn’t necessarily all that interesting).

So, anyhow, I have pretty selfish reasons for not wanting this shit to blow the f*ck up and/or having the ground water contaminated, seeing as it happens to be directly below where I’m sitting at the moment. In point of fact, there’s actually an existing oil and gas lease on my property. It’s never been exercised (if that’s the right word for it), it expires in May, and they can kiss my ass if they think they’re getting anywhere near my land or my pet deer (our herd is up to 13; I managed to count them when I came home the other night), or my hawks, owls, foxes, coyotes, and whatever else is out there that I don’t know about (yet).

I’m sure the teabaggers despise me for that, as I would gladly chain myself to a tree in order to stand in the way of this “amazing opportunity.” To the teabaggers, I can only quote Neil Young: “doesn’t mean that much to me, to mean that much to you.”

It’s Abe “I’m not dead yet” Vigoda’s birthday today. He’s 90 years young, and looks a helluva lot better than another of today’s birthday boys, Steve “hand” Jobs, who is actually only six years older than I am (I can’t write the exact age, because Apple has claimed copyright for that number, plus I’m writing this on a Mac, and it would violate the EULA to disclose it. Not that Steve and Apple are vindictive or anything, but I’m pretty sure they would sue me into bankruptcy, which wouldn’t take a whole lot at this point). And if you see Dominic “Uncle Junior” Chianese (who, now that I think of it, is also in the running for the “who does mini-Gaddafi al Duck look like” contest) today, wish him a happy 80th birthday.

Well, time to hit up some Oil of Oregano to see if I can chase this headache and sore throat away. I need to start wearing ear muffs in the house, I think.

Oh, crap, forgot all about putting something up here this morning (not that anybody would be terribly disappointed). I blame it on the cold. I never should have cut my hair. Now my ears are cold all the time, and I’m forced to fight off the cold that has Granny barking like a seal all the time (I was tempted to throw her a fish last night – but all I can offer is a frozen tilapia fillet, and I didn’t wanna smack her in the chops with it). I started hitting the oil of oregano yesterday (would have started sooner, but I had to discover where it was hidden). So, anyway, a quick rundown on what’s going on. Rahm is the mayor. He should do the original Mayor Daley proud. Scott Walker is still a dangerous, crazy asshole. Ditto Momar Khadaffy Duck. The government is evacuating US Citizens from Libya. Great, more socialism from Obama and his f*cking Mommy State. Rush Limbaugh is is still a fat loudmouth (I don’t know what you ladies all seem to see in him; sure, he’s hot and manly, but I thought you women were supposed to be above all that superficial stuff). Today is meeting day, which sucks harder than a Wisconsin Republican (but not quite as hard as a family values Idaho Republican in a mens room – or so I hear). OK, gotta go.

I accidentally saw a minute or two of Scott Brown (not the good, 30th Century Man one, of course, but the Wisconsin Governor), and I gotta say, what the f*ck’s wrong with you, Cheeseheads? I mean, forget that the guy is a fascist, teabagging, Koch-sucker. He’s a friggin’ dummy. I mean, it only took me a few seconds to realize this guy is one stupid son of a bitch – so how the hell did you guys ever elect him? I guess everything Minnesotans have been saying about you people over the years is true. Until you get rid of him, my vacation in the Dells is officially off (and I was so looking forward to visiting the House on the Rock).

Then again, speaking of crazy and stupid, Minnesotans have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do, too.

Rep. Michele Bachmann was on a tear: In one of her most fiery stump speeches to date, the tea party leader told a South Carolina audience that the tax code was a “weapon of mass destruction,” that President Obama is “babying” terrorists, that the rich pay too much in taxes, that social issues like marriage and abortion cannot be put on the “back burner,” and that Fox News’ Glenn Beck can solve America’s budget deficit.

Michelle, I realize you’re probably pretty geographically challenged (sorry, didn’t mean to use politically correct phraseology on you – I meant to say, “Michelle, you idiot”), so let me explain it to you. You’re supposed to be representing “Minnesota,” not South Carolina, and Minnesota is ↑. Now get your crazy, bony ass back up to St. Cloud.

Jim Earl facebooked (or whatever the kids call it these days) this yesterday, and I liked it (I liked it so much, I clicked the “I Like This” link to prove it, which I don’t do very often, since I don’t actually look at Facebook very often, ‘cuz, well, I think it’s kind of stupid – not quite as stupid as Twitter, though – and I have a feeling it’s secretly backed by the Koch brothers):

1924: Stalin bans all free trade unions and outlaws strikes.
1929: Mussolini guts trade unions and puts them under corporate and government control.
1933: Hitler abolishes collective bargaining, trade unions and arrests their leaders.

Not that I’m comparing them to Walker, Wisconsin Ranger, of course. For one thing, I’m pretty sure they were all a lot smarter than he is (Stalin and Hitler, anyway; not sure about Mussolini, though I hear he made the trains run on time).

As Art alluded to last night, the long Carmelo Anthony trade saga appears to finally have ended, with ‘Melo coming back east to join the NY Knicks. This is important, ‘cuz it means he should be able to make it back to Syracuse to catch a few games from time-to-time. That way, we can honor him by retiring his jersey (not his number, mind you; just his jersey) and hoisting it up to the rafters (not that there are any rafters in the Dome, but you get the idea). And then hitting him up for more money, which he has been quite generous with (not only funding the coincidentally-named ‘Carmelo Anthony’ basketball practice facility, but also a couple of hoops courts in poor neighborhoods around here).

As for Denver, well, we’re sorry for your loss.

A cold start to the morning here. Oh, not Minnesota – or Oklahoma – cold, but it’s 1°, and of course it’ll get colder before the sun comes up and warms us to an expected high of darn near 20. No precipitation in the forecast until Thursday or so, when we’ll either get rain or snow (or both) as temps are expected to moderate to the upper 30s. And there’s nothing better than 38° and rain.

Earthquake in New Zealand this morning. Terrible thing, but I find it hard to feel bad about it, because whenever the voices of the witnesses, I keep expecting to see Bret and Jemaine step out from behind the rubble and break into a song about being a male prostitute or something.

Oh well, time to get some more coffee, and wish my teeth didn’t hurt. Takes my mind off my foot, though.

In honor of George Washington, I’ll be starting off the day today with some dental work (yes, I know I said I wasn’t gonna go for a while, but, well, I guess I’m just feeling like Jack Nicholson and/or Bill Murray – by the way, did you know Bill was the bass player in ‘Mr Rogers meets the bass player’? One of my favorites as a young delinquent, and I had no idea – in Little Shop of Horrors). Somewhat ironic to be getting a “crown” on this day, I guess, but it’s more than made up for by the fact that my insurance only pays for wooden ones (and a pretty small amount at that).

Otherwise, it was a fairly productive weekend. Got the snow chains back on the tractor (thanks to about $15 worth of ‘quick links’ to replace the busted, twisted, and stretched stuff), which was good because I had a lot of snow to clear on Saturday, and got 10 gallons of diesel (at $3.72 a gallon, which is a lot more than I paid the last time I got it). Also managed to get my new desk pretty much done – tiles cemented down and grouted, trim installed on the outside edge, though I managed to slobber a lot of sanded caulk all over everything while playing with my new air caulk gun for the first time. Also installed a new ceiling fan/light, which was good because when I took the old one down, I saw the hot and neutral wired skinned and shorted, with three or four “weld” marks on the fan motor housing where. Nice. Especially since the power is coming form 14 gauge wire off a two-pole 20-amp breaker labeled “heater”.

Remind me to change out those breakers.

It was also a pretty good weekend for sports. On Saturday, the SU hoops team (which has been having a rough time of things this season) managed to slip past Rutgers in OT, and on Sunday the lacrosse team won its first game of the season by stomping on Denver (which is good, since they’re coached former Princeton coach Bill Tierney, who I don’t like for some reason, though I can’t recall why at the moment).

Not everything worked out as planned, though. Once again, I failed to install the dual flush adapter on my water pig toilet (good thing I never use that one), and I also neglected to do my laundry. But as I have a rather supply of socks and “dainties,” that’s not a huge problem. And I didn’t get to the grocery store, which I’ll need to do at some point today, ‘cuz I’m kinda out of food. Though once the dentist gets done with me, that may not be a problem.

Oh well, at least I have coffee, which I reckon I have some more of before I look outside to see if we got enough snow to plow.

I was reading a story today by somebody or other I’d never heard of (not that it matters; there are lots of people I’ve never heard of), talking about the “Female Foreign Correspondents’ Code Of Silence, Finally Broken” and relating a story of her having been groped in Pakistan to the attack on Lara Logan. Anyhow, one of the things she wrote was that “Several commentators have suggested that Ms. Logan was somehow at fault”, and I thought, really? At first I thought she meant “commenters,” which wouldn’t surprise me too much, or that maybe she was just using a different version of the “some people say” story that people use when they want to make some point or other.

But she linked to a story in the NY Daily News. Turns out “several” means two, and the two she referred to were Nir Rosen (who has asshole written all over him, and is apparently an NYU journalist – not sure if that means he writes for the NYU college newspaper, or maybe he teaches journalism? Well, whatever. According to the story, Rosen called Logan a warmonger who’d be glorified as a martyr, and that she “had to outdo Anderson [Cooper]….She was probably groped like thousands of other women….It would have been funny if it happened to Anderson, too.”) and somebody named Debbie Schlussel (which, as a surname, is Nazi for Locksmith) who said that Logan should have expected such treatment from Muslim “animals” and called her a “cheerleader” for promoting “this revolution by animals. Now she knows what Islamic revolution is really all about.”

So, I guess there were at least a couple of pretty ignorant “commentators” out there after all.

Anyhow, as an interesting aside, Rosen had to apologize and was forced to resign as an NYU fellow. As opposed to Little Debbie, of course, who will probably be making the Fux News rounds (maybe she already is – I never heard of her, either).

Anyhow, it’s cold out today, but looks (and sounds) pretty quiet. That’s a good thing, as I really need to go out and get some stuff – like food for me, and food for the tractor. And maybe a new ceiling fan for what will hopefully become my new office if I ever get this shit done. First, though, I need to grout, which I reckon I’ll do momentarily, though it’s awfully cold in the house, and it’ll probably take forever to actually set up. Hell, even the thinset doesn’t seem completely set up (not the thick parts that I just scraped out of the grout lines (if you can call them grout lines before you’ve actually grouted). Not my finest work – thank goodness it’s just for me. I have high standards, but I’m also pretty good at adjusting my expectations.

Oh well, time to get going, I guess.

Well gosh, what a difference a day makes. Yesterday, it was darn near 60 degrees out, and it was actually sunny. By the time I got out of work, I was stunned to see how much snow had melted. I mean, the snow was quite deep when I left in the morning, and then suddenly there was actually grass again. Now, though, it’s cold (and getting colder; supposed to be back down into the teens by this afternoon) and it’s a whiteout out there. Sweet. Oh well, I’ll try and accomplish some inside work today. Goodness know there’s a lot of it to do.

Could be tough, though, because after months without pain, my foot seems to be killing me this morning. Oh, I’ve felt it coming on for a few days, but today it’s very painful, and it’ll be all I can do to get around on one foot, let alone lift and carry. Why this sudden affliction? No idea. My previous theory had been gout, due to my less than pristine habits of consumption (beer, mostly; I wasn’t one for fatty foods or organ meat – which doesn’t even sound appealing), and the fact that it was something my dad suffered from.

Now, though, other than a few brews on New Year’s Eve (which I didn’t really even enjoy all that much; I still have five left in the garage fridge, and I believe this is a new record for the longest time I’ve had beer sitting around w/o drinking it, unless you count the high gravity beer I brewed myself and was aging in my cellar), I’ve been a very good boy for quite a while now. So what’s my reward? A big FU from the Lord of the Feet (or Pod God, as I like to call her).

Oh well, time to get hopping.