It was a sad yet relatively productive weekend. Also really beautiful weather – warm and sunny. On Saturday, I fixed my car exhaust and it was actually nowhere near the pain in the ass that it could have been (and that I was expecting). Amazingly, nothing broke and I didn’t even have to hit it with torches. Of course it was pretty hard on my back (nothing like wriggling around on a cement floor). If you’re looking for ideas for something to get me for Christmas, this 2-post car lift would be an excellent choice. Might as well throw in the cradle pads, too. It’s so nice to be able to drive a quiet car again, and hopefully this will keep the check engine light off.
My wife took down the canopy on the pool deck, leaving just the frame looking like the bones of some long dead animal, and yesterday we closed up the pool. Very sad – summer is officially over for me now.
Then of course there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for the end of Breaking Bad. Although it had to end (I mean, you wouldn’t want it to devolve to the point where Walter is taking the family on a “business trip” to Hawaii where Flynn finds a tiki in a cave that brings everybody bad luck), I’m gonna miss that show.
Thank goodness I have today off to kind of ease my way into the week. Especially since I stayed up way too late last night. Unfortunately my wife had to go to work today, but she’s only working a couple of days, and is then off to go visit the kids in Minneapolis. Yes, she’s abandoning us here. It’s the cats I feel bad for, since I don’t know where we keep their food. I guess they’ll just have to catch mice (which they should be doing more of anyway). We’ll just have to see how they like living in the basement for a few days.
Today is government shutdown day, I guess. As CNN puts it,
“If the Democrats and Republicans don’t stop bickering and agree to how the U.S. should pay its bills, the federal government will shut down, come October 1.”
You have to love that. Yeah, it’s just those two rascally and equally culpable political parties bickering again. Not, the obstructionist Republicans and sociopathic teabaggers shutting down the government and fucking over millions of Americans to score political points with a bunch of idiots who don’t understand how the government works but mysteriously get to vote anyway.
Of course, not everything shuts down. Social Security checks keep coming and hospitals still get Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements (though if this lasts long enough, that might start to get delayed for a couple of weeks, which isn’t really good when you live on a fixed income and the landlord still wants the rent and you’re low on cat food). And don’t worry, the feds will still take taxes out of your paycheck (unless you’re like Mitt Romney or something). The Post Office will keep delivering the mail (oh goodie, no shortage of AARP spam). So it might be a while before anybody notices the government is actually closed – unless you’re waiting for a small business loan or a passport or were hoping to go to a national park or a museum or something.
But, hey, maybe the Democrats will cave. That’s what the Republicans (the ones in the House, anyway) seem to think. Supposedly their even thinking of electing Ted Cruz Speaker of the House (which seems odd, what with him being a Senator). No stranger than a moron like that being a United States Senator, I guess (I mean, it’s Texas, but still).
Oh well, there’s a lot I should probably be doing, so I should probably go do something. Or maybe have coffee.
I put on my Rovian/Luntz toupe this morning and focus grouped this branding tweak with every American I could find on short notice (me). Overwhelmingly, the ‘murcan peepull decided that from now on all of these people the media and repugs repeatedly characterize as the ‘republican base’ would be more accurately depicted as the ‘basest republicans’.
This is probably me at my most pie-in-the-skyish, but I hope that Obama doesn’t cave and that by standing firm he gets it through to the basest base that they cannot do this crap anymore. If they want something they have to pass it the old fashioned way: get the votes.
Yeah, I too hope they don’t cave in any way. I wouldn’t accept anything other than a clean bill that funds the government and nothing else.
And after that, I would explain to these idiots that the debt ceiling is a violation on the 14th Amendment and therefore I would be ignoring it from now on.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. But then so does the part where they can’t fuck with you without a warrant, too.
:omg: