My inbox greeted me with a message from Amazon this morning, imploring me to “treat myself” with an ACDelco 18A1490A Advantage Front Brake Rotor. Oh yeah, baby. That’s how you know you’re life’s become exciting – a brake rotor’s considered a treat (though I’m wild and crazy enough to probably “treat” myself to two of them). Apparently I put this on my Amazon “wish list” when I was shopping for brake parts. Out of all the shit on my list, they picked that? Why didn’t they go with the Kubot​a U25R​1T4 Exca​vator (other than the fact that Amazon doesn’t actually sell those).

What I’d really consider a treat (and almost as exciting as a brake rotor) would be a cab for my tractor this winter (nothing fancy, but if somebody wants to throw in a hard cab with a heater, windshield wiper, and radio, that’d be cool). Sadly, I don’t reckon there’ll be many treats in store for us once the government defaults on the national debt. I heard Obama’s presser yesterday, and he sounded sane and rational and all that, but I don’t really know who he thought he was trying to convince. Anybody with a brain can understand what the deal is, and anybody without a brain is either a House Republican or somebody who voted for one. What I really wanted to hear him say was, “hey, you don’t negotiate with terrorists.” That woulda stirred up a shitload of fake outrage (John Boehner probably would have even cried).

Of course, Obama has himself to blame for much of this. If he hadn’t been Chamberlain to Boehner’s Hitler in every “negotiation” leading up to this, they wouldn’t think they could blitz their way over him. It doesn’t help that a fair number of Democrats are about as gutless as the Vichy France Premiere Marshal Pétain (you might need to look that one up).

I don’t know what’s gonna happen with all this, but if my life experience is counts for anything, my guess is that things will get worse for regular people, probably get a lot worse for poor people, get better (or at worst stay the same) for rich people, and things won’t be quite as horrible as the media makes it out to be (besides, quick, look over there! It’s a nipple slip!). And then we’ll do this all again in three months (or six or whatever), because if Vietnam or Prohibition or Iraq or the “Financial Crisis” of ’07-’08 proved anything, it’s that America’s collective memory is shorter than the decay rate of a Higgs boson particle (fun fact – that’s less time than it takes light to travel from one side of an atom to the other) and even if it wasn’t, we’re too stupid to learn from our experiences anyway.

Not that I don’t love people, mind you. I am, at heart, a people person – ask anyone.

Today is my late day, which means I have to sit in the office until five o’clock for no apparent reason, other than it’s “the rule” (seriously, nobody has ever been able to articulate a reason – other than “because” – why we can’t monitor things from home until 5:00 – as if our customers care whether we’re sitting at a desk in a windowless office or a desk at home with fresh air and a view of the trees and the sky and maybe doggies chasing each other around the yard). So, even though I’ve been out of bed since before 4:30 this morning, I’m sitting here waiting to go into work, ‘cuz I’ll be damned if I’ll sit there any longer than I absolutely have to.

I mean, I’ve read the Internet (as much of it as I plan on reading for the moment, anyway – after a while it’s just the same old shit), cooked something for lunch, did the dishes, filled up the dogs’ food bowls, and done everything else that I could think of (well, except for, like laundry or cleaning the house or proofreading this post or something, but, hey, that’s not gonna happen), and now I’m just sitting here for, like, another couple hours. And all I can think of is how stupid this is.

It’s like…. Have you ever been out in the middle of nowhere, sitting at a red light when you can see for miles in all directions, and there’s absolutely nobody else around? And you’re just sitting there waiting for the goddamn light to change, thinking, “WTF? This is stupid.”

That’s what this is like.

Speaking of WTF, if you have Netflix, Maron has a 90 minute or so Netflix exclusive show called “Thinky Pain” that we watched last night (I might possibly have drifted off before the end – I’m a little vague on exactly when and how I got to bed), and it was very good. At least, from what I remember.

And speaking of Netflix, if you’re looking for something to add to your queue and you like somewhat twisted British sitcoms, I recommend “Snuff Box.” Also, Ricky Gervais has a Netflix exclusive show called “Derek,” which I also found quite enjoyable. The wife liked both of these too, so it isn’t just a guy thing.

Phil Chevron of the Pogues passed away at the far too young age of 56. It’s really hard to find a live video of the Pogues where Shane MacGowan isn’t so drunk that you can actually understand what he’s saying. So I’ll just go with this old favorite (I mean, any Christmas song with lyrics like “you´re a bum you´re a punk, you´re an old slut on junk…you scumbag you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot. Happy Christmas your arse I pray god it´s our last” has to be on your holiday hit list).

RIP, Phil.