So, this is it – the last day of October. Hard to believe November is almost here. No snow in the forecast yet, but it’s only a matter of time. It’s a big day at work today. First off, the folks from employee health are coming out to do our Annual Health Exams. In an effort to bring my BP down to something approaching normal, I haven’t had a beer since Friday night in Las Vegas (really any in opportune time for a trip out there). I’m also taking lots of magnesium, which the wife tells me is supposed to help. We’ll see. I’ve been taking it regularly at home, and while it seemed to help for a few days, it was still relatively high yesterday. Oh well, I guess the worst they can do is nag me.
Besides the AHA, it’s also parking re-registration day, where we all have to bring our vehicle registrations in, show our IDs, and get new parking stickers. I then proceed to take mine and stick it in my glove box, because I only need it is if I ever were to go down to the hospital (and not really even then, unless for some reason my ID doesn’t work to get me out of the garage, in which case I guess I just fall back on the old, “oops, I guess I forgot to put it on” story). I never go to the hospital, though, which I reckon is a good thing because NYS has a new rule this year, intended to intimidate and embarrass healthcare workers. If you don’t get a flu shot you have to wear a mask if you go into a patient care area or to an area where patients might be (like the cafeteria).
Oh, that’s the other thing. Along with the AHA, those who want can get a flu shot. Though they push it every year, I continue to decline. I haven’t gotten a flu shot in years. In fact, I think the last time I got a flu shot was the last time I got the flu.
As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also “you can wear a costume to work today” (for a suggested – though not mandatory – donation of $5). You might think this would sound really stupid to a bunch of professional adults, but you would be wrong. For some reason this is a big deal. Go figure.
This year, I think I’ll go as somebody with high blood pressure.
Y’all have a Happy Halloween, and don’t eat too much candy tonight. As for me, I think I’ll have a beer.
Morning Joke is at Fenway today. Doris Kearns Goodwin is about to come on with Mike Barnicle. Maybe they can knock off the Sox talk long enough to talk about Raynd Paul and plagiarism.
I was just going to try and ignore the whole Red Sox thing.
Sorry. It was more about the two who could give some personal insight into plagiarism allegations. I have been offered tix to see DKG next week but I think I will pass assuming she will still be gloating about the u-no-whos and not talking about the Brooklyn Bums.
OK, I give up. Who’s DKG?
Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s that Massachusetts initial thing like JFK and RFK.
Congratulations to me, as I pretty much pegged the old blood pressure meter. Can’t wait to get home to celebrate. :40:
the Rude Pundit offers a few thoughtful well-crafted words about what should be on our :turkey: plate
GOP Decides Slow Starvation of the Poor Will Ensure Them Victory:
The Rude Pundit thinks that the day starts for most Republicans in Congress like this (and, in this scenario, the Republican is a male): After waking up and jacking off to the Syrian chemical weapon attack videos (especially the ones of the gagging children), Dick Republican showers, scrubbing his skin with a Brillo pad; he shits out a tight little turd ball; and he shaves his face so close that his beard is afraid to grow. He drinks a cup of coffee, punches his wife in the tit, backhands his two children across the face, and heads out to the car waiting for him. On his way to work, he has the driver go through the shittiest areas of DC, like Anacostia or Congress Heights. He stares through the tinted windows at the poverty and deprivations of the people there, fondling himself the whole time, thinking about how much he just wants to take a flamethrower to entire blocks in front of him. He ponders how much their suffering gets him off. He gets an idea on how to fuck with the poor today, and he texts it to the Heritage Foundation or one Koch-run superpac or another. When he gets approval from those in charge of him, usually by emoticon because they’re so goddamned busy, he knows he’s ready to run with it.
For how else, in any way that we could define as “rational,” could a member of Congress not just allow the food stamp program to get a cut by $5 billion tomorrow (because a recession stimulus program is ending) but also vote in favor of slashing the program in half, by $40 billion over ten years, as the House GOP did in September? The only way it makes any sense at all is if hurting people in poverty was like porn for Republicans.
You wanna know what class warfare actually looks like? It ain’t telling the rich pukes with houses in the Hamptons that they might have to buy a couple less cases of Chateau de Suckanass Grand Cru for their parties next summer so we can have bridges that don’t fall down. No, it’s telling a family with disabled kids that they have to figure out how to fucking eat starting next week. It’s slashing a program where 87% of the recipients “live in households with children, seniors, or people with disabilities.” It’s making people decide if they want to eat or have heat during the winter in order to keep the overpriced wine market well-financed.
Republicans want the usual worthless bullshit: drug tests and work rules for participants. Of course, they want this without providing child care, health care, job training, or, you know, jobs for people, as if somehow this will all just magically materialize for people once their kids are starving at Christmas, just like Jesus wanted them to.
If you need a face to put with your bile and disdain, well, you could pretty much toss all the Republicans you despise up there: Paul Ryan, Steve King, Marsha Blackburn.
But let’s narrow it down to this cockface: Frank Lucas of the completely chimpfuck insane state of Oklahoma. The chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Lucas crowed like he just ejaculated in a donkey’s anus when the House passed the cuts. Only 6% of the people in his district receive food stamps, so, you know, fuck them.
When the first food riots happen, probably sometime around Thanksgiving, let’s make sure that these brave Republicans are manning the barricades. Sure, they might end up eaten as meat by the end, but that’s more good than they’ve done in Congress
Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, said that Republicans should stop their war on the poor ’cause it isn’t Christian-like. Some other guy, from a well known rightie think tank, ( I can’t remember which one) said Republicans need to make their peace with the safety net. So, maybe their unconscionable behavior is beginning to hurt them. Though I doubt it.
The times had an op-ed titled The Sadist Next Door which may explain their behavior.
http://blog.sciencemusings.com/2013/09/the-sadist-next-door.html
Shots fired at LAX.
I don’t approve of him shooting people of course, but by golly I defend his right to bear arms.
I have a cold. I hate being sick. I have to get my flu shot because if I don’t I will get the flu. I am always envious of people who do not get shots and still don’t get the flu. I wish I were one of them.
Because I’m an old bat, I remember when flu shots became available and they were given to old folks and other vulnerable people. I was not an old bat and I was teaching so I was always around kids who, in spite of their endearing qualities, are little petrie dishes for growing germs. They are also efficient spreaders of said germs. Thus, I always got the flu and of course brought it home and shared it with everyone.
So, I asked my doctor to consider me one of those vulnerable guys and give me the shot. That was the first year I didn’t get the flu and I have not had it since.
Hope you feel better soon.
I haven’t gotten a flu shot in years – longer than I remember. But I do remember that the year I got the flu shot was also the last time I got the flu.
Of course, I stay the hell away from children (and people in general, as much as is possible). If I had money, I’d be a regular Howard Hughes (except I’d pass on the mayo jars and use the toilet).
gee, maybe that first shot is the charm and all the following yearly shots are just corporate profit.
My first flu shot was back in 1976 for the big Swine Flu scare. Mass inoculations using that nifty pneumatic gun thing they had back then. It was kinda sorta like the hypospray from Star Trek, so I thought it was cool.
I can’t remember when or if I ever had a flu shot but I do remember getting feverish from an inoculation or two. I was thinking of those injector guns yesterday when I was listening to a story on the outbreak of polio in Syria.
The bad news:
Ann Coulter is on Bill Maher tonight.
The good news:
Looks like she’s the opening interview, and therefore can easily be skipped if you DVR it.
Overtime could be interesting.
Ruth Garland-Dewson dies – beloved S.F. milliner
🙁 :gate:
I think Maher laid a trap for Coulter. I kept switching back and forth from her un-watchable creepiness to watching the Nuggets losing their home opener (couldn’t decide which was worse) but when I came back to Maher it seemed like she was kinda admitting that she just “fakes it” to sell books (not that it matters) but she seemed to be experiencing what Maron would call “Flop-Sweat” with Maher yelling at her.
This after her apparent melt-down with Piers Morgan who kept asking her if she would date Billl Maher. I just expect for see her face melt off one of these days on camera ala an old Vincent Price movie :barf:
Tomorrow at 7 AM will I see daylight? Looks like I may still be in the fog.