A Friend In Need

Jeffro lost everything in a fire. And hadn't been able to afford insurance. Just sayin'.

Why The UK Has No Lunar Programme

See, when the U.S. went to the to Moon, we could ground our electrical equipment and everything was tickety-boo. But the Brits? ...Let me put it as nicely as I can: on this planet, British electronic gear has to be Earthed.

Cat Guru Says...

"A man who pays to have his tires telepathically renewed may already be mentally retreaded."

Shooting In Broad Ripple

Reports say it happened in front of the Vogue, an old neighborhood movie house turned (lo, these many years) into a nightclub, just after 2:30 this morning. Victim is in hospital with "non-life-threatening" injuries. Meanwhile, the shooter is said to have run east and IMPD admits to having arrested at least one guy a couple blocks east of the scene. They aren't calling him the perp yet.

This sort of thing does occur, though at far greater intervals than the easily-panicked would have you think. Flip side, robberies (and attacks, until now) have not been happening.

Past that, there is not enough information to speculate -- despite at least one ill-informed comment at the link. Choirboy menaced by a miscreant? Horseplay gone wrong? Thug-on-thug violence? Objection to wearing paisley with bold stripes? Perhaps we'll know more tomorrow.

2000-And-Cooked

I'll see your "1900 and froze to death" and raise you. Wayyyy up. It's 10:46 pm on Independence day, the A/C is running and I am still glow- er, persp- oh, heckers, sweating. Coil hasn't frozen (knock wood), there's cool air coming out, but it hasn't caught up.

Withal, I'm in a good mood. Denied fireworks -- more by our own good sense than governmental decree (I'm shocked, shocked that Tam didn't buy and stockpile any -- OTOH, should be cheaper tomorrow) -- we celebrated with grilled steak a la Roseholme: big, well-marbled filets mignon, cooked on a closed grill over lump hardwood charcoal, treated with a bit of salt and pepper beforehand and with a pat of Irish butter added at the penultimate flip; to which one adds well-baked tatties (in foil, with butter, salt, pepper and garlic -- and I cheated, gave 'em a few rounds in the 'wave beforehand) and a good garden salad with balsamic vinegarette: bliss! Double bliss, washed down with Squirt (grapefruit soda) and Moxie.

Seriously, those steaks...! Cut with a spoon, melt in your mouth, moist, smoky and wonderful. You don't put anything on 'em; they don't need it. (And those are just the mid-grade from Fresh Market. They had some well-aged ones for half again as much; I'd'a bought them but I feared so much joy could be too much.)

I've got fudge in the fridge but some hours after dinner, I'm still too full to contemplate it.

O Glorious Holiday

"Happy Co-dependance Day," says the fed.gov, with a warm and smarmy reminder that they're there for us -- and, especially, there for the contents of our wallets. C'mon, you, hand it over! Don't you care about poor people? An' struggling Congressthings?

I'd send 'em a rocket* but the city's fretful I'll catch the place on fire -- also, Officer Friendly will come 'round an' offer me a ticket and a hickory shampoo if I try. It's for my own good, innit? (Yes, it turns out they can ban fireworks, just as long as they declare a disaster first. Drought: disaster. Hurrah! Our Leaders have now arranged matters such that only the least-responsible and most furtive of persons will ignite pyrotechnic amusements. What could possibly go wrong?)
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* PS, we're all still terrists again. I knew it, I just knew it -- it's that beady "don't tread on me, bro" look in yer eyes. So not down with the collective whim. Feds: figure of speech, damn you, figure of speech. Also, it still moves.

Independant?

This morning as I oversleep gloriously, the TV is listing all the events du jour of the day:

"Last, there will be an old-fashioned ice cream social at the President Benjamin Harrison home from 11 'til 3 today; they'll have ice cream and historical enactors!"

Tam, kibitzing from the door, remarks, "Historical enactors?"

I'm not too sleepy to take the bait: "Sure! They show historic events that never happened: 'President Harrison repelling invaders from Mars!' 'President Harrison concluding the first treaty with the Vampire Nation!' 'Installing the Electric Bathtub in the White House!' It'll be great!" Who could forget America's steam-powered Moon program? (Okay, the steam-powered moon thing didn't exactly work out and is sometimes cited as the reason for New Jersey as it now stands, but as the late President said himself, "An American citizen could not be a good citizen who did not have a hope in his heart.")

Plus, hey, ice cream.

"And Now The News"

I'm scanning the headlines, yawn...Anderson Cooper comes out, to the surprise of almost nobody...some second-row model/actress giving Jessica Alba the stink-eye for having been handed better genes...undersea worms consume the bones of their victims by spraying acid, ho-hum...Higgs Boson 99.999 likely found...and something goes click. Ah-ha! Of course; it's the only logical reason:

I turn to Tam and say, "That's why Anderson Cooper confirmed it! --He's been dating the Higgs boson!"

Tam (reading items of actual worth, suddenly interrupted): "Higgins's bosom? Arthur Anderson?"

RX: "No, Higgs boson. Anderson Cooper? War of Jenkin's Ear?"

Tam: "Wart on Jenkin's ear?"

Less news. More fiction. It's a lot more internally consistent. And believable -- didja hear about the scary-skinny E! hostess who will cover the Olympics despite the near-certainly that it means she'll miss the birth of her and her husband's first child? Yep: hired a host-mother. Welcome to the future, still without flying cars or hotels on the Moon.

Update: Wednesday morning, the strange man in my TV was pronouncing it "Higgs bosun." As in the Navy rank. Now it's even clearer: see, the Higgs bosun couldn't go public until DADT was changed to "whatever, dude." I hope they're very happy together. Also, I wonder what kind of ship is the Higgs.

P.S. Since she's unlikely to tell you, Tam's knee sports a major bruise after her fall the other day -- but she's walking okay. Still, ow!

"Gun Buy-Back Tables Turned:" None Dare Call It Synergy?

So, up Mordor Chicago way, they run an annual gun "buy-back"* and there's a degree of butt-hurtedness on the part of the Po-leece and happy-dancing by gunnies, because Champaign-based Guns Save Life rounded up every rusty, shot-out, beat-up and otherwise useless old gun they could find, turned them in, and walked away with over $6000. That money will be used to fund a gun camp for interested kids, and to purchase four bolt-action rifles to given away to lucky/skilled campers.

You have to wonder why the same police spokesperson who reminds that the "event..." is "...to take guns off the street..." calls netting a huge windfall, hundreds of guns they would not otherwise have received, "abusing a program intended to increase the safety of our communities."

No, see, if there is any kind of gun that makes people safer by being swapped away for a gift card and destroyed, it would be a rusty, worn-out one; so that's actually a win-win (with yet another win for the money being used to fund a camp for kids: teach 'em safe habits when they are young and they're that much less likely to shoot you by mistake).

But the antis -- and I'll count Chicago's government at every level as "anti" -- can't accept that as a positive. The antis had pro-gun types out rounding up and turning in hundreds more guns than GSL will be buying with the money received and yet still, antis call it abusing the program.

Gah. What a twisted, sour lot. Say hi to Mrs. Grundy and the WCTU for me, willya? Say hi to the frikkin' Klan; they hate the idea of "guns in the wrong hands," too. Mencken was soooooo right.
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* Flawed logic in the name: they were never the city's firearms to begin with!

While You Read This

I am, with any luck, working my way through a big pile of medical bills I should have got to over the weekend, which I mostly spent alternating between fitful sleep and feeling like warmed-over-death with a side of skim milk instead. Also, I need to be at my bank when it opens to pay yet another bill.

The good news? Play it right and I can have a nice poppyseed bagel, maybe with fried egg and bacon, at Einstein Brothers. Possibly it's "bacon" of the beef sort, I dunno, or maybe the brothers are not very observant; either way, I seem to recall it tastes just fine.


But not if I spend the morning geekening online. Next show in 14 hours! -Ish

(PS: Sunday evening, The Tamara slipped coming up the three steps leading from ground level to the kitchen, with both hands full of heavy items, and caught a kneecap on the edge of a stair tread as she fell. Iced her knee down immediately and for as long as I could make her leave it on; she can lift the leg straight, which is a very good sign, but at this -- prerecorded and shrink-wrapped for your protection -- posting, I don't yet know how she is after a night's rest. Hope for the best.)

Objective

Nice pen. (Darned nice -- a flexible nib, do want).

Nicer thoughts. Watch it all the way through. Meme, anyone?

(Also: Malki ! has been visiting Finland. He's been drawing his impressions -- some of which will make quite an impression.)

Today

Today, I am Not Well. Still. It is the weather? I'm blamin' the weather.

Slept. Slept from yesterday mid-afternoon to about 11 this morning, with frequent awakenings to head to the hall to the, er, head. Got up, stumbled through the kitchen for canned soup (lousy![1]), cinnamon toast (yum!) and coffee, zonked out on the couch in front of Warehouse 13[2], and fell back asleep.
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1. Embalmed beef and mushy veggies, in a distressingly-dark, nasty-textured broth. Not saying who but one of the better non-condensed brands. I expected better.

2. On the Roku, from the beginning. Surprisingly good; I think I recognize Jane Espenson's hand.