They got me!
Nah, it’s a Fitbit. Got a factory refurb, so it was relatively cheap to try. I knew it would drive me nutty coo-coo banana-pants to have something on my wrist all the time, so I got a band long enough to wear on my ankle. I hardly notice it.
I don’t know how accurate these things are. It does appear to confirm what I suspected: I don’t get nearly enough deep sleep. Also, I don’t go anywhere NEAR 10,000 steps a day.
Have you tried one oF these things?
Speaking of nutty coo-coo banana-pants, if this wind doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to go there.
January 27, 2025 — 6:46 pm
Comments: 9
Not going to happen
One dead and a million without power, but that’s up North somewhere. Down here, it wasn’t a particularly impressive rainstorm. It was too gusty for the bike, though, so I walked in.
No, not me in the pic. That’s Grok again. I swear, no illustrator will ever be hired for anything ever again.
Stopped for a coffee and left a trail and a puddle under the table at the cafe. Fortunately, I had a spare pair of jeans in the office.
It’s about a mile and a half from my front door to work. An enjoyable walk on a nice day, bearable on a day like today.
You know those 10,000 steps we’re supposed to take every day? Do you know how far that is? FIVE MILES. Every day. I get tired just thinking about it.
Good weekend!
January 24, 2025 — 6:47 pm
Comments: 7
Life advice
I think this guy is trying to protect his parking space, but this sign cracks me up every time I walk past it.
A storm is arriving tonight. Storm Eowyn.
Since when do we name storms after fictional characters? Notwithstanding the considered opinion of thebump.com, I think Eowyn only means “horse lover” in Tolkien’s made up language.
Anyway, I’m’a go charge up all my shit and hunker down.
January 23, 2025 — 6:53 pm
Comments: 14
Now, that makes perfect sense.
The biggest surprise from Game of Thorns was learning that Trump is genuinely religious. There was so much kerfuffle in 2016 about whether evangelicals would go for him – I’m sure that’s why he chose Pence – that you’d think someone would’ve brought up the fact he’s a regular church-goer.
He was raised as a conventional Presbyterian (me too), but when he moved to Manhattan, he got caught up in the Marble Collegiate Church. Yeah, that’s Norman Vincent Peale’s church. Trump got hooked on Peale’s upbeat flavor of Christianity and spent a lot of time there. Met his second wife at church.
I never read the Power of Positive Thinking, but Wikipedia tells me it starts with these 10 rules:
1. Picture yourself succeeding.
2. Think a positive thought to drown out a negative thought.
3. Minimize obstacles.
4. Do not attempt to copy others.
5. Repeat “If God be for us, who can be against us?” ten times every day.
6. Work with a counselor.
7. Repeat “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” ten times every day.
8. Develop a strong self-respect.
9. Affirm that you are in God’s hands.
10. Believe that you receive power from God.
I mean, is that not the Trumpiest philosophy ever? I’m surprised Peale is controversial, since that there’s classic Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is not.
After Peale retired, Trump took up with Paula White, a Florida televangelist. She was spiritual adviser during his first term. Don’t know what their status is now.
The picture is what happens when you give Grok the prompt create an image to illustrate “the power of positive thinking”. It was not at all what I expected. You think it would Google (that’s how AI works, yes?) and find Peale. Or do something abstract with brain waves.
January 22, 2025 — 6:09 pm
Comments: 3
Rethinking
I read this book over the holidays, about the 2016 election. Published in 2017, the author has been described as a Bush insider (credited with the expression “compassionate conservative”) so he’s definitely tilted against Hillary but not necessarily a fan of Trump’s.
I dunno. He wrote an authorized biography of the Trump White House in 2019, so probably on balance a fan of Trump. He croaked in 2021.
ANYway, I came away with a higher opinion of Trump. I was astonished at the amount of anti-Trump stuff I had absorbed unconsciously. As much as I hate the media, they still snuck a bunch of ideas past me.
For example, his family is genuinely loving, close-knit and protective of him and each other. From what I can tell, that includes Melania. I had taken the cynical view of his relationships on board.
It would seem, too, that between Giuliani cleaning up crime and Trump cleaning up a crumbling downtown, the two of them rescued NYC from the brink. I did not know that.
It’s no wonder he and Giuliana are close. It’s astonishing the City has such disdain for him, though. Ingrates.
I had forgotten what sleaze buckets the Clintons were, too. And that their own party worried about them and their recklessness. Renting out the Lincoln bedroom? Remember that?
It was an odd experience reading a history book about something so recent. I would have I thought I could remember it all completely, but it took me by surprise. I enjoyed it.
p.s. Holy shit, the first 24 hours have been GLORIOUS. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re so accustomed to getting big promises and tiny payoffs, watching him sign all those wonderful EOs and chat easily with reporters – MORE OF THIS, PLEASE.
January 21, 2025 — 5:57 pm
Comments: 14
*exhale*
Iowahawk is the best. Remember his blog?
Not going to lie: I held my breath until the swearing in was over. I mean, not literally. I can’t hold my breath that long. I sighed deeply a lot.
Also, I had to bail on the speech. I have a very, very low cringe threshold. He was calling them all kinds of terrible shit AND THEY WERE SITTING RIGHT THERE.
Did you watch?
January 20, 2025 — 7:16 pm
Comments: 13
Parting shot
This is an act so silly, I’m going to assume it was a 26-year-old comms intern who came up with it.
To recap, the ERA (born in 1923(!)) made it through the House and Senate in the early Seventies and was sent to the States for final approval. There was a hard deadline of 1979 built in to the text (later extended with dubious legitimacy to 1982).
It need 38 and it got there, but only after both deadlines had passed. The last one was Virginia in 2020. Some states that voted to ratify it voted to rescind after the deadline passed (nobody knows if they can do that). It’s a mess. The one certain thing is that constitutional amendments have nothing to do with the president.
The irony is, one of the questions that soured women on the ERA was the possibility it would make separate bathrooms unconstitutional (the big one, of course, was the draft).
This executive flourish is so stupid, I don’t think the Supreme Court will even bother. I wonder if he’ll try any other foolishness on his way out the door.
January 17, 2025 — 5:34 pm
Comments: 9
Alexander, can you hear me?
We were tidying the office today (not my idea!) and I came upon the wrinklies, rattiest, fadedest dirty rust-stained(!) sawbuck I have ever seen. It’s thin as a tissue, as though it’s been abraded somehow. A puff of air would disintegrate it.
I can’t throw it away. Somehow, I cannot make myself put ten bucks in the trash.
If I were home, I could probably take it to a bank and get it replaced, but that’s not going to happen. I’m stuck.
I’ll probably die clutching this thing in my hand.
January 16, 2025 — 7:45 pm
Comments: 8
Smoooooooth
I wasn’t kidding that I started a skincare routine. I was kidding that Jen Ruben’s face made me do it, but she has sure stiffened my resolve. I’ve never paid much attention to my skin, and it’s really starting to show.
It is a confusing mess of peptides, retinoids, exfoliants, moisturizers, scrubs, serums, creams and fluids, all of which are screamingly expensive because people will pay anything. Fortunately, there’s dermatology YouTube to guide me. The skin channels I’ve run across are mostly men and their faces look like they are entirely composed of baby buttocks.
Those two guys in the picture are Drs Maxfield and Shah. There are plenty more, but I found those two especially helpful.
Any advice?
p.s. Earlier, I watched a snippet of Pam Bondi and her confirmation hearing for Attorney General. She looks about 25 – not near old enough for her resume. I checked her bio and holy crap, she’s 60! I wanna know her skin care routine!
January 15, 2025 — 6:38 pm
Comments: 6
See ya!
The egregious Jen Ruben has left the Washington Post. Who cares if she fell or she was pushed; the woman has been insufferable for years. This is taken from the Donald Trump portion of her Wikipedia article:
Rubin denounced Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement as “a dog whistle to the far right”, and designed to please his “climate change denial, right-wing base that revels in scientific illiteracy.” Previously, after Barack Obama had approved the agreement, Rubin characterized it as “nonsense” and argued that it would not achieve anything.
Rubin described Trump’s 2017 decision to not implement parts of the Iran nuclear deal as the “emotional temper tantrum of an unhinged president.” She had previously said that “if you examine the Iran deal in any detail, you will be horrified as to what is in there.”
Rubin strongly supported the United States officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Early in his presidency, she criticized Trump for not doing so, saying that it was indicative of his tendency to “never keep his word.” She concluded that Trump “looks buffoonish in his hasty retreat”. In December 2017, after Trump announced that he would move the embassy, she said it was “a foreign policy move without purpose.”
See, it’s one thing to have a policy opinion, it’s another to have a different opinion because you don’t like the guy who said it. Jen and the Never Trumpers are so screwed. They convinced the left they were useful. Now it turns out they were a tiny, feeble constituency that appeals to no-one, right or left. Where will they go?
Jen’s new gig is a substack called The Contrarian. It will feature news, opinions, podcasts, recipes, pets. No, I didn’t make those last two up. They really think they’re going to make a brand.
Go watch the introductory video, if you can bear the cringe. Seriously, go watch it – Jen is looking absolutely ghastly. I poked around Google to see if she’s been ill, but it would seem not. I looked her up to see how old she was – thinking mid to high seventies – and folks she’s two years younger than me!
I went straight out and learned a skin care routine.
January 14, 2025 — 5:39 pm
Comments: 12