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What are we celebrating, really?


CRANKY OLD FART #258
leftovers & links
Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023


Oh what a glorious morning!

On my way to the toilet, I saw Dean in the kitchen, for the first time since we sorta had it out a few days ago.

He'd finished preparing a meal or a snack, and was headed into his room. We made eye contact and I waved and he waved, but he said nothing — just what I always wanted!

New Year's Eve is such a tired occasion. The idiots in my neighborhood started shooting off fireworks at 11:45 or so, and didn't stop until 2AM. Some of them might be my downstairs neighbors, and the fireworks in the air were so close, every burst of light was followed by shrapnel hitting the side of the house.

Same thing happened on the Fourth of July, and it frightened me then, but on the Fifth of July I couldn't find any charring around the outside walls, so I'm not going to worry about it any more.

It's only an annoyance, one among a million, but jeez, what are we celebrating, really? Another year older and closer to death.


Cripes, how I hate year-end "year in review" and "best of" lists. It's filler, where journalism should be. If I compiled a list of the ten best ten best articles of 2022, there wouldn't be any lists on it.

I lost most of my lifelong flab a few years ago, from a combination of fasting and salads, but gained most of the fat back during the pandemic because I'm an idiot and love ice cream.

The doctor convinced me that there's too much of me, so I'm returning to the habits that took the weight off. My goal is to drop a pound or two weekly, and my strategy is to eat less, eat healthier, and not eat at all when I'm not hungry. I'm taking at least a day off from food after every day when I eat, which isn't difficult, so long as I don't sit here daydreaming of ham on rye.

So far it's going well. Other than some carrots when I was feeling nibbly yesterday, I haven't eaten anything since the family breakfast on Saturday. A salad is forecast for this afternoon.

This blog is my diary, so I will be talking about this stuff sometimes, and from experience I know that this needs to be said: My body, my choice. I have no interest in anyone else's opinions about how dangerous or foolhardy you believe any of this is.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

White contractors wouldn't remove Confederate statues. So a Black man did it. 

Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe 

Republicans get a louder voice on climate change as they take over the House 

Mosquitoes are breeding more and extending their active range thanks to climate change 

"I wanted him to have a positive view of police officers and not all the negativity he sees on TV." 

Mystery links
Like life itself, there's no
knowing where you're going

click 

click 

click 

Clicks ahoy

Wish-Bone salad dressing was once a family business, then sold by turns to Lipton, Unilever, Pinnacle, and Conagra. No wonder it keeps getting suckier.

Bring back personal blogging 

In the beginning, there were blogs, and they were the original social web. We built community. We found our people. We wrote personally. We wrote frequently. We self-policed, and we linked to each other so that newbies could discover new and good blogs.

I want to go back there.

Well, we're right here.

This quick remembrance form Ace Backwords is the best tribute to Hate Man I've seen yet.

The first images from the surface of Mars were paint-by numbers 

Finding the first Americans 

What's wrong with an empty bus? 

♫♬  Mix tape of my mind  ♫

The Air That I Breathe — The Hollies 

Dazzling in the End — Murray Gold 

Hurdy Gurdy Man —  Donovan 

Miss Marple — Ron Goodwin 

Wicked Game — Chris Isaak 

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

Tom Browning 

Jeremiah Green 

Terry Hall 

Anita Pointer

1/3/2023   

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
 
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
 
Special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.

8 comments:

  1. hola dude, mind if I chime in with a diet story?:
    Diet News
    My fat went down but my sugar went up so I chose to eliminate honey from my morning coffee as well as the daily snack of honey mixed with a spoonful of exotic nut butter. I got to keep using the half and half with my coffee.
    After six weeks off sweetener, this morning I put some maple syrup in my coffee and I have to admit the sweetness really sweetens up this moment or at least I imagine it does. So maybe I'll go back to sugar with coffee, after all it may be the wine and bread and rice that elevated my glucose.
    These are the things we're forced to think about when we reach a certain age.
    Though I have a restricted diet I do take a taste of everything bad (or as Ed Denson would say: good) that passes in front of me, from a slice of bacon to birthday cake.
    At the Grants Pass farmers market the other day they were making the highly recommended fresh doughnuts. I picked up a sample bite, popped half in my mouth, and tossed the other half in the trash. As I was chewing the tasty doughnut I realized I couldn't go through with it and discretely spit it out and into the garbage before swallowing.
    When I get in front of a display case of muffins, scones, and cookies these days I imagine the taste with my eyes and imagine eating huge mouthfuls. My eyes get wide, I start breathing rapidly, and then I'm moaning and panting like on the way to orgasm. Once someone looked over so I knew I'd gone too far. (It reminded me of how I treated the cup each morning that a hot trimmer girl left behind, like it was her pussy in my mouth. Of course there's way more chance I'll eat those pastries that ever have my face between the legs of that long-gone beauty.)
    E Paradise

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will never foreswear exotic nut butter

      Delete
    2. Nutzo from Costco, damn good, pricy, cutting down from tablespoons to teaspoons...EP

      Delete
    3. The story had me rolling, EP.

      I've tried everything to lose weight over a lifetime of being fat, including chew a little and spit it out. It's actually a pretty good way to enjoy a diet banana cream pie — which, of course, is a regular banana cream pie half chewed.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. That guy stole a car, though! The cops *had* to chase him at 85 mph, and those girls should've been at home.

      1% of cops in killings get charged, the article says? That's more than I woulda though...

      Delete
    2. 20 years ago I never would have read a single line in any "socialist" news mag, but they're a very good site. My head starts to spin when they gush about Trotsky, and so on, but...

      They're very pro-worker, rank & file (very critical of big union corruption) and very anti-military, anti-war. When they write about strikes or labor disputes (whether it's manufacturing or teachers or students or philharmonic players) they actually interview the strikers. When's the last time NPR interviewed anybody but college professors or politicians?

      And they're equally harsh on BLM and MeToo and the 1619 Project, making it very clear their criticism is based on historical fact and the hypocritical tendency for groups like that to only really benefit the upper classes, while causing discord among workers.

      Naturally I'd never join any political group, or allow myself to be labelled as such, but if government has to exist, the least they could do is provide free housing, free education, free food, free health care, and a basic income. Everyone knows they could easily afford it, but no one talks about it honestly. Well, if those are the tenets of socialism, then sign me up. Of course that's a pipe dream that will never happen in our lifetime.

      And the comments are always funny because they like to call each other "Comrade" hahaha. "I concur, Comrade, Ant-Man Part 12 was indeed a step down from the previous 11 entries in the Marvel epoch."

      Delete
    3. Nobody does more damage to socialism, I think, than socialists who use "the dialect," sprinkling everything with words like comrade and petty bourgeois.

      I used to read WSWS on my regular surf cycle. Can't remember why it faded away, but I'm adding it back in. The news there is always reliable, and the slant isn't even as harsh to the left as the Wall Street Journal's to the right.

      Delete

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