After I’d given my two weeks notice, I expected to be unemployed. That’s what happens when you quit, without another job lined up. But on Tuesday, with four days to go, the boss pulled me aside to ask, would I stay if I could work from home?I … [read more]

CRANKY OLD FART
WITH THE NEWS #335
Saturday, July 1, 2023 • US Supreme Court says fuck you to gay people• Supreme Court says fuck you to everyone struggling with student debt • Supreme Court leaves intact Mississippi law disenfranchising Black voters • Supreme Court OKs online harassment I’d never endorse violence from the left. … [read more]

There are half a million stories in this casually-dressed city. About fifty of those stories are in my notebook, waiting to be typed into the blog, but this afternoon I’m too lazy to write ’em.  … [read more]

Part 3 of this issue’s
letters to Pathetic Life

CRANKY OLD FART
WITH THE NEWS #334
Thursday, June 29, 2023
• Supreme Court ends Affirmative Action Wherever anything’s left that doesn’t suck about America, count on this Republican Supreme Court to put an end to it. … [read more]

Once in a while I’ve mentioned my stoner nephew George, mostly making him the butt of jokes. He’s been a pot-head since he was a teenager, and now he’s in his 50s, but if you meet him, talk to him, he still comes off as a combination of Bill and Ted at their most barely coherent.Since … [read more]

CRANKY OLD FART
WITH THE NEWS #333
Tuesday, June 27, 2023 • Texas inmates “being cooked alive” in heatwave with no air conditioning • The background work for AI looks like the worst drudge work, only worse • Disbelief and anger among Greek shipwreck victims’ relatives as millions spent on Titan rescue effort • Lance Armstrong is suddenly concerned with fairness in sports • Tale of the tape:
Steely Dan’s “Second Arrangement” is found 

• Police Chief: “… at no time will I accept people telling me I’m a racist, or our department is racist because we made a mistake” and used pictures of black men for target practice • Lawsuit alleges jailers beat inmate to death 

• Former Seattle Police Chief “rebuked” — oh my — for dishonest and inaccurate statements made during CHOP • Videos smuggled out of L.A. … [read more]

I write for my amusement and the hell of it, but I’m not self-deluded enough to think you ought to read it all. Some of it, maybe, on days when five out of six cylinders are firing, but that’s once or twice a month at best. Today … [read more]

Mere moments ago, my flatmates Dean and Robert finished an epic kitchen conversation that had lasted more than two hours. I overheard all of it, because my bedroom abuts the kitchen. … [read more]

I were feeling extra stupid yestermorning, so I what-the-helled and gave myself a day off from writing.
Eating sardines at noon and bumbling around, I accidentally dropped a magazine to the floor, where it hit a precariously extended extension cord, which unplugged the lamp with enough extra oomph to yank it from atop the stack of milk crates and bring it crashing to the floor, where it met a tower of unopened tuna cans that broke the bulb and cracked the ceramic, leaving two large pieces broken but still attached, and two small pieces broken off. … [read more]