I have had no energy and think I am coming down with something also several applications I use all the time seem to have had their fonts changed. Or have I had a stroke?
I am going to bed.
by John Cole| 78 Comments
This post is in: John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road", John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"
I have had no energy and think I am coming down with something also several applications I use all the time seem to have had their fonts changed. Or have I had a stroke?
I am going to bed.
by John Cole| 40 Comments
This post is in: John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road", John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"
Heya- been a busy couple of days the past few days so didn’t have time to check in and then every time I did it was too late and I just said fuck it. At any rate, one of our friends from undergraduate, Mary, was in town for the weekend visiting her friend and her dying husband, and her son goes into ASU, so we ended up having a last minute outing on Friday night. Then yesterday, Joelle and I had a shitload of work scheduled to do, got up, we were out of half and half for coffee, and that pretty much set the tone for “To be honest I do not want to do a god damned thing today” and with that, nothing was accomplished.
We couldn’t make dinner plans because we didn’t know if Mary was going to call last minute, so we just picked up gyros and eventually I went and had to go drive Mary’s son home from her friends and to make a long story short, we didn’t get anything done. I mainly played skull and bones and bitched about being old.
Grilled tonight, she’s about to finish Bridgerton (thank god) and I am playing games. Maybe I will have something to say tomorrow.
by John Cole| 66 Comments
This post is in: John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road", John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"
I’m tired and a little under the weather so I am just going to bed. Later.
This post is in: John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road", John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"
Bizarre day today- it hit high 70’s for a while and I could feel how intense the sun was on our walks, but it was so breezy that it felt cool. A front is blasting through the south of us, and no accumulation here, but it is overcast and the sky is angry down Tuscon way. Leftovers from last night’s burritos are on the menu.
I weighed myself today and I am down about 13 lbs from when I arrived here, and I haven’t been starving myself. I have been more conscious of what I eat, and eat only within a 6-8 hour window every day for the most part, but I think the bulk of it is all the walking. That’s good because that’s something I intended to start biking while out here but the bike that was right for me was too spendy. Maybe I’ll give it 6-7 months of walking and revisit the bike when I am back here and might actually need a different one.
The other thing is I am drinking a ton of water. Just a shitload. Not because I am thirsty but because I think I am still scarred from my time in the Army and my headspace is still “You’re in a desert you should be drinking even when not thirsty.” For the first couple weeks we were in the sand we had to watch each other urinate to see if they were pissing yellow and if you were you had to make them sit down in the shade and not move until they had drank a canteen full of water.
I don’t know if it is the same way, but the day I got into basic training until the day I got out they were super fucking serious about being hydrated and avoiding heat stroke. It was very serious trouble if one of the guys you were in charge of became what was then called a “heat casualty.” Like serious fucking trouble to the point I think I would rather accidentally discharge a firearm into the floor of the Colonel’s office than have one of my fucking privates have a heat stroke.
I mean it makes total sense so it would not surprise me if they are still that way, because it’s such an easy fix in a training environment or non-combat situation. And it’s been the case for a while that the most expensive thing in the United States military is always the soldier. The cost of training and logistics to create just one soldier is so astronomical many of you would be shocked. I mean, this is the US Military. If the soldiers, sailors, and flyboys were not the most expensive thing, none of us would be issued helmets and the sure as fuck wouldn’t have spent billions over the years worrying about ejection seats in planes.
All Hail the Wet Bulb, our benevolent ruler, who cares for us in the heat.
Another day, another billionaire makes a whole ass out of himself:
First time in NYC? https://t.co/FPqVhMduP7
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) February 28, 2024
I had room service once (I think it was in Boston), but it had to be around 2002-2003, so twenty years ago. I got in super late that night form my flight, pissed off (this was in the years right after 9/11), went to bed immediately, and woke up starving. Ordered a basic breakfast- eggs, a meat, potatoes, coffee. It was like 35 bucks. This was NOT the fucking five star Carlyle Hotel in NY where I ordered this, and it was 20 plus years earlier.
Jesus christ tax every billionaire into the fucking ground.
Mistermix already mentioned it earlier, but the news that Mitch McConnell is retiring is not surprising, not given how bad his decline has been. I hope his retirement is short and miserable. I keep repeating myself these past few weeks, but that is not surprising since this has been around for 20+ years, but the list of people who have done more damage to the United States than Mitch McConnell is a short one. The person who came up with MBA programs is up there, and Leonard Leo is really working over time. Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist are up there. Art fucking Laffer. Maybe Gingrich. But it is not a long list of people in the modern era who have done more damage than McConnell. Fuck him. I hope he gets a cyst on his ass so he is in pain every time he sits for the rest of his life.
As I said before, I am a garbage person.
That’s it for me, I ‘spose. I saw a couple half-hearted attempts to make uncommitted narratives some new life, but even those were phoned in.
I should probably note- I understand why people are pissed and they should be marching and doing everything they can to end this disaster, but the simple cold logic is that Trump would be worse for the people they care about. It’s not even debatable.
Save your protest votes for when there isn’t a good chance you will make things worse. Because Dean Phillips and that aura lady are not going to beat Trump no how many times you click your heels together and say “Hillary is 44.”
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Not much to report here- starting to understand island time because every day the weather is the same. Because it was so nice and I wanted something somewhat light and easy to cook, I was feeling fajitas. So I whipped up some of those and made a fruit salad with a pineapple base, and that was dinner.
So help me allah, should anyone ever mention replacing Biden in front of me I might make the nightly news. It’s so fucking insane and what is nauseating is I have lived through this type of media driven nonsense so many fucking times. Remember the Hillaryis44 and PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) crowd going into fucking June thinking they still had a path to victory? Or the Bernie folks convinced the maths would work out for them? Or the unskew the polls idiots? Every single one of them was denying what was clearly right in front of their fucking faces. And over and over and over again. And the media was right there with them, in many cases enabling their nonsense.
This is worse than even any of those previous cases. This is a sitting fucking President. Do these imbeciles not understand the fucking power of incumbency? And not only that, how would they fucking do it? Just invalidate the will of the Democratic voters, who, by the way, are still fucking going out every primary and saying “Yeah I like Biden.” It’s insanity, it’s anti-democratic, and it is basically impossible. Only two things are going to keep Biden off the ballot at this point- him saying “Fuck all of you I’m off to drive a corvette and eat ice cream,” or his death. And you can make all the fucking old jokes you want, it will have to be a sudden and unexpected passing like a heart attack or embolism, because he may be old, but he’s healthy as fuck and under constant surveillance by THE BEST FUCKING DOCTORS IN THE WORLD. If money and the best modern medicine can keep that meth addled big mac chomping diet coke swilling Trump alive, Biden ain’t going anywhere.
Speaking of, Biden won Michigan. Again.
And because of this stupidity being mainstreamed, we’re subjected to nonsense like this:
Bill Ackman talking about Dean Phillips here is a good example of Bill Ackman knowing absolutely nothing about how politics works pic.twitter.com/M8QI3FkGZ7
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 26, 2024
That’s Bill Ackman, an asshole of nearly unparalleled achievement in the field of being an insufferable thin skinned prick, whom I am sure you have all heard of because of his recent DEI bullshit. It goes without saying that as an asshole of that magnitude, he is, of course, a billionaire. It’s really a chicken or the egg argument- do only assholes become billionaires, or do billionaires become assholes? Another fucking imbecile with all the money in the world and all they want to do is either make people adore them or burn it all down. All I want is to be able to afford a new roof and a pool. Fucker.
At any rate, seeing that reminded me of something I know I have said or written at least a dozen times, but one of the most depressing realities about becoming an adult is the repeated, multiple times daily, near constant re-realization that almost everyone in real positions of power is an absolute fucking moron outside their narrow niche area of expertise, and often times, in that, too. And the corollary, of course, is that everyone actually qualified to do the job and smart enough to be in a position of power either has imposter syndrome like seemingly half the women I know or they are too smart and realize they don’t want nothing to do with real power and the moral dilemmas and the consequences. So we’re left with fucking half-witted sociopaths.
Speaking of assholes, this made me smile because I am a garbage human being:
That is all.
It’s still early, so I think I am going to go clean up after dinner and try to steal the remote from Bunny. Wish me luck.
by John Cole| 63 Comments
This post is in: John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road", John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"
Overcast day today with what can be charitably called a slight drizzle periodically, so not much going on outside the house for me other than a couple walks with Jack, the goodest boy:
Have I told you the story of Jack? Remember back to the background on Joelle’s friend Buzz aka her Tammy? Well Buzz lives up in Anthem, palling around with all the Scottsdale types, and he has two dogs of his own (a husky and a german sheperd, Floyd and Jackson respectively), and does long walks with them through the hills. At any rate, he had a neighbor or something who owned Jack but has Parkinsons. She was declining so she was going to have to go to assisted living, and no one knew what to do with Jack. Buzz could keep walking him, but who would take him permanently because 14 year old dogs are hard to home.
At any rate, Buzz had been stressing about it a lot on their phone calls, so Joelle told me and I just said without pause “oh you should take him” and she replied “I already said I would.” This was, for the record, after a long conversation in which I was repeatedly told that even though Thurston was coming to live in Arizona permanently I was not to under any circumstance adopt another cat. So at least we are on the same page.
At any rate he is just the perfect model of a very good boy, and he loves our walks as much as I do. He also loves riding in the car, and unlike a certain mongrel who will not be named, he is not a complete spastic asshole. Really just a perfect gentleman. He’s basically the dog version of an older southern gentleman. Although he doesn’t hate black people. In every other way, though.
Dinner was leftovers from last night. Had to boil two potatoes for some new mashed, but otherwise it was just last night’s meal again. It’s Monday and neither one of us were into anything super complicated, so leftovers were perfect. I did bake an apple pie, but I used store bought crust because working with pie crusts in Arizona is a pain in the ass. Even in the winter. I also made this week’s run of pico de gallo, which I’ve just kinda got in the habbit of keeping in the fridge. It’s so useful in so many things and it’s a super easy and quick snack. Cut up some corn tortillas, give them a quick fry, and voila, perfect snack.
On serious news, does anyone know anything about how the meeting with the four leaders of congress and Biden re: Ukraine aid went?
That’s about it for me. Gonna go clean the dishes and mop the kitchen and watch some idiot box. If I think of anything I will post it.
by John Cole| 47 Comments
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So last night I had intended to do a second post as I had promised, and even typed one out but didn’t post it. I swear. I thought I had hit the post button. It wasn’t much but I did write it. The gist of it was “I lied, there will be no second post, my head hurts and I am tired.” And that was it. I am here to rectify that now.
It was another warm day, but the days in which it is bearable to eat and cook heavier foods are waning, so I am making braised short ribs over whipped potatoes for dinner. Why whipped and not mashed potatoes? Because it’s 2024 and what you do in your own god damned house is your business.
I got the short ribs for a steal at the International Marketplace down on Broadway. They have every cut you can imagine and ox tails and tongues and it’s pretty much just an amazing place. And prices for most things are a steal. While I was there I got some jackfruit to try- not a whole thing, just a little bit already dissembled, and I kinda like it. I don’t know how to describe the taste other than it tastes like the fresh corpse of the love child between a pineapple and a mango. It has a thick, slightly rotting floral and honeyed sweetness to it, and you’re sort of left with the same sort of floral sensation you get when you drink something with hibiscus. If that makes any sense.
It also has these large, pearly seeds that have this smooth mouthfeel and are fun to spit out.
Saw an interesting story today about Warren Buffet’s son, Howard, who has given over a half a billion dollars to Ukraine aid and relief. More than many entire nations. I still firmly believe that every billionaire is a policy failure and I will have my stitched “Throw Things at Billionaires” art in my office until the day I die, but if you are going to half to have billionaires, this is the kind of shit they should be spending money on:
The wartime leader and American philanthropist have a profound mutual respect.
Buffett told Business Insider, “There are very few people in the world that could step up” and do what Zelenskyy’s done. “I think he’s a pretty amazing guy,” he said.
As a result, Buffett’s Howard G. Buffett Foundation has emerged as a stalwart ally to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, injecting $521,779,225 into humanitarian assistance for Ukraine as of January 2024.
Again, fuck billionaires, but that’s pretty baller even if it helps him dodge taxes.
Catfest. It was great and we spent just the right amount of time at it. It was the first year, so it was not huge, but it had really solid attendance and I saw a couple cats get adopted so that was awesome. And to families with kids, which means we are starting the cat indoctrination young so when they are older they don’t even question how they ended up at age 42 with a bigger mortgage than they wanted because they had to have a yard for their five cats.
The art and display at the museum featured the works of Karen Kuykendall and Joelle and I both agreed we had seen her work before but just did not know her name:
Afterwards, we went to an antique market to get Joelle some lowball glasses because she keeps wanting a whiskey sour and I refused to put them in a fucking mug or some other bullshit. I may be an alcoholic but I still have standards. While we were there I found this super cheap handmade box and was shocked to find it was only 28 bucks so I snagged it right up:
That’s about it for me, but since I know who you all are really here for, here is a picture of Steve, who claimed the bed for himself whilst we were changing the sheets. And by we, I mean Joelle because I was in the kitchen SLAVING OVER A HOT STOVE.
Night.