John Cole Presents “Stories from the Road”

The internet has been out for hours, and I just hooked up the phone to the laptop to use as a hotspot to tell you I couldn’t post. Now the internet is on, and I have no excuse and because I didn’t think about what I wanted to post before starting this is going to be random as all get out. Also, since I knew I was not going to have to post I took a half an edible.

Joelle is doing light years better, walking all over the place and doing her exercises and she even did a load of laundry and carried the basket herself while I was napping- I’ve been on laundry detail the past two weeks and still think I should be for a while longer, but if she wants to do a load and thinks it is safe, well, good. Her knee surgeon will not complain. Another sign of improvement is she showered again today, and putting on her compression socks was the easiest it has been.

I forget if I said it here, but I used to think the real test of a relationship was going to Ikea and then going home and putting together a piece of their furniture. I now think the ultimate test is putting compression socks on your partner after a knee replacement.

Speaking of recovering patients, dad had a check-in at the hospital and they say he is doing very well, they didn’t need to change any medicines, he has another cardiologist appointment coming up, and while he was there one of the doctors remarked again that he does not know how he is alive. I was talking about this with one of my buddies from the world of warcraft guild (I think I have mentioned how we have all been gaming together and in touch since 2004 and reunited for the release of classic servers in 2019- if not, I have now) who is a pharmacist, and he mentioned some study that says patients have better outcomes with younger medical personnel. Have not looked the study up because my internet was out and I could not activate the vpn to get into the library servers, so I will have to verify that later.

Here’s a feel good story:

A federal judge is signaling that Rudy Giuliani’s contempt hearing next Friday might not end so well for the former New York City mayor and onetime personal lawyer for President-elect Donald Trump as two Georgia election poll workers try to collect a $148 million defamation award they won against him.

Judge Lewis J. Liman in Manhattan issued an order Friday in which he was dismissive of what he described as attempts by Giuliani and his lawyer to dodge providing information to the election workers’ lawyers.

And he said the litigants should be ready at the contempt hearing to explain why he should not grant a request by lawyers for the two election workers that he make adverse inferences from evidence in the case that would put Giuliani’s Palm Beach, Florida, condominium in danger of being surrendered to satisfy the defamation award.

All together now, “AWWWWWW.”

Joelle and i finished Season 5 of Yellowstone which really went off the rails, but at least we have conclusion, Tyler Sheridan is making so much money off 1883, 1932, and Yellowstone that I would be shocked if there was not a spin-off with Beth or another season in between 1932 and Yellowstone. We’ll see.

Joelle said the most wonderful thing to me yesterday, and she came up behind me and whispered in my ear “I want to watch Game of Thrones next.” I immediately got thrilled thinking I was going to have to rewatch Downton Abbey or some period piece for the next two weeks with her (we only have one tv hooked up to the streaming services, so if we are watching something at night it is together) before our next pick. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pleasant and relaxing and fun with all the animals in there with us, but it’s also a relief to know her pick was something I am so excited to see.

I immediately warned her- “The show is great, but you need to understand that every character you like will be killed by in the most gruesome manner possible in the most surprising way imaginable, but it is ok because all the character yous hate get the same treatment.” Which, now that I think about it, is probably how the next four years will be under Donald Goffrey Baratheon. So I have been champing at the bit all day to start watching it to get her hooked, and got all the work and chores out of the way and then the internet went out. But it is up now, so off I go. Take care, people.

Friday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (54)

Made it to Albuquerque and decided to stop because I was having panic attacks. This election has me off kilter.

Will finish the drive tomorrow. Excited to see Joelle and Jack and Thurston.

Be nice to each other and use this as an open thread I don’t need a fucking pity party with 500 people telling me to take care of myself blah blah.

Also I am apparently still angry about last Tuesday.

Monday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (166)

Made some solid work of the drive to Tday, making it about 950 miles, which means tomorrow I can easily make it to Albuquerque or maybe even Gallup, leaving a short remnant (by comparison) for the third day so I can arrive early enough to unpack and be in a somewhat talkative mood and not murderous. In a cheap 70 buck a night hotel next to a waffle house, so I had a gut bomb breakfast for dinner, which I needed because all I ate all day long was two bananas and a handful or two of dill flavored sunflower seeds.

I don’t like to eat or drink anything when I make long drives- just a coffee in the morning with a banana, a couple liters of water, and that is it. I dunno why, I am weird. I just have a dinner when I get to where I am stopping.

Maxwell was a complete and total asshole for the first 273 miles, yowling like a madman until finally his meds kicked in. Asshole.

Gas prices were absurd, ranging from the lowest at 2.35 a gallon to the highest at 2.95. These motherfuckers did not vote for Trump because of the price of gas, but I have no doubt they will credit him on 21 January when all of a sudden the economy is great. Fuck them.

Sunday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (174)

I can’t even turn on the news or browse the headlines before instantly being sent into a frothing rage. It’s something every fucking day. Whether it was Elon dancing around the stage being a “dipshit” or Trump pulling his DEI for billionaires stunt at McDonalds or pining for Hitler’s generals.

Just fucking make it stop.

The Bullshit Never StopsPost + Comments (111)

Had the first really hot day of the summer, altough I have to say by really hot I am talking WV standards, not Arizona, so it was closing inon 90 today. Little muggy and not much a breeze, so I had to break down and turn on the portable unit in the home office to keep things cool. Starting to get around that time of year when you have to do all the outdoor stuff either in the morning or figure out what you can do later in the shade.

Coincidentally, I had to drop the Honda off at the dealership for an appointment I made two weeks ago to get my AC fixed. It actually died prior to my trip to Arizona last fall, but I didn’t want to spend the money to fix it and figured I would not need it over the winter, even in Arizona, and I was right. I still don’t want to spend the money to fix it, but I kinda will need ac this summer, I suppose.

In other news, I see the Republicans are living out their dreams with the Hunter Biden trial, which I am not even going to bother following because honestly I don’t care. Go after the Trump kids next for all I care. Other than that, the news all looked shitty, although I did see a headline that Nigel Farage was pied by an onlyfans model, and I am cool with that.

What’s up with you all?

Tuesday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (186)

Oh noes, an elderly Republican has a sad:

Despite all the talk that Joe Biden killed the Commission on Presidential Debates this week, there’s at least one objection.

“We ain’t dead yet,” says Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr.

He’s the co-founder and co-chair of the commission, and he sat down for an interview with the Playbook Deep Dive podcast this week to discuss whether this really is the end of his organization’s 36-year run producing 33 general election debates.

Fahrenkopf had harsh words for senior members of the Biden campaign, which stunned the commission on Wednesday morning with a letter declaring the president would not participate in the commission’s fall debates. The Biden team described the commission’s debates as “noisy spectacles” that occur too late in the process to accommodate early voting, and which were too easy for Donald Trump to hijack in 2020 by breaking rules that went unenforced.

Fahrenkopf called the Biden campaign’s allegations “false” and said the campaign “didn’t do their homework” on early voting. He blamed the blowup on Biden advisers Anita Dunn and Ron Klain’s hostility to the commission.

Some quick background- Fahrenkopf is the former head of the RNC from 83-89, during the Reagan years, before most voters today were even able to vote, and according to his wikipedia entry, he is 84 years old. So no, he and the Presidential Debate Commission are not technically dead, but if you look at the actuarial tables he’s got one foot in the grave the other on a banana peel and the commission is in the same boat.

Having said that, thank FUCKING GOD Biden’s team managed to secure the debates outside this shitshow. Here’s the deal- it’s not 1988 anymore and we are long past pretending that the old rules of genteel debate still hold. In fact, the biggest impediment to Democratic success in the last twenty years or so are the idiots in the Democratic party, now mostly gone, who believed in the old way and treating Republicans as serious people who should be given the benefit of the doubt. The stupid centrist fuckers who think they can negotiate with terrorists because in their mind Tip O’Neill is still smoking cigars and having drinks with Reagan.

Those days are long gone, and the simple fact of the matter is the institutions we relied on for decades and centuries are crumbling in this new era, because much of government and civil life requires people acting in good faith. Republicans tossed that aside in the Gingrich era and have become worse with every passing years, and have in many instances either fully co-opted institutions or simply ignore them and do what they want because they realized there are no repercussions.

The same thing happened to the Sunday shows and much of the media- Republicans realized that there is no down side to just flat out lying, and they did that until they just stopped showing up. In addition, the media bent over backwards to be “fair and balanced,” so we were then and now treated to the grotesque spectacle of treating things like Obama agreeing with Henry Louis Gates as a scandal on par with Donald Trump blackmailing Ukraine. Biden’s dentures slip and he mispronounces a name while Trump shouts out “MAGNETS DON’T WORK UNDERWATER AND HANNIBAL LECTOR WAS A GREAT GUY” and the headline the next day is “both Presidents have issues with their age.”

This serves no one, of course, except Republicans. It doesn’t help the country, it doesn’t help inform the public, and it certainly doesn’t build faith in institutions.

So Mr Fahrenkopf can fuck off into the wilderness for all I care. After the deceits and abuses they let Trump get away with the last few times around, I see no need to include the commission this time around.

In other news, this happened in Congress:

Jasmine Crockett is the Queen, of course. But Jamie Raskin’s reaction has me howling. pic.twitter.com/yjmKYbgja6

— Jane of the North (@JaneotN) May 17, 2024

Two thoughts- Raskin deserves credit for not breaking out into a full laugh, and I hope that Crockett is around for a long time.

My legs are very sunburned and ouchie, so I am going to do nothing but watch Caprica tonight and stay out of any sun tomorrow. I guess I have nothing else to say, really.

Friday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (76)

Another absolutely foul rainy day today, which is to be expected, because any time there is any sort of lunar or solar event, it rains. Period. I bet I actually see one out of every 10 full moons. It was cold, too, with the temps going down to around 48 degrees at one point.

In other news, my front porch has five bird nests- four in the ferns, and one up at the top of a column, and today I noticed that the little babies had their heads out of the nest wailing for food. There are at least two, but only one posed for me:

No luck on the job front, but I only looked for an hour or so. There really is nothing unless you want to work fast food for 9 bucks an hour. No wonder people are fleeing the state. I’m tired and burnt out, so that’s it for me. Have a good one.

Saturday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (110)