wombat_socho

You're living larger than Henry VIII. Respect the TP. (Maggie's Farm)

Why does anyone pay attention to either one of these idiots? To quote the Blogfather, "Really, this is exceptionally stupid even by The View’s Joy Behar’s admittedly low standards." (The Other McCain)

#snOMG. (Dan Riehl) Related: Megan McArdle blogs the "Snowpocalypse" and wonders why nobody is suggesting that upstate NY polities rent out their equipment and staff to help Maryland, DC & Virginia get plowed out? Less seriously, Mary Katherine Ham posts an honest weather map. (Moe Lane)

Strange, the media were pretty quick to find out who was backing the Swift Boat vets...why so little interest in theteapartyisover.org? Maybe because it's a front for AFSCME and similar unions? (Contentions, via Professor Death)

I remember the days when Japan was going to just take over everything...and then their economy went into the crapper. Now everyone's talking about how China is going to eat our lunch. Well, not everyone. (Instapundit)

This kind of crap is why I don't read comics any more. Also, Chuck Todd of MSNBC claims reporters love teabaggers, er, the tea party movement! Clumsy lies like this are why your primetime shows are getting their asses kicked by Fox's 3 AM Red Eye show, Chuckie me lad. (Ace)

I can handle it just fine, myself, and the Sportage can four-wheel it through the piddly little 2-6" that we've been getting most of the time down here in DC. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people whose idea of snow driving is to take their 2WD sedans out, turn on their hazard lights and high-beams, and putter along at 30 MPH in the left lane. On the Beltway. I admit for about fifteen minutes this evening I was praying for a semi to experience brake failure so that one such ignoramus would be removed from the road, if not the gene pool. Same goes for people in Cooper Minis and Smart cars. GTFO. All of you.

I went out in the snow to advise a friend on forming a 501(c)(3), which advice he'd sought since I have actually done this before, or at least laid the groundwork. He mostly already has the stuff he needs, but I'm looking at getting him a copy of ATC's app (sans financial data) as a reference. I'm hoping they won't mind.

Aside from this, major event of the day was the second State of the Goonion in three days, this one by interim CEO Darius Johnson. Darius, as some of you may recall, was our CEO when we took Delve originally, so in a way it's kind of appropriate that he's leading us out of there and off to new horizons. The future of Goonfleet will have a lot more pissing in peoples' Cheerios and a lot less infrastructure, which is a future that appeals to a lot of Goons who felt that Delve and its riches (and enormous revenue-sucking infrastructure) were changing us into just another EVE alliance. I still have some ships and modules in Delve, trapped in enemy stations that I can't dock at any more, but I can replace those. The Horde is saddling up again, off to reap more skulls for the Skull Throne and harvest fresh barrels of pubbie tears.

Woke up at 0430 due to some transient pain in the groin and couldn't get back to sleep; wound up re-reading Quartered safe Out Here, playing Civicrack and listening to classical music. It's strange: I find these days that Christmas pop music annoys me no end, but I don't mind choral arrangements of the classic Christmas hymns or instrumental versions of the same. Anyhow, I spent the rest of the morning farting around on the computer and eventually ran out of steam around 1130. I don't nap often, but today seemed like a good day for it. Hopefully it won't completely screw up my sleep cycle.

D.C. cop brings gun to a snowball fight. Seventeen police forces in the District, and the DC police manage to find the most retarded of the lot. Go figure. (Instapundit)

I guess I picked a bad time to stop drinking. Coffee, that is; a few years back I cut down on coffee because I thought all the caffeine was messing me up. Bad idea, apparently, although I think my diet and lack of exercise would have gotten me to the state I'm in sooner or later anyway. (Ibid.)

I saw people out walking today, although it was hard to tell whether they were walking in the streets or on the sidewalks. Maintenance came to shovel out the steps and sidewalk to my building, but I stayed inside anyway. Nothing to go out for, really.

Decided to forgo the apocalyptic delights (sic) of Lucifer's Hammer and instead delved into my collection of Analog issues from the 70s to find Robert Silverberg's Shadrach in the Furnace, a story about the personal physician of Genghis Mao IV, ruler of the plague-wracked Earth of the 21st century through the Permanent Revolutionary Committee. Genghis Mao is old, and sustained through organ transplants; his personal physician, Shadrach Mordecai, is linked to him through telemetry implants that keep him aware of the Chairman's biological processes. Shadrach also supervises the three projects by which Genghis Mao seeks immortality: one that will translate the Chairman's mind into a robot, another that will regenerate his brain cells, and a third that will transplant the Chairman's mind into another human. It's a fascinating story, and I remember thinking at the time how much different it was from all the New Wave stuff Silverberg had written for Galaxy and other venues in the 1960s and 70s. It still feels that way, and I still like it immensely.

The huge terrible snowstorm that's supposed to shut down DC tomorrow (all 15" of it) started falling while I was out returning books and DVDs. Just flurries so far, but since I had no reason to go out besides returning stuff I came home promptly and snagged the best parking space.

In other news, Eri Yoshida will be pitching in the Arizona Winter League. Who is Miss Yoshida? This mopo ought to answer that question.
( NWS if your work can't deal with strong language )

For those of you who are baseball-challenged, that there's a knuckleball grip, which explains 50% of the excitement. The other 50%? What part of "Miss Eri Yoshida" escaped you? ;) (Baseball Musings)

Also in the world of baseball, a really nice little essay about Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully and Philadelphia A's owner/manager Connie Mack crossing paths. Between the two of them, their lives have spanned the entire history of professional baseball in America. (Ibid.)

I'm wondering if the mood I'm has more to do with the situation, the weather, or just spending too much time brooding over the past. It's been a little over six months since I finished training my replacement at Wilbar, and in that time I've not had so much as a one-day temporary assignment -except for one day of substitute teaching here in Alexandria. In that six months, I've liquidated what little remained of my retirement funds, had to be helped by friends and family so I could make rent and truck payments, and gotten no closer to getting any kind of paid work - again, with the exception of the Alexandria substitute teaching job, and at the rate assignments are coming up, that's not exactly something I can rely on to keep the bills and the rent paid.

The weather has been overcast for most of this week and rainy to boot. I think it's starting to get to me. I don't recall being bothered by this sort of thing before to this extent, and wonder if it's actually cloudier down here than it was in Minnesota.

Well, nothing I can do about any of it but to keep on plugging. My niece Valerie is leaving for Air Force Basic Training on Monday, and I feel bad that I can't do anything for her to see her off, but that's they way it is right now. Maybe when she comes back in April.

I'm even feeling useless in EVE. I don't seem to have the right skills or timing to really help the logistics crew, and at the moment I'm far enough behind the isk curve that I can't really afford to x up for fleet actions and go shoot things.

Meh. This will all pass, but at the moment it's all weighing on my mind and I'm not doing very well at not brooding about it along with other stuff (in the past) that I can't do much about either. Putting on ten pounds since last month's clinic visit is inexplicable, and I've basically just blown it off as some kind of weird anomaly. We'll see how my waistline and weight match up in January.