Me, examining a new piece of industrial cutlery the big brown truck of happiness delivered today – This is cool, but it needs to be sharpened up a bit.

Her – Do not sharpen that!

Me, running my thumb along the relatively sharp edge – Why?

Her – Because there’s a 200% chance of you cutting yourself with that. If it had one edge, there’d only be a 100% chance, but it has two, so it’s 200%.

She’s not wrong. Luckily, I had a bandaid handy.

• I would rather be both happy and right, but I will settle with happy. Being happy means I don’t have to sleep with one eye open.
• Someday, some of the people who think they are a part of my life will figure out that me not caring at all about them does not mean I hate them. Hate takes too many calories. I prefer indifference to the point of not remembering they exist until they intrude upon my consciousness again.
  • Being hated by me is a privilege I extend only to a select few, and it is a privilege that you must certainly earn.
• As an independent voter, I am going to have to stock up on popcorn now so that I have enough for the 2024 political season.
• The news is full of reports that people have lost literally billions of dollars they entrusted to an inexperienced 20-something with limited oversight who kept his ‘business’ in the Bahamas.
  • Somehow, these people have the chutzpah to act surprised when their riches disappeared.
  • I mean, if you can’t trust a 29 year old with bad hygiene, manners, and fashion sense to hold onto your nest egg while living in a house with the 9 other people who run his company, including a girlfriend who openly brags about how great pharmaceutical stimulants are, who can you trust?
  • Dude, if you don’t understand it or can’t touch it, don’t invest in it. Even if you can and do, you better have someone with neither a neck nor a sense of humor available to ensure that your investment is being watched over carefully.
• Apparently, holsters for my new pistol have to be made on the hips of Cuban virgins out of imported Rhodesian emu hide. The magazines appear to have been crafted by master dwarven artisans out of finest trans-orbital unobtanium, too.
• As a return to the office lurks somewhere just over my horizon, I’ve been considering picking up a smaller car, new or used, for the hour-long commute.
  • Irish Woman is under the incorrect impression that I can wave my hand imperiously, and my employer will make a desk appear out of the ether for me to use at one of the company’s other, closer, facilities.
  • I had to break it to her that every other person who lives on our side of town already had that idea, and there is no room at that particular inn.
  • I’m not sure she believes me, but her will can only bend reality so far outside of our yard.
  • So, anyway, I looked at dealerships and used car lots in the area. There is a bit of inventory, not much, but a bit. However, the cost of a 2 year old used sedan is about what my parents paid for their first home. A new car is more than our last two cars combined.
  • Guess I’ll be driving the F150 for a bit more until this silliness gets under control.

• Woke up to the sound of wind whipping through the trees and ice pellets pattering against the window.
  • Yesterday, it was sunny and 72 degrees. Today, it was gray, wet, and cold enough to make the Kentucky people whine.
• The puppies enjoyed their first snowfall. The fake weiner dog even enjoyed it when her stomach scraped the white stuff a bit.
• The miniature American Psychohound thought it was the best thing ever.
• As luck would have it, this morning was the morning to walk a neighborhood and leave flyers for “Scouting for Food”. The half inch of ice was being supplemented by wet snow as we walked.
• For our anniversary, I got Irish Woman and me tickets to Churchill Downs. I bought a higher tier so that we could sit inside and eat something approaching real food. Considering the weather, I’m glad I did.
  • For $80 a head, we got a nice warm place to sit and a buffet.
  • Even with the bad weather, I’m not sure I got good value. The room was about half full, but the buffet was regularly empty on at least half of its items.
  • Also, when I pay that much for a meal, being told “Oh, the coffee is over there. Paper cups are right next to it. Help yourself!” is not what I expect. For $80 a head, I expect Juan Freaking Valdez himself to bring me a bone china chalice filled with the nectar of the gods.
  • The track conditions were, understandably, horrendous. Most races had more than one horse scratched voluntarily due to the risk of running. I can’t blame the owners. Most of those horses are worth more than my house, but it only takes one slip and all they’re good for is dog food and fertilizer.

Not sure who I’m stealing this idea from, but this isn’t originally mine. It’s just been rumbling around in my head for the past few.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’^[a]39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

Turning the other cheek is usually portrayed as a good person allowing someone else to harm them and not responding out of kindness and forgiveness.

I’ve always looked at it as not caring enough about the other person to give them the satisfaction of a response.

To me, it’s more of a statement for me to remind someone that they are so insignificant to me that even an insult or minor attack isn’t worth the effort to notice.

“You, flea, are not worth the calories it would take to scratch.” and all that.

Of course, your mileage may vary. My ability to ignore someone changes depending on a lot of variables, and I did inherit my grandfather’s temper.

And for you “What would Jesus do?” folks, just remember that in certain circumstances, flipping tables and literally beating the bejeezus out of them is perfectly acceptable.

We were breaking down the Halloween setup at the end of the driveway, and I was playing spooky music to set the mood. I wanted to get everything in before the next round of rain came through.

This started playing after Monster Mash, and The Young Prince perked his ears up.

“The Exorcist?” he asked with an impish smile.

I grunted. “Yeah. I think this is what your mom and I danced to it at our wedding reception.”

Just then, a peal of thunder and a flash of lightning split the sky. I felt a burning sensation at the back of my head. Turning around, I spied the love of my life trying to bore a hole in my cranium with her mind.

Ah, love. Sweet, sweet love.

• Here in Kentucky, the judicial elections are non-partisan, and judges tend to not advertise or express political sentiments. That can make having an informed opinion at the polls harder for the voter.
  • Today, one of the judicial candidates made my life easier and convinced me to vote for their opponent when they produced a rare commercial attacking their opponent, who has not advertised as far as I know.
  • I am impressed by how clearly they described their opponent’s agenda and how quickly they convinced me to vote for said opponent.
  • Bravo, candidate X, bravo.
• Elon Musk, he of the rockets that land as God and Robert Heinlein intended, is rumored to be planning a 75% layoff when he takes control of that hive of scum and villainy, Twitter.
  • It appears that this is, understandably, causing a wave of anxiety amongst Twitter employees. I mean, who wants to be laid off from your phony-baloney job?
  • I have some advice for the Twitterers. Take these ideas for what they are.
    • Learn to code. OK, I’m being a bit flippant here, but hear me out. If you’re working at Twitter, I’m going to assume that you’re at least somewhat technical. If you’re already a hardcore coder, then concentrate on getting better. You’ll either become essential and survive the bloodletting, or you’ll improve your odds of landing on your feet. If you’re not a coder, a new skill will look good for your resume. At least, you’ll be able to show that you made a desperate, last minute attempt to be more relevant after your position of 27th Assistant Understudy to the Chief Zampolit for Meme Verification is found to be surplus to requirements.
    • Learn that your job is not who you are. I mean, sure, everyone wants the glamorous title and lifestyle of a cubicle-dwelling, 18-hour workday having, no life to speak of outside of the Internet troglodyte, but that’s not everything you are. Embrace your inner self, and recognize that sweeping the streets of San Jose or San Francisco is better than starvation. Just ask the former employees of DEC or pets.com.
      • OK, well, cleaning the streets of San Francisco will be pretty terrible, but you get the idea.
      • Maybe you can take all of the skills you got playing skeeball in the Twitter break room for 8 hours a day and use them to launch your own business. I can see it now: Rent-A-Goof. Customer calls up and a slovenly Twit comes over to harangue them about their carbon footprint, privilege, and dietary choices. You’ll make millions!
  • If you survive the coming layoffs, consider yourself lucky and get on with it. I suggest pressing your nose to that grindstone until you start to smell smoke. Nobody says this is the final round, and you haven’t even seen Musk’s final form yet.
  • If you don’t keep your job, for God’s sake, don’t move home to Nebraska to look for work. Stay in California and continue to vote for and be Gavin Newsom’s problems. Decent people in the Heartland don’t need an influx of irrational, petty, opinionated children nowadays.

• The mid-term elections are coming up soon. It’s that semi-annual season of hope where we all think that we’re going to vote our way to a better tomorrow
  • Some cynics see this as Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. I see this more as Bullwinkle exclaiming “This time for sure! Presto!”
  • The 2024 Presidential race starts the day after the 2022 mid-term. I’m already investing in futures in canned food and shotguns in anticipation of a principled, disciplined, and collegial election.
• The war in Ukraine is in its third trimester, and things seem to be swinging back Ukraine’s way at the moment.
  • Ukraine is liberating large chunks of territory in the face of crumbling Russian resistance. Soon, the cliche about French rifles, never fired and only dropped once, will be superseded by something to do with Russian tanks
    • Russia is mobilizing dozens of fresh troops to throw into the fight. By fresh, I mean either old enough to remember that Brezhnev was a hard man, but a fair man, or young enough that we should soon see a tearful documentary on Vice about the use of child soldiers from the slums of Nizhni Novgorod.
    • My prediction is for a long, cold winter and a bleeding sore of a conflict for the foreseeable future. I call it my “Second verse, same as the first” perspective on modern warfare.
• Putin says that all options are on the table, including the use of ‘special weapons’. With all the attention being given to the possible use of either tactical or strategic nuclear missiles, I hope somebody on our side is tracking the locations of nuclear 152mm and 203mm artillery shells.
  • Nothing says “I love you” like a brigade firing for effect with 2 kiloton glow-in-the-dark pushka pills
  • Fire enough of those at a city, and eventually one of them will work.

• Taking your youngest son to see Sabaton is one of the pleasures of parenthood. His only other concert experience was Jimmy Buffett with his mother. Some would say that this takes him to two extremes. I disagree. This just rounds out his experience.
• The crowd at the concert varied from 10 to 60 years old. Some wore Metallica or Judas Priest tee shirts that looked old enough to be original, some wore Sabaton tee shirts that still had the tags on them.
• Concerns about walking through downtown Cincinnati unarmed at around midnight went away when I realized that I was walking them with about a thousand people as equally amped up on heavy metal as I was.
• Parents, always remember to check with your teenager before leaving the hotel room to make sure they have all their stuff. In fact, make them show it to you. This morning, I got to walk an extra block back to the hotel and tip the nice man at the front desk so that the Young Prince could go back up to our room to fetch the cell phone he swore he had in his pocket.
• To round out a Swedish weekend, we breezed through IKEA for a couple of hours. I picked up a few things, rediscovered how much I love lingonberry jam, and bought several things I didn’t know I needed.
• The Swedish meatballs at IKEA were just as good as I remember them. Better than I make them, not as good as my grandmother’s recipe.
• Apparently the new puppies were not enthused by our absence. Irish Woman reports that Sophie May, the faux-weiner dog, was clingy. Ellie May, the American psycho hound, on the other hand, became rather mouthy.
• Woke up in my nice warm hotel bed this morning to a text from my wife stating that it was freezing in the house and that she was turning on the furnace. I strenuously objected to her plan and pointed out that the icicles hanging from her nose would melt away once the sun came up.

Signs you love your children –

You get up at 6 AM on a Saturday morning to bake banana bread so you can take it along as a treat for your daughter in Saint Louis.

You mule half a case of Ale 81 and several rolls of Purnells Whole-Hog sausage across two states because you can’t get that stuff in Saint Louis.

You go help park cars at the University of Louisville home opener football game as a fund raiser for your youngest’s Scout troop the night before driving to Saint Louis.

You serenade said youngest with “Der Kommisar” sung in a Russian accent while he’s trying to wake up.