So I got one of those “Vehicle Recall” notices in the mail

Why? I can think of many reasons.

So wow… this blog is 5 years old.

I just realized that I blew right past my 5 year (right? 2014-2009=5 so that seems right) blogoversary, which was on December 4. Also sometime in the past week I went past post #4444, which is kinda neat. Looking back at that first year I think I put a lot more effort into things. Like, writing paragraphs instead of sentences. Goes to show you what a moron I was. Pfft, effort, who likes that stuff? And now that I’ve said that, I guess I’ve got a few paragraphs in me to complain about things.

More and more I simply find myself disinterested in current events. Everything seems to have devolved into name calling, and after really getting into following politics and the news when I first started this thing, now I just find those subjects distasteful and deceitful. I’ll read half of an article from some sort of conservative/libertarian viewpoint until the author just starts blaming the president for whatever the peeve of the day is and I just tune it out and click on the next tab. I’ll look at some website for movie reviews and they’ll start talking about global warming and it just turns me off the whole thing. Politics has seemingly infiltrated anything and everything, and it’s just… shallow. I guess I’ve turned from a “conservative libertarian” to a “there is nothing new under the sun, so just leave me alone” partier. As Borepatch says: “Democrats are not the problem, and Republicans are not the solution.” They’re all finks. I laugh at the politics of both my liberal and my conservative friends when I hang out with them, and how vehement they get. As Prof. Mondo says: “If your politics are bigger than your life, you’re doing one of them wrong.”

Honestly, I don’t even look at most of my gunblogs any more, since it only seems to be a mix of “idiot anti-gunner said something idiotic” and “9mm is the new 45.” I get it guys. I get it. There really is nothing new under the sun…

I guess that’s why I’m spending most of my internety time these days on miniature wargaming and aquarium forums. Always something new to learn and none of it is political. Don’t expect me to go away though! As long as my stupidphone can take pictures and run a WordPress app there will always be random sunsets and food, and as long as youtube keeps shooting crazy videos at me you’ll be the first (or at least, second) ones to get hit by the shrapnel.

The future, ladies and gentlemen

Quite a bit more plausible than most others.

Really? REALLY? C’mon.

Seen on Amazon

How many, exactly, fake holidays are we going to create for the holidays, to try and drum up consumer spending before we all admit that it’s dumb and go live in a tent because it’s all we can afford? And “Green Monday?” That’s the best you can do? Is next Monday going to be “Blue Monday” or “Mauve Monday?” What about Wednesday the 17th? Could it be “Blood Red Wednesday?” OOO, OOO, I KNOW! The third Tuesday in December shall heretofore be known as “Burnt Umber Tuesday” and we shall all celebrate it with a special extra 1% off everything in the Art Supplies category!

Be Brave, Strong, and Resolute

My dentist appointment got moved up to tomorrow, which means I don’t have to spend the next two weeks dreading it, but also means I don’t have the next two weeks to mentally prepare for it either. Three fillings need to be re-done, not the end of the world, but oh how I hate the sound of the drill and the feeling of the fingers-on-blackboard scraping in my head.

Eegads

They apparently let all the idiots out of the idiot home this morning. I’m falling back to my “I don’t care if you want to die screaming in a fire, just leave me out of it,” plea.

Easy come easy go

Filed my taxes yesterday.

Good news: I get $200 back from the state of Colorado.

Bad news: I get to write a $700 check to the Federal Government.

Oh well, at least I wasn’t giving them an interest-free loan.

Don’t start none won’t be none

Well… they asked.

Things that are exactly just as much fun as they sound

Hiking a half mile up a steep dam embankment with a five gallon bucket full of wet dirt and gravel (probably a bit more than 50 pounds, and just a bare wire handle for that matter). When you are already carrying another 5 gallon bucket with all your tools and instruments in it. And the ground is completely saturated so with every step you sink an inch down into the mud, and it sticks to your boots when you lift your foot.

All I can say is that I’m glad it wasn’t snowing, too.

So I went to the theater

Last weekend I went to the theater with some friends, to finally watch the next Hobbit movie. I’m really not sure that it was worth it. I mean, you’re back to Peter Jackson’s amazing imagining of Tolkien’s world, but then you have to slog through many many hours of slush that just made me go “That scene could have been cut.”

“That scene could have been cut.”

“That scene could have been cut.”

“That scene could have been cut.”

“Why did they add that to the story?”

“Eegads.”

Smaug was amazing, Martin Freeman was great, in what few scenes they let him be in (seriously guys, the movie is called THE HOBBIT, where was the frikken Hobbit?) It was, at least, understandable why and how they let Orlando Bloom back in, but the weird random love triangle and all the Laketown stuff (as much as I like Steven Fry in everything else he does) were both ennnnnnndlessssssss…

And then they didn’t even bother to try to make it into a “part 2,” and went instead for a “part 1 of part 3.” The money grubbing extension of a beloved story was obvious, and, obnoxiously, it worked to get me to the theater for the first time since Pacific Rim (which I went to twice, and the only regret I have is that I didn’t go to see it three times), so… good job guys. I will go to see part three, if only to see how you manage to stretch out an hour left of book time into another three hours of film. Seriously, with just the time I invested into part 2, I could have been half way through the actual book.

Gah. TLDR: if you saw the first one, rent this one next winter the day before you go see to the the third installment.

Three more loads today, and our first casualty

The reloading bench was being a pain, we gave it one more shove, it finally went… and the press slid straight thru the window. 

Cue an hour of cursing at safety glass and cheap vacuum cleaners.

Typical

Why does it always take me about halfway through a project to realize that there’s a better, easier, more accurate way to do it, and so I have to go back to the beginning and start over?

Gah. I haz a dumb. It’s getting better, but sometimes it backslides.

I don’t like any of it.

Lies, damned lies, and anything that Obama has ever said.

Ahem.

As for me, it’s already changed (for the worse) once, and will change again sometime next year, according to the letters I keep getting from the health insurance company, begging me to sign up for something or another.

Halloween

I’m going as a grumpy engineer. I’ve got the mismatched plaid shirts and worn out cargo pants and everything!

In other words, I hate Halloween, always have, and chances aren’t looking good for my outlook improving. As the humor columnist in yesterday’s paper said: “Halloween is more popular than ever. Fitting too, in that it so perfectly represents the average American in 2013: frightening-looking people dressed in hideous garb–pretending to be something they’re not–going around demanding handouts.”