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Month: January 2018

Weekend links

  • Pretty funny. And think of the implications! New Jersey towns turn property taxes into “charitable contributions” to scoff at the new tax law.
  • Did you know that Ash Wednesday falls on Valentines Day this year? And Easter shares a date with April Fools Day? (unless, of course, you’re of Orthodox persuasion, in which case your calendar is less odd for a change).
  • O, brave new America, where where the rich get richer and the poor go to jail. (Tip o’ hat to jc2k in comments) 8 Comments
  • Friday links

  • This isn’t a new story. But it’s a wow and anybody who thinks about self defense should read it. A hit man came to her house. She survived. He didn’t. No guns involved. (H/T jc2k in comments)
  • Republican wins a hotly contested Virginia race. By having his name pulled out of a punch bowl.
  • Oregonians kinda-sorta, in a smallish way, finally get to pump their own gas. And there’s panic in the streets. (If you want to know why it’s hard to get people to envision even small amounts of political change, there’s your perfect example.) 16 Comments
  • It may be just another closet to you …

    … but to me, it’s a project nearing completion. Besides, it’s actually two closets. And it’s what you get when you have a long hallway left over after your plans have been repeatedly unplanned by reality. Here I’m standing at the back of the second (utility) closet, looking into the nicer clothes-closet-to-be. The clothes closet portion has a tongue-and-groove wood ceiling, which I installed yesterday (a pleasant job, for a change). And it will have proper baseboard and crown moldings. Here I’m standing in the clothes area looking back into the utility closet. Befitting a utility closet, it’s much more…

    7 Comments

    Midweek ramble and links

    Funny thing, human psychology. I wrote Monday night that my bedroom renovation project had begun to feel like purgatory. So I gave myself permission to take a break from the project yesterday … which naturally made me feel good about working on it again. Got a fair bit done. By next week I’ll have reached the point where I’ll need The Wandering Monk’s assistance again (to replace sections of bad flooring, mostly). But I’m afraid the Monk may have finally wandered. Oh, not wandered from the area; he bought a house a year ago, so he won’t be leaving for…

    11 Comments

    A little (online) housekeeping

    Over at Claire’s Cabal we went to a (mostly) free-membership model in mid-2017. Now, all initial memberships are six-months. If the new Cabalistas are active posters and assets to the community, I convert them to full members. If they just lurk or post a few times then leave, their membership lapses. The first of those six-month provisional memberships end later this month. As of today, when I finally got around to setting up that system, lurkers who’d like to continue lurking can extend their memberships for a small fee. Still, if you’re a Cabal lurker, I hope you’ll get in…

    3 Comments

    Monday on a Tuesday links

  • You’ve already heard about the vicious “swatting” (called a prank by some … but some prank!) that left an innocent young man dead. Here’s more on how it came about. I hope the two who arranged the swatting, plus the overly jumpy shooter, plus the authorities who failed to investigate the legitimacy of the call all pay for the evil they did — and change their ways. Fat chance, though.
  • Erica Garner, who fought for justice for her father, is dead at 27.
  • 100 things that became newly racist in 2017, the year of the self-righteous jackass. 10 Comments
  • Okay, back to normal

    Well, my mini-vacation is over. And not a moment too soon. I spent much of it (including Christmas and New Years Day) hanging drywall, taping, mudding, caulking, and painting. By the time yesterday rolled around I was feeling as if I’d been sent to purgatory to spend 1000 years finishing the inside of a closet. Maybe not 1000 years, but close. I’m still only about half-way done. You wouldn’t think completing a simple, smallish bedroom would take so long. It’s just a 10-ish x 11-ish box, after all. But it’s that closet that’s the killer. That and all the “interesting”…

    2 Comments