That picker there's in trouble, boy, ain't nothin' but another side of you.

  I suppose we should get on this. I've got nothing and, for the most part, I don't care. I've been shut down most of the day and still buried alive in the blues. It's too damn hot, my knee's killing me, and I'm just too burnt out to deal with it, man.

 Okay, but the News. Pretty good week, mainly because the House Select Committee drama has kept things entertaining. I'll say it again, I did not see the particular rope-a-dope Nancy Pelosi pulled with her denial of Jims Jordan and Banks. Again, it should go on record that I'm not one of these folks who thinks old-timers like Pelosi are being shucked by the GOP. At worst, they're playing by rules the Republicans no longer feel the need to even acknowledge, but given the media landscape and the basic gullibility of the American public, they haven't much choice.

 That's one thing I really don't think people get about American politics, the effect public opinion has on the parties' boundaries. People instantly assume, for example, the GOP is financially thrifty when every time in the past fifty years that the debt has run out of control has been under a Republican administration. People think Democrats are soft on national defense, i.e. bombing the shit out of countries that can't really fight back, and that's just not true, either. And so on and so forth.

 People have a hard time accepting the Republican Party's total acceptance and capitulation to Donald Trump because he's, well, a celebrity with the morals of a guttersnipe. He's replaced Reagan as their god, and the only reason he got as far as he did in politics is because of his Hollywood connections. And to be honest, every Republican president back to at least Ike has been a pig, with the possible exception of George W. Bush. As odd as that might sound, it's true enough.

 Anyhow. Enough of that for now. That's News and I'll save it for the News. I'll need something to write about tomorrow night, anyway. I don't know what else to write about tonight, though. Best I can tell, it's been two weeks since I've played video game one and most of my reading has been different cosmic horror stories based on Lovecraftian lore. I've been blowin' my harps, sure, but that's just a part of breathing these days.

 My brother's coming to visit next month and if I can come up with a subtle way of asking him to get me some of the good smoke, I will. I don't want to put him on the spot, given how shit the mail is these days and that I'm basically asking him to commit a felony.

 Now that I think about it, I watched Dagon last night. It's a Spanish horror film based on the Lovecraft story The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which to be frank, is one of the Lovecraft go-to stories I never have cared for. It stinks way, way too much of Henry Phillip's issues with people who aren't proper white folks breeding with each other. I don't understand why it's so popular as opposed to something like The Statement of Randolph Carter, but there you go.

 I think that's good enough for now.

I love being a free man.

 Google Chrome is acting screwy again. It's not wanting to load anything but the home page. Nothing times out, it just doesn't load. Microsoft Edge works as does iTunes so it's not a connectivity issue. Matter of fact, this just happens with my tower. My laptop's Chrome is running fine. It did this the other day and only kicked back into gear after putting to sleep and waking up the computer. Weird. I need to get this thing looked at.

 Anyhow. Pennsylvania got through counting all their votes and the state goes to Joe Biden, which means he is the 46th President of the United States of America. Or is projected to be so, anyway. Like we discussed yesterday, there's something called "faithless electors" to contend with but I doubt they'll matter much. Regardless, it doesn't become official until the electors cast their votes and that doesn't go down until December 15.

 Of course, Trump is still pitching his fits and promising to fight it out on the hill that he was robbed all summer. However, the general consensus apart from the hardcore faithful is "sit down and shut up, you had your shot and muffed it." There's a lot of celebrations going on across the country and a lot of Very Serious People admonishing liberals and leftists. Reach out and try to build bridges, they say. Listen to the Trumpers who's been saying "fuck your feelings, America hater" for the last four years and try to understand where they're coming from. Sure.

 Before we get too much further, let's put out this week's News links. Of course, a lot about Tuesday's election this week. Monday was the lead-in and Wednesday was the fallout. Friday was a look at how interesting and unique this year's race was rolling out. From a purely observer's standpoint, as someone who just gets off on how the Game is played, it was entertaining as hell. As someone who has to live in this country and deal with its fellow citizens, it was nerve wracking as a son of a bitch.

 And to paraphrase a Twitter acquaintance, I'm not going to feel completely at ease until Biden is sworn in and Trump is running from the Southern District of the State Court of New York. Now Chrome is working. Weird. Momma just got back with supper from Peppertown Restaurant and I've completely lost my train of thought on this. To sum up, I reckon, unless something weird happens, Joe Biden is our next President and Trump will spend the next two months being as big a pain in the ass as he can be, partly to stay out of jail, partly out of an attempt to scuttle the Democrats, and partly because he's a dick.

 Moving on, I started and finished a rather neat science fiction book by one J.Z. Foster titled Hell On Mars. In a nutshell, the near-future of an alternate universe where the Cold War took a different turn and hasn't ended sees mankind is exploring the solar system among heating international tensions. On Mars, a former Nazi rocket scientist inadvertently opens a door to another dimension and Lovecraftian nasties come through as they are wont to do. A maintenance crew is sent to figure out why the Martian space station is gone black and shit goes south, as one would expect.

 As I've often stated, I'm a sucker for a good Lovecraftian horror set up especially if ol' Henry Phillip has nothing to do with it. It's not a revelation that his prose is almost unreadable purple, his racism, sexism and xenophobia leeks into his stories far too easily. One gets tired of reading how a bourgeoisie white dude from the early 20th century is scared of white people having sex with black people.

 Mixing Lovecraft and space travel seems like a perfect fit. So much of space is unknown and even if there are no gibbering extra-dimensional horrors from the dawn of time, we're still an insignificant part of a much, much greater whole. Movies like Event Horizon are great but not too give too much away, it's still too centred around human conceptions of reality, especially Western conceptions. One of the great strengths of Lovecraft's universe is that humanity is not important at all in the grand scheme of things if we make any noise at all.

 It's a quick, fun little read and a completely believable representation of a very pedestrian support crew being thrown knee-deep into the heaviest of shit. It is part of a series, though, and one never likes that. This was a quick read and did just what a book serial is supposed to do - that is, leave jonesing for the next book - but there are eight books in the series. The last time I dug into one of those it got so tedious I can't remember anything but the barest details. So, we'll see.

 Speaking of Lovecraftian horrors, thanks to the beautiful people at Humble Bundle, I've been messing around with the most recent Lovecraft-inspired game, Call of Cthulhu by Focus Home Interactive. So far, good enough if nothing particularly interesting or unique. Grizzled private dick with a troubled past gets hired for a mysterious case and has to go to Innsmouth, Lovecraft's Deep One-controlled crumbling fishing town. It looks nice and has some good atmosphere, but it doesn't bring much to the table that Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth did in 2006. A little less buggy, a bit sharper designed, but nothing really new so far. Granted, the Innsmouth Deep Ones business is probably my least favorite part of the Cthulhu Mythos and I can't for the life of me understand why it turns so many folks on.

 And that's enough for now. It's been a long week and I, for one, am glad it's over. From what I'm seeing on the internet, a collective sigh of exhausted relief is going on around the country.

There's folks who never work and they got plenty.

  Once again, I have nothing clever to start with so we'll just roll it and see what happens. I have a confession: I am burnt out. By everything, from the election to the ongoing collapse of the climate to the never-ending horror that has been the COVID-19 pandemic. It's nothing particularly serious, just overall exhaustion from the world matched with the lack of good weed to take the edge off.

 I'm about ready to hit the road again, but it's not going to be any time soon. Momma needs a knee replacement, so that's going to lay her up for at least six weeks. She won't be having the operation until after the year, and because of things, I really can't leave her right now.

 I don't know if I'd go anywhere in particular nor am I especially inclined to visit with anyone. I'm thinking maybe, though, I'd go up to Baltimore and see it. I've always had a fascination with the town, no doubt thanks to my love of Edgar Allan Poe's fiction. I wouldn't even need to do much tourist stuff, though I'm sure he has a house or something like that to see, so I wouldn't have to be around people too much. I'd also like to see Providence - yes, H.P. Lovecraft, for much the same reason - and it's only six hours further.

 It'd be roughly a 40 hour round trip Instead of taking almost a month to get somewhere, I could probably do that in a week and be back home in 10 days. In any event, I'll have to wait and see how the first of the year shakes out. There's always a possibility the pandemic could get much, much worse.

 I guess I should address this whole Jeffery Toobin business. I would like to note first that I've got very little use for Big Names in news. I just don't, the best I can explain it is the information is what is important, not who says it. Sure, there are different journalists who deserve their fame, but the vast majority of what we see on CNN or Fox these days are fairly lightweight.

 The other reason is, well, stuff like this. I'm not a guy who has heroes, never have been. They'll always let you down because humans are fallible and humans will eventually screw the pooch. Which brings us around to Toobin who, if you didn't know, was caught bopping the bishop during a Zoom conference. His excuse is he didn't know the camera was on him, which leads one to ask just why he was jackin' it during a business meeting in the first place.

 Now, Toobin's career probably won't suffer too much. He'll probably go away for a few months and come back with the only punishment being every criticism of his input on the news will feature "hey, aren't you the guy who got caught choking the chicken in front of all your colleagues?" Someone said on Twitter that maybe he was doing it because he was nervous and needed to take the edge off, which is another argument in favor of legalized marijuana.

 Speaking of Twitter, a passel of male news geeks have come out in defense of Toobin's slapping the salami during a business meeting. Their argument is, essentially, "who among us has not masturbated in an inappropriate place, possibly in front of people who hadn't asked to see such things?" I admit, I'm skeptical of their intentions and wonder if they're not telling on themselves a bit.

 Anyhow, fellas, listen to me. Stop showing your junk to women unless - and I can't stress this enough - they make that very specific request beforehand. Keep in mind that even if they've asked in the past, each occurrence needs an all-knew request. I'm not sure why this is still so complicated.

All caught up in a landslide.

 Man, what in the hell is going on in Michigan? Don't they know these "protests" were AstroTurf by not just conservative groups, but conservative groups tied to Erik Price and Betsy DeVos? Is it just an excuse to cosplay armed loonies or what?

 Before we get started, I want to emphasize one thing because ammosexuals are the most delicate little flowers on the planet and cannot handle anything uncomplimentary said about their precious shooty-bang penis extensions. You may not believe it, but I don't care enough about your opinion to argue it.

 I don't have a problem with gun ownership. I don't have a problem with any reasoning one uses for owning a gun. You hunt? Fine, that's where my guns came from. You want to protect yourself and/or your family in this mean old world? Fair enough, it is a booger out there. You're defending freedoms from a government that's always just far from going full tyranny? Sure, pal, whatever you have to tell yourself. You just like guns and the noises they make? There are worse obsessions.

 That being said, I don't give a shit why you have guns, how many you have or what you do with them. I'd say all I care about is you making sure you store them properly and operate them wisely, but as long as you stay away from me, I don't really care. If I'm so inclined, I will make fun of you because I don't have any special respect for you and you will just have to suck it up, buttercup.

 I don't particularly care for people who decide they can't go to the grocery store without being loaded for bear, open or closed carry, but that's the world we live in. It's like knowing industrial companies will poison the environment for profit or that powerful men will use their weight to coerce sex out of subordinates. It's part of society and all we can do is legislation. Why we don't, I don't know.

 Frankly, gun worshipers, you pissed away your benefit of the doubt. The El Paso shooter, the Vegas shooter, the Sandy Hook shooter, all of them were behaving legally until they first pulled the trigger. And your reaction every time has been "don't take away my guns". Fair enough, that's what you care about. I'm just not obliged to respect you or act like you're anything but a joke. Deal with it and cry more. As the man said, you make no like it but you have to learn to love it. Besides, you're the one who's heavily armed, what are you crying for?

 Now that we've established that, I don't care about gun owners owning guns. The Second Amendment as interpreted by D.C. v Heller, I may not agree with it but it is the law of the land. Should there be more stringent gun control legislation? Man, we are way past the point of that in this country. When 20 preschoolers were gunned down by a guy mad at his mom and we had "serious political commentators" arguing that it was a "false flag" operation, that argument was done, son.

 I just don't understand why y'all get so butthurt about people thinking you bringing a high-powered instrument capable of dealing death on a large scale is a bit unhinged. If you're protesting the state's lockdown policies during this epidemic, why do you need to be heavily armed and wearing combat gear? And why do you get so pissy when someone suggests you're trying to intimidate your political opponents when there's no other reason to be so heavily armed for this fake protest designed mainly so rich folks can make even more money?

 You have the guns. Nut up, man. Quit your crying and convince me you're not a flea-brained dingbat. Or just deal with the fact that I'm going to point and laugh at you. Okay, well, enough of that. There are times when living far out in the boonies and fairly well set up so that I don't have to deal with the rest of this sick, twisted, pitiful, depressing culture. Glad I don't have kids, glad I don't have to interact with people to make my bread and salt, glad I'm not tied to anyone that would cause me to give more of a shit than I do.

 Yeah, I'm in a bad mood today. Sorry. Tried a new CPAP mask but still didn't sleep for shit. The weather's gorgeous, though, so me and my buddy Otis, the Jack Russell, had a pleasant constitutional. I've hit my groove with the XCOM games and have been thoroughly enjoying stomping a mudhole in it. I also just finished an enjoyable Weird Western called Skin Medicine by Tim Curran, which combined mountain folk magic with Lovecraft that worked very well.

 Anyhow. That's the night. Let's see what tomorrow brings. Keep the faith.

Friday, December 20, 2019

 Friday's upon us, it's definitely winter outside, and another day I'm just not into doing this. So, we'll knock things out quick and move on to the weekend. I doubt I'll be in a better mood, but hope springs eternal.

Sunday, December 15, 2019

 Hoo, I'm really not in the right frame of mind for this, nor am I inclined to try to stir anything up with the News. I'm more wired & tired than anything, and the grays are slumping down on me. I'll just leave it open until I hit the mark. Your fair warning: all gonzo after this, and gloomy gonzo at that.