Thur. Sept. 16, 2021 – no rest for the wicked

By on September 16th, 2021 in decline and fall, ebay, personal, prepping

Cooler, damp, maybe rain, maybe sun. Freaking Houston weather. Yesterday was cooler but also humid with part sun. It’d definitely the end of summer transition. Not quite Fall, but getting close. Mid 70s at night suddenly, when the past month was solid 80s at night.

Since my craigslist buyer flaked out on my yesterday, and my back was still hurting, I did small things here at home. More cleaning in my office. More ebay stuff, including a couple of easy listings. I’m working on doing at least one listing a day, even if it’s just a book so I can get the attention of the algorithm and start actually selling again.

And one big thing, I finally got the inversion table assembled. That first time, when my guts all moved inside was very odd. Then I could feel stuff in my back moving. I’ll need to find a place to put it, probably outside, and I’ll try to get on it a couple of times a day for a bit to see if it helps.

Today I need to finish up a couple of the small things I started around the house, then get out and pickup some stuff. Later in the day, I’m supposed to meet the craigslist guy too. All in all, I’ll be out and about most of the day.

This weekend all the girls are at GS camp so I’ll be working at my secondary location. It would be nice if my back felt strong by then and if I didn’t mess it up. I’ve got a plan, now I just need to execute.

Meanwhile more and more people are noticing that there are still shortages and disruptions in the supply chain. My wife confirmed that she’s seeing it in construction and building projects, but people are currently trying substitutions and work-arounds. When she didn’t mention was what will they do when those run out too.

If you will need it, you should be trying to get it now. You should be thinking about substitutions and alternates. And maybe you should be looking in unlikely places. Some of those places might be a bit on the less legit side of things pretty soon. You guys will remember me suggesting getting some experience in the secondary market… it’s still early, go to a flea market/farmers market/estate sale this weekend. Take cash and keep your eyes open for stuff you might need.

When you find it, stack it high.

nick

73 Comments and discussion on "Thur. Sept. 16, 2021 – no rest for the wicked"

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    71F at 6am. 93%RH.

    Slept poorly. Had a bit of iced tea later than I should and didn’t feel tired until late. Then woke about once an hour.

    Very tired.

    n

  2. Ray Thompson says:

    Was supposed to sub this morning. Yesterday a sore throat started, canceled therapy, this morning it is worse with coughing added to the mix. Had to call the school and and cancel. Don’t want to spread whatever I have. I don’t think it is Covid as I have no other symptoms, just the sore throat and coughing. I will be watching things closely. I am vaccinated so I am not concerned. It really is my first, what I think is a minor cold, of the year. So rest, nap and take it easy.

  3. brad says:

    @Ray: Hope you feel better soon.

    I haven’t been sick since the start of this mess, so going on two years now. The isolation, masks, etc. have had an effect, as I usually have at least a couple of colds a year. I always figured that was just inevitable, I suppose, since I’m around literally hundreds of different people in the course of a normal college day.

    Makes me wonder what I’m in for, when a cold finally does hit…

  4. Greg Norton says:

    There is a youtuber I watch who makes vacuum tubes from scratch, nixie tubes, and repairs old radios. He’s in Houston somewhere, and used to only make vids in the winter because of the heat.

    At some point he retired from his normal job and started making more content. And also decided to start living his secret life in the open.

    He’s a classic cross dresser, with a penchant for 40s and 50s frocks… his comment section went apeshit for a while, but it’s almost universally complementary now. Glasslinger.

    Anything to get the subscribers.

    Texas. I’m surprised he isn’t doing the Furry thing, but the mitts/paws would be a problem bending hot glass. Furries are always at the pop culture cons in Texas.

    The 40s and 50s drag would fit right in at a Dapper Day event at one of the Disney Parks. I’ve seen it firsthand in CA, but Orlando also had events pre-Covid. The Mouse doesn’t care about the crossdressing as long as you are tasteful and not trying to pretend to be one of their employees in character.

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  5. Ray Thompson says:

    I haven’t been sick since the start of this mess, so going on two years now

    It has been a long time since I have had any affliction and this is the first I can remember since early in 2020. This is when I think I had Covid as I felt really bad for almost a week. Since that time nothing. I am usually afflicted with the crud three times within a year in a normal year.

    This may have come from the train trip in Bryson City, NC as that is the first large gathering I have been around since March of 2020. Lot of people on the train, masks were supposed to be mandatory. But when lunch was served the masks came off and for the most part were never replaced.

  6. ayjblog says:

    Greg

    I have seen him/her on youtube, but I got bored because of the show, I am more interested on the valve side, not cross dressing.

    As you may know, there is a complete industry of that, mainly due rnroll

    cheers

  7. pecancorner says:

    Yesterday a sore throat started, canceled therapy, this morning it is worse with coughing added to the mix. Had to call the school and and cancel. Don’t want to spread whatever I have. I don’t think it is Covid as I have no other symptoms, just the sore throat and coughing.

    I came down sick last week with similar. In my case, it’s more like a real bad cold or RSV or tonsilitis, as the sore throat is the most significant thing. I’ve had fever, runny nose, cough too.  I couldn’t get in for a COVID test, so will get one “just because” today during a planned visit for bloodwork – they will draw in the parking lot.     I’ve stayed in and away from people because they don’t want this any more than they want any other germs.

    Maybe we are getting back to “normal” with the usual “Germs of Autumn” flying when school starts LOL

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    Anything to get the subscribers.

    –nope not this guy. When I first started watching him, you’d occasionally see a sleeve or the front of his outfit and it looked like an old fashioned housecoat and I kind of went “Hhuh?”

    At some point he just mentioned that he likes wearing dresses because he likes them. He’ll wear nail polish and earrings too. Given the state of his nails, it’s about as far from caring what anyone else thinks as it’s possible to get.

    There aren’t many people out there making tubes from scratch in their shed, so I’m glad he’s making the videos.

    It is ODD though.

    n

  9. Greg Norton says:

    “Anything to get the subscribers.”

    –nope not this guy. When I first started watching him, you’d occasionally see a sleeve or the front of his outfit and it looked like an old fashioned housecoat and I kind of went “Hhuh?”

    I meant the risk he took by being open. That will draw more subscribers than he would just talking about tubes, but YouTube is filled with a**hats stuck at home due to Covid with nothing better to do than be negative on social media.

    My kids watch video gamers’ “how to” videos, and one with a huge subscriber count also likes dresses. Big money.

    I’ve posted before that high IQ generally correlates with kinks in my experience. In tech work, it is a given that you will have at least one employee in a 7-8 person group into odd things.

    We were a Linux shop at the last job, but management hired a Windows-only developer because he geeked out about ren fair outfits in the interview with the boss. Higher title and $40k more per year than I made but totally inept at Unix command line, which was most of the job.

    Ren fair is big around Austin due to Sherwood Forest. The last time my wife bought something from her favorite corset vendor at a con, the other person helping with the booth was assisting a self-identified Apple exec with an order for a custom leather medieval gown bodice he planned to wear opening day at Sherwood.

    In fact, you can see my former co-worker at the top of the page of the Sherwood Forest Faire web site. Or, at least, he was there the last time I checked.

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  10. Greg Norton says:

    In my case, it’s more like a real bad cold or RSV or tonsilitis, as the sore throat is the most significant thing.

    Lots of RSV around. There has been talk about an compulsory mRNA shot for RSV.

    Line up for one mandatory jab, what’s another one? Or half dozen?

    mRNA and adenovirus (J&J shot) vaccines for various bugs have been theorized for a while, but the catch was always getting them approved for use in humans.

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  11. Greg Norton says:

    It is ODD though.

    I’ve posted before about the Ball Aerospace (think spy satellites for the US Government … and Google) C-suite exec who bought my wife’s prom dress when we sold things to pay rent in WA State.

    What struck me as odd wasn’t that he wanted the dress as much as I had to agree to an elaborate delivery ruse where I labeled the box “Car Parts” and shipped it to his office at Ball. I also wasn’t allowed to give a positive review and was told I wouldn’t receive one as a Seller since, at the time, EBay made the reviews and item searchable by anyone.

    I deal with a lot of costume things as a seller so I’m extremely discreet, but I think anyone into that sort of thing should be honest with their spouse at a minimum.

    And, yes, the same Ball as the jars. Except, like Singer, they haven’t made their core product in decades and license out the name.

    Singer (or whatever they call themselves now) does flight simulators for the DoD IIRC.

  12. ech says:

    $15 an hour in a city is an appalling low wage, unless they are guaranteeing 40 hours a week every week, with reliable schedules.

    In the case of HEB, they probably are. They have upped it to $17.50/hr with full benefits. Plus there are shift differentials and differentials to work in the refrigerated and freezer section.

     

  13. Greg Norton says:

    A code slinger writes a decent overview:

    The “over the counter” crowd has got to give it a rest. That’s not happening with HCQ and Ivermectin since  lives depend on the approved uses for those drugs and they can’t become unobtainium.

    Contrary to what my kids may think, life will go on without a PS5 or Elton John tickets.

  14. brad says:

    They have upped it to $17.50/hr with full benefits.

    I’m glad to see this kind of stuff happening. The MBAs had gotten away with really abusive hiring practices for too long. Nice to see them realize that they actually *need* workers, and maybe should give them benefits and a decent salary.

    I assume y’all saw the announcement that Amazon will pay college tuition for their warehouse workers. Sounds nice, but I wonder (a) what about people who don’t want (or aren’t suited for) college? And anyway (b) where’s the catch – I bet there’s a lot of fine print. From the horror stories out of the Amazon warehouses, it seems unlikely that they are actually going to make any meaningful improvement. Reducing time pressure and raising salaries? Nah…this is Amazon…

  15. Ray Thompson says:

    Local news stations are reporting sob stories about people dying from COVID-19. Tear jerkers to support an agenda. The stories fail to mention the deaths from drugs, auto accidents, elder abuse, etc. People die, period. From various reasons. A 55 year old man, with heart disease, obese, smoker, who dies and leaves a wife and three adult kids, well, he was lucky to make it to 55.

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  16. Greg Norton says:

    I assume y’all saw the announcement that Amazon will pay college tuition for their warehouse workers. Sounds nice, but I wonder (a) what about people who don’t want (or aren’t suited for) college? And anyway (b) where’s the catch – I bet there’s a lot of fine print. From the horror stories out of the Amazon warehouses, it seems unlikely that they are actually going to make any meaningful improvement. Reducing time pressure and raising salaries? Nah…this is Amazon…

    Depending on location, Amazon uses a lot of temp labor in the warehouses, especially during the holidays.

    The “gig” delivery drivers are not considered to be employees in Texas AFAIK.

  17. Ray Thompson says:

    I submitted my and my wife’s passport renewals two months ago. Hers was rejected because of the photo. I used the tool on the state department website. So her passport application was sent back about three weeks ago. We redid the picture, or rather recropped the original image and sent the application back. Her passport arrived today. Mine is still in the application process. Weird.

    We also did not get the passport card or the old passport returned, usually with a hole punched in them. Supposed to be in a separate mailing.

    I don’t understand why the wife’s took less than three weeks while mine is going on nine weeks. I mailed both to Philadelphia, but hers was mailed from Dulles VA. Perhaps the passport people are reading this blog and my passport may never get issued.

  18. drwilliams says:

    Out:

    Thank you for your service

    In:

    Thank you for your service and your principled resignation.

  19. Greg Norton says:

    I submitted my and my wife’s passport renewals two months ago. Hers was rejected because of the photo. I used the tool on the state department website. So her passport application was sent back about three weeks ago. We redid the picture, or rather recropped the original image and sent the application back. Her passport arrived today. Mine is still in the application process. Weird.

    We applied for passports in person at the main Post Office in Austin three years ago, and when the time came for the photo, the clerk pulled out a Sony Mavica FD10, complete with floppy disk “film”.

    I forget the upcharge for the photo, but letting the passport officer take it avoided the rejection problem. My passport took six weeks to arrive, but my daughter’s was eight.

    If you need a passport ASAP, when I worked at GTE, there were services in Miami which provided same day service working with the State Department office there, but the turnaround required being at the center in person and a fair upcharge for both the government and private rackets.

    I haven’t checked what was possible post-9/11. Things may have changed, but Miami has its own rules and everyone hustles something on the side.

    Just avoid the Miami airport. Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood is only an hour north of Downtown Miami.

  20. ech says:

    I haven’t checked what was possible post-9/11.

    It is. A family member used one of those services when he got a job in Canada. IIRC, his was walked through the process in New Orleans.

     

  21. MrAtoz says:

    I’m trying to reply to Mr. Ray’s post and keep getting a server error. I guess backs up Mr. Ray’s supposition the goobermint is reading this blog.

  22. Ray Thompson says:

    If you need a passport ASAP

    Nope. Wife and mine were set to expire in about a year. So decided to renew now for a possible trip to Germany next spring. If a passport is within six months of expiring it cannot be used for travel into some foreign countries. We are getting the passport books and the passport cards. The cards make it easier to travel without showing a driver’s license at the airport for domestic travel. Good ID to use for voting and other places that demand a government issued photo ID.

    Lot more security items added to the passports. The actual passport page is now plastic. Hologram over the photo. Color shifting USA above the picture. Micro print over the picture area. Passport number is in raised ink. Passport number is now punched on every page. Photo is repeated on the signature page. Photo is now in black and white. Photo is repeated very small on the passport page with the birth date in DD MM YY. Watermark on all the VISA pages. Hologram of Mt. Rushmore over the great seal on the passport page. And lots of fancy engraving. 26 pages for VISA stamps.

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  23. Greg Norton says:

    What an insult. McSpongeBrain In Chief. 

    At least he didn’t ask the Prime Minister to slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for him.

    Or ask for the secret of the Bloomin’ Onion.

    Or play the “That’s not a knife …” game.

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  24. Greg Norton says:

    Lot more security items added to the passports.

    You forgot the RFID in the cards. It may be in the passports too.

    The automated inland checkpoint SB on I69 in Texas has several antennas pointed at the lanes of the freeway. I assume they are scanning for RFID in the passport cards, but they could be reading your toll tags and Bluetooth device IDs as well. The gear also included plate reading cameras but not the kind with OCR built in. The whole thing struck me as experimental.

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  25. drwilliams says:

    When they started putting RFID in passports twenty years ago it was allegedly rumored that some people gave them an extreme flexure treatment followed by a few seconds microwave exposure.

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  26. ech says:

    The automated inland checkpoint SB on I69 in Texas has several antennas pointed at the lanes of the freeway.

    There is a large array of devices and antennas pointed at cars and trucks entering the checkpoint eastbound on I-10 near El Paso.

     

  27. lynn says:

    I walked out of the house to go to work a little while ago and found the generator running. My neighbor was standing in his yard and I asked him what was going on. He said that their power had been off for three hours and that Centerpoint was working on the distribution lines in our neighborhood. I had no idea, the generator just starts up and shuts down as needed. Just the way that I wanted it.

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  28. lynn says:

    Anything to get the subscribers.

    –nope not this guy. When I first started watching him, you’d occasionally see a sleeve or the front of his outfit and it looked like an old fashioned housecoat and I kind of went “Hhuh?”

    At some point he just mentioned that he likes wearing dresses because he likes them. He’ll wear nail polish and earrings too. Given the state of his nails, it’s about as far from caring what anyone else thinks as it’s possible to get.

    There aren’t many people out there making tubes from scratch in their shed, so I’m glad he’s making the videos.

    It is ODD though.

    n

    I find most of the human race to be odd. And I like it that way.

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  29. lynn says:

    $15 an hour in a city is an appalling low wage, unless they are guaranteeing 40 hours a week every week, with reliable schedules.

    In the case of HEB, they probably are. They have upped it to $17.50/hr with full benefits. Plus there are shift differentials and differentials to work in the refrigerated and freezer section.

    The meat and fish guys always got a premium to work in their mess. They muck it out with a large hose at the end of the day for a reason.

    One of my friends worked his way up from sacker to meat cutter to store manager to district manager at Randalls without a college degree. He had to work 60 to 80 hours a week though until he just retired last year at 60. While I was in college he was driving a Trans Am chicken hood 455 which I thought was cool until it threw at rod at 80K miles. Shoot, maybe it was 60K miles, been a long time ago.

  30. ~jim says:

    I made almond brittle in the microwave last night. Dead simple & delicious. Cup of sugar in a teflon-coated microwave pan, stirred occasionally until caramelized. Added enough pre-toasted slivered almonds to form a nice aggregate, plus a tablespoon or so of butter. Shake of salt. Zapped it a bit more for good measure and then let it cool until it was a big sticky mess. Dumped it out on some wax paper, flattened it out. Covered with another piece of wax paper and took a rolling pin to it until maybe half an inch thick.

    When fairly cool but not solid I cut it into little quarters. My only mistake was not buttering the wax paper on the bottom but I don’t think eating it will kill me.

    I’ve always been afraid to try making caramel on the stove top. Afraid it would explode or something. Chicken superstition.

  31. lynn says:

    Funny, I had the sudden desire to see what a high school friend was doing last month.

    I spent about a half hour, and she has almost zero online presence. ONE picture that is possibly with a daughter, so only coincidentally online.

    Weird that someone my age has nothing at all…

    n

    My first girlfriend taught my daughter in her pre-K class back in 1991. My daughter loved her. When my wife found out that her teacher was THAT Terilyn, I got a lecture. I had to go pick up my daughter from her class one day and T surprised me with a big hug. My wife does not know that to this day and she never will.

    I did lookup another girlfriend a couple of years ago and found out that she passed away at 52. She had a dime sized hole in her heart between the two chambers that never closed up. She was always a little short of breath, even at 18. We went to a football game at TAMU and sat way up in the new third decks, I had to piggyback her after the first landing as she could not get her breath.

  32. MrAtoz says:

    What happened to Penn Jillette:

    Famed magician and libertarian Penn Jillette seems relieved that power-hungry, elitist liberal Gavin Newsom is still California’s governor [pic]

    I guess the power of tRump hatred can turn you into a ProgLibTurd. Sad, I guess Jillette never got over being “you’re fired” on The Apprentice. But Nuisance? Mask mandates, lockdowns, and more for thee, but not for me.

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  33. Greg Norton says:

    While I was in college he was driving a Trans Am 455 which I thought was cool until it threw at rod at 80K miles. Shoot, maybe it was 60K miles, been a long time ago.

    Late 70s GM. Of course, it is light years better than current GM.

    Not that Ford was much better at the time, but the Fox platform Mustangs from the late 70s through early 90s have become something of a collectors’ item.

  34. Greg Norton says:

    I did lookup another girlfriend a couple of years ago and found out that she passed away at 52. She had a dime sized hole in her heart between the two chambers that never closed up. She was always a little short of breath, even at 18. We went to a football game at TAMU and sat way up in the new third decks, I had to piggyback her after the first landing as she could not get her breath. 

    My son had a similar situation until he was 11, a leftover from being born at 26 weeks.

    The plan had been to patch the hole with an “umbrella” type device when he got older, but, during a routine check of his heart, the cardiologists discovered a section of his aorta had embedded itself in the heart wall, and when they went in to open that up, they stitched the hole between the chambers of his heart.

    He has no long term issues from it, but they check him every few years. I’m actually surprised they haven’t called us recently beyond a study that wanted to talk to us about the psychological effects of being his parents.

  35. lynn says:

    Pearls Before Swine: The Good Book
    https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/16

    That is not the Good Book !

  36. TV says:

    I did lookup another girlfriend a couple of years ago and found out that she passed away at 52. She had a dime sized hole in her heart between the two chambers that never closed up. She was always a little short of breath, even at 18. We went to a football game at TAMU and sat way up in the new third decks, I had to piggyback her after the first landing as she could not get her breath.

    I replied at the end of Wednesday to how it is weird, but not uncommon to find no trace of people around our age (call that 60 or so) on the internet. As for @Lynn’s comment, be careful when you look as you may be very disappointed with what you find. There was a night of tears a few year’s ago when my (now deceased) spouse looked up an old boyfriend to find he had passed a few years ago. By all accounts a very nice guy, a doctor, and a family man. Clearly a road not taken by her with fond memories and some regrets.

  37. Greg Norton says:

    I replied at the end of Wednesday to how it is weird, but not uncommon to find no trace of people around our age (call that 60 or so) on the internet

    Until Windows 95, only a power user had TCP/IP at home. Even AOL was uncommon.

    GTE trashed 50,000 NetManage Chameleon licenses ~ 1994 due to a political stink, and a group of us dumpster dived and divided the serial number printout between us.

    50,000 licenses at $400 apiece. Five of us took home roughly 10,0000 licenses each. $4 million.

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  38. paul says:

    Until Windows 95, only a power user had TCP/IP at home.

    To be fair, NetBEUI was simple to use and when you connect with a dial-up modem you didn’t use a router. Never mind that routers were stupid expensive. Hubs were plenty good.

     

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  39. drwilliams says:

    @nICK

    The Mythbusters team used to have some weird blind spots. You don’t know what you don’t know I guess.

    I remember one ep in particular, they were looking at safety shoes, and completely missed that there was a whole class of shoe above the one they were testing, and that there are add on guards for regular safety toe shoes to address the issues they raised. Metatarsal protectors, I think they are called.

    All the research they did, they never called a safety shoe store…or industrial hygienist.

    Yup. Metatarsal guards.
    The safety orientation at a summer job I had in college included a company-produced video that had won multiple awards. It went into detail about safety shoes with appropriate levels of protection, and included the graphic scene where the safety shoes don’t do you any good: guy manages to get a foot run over by a forklift.

  40. lynn says:

    I did lookup another girlfriend a couple of years ago and found out that she passed away at 52. She had a dime sized hole in her heart between the two chambers that never closed up. She was always a little short of breath, even at 18. We went to a football game at TAMU and sat way up in the new third decks, I had to piggyback her after the first landing as she could not get her breath.

    My son had a similar situation until he was 11, a leftover from being born at 26 weeks.

    The plan had been to patch the hole with an “umbrella” type device when he got older, but, during a routine check of his heart, the cardiologists discovered a section of his aorta had embedded itself in the heart wall, and when they went in to open that up, they stitched the hole between the chambers of his heart.

    He has no long term issues from it, but they check him every few years. I’m actually surprised they haven’t called us recently beyond a study that wanted to talk to us about the psychological effects of being his parents.

    When I had my heart ablation surgery in 2018, they left me with a dime sized hole between the heart chambers. I was running out of breath all the time. But it closed back up after 2 or 3 months on its own.

    One of my cousins had a quarter sized hole between her heart chambers. They opened her up at 3 days old in 1970 at Texas Childrens Hospital and patched it. Then they had to replace the patch when she was 11 or so. She is tall (5’11”) and the old patch pulled apart when she had a growth spurt.

  41. drwilliams says:

    @Greg

    50,000 licenses at $400 apiece. Five of us took home roughly 10,0000 licenses each. $4 million.

    hmmm…
    Too bad you didn’t roll it over into domain name squats.
     

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  42. Alan says:

    Not that Ford was much better at the time, but the Fox platform Mustangs from the late 70s through early 90s have become something of a collectors’ item.

    Speaking of collectable cars, NBCSN had a rerun the other (late) night of one of their segments from the Mecum Auto Auction that was held last week in Dallas. It was either the first or second day of the auction (Wed/Thu) and many of the lots were what you would consider to be just “used cars”, nothing really collectable, for the most part just well-kept and nicely detailed. What was interesting was the sold prices and for those with minimal bidding a chance to buy a used car/SUV/pickup (especially the latter) cheaper than at a used car dealer these days. Perhaps some of the bidders were in fact those same used car dealers fishing for stock for their lots.

    Then at the other end, speaking of Fords, a 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 Fastback brought $357,500 as the auction’s second highest seller.

  43. MrAtoz says:

    Jiminy Christmas, plugs want to spend $3.5 Trillion to save us from inflation and CLIMATE CHANGE:

    THERE it is! Biden again flees at end of speech as reporter shouts question about… Nicki Minaj

    Then walks out. Meh, what’s $3.5 Trillion. ProgLibTurds think they can spend their way to Utopia. Another questionless speech, so I guess Sinema and Manchin haven’t gotten enough at the trough.

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  44. Ray Thompson says:

    I wish the news would quit referring to current SpaceX occupants as “crew”. They are luggage, ballast, inertial dampers.

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  45. lynn says:

    I wish the news would quit referring to current SpaceX occupants as “crew”. They are luggage, ballast, inertial dampers.

    But they did watch a five minute video on what to do in an emergency.

    I want to see the video on the zero gravity toilet in the nose cone. I’ll bet that is an hour long.

    And what do the cruise ocean liners call their paying clients ? Guests ?

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  46. lynn says:

    “MassMutual fined for failing to monitor GameStop saga star”
    https://apnews.com/article/business-media-massachusetts-56f97138b497fa27e8420bec6288d548

    “NEW YORK (AP) — Massachusetts regulators are fining MassMutual $4 million and ordering it to overhaul its social-media policies after accusing the company of failing to supervise an employee whose online cheerleading of GameStop’s stock helped launch the frenzy that shook Wall Street earlier this year.
    The settlement announced Thursday by Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin centers on the actions of Keith Gill, who was an employee at a MassMutual subsidiary from April 2019 until January 2021. His tenure ended as GameStop’s stock price suddenly soared nearly 800% in a week, as hordes of smaller-pocketed and novice investors piled in, to the shock and awe of professionals.
    Gill’s job at MassMutual was to create educational materials for current and potential customers, but regulators say he was also posting more than 250 hours of videos on YouTube and sending at least 590 Tweets about investing and GameStop through accounts that were unaffiliated with the company.
    Massachusetts regulators cited those messages while alleging MassMutual failed to monitor the social-media accounts of Gill and other employees who were registered as broker-dealer agents in the state, and therefore subject to certain supervision requirements. The MassMutual unit where Gill worked prohibits broker-dealer agents from discussing generic securities on social media. ”

    So Roaring Kitty is a licensed stock broker. So what ? I’ll bet the fine gets overturned in federal court on a First Amendment violation.

    Disclosure: I do not own any Game Stop stock (that I know of).

    Hat tip to:
    https://drudgereport.com/

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  47. Alan says:

    Score: Tony – 1 / State of New Mexico – zero

    Tesla opens NM showroom on tribal land, avoiding direct-sale ban.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-new-mexico-nambe-pueblo-tribal-land-direct-sales-ban-2021-9

  48. Greg Norton says:

    What was interesting was the sold prices and for those with minimal bidding a chance to buy a used car/SUV/pickup (especially the latter) cheaper than at a used car dealer these days. Perhaps some of the bidders were in fact those same used car dealers fishing for stock for their lots.

    The general auto auctions are a closed club, and, as they say, you aren’t a member.

    My father played that game both on behalf of Ford Credit and for himself after retirement. Going into those auctions, everyone assembled pretty much knows what is good and who is going home with what at a certain price range.

    Cars are a racket. It is part of the appeal of Tonymobiles that you bypass the local dealer. Of course, that cuts both ways, and if Tony decides you are a non-entity in his CRM, you’ll never connect with another human being inside the company.

  49. Greg Norton says:

    @Lynn — My former management was a no show at the TWC hearing today.

    I can’t decide whether that is genius or stupidity on their part.

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  50. Alan says:

    I wish the news would quit referring to current SpaceX occupants as “crew”. They are luggage, ballast, inertial dampers.

    According to whatever gooberment paperwork that they are required to file, they are listed as “participants”, not “crew”, and as such are not eligible to receive their “astronaut” wings.

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  51. paul says:

    I got a down vote?  Ok, cool.  I still think NetBEUI is all you need for your internal LAN.

    Share whatever between machines with NetBEUI.  Use the TCP/IP stack for Internet.

     

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  52. Greg Norton says:

    Share whatever between machines with NetBEUI. Use the TCP/IP stack for Internet.

    Just promise — no PPTP over WiFi. Ever.

    I suspect that is one of the culprits behind all of the ransom attacks lately.

    I took apart SSTP, the successor Microsoft bought, as a project for a security class in grad school. SSTP is okay, but I’ll never stop being suspicious about SSL.

    A friend successfully linked his brother’s three business locations on the cheap with PPTP and DD-WRT on old Linksys routers, but he knew what he was doing and the PPTP was only on the DSL lines.

  53. Nick Flandrey says:

    where the safety shoes don’t do you any good: guy manages to get a foot run over by a forklift.

    –in high school I worked in a plant that reprocessed steel coil and sheet scrap into usable product. There was this other big goofy guy that was a couple of years older than me. Always dressed really sharp for a factory worker… anyway, he was fooling around with a fork truck driver and got his foot run over. It was a mid-sized fork, about 4k-5k capacity. Safety shoes saved his toes.

    That was the same place I saw them stack 10K pounds of steel on the back of a 30K capacity fork truck to move a 40K pound coil… and the same place I got sucked into a machine and came within mm’s of losing either my right thumb, or use of the fingers on my right hand. Still can’t bend that thumb fully and took years to get feeling back in all the skin. There were some pluses. I learned to drive a bunch of fork trucks, and had the 30K Hyster up on 2 wheels… and I learned the importance of ear plugs (permanent losses) and proper guards on machines… and that when your workforce is bottom of the barrel, 6 packs for lunch are a thing.

    The guy who owned the plant died just a few months ago. He was a good friend of our family and one of my dad’s buddies. NOT a safe guy to work for.

    n

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  54. Nick Flandrey says:

    I wish the news would quit referring to current SpaceX occupants as “crew”. They are luggage, ballast, inertial dampers.

    –whatever they are called on this flight, at least two of them are very well qualified pilots. The commercial pilots call the passengers “self loading cargo” iirc….

    n

  55. Nick Flandrey says:

    One of my friends worked his way up from sacker to meat cutter to store manager to district manager at Randalls without a college degree. He had to work 60 to 80 hours a week though until he just retired last year at 60.

    –one of my cousins in Indiana started bagging groceries at 14? or 16, was a union member, worked 20 years at the same store, and retired with 20 years in an a pension… she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and I’m pretty sure she drank herself to death sometime in the last decade. Still, retired before 40? Pretty hard to do outside of .mil.

    n

  56. JimB says:

    Visiting my aunt, who will have her first three digit (decimal) birthday early next week. Wow.

    We stopped at our usual gas stop Rancho Cucamonga (just love that name) Costco on the way, about noon. The gas station was busier than usual, but orderly and fast. Wife went inside for some food items, and it was fully stocked and slightly busy. Very few items on sale, but I picked up a bottle of wine for half price. Hey, a little pleasure in my glass!

    Sign at door said masks only required for the unvaccinated. Wow, about 90% were unvaxxed, or just liked being incognito. These signs seem more popular, but no signs predominate in our little town where almost no one is masked. And yet, the cooties seem to be going away. Probably waiting for the next Nuisance proclamation now that he can smell the presidency.

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  57. Greg Norton says:

    –one of my cousins in Indiana started bagging groceries at 14? or 16, was a union member, worked 20 years at the same store, and retired with 20 years in an a pension… she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and I’m pretty sure she drank herself to death sometime in the last decade. Still, retired before 40? Pretty hard to do outside of .mil.

    Publix in Florida is fiercely non-union but employee-owned and offers decent opportunities to grow if you want to put in the work.

    The last time we were in one of the stores, in March, on a Sunday evening, about a dozen stock crew were in the store, taking apart the dairy section for a deep clean. It looked like they were going to have a long night.

    No debt. All expansion done with cash. I still believe they will end up owning Whole Foods, but it will take a while.

  58. Mark W says:

    You’re not doing it right unless you get a downvote with no explanation.

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  59. lynn says:

    PS238: Awwwww !
    https://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/07112007/

    Poor Argo the superdog, having to live on the Moon because his hearing is so sensitive.

  60. Alan says:

    Publix in Florida is fiercely non-union but employee-owned and offers decent opportunities to grow if you want to put in the work.

    The last time we were in one of the stores, in March, on a Sunday evening, about a dozen stock crew were in the store, taking apart the dairy section for a deep clean. It looked like they were going to have a long night.

    No debt. All expansion done with cash. I still believe they will end up owning Whole Foods, but it will take a while.

    Next stop, Kentucky…
    https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/retailers/publix-announces-expansion-kentucky

    “…owning Whole Foods” – when Jeff gets tired of stacking all those oranges in the fruit/veggie aisle?

  61. JimB says:

    I find most of the human race to be odd. And I like it that way.

    Me too. You caused me to recall some of the, shall we say, out of mainstream folks I have known over the years. Good people all. I can’t say that for some button-down types.

    Very few were genius types. Many just approached life differently. Not all got better than average results, in spite of trying hard. Some didn’t seem to try at all, but somehow they delivered.

    Some were irascible and crusty, but some were able to help the most fallen rise up.

    Yep, I agree. I like people. Recent isolation has got in the way of that. High time we returned to abnormal.

  62. lynn says:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/worlds-biggest-battery-california-overheats-shuts-down

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/minnesota-supreme-court-tosses-murder-conviction-police-officer-mohamed-noor-shooting-justine-diamond-cold-blood/

    n

    So it looks like the “monster” battery only works when the ambient temperature is below 100 F. That is not optimal by my former employer.

    We need more fans, Captain !

  63. JimB says:

    We need more fans, Captain!

    Reminds me of the Starlink pizza box that quits at a little over 100F. Not ready for prime time. 🙁

  64. Nick Flandrey says:

    Thermal management takes work. And expensive simulation. And a consideration that it needs to be done.

    n

  65. lynn says:

    “GM Warns Chevy Bolt Owners Not to Park Within 50ft of Anything You Care About”
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/16/gm-warns-chevy-bolt-owners-not-to-park-within-50ft-of-anything-you-care-about/

    “What a gift for insurance scammers – just park a Chevy Bolt in the building, and nobody will question the insurance claim when the building burns down.”

    Are you freaking kidding me ?

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  66. Marcelo says:

    We need more fans, Captain !

    Go, batty, go!

  67. lynn says:

    “A.F. Branco Cartoon – Chief of Shaft”
    https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-chief-of-shaft/

    “If General Milley went behind Trump’s back to China and his officers to undermine him, that is treason. Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.”

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  68. brad says:

    Since the semester is starting, during the week I’m back in the apartment with younger son. Had coffee this morning, poured in a slug of milk from the carton in the fridge. Bleah, that’s bitter coffee, maybe I’m not awake yet. Try it again, nope, definitely disgusting. Looked at the milk carton – it expired 2 months ago.

    I’m feeling a bit nauseous, but I figure its psychosomatic, because I only had two small sips. Hope so, anyway…

    Also dirty dishes are stacked to the ceiling, toilet last cleaned back in medieval times, etc. Ah, the joys of youth. Grumpy dad will give in a day or two to take hints, before getting more direct…

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