Hot. Hooo boy hot. Yesterday was sunny and hot all day. Indoor warehouse spaces were sweltering. There is a chance that some stuff will push into Houston from the Gulf today, but if it doesn’t, I’m betting on another hot day.
I got a couple of small things done yesterday. Mostly I did pickups and chatted with people. Auction prices were down this week and last, and most of the sellers are putting it down to buyers spending cash on the July 4th celebrations. I’m not so sure. It’s also possible that some buyers are out of town on vacation. It feels a bit bigger than that though. Gubs were underpriced and usually carry guns sell really well. Ammo was reasonable. I’m getting a lot of stuff without any real competition. Could be people really are finally running out of money.
I know things are not as rosy here at Casa De Nick as they were a year ago. Lot of fairly big expenses in the past year and more still to come too. Resources have been earmarked and allocated, but there is definitely a change. Silver coins at $32 an ounce, and Charmin Blue at $33, and a 20pc bucket of KFC all dark meat, no sides or biscuits was $32 before tax. I get three meals from the bucket, plus feed the family one, so it’s not that bad overall, but it’s still a bit shocking for a bucket of fried chicken. And inflation keeps raging.
Last trip to costco and to HEB I didn’t buy meat. I’ve got freezers full, and there wasn’t anything I wanted on sale… but that’s the result of planning most people didn’t do. It feels like we’re that little bit closer to hard times all of a sudden.
Which is why we prep. Stack when it’s cheap, eat when it’s dear.
nick
Late night is about YouTube clip viewing numbers anymore. James Corden’s fiasco survived for a decade on “Car Pool Karaoke”, but he didn’t take on CBS management like Colbert.
Weigel makes money with broadcast TV. Others will follow. Advertising will be relearned along with retail.
Sacrificing the broadcast radio and TV spectrum so a handful of people can kinda-sorta live the Pizza Box Dream would be a stupid thing for Congress to do right now.
That was fueled by the Pizza Box Dream.
People didn’t dislike basic cable. They just didn’t want to pay to subsidize the sports nerds ability to watch any SEC game in the country live.
It is still impossible to get a streaming package without those sports channels fees even as college athletics straps on the water skis and prepares to “jump the shark”, complete with leather jacket.
Cop Army. Like KISS Army but less emphasis on the music and more on the fascism.
How many cops do you think are collecting disability benefits as ex-Army while building that second pension?
Up and moving. 6hrs seems to be my sorta natural sleep time, if it’s consistent and the same six hours. In any case, I woke naturally.
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wife is still sleeping so no coffee or tea yet.
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Political theater continues. What are they distracting from?
n
No knock raids might have a place. Might. But 99% of the time, there are better choices for public safety.
n
I was gonna post the story about the 7 yo kidnapped from in front of his house, but it’s gang or drug BS. Takes half a page for DM to get around to mentioning that…
n
Houston has Jollibee and Pollo Campero options but you stop at KFC.
Paper silver was $32/ounce last week. Physical delivery is higher, but I haven’t looked in a while.
I like KFC! and it’s nearby. Neither of the two you listed is close. Pollo Asado rotisserie is good too, but I do like it fried.
n
People are paying as much as $36 a coin, plus tax and buyer premium (about 25% plus) in estate auctions for 1oz silver.
“Unsure of authenticity” coins are going for $30-32.
n
Try this:
https://archive.ph/
That has worked for every DM+ article I’ve looked at. I keep it in an open tab.
Costco wanted $38 a couple of weeks ago, here. Crazy. but maybe I should’ve gone for it?
Explosion at LA County Sheriff Training Center Leaves 3 Dead
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/07/18/multiple-dead-after-explosion-at-la-sheriffs-training-center-n2660601
Early report somehow leaning toward terrible accident
Whether this is accident or deliberate, the salient phrase is “stunning incompetence” .
Any bets on DIE involvement? Note acronymal irony
85F and light overcast btw.
Headed to the ATT store to try and get them to unlock the phone. Online help is not helpful. There is not one mention of getting a different boot menu like I have, or of other techniques when recovery mode is not opening. Following the directions online, gets a menu, but it’s not the same menu others get, and the choices are only fast boot, normal boot, and recovery mode – which errors that no command is found.
Then off to two pickups.
n
If I hit a paywall, I just go elsewhere. Sorry, but that’s how it is. Oh, I block ads, too.
I sympathize with journalists, but this is the new reality. They are going to have to figure something out, or die out. Life’s a bitch.
God help us if this happens.
It is bad enough that the major players market derivatives contracts as “stable value” fund options in most plans.
No one reads the prospectus.
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/trump-eyes-executive-order-open-retirement-funds-crypto-report
How many Redumblicans have promised to defund PBS/NPR:
President Trump Scores Another MAJOR Win
tRump delivered. Again. I don’t like the guy at all, but all these little wins could be a major factor in the mid terms.
Yeah, I absolutely don’t get some of Trump’s ideas. His own meme coin – just a way to rip off his own supporters. Marketing his own cologne? WTF? Yes, the guy has some good ideas, but fundamentally he is a grifter. As for his good ideas? Just like in his first term, there is a serious of follow-through. Just to name the most recent example: Epstein. Now he wants to push crypto into retirement funds? Did he trip over a USB stick with a Bitcoin wallet?
I really had hopes that he had improved his game, after his first failure to “drain the swamp”. Instead, it looks more like he wants to be one of the alligators.
Yep. If I get a site that won’t let me in because of my ad blocker, fine, I don’t visit the site. One of the local TV stations does that. I put on their Facebook page that since they don’t want me to view their site, I won’t view their station. Or if I do, I DVR the program to skip the commercials. The station blocked me from their Facebook page.
I have a friend that is a videographer for the station. He asked if I ever saw his stories. I said nope, because his station blocks me, so I ignore the station. He was not happy. I didn’t care.
Advertising helped destroy print media. Advertising ruined travel with all the billboards. Advertising is slowly destroying broadcast TV with the over abundance of ads. Advertising is going to destroy the web. If people want to opt-in, fine. But that should be a requirement, not the norm.
As for email spammers, everyone should die a horrible death. Phone spammers are just ignored as I don’t answer the pone if a person is not in my contacts. Although when I am feeling particularly snarky, I will answer and lead the spammer on as long as I can with worthless banter. I have answered some calls with “Mike Robbins, FCC” which quickly leads to a disconnect.
This why any streaming show I like, that has commercials, I’ll find the ad-free torrent the nerds love to upload. I’m already paying for Prime, and they run a show with commercials, I grab the torrent instead.
The ads aren’t as much of a problem as the focus on prescription drugs and repeating the same spots every break.
The Wegovy ad in particular is really annoying. The company is going broke so they only filmed two spots with the same actress front and center.
The actress doesn’t really need the drug either IMHO.
The streaming services gather stats from torrent streams as well.
I pulled “Mobland” to see what the fuss was about, but Paramount’s lawyers didn’t file a complaint to the cable modem company like they did when I grabbed the “Lower Decks” finale.
Yeah, always VPN your grab, but you know that. My Mac Mini always has Proton VPN running.
I think I mentioned this before, but Google Fiber has an 8G plan for around $200/mo. I have the 2G plan in SA and will be cancelling that soon as we move. I’ll miss Google Fiber. I have Cox in Vegas, but to-the-curb fiber is only on The Strip and selected areas. A 2G Cox plan is almost twice as the Google plan because I pay for unlimited data (which Google includes). The biz pays for it.
Running the torrent transfer across the VPN is usually a violation of the terms of service.
And, yes, they know even if you don’t use the standard ports.
I keep my upload speed limited to 5k if I’m sailing the high seas and not downloading a Linux distribution. That is usually enough to avoid uploading any piece of the file which is where the lawyers step in and file the complaint.
Once in a while, though, if a file is in heavy demand, the torrent network may utilize my bandwidth for a piece of a file, and thats when I get busted, particularly by Disney or Paramount.
I stopped with Disney completely since I don’t want to feed the beast while they circle the drain.
I’m not watching anything else on Paramount.
Several pieces I saw today have Colbert’s contract ending in 2026 which may explain why CBS will let him run for another year.
Affiliates, however, may decide to move the show before then if the network will not continue programming the timeslot.
In Tampa, the local CBS affiliate delayed broadcast of Letterman until midnight for a year after that show started,
Letterman still had it better than Siskel and Ebert. Their local affiliate, a Fox corporate station, ran their show at 4:00 AM on Sunday for the better part of a decade.
I got a provider ding about 10 years ago and have used a VPN ever since. Not another ding. I’ve heard nothing from Cox, Google, CenturyLink (ADSL), Spectrum, and some lesser knowns I’ve used. Cox here, and Google, have no restrictions that I know of.
I’ve never got a ding uploading using a VPN. I limit my upload to 2X the download.
I watched the two opening episodes of ST:SNWs last night. I guessed what E02 was about right away. They even through in a Twilight Zone reference.
I’ll watch the new episode directed by Jonathan Frakes, “A Space Adventure Hour”, which goes up on the 31st, but I stopped keeping up with the series in general.
The Frakes episode from last season, “Those Old Scientists”, may be the only hour of “Strange New Worlds” which can be considered canon at this point.
I watched the two opening episodes of ST:SNWs last night. I guessed what E02 was about right away. They even through* in a Twilight Zone reference.
*threw
Just got home from my errands today. The wind picked up and it got darker out…
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Many thanks to OldGuy for the samsung links. After visiting the ATT store (factory not franchise) the reason I was having issues is because the phone is counterfeit. Not a samsung at all. No logo, no branding. And not samsung firmware or os. It’s a real phone inside, it connected to ATT network and got my voicemail notification when I put my sim in it, just not a samsung. And still locked.
I took it back to my auctioneer when I did this week’s pickup. Just another example of returns fraud. Someone got the real S23+ from amazon, put the counterfeit in the box and returned it. They shouldn’t have bothered, no one checks most of the returns, they could have put an old startac in there.
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Hit goodwill as I passed by on my way home. Found a jazz album that should sell for $100 – 200 bucks. Nice. Picked a couple more for myself.
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Time to do a bit of cleanup and start dinner.
n
Kennedy Explains Why the US Just Rejected Amendments to WHO’s International Health Regulations
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2025/07/18/trump-admin-defends-us-sovereignty-with-decision-on-amendments-to-whos-intl-health-regulations-n2660614
Anyone think a Harris Administration (aka Obama Puppet II) would have rejected this p.o.s.?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/07/18/about-the-reporter-who-wrote-that-trash-trump-epstein-birthday-card-story-n2660597
He Threatened Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Life. Now He’s Facing Prison Time.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2025/07/18/authorities-arrest-man-for-threatening-marjorie-taylor-greene-n2660590
Prog psychosis: “I can say anything I want and never pay for it”
FAFO
You didn’t notice anything odd when you opened up the phone to install your SIM?
Real Apple and Samsung build quality is lightyears beyond the rest of Hecho en China.
God only knows what the phone did with your SIM information.
Sue Pasco is an investigative journalist and Editor of a local news site called “Circling the News,” and a fire victim herself. When a reader asked about the distribution of FireAid funds, she decided to find out;
LeftyScam Chapter 8305729023: ‘Where’s the FireAid Concert Money?’
Annenberg Foundation, spokesman Chris Wallace stated that victims do not get money; it goes to nonprofit organizations, which then distribute money.
https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2025/07/18/seven-months-later-ca-wildfire-victims-are-asking-wheres-the-fireaid-concert-money-n2191809
Annenburg distributed $50 million out of $100 million raised, but Ms. Pasco was not able to find so much as a red cent that went to fire victims.
Crucifying a hundred scammers on the hills of a burned out neighborhood would be a powerful message.
And filing suit against the Annenburg foundation to prevent distribution of the remaining $50 million–in a timely fashion only six months after the homes burned to the ground–without court-supervised oversight.
Thanks!
Everything looks like a nail:
Watched the first minute of a video for a “Honeycomb storage wall”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8u1MTEgZ24
The wall is about 2′ high and 5′ wide. Charlie said it took 3.5kg of filament and 120 printer hours. He didn’t specify time for set-up, testing, etc., but it’s never trivial.
A third of a sheet of pegboard (32×48) would have about the same area, cost less, and be installed in a morning including going to Lowes to get materials. You could fancy it up with metal pegboard for about $7 a square foot and still be under the cost of filament.
Same channel has some interesting small projects and I’m not trying to be hard on Charlie, but what continues to irritate me is the sheer number of “storage solutions” that are cost and time prohibitive, resource intensive, and aren’t much of a solution at all.
And they’re not attractive.
I’ve been reading about shop storage for decades, including issues of Popular Mechanics and other magazines that were published before I was born, and I get that someone will always have a “new” idea, but it used to be that tips were based on economic reality. When you go to estate sales with basement and garage shops long enough you see about every storage tip that you’ve ever read about, including baby food jars with lids screwed to the floor rafters above. Waste not want not.
I’ve yet to hear one of the 3D print guys look at a new shop space and say “Boy, howdy! I’m going to 3D print me storage for my new shop!” And then turn around and order a couple pallets of filament and maybe an extra printer so he can get done by the time he’s retired.
Or the Festool guys that want to set up a $1400 track saw to cut expensive lumber to make French cleats when slatwall is $6 a square foot new or cheap when the failed tenant at the mall closes.
I still have the 1# coffee cans that I spray-painted black and hand-lettered labels for nails and screws in dad’s garage when I was ten. Maybe it’s time to upgrade. I could get a Sawstop table saw, order some exotic hardwoods from Rockler, and buy a 20W laser to make labels.
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/07/18/trump-and-bukele-manage-a-massive-prisoner-swap-n3804924
Be interesting to see how the Dems and LSM play this to minimize it.
Holy crep, that is a lot of work to reinvent the wheel. Of course, Milwaukee did it with the packout system recently, so it’s a market segment.
I think he’d of been better served to get an existing sheet good for the wall part and make attachements. Something like steel with half inch square holes…
Like golfers buying the new thing to make their game better, guys with shops will always look for some new way to make their shop better.
He could have been printing stuff to sell…
n
https://twitchy.com/warren-squire/2025/07/18/npr-katherine-mayer-video-asking-for-money-n2415877
NPR has been full-on leftist/prog/communist for decades. Their bias is easily demonstrated in their history of selection of leftists such as Daniel Schorr with no significant political balance.
Screw DIN rail to the wall and make attachments…
n
@Nick
I invented a new system that embeds a printed grav plate in wallpaper–just paper the wall, supply power, and anything brought within six inches of the wall sticks by it’s own weight turned 90-degrees.
Patents no longer require reduction to practice…
Heh.
As you say: a quick look on craigslist tonight has someone offering (3x) 3 x 8′ slatwall panels for 50 bucks each…
There are guys that like to sail, and guys who like to build boats. There are guys that like to fly, and guys that like to build airplanes. There are guys who like to drive British sports cars, and people that like to rebuild them (OK, a lot of overlap there actually…), and there are people that like to RV, and people that like to build RVs.
So I guess that there are people who would like to organize their tools, rather than use them, shouldn’t be too surprising.
I hear you have to be careful: unscrupulous sellers on Temu and Alibaba have been substituting Cavorite for grav plate. So the angle of pull varies throughout the day as the sun and moon make their way across the sky and your garage can end up a real mess.
Gotta say: the YouTube videos are a hoot!
I took my mother to her bank today and got her finances straightened out (stage 1). Then we went to my house and picked up some parts that I had stashed (preps) to fix stuff in her house. Then we went by the Assisted Living place which Mom liked so much that she signed a contract for a studio apartment on Aug 17.
250 miles on her car today. I am exhausted. My son did all the driving and pushing Mom in her chair as I have really messed up my shoulder.
unscrupulous sellers on Temu and Alibaba have been substituting Cavorite
– thought they were substituting hangtite…
n
Thank you, drwilliams. I learned a new word today! A good day.
In other news, Roebuck season is open again. It is mating time for them. Last night I had a beautiful doe in my sector. Didn’t see a buck, but the boys go where the girls are in party season… promising.