Hot and humid, but maybe a little bit less hot. Yesterday had some storms pass around us and that helped bring the temperature down for a bit. Got into the 90sF later though. Hopefully, today will be clear but a little overcast wouldn’t be terrible.
I finished my walkway. For now anyway. I got a couple of sections of roof powerwashed but have more to do today. It was a good amount of work considering my later start. I’m hoping that getting the roof back to shiny white will help with the A/C bill by reflecting more heat. It wasn’t on my list at all but it fit into it by being something I could do in the heat. It looks so much better too. I wonder if there is some sort of wax or spray that would make it more slick to keep the dirt and mildew off of it.
Today I’ll do more roof washing, then I’ll pack up for home. I don’t think the grass needs mowing, but I’ll look again in the daylight. The dishes need washing and the house needs a general spruce up. The girls will probably head up next weekend, while I have my hobby convention. Maybe I’ll even get some stuff put away in the garage. Could happen.
All it takes is time and motivation.
And stacking.
nick
Ray Thompson, I also have never been to the opera and have no desire. I did enjoy this:
“They Don’t Let You in the Opera” by Kelli O’Hara
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2PBOAbdIcU
The grass always needs mowing.
76 F and 100 percent humidity with the fog hanging in the air in the backyard at 7 am.
I am here in Fort Bend County and hopefully my nephew is taking Mom to her church in Port Lavaca.
Mom is moving to the assisted living place this week and then she wants to go back to PL for sorting precious stuff.
“Abbott Launches Second Special Session as Democrats Signal End to Walkout”
https://texasscorecard.com/state/abbott-launches-second-special-session-as-democrats-signal-end-to-walkout/
“Speaker Dustin Burrows adds over-the-counter ivermectin as a priority for the House.”
Huh. Ivermectin over the counter. I think most, if not all, drugs should be OTC.
Opera is yodeling for snobs, the ones with the stiff upper lip and their noses in the air.
One time was watching an opera on TV with some others. I asked what the people were singing and what it was about. A couple of people’s response was that if I did not know, I was too stupid to listen. Yeh, they had no idea either.
Antibiotics need some control mechanism. People tend to abuse them.
Resistance stats get scary for areas with large migrant farm worker populations getting antibiotics from the underground pharmacias.
I picked up something nasty on the back of one leg while out in California which has lingered since then. I didn’t wear shorts the entire trip so I can only assume it was something on a pair of pants I bought at Kohl’s out in Desert Hot Springs.
Ivermectin is a special case because it is generally OTC in most of the world, and the Indian pharmacists at Walgreens and CVS took great delight in denying filling the prescriptions during the pandemic kabuki, particularly the women.
I hope those pharmacist/managers don’t wonder why so many of those stores are closing and they lose their cushy jobs as the chains get stripped mined by private equity.
Muntz voice: Ha ha. But I digress.
HEB probably asked for the OTC change. Publix quietly does big business selling Ivermectin in its pharmacies in Tennessee, and the drug is over the counter in Arkansas.
Limited availability drugs for chronic conditions should also be controlled through prescription.
A lot of pinheads had designs on arbitrage of hydroxychloroquine during the early days of the pandemic kabuki, to the point that the Feds had to step in and control access so that Lupus patients would continue to have access to the drug.
As Dr. Pournelle commented on multiple occasions, pure, unrestrained capitalism would see the peddling of human flesh in the marketplace. EBay Gold!
I bought a carpet sweeper. “Many to chose from” is an understatement. I narrowed in down to a handful. From the underside, where it matters, they all look the same.
Brand, who cares, it’s all from China. Color, not a fan of pale purple or barfed-olive green. Price, all within a few bucks.
I went for red. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Y79KRHR?tag=ttgnet-20 $25.
It works great to clean up the dog cookie crumbs from the carpet. That’s why I bought it. Picks up a lot of Buddy the Beagle hair, too. It’s built better than I expected. Not flimsy. Seems sturdy and well made.
How do you know when to empty it? Easy! When it starts leaving balls of dog hair it is full.
Ivermectin is also OTC in Idaho.
Gotta wonder what Costco pharmacy policy is in places like Boise and Coeur d’Allene.
Say, whatever happened to applying a “common sense” policy to regulating THC in Texas.
That’s why the first special session was called.
Hmmm
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15006933/trump-manhattan-project-intel-nationalized.html
One more possible link in the chain.
n
ICE Takes Down Illegal Alien TikTok Influencer Who Targets ICE Raids
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2025/08/17/ice-takes-down-tiktok-illegal-alien-influencer-who-reveals-ice-locations-and-its-glorious-to-watch-n2192899
Illegal alien from Columbia sitting in her Tesla live-streaming about avoiding and disrupting ICE. Claims she worked three jobs to afford her lifestyle.
Okay, I have some questions:
–What jobs did she work, what ID did she provide, and did she pay taxes?
–How does an illegal register a car in Cali?
I’d request that the federal government investigate and bring charges as appropriate, for the purpose of making a high-profile example.
While walking past the International shelves at our local HEB yesterday, I noticed that the store stoced UK-style Heinz canned beans.
$3.50/can.
They also had HP brown sauce and Jammie Dodgers, but I like the IKEA Jammie Dodgers ripoff cookie better than the real thing.
Ours is a “mid” tier HEB – not Fancy Lad but a step above basic grocery store. The location was originally built as an Albertson’s.
I’ve used Booklet Creator 2 on Mac, for the Mac users here, for years. I used to put together extensive travel itineraries I could shove in a pocket. It is not needed as much with software, but we still handout a booklet of info at our conferences now and then.
Big Update: Truck Driver Who Killed Three Was an Illegal Immigrant, and Now Gavin Newsom Is Implicated
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/08/17/big-update-truck-driver-who-killed-three-was-an-illegal-immigrant-and-now-gavin-newsom-is-implicated-n2192902
California issues CDL’s to illegal immigrants? And they get hired by companies? And insurance companies write coverage?
I don’t know if the State of Florida has any legal recourse, or if the families of the victims have any basis for civil action. But it should be simple to pass a federal law that makes it a crime to issue a CDL to an illegal alien, a crime to hire an illegal alien to drive with a CDL, and a crime for an illegal alien to drive in another state with a CDL. Add a couple more requirements, like requiring states to keep a registry of CDL’s issued to illegal aliens that can be accessed by law enforcement and insurance companies.
There are three people dead in this case due to the arrogant actions of the State of California and their total disregard for the safety of the public.
Texas Non-Profits Form Mutual Funds to Pay College Tuition for Illegal Immigrants
The Equal Protection Project
https://equalprotect.org/
has been very successful in challenging the legality of scholarships and other forms of aid that violate equal protection, including race, ethnicity, and national origin.
Private entities are not thereby constrained in awarding aid, but “securing aid to cover in-state tuition through a loan, scholarship, or other means” raises the possibility that there are state actors involved that should be challenged.
@greg:
We call them “baked beans”. UK supermarket Tesco stocks them at £1.40/can ($1.90), assuming you saw the 416 gram (1 pound) cans – smaller sizes are available (typically 200 gram).
G
My dad used to hand me books that he thought I would enjoy. The best ever was “Instant Replay” by Jerry Kramer and Dick Schaap. Jerry played guard for the Green Bay Packers and blocked for Paul Hornung and Bart Starr on Vince Lombartti’s teams from 1958-1968. “Instant Replay” is the story of the 1967 season.
It’s a great book, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone to get a feel for the complete transformation of pro football over the past 75 years.
The question should be, how does an illegal alien get a title?
Registering a car with a valid title merely requires paying the fees.
I never had to have any ID to transfer a title. I simply had to supply a valid CA residence address and pay the transfer fees. The title has places for seller and buyer to enter the required information.
I think other states work in similar fashion.
Trump’s National Guard Could Soon Be Armed in D.C.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/08/17/trumps-national-guard-could-soon-be-armed-in-dc-n2661934
It ain’t war, so how about hollow-points?
I’m off the roof taking a break. The pressure washer hose popped a leak so I may be done for this visit. I should have several hoses here, I’ve got more than one gun, but I couldn’t find them yesterday when I sorta looked.
I’ll try some butyl, then a harder rubber around that and a hose clamp, but I expect that to fail.
I’d really like to finish the “panel”or this whole section of roof. When a whole section is dirty, it’s hard to see HOW dirty, but when one is done to within 3ft of the ridge, it’s really easy. At least it’s not on the side that faces the road.
n
Someone put a bullseye on Intel starting around a year ago. The company should not end up as a subsidiary of Broadcom or Qualcomm on the cheap as Wall Street seems to want.
The truth is starting to come out.
Them: There was no widespread cheating.
Us: Doesn’t have to be widespread, the evidence suggests it was very targeted.
Them: There was no widespread cheating.
n
Antibiotics need some control mechanism. People tend to abuse them.
Resistance stats get scary for areas with large migrant farm worker populations getting antibiotics from the underground pharmacias.
As you mention, there are underground ways of getting almost any drug. But all that interference is driving the costs and frustrations way high. Having gatekeepers is very expensive in time and money.
Thanks for the Brave browser recomendation. I’m still considering whether to move from Chrome for other sites, but YouTube is working like it used to.
I did an idle search for “cnc 80% lower” to see what the state of the art is. I discovered that Ghost Gunner is over $3000 for the next production run, and I discovered an online community of hobbyists that may be worse than Linux users. Hobbyist machinists are apparently supercilious condescending judgmental arrogant people of uncertain parentage.
I should hope so!
Bit careless, that? 🙂
Hobbyist machinists are apparently supercilious condescending judgmental arrogant people of uncertain parentage.
– maybe it’s the gun part of it, as most of the hobby machinist stuff I come in contact with online or IRL is welcoming and friendly.
n
Turns out it’s very hard to fix a hole in a high pressure hose. I did find my extension hose, but it has quick fittings on both ends. I need one end to screw into the gun. So I tried repairing the hose.
That tiny hole makes a pretty good water jet cutter for most things you try to patch with. I ended up with a piece of copper pipe, split and hose clamped over the hole. It still leaks but enough gets thru that I have enough pressure to run the gun and finish the job. It’s taking longer because the spray isn’t as strong, but I’m almost finished. Ran out of gas which is my reminder to take a break and cool off.
I’ll finish the part of the roof I’m on right now, then move on to something else. Currently over 100F in mixed sun.
n
WRT opera, I never worked on a real one, but they can be fun. My dad loved going with my sibling in Chicago. He loved the spectacle even if he didn’t understand the words. Very few people understand the words, so they are almost always projected as a superscript above the stage.
Of course, there is this, which is all you need to know about opera in 6:47.
What’s Opera, Doc?
“Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!…”
n
Breaking Cat News: Cats and Recliners
https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2025/08/17
“It’ll chop you in half”.
“Warrants”
https://areaocho.com/warrants/
“The left is running around saying that it is illegal for ICE to arrest people unless they have a warrant. The idiots are injecting themselves into the situation by confronting police and demanding to “see the warrant.””
This is a good way to get oneself arrested also for interference and maybe even a beatdown.
It is like any hobby, the jerks are there sitting and waiting for the slightest terminology mis-step or forum COC violation, you just have to ignore and steer clear.
My brother, the professional C++ programmer used to refer to some people on certain forums (SO) as ‘jack-booted digital thugs’.
There is one machinist forum where they will not allow discussion of Craftsman lathes for example. Just because there’s been tens of millions of them out there made over the last 100 years or so, used by small shops everywhere in the world, doesn’t mean there’s not some holier-than-thou moron with a $500,000 all digital shop queen with maybe 5hrs on the hobbs meter prating about them not being ‘professional’.
Ahem.
Anyway, my take is that if you cross opinionated gun nuts and opinionated machinists and probably opinionated 2nd Amendment “IANAL, but…” and the “I cosplay as an expert online moderator where I won’t get punched in the face” types, well, you are probably going to walk into a circus.
The one’s who think they are ‘putting something over’ on someone, or ‘stickin it to the man’ are poison. It’s always been legal in the US to build your own firearms. Always. Can’t sell them now, but you can build your own. 80% kits just made it easier.
DU and the Ghostgunner make it even easier to get a good result. Barrels are almost always the sticking point though.
n
“Learn to Code”
https://areaocho.com/learn-to-code/
“That was Biden’s advice to those who lost jobs as a result of his anti-oil policies.”
Picture of NYT article about $165K coders getting laid off and getting jobs at Chipotle.
It is like any hobby, the jerks are there sitting and waiting for the slightest terminology mis-step or forum COC violation, you just have to ignore and steer clear.
My brother, the professional C++ programmer used to refer to some people on certain forums (SO) as ‘jack-booted digital thugs’.
Your brother is not wrong. I call the C++ and Fortran “experts” on those forums the “language lawyers”. They know everything and refuse to compromise in any way. Most of them have never written a working line of code.
Sigh. The AAA charger and batteries that I ordered arrived, and apparently I ordered AAs.
I’ll keep them because my old AA charger seems to be acting up anyway, but it means I need to reorder the correct AAA charger.
For some reason the remote on my Roku just eats AAA’s: two weeks max and they are dead.
Bjarne should have retired 20 years ago.
These days, he’s scarring another program’s undergraduates at Columbia.
“The Doctor Will Kill You Now”
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/08/15/the-doctor-will-kill-you-now-22/
“The euthanasia conference was held at a Sheraton. Some 300 Canadian professionals, most of them clinicians, had arrived for the annual event. There were lunch buffets and complimentary tote bags; attendees could look forward to a Friday-night social outing, with a DJ, at an event space above Par-Tee Putt in downtown Vancouver. “The most important thing,” one doctor told me, “is the networking.””
“Which is to say that it might have been any other convention in Canada. Over the past decade, practitioners of euthanasia have become as familiar as orthodontists or plastic surgeons are with the mundane rituals of lanyards and drink tickets and It’s been so long s outside the ballroom of a four-star hotel. The difference is that, 10 years ago, what many of the attendees here do for work would have been considered homicide.[…]”
You have got to be kidding me.
Hat tip to:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/09/canada-euthanasia-demand-maid-policy/683562/
and
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/08/from-medical-care-to-medical-couldnt.html
None of the undergraduate females who completed the CS program during my time at Washington State are currently working in a job requiring the knowledge imparted by taking the cirriculum. One is even driving a truck.
The Suma Cum Laude graduate/speaker at graduation?
Podcasting about her days in the program as a black-out drunk alcoholic after four attempts at career employment locally all ended badly.
The Widow Jobs. She has her own population control agenda.
Sears contracted with dozens of companies to produce tools under their Craftsman name. Most of the metal lathes were made by Atlas. Does the forum also ban the discussion of Atlas lathes, or are they simply easily unfrocked mindless prigs?
I really like the Elfhome books by Wen Spenser. You need to read all the short stories too. They fill in a lot of interesting detail, and make the last two books much more understandable. There is a lot about the secret assassin, and the video producer’s family as well as the Home and Garden show (which is one of my favorite parts of the stories.)
Yeah, I just ordered the book of short stories (#4) that I skipped before. Turns out that there was a lot of important facts being given there.
https://www.amazon.com/Project-Elfhome-Wen-Spencer/dp/1481482904?tag=ttgnet-20/
Don’t forget the agents provocateurs from law enforcement and various federal agencies. In any online forum, the poster egging you on to do something borderline or outright unlawful, is a cop.
I have one Roku remote (out of 4) that does that. The batteries last longer than two weeks, but I do three or four battery changes for every one change in the other remotes. It’s the unit in the garage, so it doesn’t get used a lot, and my motivation to find the cause is extremely low.
Take the batteries out at the end of your viewing day (or just reverse one of them). Sometimes, simple is better.
Is it the blutooth remote? Maybe it’s trying to scan for devices or it’s being pinged by the box…
I have several roku boxen and they seem fine. There are aftermarket remotes specifically for the rokus…
n
OK, blew most of the dirt and gravel off the driveway. The rest can wash off. I still have to get the chunks from the skid steer tracks off the driveway.
I’m cooling down though.
Then I’ll do some garage work. The kid invited several friends for Labor day weekend and I won’t be back up here before then. I’m sure they will want to play pool and run the A/C units in the garage, so I better get my stuff out of the way.
Dunno where I’ll put it.
n
Charmin Blue on sale at Costco through August 24th.
Bundle of 20 rolls/213 sheets. Item number 1773119
$6 off per bundle. Limit 2. At the warehouses and at costco.com
Bounty was $28 today when we stopped. We didn’t need Charmin, but the store had a lot of the big packs.
The stock has gone nowhere for most of the year.
Gonna need a bigger cashflow.
“Baked” beans here implies “Boston”-style baked beans with a sweet sauce and a hunk of pork.
Ironically, most of the canned baked beans sold in the US originate in Tennessee with the Bush’s brand.
Headquarters in Knoxville.
Try the Moonshine flavor.
Researching places to visit for our conference trip to Nashville this fall, I noted that the “American Pickers” host closed his store in the old car factory at the edge of downtown.
The car factory had a lot of interesting tenants but very few were open beyond the late afternoon, including the restaurants. I wondered how long the “Pickers” store would stay in business.
Not so “ironically”; I think Bush’s beans, or their sauce, or their prep method, is superior to other brands. Certainly, I think they taste better.
“Boston” baked beans … from below the Manson-Nixon line.
Though it isn’t as bad as Nellie and Joe’s “The Taste of Old Key West” Lime Juice
Hecho en Mexico.
DeSantis finally changed the Florida state dessert decades after Key Lime production ended in the state.
Swiftie James Comey Seeking More Concerts Before He Is Sentenced
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/08/17/truly-weird-video-from-james-comey-n2192920
He’s currently #5 on the TDS Sufferers “Most Likely to Suicide”, but #1 on the “Most Likely to Fake His Own Death” list.
Manson-Nixon?
Strangely enough, I have coincidences involving both Charles Manson and Richard Nixon, if only very tangentially.
I often point out that August 9th is a very important date. Nagasiki bombed, Nixon resigned, Ford ascended, Sharon Tate murdered. Oh, yeah, and I got married. And even more coincidentally, my divorce was final on August 9th as well, 39 years later
BTW, my wedding was literally the day Nixon resigned. So my rehearsal dinner was during the Nixon admin, and my wedding duing the Ford.
An old Robin Williams line. I believe it was from the “Live at the Met” HBO special which saved his career in the mid 80s.
When Pynchon’s “Mason & Dixon” was a huge book in the 90s, anytime we walked into a book store, I saw “Manson & Nixon”.
The book is certainly strange enough that “Manson & Nixon” would work.
Find a way to watch “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” if you haven’t already.
Tarantino fans debate what exactly happens at the end of the movie which takes place in a particular Hollywood cul de sac on the night of August 8-9, 1969. Is it revisionist history in the director’s storytelling universe or Brad Pitt’s character tripping on PCP?
I really need to finish the novelization on our next trip, Tarantino’s attempt to channel Alan Dean Foster as an experiment.
Made it home.
Did get some of the garage cleaned up. Got the A/C units ready for use. Cleared out around the pool table. Should be ready for the kids.
Time to head to bed.
n
Classic opera with it’s exaggerated vibrato and incomprehensible singing – no. Same for classic ballet with tutus. However, I have been to a few more modern musicals and dance performances, and really enjoyed them.
Seems like Texas needs something regulating absences. Maybe: being absent from more than X sessions, or Y sessions in a row, means that your seat is not counted for the establishment of a quorum.
Geez, getting desperate, are they? Their management has totally screwed the pooch over the past 20 years. Intel is well on the road to irrelevance, excepting their patent portfolio and licensing.
Um…I’m pretty sure that is already illegal, by any sensible reading of the law.
If they’re illegal, notify ICE. Problem solved.
I would surely hope so.