Sat. Sept. 13, 2025 – Friday the 13th comes on a Saturday this month

By on September 13th, 2025 in culture, decline and fall, lakehouse

Cool to start but warming to ‘hot’ as the day progresses. Clear sky forecast, but it got a bit cloudy late in the day on Friday. We might see a bit of cloudiness and local rain.

I spent most of the day not getting stuff done. The doctor visit for my annual physical ate the morning, and the disruption to my food and caffeine intake blew the early afternoon. Then it was pick up the kid from school and help my wife load up for her weekend at the BOL.

Today is the first meeting of my non-prepping hobby after our big annual event, so it should be a long one. It will be nice if we get a couple of new members from the big event, but it usually takes a couple of months before people get their schedules changed and find the time. It’s some sort of commentary on our modern life that for most people, finding 4 hours on one weekend a month for a new pursuit is difficult and takes re-arranging…

Having some time in meatspace with people who share an interest has become a vital part of my mental well-being. It’s a chance to be with people and not talk about politics or prepping, or the state of the world. Although, given the broadly conservative nature of a bunch of middle and late middle aged men, most with successful businesses or careers,I’m sure recent events will be a topic for person to person discussion.

After the meeting, I’ll be working my list. And looking at what I’ve got stacked. And making plans to refine and stack some more. The threats we face haven’t changed, but there might be momentum building at a different rate. Get your house in order.

nick

50 Comments and discussion on "Sat. Sept. 13, 2025 – Friday the 13th comes on a Saturday this month"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    Would the Biden Library just be copies of material from other libraries?

    Sponsored by Xerox.

    That Girl Boss CEO is Woke.

    Doh! Was. The Japanese replaced her with a male not long after they took over in 2017.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    Some people just found out that words have meanings and maltreating students at TAMU will not be accepted.

    College Station allowed Bjarne to inflict his teaching style on CS students as Chair for more than a decade.

  3. SteveF says:

    Having some time in meatspace with people

    Ew. People. Ew.

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    72F and sunny, headed out.

    But a question I had in the shower-  how many great companies, built by men, have been destroyed or seriously diminished by a (fairly) recent girlboss, either at the top, or thru a critical decision?

    Disney, Compaq/HP, Budwiser, Gillette

    off the top of my head.

    n

  5. Nick Flandrey says:

    Ew. People. Ew. 

    well, we have donuts too…

    n

    11
  6. Greg Norton says:

    But a question I had in the shower-  how many great companies, built by men, have been destroyed or seriously diminished by a (fairly) recent girlboss, either at the top, or thru a critical decision?

    Disney, Compaq/HP, Budwiser, Gillette

    off the top of my head.

    The Weatherman was in charge at Disney, and, with regard to Kathleen Kennedy’s actions trashing every Lucasfilm property with the possible exception of “Howard the Duck”, George Lucas himself made the deliberate decision to back Iger in the proxy fight last year which left Kennedy in that job.

    Once Lucas backed Iger, the institutions solidified support for the status quo and the fate of The Mouse was sealed.

    The inevitable Bankruptcy proceedings will be eye opening. Gina Carano became the highest paid “Star Wars” actor ever so Burbank could avoid discovery, but they just delayed the inevitable.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    Disney, Compaq/HP, Budwiser, Gillette

    Bud Light was a male exec allowing his 20-something mistress to run wild with a brain fart marketing idea. 

    Until the scandal erupted, he had the cover that she made the decisions from her knowledge base imparted from an education at a “good” school.

    A day of reckoning is coming for those “good” schools.

  8. SteveF says:

    W1? Do you have a replacement in the wings?

    The best way to refer to your wife is as your former girlfriend.

    10
  9. Bob Sprowl says:

    Former girl friend is good.  Beats mine of current wife.  She was not amused.

    10
  10. Greg Norton says:

    Disney, Compaq/HP, Budwiser, Gillette

    Gillette was an anomaly at P&G. The company has been drifting towards Colonists being in charge for about a decade, and one will be CEO within a year.

    Colonists have their own forms of stupid, but they don’t appreciate Woke.

  11. MrAtoz says:

    Win the 2026 elections and consolidate control of Congress by electing more conservative Republicans and replacing RINOS that won’t get with the program. 

    The problem is the Redumblicans are spineless and disorganized. Yes, too many RINOs, and the party wont ostracize them. Don’t snatch defeat out of the mouth of victory in 2026, Redumbo’s.

  12. MrAtoz says:

    The plugs The Last library will be simple. It will be filled with empty shirts.

  13. SteveF says:

    And full Depends.

  14. Brad says:

    Ew. People. Ew.

    I tend to agree. That said, I did meet up with two neighbors today, drilled a bunch of hole in concrete and got stuff done. Followed by a couple of beers…

  15. Denis says:

    subwoofer that we got is too large

    – you don’t have to run it at full… unless you mean it won’t fit where it’s supposed to fit.    It has a very different purpose for home theater than for music listening.   With nice full range speakers moving a lot of air, unless you like modern recordings of synthesizer music the sub shouldn’t really  be doing much.   Most older recordings prior to the CD just don’t have much bass in them.   There wasn’t enough dynamic range to really capture the low end.

    Of course, modern recordings of organ music tend to sound great with big speakers too.

    Anna Lapwood, baby!

    https://youtube.com/@annalapwoodorgan

    As a low brass player, I do have a lot of music on CD that can take advantage of a good ‘woofer. We rarely watch movies, and very seldom anything with big explosions…

    I meant the subwoofer unit we got is too large physically to fit conveniently into the available space in the 4m by 4m “sitting” part of the 8m x 4m sitting/dining/living room. Otherwise, the space should do nicely for a “listening triangle”, with the front speakers equidistant from the main seating.

    I note Teufel recommend setting up the subwoofer by turning it to 50% power and adjusting from there.

    We’re going to need a custom piece of furniture to house the Teufel Centre speaker, the Denon AV amp/receiver, Kathrein satellite receiver, Yamaha CD-player, Asus router, Sony Blu-ray player, and to put the Samsung TV on.

    I had a look at IKEA online. They have a couple of “BESTÅ” units that can almost, but not quite be configured to what we need, so I will be having a chat with my pal, the retired joiner.

    There is only about 120cm of usable width available (and cool enough) between the log firebox and the wall, and still leaving room for the front right speaker. I don’t think there will be room to squeeze the big subwoofer into the furniture too. 

    I did gently introduce W1 / ex girlfriend / current wife 🙂 to the vague idea of getting rid of a pouffe/Ottoman/footstool thing to make space for the big subwoofer. She might yet bite. 

    Longer term, I will be looking to replace a corner couch/recliner/sofa thing with a pair of 3-seat couches on castors, so that the room can easily be rearranged for TV/music-listening or for guests and conversation.

    One of my pet peeves is having a TV in a “reception” room, because we are all so programmed to turn towards and look at the stupid screen, even if it is switched off. A TV belongs in a TV room where one can politely be antisocial…

  16. lpdbw says:

    In the ham radio hobby, all girls and single women, and most women on the air are referred to as “YL”, which means young lady.  

    Wives are referred to as “XYL” to differentiate.   Ex-young lady.

    By way of balance, male operators from 10 to 100 are referred to as “OM”, old man.

    This all comes from the shortcuts adopted in the days of Morse code.  Modern texters and twitterers have nothing on us, IYKWIMAITYD.

    GM OM WX HR COLD ES CLOUDY = HOWS YR XYL?  is much shorter to send with a telegraph key than “Good Morning, my friend, we have cold and cloudy weather here.  How’s your wife today?”

    In other news, I got my new palindromic amateur radio callsign officially yesterday.  Now I can look into getting Ham license plates for my vehicles.

  17. Alan says:

    >> W1

    Bob used to refer to Barbara as “his first wife.” Reportedly she was not amused.

    Don’t recall who started the Wx abbreviation. 

  18. paul says:

    IKEA has crazy amounts of choices. 

    I have this IKEA TV stand: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/hemnes-tv-unit-white-stain-light-brown-10413528/

  19. SteveF says:

    Don’t recall who started the Wx abbreviation. 

    Nick, if I’m not mistaken.

  20. Nick Flandrey says:

    Home from my meeting.   A bit underattended.  Good presentation, but the review of our convention got a bit contentious.   And then we didn’t do a “lessons learned” meeting.  Pushed that to next month as the committee chair wasn’t here today.

    Hot and sunny.   I’m gonna have some lunch and figure out what to do with the  afternoon.

    n

  21. Lynn says:

    “Holding Their Own XI: Hearts and Minds” by Joe Nobody
       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939473780?tag=ttgnet-20

    The eleventh book in a series of nineteen alternate history books about the economic collapse of the USA in 2015 and onward. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2015 that I bought new on Amazon in 2014. I own the first twelve books in the series and will purchase more soon.

    Um, this series was published in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was really getting cranked up. The book has crude oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in 2015. Not gonna happen due to oil well fracking in the USA so the major driver of economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the book. That said, the book is a good story about the collapse and failure of the federal government in the USA. The book is centered in Texas which makes it very interesting to me since I am a Texas resident.

    The $6 gasoline was just the start. The unemployment rises to 40% over a couple of years and then there is a terrorist chemical attack in Chicago that kills 50,000 people. The current President of the USA nukes Iran with EMP airbursts as the sponsor of the terrorist attack. And the President of the USA also declares martial law and shuts down the interstates to stop the terrorists from moving about. That shuts down food and fuel movement causing starvation and lack of energy across the nation.

    The accumulations of these serious problems cause widespread panics and shutdowns of basic services like electricity and water for large cities. The electricity grids fail due to employees not showing up to work at the plants. Then the refineries shutdown due to the lack of electricity.

    Somebody is causing problems in the new alliance as the Alliance tries to handle the growing problems of a new government. Bishop and his team are going around trying to put out fires. Then things get worse as the Alliance is dealing with all of the abandoned properties.

    The author has a website at:
       https://www.joenobodybooks.com/

    My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (428 reviews)

    Lynn

  22. Brad says:

    getting rid of a pouffe/Ottoman/footstool thing to make space for the big subwoofer

    Put a cushion on top of the subwoofer and call it a footstool?

  23. Nick Flandrey says:

    Buy some Festools and build a footstool?

    n

    ‘-)

  24. Denis says:

    Don’t recall who started the Wx abbreviation.

    Nick, if I’m not mistaken.

    I thought I did it after RBT started the “first wife” bit, but I could be mistaken.

    IKEA has crazy amounts of choices.

    Indeed they do. Unfortunately, I can’t find anything that is only 1m20 wide that also has an opening wide enough to accommodate the central speaker, which is 60cm wide.

    Now watching the Last Night of the Proms live! The Brits are good at pomp and circumstance.

  25. SteveF says:

    I thought I did it

    Are you sure that you aren’t Nick? Reeeeealllly sure?

  26. Denis says:

    Put a cushion on top of the subwoofer and call it a footstool?

    I’m pickin up good vibrations…

    Buy some Festools and build a footstool?

    I see what you did there!

  27. SteveF says:

    A few days I mentioned being unsure whether I’d bother to finish watching Shang-Chi. I decided to, about a half hour at a time. Finally watched the last of it and I am now regretting my life choices.

    I saw somewhere or other that some Disney/Marvel exec was bragging about this being the first Asian-directed and majority Asian cast Disney movie. That’s not as big a flex as they think it is, and especially not when you look at how bad the movie was.

  28. Greg Norton says:

    A few days I mentioned being unsure whether I’d bother to finish watching Shang-Chi. I decided to, about a half hour at a time. Finally watched the last of it and I am now regretting my life choices.

    I saw somewhere or other that some Disney/Marvel exec was bragging about this being the first Asian-directed and majority Asian cast Disney movie. That’s not as big a flex as they think it is, and especially not when you look at how bad the movie was.

    “Shang-Chi” would have been forgotten as just another bad movie, but Simu Liu can’t let it rest because he’s failed at everything else he’s ever done in life, and that Number One Son personality type just can’t deal with failure, especially at that level.

    The Number One Son Chinese relations are banned from my house.

  29. Greg Norton says:

    I saw somewhere or other that some Disney/Marvel exec was bragging about this being the first Asian-directed and majority Asian cast Disney movie. That’s not as big a flex as they think it is, and especially not when you look at how bad the movie was.

    Disney had an Asian produced and majority Asian cast sitcom in “Fresh Off The Boat”, which ran in prime time on ABC for six seasons, but they pretend the series never existed these days.

  30. Lynn says:

    Now watching the Last Night of the Proms live! The Brits are good at pomp and circumstance.

    Yeah, the drawing and quartering ceremony leaves an impression on a fellow.

  31. Nick Flandrey says:

    Come on now, they haven’t had the guts to do that in 150 years…

    n

  32. Denis says:

    The young Chinese conductor Elim Chan did an excellent job. I will make a point of watching out for her in the future. I am sorry I didn’t discover her while she was still in Antwerp.

    The BBC SO were on form. Shostakovich’s Festive Overture was worth tuning in for all on its own, and I could watch Alison Balsom play the trumpet all day.

    The patriotic jingoism was over the top, as usual, but the crowd seemed to be enjoying it, and the soprano Louise Alder really hit those high notes in “Rule Britannia”.

  33. Denis says:

    Are you sure that you aren’t Nick?

    No. I’m not even sure that Nick isn’t me.

    Maybe we are just both SteveF, or Greg is all of us, just talking to himself…

    Or we are all just figments of Lynn’s reading list…

    Or Buddy the Beagle is typing us all. Who knows?

    It is the Twilight Zone.

  34. SteveF says:

    You are all but figments of my imagination.

    Prove me wrong.

  35. Nick Flandrey says:

    I blog, therefore I am?

    I am, therefore I blog?

    ———

    beagles blogging??  it would be like emo elephants thumping around…

    n

  36. paul says:

    Buddy the Beagle blogging?  Hey, he might be good if he was interested. 

    He’s a smart dog.  Not super smart like Wilma or Fred.  Not as smart as Penny.  I guess on a scale of 15 dogs, Buddy is around #8 but he has good days, too. 

    I just know he seems to worship the ground I walk on.   Which is different.  I don’t think I deserve it but it’s his choice.  He doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body.  May be beagle traits.

  37. lpdbw says:

    On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.

    I can’t believe that cartoon is 32 years old now. 

  38. lynn says:

    Now watching the Last Night of the Proms live! The Brits are good at pomp and circumstance.

    Yeah, the drawing and quartering ceremony leaves an impression on a fellow.

    Come on now, they haven’t had the guts to do that in 150 years…

    I see what you did there.

    And the Braveheart movie was enough for me.

  39. Greg Norton says:

    On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.

    I can’t believe that cartoon is 32 years old now. 

    Email and Usenet were out there, but I didn’t see a demo of Mosaic until ~ 1994.

    I used Delphi to read news groups.

  40. nick flandrey says:

    “when you live on nicotine, caffeine, and profanity, Ok is about as good as it gets.”

    – words of wisdom from some rando in my youtube shorts.

    n

  41. Gavin says:

    I can’t believe that cartoon is 32 years old now. 

    A callback to Spider Robinson’s short stories in Callahan’s Cross time Saloon. There was one with a talking dog…

  42. MrAtoz says:

    Yup, tranny involved:

    Leftist Bubble Burst? Charlie Kirk’s Killer in Romantic Relationship With Transgender Roommate

    Bizarre, mentally ill, doosh-nozzles. The Rainbow Alphabet people need to expunge the T’s from their rainbow.

  43. drwilliams says:

    @Denis

    re: supporting speakers

    I have used rectangles cut to size from 3M Nomad entrance matting for decades. The current product number is 6050. Amazon has them in the U.S. for $114 for the 2×3. 

    $20 per square foot is expensive until you consider durability. I have never replaced a  pad used for speakers or turntable. I have replaced mats used outdoors—they  seem to be limited to 20-25 years. 

    The mats are commercial grade and are often used in businesses in the U.S. to limit snow tracked into the building in the winter. Usually a commercial service picks them up on a bi-weekly or other appropriate schedule and replaces them with cleaned mats. 

  44. nick flandrey says:

    Hmmm, D1 still not back from her girlfriend’s birthday party.   I might have to be sitting outside with a tiny little fire to calm my nerves.

    n

  45. nick flandrey says:

    Well she just texted that she was on the way.  Might have some relaxing time by the water feature now anyway.

    n

  46. lynn says:

    My TAMU Aggies beat Notre Dame in Indiana tonight by 41 to 40.

    We have the best players you can buy !

  47. lynn says:

    “Tranny”

       https://areaocho.com/tranny-2/

    “What do you know. The shooter was Transtifa

    Yup.  The trannys want to kill us all.  They should stop cutting off their junk first.

  48. Denis says:

    re: supporting speakers

    I have used rectangles cut to size from 3M Nomad entrance matting for decades.

    Thanks! If my washing-machine rubber matting is not up to the job, I will get some of that.

    D1 still not back from her girlfriend’s birthday party.   I might have to be sitting outside…

    My dear late mother used to worry herself to sleep when any one of her children was out late.

    The perpetrator would inevitably come come without fuss and go to bed, a fact missed by Mama because she had been fast asleep and didn’t hear the late arrival.

    Of course, she would wake later in the night, and be convinced that someone was missing, so panic ensued. Everyone would be roused out to go and search for the “missing” child, including the somewhat bewildered missing child itself! Hilarity.

    I miss her.

  49. nick flandrey says:

    Child arrived shortly after her text.   I had a nice hour and a half reading and sitting by the water feature.

    Had a donut and now it’s time for bed.

    n

    8
    0
  50. Nick Flandrey says:

    My afternoon nap had me up too late, without realizing it.   NOW it’s time for bed.

    n

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