Sun. Dec. 7, 2025 – A day that lives in infamy, and as an example of stunningly bad judgement.

By on December 7th, 2025 in culture, decline and fall, lakehouse

Cool and damp. Starting in the 50sF and warming, only to end up back in the chilly and damp area. If we get clear sky and sun, it will be great though, like yesterday.

I arose late, got a big (for me) breakfast and enjoyed my coffee and chatting with my wife. When I finally got around to working, I banged out a couple of quick little things, then got started unloading and sorting, as well as converting the garage from cooling to heating. I got most of that done, and decided to get some Christmas decorations out. We didn’t get to the tree, but maybe that was because I fell asleep after dinner for a while.

Today I’ll finish the decorations, do more sorting and putting away, and whatever else I can do without starting a big project. I’ve have decided to stay until Monday afternoon, mainly because I like it up here and haven’t been up in a while. Too many little things are piling up. Of course the same is true at home.

I’ll play it by ear.

And I’m making a list of things to add to the stacks here. I can’t believe I don’t have jelly and jam for toast, except one jar…

Stack. Check. Re-stack…

nick

21 Comments and discussion on "Sun. Dec. 7, 2025 – A day that lives in infamy, and as an example of stunningly bad judgement."

  1. Denis says:

    I hate hunting / fishing in the cold. … Fly fishing and snow (or rain or wind) do not mix.

    I agree with you about the cold, Lynn. Feeling cold takes the fun out of it. It seems to be linked to advancing age – the cold rarely bothered me in the past – and maybe also to losing some blubber in my case.

    I am no angler, but I am nevertheless perfectly capable of sitting around, drinking beer and telling tall tales without a fishing-rod.

    Now it’s really time to get up. Wishing you all a good Sunday.

  2. mediumwave says:

    Shoot, for half of my DNF books I did not even read past the first page.  I cannot for the life of me remember why I bought the book.  Yet, they sit in my SBR taunting me.

    On my first attempt I DNFed Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Circa a couple of years later I zoomed through the book and went on to devour the rest of his output. 

    Sometimes you’re just not ready to read a particular book.

  3. SteveF says:

    And water can usually handle up to 30% solids in it before forming slugs. BTW, the 30% is by volume. Not moles or mass.

    If you have slugs or moles in your mass, either you’re Richard Gere or you have bigger problems than corrosion of your pipes.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    I hate hunting / fishing in the cold.  This year I took a XXL tall insulated parka with me fishing in Montana in May.  My nephews were taunting me on day 1 but day 4 was 35 F (2 C) and the wind was blowing 20 to 50 mph on the Missouri River.

    On our coldest about 12 ? years ago, it was snowing on us and we had the guides row us in.  Fly fishing and snow (or rain or wind) do not mix.

    Living in Vantucky, I went through a series of progressively heavier coats until I ended up with a mens almost knee length 700 fill down parka from Lands End.

    Finding knee lengh in a mens style was really hard, and when we moved to Austin broke, I worked hard to resist the temptation to turn in the coat for the cash under the LE guarantee.

    A couple of times, I’ve had comments about wearing a womens coat, but the arrangement of the snaps and side zippers for wallet access are clearly meant for a male.

    It would have been much easier to wear the North Face Metropolis we have at the house which fits me extremely well with a boxy cut, but that coat was the status symbol female outerwear in Seattle circa Winter 2012-2013, and the crossdressing would have been obvious.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    Before that, it was another steaming pile called “Last Christmas”, featuring Emma Thompson and Wham!. The main reason I watched it was because I have never seen Emma Thompson in any movies, ever.  

    Find a way to watch “Dead Again” starring Thompson and her then-husband Kenneth Branagh.

    Branagh directed.

    “Dead Again” also features Robin Williams in what I think is his best dramatic role despite being obviously improved. Williams has the burden of selling the ridiculous premise behind the film, and sell it he does. Big time.

    The legend is that Sir Kenneth just put Williams in front of a camera on the set and let him rip for an hour to capture the pivotal moment. Once the character was estabished, Williams filmed his other scenes interacting with Branagh and Thompson.

  6. brad says:

    Fascinating. I just received a letter from the Social Security Administration confirming my in-person appointment to claim my SS benefits. Only…I never made any such appointment.

    I suppose there could be an innocent explanation. Since I retired this year, I know the Swiss equivalent of SS has contacted the US. Maybe that somehow triggered the wrong process?

    However, to be paranoid, I will send a registered letter stating that I never made an appointment, and anyone showing up claiming to be me is committing fraud. Any other steps y’all think I can or should take?

  7. Greg Norton says:

    We’re in Christmas rom-com season.  GF and I are watching a couple a week.  Hallmark and non-Hallmark old and new, and I set my standards pretty low.

    If you’re going down the Christmas Hallmark movie rabbit hole. Find “Broadcasting Christmas” starring Dean Cain and Melissa Joan Hart.

    When I had Cain sign his comic book at a con last year, we joked about that movie and how people always ask him about kissing Terri Hatcher but not Hart.

    Cain told me that Hart has a large, attractive alpha male husband who is not in the movie business and that limited the kissing to one chaste scene. Cain joked that he would kiss the husband.

    “Broadcasting Christmas” also has Cythia Gibb, Hallmark “mom” role regular  playing against typecasting, who was still unbelievably hot ~35 years after “Fame”.

  8. Greg Norton says:

    Last night, while Christmas shopping for movies for family members on Amazon, my wife almost made the mistake of ordering he most recent version of “The Scarlet Pimpernel” starring Elizabeth McGovern for herself.

    I stopped her and told her to go find the 1982 version with Jane Seymour and Ian McKellan. That’s the definitive version for now.

  9. Greg Norton says:

    Before that, it was another steaming pile called “Last Christmas”, featuring Emma Thompson and Wham!. The main reason I watched it was because I have never seen Emma Thompson in any movies, ever.  

    I also recommend Thompson’s first film, “The Tall Guy”, co-starring Jeff Goldblum, but I admit that the flick is an acquired taste. The added challenge with screening the digital copies currently available is that the transfers took place under the “golden” era of Harvey Weinstein at Miramax, and about 10 minutes of the movie is missing in an attempt to make the DVD release more accessible to Americans.

  10. Greg Norton says:

    However, to be paranoid, I will send a registered letter stating that I never made an appointment, and anyone showing up claiming to be me is committing fraud. Any other steps y’all think I can or should take?

    Request a statement from Social Security regarding your “account” and all of the activity related to your SSN. 

    They send one to most US taxpayers roughly once every decade, part of the charade of the system being a trust fund.

    (Sticklers: see Helvering v. Davis)

    Have you run a credit report from the big three US reporting agencies lately?

    The US government authorizes annualcreditreport.com to provide a free service.

    https://www.usa.gov/credit-reports

  11. paul says:

    Well, another day of infamy. 

    45F.  Sunrise in half an hour, looks cloudy.  Enough light to go for a walk with the dogs. 

    I woke up during the night with an idea.  “Meatballs” made with canned Corned Beef Hash.  Maybe with an egg or two mixed in as a binder.
    No idea where that idea came from. 

  12. Greg Norton says:

    “Dead Again” also features Robin Williams in what I think is his best dramatic role despite being obviously improved improvised. Williams has the burden of selling the ridiculous premise behind the film, and sell it he does. Big time.

    I can’t blame autocorrect for that one.

  13. SteveF says:

    “Meatballs” made with canned Corned Beef Hash.

    How would you cook them? Even with egg, I’m not sure that they’d stay together once the fat got hot enough to be slippery rather than sticky.

    You might get wonton or dumpling wrappers and fill with hash. In a pinch, get a tube of biscuit dough, roll each biscuit into a 5″ circle, put in a tablespoon of hash, and fold like a dumpling.

    about 10 minutes of the movie is missing in an attempt to make the DVD release more accessible to Americans.

    Does that mean “understandable by Americans” or “acceptable to thin-skinned, intolerant Americans who can’t separate the art from the artist and who are always looking for an excuse to be offended”?

  14. Ray Thompson says:

    We’re in Christmas rom-com season.  GF and I are watching a couple a week.  Hallmark and non-Hallmark old and new, and I set my standards pretty low.

    I wrote Hallmark and said I had an idea for a new script and asked if they were interested. Hallmark said “No, thanks. One is enough”.

    Well, Apple did it again. I bought AirPods Pro 3. I removed the AirPods Pro 2 from my account and from FindMy. They no longer appear anywhere on my account. I gave the AirPods Pro 2 to my son as I no longer need them.

    He tries to link them to his account. Nope. Apple says they are still assigned to my account. I contact Apple support. Their solution is to re-pair them to my account, reset the AirPods, then remove them from my account and FindMy. Yeh, Apple, I did that when I got the AirPods Pro 3.

    Now I have to wait until the 20th when we make the trip toe Hendersonville and go through the process again. Apple cannot, or won’t, reset the devices based on the serial number. I get why Apple  does this to prevent theft. But when the devices clearly are not on my account, there is no theft involved.

    This time I will be doing it all while in possession of both accounts and will see what happens. Gggrrrrrrr.

  15. Brad says:

    The SSA actually sends me a statement every year, without asking. So that is good FWIW, I cannot register on their site, because they require a US phone number. Brilliant.

    Much the same for the annual credit report: the web page won’t even display for me, presumably because I am outside the US 

  16. Denis says:

    Poor Ray. I think I mentioned recently that I haven’t touched anything Apple since the ][ e. There is a reason. With Apple, everything is either super easy or outright impossible. I always found the impossibles.

    … the crossdressing would have been obvious.

    That’s OK, Greg. We love you as you are, even if that is your thing. Go for it.

  17. Greg Norton says:

    about 10 minutes of the movie is missing in an attempt to make the DVD release more accessible to Americans.

    Does that mean “understandable by Americans” or “acceptable to thin-skinned, intolerant Americans who can’t separate the art from the artist and who are always looking for an excuse to be offended”?

    Understandable by Americans who might not get certain obscure cultural references, both UK and US, and be offended that no one attempted to explain the joke. Those people have run the entertainment industry for the last 20 years.

    The most butchered scene involves a doctor with unusual behavior and the last name Karabekian, which I’ve always looked at as a Kurt Vonnegut reference, but YMMV.

  18. SteveF says:

    Brad: https://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Temporary-Cell-Phone-Number

    Similarly, try a commercial VPN and set location to US.

  19. Greg Norton says:

    … the crossdressing would have been obvious.

    That’s OK, Greg. We love you as you are, even if that is your thing. Go for it.

    Beyond the issue of whether it is gender appropriate, the North Face does not have side zippers for ready access to pants pockets.

    I’ve done much crazier things for Halloween and cons.

    I’m not going to worry about what your kids see if you’re bringing them to a show with tentacle porn being sold openly in the vendor areas.

  20. Brad says:

    @SteveF: Thanks for that. I have a VPN. Not too worried about my credit rating though, since I’m not in the US any longer. Still I suppose it would do no harm to lock things down, if that’s possible from abroad.

    Hadn’t thought about a temporary phone number. I suppose I’m worried about the SSA assuming it will be permanent, and that they can use it. Given how many expats there are, it is pretty weird that the government can’t deal with international numbers.

  21. MrAtoz says:

    I even think there was a trans (male-pretending-to-be-female) doctor character.  Or perhaps just a really ugly woman.

    Is he/she/it single? I hear Mr. SteveF is looking for his next wife.

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