Still hot. Still humid. We got hot, humid, and rain yesterday. Although in true Houston fashion, not everyone got wet. In fact, about the only time everyone gets the same rain is a big storm, or when a drizzle parks on us for a while. Expecting more of the mixed bag today.
Did my non-prepping hobby meeting. We’re almost ready for our big event later this month. Then I came home and crashed. Later I ate, and read some more. This not doing stuff sure leaves more time for me to read and watch videos.
Today I’ve got to do some things though. Refreshing all the poison stations and maybe even spraying the insecticide around the house is pretty high on the list. Roaches and rats. Gonna be plenty of both if the world gets spicy. Better have some stuff on hand to deal with it.
Stack some poison and traps…
nick
Be strong and enjoy!
Went the other day to get rat poison for Oma*, only to find out that chemical rat poison is now available only to professional users. Overregulation gone bananas.
* For Oma’s rats, rather, not for Oma herself.
Homemade rat poison: a piece of glass, preferably brown, and two bricks. Grind the glass to powder. Add to molasses, smear on something where rats will find and eat it.
Anybody else have a recipe?
If that’s the cause of the unplanned sleepover, at least she isn’t driving with alcohol in her system.
Might try calling the friend’s parents, and parents of others in the friend group. Find out what stories are being told to various parents, check for inconsistencies and patterns, etc.
Hollywood is relearning how to make money with TV series.
Indulging people who binge watch doesn’t build an audience or allow for slow adjustments in ad rates to reflect a series’ popularity.
Paramount has no choice. They learned a hard lesson with “Tony & Ziva” induging bingers while trying to build a normie audience.
76 F and a few low clouds. We got 3 inches of rain on Friday and an inch of rain Saturday.
We walked 2 miles yesterday at 83 F. Just ignore the show folks, just a pair of old white headed people trying to get some exercise in before we die.
Ok, Federal has a new 6.5 creedmore “peak” ammo in with extra powder in a steel case to generate 80,000 psi and 3,000+ ft/s velocity. We used to call that a magnum. Supposedly only drops bolt action receiver and barrel life to 1,500 rounds.
https://www.federalpremium.com/rifle/shop-by-caliber/6.5-creedmoor–peak/
I’ve got five bolt action rifles. I think one is a 6.5. Probably one of the lefties.
Federal says “shipping soon” as of Tues.
@Mr.Atoz: I downloaded and tried your MOLE (https://mole.fit) software for the MAC. It seemed to work well. I purchased a license and it is good for two MACs. It cleaned up some stuff, not that I really needed it. I just don’t like junk hanging around. Contrary to popular belief, uninstalling some programs (Microsoft Office and any Adobe product) is not straightforward. Removing the main app leaves a lot of junk behind.
With the two installations I can use a copy on my MacBook and will install on my wife’s iMac. $19.00 seems like a reasonable one-time price compared to some other MacOS software solutions.
WNBA to Hold Meeting to Discuss What the ‘W’ Stands for
https://townhall.com/news/mattvespa/2026/08/09/wnba-commissioner-to-hold-a-special-strategy-meeting-to-define-what-a-woman-is-n2680927
Hey, maybe they need consultants!
That statement tells you everything you need to know about bureaucrats. A goobermint cabinet declares something a “weapon of war”. Congress? We don’t need any stinkin’ Congress.
My DJI drones are becoming gold.
That should be the WNBA’s motto.
Royce White makes WNBA heads explode:
https://x.com/Highway_30/status/2086316310309347564
Up late so I slept late. 95F and mostly sunny. Coffee should be ready soon.
Back hurts but that’s normal. Stretching will help.
n
In a totally shocking turn of events, the ferret’s owner can’t take her for a few more days, maybe a week. It seems her (adult) son came down with something and shouldn’t have animals in the house. Presumably no one ever got sick in the past while the ferret was in the house because that would have been a death sentence or something.
I’ve been cooking all day, by which I mean since 0520. Roasted a turkey, made a pot of chili (with beans, specifically to offend the purists), made a pot of rice, baked a batch of cookies, broke down the turkey and made a (very large) pot pie and a pot of turkey, rice, and gravy. Threw the bones into the crock pot for broth. I’ll eat most of it but the reason I cooked all of that was for my daughter – I mean, The Child – and my mom and sister. The Child still can’t cook at the dorm and the food I make for her is the best combination of tasty, nutritious, and cost-effective. My mom and sister have been packing up to leave the family house. They can still cook but it’s getting more difficult because they’re emptying out the fridge and pantry and boxing up housewares. Not a problem, as neither of them eats enough to be more than rounding error in what I eat, and I need to go up tomorrow to take care of more things.
But that’s not the issue! The issue is, I got enstinkified early this morning while doing chores n stuff outside, because of course I did. Took a shower before cooking. And then worked up an internally-generated stink from standing over a stove and in front of an oven and running back and forth between rooms for almost seven hours. Two showers! In less than eight hours! Unacceptable!
Ferrets are great fun, and can make very affectionate pets. Perhaps you will get to keep her. If you do, just remember that you will have to get a male too. Female ferrets need to mate regularly.
Males can be a bit stinky, because of their musk glands, but you are getting so good at showering these days that you ought to be able to handle it!
Stinky ferrets are really only a problem if you insist on keeping them indoors, whereas they are really happiest with a pen outside. Indoor ferrets can be de-glanded by a vet, but I find it cruel to do that just for human convenience.
Ours had a great pen that was in two parts, joined together with a network of underground drainage pipe. They used to love to run in the tunnels and “surprise” us by popping up at the other end. One time a rat made the capital error of gnawing its way into the tunnel network. The ferrets thought all their Christmases had come at once!
Who is offended by beans in chili? I thought beans were the point of chili, and the key to proper cowboy campfire flatulence withal. There are traditions to be upheld!
Thanks for the ferret tips. I’m hoping they won’t be necessary…
Chili purists claim that beans make it just a spicy beef stew. I counter by saying that chili without beans is just chili sauce, suitable for drizzling on hot dogs.
Ok, Federal has a new 6.5 creedmore “peak” ammo in with extra powder in a steel case to generate 80,000 psi and 3,000+ ft/s velocity. We used to call that a magnum. Supposedly only drops bolt action receiver and barrel life to 1,500 rounds.
I’ve picked up a rifle chambered in 6.5C.
Only 3,000fps? If I’m gonna carry something that heavy around the rounds need to at least achieve lunar escape velocity.
Speaking for Texas, Chili is braised beef in a spicy pepper sauce. Beans make a great side dish, along with rice and tortillas. “Chili” is short for “Chili con carne”, literally: Peppers with meat. Note that no beans are mentioned.
I’m not offended by people who mistakenly call their Northern soup Chili. It’s a wholesome tasty dish. Back before I discovered the One True Way (I grew up in the Midwest), I used to eat that spicy bean stew and call it chili. Also, if you’re poverty-stricken, I can understand stretching your chili by adding inexpensive beans.
Sometimes, in a Mexican restaurant, you’ll see a dish called “Chili colorado”. This is your opportunity to taste the difference if you’re stuck up North.
It’s cruel to talk about chili in August. But now I’ll look forward to the cooler weather in the Fall to make Chili. And Chili verde, too.
Well, yeah.
OTOH, if they are good friends, maybe it’s better to learn to handle drinking now, rather than as a college student among strangers and away from home?
That’s the approach that I took. I had gallons of homemade beer and mead in the house and we usually had some wine and spirits. I told the sons to go ahead and have some if they wanted, when they got to their mid-teens. I didn’t exactly encourage them to drink or to get drunk but did tell them that they should learn to handle alcohol before they went off to college unless they were going to completely abstain. Elder son followed the first part of that advice, younger son followed the second part. Neither had any alcohol- or drug-related problems in college, nor later so far as I ever heard.
My wife, of course, was totally against my plan. The kids weren’t allowed to have any alcohol until they were 21, nor smoke, nor date because they have to focus on studies. She was unwilling to acknowledge the number of children of her friends who’d lived under those rules and then went nuts as soon as they were out from under mommy’s thumb.
I just got an email that my Midea PortaSplit is being shipped. I’ll have to make a window vent since the window where I want it is a slide-to-the-left type. It is tall, and I doubt whatever they ship with it will be too small. My quick fix idea is to use a piece of the 1″ insulation leftover from insulating the garage door. I’ll make a couple of humps at the bottom to go over the hoses. Then some kind of ¼” board, painted, for the windo.
Score! I mentioned the chili talk to my GF, and my frustration due to Summertime. She had recently done an inventory of our chest freezer, and told me I had a pint of chili in there.
It’s defrosting in the fridge right now. My last batch from January 29, 2026.
@SteveF: Mark me in the “Chili NEEDS Beans!” column.
Alcohol; My father allowed me to drink “responsibly” at home starting from 15 or so. Of course, there was the time when he was brewing beer in the basement, and woke me up abt 4AM saying “Ken! Ken! The beer is ready!” We spent the rest of the night bottling the beer, and then he drove me to school – smelling like a brewery. Not especially good, since I was attending a Catholic high school. I thought it was the worst stuff I’d ever tasted.
Freshly-brewed beer does indeed taste vile. It’s drinkable after aging in the bottles for a couple weeks, better after a couple months.
It isn’t chili, but I did score a tupperware container of home made Jambalaya this morning, and a larger tub of home made banana pudding.
My neighbors have invited me over for homemade tacos this evening, so I will bring the pudding along.
Fortunately for my conscience there isn’t enough jambalaya for more than one.
I earned it the old fashioned way: there’s another ‘Nobunaga’ essay out there, where he is introducted to the American ‘friend with a truck’ concept – that’s me. I moved a washing machine that has been sitting on my friends porch for a couple of months over to their rental.
That reminds me: my brother had a friend who brewed, so he got a lot of free beer. Which meant I got some free beer, but this was – of course – the stuff that had been rejected by the friend and then rejected again by my brother…
Occasionally it was OK, but sometimes it was vile. I understand that the worst of it ended up on the ceiling of their garage.
I like chili (with beans).
I like ferrets.
I like rifles.
I would like air conditioning.
I like beer, and I approve of young adults learning in the family about drinking responsibly. I didn’t drink myself while I was a minor, but I didn’t abuse alcohol thereafter either.
I approve of bolt-action rifles, though I don’t (yet) have a Creedmore.
I like this comments thread!
My Mom’s idea of chili was really chili Mac with kidney beans. It was hardy and a regular Sunday supper dish. Home made with chili powder making it “chili”. Simple to make. Add a salad and good to go.
Grew up in the north, without any strong feelings about chili except that I’d rather not…
HEB sells it both ways, so there is still some debate in TX, or they’re just pandering to transplants…
I rarely eat any chili outside of frito pie.
——
There is a similar disconnect with “carnitas” which is a pork dish from mexico. In BAJA CALIFORNIA, ie. mexico south of California, that word means chunks of pork, cooked, then seared on a griddle until the strands of muscle fiber on the outside get cooked like little toothpicks.
Even the AI gets it “While authentic carnitas originate from Michoacán, Baja California style incorporates coastal influences like fresh citrus, local chiles, and bright pico de gallo. Pork shoulder is simmered in lard or-slow cooked until tender, then crisped and served on toasted corn tortillas”
In TEXMEX cooking, it can apparently mean little chunks of pork in a green chili sauce, like stew. An abomination, obviously. Texmex also has too much cheese on everything and uses ground beef, also western abominations.
——–
It’s been raining out of a blue sky. Enough that I am not working outdoor.
Watching videos, reading, and messing around with stuff in the office.
n
Now we’re going to open the TexMex vs. authentic Mexican debate?
My GF doesn’t choose to eat Mexican or TexMex outside of South Texas. Especially California. I’m less picky but I grew up in Illinois and she has been in Texas since she was 16, so about 45 years. An in-depth discussion revealed that the Americanized versions are just tastier and more appealing to her. And me, too.
She makes carnitas in an all-day braise starting with a pork butt and cooks them until dry and then deboned and seared in the same enameled dutch oven in the rendered pork fat. Frozen leftovers are microwaved and seared on the griddle. Our stove has a separate griddle burner in the middle.
There are reasons American versions of ethnic cuisine are altered from the originals. We have our culinary preferences and prejudices.
I do like tamales, though.
We’re not poor.
When I was a kid, drinking age was 18 and no one really cared about minors drinking or smoking.
I was drinking beer since I understood what “son, go get me a beer” meant. Drank with cousins at all family parties. Beer, shots, rum and coke, jack daniels, etc.
Once I started earning money, mom and dad didn’t care if I drank at home either. I’d drink a six pack of RC Cola at work, then a 16oz beer to calm down after work so I could sleep. In high school.
Started with “baby jack” the green label JD which is slightly lower proof and slightly lower quality, and slightly lower cost. Was drinking JD before I could drive.
Mostly drank beer but had such a bad experience with Ronrico in high school that I never drank it again. Baccardi only after that.
Of course, wine once I got married, not much before that as the family drank beer or gallo jug wine.
When I quit drinking, I first stopped hard liquor in preparation for surgery on my knees. Anesthesia was a bit hit or miss when you drink a liter of JD a day. A bit later, when my wife was pregnant with D1 I stopped completely in sympathy with her. It took effort and discipline but I didn’t want to have an accident or make a mistake with the baby because I had been drinking.
It’s been 17 years, 8 months, and a couple of days since I took my last drink. I’ve had an accidental swallow or two since then when a bar served me beer instead of NA beer, but that’s it. When I quit, I didn’t really have any plan for it to be forever, and still don’t really, but I don’t see myself starting back up.
We’ve talked about it with the kids, and that they have the addiction genes on both sides… and recommended not drinking at all, or using drugs. The drugs now scare any thinking person, and the kids know they are all contaminated with fentanyl.
Both kids have asked for tastes when W is having wine or a mixed drink with dinner. Mostly they don’t like it. D1 did a shot of JD once, and claimed to like it. I know they’ll go to college and make bad choices. But we’ve been letting them regulate aspects of their lives for a long time. They go to bed on their own, eat or don’t eat, pick their own clothes, do their own laundry, etc.
They both acknowledge that the world they live in is very different from the world W and I grew up in. Benign neglect isn’t a thing that they’ve experienced, and they know at least intellectually that there really is a permanent record and that punishment is often DRACONIAN and brutally unfair in their generation.
We’ll keep trying to be good examples and a support system, but if there is lying or deceit involved, that part has to stop.
n
Most good Chinese restaurants have a separate menu for truly authentic Chinese food.
The flavors are vile IMHO, but you may or may not feel the same way.
The last time we were out with a group who insisted on the “secret” menu, my wife ordered me, the “Ugly American” a beef lo mein made for roundeye tastes.
Guess what most of the people at the table ate that night, including the snobby Chinese women.
The authentic plates were barely touched.
Authentic Mexican, especially a place specializing in Yucatan cuisine, will have pibil good enough for Johnny Depp to shoot the cook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFJmaTOW1ic
And white rice. The yellow rice originated in the Caribbean.
@lpdbw
“Also, if you’re poverty-stricken, I can understand stretching your chili by adding inexpensive beans.”
The inexpensive beans of your childhood are gone with the 0.49/gallon gas.
@Nick
“Both kids have asked for tastes when W is having wine or a mixed drink with dinner. Mostly they don’t like it. D1 did a shot of JD once, and claimed to like it. I know they’ll go to college and make bad choices.”
Best is to educate them to drink only beer they see come straight from the tap or from containers that they open and keep physical control of at all times.
My chili recipe is simple. Go buy a jar of Gerhardt’s Chili Powder. There’s the recipe. Or take a picture and buy store brand spices. Also buy some cumin powder. Cumino, whatever. Also buy onion powder. And garlic powder. Because the powders are easier to use than chopping up onions and pressing garlic. They keep forever in the fridge. I buy the containers that are about the size of a soda can.
Canned tomatoes. I like to use two 28 ounce cans. One of diced, one of whole. Sometimes I add a 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes. And a couple or three cans of tomato sauce.
Buy stew meat. I usually have to cut it into smaller pieces. Get three pushing four pounds.
Got out your big stew pot. Toss in some meat grease. Currently here that is a bacon and sausage patty and brisket mix, stored in the fridge, filtered while hot through a paper towel. Anyway. A few tablespoons. Heat it up. Enough to make the meat sizzle.
Toss in a handful or so of meat. To cover the bottom of the pot. Salt and pepper it. You’ll know by the smell when you have enough salt and pepper. Brown the meat off, that’s all, remove to a bowl. Repeat as needed for the rest of the meat.
When the last batch of meat is done, dump the bowl of previous batches into the pot. Add the can of diced tomatoes. Juice and all, and a can of water. Stir it up to deglaze the pot.
Next, the powders. The Gerhardt recipe is for a pound of meat. We’re doing three pounds plus so triple the amounts of spices. Stir it up. Add the tomato sauce. I rinse the cans into each other so say, three cans of sauce adds a half can more of water.
Stir it up, get it to a low bubble. It’s pretty soupy right now. Don’t sweat it, the spices have to re-hydrate. Turn the heat down a little and put the lid on the pot. Go have a beer.
Stir once in a while, no set timing. When it’s time for another beer, stir and sample. Maybe add some salt, not much. Maybe more chili powder. I usually add another spoon of cumin also. Stir and let it simmer on low.
Getting close? Like a John Denver song? Now add the can of whole tomatoes. This will throw off your seasoning. It’s ok. Cover and let the pot get back to a low simmer.
The whole tomatoes make stirring difficult. I like having tomato chunks in my bowl of chili. The diced tomatoes cook away. Give it a stir and a sample the sauce. Let it simmer a while. Fish out a piece of meat. It is good? Getting tender? Not quite yet, I bet. Simmer a bit longer. Another hour. Have a beer and then sample another piece of meat. Stir once in awhile. Have another sample. Now it’s almost done.
All you need now is the secret ingredient. Two heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder.
Let it all simmer for a while. Another hour. Maybe tip the lid to let the steam out, every batch is different.
Kind of an all day thing to make a good batch of chili.
I actually have fun making chili. Sampling the taste and adjusting. I’ve never made a bad batch either.
I had wine, in small quantities when I lived on the farm. I was not a fan.
I have been drunk twice in my life. The first time was at a retirement, promotion, or some type of celebration at the NCO club for someone that accomplished something. I was an A1C, in the USAF, 19 years old. Having never had hard liquor before, I was conned by the other enlisted people. I got back to my dorm room, then threw up my guts in a trash can. Bad memories.
The second, and last time, was in 1973, in the Philippines. I was TDY for three weeks to install a new manifesting computer at Clark AFB for the MAC command. I was with a guy named Ronald Reagan (really true, but not the one you think) and he talked me into going into town for “entertainment”, basically sex shows. We both drank way too much.
Going back to the base we wound up on a street that was considered extremely dangerous. I vaguely remember seeing flashes of knives. I was hungry and bought what I thought was a chicken leg. Nope, it was dog, as in Fido. Women were hiking their skirts exposing their “talents” and what might have been hair, was probably flies. I did not indulge. I have no memory of getting back on base.
My next memory is waking up, being naked in the latrine, hugging the toilet, while mamason is beating me with a mop so she can clean. I crawled on my hands and knees to the showers, puked liquid again, puked nothing several times, and sat in a hot shower for what seemed like an hour. I got back to my room, crawled into my top bunk, watched the ceiling rotate slowly counterclockwise, then fell asleep for several hours. Yeh, fun times, not!
I don’t drink anything alcoholic at home. I will have wine in Europe with a meal. Wine in Europe is not the same as the US for reasons I cannot explain. It may just be mental. I did have wine, served from a real bottle, on the airplane going over on my last trip. Not being a wine expert, I could certainly tell the difference in quality between airplane swill and real wine. I was traveling in Premium Select, the equivalent of domestic first class. So good food, good service, the same as in international first class.
I have tried beer and find it vile in all aspects. Bitter, terrible taste, something you rent as it does not change color, or foam upon discharge. I can’t vouch for taste change.
He said in 50+ lines.
True. But gotta explain it all.
Ya know, like giving a reason to boot from a floppy disc and type format/u.
Grin.
Infrared glasses could push the boundaries of human eyesight
https://www.popsci.com/technology/infrared-glasses-human-eyesight/?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=popular-science-newsletter
I like chili (with beans).
I like ferrets.
I like rifles.
I would like air conditioning.
I like beer, and I approve of young adults learning in the family about drinking responsibly. I didn’t drink myself while I was a minor, but I didn’t abuse alcohol thereafter either.
I approve of bolt-action rifles, though I don’t (yet) have a Creedmore.
I like this comments thread!
I like Chili with or without beans.
I like just about any animal that is domesticated.
I like gubs.
I love air conditioning.
I would like to drink beer but, I drink way too much so I have a hard rule about one day, one beer. I violated this rule earlier this year so I am thinking about this again. Fell into bad habits when I attended TAMU at age 17 and the legal drinking age was 18.
I approve of all gubs.
I like all of the comments threads here going back 20+ years.
@paul
I start with chili powder and cumin, but also use chipotle, and smoked paprika. Cayenne to increase the heat, ancho to dilute.
Fire-roasted tomatoes are worth buying on sale.
I vote for beans when I make chili. Usually half chili beans and half black beans.
Drinking when I was a kid was, I don’t know. My sisters liked beer. So did little bother. Er, brother.
Then again, they would all eat stuff like cabbage and fried liver and be happy happy. I’d go outside to get away from the stench.
Having a sip of beer once in a while was ok. A sip. Of a bit of fizzy stuff.
It was there. And it was pretty much like “if you want a beer you are drinking in in font of us”. No sneaking a can out to the tree house, right?
Then when we moved from Mobile to The Valley. Unloading the truck in June and it’s like 95f? I got thirsty.
I found the cooler of beer. Any sodas? Nah. I didn’t like beer. The flavor. The smell. After a couple of cupped hands of melted ice water, I drank two cans of beer in ten minutes. My 14 year old body wanted the water so I could sweat. I guess.
Mom was like “what?”. Then Dad was too.
Did not get a buzz. Guzzled two more cans half an hour later and finally started to sweat.
Never got a buzz. Maybe it was because it was real cheap beer, like the down brand from Pearl Light. I remember it was $3.50 for a 24 can flat in 1974.
so.
Cabbage and the flavor from green bell pepper.
Growing up, my mother told me that I was weird about the green bell pepper, but then I saw an “Iron Chef” using three colors of bell pepper as an ingredient, yellow, green, and red.
The challenge for the cooks was that most Japanese do not like the taste of the green variety.
A whole country agrees with me at a minimum!
Beans in chili is filler. It’s just like in the early ’70s and Mom would buy ground neat and half was soybeans. Yeah, tastes fine, but leftovers sucked. Enough that the dogs would walk away.
You want beans in your bowl of chili? Heat ya up a can of beans in a sauce pan. Have fun.
Fried liver is delicious. Once a year.
The red and orange peppers are more citrus-y than their green siblings.
n
I have a container of dried bell pepper in the fridge. A mix of all three colors. I use a bit once in a while. In spaghetti sauce. And turkey stock.
It tastes good. But I really do not like burping it eight hours later. Nacho slices are there, too.
Yeah man. I figured that out a few years ago. Grin. You seem wicked smart and it’s great. That’s part of being weird.
My Baptist family prohibited alcohol and discussing the prohibition. When I joined the military, I had neither education nor experience to rely on, so I had to learn the hard way. I did, eventually. Recently. I won’t rule out consumption in the future, but it seems like a no-win for me.
Liver, marinated in milk, then lightly fried, to prevent conversion to shoe leather. With onions, mushrooms and mashed potatoes and gravy. Once a year seems about right.
A little green bell pepper in tomato spaghetti sauce works, and it is part of the taste of chicken cacciatore.
I think the Iron Chef … Morimoto, maybe … made ice cream. That was his go-to trick which would usually score with the “vapid actress” chair.
I know Morimoto made salmon roe ice cream in one episode. That seemed shocking to the play by play announcer … or, at least, the Canadian who did the voice on the dubbing of the original Japanese broadcast.
Driving down from Dallas this morning, I saw a “Gina Hinojosa for Texas Governor” billboard outside Waco with three bullet points:
The RINOs may be in trouble with that last one if something happens before temperatures break in late September. Abbott had to reverse course on approving data centers since the polls tightened.
I’ve been doing auctions and estate sales for a long time. First time I’m seeing this particular collection though – pincushions. Lot of unusual and cool pincushions out there. Who knew?
n
That’s how Beanie Babies started…
I wrote a parody once about collectible variations in downloadable files.
It’s only a matter of time…
7:30 doing the rounds.
House 77F
Garage 101F
Patio 108F
Temp on my phone 107F
On the echo show 109F
That’s enough – cooling should begin
Fried liver is delicious. Once a year.
I used to have lunch with one of my guys at Luby’s Cafeteria 2 or 3 days a week. I would get the Luann platter with fried liver and onions and jalapeno cornbread. I really miss that place.
“Tech’s Mass Layoffs Are Hiding a Much Scarier Problem, and AI Is Uncovering It”
https://www.inc.com/joe-procopio/tech-mass-layoffs-are-hiding-a-much-scarier-problem-and-ai-is-uncovering-it/91384665
“The labor participation rate is at 1970s levels—we’re ignoring it at our peril.”
Things have been bad since 2008. The compression in the Crude Oil and Natural Gas industry in the USA has dropped from 15 million employment in 2008 to 9 million now. Very few people retiring are being replaced and very few junior engineers are getting hired. The tech industry is the same.
“War Child: Wolfhounds – Book Four” by John Van Stry
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D9T83DKN?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number four of a six book science fiction space opera series. And there is a prequel series of two books and a sequel series of a few books. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2025 that I bought in 2026. I own the other two books in the series and will read them soon.
I love Space Opera. And I love pulp science fiction. This series is both and a great example of the merging of the two. In fact, this series reminds me very much of the Robert Heinlein juvenile books, the Piers Anthony “Bio of a Space Tyrant” series, the “Mutineer’s Moon” series by David Weber, and the Perry Rhodan series. The dialog is very frequent and the action moves along quickly.
Chase Collis is a street rat. He and his mother lived in government housing in Imperial City until she died of a drug overdose when he was 12 years old. Just before that was the last time he saw his estranged father who screamed at his mother to keep hiding Chase or else the Emperor would kill them all. Chase ended up on the street at the age of 12, running with the street gangs, being arrested by the police time and time again.
When Chase became an adult, he murdered another street rat and was caught by the police. He purposely got caught to go to the Imperial Prison for a few years to get more street cred and rise to the top of the street gang. But to his shock, when he went to his trial, his father was the judge. His father sentenced him to ten years in the Imperial Navy rather than the four years in Imperial Prison that he expected, and then escorted him to the Naval Basic Training school.
In the far distant future, The Solarian Imperium consists of 38 star systems including Earth and the Solar system which were made uninhabitable in the War of Succession. Emperor Charles Morgan, Chase’s grandfather, was the latest in a long line of Morgans ruling the Imperium. His family keeps power because they are genetically modified with machine interfaces in their DNA. So are all of the Nobles: the Dukes, the Earls, the Counts, and the Barons. Any machine of any importance, and especially the space ships and the military weapons, requires a human with machine interface to tell the AI what to do. And the Imperial family machine interface in their DNA is the best of all the interfaces and has special rights with all of the machines in the Imperium. And nobody knows or understands how tight the Imperial human machine interfaces are with every AI in the Imperium.
Chase Collis ends up in the Emperor’s own Wolfhounds after his Navy machinists mate training to be a glorified broom pusher. The Wolfhounds are special military fleet embedded in a large asteroid capable of FTL flights to anywhere in the Empire. The Wolfhounds were standing down in cryosleep until needed by Emperor to protect him or to take care of a special task. But their cryosleep lasted for over ten years when it was supposed to be for six months at the most. And upon the Wolfhound’s accidental awakening, the Emperor and his family were dead for ten years and the Parliament and the Speaker have taken over the Imperium. So now Prince Chase and the Wolfhounds have to reconquer the Imperium, one star system at a time. But, Prince Chase has just been captured by the DPRS (Democratic People’s Republic of Solaria) and put on trial in the capital city.
The author has a website at:
https://jvanstry.blogspot.com/
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Lynn
Pearls Before Swine: Drove My Chevy To The Levee
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2026/08/09
Don McLean is going to be looking for Pastis too.
Currently 80F. Still soaks in after sitting in it for a couple of hours. Nice night though.
Saw one possum on his rounds. IDK if it’s the back yard possum that the dog chewed up, or if there is a front yard possum too. Saw something I haven’t seen in years, two raccoons came out of my driveway and crossed the street. Haven’t seen coons since we first moved in, which has puzzled me since they are common pretty much everywhere in North America, afaik. Interesting to see them tonight.
Lots of aviation tonight too. Much more than normal and outside of the normal paths.
Time for a shower and bed. Hopefully I can get to sleep and start getting my day/night cycle back to school year times.
n
Pi jokes, oh my.
n
So airhead AOC thinks there are differences between men and women, and that men can’t get pregnant?????
AOC reveals she’s started freezing her eggs as she laments ‘this isn’t something men deal with’ after being engaged to fiancé for four years
Good luck with that.
n
Where are the woke attacks for her blatant anti-trans hate speech?