Cool and very damp. Then at some point it will get cold. Cold I say. Freezing cold. Or maybe it won’t. We’ll see when we get there. Everyone here should be just fine with some extreme weather, and even some outages.
Didn’t get anything on my list done. Yep, good intentions, poor follow through. I spent some time in the rabbit hole of Social Security payouts. I spent some time on auction stuff. Spent the rest of the daylight hours getting my natgas gennie hooked up to the house. Not in any real or permanent way, but it’s safe and ok for now. Still a manual switchover if needed, but less messing around with the gasoline powered 26 year old Generac that I normally use if I have to feed the house.
Today, I’ve got some pickups to do. Well, one for sure, maybe two. Anything else will depend on the weather. If it’s not raining, I can get stuff moved around. If there’s moisture from the sky, I’ll find other things to do. Right. Sure I will.
Hard to be motivated even in the face of pretty certain need. I do have an issue with self sabotage and needing external deadlines to motivate me. It’s something to be aware of and to work on…
Easier to stack.
Get busy!
nick
Have I mentioned this season how tiresome the wind chill pron gets?
A vote against the incumbent in the Republican US Senate primary in March will get you James Tallarico as the first Dem Senator from Texas since Lloyd Bentsen.
If you think it doesn’t matter, go back to the numbers from Georgia in 2020. 11,000 Georgia Libertarians “voting their conscience” ultimately gave control of the Senate to the Dems so they could implement the Plugs agenda.
and don’t know anything else,
– missed the critical part.
Mainly I apply it to judges if we haven’t gotten a cheat sheet from one of our political friends. It’s the right choice in most Board of Directors elections too.
———————–
61F this morning. Damp. Moist. Dreary. Coffee is ready though, and it’s delicious.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15487857/Spain-hit-train-crash-commuter-service-slams-crane-leaving-injured-days-disaster-left-dozens-dead.html
– once is , twice is, three times is….
n
A lot of ostensibly smart people are advocating dumping the incumbent in the Texas US Senate primary, even here. The stay-at-home mommies’ yard signs are speaking loudly in my neighborhood, and the RINOs will work against Paxton out of revenge for derailing the Bush cabal dynasty … for now.
BTW, does the halfway house keep a tidy lawn?
I read the autobiography of one YouTube “influencer” over Christmas, and he goes into the operation of those houses, including the nightly drug tests.
Fail the drug test, and the resident is on the street. Or sleeping under your bushes.
California rehab, but Dallas, Austin, and Houston are “California Lite” anymore.
The halfway house uses the same lawn service I do, so they are unlikely to let that be a problem. IDK if the owners are paying or the company.
They have been limiting their interaction with the neighbors, but do go for ‘walks’ in groups of three or four.
n
I Voted For THIS
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/01/21/i-voted-for-this-n3811081
I did not see the speech, but the next line should have been:
“Instead, they are building a new coal-fired electricity plant every week and have been for years!”
and then:
“The next thing you’re going to see is a bunch of equipment from the perfectly good nuclear plants that Germany has shut down get sold for pennies on the Euro and mysteriously show up in China.”
DHS Reports Massive Surge in Website Traffic As Millions of Illegals Make a Choice
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2026/01/21/dhs-reports-huge-surge-in-traffic-at-self-deportation-webpage-as-millions-choose-repatriation-n2198385
That’s a tremendous success, both in absolute numbers and the implied 19:1 leverage ratio for the payments.
Continuing the enforcement surge in Minnesota keeps the pressure on more illegal aliens to do the same.
So I woke up this morning aroung 6:00 to the sound of something falling bang-bang-bang. Really loud, no shattering noise, so whatever it was didn’t break. Darned cat, knocked something off…
After coffee, start searching the house. And searching. And searching. I cannot find anything out of place?! Weird…
– – – – –
On more serious topics, the WEF is happening here, for better or for worse. The place where our “betters” make decisions that affect us all. We live in democracies, at least theoretically, but the decisions made there, by the “elite”, have zero input from the governed populaces, and likely do not have our best interests at heart.
Trump, of course, is being his usual, diplomatic self: “without us, it’s not Switzerland anymore”. Um…say what? Is that how you address the country where you are currently a guest?
@brad
Did you check outside?
Sounds travel with higher clarity in cold, dry air.
Trump owned the news cycle for the week. Even Blackrock effectively taking control of the WEF after Klaus Schwab fled in disgrace didn’t generate any headlines here.
TMZ did have photos of Wee Pierre arriving with Katie Perry, but the rest of the media was focused on getting the money line about invading Greenland which never came.
This is the last WEF for CNN. Dead news outlet walking, whether Netflix takes control or the Ellison family.
Check your bookshelfs, that’s what the noise in my house was, the tumbling down…
something falling
– I have branches fall on the roof all the time, and skitter down the slope. It sounds like animals in the attic. You could just have a branch or ice chunk falling on the roof…
————
Trump was not elected to schmooze anyone. And he’s never been one to carefully consider every nuance of his speech…
To me the whole idea of self appointed ‘elites’ getting together to steer the world in the direction they want is repulsive. “If you only had one grenade…”
n
Speaking of waking up to sounds… I woke to the sound of one of the dogs beginning to vomit. Luckily, I was able to get her outside before she did it.
Pre-vomit hacking is a good signal to heed.
Sniff. Maybe you should switch to Linux. Sniff.
BREAKING: FBI Arrests Church-Raid Leaders in Minneapolis
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/01/22/breaking-fbi-arrests-church-raid-leaders-in-minneapolis-n3811124
Don Lemon before the day is out. He flew in to participate, filmed himself helping the prep outside, and was actively disrupting when they went inside.
In a just world the trial would take place immediately. It won’t. DOJ should file for an injunction prohibiting those arrested from participating in other activities that trespass, violate the FACE Act, or violate the constitutional rights of others. They have ample evidence showing intent in all three areas, and they need some strong prohibitions from doing it again.
From reddit, found via a search on my iPad upgrade error message:
So much for Apple’s vaunted 10 year support for devices.
It’s a doorstop. I’ll see if I can get it working again as a retarded kindle fire, which is all I ever used it for anyway.
iOS devices? Three years after the last one rolls out of the factory is my rule of thumb.
I’ve noticed certain exceptions, mostly for important form factors.
My first gen iPhone SE still receives iOS 15 updates and has support in the latest Xcode for new development.
I think that is due to the iPhone 4 form factor being the last design overseen by Steve Jobs.
The last iPod Touch generation also still receives support.
I’m happy with getting 5 years out of an ipad. Just like desktops, you want to to get newer, faster hardware periodically.
I’m on my 3rd ipad. First was a gen 1, then gen 9, now an air M3. They are great for what I use them for – web browsing and the kindle app. I hardly do any gaming in them.
Btw, I also have an air M2, which was my mom’s. For my use, I can’t tell a difference between the two. I would have traded hers in when I got my M3, but the screen has a tiny flaw and Apple wouldn’t give me anything for it. It lives in the garage for use there.
“32GB is absolutely tiny though, I’m shocked they still even support devices with such little storage.”
Hayzus wept.
I recall running MacOS 7.1, Word 5.0, and Excel on a Mac IIci with 512MB of RAM and a 230MB HDD.
The pass/fail test for programmers should include a 7-day schedule for a 1988 VHS VCR to record four 30-minute sitcoms on different channels.
Wally would like a word with you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/73in9/computer_holy_wars_png/
>>Chicken helper tonight, with costco canned chicken. The brisket wasn’t quite thawed when I needed to put it in the crockpot, so that’ll be tomorrow’s dinner.
IDK if it was the Chicken helper or the chicken but it tasted terrible. Bitter. So it went into the trash and we had leftover carnitas.
I hate throwing out food, but it didn’t taste good.
@nick, hopefully you saved the can and take it back to Costco for a refund.
@nick, hopefully you saved the can and take it back to Costco for a refund.
– didn’t even occur to me.
——————————————–
well this sux. Microsoft shut off the music metadata lookup servers that Media Player uses when ripping CDs. I’m far from being the only one still ripping CDs from the online responses…
Now I need another different thing to rip with. I have used WMP all this time to keep consistent file structure, naming, and levels.
There isn’t any way to choose another service either.
n
Thursday. Good morning! (It’s 8pm). I was busy this morning. I hope you are all having a good day, apart from Nick’s ripping travails.
I spent the afternoon in the woods with a rifle and friends. There was a flock of helicopters overhead. Noisy! I would have needed Mr AtoZ to identify them for me. I couldn’t figure out how much to lead them with the rifle, so I left them alone. Obviously, on account of the noise, there was neither hide nor hair of game to be seen. Ah well, still better than an afternoon in the office.
Weird. I looked at that Dilbert cartoon, and my immediate thought was “When did Scott Adams meet Ken Coar?”
I worked with Ken at Digital Equipment Corporation. The 1995 cartoon date would have been about the time he started dabbling in open source software, and I’m sure he was a Unix user by then.
iTunes should still rip CDs on Windows.
abcde on Linux.
Rhythmbox, the default audio program on Fedora has a GUI and configurable paths/filenames.
Linux does not play well with FAT32 at times if you are writing to a flash drive for a Toyota audio system. I speak from experience.
I ripped my CDs with EAC. Worked great for me.
https://wiki.lyrion.org/index.php/EAC_Ripping_In_Depth as a start/
“Ringleader of Church Invasion in Minnesota Has Been Arrested”
https://discernreport.com/ringleader-of-church-invasion-in-minnesota-has-been-arrested/
Didn’t her momma teach her any better ? You do not interrupt a church service. Here in Texas they might have gotten shot.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Thursday bedtime. I am shattered, probably from a lot of walking plus being out in the cold for a few hours. I had a really long, hot shower afterwards, followed by some dinner kindly prepared by W1, but I am still feeling a bit cool. Definitely time for the land of Nod. Goodnight.
WEATHER UPDATE!
Due to extreme cold Walmart is urging its customers to wear 2 pair of pajamas when shopping!
“Trump sues Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan over ‘debanking’ claims, complicating life for the nation’s largest bank”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-sues-jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-over-debanking-claims-complicating-life-for-the-nations-largest-bank-193146770.html
“The second year of President Trump’s second term just got more complicated for the nation’s largest bank and its longtime CEO Jamie Dimon.”
“On Thursday, Trump’s legal team filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Dimon, accusing the nation’s largest bank of debanking him, or terminating bank services, for political reasons.”
“A lawyer representing Trump in the suit stated in the filing that in February 2021, JPMorgan allegedly “without warning or provocation,” notified Trump, the Trump Organization and his family that several accounts they controlled would be closed in two months.”
I see a big settlement admitting no wrong in the future.
“Trump’s NATO Deal Would Mean US Mining and Missiles in Greenland”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-nato-deal-mean-us-133627268.html
“The “framework” cited by Trump after his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late Wednesday entails the stationing of US missiles, mining rights aimed at keeping Chinese interests out and a bolstered NATO presence, according to a European official briefed on the talks.”
Huh, mining too.
I wonder if Trump is going to force Denmark to keep more than 15 soldiers in Greenland ?
well this sux. Microsoft shut off the music metadata lookup servers that Media Player uses when ripping CDs. I’m far from being the only one still ripping CDs from the online responses…
Now I need another different thing to rip with. I have used WMP all this time to keep consistent file structure, naming, and levels.
There isn’t any way to choose another service either.
n
I use FreeRip. That is, when I have a working audio board in my home pc. Has a huge metadata storage on the intertubes including album art. I have ripped about 200 CDs with it.
https://www.freerip.com/
I really need to finish that new PC I started a half a decade ago.
Pearls Before Swine: Storage Unit Living
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2026/01/22
Oh no, this is not going to go well.
Bondi is arresting the church crashers. I wonder which judge will block/vacate/bail the charges? Is there any way that doesn’t happen? I’m good for now if they get to sit in jail for a while.
LOL, Lemon getting warrant protection from a judge is prime PLT. Anybody here would get executed by the judge.
Lemon has to face consequences.
@lynn, the protagonist in Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash lives in a 20×20 at the U Stor It.
There was a book where people slept on the stairs of high rise buildings, one per tread….
n
Church Charging Bearded Wonder Scooped Up by Bondi’s Boys, Too
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2026/01/22/breaking-church-charging-bearded-wonder-scooped-up-by-bondis-boys-too-n3811132
Previously arrested in D.C. stalking Hegseth’s church.
“Big Chicken Dinner” aka Bad Conduct Discharge (BCD), claimed stolen valor.
“Who is paying?” indeed. Past time to find out.
Someone had better b crawling through the phone records of every one of these sick bastards.
“On Thursday, Trump’s legal team filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Dimon, accusing the nation’s largest bank of debanking him, or terminating bank services, for political reasons.”
and 10x punitive damages.
DOJ needs to file suit. Fine them 1% of earnings. Settlement should include consent decree that prevents the conduct in future for any customer who is not in violation of the law.
Most ripping software uses CDDA which eliminates the need for the audio card and allows error correction.
I haven’t seen an audio out connector on a CD drive in over 20 years.
Up until recently, I would suggest a cheap external CD/DVD drive, but those are suspiciously unobtainium and/or expensive right now.
If we get too much ice, and lose power, I can use my truck to power a heater, the fridge, and a few lights. If worst comes to worse, I can move into the RV and power that with the truck. I have propane for heat and hot water. I can hook to the house water to fill the onboard tank as a hose connection would freeze.
The Linux community will have a bullseye on the A18 MacBook from the day the machine ships.
Sleeping in storage units: Obviously an insurance liability and therefore mightily discouraged. At the last modern single story 24 hour keypad access suburban facility I worked at in Milwaukee, there was a lady with an older car packed with cardboard who would spend some hours during the day with the roll up door closed. Not every day, though.
At the downtown 5 story facility that closed and alarmed at 5 PM, part of the closing routine was to run the freight elevator past each floor and shout out a closing warning. Had to turn around more than once when the alarm company called me to report an after hour exit to reset the 1st floor sensors and screaming alarm. Cameras would show whoever got too focused on their stuff to tune out the shout.
I did heard a story about a homeless fellow who would sleep in his locker during the day and wander the city at night. Before my time.
“Who is paying?” Almost certainly somebody on the Soros payroll.
a hose connection would freeze.
— They make heated RV hoses, they are often in my auctions.
n
Well. Ok. No movie today. I ran the Scooba. New battery so one tank of soapy water and then almost another tank of RO rinse water. The floor still looks like a dusty windshield. But the floor was installed in’92. So….
Time to feed the dogs.
Somewhere in the time between “cookie” and “supper”, Her Highness wanted up on the sofa. Scooba finished and I dished up the dog chow. Buddy the Beagle is right in on gobbling his pot. Penny is on the sofa and barking. Huh? So, it’s just dog food tonight, nothing mixed in. Her Highness, the Perfectly Precious Princess Poo Penny Puppy had her supper on the sofa. A first.
She’s still on the sofa an hour later;
She turned 14 four months ago. Yeah, I gotta hoist her up onto the sofa and the bed. I’m cool. Very cool, actually. She seems happy and mostly pain free, just sorta fragile like an 80 year old human with some limps and sore joints. She eats. Some days not much, but some days she wants more. Yeah, she eats. She’s not shutting down yet.
It’s what it is.
Last night’s movie was Despicable Me.
Nice movie. Good story. I liked it Onto the Thrift Stack….
Yeh, I know of them. Used by full-time rv-ers. I don’t have one.
I never heard of Andre Williams. I am now a YT subscriber:
The Four Types Of Black Americans
This explains everything about the Amish, from and Amish American.
Most ripping software uses CDDA which eliminates the need for the audio card and allows error correction.
I haven’t seen an audio out connector on a CD drive in over 20 years.
Up until recently, I would suggest a cheap external CD/DVD drive, but those are suspiciously unobtainium and/or expensive right now.
FreeRip played the audio while it was ripping. That can probably be turned off.
But my audio board fried itself a year ago. I built my home pc in 2012 or something like that. The motherboard audio died when I had a roof leak and five gallons of rain got dumped in my PC. I then put a creative sound board in it but that died last year.
FreeRip now starts and then gives an error before shutting down.
I read that the last assembly lines for external DVD drives were shut down over a decade ago. The inventory just ran out recently. Somebody is restarting an assembly line at great expense but it will take a year or so.
a hose connection would freeze.
— They make heated RV hoses, they are often in my auctions.
n
One of my guys is from Minnesota. He has stories about regularly getting his truck started at -45 F in the morning to go to high school. Mostly when he forgot to plug in the engine block heater.
I can tell you stories about having to start a D2 dozer when the temperature was 0F. It took several hours.
“JURY NULLIFICATION: BREAKING: Far-Left Jury in Chicago Finds Latin Kings Gang Leader Who Ordered “Murder-For-Hire” Plot of Border Patrol Leader Bovino NOT GUILTY”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/01/jury-nullification-far-left-jury-chicago-finds-latin/
“A far-left jury in Chicago found Juan Espinoza Martinez, the Latin Kings gang leader who put a $10,000 hit against Border Patrol leader Greg Bovino not guilty.”
“In October, Espinoza Martinez, a high-ranking Latin Kings gang member in Chicago was charged in a federal murder-for-hire plot targeting a U.S. Border Patrol senior officer leading “Operation Midway Blitz,” according to a criminal complaint unsealed in the Northern District of Illinois.”
This will not go well in society when evil people get off because of jury nullification.
Tariffs don’t help.
Thanks to Warner lawyers designing the crypto and DVD Jon finding the one weakness in the system, DVD is no longer under control of the gear manufacturers and studios. DVD will be around for a long time except in the US.
When we stopped in Target the other day, the store didn’t have any DVDs or players.
Yeah, murder. Trump tho.
That flick spawned several sequels and a “Minions” movie.
Yep, they are very funny. “IT”S SO FLUFFY!!!1!!!!!1!”
n
HBO has “Snow Crash” in development as a series.
The showrunners are not hacks so it may turn out to be something cool on the level of the first season of “Westworld”.
Ok, the second season had the best teaser trailer ever and a few brilliant moments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z-UFN20jvw
We don’t have any pets. No, really, they don’t stay in the house.
One of the cats has a collar, and just comes in to get treats and pets and maybe nap when it’s too hot or too cold outside. She leaves and goes back to her regular people when she’s ready. The ones who put the collar on her. We don’t know who they are, but assume it’s one of 6 nearby houses.
The other is a friendly feral. He’ll come in to eat and get pets, but only from GF, not me. He purrs but won’t let us close the door. He won’t sleep, or even lay down inside. He’s not neutered.
He’s sick. Probably gut related. He’s lost weight, and he’s not eating. He disappeared for 48 hours, and we’d already figured he was gone forever, but he came back.
He just came back, drank some water, got some pets, and is resting on the porch.
The plan, such as it is, is for GF to catch him and put him in a carrier. We don’t have the carrier yet. Then off to the vet. We don’t have a vet yet. Then figure out how to shepherd his recovery. If he has a recovery.
I’m surprised how much I’ve grown attached to the little bugger. I’m a dog person. But my last dog died 11 years ago.
Have you considered a set of pet stairs? 2-3 steps leading up to the bed or couch level, and the pet can walk up the shorter steps unaided. Our old cats loved them after they couldn’t leap onto the bed.
If you’re anywhere near San Antonio, TX, the Alamo Feline Health Center is a cats-only vet. https://www.alamofeline.com
That’s where we take our cats. It’s a bit of a drive, about 25 miles from us, but the vets there are experts in treating cats.
SA is 180 miles. But thanks.
Perhaps they can recommend another vet nearer you.
I’ll add them to my call list for tomorrow.
Illegal Alien School Superintendent [Des Moines, Iowa] and Registered Dem Voter Pleads Guilty to Citizenship, Gun Charges
https://redstate.com/rusty-weiss/2026/01/22/illegal-alien-school-superintendent-and-registered-dem-voter-pleads-guilty-to-citizenship-gun-charges-n2198428
NB: His age is stated as 35–he was born in 1973, making him 53.
Horrible example time: Sentence him to 20 and fine him the maximum, including for each day he overstayed his student visa.
Revisit in 5 years and throw his ash out–there’s no reason to pay for his prison time.
Patel Reveals Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost Team Made Themselves a Bizarro Garish Trophy
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2026/01/22/what-in-the-world-patel-reveals-jack-smiths-arctic-frost-team-made-themselves-a-bizarro-garish-trophy-n2198427
Wow, that is just nuts. Corruption, like ugly, goes all the way to the bone.
———-
It’s 61F outside but with the damp and breeze it feels 20F cooler. Had my tiny little fire and burned two bottles of propane. Even if my core stays warm, my hands are like ice.
Time for a hot shower and bed.
n
I’ve been meaning to buy a spare Blu-Ray player for the home theater system for a couple years now. I don’t play media very often anymore, but I don’t want to lose the ability to do so. I just placed an order on Amazon for a Sony player – just under $100 with tax.