Another beautiful day. Yesterday was nice. Today should be nice. We are seeing a bit of overcast and sometimes that has to burn off first, but we’re still rocking a gorgeous spring. More please.
Had a pretty busy day yesterday. Did my morning stuff, then headed out. Pickup and chat with one of my auctioneers. Good guy. Bit of a low key prepper. He’s still around and lots of people have fallen by the wayside. Then it was off to my client’s house. Changed the TV out for a new Sony. Spent some time poking at the IDE for the control software and made the changes needed. Got it under control. BTW, there are menu choices for disabling the always wifi, the microphone, and the CAMERA. You can believe what you want about whether they stay off.
Client asked me to take a look at why the speakers in one room weren’t working. Turns out he was rocking out so loud he blew up a pair of Boston in ceiling speakers… I’ll be replacing them next week. Maybe I can find some with a higher power rating.
Then it was off to another pickup. Had a nice chat with the owner. I mentioned him when he was first starting out. Smart guy from Africa here in the oil business, and then started his own business reselling. It’s been a year and 3 months and he’s still here. He’s one of the few guys getting good lots to sell at the moment.
There is definitely a lot of turnover in the reselling auctions and in the various models of reselling retail too.
I hit the Goodwill bins on the way home from there, and then stopped to throw the dead tv in a dumpster I have access to.
Everyone was busy so dinner was frozen burritos for me. Food is food. I love to eat well, but I am pretty fond of eating. I was thinking about it and a lot of people don’t seem to get it. Food is what you need to live. There’s no good food, bad food, junk food, clean food, dirty food, it’s all just food. Shut up and eat, and be thankful there is food on your plate. Take joy in good food when that’s what’s on the menu, but also take joy in having food at all.
Prime steak one day, sushi the next, does not mean you can turn up your nose at frozen burritos. Or meatloaf, or just beans and cornbread. Well you could, but that would make you a d!ck. Don’t be Dick.
Stack, so you will have good food to eat.
nick
By the Power of Greyskull!
Nick Frost nails it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIu4sFKGi6E
That trailer looked awfully close to a scene by scene, line by line recreation…
———-
Some coffee is in my mug, the kids are moving, and the day starts… 64F.
Today will be working around the house and possibly at the shop, but home mid afternoon to take kid to an appointment. That’s the ‘stay at home’s job, but it does limit what I can do the rest of the day.
n
Are you sure that you should take the kid to the appointment? Shouldn’t you be encouraging independence and problem solving? “Here’s some money. You’ve got a phone. You can figure out how to get there and then get home.” You’re not being lazy by not driving her around, you’re letting her grow up. #FollowMeForMoreParentingAdvice
Frost channeling Robbie Coltrane in the ADR is about avoiding the issue of “Black Snape” in the trailer.
Not getting anything from Lithgow as Dumbledore or Secretary of State McGongall is unsettling.
The teaser for the first film featured Maggie Smith prominently.
Hmm, what’s missing from the title and article:
Nightmarish moment HUNDREDS of lawless teens overrun downtown Chicago as ‘stores looted and bystanders maced’
Those crazy
WHITEY!Amish teens. Yeah, don’t be downtown Chitown at night, or day, or anytime.IIRC, Sony TVs use Google software for the smart features.
No further comment.
Worth a read:
Just WOW: DataRepublican UNLOADS on Sen. John Thune for ‘Pretending to TRY’ and Pass the SAVE Act
She lays out how to get it done and why Thune is cratering it. Money for sir RINO.
I had the septic tank serviced this morning, everything went well, local guys & v. professional, system looks good and now I know where it is.
—-
I have the neighbor’s dumpster available again, so I need to get out and fill it with debris from my yard. No tires. No corded electrical machines. No this, no that, there is apparently a camera in the dumpster 10-wheeler pickup that makes a video record of what goes in, I don’t want to get my neighbor in trouble.
There are plenty of old chairs and tables and various bits of cardboard and foam and household & yard detritus, it’ll get filled.
So if you want to do the nasty with your girlfriend in a dumpster – because where better to do the nasty than in a nasty place? – you have to check for cameras first? What is this country coming to? What kind of voyeurs make dumpsters nowadays???
Who says it has to be a girlfriend you silly savage?
Check for?
Oh, you sweet summer child, that just adds to the thrill.
Our curbside recycle truck has a camera that watches what gets dumped from your bin. Dunno if the trash does the same.
——
Sony uses Google TV. I shut everything I can off, don’t enter any accounts, skip what I can. I have to use wifi on two of the TVs because no ethernet is available at the location, and one is on a stone fireplace so no running in another cable. I MIGHT be able to use the low bandwidth ethernet in the video extenders for control over IP, which is something I’ll check next week. Def can’t use that for streaming or games.
n
Oh, you sweet summer child, that just adds to the thrill.
– not for the poor SOB that has to watch.
n
“Chip Selloff Deepens After Google Touts Memory Breakthrough”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-breakthrough-spurs-chip-selloff-022926567.html
“(Bloomberg) — Memory chip stocks extended their losses on Thursday after Alphabet Inc.’s Google publicized research on a new algorithm that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence development.”
“Google said its TurboQuant algorithm can cut the amount of memory required to run large language models by at least a factor of six, reducing the overall cost of training artificial intelligence. Investors may harbor concerns that could reduce hyperscalers’ need for memory, pushing down the prices for components that are also used in smartphones and consumer electronics.”
It is a fancy cache.
“2025 Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid Road Trip Review: Space Isn’t Everything”
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/2025-toyota-grand-highlander-road-trip-review.html/
“This big bus is good but still has plenty of room for improvement”
“Another bright spot of our particular Grand Highlander is its Hybrid Max powertrain. The setup marries a turbocharged four-cylinder engine with an electric hybrid system to make 362 horsepower and 400 lb-ft of torque. On the road, even loaded up with five people and all that gear, I was never wanting for power. Passing and merging weren’t an issue. And despite going hard on the throttle and carrying a lot of people and gear, I saw 23 mpg over the course of the whole trip.”
Only 23 mpg for a hybrid ??? He must have been flooring it all the time.
My wife’s 2002 4Runner with a 3.5 V6 got 25 MPG highway.
Her 2016 Explorer with the same size engine and newer transmission tech gets 28.
The standard Highlander grew a foot to essentially become a 4Runner with a better ride and offer an alternative to Wine Moms.
The Grand Highlander stretched the platform further to offer a real third row seat to compete with the Explorer.
The point of hybrid tech in everything isn’t gas mileage as much as reducing CO2.
That engine is going to have a real short life. Toyota is gambling with regard to how short.
“Winter Lost (Mercy Thompson #14)” by Patricia Briggs
https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Mercy-Thompson-Patricia-Briggs/dp/059343899X?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number fourteen of a fourteen book dark fantasy series. The author has written several other books in the universe also. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2025 that I bought new from Amazon recently. The first book in the series, “Moon Called”, is one of my six star books. I have read all of the other books in the series including the “Alpha and Omega” series.
This book series is a very complicated universe. Coyote shapeshifter, werewolves, vampires, fae, and several other mythical creatures. Mercy Thompson is a coyote shapeshifter, a magical creature that violates the law of constant mass. She grew up in a werewolf town in Montana and is a loner. But life forces her to take a part in the life of the local werewolf pack alpha, Adam Hauptman, who lives next to her in the Tri-cities.
Mercy’s older half brother, Gary, shows up at her and Adam’s house in the Washington State Tri-cities from Montana. Gary is confused and cannot talk. So Mercy and Adam go investigate the Hot Springs Lodge in Montana where Gary was taking care of the horses.
The author has a website at:
https://www.patriciabriggs.com/
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (11,415 reviews)
Lynn
Probably compression similar to zRAM in Linux.
Anything to keep the plates spinning for a little longer. The problem is that the capex won’t change much in the short run, and this will be the last distortion of the currency one way or another.
“Welcome to Holly Angels Hospice — This Is the Learing Center of Commiefornia’s Hospice Fraud”
https://rumble.com/v77n9ea-welcome-to-holly-angles-hospice-this-is-the-learing-center-of-commiefornias.html?mref=1htl22&mc=e16nv
There is a scam here, a scam there, scam everywhere.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
The hotel-turned-office complex looks like one of the dumpy hotels in Van Nuys where the Death Star was going to have us stay for scab duty if a strike had happened in 2009.
Everywhere we went in LA last spring had that same weird “past its prime” feel, even affluent areas.
Of course new cars were everywhere, even in marginal areas we went like Bellflower and Carson. People have weird priorities.
“50 GW of data centers online at end of 2025, with MISO seeing strongest growth: FERC”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/data-centers-miso-ferc-market-report/815831/
“ERCOT, the Southwest Power Pool and the Southeast also saw rapid growth, but not as much as the 43% annual growth in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator region since 2020, FERC said.”
Wow, the amount of data center power demand has tripled since 2020 in the USA.
But here is the real crazy, “About 5,995 MW of data center capacity was being built at the end of 2025, down from 6,350 MW in 2024, CBRE said in a Feb. 25 report.”
83-year-old veteran randomly shoved onto NYC subway tracks dies from injuries, illegal migrant charged with murder
https://nypost.com/2026/03/26/us-news/veteran-83-randomly-shoved-onto-subway-tracks-dies-from-injuries
Just won a five-year battle with prostate cancer.
Next time an illegal kills someone in NYC could it please be one or two of Alvin Bragg’s family?
Took my first load to the scrapyard. $128 for about 5 hours work. Not great, but beats flipping burgers. The second half will be faster. 160# of aluminium. 26# of lead batteries. 5# stainless. Tomorrow I do catalytic converters. If the place is open, that should be a good payday.
Hit HEB for some fruit. Only pork on sale in the meat section. Got eggs for Easter. Beat the rush and any limits, plus they peal easier if they’ve been in the fridge for a while.
W took D2 to her activity. D1 is having dinner with a friend. Guess W and I are on our own for dinner.
n
Might I suggest a food fight? You have plenty of eggs that you could throw at each other. And leave the mess for the children to clean up. #FollowMeForMoreHouseholdHarmonyTips
The sex robots will be worth it to somebody, I guess.
By the way, Nick, might I also suggest that you share my various #FollowMe tips with your family? If they ever complain about you, you can always tell them “Hey, it could be a lot worse. I could be following this idiot’s advice.”
Well, done for today. Time for a shower.
I crossed some stuff off the list but it was all maintenance level stuff.
The task precedence around here is: Repairs → Maintenance → Improvements → Fun
I can’t wait:
Sudo, Make me a sandwich.
“So you’ll do anything I want, for $100/hr?”
“Oh, yes sir.”
“Paint my house.”
n
Wouldn’t you need two sexbots to make “you” a “sandwich”?
Well a long day, or so it seems. Daughter and GKs around most of the day. Caught up with Ray at ¾ of a century. Had dinner at Mama Mias then home for chocolate/chocolate cake, cards and presents. Thank you, love you and round em up and send em home. Almost time for early bed
Almost time for early bed
– I think I’m doing the same.
n
Sweet ! GOA Victory Fund is reporting “A brand-new poll in the Texas Senate Run-Off shows Ken Paxton leading John Cornyn by 7.5 points.”
“Cornyn doesn’t want Texas gun owners focused on his record. And for good reason.”
“He voted for red-flag laws that strip Americans of their firearms without due process. And now he’s running negative ads against Ken Paxton, a man who spent years fighting for your Second Amendment rights in court, hoping you won’t notice.”
“While Cornyn caved, Ken Paxton has never flinched on the Second Amendment. As Texas AG, he went to court to protect gun owners from federal overreach, and won.”
I am a single issue voter, guns. I have found that gun grabbers will grab anything that you own and they want. And John Wayne Cornyn is a gun grabber.
@nick, my brother is buying a house in the Heights inside I-610. 400 $/ft2 for a 2017 built two story, 3,100 ft2, 3/3/2, all bedrooms up, $1,250,000. Woof !
Trump Will Issue an Order to Pay TSA Agents Despite Shutdown
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2026/03/26/trump-will-issue-an-order-to-pay-tsa-agents-despite-shutdown-n3813296
Be a shame if federal judges paychecks failed to issues, but more on topic if U. S. Senators didn’t get paid.
Better yet is their offices got locked up because the rent wasn’t paid.
“So you’ll do anything I want, for $100/hr?”
“Oh, yes sir.”
“Paint my house.”
I walked into the party and my eyes locked with a sultry blonde across the room. We walked toward forward oblivious of the others, until we met in the center and our arms wrapped around each other. When the kiss ended she nuzzled into my neck, trembling, and said:
”I’ll do anything you want for $100.”
”Really?”, I said as I reached into my pocket and pulled out the money. “Here, paint my house. “
Bob Hoge is nearly perfect:
Donald Trump is blunt, he is coarse, and he often says things that are not “politically correct.” I get that he’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But after eight years of Barack Obama, four years of Joe Biden, seven years of Gavin Newsom, 39 years of Nancy Pelosi, and 45 years of Chuck Schumer, we’ve seen the Democrats’ playbook, and it’s a mission to destroy everything that makes the United States special.
If it takes a bull in a china shop to right the ship, then so be it. Eat it, Democrats.
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2026/03/26/trump-calls-into-fox-news-show-obliterates-failed-ca-gov-gavin-newsom-as-only-he-can-n2200678
Just add the two missing letters—“sh”—and it is perfect.
@nick, my brother is buying a house in the Heights inside I-610. 400 $/ft2 for a 2017 built two story, 3,100 ft2, 3/3/2, all bedrooms up, $1,250,000. Woof !
– W’s mentor and former boss bought in the Heights in 2000? Early enough he could still do major remodeling as his fortunes improved. They’ve made it a historic district to limit further development in his neighborhood, but he got in and out in time.
Houses in my area are selling for $230/sqft. I paid $85 in 2008 so that is a big increase.
Our rent house is “Heights adjacent” and is only worth the value of the dirt under it. Since you can’t further subdivide the lot, you can’t build two of those 2 and three story ‘lot line’ row houses in place of the one crapshack. I could make money building on it, but a developer couldn’t. We’ve only got about $120K in it, which is half what we are being offered for the lot. Even for us though, the math barely makes sense, and if you consider the tax effects, it doesn’t make sense at all. At some point, someone will get the adjacent small lots and offer us enough to tempt us. Or we’ll develop it and sell for a profit. Or we’ll finally take an offer on the land, and roll it over into another property. Until then, it’s a nice hedge against inflation.
And I’m up way too late.
n