Glad I don't have to be anywhere else tonight.
But they're saying "-17°" for Sunday night. Not looking forward to that.
And, once again, I find myself cursing the fact that I let another summer go past without installing a block heater in the Jeep. Well, it's the old hillbilly paradox: in summer I don't need it, and in winter it's too cold to install the thing. *sigh*
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You know, the American left has spent the last seventy years complaining about the CIA being skunks and evil and horrible. If you have had your head in a bag during that time period, and haven't watched any TV or seen any movies or, indeed, have not partaken of popular culture at all (you lucky bastard) read Clifford Stoll's Cukoo's Egg and you'll get an idea of what a rock-ribbed Berkley leftist thinks of them, and the NSA.
Suddenly, though, the CIA is the darling of the American left, and rather than being bad guys they are the arbiters of truth and justice.
On the plus side, there's this:
Believing something the CIA says is like trusting a meth addict with your car, and trusting the CIA when they're working with the Washington Post is like trusting a meth addict with your car and leaving your kid in the back seat with the house keys and money for Taco Bell.After the way this country has gone over the past twelve years I don't believe the CIA or the NSA or anything the spy establishment says about anyone.
This whole "Russians hacked the DNC to meddle with our elections" thing is nothing but horseshit meant to de-legitimize the biggest threat to their power since Ronald Reagan.
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Well, we'll see if "raciss" works the other way. I believe it will not, because the people judging the cases will see a sea of white faces and say, "Nope! No racism here, we'll leave Disney to their importation of foreign labor."
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Star Wars: Rogue One, as reviewed by a pretentious doot-head.
...[B]ut when you use gibberish like "corporate Kremlinology" and "There's none of the Shakespearean space politics, enticingly florid dialogue, or experiential thrills of the best of George Lucas's "Star Wars" entries ("Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith")," man, it’s really hard to take you at all seriously.It's hard to take anyone seriously who thinks Revenge of the Sith was good. Not just for the purposes of one review, but entirely. As in, "Holy shit, man, how can you be living outside of some kind of institution?"
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Animated GIF warning but man, does that dog look unhappy.
This wouldn't keep out a determined cat.
We got our tree yesterday. For the first time ever we got a tree with short needles (Douglas Fir?) and it's tall enough not to need to be set atop a table. We didn't break the bank for it, either. I haven't put lights on it or anything, but I bet it'll be a lot less scratchy than the kind we usually get.
After getting our tree, we went to see Nutcracker, another thing for which we didn't break the bank but really enjoyed it. The story was "reimagined", so it was not the traditional Nutcracker:
Discover the magic of Chicago's mysterious 1893 World's Fair through the eyes of a child in the Joffrey's astounding new Nutcracker--brilliantly reimagined by Tony Award®-winning choreographer Wheeldon. Be part of dance history as we celebrate our beloved city and unlock a world of wonder for the 21st century. An electrifying holiday tale that will leave you breathless.At the intermission, if my wife had not told me it was not the traditional version, I would not have known; but the second act would have made it obvious to me.
It's not like they took a messy, runny, SJW shit all over it; it was fantastic and the performances were marvelous. And as I said, the music was stunning. "Waltz of the Flowers" is one of my favorite pieces of classical music, and hearing it live was simply amazing. Hearing that one piece alone was worth driving into and out of the city at night.
I was never really a fan of ballet, but after seeing a live performance I can understand why the art form has endured.
As for the tree, I'm to put the lights on it tonight; while out doing my shopping I tried to find LEDs but could only find them with white wiring. No. So, another year with incandescent. That's okay. We can go with LED next year, and if this "short needle" thing works out maybe we'll do that again.
Meanwhile, I stopped at a bookstore and purchased Yotsuba&! volume 13. I almost bought 11 and 12, but then realized that I had indeed read them, and therefore I must have those two books around here somewhere. It's just a matter of figuring out where the hell I put them.
Vol 11 has "Yotsuba tries pizza", which was the only story I remembered from it; and then vol 12 has "Yotsuba's first Halloween". So I know I read both books, and because I refuse to read that series on-line I know I bought them.
Well, they'll turn up eventually, I guess.
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I bought a new pair of sweat pants today.
I don't know when was the last time I did that. I've got several pairs of them which work well enough, but the pockets have come loose on all of them. Regular Hanes fleece sweat pants, the price of which has not changed materially in a decade. I think I paid $6 for the newest pair. So just in time for the coldest night of the year I have a nice new pair of sweat pants to keep my legs warm.
That'll do.
