malada

I'll let Tim express my feelings on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHOmforqxk&t=

There is something I want to do... or at least try to do... this year. It started in November when a song idea started to percolate in my head. All it was was a feeling, a chorus and a thought. Later, after noticing some old VHS recorders in Goodwill (which I did not buy) a whole concept sort of exploded in my head.

The song is titled "One Track Mind". (No, it's not about sex.) I want to play and record all the instruments: guitar, bass, drums and vocals onto a four track cassette deck and mix down all in analog. I also want to video tape the performances on VHS - edit the video digitally (I'm not crazy) to post on my YouTube channel.

Technically, I think I can do this. If I keep the music simple the instruments I could handle after I relearn them. The vocals - argh, my voice is thin at best. But I want to make the attempt. I may fail but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I want to start playing again anyways - even if my hands hurt.

-m

An earlier post I suggested that the trade of Viktor Bout for Brittney Griner was about values - we value athletes over gun runners.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but didn't Viktor Bout the arms merchant get his start by basically looting the weapons stocks of some of the (then) newly independent Soviet states?

Maybe he knows where all the Russian (Soviet) winter gear went to. Maybe the Russians want to have a few *words* with the man.

Bout made a lot of enemies on the way. He was probably safer in the Super Max where he was held then in whatever apartment Putin's going to park him in.

Watch out for the windows, Viktor!

-m

So down in Moore County in North Caroline, someone 'vandalized' a power sub station and knocked out power to thousands of people. Power was out in homes, schools and hospitals.

I'm sorry... but vandalism its breaking a few windows, spray painting a few walls and yeah... maybe doing some looting.

Destroying multi millions of dollars of critical electrical infrastructure with a hail of bullets is NOT vandalism. It's terrorism.

Of course... the official reports are still saying 'vandalism' instead of 'blown apart by gunfire' but the whispers are saying someone shot up the transformers that help deliver power from the main electrical grid to your homes and businesses... and hospitals.

Maybe they're silent about the gun part because that would point that finger at those beloved gun nuts who think that because they need penis extenders they should Rule... and they're not. Some folks would rather point the finger at trans kids or drag shows or Hunter Biden's laptop... instead of the Most Likely Suspects.

And they don't care who suffers.

-m

So Elon Musk is going to start verifying Twitter users real soon now.

How he is going to do this without a trained staff is a mystery to me.

I'm just wondering why the Twitter database hasn't been hacked and upload to some dark site on the web. With no security team it can't be that hard.

Just saying.

On more geeky news, I'm busy swapping around parts trying to resurrect and repurpose some of my spare machines. The Craiger is being changed from a low end potato gaming system to a capture and transcoder device, the over the top power supply from the Craiger is going to my long term project to get an old server running, and.... I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the old Dell 410 desktop. It needs a working DVD drive since it won't boot from a USB stick. To be honest, it's been a royal pain in the butt and with only a dual core processor and 4 gigs of RAM, it's not particularly useful. It's also heavy. Sheesh.

-m

Apparently, this time at a Wal Mart. No real information about the shooter yet.

I'm betting that:

it's a he,

he's known to have violent intentions or actions,

he's had run-ins with the police before,

and if he has social media it's full of conspiracy theories, hate monger and Trump worship.

I'm not willing to wager money but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

Being a gun nut is the 'free' space on the bingo card

-m

So for the past few weeks I've been experiencing pressure and pain in the mid-chest area. I thought is was just stress, then maybe depression (yeah, my chest hurts when I'm depressed) and then that I had a mild chest cold.

COVID test was negative. No other real symptoms, just fatigue. My life has been busy lately.

I finally got the the walk in clinic and they checked me out. A little bit of wheezing in the chest, blood pressure good, no fever, no COVID, no coughing. EKG was clean - no heart issues. So off to the X-Ray machine with me.

The X-Ray came back clean so no pneumonia. The doctor prescribed Prednisone 20 mg twice a day for inflammation.

Now things get interesting.

I'm still in a bit of a manic phase (it's cooled down a bit) but I could not get a good night sleep - much worse than normal. I could not settle, my mind was racing and my heart was pounding. All my usual tricks: getting a quick snack, staying up a little bit longer instead of thrashing in my bed, even taking a brisk walk at 2 AM did little or nothing. I maybe got 3 hours of sleep Thursday night.

I was fried on Friday but still put in a full day at work (remotely thank dog, I was in no shape to drive). I went to bed at my usual time and _crashed_. I woke up once to pee at 4 AM then _crashed_ again until 8. Had breakfast, tossed laundry in then _crashed_ until nearly noon.

I'm up and I'm staying up until my usual bedtime. I'm *burnt* though.

Some of the possible side effects of Prednisone? Restless! Agitation! Rapid heart beat! Argh!

My chest don't seem to hurt as much so *something* had inflamed my lungs... I wonder if it's my BiPAP which is under recall for causing lung problems.

Yeah.

I tried not using the BiPAP which probably disrupted my sleep patterns even more. I've been using one for damn near 20 years - I'm used to it but I really don't like it.

Is there a term for a medical condition *caused* by doctors treating you? I've been nailed by drug interactions multiple times in my life.

-m

... smells like democracy.

So I get to the polling place and see they're having printer problems. I chill in the short line and when the woman in charge pulls the power chord on the printer to reboot it I give her a thumbs up. We laugh.

They reload the paper and presto! The printer works! I get the first sheet out and mark away. I do sort of miss the old mechanical voting machines with their clicks and chunk-chunk sounds - not to mention the curtain closing and opening but they were getting long in the tooth even when I started voting back in the last century.

-m

Take one slab of beef made for roasting.

Sliver up 3 cloves of garlic.

Trim roast of major fat.

Go *stabbety-stabbety-stabbety* with a long knife on that slab of cow. Poke lots of deep holes on all sides of the meat.

Stuff slivers of garlic in all those many holes.

Place in pot and half cover with water. Simmer.

Mince one small red onion.

Slather minced onion all over the meat.

Turn the meat ever half hour so the bottom doesn't burn. Ladle the onion and water over the meat after you turn it. Continue to simmer for two hours. Add water as needed.

Cut up carrots and potatoes and add to the water. Bonus points for dumping a jar of cheap gravy over the meat at this point. Let it simmer another hour.

Make drop biscuits. I just use Bisquick with water instead of milk.

When the biscuits are done it's time to nom nom nom nom nom.

-m

There's a video going around showing the moment when the explosion rocked the bridge leading to Crimea. I'd like to express a few thoughts on it.

First of all... yes, it appears to be CCTV footage of the actual explosion. However, a careful look at the earliest example that I've seen of that footage shows that it is a camera - probably a cellphone camera - videoing the screen of the playback of the explosion. It's not the actual recording of the incident but a recording of the recording. This is important for two reasons:

First, it's not the best record of the incident being down a generation from the original CCTV footage. Later versions have been digitally stabilized. Any conclusions drawn from this footage has to be taken with a shaker full of salt.

Second, who pulled out their camera to record the footage? I'm assuming they also uploaded it. In addition, was this the same person who had control of the footage so they could play it back and record it? Or were there multiple people in the control room in on this? This leads to all sorts of delightful security questions.

-m