'Tis the Season Warning

We're in the midst of the holiday season, and the cops in Columbus are getting serious about this drinking and driving business.  I don't know where the funding came from (MADD? SADD?), but the Columbus Police Department have the checkpoint DUI road blocks up and are running them in full force.

I got bored last night and decided to take a short drive over to the Derby East.  I had a hard cider, then another, and the crowd was getting warmed up.  Then someone bought a round of shots for everyone sitting at the bar, then another round was bought, and I chased it with another hard cider, and... I realized I probably shouldn't be driving.

I left my keys with the bartender, and took the bus home.

I passed a police checkpoint about a block away.  Everyone was being stopped and harassed, and they had a wagon out to haul away the drunks.  There was a line being cuffed and stuffed into the wagon.  But, you know, they just waved the bus right on through.

Merry Christmas!

This is the official Merry Christmas! and Happy New Year! post.  This happens roughly once per year.

To all the people who paused long enough to read this hound, Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year!

To all of you who commented (including that infamous little lamb chop, Baked Brie) here's a hoist of my New Year's Eve champagne glass and a tip of the old fedora to you - thank you for your comments.

Success!

I won't post it, mainly out of an inability to take selfies, but while making my morning coffee I was doing my happy dance.

Mad Jack: 1

Mouse: room temperature (by now)

Invaders - ?, Mad Jack - 0

Zero.  As in null, nada, none, and go piss up a rope.

I got up in the morning and ran the old trap line, and the traps were still set but the bait was gone.

Rant follows.  Read at your own risk.

Invaders!

In the not terribly distant past I had a security team.  Proven in battle, patient in ambush, and congenial in most other respects.  Sadly, they've all retired and gone the way of the passenger pigeon, the dodo bird, and the woolly mammoth.

I have decided to set a trap line.  I have two traps, which is all I could find in my toolz-and-whatnot drawer.

Trap 1

Trap 2

You will note that I belong to the peanut butter bait school.  I hold no brief with trappers that resort to unreliable baits such as bacon grease or cheese.  I got into an argument with one puffball who insisted that a combination of bananas and crushed mothballs made the perfect bait, and as a result of a short series of vituperative remarks concerning his intelligence and probable heritage, I was informed by a nameless moderator that I was addressing a woman (biological female) and therefore should have shown a bit of restraint.

Somewhat suspicious, I demanded proof.  A mistake, as it turned out, as another user posted a photo of a female English Bulldog in the act of defecation, which in turn started a ruckus between the English Bulldog aficionados and the demented supporters of said female.  The dog people pointed out that the English Bull is affectionate, loyal, intelligent, and beautiful in its own way.  The mothball group declared the photo a personal insult and unspeakably cruel to this delicate little snowflake who only wanted to help.  By the time the dust settled, the dog aficionados were naming seconds and asking about time, place, and choice of weapons.  The mothball group was threatening to report everyone to the ACLU, the American Muslims for Palestine, the East Coast SJWs, the Feminazis (not an actual group), and a host of others.  

I deleted my account and advanced to the rear.

Back to the topic at hand, I'm betting on Trap 2, my choice being based on past experience.  It should be pointed out, however, that Trap 1 is a few inches away from the location of the rodent's attack on my foodstuffs, namely an over-ripe banana.  It is now December 20th, 2021 at 4:47 PM.  I'll run the trap line in the morning.

Meantime, place your bets: Trap 1 or Trap 2.

Quora Question: What is a male ballet dancer called? Is he a ballerino?

Not in the U.S. he isn’t.

It's Up! It's Down! It's Being Worked On...

 On a whim, I tried looking at FaceBook this morning and got 404'd.  I figured that they'd finally had enough of me and canceled my account, but then common sense asserted itself.  If Mark Zuckerberg hasn't permanently banned Wirecutter, Owner-Operator of Knuckledraggin' My Life Away, it's a sure bet that neither he nor his staff are going to bother with me.  So, a little investigation is needed - Ah-Ha!

It seems that FaceBook is not alone.  Instagram is toast, as is WhatsApp, Messenger, and likely others that we aren't seeing here because they are big and important enough.

Downdetector

The Verge

What bothers me about all this is that these are major social media sites, and I would think they'd be able to protect themselves.  One site, maybe it's an inside job.  More than one is an attack, or in this case, a successful attack.  I wonder what else is down that we haven't heard of?

Happy Birthday!

I was born on Thursday, October 2^nd, 1952, at or around 5:30 AM.  I'm 69 years old, which is 25,203 days, and right now I can feel every single day of it.

I'm finally losing weight, which is nice, but I'm running out of energy.  I just don't have it.  I'm going to see if altering my diet somehow will help.

So, for my birthday, good old Migraine One called.  She's still in California (give thanks for that little detail), and she's still married, and now she's back living with her husband again.  I don't know how long the Titanic will float, but hope springs eternal.  Or something.  Anyway, she wished me a happy birthday, then dumped her train wreck of a life all over my floor.  Evidently her health problems are getting worse, leaving her bed ridden for the past three days.  She says she has fibromyalgia, which is a disease that is commonly treated with pills and wine.  Reading up on fibromyalgia syndrome, I discovered that it's a condition of the brain, which causes the brain to amplify pain from other sources.  So, for instance, when you're on your way to the can to take your two o'clock piss and step on a Lego in your bare feet, instead of just swearing and maybe turning on the light, you'd hit the deck and roll back and forth until the agony goes away.  About 1 in 25 people worldwide have fibromyalgia, but women are ten times more likely to get it than men.  I'm thinking this has something to do with sanity, but I may be wrong.

I went to the range today with Big Mike and California Dave.  I did pretty well, all things considered.  I got a chance to test fire my Ruger LCP II, and it really shoots nicely.  I was able to hit stuff with it, and turned in a respectable group.  Big Mike shot his M1, which I wrote about here.  The rifle shoots as good as it looks, and that's saying something.

Later on tonight we're headed out to a four star restaurant for dinner.  I may do a little restaurant review on the place.

My thanks to all of you for reading, and a hoist of the evening bourbon glass and a tip of the old fedora to anyone leaving a comment that says something more than Happy Birthday!

Cultural Diversity in My Neighborhood

Yesterday we made plans to go to the range today, and since the range opens at 9:00 AM and it's a 45 minute drive to the range from Big Mike's house, and it's a half hour drive from my place to Big Mike's, that means that yours truly had to drag his ragged ass out of bed at the unholy hour of 7:00 AM.

Here's what I saw on my way out.

The following pictures and commentary will be offensive to some, but not to others.  Tolerance is a feature that I don't enjoy.  Read at your own risk.  Trigger warning - and I'm not talking about Roy Rogers horse.   

Guess Who's Back?

No lie.  I wrote about him in Neighbor Problems Part LXXII.IX , and after a short vacation in the Happy House, he's back.

Olivia Kurtz: Reward for Information

I wrote about the death of Olivia Kurtz here, and haven't heard a thing since.  Now Columbus has the FBI involved, and the CPD has managed to retrieve the video from the local security cameras around the site of the shooting, and the FBI is offering $25,000 to anyone who can help solve this crime.

From NBC news:

FBI offering $25,000 reward in shooting death of teen at Bicentennial Park

According to police, on May 22, Olivia Kurtz, 16, was shot during a private event that was promoted on social media at the amphitheater along the Scioto Mile. The shooting also left multiple other teens injured.

Police said the event did not have a permit from the city and that the park was closed at the time of the shooting.

From another news story here, we learn that multiple calls to 9-1-1 regarding excessive noise are ignored.

The rest of the news amounts to the same thing.  The cops don't have a clue, which is not surprising and which I'm not finding any fault with.  Sure, someone, someplace, saw something, but if that someone hasn't snatched up a phone and put in for the twenty-five large by now, it ain't happenin'.  My hard spot with the whole business is this.

The park, Bicentennial Park, was closed.  No events were scheduled, and the park hadn't been rented by anyone.  Complaints about the noise and the antics of an increasing number of unsupervised youth were increasing, along with (I'll presume) the vitriol delivered along with the complaint.

The police said they couldn't do a damn' thing about it, and that just isn't true.  Had the cops applied a healthy dose of good old fashioned police work starting at 6:00 PM, the shooting wouldn't have happened.  Olivia Kurtz, who really was an honor student, would very likely still be alive.

I blame the top brass of the CPD, the incompetent mayor of Columbus, Ohio, and the fatheads that staff the Columbus City Council.  While I'm at it, I'll blame the city manager as well, but mainly I blame the mayor and the CPD top brass.  If you people, and I mean that in an offensive, derogatory fashion, had done your job the way it should be done, this wouldn't have happened.  Now all you've got is a wish in one hand and hopes of a fraudulently stuffed ballot box in the other.

Shots Fired!

It was only a matter of time.

I live in the south-east corner of Columbus, Ohio, adjacent to a minor thoroughfare provincially named Machine Gun Alley.  From time to time I hear shots fired, and on New Years' Eve, promptly at midnight, the locals cut loose with a volley that sounded like the opening salvo for Civil War Two, or the War of Moonbat Agression.  I've also written about The Midnight Shooter, who I haven't heard from in a while.  I hope he's okay.

I'm digressing.  Continue as it amuses you to do so, with the usual warnings about politically insensitive opinions, facts, and racial stereotypes.