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.

Neighbor Problems - Part LXXII.IX

Stumbling into something resembling consciousness, I cleared the delirium from whatever passes for my mind these days and by luck rather than skill, found my way to my kitchenette.  I put the go-go juice together and set the coffee pot to percolating, then bravely look out the window to check on the weather and other things.  Maybe I've been transported to an alternate reality or something.

Wellnow, would you just look at this?

Neighbor Problems - Part LXXII

 Those of you who pay attention, read this hound on a semi-regular basis, and haven't had their memory completely altered by booze and fast women may remember that in my little slice of Heaven lives a neighbor who is, charitably speaking, sub-par for the area.

I wrote about him in Neighbor Problems. Well, a few days back the mischievous little Caliban got his dick in a wringer, and I think he's been relocated.

Keep reading to see what happened.

Cost of an Illness

I'm sick.  I fell like six feet of worn out carpet.  And no, I don't think that it's the C word.

I tried for an appointment with my favorite witch doctor, and was asked if I'd be satisfied with a telephone visit.  Sure, why not?

At the appointed hour Dr. Muay calls me and tells me I sound sick.  Well, really now.  I bite off a somewhat pithy rejoinder (after all, Dr. Muay is actually a good sort, and he's trying to help me) and tell him what's wrong, which is mainly a sore throat which showed up the day after I had my root canal.

Anyone got $1,500 they don't need or want?  If so, send it to me.  Note that I'm not bothering to list my mailing address - I know you bums too well.

Along with the sore throat I'm having trouble swallowing.  When I try and eat something, a portion of the thoroughly masticated content gets diverted into my nasal cavity, where it resides until I choke it out and down the hatch.  Try that with BW3 hot wings and see what happens.  By the time I spoke with Dr. Muay, I was on a liquid only diet.  This isn't as bad as it seems, as I have protein powder, a stick blender, and the ingredients for a milkshake.

But I still can't swallow anything remotely solid.  Added to that is the fact that I'm one of those people with a heightened gag reflex (one reason I'd make a lousy faggot) and I have a great deal of trouble taking pills.  Part of this is mental - I have a foreign substance in my mouth that isn't food and should not be taken internally - and part physical (gag reflex).

Dr. Muay nixes the C Amoxicillin 500 MG tablets that my endodontist prescribed, and calls in a prescription for Amoxicillin and Clavulanate Potassium Tablets, USP, 875mg / 125mg.  My drug dispensary of choice got busted last week, so I use my alternate: Walgreens.  I give it an hour, and Walgreens Pharmacy admits to having my prescription ready.  Well, hot damn.

Now keep in mind that I have trouble taking pills anyway, and right now it's impossible for me to reliably swallow anything except a liquid.  So I pick it up.  And...

Edited: Doctor calls out CDC and school board at school board meeting with truth!

Repeat after me: The government would never lie to me, a mere civilian, about something as important as a vaccination for the killer disease severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), AKA COVID-19.

Then I made the mistake of listening to this man, who is a medical doctor and has been to school and stuff.

Read at your own risk.  The author of this blog is not responsible and is a known opinionated something-ist who likes fast cars and faster women.

Note: The social media site hosting the video has shut it down for reasons best known to any intelligent person over the age of four.  I'm posting a link to a page that offers superior coverage of the speech and story.

Dr. Dan Stock's Presentation to the Mt. Vernon School Board in Indiana Over The Futility of Mask Mandates and Covid-19 Protocols 

Bucolic Independence Day

 I drove up to Wisconsin to visit old Shotgun Bob over the fourth.  His family lives a bit off the beaten path, as do the rest of the people in Rice Lake (Pop. 8,419).  I found it relaxing.

We went to two fireworks displays, one in Rice Lake, another in nearby Shell Lake (Pop. 1,300).  The people were nice and courteous to each other.  Children didn't tear around shrieking and screaming.  Likewise the adults kept their conversations to themselves.  Pedestrians and traffic mixed easily.

Rice Lake

Shell Lake

You know what I didn't see?