Heat wave

Thank you Jesus, it wasn't 10 degrees tonight when I took Jeb the Wonder Dog for his  walk. It was 12. Naturally, I took off all my clothes to bask in the warmth. Or not.

10

Not talking about the Dudley Moore movie in the late '70s-early '80s. Talking about the temperature when I took Jeb the Wonder Dog out tonight after I got home from work. Maryland isn't supposed to be this cold. Neither is my face.

Merry Christmas, y'all

Hope Christmas is good to you. But remember:

An oldie but goody.

Once again, socialism just isn't being done by the right people

Recently, Standard & Poor's declared Venezuela to be in default on some of it's bond debt. I don't know how many failures of socialism it will take to convince people that socialism doesn't fucking work:

Venezuela, a nation spiraling into a humanitarian crisis, has missed a debt payment. It could soon face grim consequences.
The South American country defaulted on its debt, according to a statement issued Monday night by S&P Global Ratings. The agency said the 30-day grace period had expired for a payment that was due in October.
A debt default risks setting off a dangerous series of events that could exacerbate Venezuela's food and medical shortages.

We keep hearing from leftists that socialism -- or, from the more extreme leftists, communism -- would work if only it was implemented by the right people. Well, who you gonna believe, them or your lying eyes?

Venezuela used to be the wealthiest country in South America. Now it is a basket case. Early in the 20th Century, Argentina was one of the ten wealthiest nations in the world. Socialist (and Nazi sympathizer) Juan Peron came to power right after World War II, turned the country socialist, and Boom! The country has been an economic train wreck ever since. Figure in every other socialist or communist country in the history of man, an what you have is a litany of failed nations. Yes, some still stand -- I'm looking at you, Europe -- but the economic burden is not sustainable. The most socialist nations in Europe -- such as the PIGS, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain -- are rapidly failing. The rest, except for Germany, are not far behind. Anybody want to move to Cuba? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Leftists apparently have no logical basis for any of their positions

I'm not sure how else you can explain this liberal opposition to the use of eminent domain to obtain the land necessary to build President Donald Trump's proposed wall along the border with Mexico. Suddenly, we have liberals arguing in favor of restriction on the power of the federal government. This is not something you see very often. Or, like, ever.

These are the same people who are going batshit crazy over Trump's executive order reversing former President Barack Obama's unilateral decision to designate a fuckload of land in Utah as national monuments. They were totally OK with their guy taking a bunch of land from states and private land owners for no fucking reason, but now have their panties in a wad about potentially taking a much smaller amount of land from states and private landowners to help keep people from entering the country illegally.

The only thing I have to say to these people is, hmmm, how about you suck it.

The Marines are going to Germany

I found this pretty interesting. Apparently, a meaningful number of young Americans living in Germany -- most, I would assume, are the children of Air Force and Army personnel stationed there, as there are pretty much no Marine personnel in Europe -- tr to enlist in the Marines. Previously, they have had to go to the U.S. to do so. No longer, though, as the Marines are opening a recruiting office in Germany:

For Americans living in Germany, it’s about to get a lot easier to join the Marine Corps.
Starting on Feb. 15, the Marine Corps will operate a recruiting substation at Kleber Kaserne, a U.S. Army base in Kaiserslautern, Germany, said Gunnery Sgt. Christopher Nieves, who is assigned to the facility.
A Marine stationed in Germany had suggested opening a recruiting facility because Americans were returning to the U.S. to enlist in the Corps, Nieves told Marine Corps Times on Thursday.

Sounds good to me. We need the Marines, and making it easier to enlist, wherever you are, is a good thing.

Remember Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy. Don't forget.  More than 2,400 soldiers, sailors, Marines, and civilians dies that day -- almost half of them on the battleship USS Arizona, which sank in minutes early in the attack:

The Arizona is the only ship that sank during the attack that remains on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. A memorial to the hundreds of sailors and Marines who died on the Arizona and remain insider her is a major tourist attraction there. I used to go fishing at the nearby docks on Ford Island:

I doubt the public schools teach much about that day anymore.

Oh, how I miss anonymity

Pretty much anybody who wants to know who writes this blog already knows. Mostly, I don't care. Actually, always I don't care. Every now and then, though, it leads to interesting situations.

For instance, today, I was at work and a guy I know came up to me. This is, of course, the same project I was on last year at this time, and this guy was in my room. He's a good dude. But he kind of threw me off today -- he saw me and said, "Am I Wolfman Jack?"

For those of you who haven't been paying attention, Wolfman Jack was first mentioned here, and most recently was mentioned here, as he also has returned to this project. Fortunately, I was able to resassure him that he definitely was not Wolfman Jack. The conversation went something like this:

Him: Am I Wolfman Jack?
Me: Oh, God, no. You are nowhere near hirsute enough to be Wolfman Jack.

I then took him on a quick detour to point out Wolfman Jack. He realized he did not come close to qualifying, and then this exchange took place:

Him: Oh, I know him. He's a nice guy.
Me: Doesn't matter. He could be the nicest guy in the world. The nicknames are based on how people look. He's Wolfman Jack.

And he went back to his workstation, happy that he wasn't Wolfman Jack. Even though Wolfman Jack was, of course, one handsome devil:

And one hell of a disc jockey in his day.

Tell me again why I should get a flu shot

Like most things government-run, the flu shot sucks. It always has, which is part of why I never get one -- and I never get the flu -- but apparently this year is really bad, as far as flu-shot-suckiness goes:

A new study shows Australia experienced an increase in influenza-related hospitalizations and deaths over the winter compared to last year. The research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests the vaccine in Australia had a success rate of just 10 percent.
Officials in the United States and elsewhere worry such numbers suggest the Northern Hemisphere could be primed for a similarly bad flu season. That could spell trouble should this year's flu vaccine prove as ineffective as last year's.
The same vaccine that was deployed in Australia is being used in the United States.

Yeah, that sounds like success to me. The sad part is, the flu vaccine pretty much always sucks. This year, apparently, it just sucks worse. I don't know why people bother. Just ask yourself -- does the government ever do anything else right? So why should the flu vaccine be different?

You don't post, they don't come

I have been extremely busy lately, working, not working, and working on finding a way out of Temp Town. I have been doing a fair amount of freelance writing. Alas, this generally is not lucrative enough to give up temping, but I am working on that angle. All of this adds up to me not posting very much. My posts-per-month numbers lately have looked a lot like the numbers from the beginning of the blog -- really fucking low.

Not surprisingly, low numbers of posts equals low numbers of visitors. My traffic numbers likewise are down to the level of those seen in the early days of the blog.

Well, fuck that. Have a holly, jolly Christmas, bitches, because December numbers are going up. I am on a heavy overtime project, and I am doing a bunch of freelance writing, and I don't care if I ever sleep again. Posts are coming. Deal with it.

It's like deja vu all over again

About a year ago, I started a project that was as good for blog material as I've had in many a year. Unfortunately, I had to lay off because there was someone on the project who was trying to get me fired for blogging about the project. I think that risk is gone this time, as the project has, phoenix-like, come back from the dead. Same stuff, same case, just a different time. So here we are, seeing a lot of familiar faces. Doc Brown is here:

As is Wolfman Jack:

Alas, many of my favorites from last year are not here. On the other hand, the agency added a bunch of people today, so maybe some more oldies but goodies will be back. Certainly the same wonderful emails are back. But more on that later. It's just like old times, blogging about Temp Town again!

RIP, Malcolm Young

Time marches on, I guess -- Malcolm Young, the rhythm guitar player and co-founder of iconic Australian rock bank AC/DC, died today. He was only 64. He and his younger brother, Angus, the band's lead guitarist, founded the band in 1972. Their producer and older brother, George Young, died in October at age 70. George gained his own measure of fame with The Easybeats, who scored a hit in the 1960s with "Friday on My Mind."

I always thought Malcolm, playing rhythm, must be the most bored guitar player in history, as AC/DC was often accused of using the same three chords and always sounding the same. Maybe so, but Angus was famously quoted as answering the question, "Why do you always use the same three chords?" with, "Because they work." I'm not sure he ever actually said it -- I feel like it would have been here if he had -- but the band was proud of keeping it simple. And it worked. Malcolm was a big part of that.

I don't know if his death means the end of AC/DC. I hope not. But rock on, Malcolm, whereever you are.

This one's for George:

George was the rhythm guitar player.

And this one's for Malcolm:

Yeah, you barely see him. Damn, they were young. Almost everyone in the video is dead now.

Mattis apparently does this kind of thing a lot

There is a famous story, apparently true, told about Marine Gen. James Mattis, the current Secretary of Defense, who as a brigadier general stood watch as officer of the day at Quantico Marine Corps Base so that a junior officer scheduled to stand the watch could be with his family on Christmas. The story is "apparently true" because it is told by Marine Gen. Charles Krulak, former commandant of the Marine Corps, who, when he was commandant, used to deliver Christmas cookies to Marine units based in the Washington, D.C., area. Read Krulak's story, because it says a lot about Mattis.

So does this story, from just a couple days ago. Apparently an Army veteran went to Arlington Cemetery to visit the graves of a pair of his fallen comrades. He saw someone there he recognized. I can't even begin to tell the story, so I won't. Go to the link. Between that and Krulak's story, you'll realize why every Marine who knows anything about Gen. Mattis would launch an assault on Hell for him tomorrow so long as he would lead the attack. And he would. No surprise he had to retire under the Obama administration. Warriors didn't do well in the military in those days.

I guess this is a milestone

I'd feel better about it if I were posting more and driving the kind of traffic I used to, but Eff You passed 200,000 visitors sometime yesterday. Obviously, this is a low-traffic blog in the best of times, but still. Thanks for coming by, and I'll try to do better about posting. Tough times here at Chez Wolves, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I think it's neon and says "Budweiser."

Andorra came by again. That reminds me . . .

Yo, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, what's the hold-up? Come on by.

I didn't forget the Marine Corps' birthday

With Cpl. Wolves out of the Marines, I struggled with whether I should still put up a birthday post for the Corps. I didn't yesterday, but I decided that as a child of the Corps, I should acknowledge the anniversary. Happy belated birthday, Marines:

I guess it was just a matter of time

Big Mouth Billy Bass was a thing about 25 years ago, with a fake fish singing stupid songs. Somebody figured out how to update Big Mouth Billy. The past meets the future in this magnificent melding of technologies:



Shit like this really happens, I guess.

The Marines are looking for a Truck-Mounted Rocket Launcher that fits in an Osprey

Well, no shit, Sherlock. So am I.

The Marine Corps is on the hunt for an uber-compact rocket launcher system capable of raining down suppressive fire on the enemy, then flying away in a V-22 Osprey or CH-53K King Stallion.
As the Corps prepares for a future fight in which units operate with greater independence and at greater distances apart, portability and power are at a premium.

Ever since I was 7 years old and made a mortar out of tennis ball cans with my older brother, I have been looking to up my firepower and its portability. Since I don't have an Osprey, though, I want something that fits in a Honda Accord.

You want more Trump?

This is how you get more Trump.

People of faith don't think prayers are a magic spell against evil. Saying that people praying is a waste of time might seem like a good talking point to a party that believes government action cures all ills, but boy, howdy, are they wrong.

Feminist meets facts. Hilarity ensues

It's a little long -- about 15 minutes. Worth it.



What, two sides? Huh.

I don't do this very often

In fact, I'm not sure I've ever done this, but I am too lazy to check. I am elevating a haiku from the comments. This was in response to my weather haiku. Because I am lazy, I am not providing a link. On the upside, I have posted so infrequently this month, it shouldn't be hard to find. Here is the haiku, from Anonymous:

Falling rain all day
will it continue tonight?
A yearning for snow

That's what I'm talking about.

While we're riding the haiku train . . .

. . . how about an unemployment haiku?

Five weeks out of work
Finally got a new gig
Probably won't last.

Started a new gig Tuesday after striking out on I lost count of how many jobs. Might last three weeks, maybe longer. The job I had lined up to start five weeks ago, after being postponed repeatedly for a week at a time, got postponed again to "maybe sometime before you die." Or maybe not. We'll see how this goes.

Weather haiku

Haven't had a haiku of any kind in a while, so I figured it was time:

Ice on my windshield.
80 just the other day.
Weather is fucked up.

Hard to believe I'm not Japanese.

Thank God we have references like this to steer us in the right direction

I don't know how we could ever put on a Halloween costume without advice from college students. This flow chart, thank God, provides us the help we need:

Don't know what I'd do without them. Apparently anything criticizing President Trump is OK and pretty much everything else is racist. If you open the image in a new tab, you can enlarge it so you can truly absorb the wisdom contained therein.

Hat tip to Campus Reform via Instapundit.

I should think carefully about what I post about

The other day I posted about my love for Key Lime Pie Filled Twizzlers, and my sadness that I had given my last package to Cpl. Wolves. Today, what should appear on my doorstep but a package, addressed to me, from someplace I had never heard of. I knew I hadn't ordered anything. What should I find inside but four packages of Key Lime Pie Filled Twizzlers. To the reader who sent them, thank you. And what Cpl. Wolves doesn't know won't hurt him. These are mine.

What the fuck is wrong with California?

Everything, pretty much, but they keep making things worse. Having decided that they don't need no stinking immigration laws, they also have decided that you will be made to care, under penalty of law. Specifically, if you don't call transgender people by the pronoun that those people choose, you will be punished:

California health care workers who “willfully and repeatedly” decline to use a senior transgender patient's “preferred name or pronouns” could face punishments ranging from a fine to jail time under a newly signed law.
...
Among the unlawful actions are “willfully and repeatedly” failing to use a transgender person’s “preferred name or pronouns” after he or she is “clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.”
The law states that if provisions are violated, the violator could be punished by a fine “not to exceed one thousand dollars” or “by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed one year,” or both.

If you don't think California will extend such punishments to everyone eventually, you haven't been paying attention to California lately. If the preferred pronoun is xi, xe, xis or whatever, you better fucking use it if you work in a nursing home. And soon, no doubt, it will be in every workplace. That's how California rolls. Do they care if the First Amendment bars the government from dictating what people say or don't say? Oh, hell no. First Amendment? We don't need no stinking First Amendment:

Get used to it, kids. That's how California rolls.

I've found a new obsession

Back in April, I stumbled across a package of Twizzlers in a store -- I still can't remember which one, but I think it was Target. They were Key Lime Pie-Filled Twizzlers. I bought a package, and ate them. They were really fucking good. I told Cpl. Wolves about them. He was unable to find any. In May, we went to Florida to visit Maj. Wolves, and failed to locate any there. Subsequently, I ordered six packages from some place online.

I was given to understand that they were a limited time issue. When they arrived, I gave three of the packages to Cpl. Wolves, who devoured them, probably by the time he arrived home. I hoarded mine, eating them slowly. Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fucking good. Finally, I was down to one package. Cpl. Wolves came over a week ago, and since we hadn't seen him in a while, I gave him my last package of Key Lime Pie-Filled Twizzlers.

Sometimes, I wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. He's only my son, after all, and I gave up my last package of Key Lime Pie-Filled Twizzlers. I need to get my head examined. I'm obsessed with these things, and I gave them away. Obsession, you say:

OK, not that kind of obsession, but still.

Mmmmmm, key lime cheesecake

Mrs. Wolves found a recipe for key lime cheesecake that I just had to try. Glad I did. You start with a cup of graham crackers (about nine) ground up into crumbs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 5 tablespoons of melted butter, 1/3 cup of lime juice, 1/2 cup of heavy cream, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 16 ounces of cream cheese, softened, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and six limes. The limes should provide the juice, zest and lime slices.

So first we make the crust. Turn the graham crackers into crumbs in a blender, add the sugar and salt:

Soften the cream cheese in a separate bowl:

Melt the butter:

Mix the butter with the crumbs mixture:

Spray some cooking spray into a 9-inch springform pan:

Spread the graham cracker crumbs evenly across the bottom of the pan:

Put the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes so it will set. Meanwhile, add the sweetened condensed milk to the cream cheese:

Squeeze enough limes to get 1/3 cup of juice:

Like this:

Add that to the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk:

Beat the shit out of that stuff:

No, seriously. Beat the shit out of it:

 Take the whipping cream and beat it:

Looks beat to me:

Mix the whipped cream into the beaten cream cheese:

Pour the mixture over the chilled crust, cover with plastic film and refrigerate for at least 12 hours. At this point, you will pretend that I didn't forget to take a picture of the finished product and you will enjoy the fuck out of a delicious cheesecake. No, seriously. Just do that.

Yeah, game food porn

I cannot believe it took me this long to get up the game food porn from LAST Sunday, when we beat the Bengals in overtime. It did, though. I guess I'll get to the game food porn from Thursday night, when we beat the living fuck out of the Bears, later. As it is. Last Sunday, we had, of course, stuffed potato skins:

We also had bacon-cheeseburger macaroni and cheese, which is really, really good:

We also had brown sugar bacon dogs:

Oh, my word, good stuff. Not for your heart, mind you, but mighty tasty. The recipes, of course, can be found by searching the blog. You should. Your stomach, if not your heart, will thank you.

Just watched the National Anthem at the start of the Packers-Bears game

Despite all the talk by Packers' players for everyone in the crowd to link arms in a show of "unity" -- nobody said unity with what -- I didn't see anybody in the crowd linking arms. Lord knows the cameras would have found them. I saw a lot of people with their hands over their hearts, and more than a few, presumably veterans, saluting. The NFL is losing this battle over the National Anthem by siding with the losers who started this shit of taking a knee during the anthem. Everybody knows Colin Kaepernick is protesting that the U.S. is an oppressive country -- he said so. Supporting him supports that concept. Is that what we support? Not me, and not most people, certainly not most people who watch the NFL. No wonder ratings are down.

Does this bag make my butt look big?

All of the kit-tays seem to love getting into bags, boxes and whatnot. Getting into bags, though, often leaves them with a dilemma. Like, how to get out:

Sometimes they look for assistance, such as Mischief seems to be doing here:

Now I think she's begging:

Yeah, we helped her get loose from the bag.

Hard to beat a good stretch in the sun

No, really:

Kit-tays know how to live.

Seriously, this does not surprise me

I don't know how many of you watch "Game of Thrones" on HBO. All you need to know, really, is that Cersei Lannister is one nasty-ass, duplicitous, evil bitch. And that's being kind.

Naturally, Hillary Clinton in her blame-everybody-but-me book about the election, "What Happened," identifies with good old Cersei:

It comes as little surprise Clinton identifies with the mad queen. In What Happened, her new book about losing the presidential election to Donald Trump, Clinton writes:

Crowds at Trump rallies called for my imprisonment more times than I can count. They shouted, 'Guilty! Guilty!' like the religious zealots in Game of Thrones chanting 'Shame! Shame!' while Cersei Lannister walked back to the Red Keep."

 Has she ever watched the show? Apparently not. Cersei never accepts her own responsbility for her failures either.

This bag feels so good

Never tried one around your neck? Perhaps you should.

You can't see her. Seriously

Pretty sure she believes it, anyway. Don't you?

Even when you can't tell what the hell they're doing

Them kitties are cute, even when it's not clear what is going on:

Behind the blinds, I'm not even sure what they're up to. Shadow boxing? I don't know:

But they're doing it, it's cute, and Mrs. Wolves takes pictures of it. So deal with it.

All they do is cute

Fighting, resting, getting into bags and boxes, you can't beat the sisters for cute:

Go ahead. Try.

In case you're keeping track

Poland is no longer No. 10 on the all-time visitors' list. No, they didn't surrender the spot to the U.K. or Latvia, who played takeaway for so long with the slot before the Poles decided to kick both of those nations out of the Top 10. No, Sweden is back in the Top 10 at No. 10. Poland has moved up to No. 7. Too lazy to figure out who got booted in favor of Sweden, but Poland is kicking it! Denmark continues to overperform at No. 4.

Christmas is coming, after all

Which means you should probably look into this purchase.

In case you didn't know this . . .

Whipped cream that you actually whip from heavy cream will maintain form for days. Whipped cream that you dispense from a canister will be flat by morning. Interesting.

Back to The Farm, strictly harvest edition

Went to The Farm a couple days ago, just to do some harvesting. No weeding, no nothing else. Just harvesting. Got bell peppers, which have done well. The hot peppers, not so much:

Got some more of the last-crop beans, which continue to produce well:

Paltry hot-pepper crop. Too much rain in July, too cool in August:

This is practically our entire tomato crop this year. Partly weather, but mostly no weeding. They just got choked out:

As it has all year, the Swiss chard continues to produce in spades:

The okra also continues to produce at rates that pretty much exceed anyone's ability to consume okra:

Fall crops are in, so we'll see how they do. The fall corn is coming along OK, and we have lots of other stuff in as well. We'll see how it goes.

I really need to post more often, Farm edition

About 10 days ago, I was at The Farm to check on things and harvest stuff. The corn that Farmer Tom finally let me plant looks good:

e have some broccoli in the ground now that should be ready about Halloween:

The second-crop peas I planted are coming in:

We also have brussels sprouts in the ground:

Swiss chard continues to produce, against all odds:

The final crop of beans also is putting out produce:

I harvested some cucumbers, tomatoes and okra:

Also turnips:

Got some carrots:

A little Swiss chard:

Some beans:

Some peppers:

All in all, not a horrible day. We have a number of crops that performed extremely poorly, but we've had some successes, too. I prefer to dwell on the positive and correct the deficiencies next season.