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.

What was yesterday? Fucking game day, people!

Fuck a bunch of Thursday night Patriots losing to the Chiefs bullshit -- I guess 19-0 is no longer a discussion for the Patriots -- yesterday was the real start of the NFL season. From 1 p.m. Eastern Time until damn near midnight, it was wall-to-wall football. Smack dab in the middle of the schedule was the game between two top Super Bowl contenders from the NFC, Green Bay and Seattle. Unexpectedly, Green Bay won because of their defense, which sucked last year, at least against the pass. Improvements have been made.

I'm not sure improvements have been made to the game food, but I will say that the food served Sunday night was at least as good as anything served last year. Top notch, people. Married Into Wolves came by to see the game, while Cpl. Wolves had to work. But we had great food regardless.

Because we pretty much always do, we had stuffed potato skins:

In recognition of the damn-near-dinner-time game, we had bacon-cheeseburger macaroni and cheese:

We also had brown-sugar bacon dogs to fill out the protein-heavy lineup:

I had considered doing onion rings, but decided not to for a variety of reasons, and time constraints prevented me from doing a veggie dip tray, which accounts for the lack of vegetable matter on the menu. Look, if you want a balanced, nutritious meal, quit fucking coming here. This is game food, damn it.

The Packers won, the food was good. Nice start to the season.

You don't see that very often

Just a couple days ago, I saw something that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. What could this be?

A hot chick on the back of a motorcycle. Seriously, how often does that happen?

I was thinking about The Rules today

The main rule I was thinking about was No. 3 -- every project ends tomorrow. Normally that is a caution to people who get too comfortable on a project that seems to be going for a long time, but I think that is literally true for me. Tomorrow is probably it. Maybe Thursday, which would be nice. Yeah, I'm looking for new stuff, but that's not the point. I have gathered together all of The Rules, which previously were apparently in at least three different places. So here are all The Rules for life in TempTown, at least as they now stand. Remember, The Rules expand. They never contract. Here is what we have now:

Rule No. 1: They're lying.
Rule No. 2: Take any overtime offered, because They will take it away.
Rule No. 3: Every project ends tomorrow.
Rule No. 4: At some point during every project, They will raise false hope.
First corollary to Rule No. 4: Probably repeatedly.
Second corollary to Rule No. 4: And your hopes will be dashed.
Third corollary to Rule No. 4: Mercilessly.
Which means that Rule No. 4 in full reads, At some point during every project, They will raise false hope, probably repeatedly, and your hopes will be dashed mercilessly. Got it?
Rule No. 5: Click slow, work long.
Rule No. 6: Remember, They're lying.
Rule No. 7: Do whatever you have to do to get a good seat. Your seat is all you have as a temp.
Corrollary to Rule No. 7: If your seat is where someone from the firm will notice you, it isn't a good seat.
Rule No. 8: The firms believe temps will steal the silver given half a chance and treat you accordingly.
Corrollary to Rule No. 8: Behavior by at least some temps largely justifies this belief.
Rule No. 9: Don't agonize over responsiveness calls. The document is or is not responsive -- you have a 50-50 chance of getting it right. If it might be responsive, put it in. Otherwise, put it out and move on. Low numbers are death.
Rule No. 10: Definitely don't agonize over privilege calls. If you think it might be privileged, mark it privileged. Nobody ever got fired for over-privving, but lots of people have been fired for letting a single privileged document get through.
No. 11: On every project there will be at least one person who looks like there is absolutely no way he does not have a freezer filled with the heads of young women.

I'm sure I will come up with more rules at some point, but I thought it was worthwhile to get all of them into a single post.

"1984" was supposed to be fiction, not a guidebook

Apparently, the left doesn't see it that way, as the leftiests of the left now want to criminalize calling transgender people by anything other than the pronoun they prefer:

A bill that passed the California state senate and is now moving through the Assembly could threaten jail time for anyone who refuses to use a transgender person’s preferred pronoun.
The law is currently limited in its effects to nursing homes and intermediate-care facilities, but if passed, those who “willfully and repeatedly” refuse “to use a transgender resident’s preferred name or pronouns” could be slapped with a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison, according to the California Heath and Safety code. The state senate passed the bill 26-12 at the end of May. Since then, the Assembly Judiciary committee recommended the bill unanimously and the General Assembly held its first hearing on the legislation Wednesday.

OK, It's California, but those are the same fucks who gave us, well, pretty much every bad idea in the 20th century. This is limited in scope, for the moment, but don't believe for one second that California won't try to apply this to everyone at all times. Don't worry about the constitutionality of state-mandated speech, heaven fucking forbid we fail to call mentally ill people what they want to be called. If I claim to be a penquin, everyone would call me crazy. If I claim to be a woman, everyone says, well, we have to respect his gender identity, despite all of the biological evidence that contradicts what I claim. Party of science my ass.

Hey, maybe I don't know shit, but I bet Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins does:

McHugh, the hospital’s chief of psychiatry from 1975 to 2001, still believes that being transgender is largely a psychological problem, not a biological phenomenon. And with the title of university distinguished service professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine, he continues to wield enormous influence in certain circles and is quoted frequently on gender issues in conservative media.
“I’m not against transgender people,” he said recently, stressing that he is “anxious they get the help they need.” But such help should be psychiatric rather than surgical, he maintains.

Almost no cases of "transgender" people involve actual biological problems, such as hermaphroditism or some other genetic misfire. They are almost all between the ears. Forcing me to call a person with mental health problems whatever that person wants me to call them is not government's place -- especially if that includes made-up words like xi and xer or whatever. That's why we have a First Amendment. I don't much give a fuck what they call themselves. But that doesn't mean I have to call them that. Don't like it? Refer to the title of the blog.

I have empirical proof that other countries don't mind the U.S. bombing them

Serbia came by today, and when I checked to see if that was the first visit from someone in Serbia, I found that it was at least the second. However, a comment I made in the post about our first visitor from Serbia got me wondering. How many countries that the United States has bombed are represented by visitors to Eff You? In the post, I limited it to the last 20 years, so I'll stick with that. Obviously, if we go back to 75 years, the numbers go way up and would include quite a few countries that, at least nominally, are now U.S. allies, although I have my doubts about Germany and France.

In any event, I decided to check. It's not that I am dead set against bombing other countries, mind you, I just wonder how many of those countries are nonetheless represented on the visitor's log of Eff You. So without actually doing any research, off the top of my head I drew up a list of countries the U.S. has bombed since, oh, 1997.

It's not a short list. It includes: Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria. Am I leaving anybody out? I think that covers it. We've probably dropped a few in countries we don't like to talk about. Maybe Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Mali, who knows where else. But we'll stick with those first eight.

So how many of those countries have had a resident drop by Eff You? All but Libya, where I'm not sure they even have internet connections. Anyway, I consider this empirical proof that 7 out of 8 countries bombed by the U.S. don't hold it against us. Doubt me? Fine, come up with your own empirical proof.

Traffic, odds, and ends

August traffic was pretty much mediocre at best, tending toward bad, but not awful, especially when you consider that I posted almost not at all during August. The fact that anyone visited is a testimony to the persistence of spambots seeking porn. They come to this site because I say "fuck" a lot. But I digress.

I have excuses, of course -- I have been working more than 60 hours a week since late July, impeding my ability to post simply by virtue of taking my time. I also have been doing a fair amount of freelance writing in the last six weeks, which might or might not give me an avenue out of Temp Town but certainly puts claims on my time. I have a small window when I get home, and I have to squeeze through that window freelancing, walking Jeb, canning vegetables (this time of year, anyway), domestic stuff and any number of other things that need or want doing on a given night. Blog posts tend to sink down the list of priorities. So I apologize for my lack of diligence in posting.

Naturally, given the fact that I have almost no time as it is, I am planning a venture that will make things worse. It is a different topic, and a different medium, and it won't happen tomorrow, but I am planning a new venture that I fervently hope will also grease the skids for my exit from Temp Town. More on that later.

Anyway, please keep coming by -- and yes, that includes you, Russian porn-seeking spambots -- because I appreciate it. Did I mention I might move the blog to another location? Yeah, more on that later, too.