To quote the great Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

They say that the internet is a place where the scummiest scum can have a voice.  If you need an example of the kind of garbage to which they refer just look at the president.  Today at lunch I had me a bit of a run in with a couple of similar folks over on reddit.

Today is British guitar god Jimmy Page’s birthday.  He’s 76 years old today.  There was a happy birthday post on r/guitar.

Now, I was as big a fan of Jimmy as anyone.  I, like the overwhelming majority of adolescent males in the United States during the 70’s and 80’s, was a Led Zeppelin fanatic.  He, along with fellow ex-Yardbirds guitarists Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, was a big part of my wanting to play the guitar.  He was on the official I-Have-To-See-Them-Before-They-Die guitar players list that I was ranting about all the time a few months ago.  I have seen him live once, back in… ’88? On the Outrider tour.

He is also one of those love the artist but be completely grossed out by the man types.  There are a lot of things about his personal life that are creepy and gross.  He may or may not worship satan, based on a ridiculous fascination with Aleister Crowley.  He is one of the most egregious copyright thieves in music history, having stolen musical ideas for seemingly countless other musicians.  Those are bad, but there is one thing in his past that is oh so much worse.

Back in the 70’s during the height of Led Zeppelin’s fame, Jimmy Page had a sexual relationship with a 14 year old girl.  He was in his 20’s.  Over the course of a few years, Jimmy was having a lot of sex with an underage girl.  There were never any legal repercussions, but if someone in his position pulled shit like that today they would be flayed alive (figuratively speaking).  Thus we come to the crux of the argument.

There was a small crowd of scumbags defending his actions.  One argument was really stupid, but just stupid.  The argument was (as you can likely guess) it was okay for him to commit statutory rape because everyone was doing it.  Yup.  People were actually pulling that out.

Worse than that was the one guy who argued that because Ms Maddox had reached an age of sexual maturity it was okay for a man nearly (if not literally) twice her age to have sex with her.  Someone was honestly saying that.  In the 21st century some piece of filth was arguing that because she was physically capable of having sex at the age of 14 then Jimbo was in the clear to fuck her as he pleased.  Everything was just hunky dory.

I got really mad.  Really mad.  I swore a lot.  Eventually I got fed up and blocked the pro-rape crowd.  I’m still really pissed off.

As the good Professor said, I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

Apparently my desk is now her desk.

I just made the mistake of looking out the window.  It’s snowing like the blizzard of ’78 out there.  It’s borderline white out.

What a perfect topper to the day, right?  Crud.

The cool new weather app I bought the other day, Dark Sky, says it will be stopping in the next 20 minutes or so.  I sure hope they’re right because I hate, hate, hate snow and I’d like to have a snow-free drive home tonight.  I do have a shiny new snow shovel at home though.  I’ll be sad not having my old pal the red shovel with the curved handle, but maybe the new yellow dude will be okay.  It better be.

Screw you, winter.

My wife woke up sick today.  She went in to work but she’s clearly caught herself a cold.  I wish there was something I could do to ease the symptoms at least, if not cure it all together.  I hate not being able to help.

So… war.  Our dog shit of a president assassinated a foreign national in a lame ass attempt to get CNN talking about something other than his impeachment and last night the victim’s government launched ballistic missiles at a US base.  I was already madder at that fuck hole than I’ve ever been at another human being, but now we have Americans at risk of death because he’s too fucking stupid to know not to do something stupid.  And don’t give me that bullshit that the guy deserved to die.  He did.  Absolutely, but this clearly had nothing to do with any of that asshole’s crimes and had everything to do with taking the heat off of the impeachment press.  If you think otherwise then you are completely fucking wrong.  Dead wrong.  Just read through cock knocker’s old tweets.  He literally spelled out everything he’s done this week in tweets posted prior to the 2012 election.

As mad as I am at president fuck head, I am almost equally as mad at the shit heels who voted for him.  This morning I was pumping gas and this idiot with a trump sticker on his pick up truck parked in two spaces.  I’ve never wanted to physically assault someone as much as I did at that moment.  I’ve never wanted to slash someone’s tires as much as I did at that moment.  I’ve never wanted to light some piece of dog shit on fire as much as I did at that moment.  I didn’t do anything though.  Part of me wishes I had.  Another part thinks I absolutely should have.

I’m really mad.  I am looking at our system in the hopes that it will correct this idiotic error, but I know it won’t.  I also know that come November this moron will be reelected.  Too many of my fellow Americans are too stupid not to vote for him.

I need to calm down.  Let me pause a minute and collect myself before changing the subject to something pointless.

I turned comments off for this post.  I don’t care and I don’t want to hear it.

The Bruins beat Nashville last night.  Pastrnak scored his 32nd goal.  That’s great.

I started watching The Witcher on Netflix the other night.  I can’t remember the last time I had so many people telling me I had to watch a show.  The peer pressure is out of this world (that’s sarcasm, but still…).  The first episode was pretty good.  I have no idea what’s going on but Superman is speaking with an English accent and lots of people got chopped up in gruesome fashion, so that’s good.  I’ve had a bunch of people tell me it’s a great show.  I’ve had a few people tell me it starts off with a bang and then gets stale.  Everyone agrees that the timeline is screwy and can be hard to follow.  We’ll see.  I think my interest in fantasy stories is running thin.  SciFi?  Sign me up!  Fantasy?  Meh.  I’ll stick with it though.  I need to be more invested by the time the Lord of the Rings show comes out.  No clue when or where, but I’m pretty sure it’s happening.

Speaking of television, I bought the second season of Star Trek Discovery from iTunes a few weeks ago and haven’t watched a second of it yet.  I also watched the first two episodes of the second season of You on Netflix.  I was optimistic that it wouldn’t be just a rehash of season one (and I am still PISSED at how season one ended) but two episodes in my optimism is fading fast.  It feels like the same story all over again just with Los Angeles as the setting instead of New York.  Meh.

The RPM Challenge is 23 days and 10 hours away.  Are you ready?  I’m thinking of stereo amps again.  The 15 watt Fender Bassbreaker paired with the 18 watt channel of the Bassbreaker 18/30.  We’ll see.  I’d have to bring the 18/30 home from Mike’s house to do that though.  When’s the next band practice?  Oh yeah, someone mentioned trying to book a gig at the end of January or the start of February.  No clue if that’s happened or not.  I should find out.

We didn’t go to the gym yesterday.  We likely will not go tonight either.  There is a reason for all of this but I’m failing big time.  I also had junk for breakfast today.  What is wrong with me?

I had a haircut back in November that was the worst haircut I’ve had in my adult life.  There was one time when I was in elementary school where my mother tried to cut my hair herself and used scotch tape as a guide on my bangs and must have goofed somehow because I looked like I was wearing a world war 1 era German helmet.  That is still the worst haircut I’ve ever had, but this last one is by far the worst one as an adult.  I went to Super Cuts.  I got what I paid for.  The woman is probably perfectly good at her job, but she butchered me.  My hair is now long enough to be in my eyes.  I need another haircut.  The time has come again, but I am frankly afraid.  I don’t want someone to hack me to pieces again.  I got the last one at a different branch than I usually go to, so there is literally nothing to be afraid of… but I’m still afraid.  Come on, fat boy.  Grow up.

I don’t remember why, but I was thinking about Radio City Music Hall recently.  There was a rumor that Rush was going to play there back in 2012 or 2013 or something and I was hoping we could go.  I wanted that to be my first show at Radio City.  Well obviously that never happened.  It got me wondering if any interesting shows were scheduled there in the near future.  I Googled “radio city music hall schedule” and the list that returned instantly made me forget all about Radio City.  It turns out Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is playing on Broadway this month.  Well now, boys and girls, there is something that might be worth a four hour drive to the South, am I right?  The show is so long that it is actually broken into two parts with separate admissions.  They are selling tickets for both halves on the same day though.  Part one and two are both showing on Saturdays and Sundays.  Very interesting.  Clearly we aren’t going to see it, but it’s still interesting in a wish list, wouldn’t it be nice kinda fantasy way.

My current commuting audio book is Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King.  I’m about half way though and it’s good so far, but I have zero clue where it’s going.  That’s not a bad thing.  Today at a little before 8:00 AM one of the characters was wandering around a friend’s house unsupervised.  There was mention of looking at a jukebox but being disappointed because it only held jam bands.  The character mentioned something about not wanting to listen to “Casey Jones.”  The instant that title came out of the narrator’s mouth my tiny little brain went into a an endless loop of, “driving that train/high on cocaine/Casey Jones you better/watch your speed” and it hasn’t ended yet.  Six hours later and that little hook is still running on it’s endless, endless, eternally endless loop in my brain.

To do list for after work tonight:

• Take care of my sick wife
• Possibly make dinner for my wife and the kids
• Walk on a treadmill, even if it’s just for 10 minutes.  Even if it’s just for five minutes.
• Play my guitar.  It doesn’t matter which one, or what you play, just play.

Thank you.  Good night.

Driving that train, high on….

Hello and welcome to today’s edition of Lunch Break Blog Post.

I’m a little bit pissed off right now and I don’t know if I should be pissed off at myself or at my iPhone.  Today is the 129th day of my current photo-a-day stupidity.  I had a meeting in a different building this morning so I had to drive there and back.  On the way back I saw something worthy of being today’s entry.  I was stopped at a light so I pulled out my trusty (takes a deep breath because this name is really long) iPhone 11 Pro Max (exhales) and snapped a pic…

…and it didn’t save.

But I don’t know, did it not save or did it not take the picture when I pushed the shutter button?  I can’t be sure.  It’s probably my fault.  My fingernails are a tad on the unruly side and I probably tapped the button with more nail than finger and it just didn’t trigger.  I don’t want to blame myself though, I want to blame someone else.  I want to blame my (deep breath) iPhone 11 Pro Max (exhale).

Last night my wife and I planned to go to the gym.  We did not go.  I mentioned (very briefly) in a post yesterday that my Sunday night’s sleep was really bad.  Jen’s was bad too.  We were both dead on our feet by the time we got home from work and were just too tired to walk on a treadmill.  We might go tonight.  I’ve done quite a bit of extra walking already, what with the morning traveling and all, but if she wants to go then I want to go with her.

At work we had a bit of a win this morning.  Yesterday there was a big scary.  All sorts of urgent, possible showstopper.  One of my staff members kicked ass all day and found the problem.  Together we found a fix.  He moved it out today.  Testing complete, issue resolved.  Life is good.  Just like Charlie Sheen we’re winning (well… maybe not just like Charlie Sheen, what with all the crazy and all).

I’m a little ashamed of myself.  I just had to Google the HTML underline tag.  Maybe I’m not winning at all.

It just dawned on me that I didn’t play my guitar once during the entire month of December.  Okay, now I’m depressed.  I Googled underline and I went a month without playing.

Rats.

On Friday I posted a to-do list for myself for the weekend and I did almost everything!  Amazing!  The only thing I missed was the most important one.  Oh well.

Take down the Christmas tree.  Done.  We’ll be sweeping up pine needles for decades to come.

Put away the Christmas decorations.  Done.  I didn’t count the lights on the house, and those are still up.  There is also a big plastic Santa in the driveway that needs to be put away.  Otherwise we got it all.

Reorganize the living room.  Done.  Ish.  There are still a few things we want to do, but we are very happy with it right now.  See the 10000 pictures I posted on Saturday.

Replace the heroic snow shovel.  Done.  I got the tallest one I could find at Lowes.

Replace the fluorescent light bulbs.  Done, but it’s still an issue.  The bulb in the kitchen was definitely burned out, but the replacement doesn’t work.  It flickered for a second or two and then nothing.  Similar results in the cellar.  Two new bulbs in the back of the room worked great.  Two new bulbs next to the stairs come on, but they just flicker dimly.  There is definitely power going to the two lights that are still not working so it’s something else.  I might need an electrician.

See Star Wars again.  Done.  I stuck with Diet Coke though.

Go to Weight Watchers and Planet Fitness… ummm… Did I mention we took down the tree?

Remember that last post about how Saturday night had a really good sleep?

Forget that. Sunday sucked.

I mentioned a few days ago that I changed my mask, hose, and harness on my CPAP machine.  The immediate result was quieter operation and that’s what I was hoping for.  The actual sleep results though…

I found the mask seal to be a little iffy, just like it was when I first started using the machine.  I hadn’t had a problem with that for a couple of months, but there I was waking up 4-5 times a night again.  I guess maybe the little plastic skirt thingies on the masks need some time to break in?  Is that possible?

More concerning was the results I was getting off my AppleWatch.  One of the whole points of getting the machine in the first place was to increase the amount of restful sleep I get each night.  The SleepWatch app has, over the past five months or so, been showing that about 70% of my sleep is restful and the rest is light.  On the couple of occasions that I have sleep with the watch on but without the machine that percentage has been around 50%.  The first couple of nights after changing out the equipment had me at about 50%.  Was that because I was waking up a lot?  Could be.  I don’t remember that happening in the beginning of all of this though.

Last night was much better.  Last night was closer to pre-mask change.  I took the mask off three times, but one of them was about a minute after I initially put it on, so that doesn’t count.  I only woke up twice, and the first of those times I was back to sleep almost immediately.  My restful sleep percentage was 76% and my heart rate dip was 25% (not that the heart rate dip was a problem).

I still don’t feel completely rested when I wake up in the morning, but last night was the first really positive result since I changed the equipment.  I feel good about that.  I feel so good in fact that I just went to the Lowes website and ordered a bunch of fluorescent light bulb tubes and a new snow shovel with a curved handle.

Even better, Jen made pancakes for breakfast and she just called us all to the table!  Bonus!