Month: July 2021

Wasted Opportunity (Also, blog Stats Review)

I’m serving another 24 hour prison sentence. Dinner has been served to both of us, the doors have been alarmed so she can’t wander off without making a huge noise (I can’t either of course, but I know how to turn the alarms off so there’s that at least), her meds have been delivered, and my intermittent fasting period has been kicked off for another night (a little early, but that’s okay).

If I were smart I would be using my prison sentence to work on some 50/90, but the SyFy channel is running both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and how can I not watch that? The only horcrux left is the snake.

We only have one more day in July, and lately that means I have been paying attention to the hit stats for this blog. I created this account in March of 2017 and the monthly counts for 2021 so far have (with one slight exception) destroyed every other month since the account was created. I’m not sure why (though I do seem to be posting more than ever before) but the numbers have been way up since last November and they skyrocketed starting in January. As always, please remember that skyrocketing monthly numbers for me look more like terribly bad afternoons for real blogs. All of you folks paying me visits are my new best online friends, but there aren’t that many of you, you know? Select company, right?

This is not my first wordpress.com account though. The first ran from December 2012 to July 2016. I was curious how my current stats compared to the old account’s. Turns out I am generally getting more hits now than I did then. Mostly. There were two months, December 2015 and January 2016, where the monthly hit count was higher than anything I’ve had with this account. Every other month was significantly lower than what I have been consistently getting in 2021. Why were those two months so much more popular than any other months since I started? No idea. I look at the summaries and I don’t see anything resembling a spike. There wasn’t one post that somehow, magically, drew in the people in droves. Nope, everything looks normal. I just had way more hits in those two months.

I set the record for this account last month, by quite a bit. This month has a chance to come close, but it’s going to take a crazy good night tonight and a really great day tomorrow to set a new record. Also, July has one more day than June so even if I do set the record it should have an asterisk. Roger Maris like a mutha, right?

Okay, I am going to ride out the rest of Deathly Hallows 2 for the next hour or so. Maybe I’ll try to write some lyrics, or a bass riff, or something. Anything, just so long as my mother doesn’t have a bad night.

Please don’t let her have a bad night. Pretty please.

Oh, Good

Check out what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts just announced in an article titled:

Massachusetts Department of Public Health releases updated face covering advisory

BOSTON — Today, the Department of Public Health (DPH) released updated guidance regarding the use of face coverings and cloth masks by individuals who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19. 

This week, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released updated guidance that continues to state that individuals who are fully vaccinated may, as a general matter, resume many of the activities that they engaged in prior to the pandemic without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart, except where otherwise required by federal, state, or local laws, rules or regulations.  In response to the recent spread of the Delta variant, however, the CDC’s updated guidance does recommend that even fully vaccinated persons wear masks or face coverings when indoors if other risk factors are present.

In light of the information provided by the CDC, and in order to maximize protection of vulnerable individuals from the Delta variant, the Department of Public Health released updated guidance today that recommends that a fully vaccinated person wear a mask or face covering when indoors (and not in your own home) if you have a weakened immune system, or if you are at increased risk for severe disease because of your age or an underlying medical condition, or if someone in your household has a weakened immune system, is at increased risk for severe disease, or is unvaccinated. 

All people in Massachusetts (regardless of vaccination status) are required to continue wearing face coverings in certain settings, including transportation and health care facilities. Please see www.mass.gov/maskrules for a complete list of venues where face coverings remain mandatory as of May 29, 2021.

See the full DPH guidance.

https://www.mass.gov/news/massachusetts-department-of-public-health-releases-updated-face-covering-advisory

Allow me to take a moment to respond. Here is my prepared statement….

To all of the people refusing to take the vaccine, I say this:

FUCK YOU.

Stop Raining!

Last night when I got home from work I checked the cellar. There was a little water, but the amount was small enough that I was feeling optimistic. Then as we were getting ready to go to bed it started to pour like the world was ending.

This morning there was definitely more water down there then last night. I cleaned it up. I’ve checked on it a couple of times and things were looking okay. Then about five minutes ago it started to pour like the world was ending.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I give up. I can’t take this anymore. I’m just going to steal a row boat and row out to the middle of the harbor and live there from now on. If I am going to be swimming in my home I might as well do it in the ocean.

To hell with this bullshit.

Still Going

Guess what it’s doing outside right now. Go on, guess.

Hint: It’s still July.

Have guessed yet?

You’re absolutely right! It’s fucking pouring fucking rain! Again! A full month of constant pouring rain! My cellar is going to be a lake again!

Ya-Fucking-Hoo!

Music… kinda stalled

I haven’t had a lot of time for music over the last few days. I’ve snuck in two new song ideas but that’s all. I have three songs ready for vocals so maybe if I get that done in the morning it will kick start things a bit.

I have 13 songs mixed and another 12 in progress. I’m so far ahead of the minimum pace that it’s nuts.

Rock and roll, eh?

Reminder: Try This tonight

I drive a Kia Niro. The climate system in the car sucks ass during the summer. It has an auto function that works about as well as… hmmm… what’s a fittingly stupid analogy… fish with a bicycle? Something like that. Anyway, in the summer when it’s 100 degrees outside I set the temp at 68 and it blows hot air. So literally the system blows. I turn the temp down to 65, or the minimum setting, and it blows cold air. It’s dumb. It’s the only thing about that car that I don’t like…

…and there is no obvious way to fix it. There is no auto button that I can find.

To the Google I go! Kia’s website had nothing. Kia’s manual had nothing. A Kia customer forum suggested pressing and holding the defrost button for two seconds. That should turn it off. I am excited and skeptical a the same time. I am excited because I really want it to be off, and skeptical because the solution sounds dumb.

I’m going to try it after work tonight.

I’ll let you know if it works.

As the World Continues to Fall Apart

When did Disney World become my personal Covid canary in the coalmine? I don’t know, but what I do know is that they have reinstituted their indoor mask requirement regardless of vaccination status.

Yippee. Why is this necessary? Because half the people in this country are fucking garbage who have no concern for their fellow citizens. That’s why. They make up 100 fake reasons for not getting vaccinated that all boil down to a simple I-don’t-wanna-be-inconvenienced. Fuck them. Fuck them in their eye and then fuck them in their other eye.*

Today is my parents’ 54th anniversary. My sister was able to take my mother in to the rehab hospital to see my father. I’m sure that helped both of their mental states. You know what else would help their mental states? Everyone getting vaccinated and stop being little spoiled fucking brats.

I wasn’t planning on writing a pissed off post about the slime living in my country. I’m just feeling angry about it all. Angry enough that I completely forgot what I was planning to write about.

Get the fucking vaccine, you fucking mental midgets.

*Thank you to South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for that little nugget from their musical, The Book of Mormon. Sometimes a phrase just fits the occasion, you know?