54

I was thinking about doing something with this post where I post an image with the old Studio 54 logo. Having lived through the disco era and today being my 54th birthday, I figured that would be funny. Then I realized it would not be funny at all, it would be dumb. So I changed my mind and just went with this.

Today is my birthday. I am 54 years old. I am NOT happy about it. When I was 53 years old I could sort of convince myself that 53 is still your early 50’s. At 54 I can’t do that anymore. I am firmly entrenched in my mid 50’s and again, I am NOT happy about it.

The weather is nice right now. That’s good. Of course the forecast is calling for rain later so that’s fitting. Blah. I filled the bird feeders because I wanted those little monsters to have a nice celebration on my birthday. I took a couple of pictures. This one is with the aperture wide open, f1.8. Blurry background, babie!

250/365

This next one is the opposite. This one has the aperture closed down as far as it goes. f22, which means the shutter speed is super slow which is why it’s a little soft on the focus. Image stabilization helps, but it’s not perfect. Note that the background is not blurry at all.

DSC_3814

Now when you compare the two photos you know how your lens aperture controls your depth of field. See? You didn’t realize I was going to give you all a photography lesson for my birthday, but there you go. Happy birthday, hohoho.

Nutz

Today has been insane. I took the morning off so that I could take Miss Robin Sparkles the cat to her vet appointment. I dropped her off, ran some errands, went home, re-watched most of last night’s three episodes of Andor, went back to the vet’s office to pick her up, came home, ran another errand, ate lunch, and punched into work at 1:00pm.

That’s when it hit. I had meetings scheduled from 1:00-5:00. Bam. All of them. One after the other. At the same time I was getting hit with all sorts of customer issues and questions and hectic stress and wow… It’s 5:31pm now. I can punch out. I need a nap!

Here’s a picture of the clock downtown. It’s not a good picture, and don’t let anyone try to tell you that I thought it was a good picture… because it’s not a good picture. Whatevs, I’m going to go cook dinner for the love of my life and then go to sleep.

Season Two Episode Eight

Two new episodes of Andor down and still one to go. My spoiler free review of episode eight:

HOLY SHIT! Andor s2e8. Was that the most intense 40 minutes of television ever? I say again, HOLY SHIT! I swear my heart rate increased by about 300% over the course of the episode.We are the Gor!

— Rob (@robj1971.bsky.social) 2025-05-07T03:16:48.385Z

I was planning on watching seven and eight tonight and then watching nine in the morning. It’s 11:20pm now and I cannot wait until tomorrow. On to episode nine, right now. HOLY SHIT!

Another Crazy Day

Hope you are all having a happy, fascism-free Tuesday.

I was having a calm, yet somewhat productive day today. The minute I finished lunch all hell broke loose. It became a crazy, hectic, tense, productive day. You know how it is.

Now I am about 20 minutes away from the end of my work day and hopefully things are calming down. Everything seems covered at the moment. Breath in, breath out. You’ve got this, Robert.

I have half a personal day booked for tomorrow. Robin the Cat has a vet appointment. Just her annual check up. I have meetings booked all afternoon though, so it’s going to be busy tomorrow too. At least I’ll have three episodes of Star Wars Andor to plow through before the work day starts. They come out at 9:00 Eastern time tonight. I am ready. There was a new episodes of The Handmaids Tale over night last night. I watched it while doing my morning exercise today. It was excellent. Here’s hoping Andor holds serve on the which-show-about-people-fighting-fascism-is-more-awesome sweepstakes. At this point it’s anyone’s game.

Oh good. 10 minutes away from quitting time and it just started to rain. It’s freakin’ pouring out. Good, good.

I Am Trying

I am trying today. I am doing my best. My best, however, ain’t gonna be good enough.

I am trying to not get mentally bogged down by idiotic shit going on in the federal government. I just want to have a day where I ignore the morons and concentrate on work for a change. Something tells me I am not going to be terribly successful in this endeavor though. Don’t get my wrong, my work is getting done. No worries there. I just find myself distracted by all the other bullshit.

I am in the office again today. This makes four business days in a row for me. Ugh. Yesterday I left the house at 7:30 and got to work at 9:10. Today I left the house at 7:20 (makes sense, right?) and got to work at 9:10. Oh for crying out loud.

On the way out the door I told the cats to take care of my wife while I am out. I always tell them that. I don’t know if they ever listen though. They aren’t really team players, you know? They just do their own thing and mostly ignore anything I say. They’re cats that way.

248/365

Documentation Crunch Time

Remember back in the ’80s when all of those cold war movies showed the bad guys, the commies, stopping their poor oppressed citizens on the street and asking to see their papers? Remember how evil that felt? The poor saps having to cough up their legal documentation to the secret police at a moment’s notice?

I wonder why I have been thinking of that lately.

So a couple of weeks ago my US passport expired. My state drivers license is going to expire soon as well, and when I renew it I have to get the new federal “Real ID” because we live in a police state now. Unfortunately you need to have an appointment to setup the Real ID and a month ago when I booked one the best date I could get was after my license expires.

The good news is, my passport renewal went off without a hitch and I got it done WAY faster than I expected so I can use my new passport in the Real ID process. That’s cool. I wonder if I can renew my state drivers license first and then replace it a short time later with the federal document. I am guessing I would have to pay twice if I did that and I’ll be damned if I am going to give that tariffing fucker a penny more than I have to. Not that I am cynical about the collapse of my former country or anything. You know how it is.

Papers, please. Fucking authoritarian dictatorship fascist fucking fuckers.

Another Painful Week Ahead

You know… some days… I really wish I could just stay in bed and wait for something to come along that magically picks me up and moves me and my family to somewhere in Europe.

I mean, what the fuck?

First, the orange shit clown announces he is going to reopen Alcatraz and use it for what he says is the worst criminals in the country but what we all know is to use it as a concentration camp for people who don’t like him. We all know that, right? Why ship immigrants to El Salvador when you can ship them to Alcatraz? Forgetting the fact that it failed as a maximum security prison once before and that it is just a museum now… Seriously… what the fuck?

I was hanging my head in embarrassed shame after reading about all of this and that’s when I heard the second idiocy of the day. The orange shit clown has announced a 100% tariff on… wait for it… you’re not going to believe this one… movies. That’s right, you read that correctly. He just doubled the price of a movie ticket. He took an industry that has been on death’s door since Covid and doubled the price of admission in order to… checking my notes… save it.

Again I ask, in all seriousness… what the actual fuck?

Here’s a photo of two cats with stunned, disbelieving looks on their little cat faces. Both of them have asked me why we’re not packing up to move to Europe where people are less certifiably insane than they are here in the country formerly known as the united states and currently known as fucking moron land. I don’t know, cats. I just don’t know anymore.

A 100% tariff on… movies… yeah, that’s going to make america great again for sure. Finger right on the pulse there, you fascist schmuck.

Celebration

We honored the solemn occasion known as Star Wars Day by watching the original movie, aka A New Hope.

May the Forth be With You, and all that fun stuff.

Currently I am sitting in the lounge at our local Pep Boys waiting to get news on our car’s check engine light. Yippee, eh?