Lawn Chair I Bought at the Drugstore

I think it will take at least a week for the giddiness over the new kitchen faucet to subside. This was one of those repair jobs that have effects far beyond the obvious. The old faucet worked okay, but the area under it was never dry, because the faucet was just plain worn out. And crappy to start with. It was the classic one-lever job so many homes ended up with in the Seventies and Eighties, with the little ball on top of the lever. Total garbage. And it stuck nearly straight out over the sink, so it was impossible to get a big pot under it. And washing your hands under a low faucet is a pain, if there’s anything in the sink. You have to move stuff out of the way.

The Bradys probably had one of these next to their avocado-colored refrigerator.

Whatever rot was going on because of the dripping will now be arrested. I no longer have to worry that the floor will cave in.

It’s amazing, the things that can go wrong with a house. And if you come from a white-collar family, you may have no idea what’s happening. White-collar people are often extremely ignorant about home maintenance. Houses deteriorate constantly. You have to be the immune system. And if you don’t know what happens to houses that aren’t maintained, you need to read up and find out.

My great-grandfather owned a few houses in the Depression. He let people live in them, free of charge. Why? Because empty houses fall apart. When you can’t get rent, you can at least get a certain basic level of maintenance.

I can’t believe the suffering I’ve endured because of ignorance. For example, I had no idea black ants and carpenter ants were bad, so I didn’t bother killing them. The carpenter ants ate a bunch of my physics texts, which I had kept for sentimental reasons. They also killed my tomatoes by putting aphids on them. I don’t know what mischief the black ants got up to, but I’m sure they did something bad. They’re dead now.

Cars are just like houses. It turns out you have to replace your tires every six years, even on vehicles you don’t drive. Otherwise the sidewalls crack open; I’ve seen it happen. Tires rot with age. They don’t tell you this when you buy tires, because sometimes you’re buying tires that are already two or three years old. Tires have a code on them; you can figure out how old they are. No one told me about that when I was a kid. Pretty scary, if you’re driving your children around on old tires.

Entropy is a real dirtbag. It never lets up for a second. Maybe it’s best to think of life as a treadmill instead of an easy chair.

By the way, the sucrose/boric acid syrup seems to be wiping out the ghost ants. I’m going to make some more and pour it on the exterior walls near ant nests. I guess I’m turning into one of those annoying old guys who never stops working on his house, and who irritates his neighbors by pointing out their maintenance problems. Maybe in ten years I’ll be raising the flag every morning and taking it down at night, and strolling around the yard in Bermuda shorts and black socks, with a tall boy of Milwaukee’s Best in one hand.

Actually, those guys are pretty cool compared to jaded, dysfunctional neighbors whose kids egg your house all the time.

New Faucet

I went to Home Depot and bought a new kitchen faucet; the old one was dripping into the cabinet and encouraging the ants and roaches. They had various wrenches to use on faucet parts. They had a $30 basin wrench and some weird new plastic thing for $10. I had no idea which was right, so I got both, figuring I could return the one that was most useless.

It turns out the plastic one kicks ass, so I didn’t have to open the $30 one. And man, are faucets better than they used to be. The old one had the usual crappy copper tubing on it, and it was fastened to the sink with some kind of hard crap that had set up like ceramic. The new one came with a gasket, and everything that had to be tightened could be tightened nearly all the way by hand.

I bought a couple of 30″ braided lines to put on it–the plastic wrench will hold these in place and screw them on–and I got them attached, and then I realized they were the wrong size for the wall valves. So I have to go back to Home Depot. I will have spent about $20 on a tool and some parts I banged up and could not return, but I didn’t have to hire a slackjaw and have the job done wrong AGAIN.

This job was intimidating, but in practice, it wasn’t undoable. There were no moments when I realized I was doomed or inadequate. Beyond my usual baseline sensations along those lines. I am really mad at everyone who ever worked on the kitchen. I will have to get a grip on myself and put that behind me, as a good Christian who doesn’t chase bad plumbers with a cattle prod or a horsewhip.

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IT’S FINISHED! IT WORKS! THE WATER RUNS! THERE ARE NO LEAKS! THE ROACHES ARE SITTING IN SACKCLOTH AND ASHES!

This is glorious. It’s so nice to see a job done right, while savoring the pleasure of not paying for labor.

Possible Solution

I’m blogging a lot because my plans to do repairs and stuff today are being disrupted by rain. And laziness. Here I go again.

I have exciting news for Floridians who are suffering with ghost ants. These things are tiny; maybe a millimeter long. They have white rear ends. Not really white; more of a light beige. They can’t be kept out. Once you have them, they’re hell to get rid of. And they’re extremely annoying.

I have been fighting these things for what seems like eternity. None of the products sold locally are worth a damn. Yesterday I realized I had the answer. The Internet. When I’m in trouble because I don’t have information I need, only the Internet can provide it.

I found an article from New Zealand, of all places. It said that ghost ants were easily wiped out with a mixture of sucrose syrup and boric acid. They eat it, carry it home, feed it to their queen, and die.

I have sucrose! I have boric acid!

Last night I made a mixture, guessing at the 1% concentration the article suggested. I smeared it on the wall, in an area the ants have turned into a highway. Sure enough, the ants glommed around it and ate it up.

I poured about half a cup of this stuff on the ground, outside the kitchen. There are nests out there. I’m hoping they’ll suck it up and kill themselves. I may smear it on the wall by the bushes.

If your house is clean, ghost ants are easier to control. But due to an old plumbing issue, my ants have access to a large supply of old grease, inside the exterior wall. It will take them a thousand years to eat it all, and it can’t be cleaned out. So it’s poison or nothing.

One frustrating thing about ghost ants is that they eat different things at different times of year. Maybe that’s because worker ants are always female; you know how women are. Sometimes the ants like sugar, and sometimes they like grease or protein. Luckily, they’re in sugar mode this week.

I don’t know if this will kill them or not, but they are damn sure eating it.

The Nonexistent Secret to China’s Imaginary Boxing Wins

Earlier I wrote about fraud and BS, and I mentioned the ridiculous board-breaking demonstrations martial artists put on. You’ve seen it. Some doofus who runs a dojo has his assistant hold a thin board up, and the doofus kicks or hits it, and it breaks…right along the grain. Oooh. Impressive!

Here’s some amusing text from James Randi’s site:

I went to my nearby lumber-yard and asked for some 1″ X 8″ X 14″ pine boards, and the clerk immediately asked if I wanted them for karate demonstrations. Yes, I said, and I wanted the grain going across the boards, not along the length. Well, he told me, we have those already cut, for karate schools — but be careful not to let them bounce around in the car, because they split very easily….

He also told me they carried paving-bricks specially made for the schools, too. These were very high in sand-content, he said, so they crumbled easily.

I love it. Whatever you may think of Randi, there is no evidence that he lies.

Here is what would convince me that martial artists have a special ability to break things. Let me provide a single two-by-six section, two feet long. I’ll put it between two sturdy objects one foot apart. I promise you, no man alive could break it, regardless of what part of his body he used. Let me use oak or hickory instead of softwood, and I’ll gladly use a two-by-four instead of a two-by-six. For even the best Chi Boy, it would be a ticket to the emergency room.

In fact, I should do a Youtube. I should take my 13-pound sledge and try to break a two-by-six. Or maybe I could park a car tire on it, resting over 900 pounds on it.

It’s funny; chi never seems to make it into the ring. You can watch UFC all day, and the fighters are highly motivated and very knowledgeable, yet you never see a magical chi strike that kills the opponent instantly. A boxer can make tens of millions of dollars in a single fight. How come none of them learn how to use chi? Uh…because it does not exist. You better believe, with that kind of money on the line, someone would have brung the chi by now, if it were possible.

You don’t even see magical chi in Asian fights, filmed in the birthplace of chi. If chi existed, the Chinese boxers would be slaughtering the opposition at the Olympics. It’s not happening. Wake up and smell the green tea.

Fay Takes her Toll

It was thoughtless of me to make fun of KILLER STORM Fay. Although I wasn’t harmed, others suffered terribly. I am ashamed of my selfish viewpoint.

If you want to do your part to end the suffering caused by global warming, stop by Babalublog today and click the Paypal tip jar. No one should have to be alone, facing a situation like this.

Rubber Gorilla Suit = Ticket to National TV Exposure

It seems like the news these days contains one shocking story after another. Now, unbelievably, they are telling us that the frozen bigfoot found by two highly reputable North Georgia men who wear baseball caps when talking to the press, is a fake. I really can’t believe it. I was totally convinced.

No I wasn’t. I said it was a fraud days ago, basing my conclusion purely on my knowledge of human nature. The sad thing about this is that if, by some miracle, an actual bigfoot turned out to exist, no one would pay any attention.

Actually, they would. People will believe almost anything, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Most American women still believe in socialism, especially when the male candidate promoting it is cute. Conservative men see the state as a bumbling, meddlesome, thieving nanny. Women see it as a rich husband who doesn’t hog the remote or expect sex.

College graduates in New York still play three-card Monte, a decades-old game which only exists for the purpose of ripping suckers off. Intelligent individuals all over the country still pay total strangers in rusty trucks to put “spare blacktop from another job” on their driveways. Somewhere a man with a high-school education, wearing a stolen white lab coat, is selling laetrile to cancer patients. And half of the the American population believes global warming exists, even as thermometers tell us the world is cooling. Would most Americans believe a good bigfoot story? Hell, yes. And some of us would even be willing to vote for him. Look at Ron Paul’s numbers.

There is no bigfoot. There is no yeti. There is no Loch Ness monster. We aren’t being visited by aliens. There is no karate master on earth who can break a thick hardwood board, across the grain, with any part of his body; they break thin softwood boards along the grain. It is impossible to bend a spoon with your mind. Chi is a myth. Nothing that happens in the Bermuda Triangle is any weirder than the stuff that happens everywhere else. WD40 is not made from fish oil. And Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that will eventually have to be reformed by slashing benefits to the bone.

John Kennedy did not read 2000 words per minute. Nothing interesting is going on at Area 51. The thing that crashed at Roswell really was a weather balloon. Elvish is spoken only by human nerds, because there are no elves. We will never find life on Mars. There are no alligators living in sewers, except for those that were flushed during the last five minutes and which are in the process of drowning. Transcendental meditation is a crock. Hurricane Andrew did not kill hundreds of people, and there are no government freezers full of bodies. We don’t have enough arable land to grow sufficient corn to end the energy crisis. Finally, Oprah is not a genius; she is merely a skilled, moderately bright panderer and possibly the luckiest woman who ever lived.

Now you won’t have to watch Penn and Teller or Mythbusters for a solid three months.

Life is so full of truly weird and extraordinary things; why do we have to make up lies in order to be amazed? Here’s an example. I own a parrot who can tell when I think something is funny, even when I’m in another room and I’m not speaking. When I get an urge to laugh, Marvin laughs first. That’s more impressive to me than John Kennedy pretending to read 40 newspapers every morning. Or whatever the number was. And I’m not stupid enough to believe it makes Marv a psychic. Obviously, there is some clue he picks up on, which I can’t perceive. Like the clue that tells him he’s over something expensive, so it’s time to drop a watery deuce.

For that matter, the experiences that have confirmed God’s existence to me are more impressive than, say, a hairy Israeli pretending to bend spoons on the Merv Griffin Show. Maybe our sick thirst for the bizarre is a consequence of rejecting God. People who believe see more than enough weird things to make them happy.

I kind of miss the Amazing Kreskin. He did all sorts of wonderful tricks, admitting the entire time that it was all BS. Penn and Teller ought to send him ten percent of their income; he invented their shtick.

At least one of the bigfoot grifters is going to be fired from his job. That’s a good thing. He’s a cop, and what did he just do? He faked evidence. In front of the entire country. Imagine him on a witness stand in a criminal case.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: So Officer Jim Bob. You say you found my client’s .357 next to the body, with his fingerprints all over it.

OFFICER JIM BOB: Yep.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Here’s a photo you took at the crime scene. What do you see in the lower left corner?

OFFICER JIM BOB: A leprechaun holding a unicorn horn.

JUDGE: Bailiff, pimpslap that man.

I appreciate you reading this, and I know you thought it was funny. How do I know? I asked Marv.

Storm Refuses to Die

I am fed up with Tropical Mutant Storm Fay. First of all, who spells “Faye” without an E? Second, although it caused me very little trouble (and this is what really matters), it’s trying to reintensify while over land. This is against the rules.

Say a prayer that it dries up and dies. Don’t let Al Gore win.

Brave Citizen Journalist Survives Edge of Tropical Storm

I write you today from the belly of the beast. I was supposed to experience tropical storm conditions this morning, but so far, it has been breezy with a few drops of rain.

I’m thrilled. I truly did not look forward to driving around town looking for my garbage cans, or to spending nights stuck to a wet mattress, waiting for the power to go back on.

The phone works. The Internet works. The TV cable works. The power is okay for the most part, but it flickers from time to time. I guess something is being blown against some vital electrical thing somewhere in the neighborhood. It’s not a big deal. Here, we often have power outages even in good weather. God bless the public utilities and their monopolies.

The power flickering has brought one issue to light. My battery backup has had it. It used to keep my computer going for quite some time after an outage started. Now it gives up after a few seconds, and that’s the end of my session. I guess it’s three or four years old. Time for a new one. Luckily I have a spare. It’s not big enough to make me totally happy, but it will do until I make it to Best Buy.

I can’t tell you how many times the backup has saved me. Before I got a battery, I lost document after document. It amazes me that Florida Power & Light gets away with the level of service they provide. They have to be destroying electronics and appliances at a very high rate.

I guess I’ll get another king-size backup. They keep computers running, and you can also charge them before a hurricane and use them to power small items.

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Thanks for the comments suggesting I replace the battery instead of the whole UPS. Saved me 60 bucks.

The spare UPS I’m using is going to take forever to charge, so I won’t be able to make much use of the PC today. If it could keep the system going for 2 minutes, I’d be fine, but I guess it will take a while to reach that state.

Free!

Here is another cool thing that redeems the Internet. I have written about online Bibles. Well, it turns out you can listen to an audio version. The people at Bible Gateway have posted an audio edition of the New International Version, read by someone named Max McLean. You can find it at this link. They also have other versions.

It’s really neat. Reading the Bible is great, but there is a special value in hearing the words. And sometimes hearing is just more pleasant than reading.

I looked into audio Bibles at Christianbook.com, but the problem with their NIV is that there is no software interface that allows you to pick the verses you want to hear. You have to use fast-forward and rewind. That’s bad.

Still, it’s great to see technology used for a worthwhile purpose.

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Now I’m confused. One DVD reviewer says you can’t skip to the chapters you want, and another reader says you can.

Disappointing as a Drowning CGI Polar Bear

Looks like Tropical Storm Fay is crapping out. The eye is moving over Key West now, and judging from TV coverage, no one cares. The forecasters now think it’s very unlikely to become a hurricane. This storm is about as close to me as it will ever get, and right now there is a 10 mile per hour breeze and a light drizzle. Thank God for answered prayers. Al Gore doesn’t control the weather after all.

Judging from the satellite loop, it’s moving WNW now, which is nice for South Florida, but we really need it to come ashore if we want it to die, and there ain’t much land in the direction in which it’s heading. But I guess the weather guys know what’s what. Maybe it’s looking for Ward Brewer, up in Pensacola. Hurricanes love him.

The forecast for Miami says the wind will top out late tonight, at around 34 miles per hour. Hard to believe. The storm is actually getting farther away. I know these things aren’t completely symmetrical, but it would be pretty weird for the wind to extend that much farther out to the east than it does to the northeast. They predicted 21 miles per hour for this afternoon, and the actual speed is 7. Excuse me; 6.

I hope things don’t get rough. I have this sudden craving for chocolate, and I don’t have any on hand.

Not Exactly Camo

SOMEONE forgot to remind me to link to this, so I didn’t.

If you want to contribute to breast cancer research, and you like guns, this is for you. Somebody is raffling off a pink AR15 for cancer. You need this gun. Believe me.

Impending Tragedy

The cable news says some guy took off in a stolen plane, and that he’s flying around in Virginia, threatening to commit suicide by crashing in a populated area. Send up a prayer that he changes his mind and lands safely, and that no one is hurt.

Dodgeball

Here is how approaching hurricanes work. It’s morning. It’s not raining. You get ready to go help your dad secure his boat at the marina. The rain starts. You secure the boat in the rain. You go home and sit in front of your computer. Then the rain stops.

File this for future use.

Death, Destruction, and Shrieking TV Weathertwinks

Fay is out to get me. I made fun of it last week when it was supposedly a dissipating “invest,” and just to spite me, it has turned into a tropical storm, and last night it even made a sudden turn to the north, taking it closer to Miami. It LUNGED at me.

It’s very clear that this is all about me. I don’t care. I remain defiant. Al Gore is a kook. Global warming is a scam. I refuse to put up shutters. I am not buying a ridiculous generator.

It’s actually a good thing, the jog to the north. It means Fay will hit Florida sooner, away from a major city, and it will go over land and dissipate on its way north.

I pity the chronic stoners and federal fugitives fine people who live in the Keys. They don’t seem too worried about storm surge, but they still have to deal with evacuations and so on, and Key West is going to get fracased up about 2 1/2 months before tourist season.

It amazes me how the TV people love to scare us. Today I saw a warning: “TORNADOES POSSIBLE IN SOUTH FLORIDA.” Uh…tornadoes are ALWAYS possible when a tropical cyclone goes by. Hello?

Looks like we’re not going to get much lightning. That’s good. When the winds are below hurricane strength, they don’t have much effect on our primitive Florida Power & Light power grid. It’s the lightning that gets you. It melts the duct tape holding the system together. So it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll lose my precious few remaining prime steaks.

The weather people are freaking out, as usual. What they’re really saying is, “PAY US MORE AND STOP THINKING OF US AS THE RODEO CLOWNS OF TV JOURNALISM.” Weathermen tend to be gay; maybe that contributes to the drama. I saw some local guy today talking about HIGH WINDS AND TORRENTIAL RAIN. I can see out a window right now. The sky is a little grey, it is not raining, and the air is absolutely calm. Let’s check the marine forecast. Seas 4 to 6 feet. You can actually take a boat out in that, although the lightweights would heave over the side. Seas like that are pretty much normal in the winter. Tonight they’re supposed to peak at 9-11 feet, which is not very impressive. To give you an idea of what 4 to 6 is like here, my rule is that I won’t fish if the forecast goes past 2 to 4 unless there’s a tournament on.

It’s weird; in the open Atlantic off the Bahamas, a couple of hundred miles east of here, six-foot seas are rolly and pleasant. I’ve taken a 13-foot Boston Whaler out in heavy seas off Eleuthera, and I was fine. Here, the peaks of the waves are much closer together, so a six-foot sea will beat you to death.

I’m glad I won’t have a week of interesting hurricane blogging for you. Nothing is worse than losing your electricity in Miami in August. I still remember sitting indoors after Katrina, absolutely motionless, watching one drop of sweat after another drip off the tip of my nose. When Rita came through in October, the small difference in heat and humidity made it seem almost pleasant.

I think the most irritating thing about storms is watching rookie news people fresh from the Northeast interview seasoned Florida residents. These guys are supposed to be the experts, and they clearly know absolutely nothing. “Hurricane Beavis is supposed to pass within 400 miles of Port St. Lucie, yet none of these residents has bothered constructing a bomb shelter or switching to snow tires. Oh, Shep. When will they learn?” They keep badgering people on camera, trying to get them to–I don’t know–do cartwheels or something. You know what? It’s going to rain, and the wind is going to blow. Get over it.

One thing concerns me. Do I have enough homebrew to make it through the crisis? Generally, when a hurricane hits, I put a Corny keg in the same cooler with my food. This time I may be down to a gallon of beer. Talk about poor preparation.

I’m not going to bitch about the storm moving closer. It would be nice for me if it moved west and went up the Gulf, but I don’t want someone else to get a Category 4 so I can avoid a tropical storm. And the last thing we need is wind near our oil rigs. It has no real effect, but the oil speculators don’t care. They would make the most of it.

I have to go do my preparations, which consist of moving a ladder indoors and shoving some potted peppers around. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it only means I have been swept up to the land of Oz, where Hillary Clinton will try to poison me with poppies.

China Confiscates Bibles at Airport

Here’s a fine God-related piece of news just ripe for a Sunday blog post. It sounds like bad news, but it may actually be very, very good news. It depends on how the press handles it. The Chinese government has confiscated over 300 Bibles from several Christian missionaries at the Kunming airport!

Why is that good news? Because it exposes the Chicoms for what they are. Totalitarians who deny citizens and visitors their basic human rights.

Don’t get the idea that taking a Bible away isn’t a serious act of oppression. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights. It’s not a trifle. Taking it away is just as serious as taking away freedom of expression. Which the Chinese also deny their people. Imagine the hysteria that would erupt if an American policeman confiscated hundreds of Bibles.

Christians aren’t the only ones who spreading this story. The shameless socialists at the Associated Press wrote it up. Here’s a link.

Money quotes:

Bibles are printed under the supervision of the Communist government. The officially atheistic country only allows them to be used in government-sanctioned churches and in some big hotels catering to foreigners.

And:

China faces routine criticism for its human rights violations and its repression of religious freedom. Religious practice is heavily regulated by the Communist Party, with worship allowed only in party-controlled churches, temples and mosques, while those gathering outside face harassment, arrest and terms in labor camps or prison.

Hold a prayer meeting, go to jail. That’s unfettered leftism for you. The elites have decided it is a certainty God does not exist. You are not entitled to make up your own mind. Leftism is such a kind religion; a few people at the top make all the important decisions, preventing ignorant, untrained ordinary citizens from getting things wrong, and taking the heavy weight of autonomy off their liberated shoulders. This is the beautiful gift George Clooney and Barbra Streisand and Al Gore want to give you. Of course, prominent socialists like these would continue living like capitalists, because the left-wing illuminati are special and need power and wealth in order to spread joy and enlightenment.

I’m so glad the Chinese got the Olympics, and that the games are casting a bright spotlight on their sins. The world needs to remember that a few KFCs and Burger Kings do not a democracy make. Maybe a little public shaming will persuade the Chinese to loosen their grip on the church. Why is it such a big threat to them? Christians believe in hard work, obeying the law, patriotism, and paying their taxes. It would be a real blow to the revolution if those things caught on.

Look how the Chinese government treats Bibles. They treat them like methadone, which is appropriate, considering Karl Marx’s fatuous “opiate” remark. They print China’s Bibles, and they distribute them. The story says they sanction churches. The other side of that coin is that they prohibit all other churches and pastors. A license isn’t permission for the holder, although it may seem that way. It’s a ban for everyone else. Before the US had driver’s licenses, everyone could drive. Licensing didn’t increase the pool of drivers. It shrank it. And China’s church licensing shrinks the church. That’s the reason China does it. They have turned worship into a prescription drug, used to manage a destructive addiction, and they don’t allow the manufacture of generics.

Evangelism is so important, and I don’t think we do nearly enough of it. I always write about religious charities I’ve found, and it’s always exciting to find a new one I like. But it has been harder to find organizations that evangelize effectively. That is especially sad, in a time when the Internet and cell phones and satellites make it impossible for Muslims and atheists to keep the gospel out of their countries. It used to be that smuggling was required, in order to get religious materials into oppressed hands. Now you can send a single DVD into a socialist country, with an Adobe-format Bible on it, and it can be duplicated millions of times and sent to countless locations, at no cost. There are broadcasts that reach into Muslim and socialist countries. People just need to know how to tune them in. This ought to be evangelism’s most powerful era. Maybe it is; I wouldn’t know how to find out. It’s something we need to support. When it comes to transforming the world, religion is the most powerful force there is. Far stronger than politics.

I’m glad I found out about Open Doors and Secret Believers.

Let’s hope the Chinese continue giving the world horrifying glimpses of their government’s true nature.