MM

ETA, 12-10-24: I would've posted this days ago (and gotten to comments sooner) but I've been tied up working, then got sick (poisoned myself): turns out the right - and the right alone, as nowhere else on the internet will you see this - not only has thoughts for "trans" and "looks like a woman" alone, but even wound these very thoughts into yet another conspiracy theory in which there's a "trans mass shooter epidemic", because of course there is.

Also forgot to mention all the Breitbart commenters saying "false flag" because of course false flag, but as we all know he's since been apprehended, is, as far as anyone can tell, a man, allegedly did the shooting for about the reasons anyone normal might've suspected, and despite the internet's massive crush (they've been swooning over him) is not my cuppa - while his smile is fucking killer (no pun intended!) most of his politics and leanings, which to me are just as important as looks, maybe not so much.

Wasn't going to send him fan mail anyhow, nor do I think what he did was right, but if the only silver lining in this is the conversations he's started over the sorry state of US health care hopefully that spurs us on to finding real solutions (*cough* single-payer *cough* - so stupid-easy if they'd just do it). Considering the upcoming regime change we might have to wait at least 2-4 more years on that though, regardless.

Ah, well.

No political party's a monolith - so most of us might eventually run into a few folks who say, "I voted for him, but", their words tinged with more regret than adequately conveyable in any typical convo.

As to people jumping ship - with or without leaving the party they supposedly belong to - you might look no further than the Joe Manchins, Krysten Sinemas and John *screams* Fettermans of the world. Or take Tulsi Gabbard, Russia's golden girl. Christ, while I'm not sure why, we used to claim Elmo. And Zuck!

Either way, outliers like them, and people who get burned in MAGA world, presumably, can and will happen, but I wouldn't take that as a sign that for every one of them there's x amount of MAGA(ts) you haven't heard from who feel the same. If I were betting (and oooooh me and bets) I'd say don't count on it.

What inspires me to share this is yesterday's news of a UnitedHealthcare CEO rudely gunned down on the streets of NYC. Turns out each bullet used was marked with a single word such as "delay", "deny", or "depose". This is thought to possibly tie the words marked on them into a currently ongoing lawsuit against the company.

Historically speaking, UnitedHealthcare is the one insurance company most likely to deny people's claims - with 32% routinely rejected - and is currently using AI to reject over 90% of claims so as several headlines have blared you're looking at oh, just 80 million suspects.

On presumably mainstream to left-adjacent media the reaction's been about what you might expect: everything from icy cold sarcasm to anger to rage. On the right?

The only touchpoints over 2300+ commenters to this Breitbart article* have been reacting to are: 1) the shooter "looks trans", "looks like a woman", "is two different people" based on a few blurry, low-quality photos turned over by the police, with tons of OT threads weirdly going on about Ketanji Brown Jackson having the nerve to be a Black woman even while sitting on the Supreme Court.

Not quite what you'd expect?

I've seen some rare comments pointing not to the idea that health "care" companies are fleecing us, but that Mexican cartels and Kenyans are fleecing health care companies (there might be some truth to this, though that's hardly the only thing you'd think they'd get up in arms about, so to speak).

If you were expecting a large, rage-y, sarcastic sit-in on right-wing media to match the energy of...everyone else today, forget it. Beyond raging over the shooter's allegedly trans looks, it's not happening (and I've been following along since 700+ comments just to see if it did).

Breitbart, for right-wing media, is I'm guessing pretty middle of the road, as heavily slanted as it is, so you might figure the income level it attracts naturally pulls in lower to upper middle class people who might have...health insurance, or am I flying too close to the sun to assume it's so?

Are these right-leaning, health insurance-owning people expressing even one bit of bitterness over anyone they know or themselves going without needed healthcare over the denials these companies issue as routinely as most people wipe their asses? Nope, not one bit.

I've had no choice then but to conclude they must support our health "care" system's one, singular goal: to get the rich richer off of their own backs, even from the backs of their own hearses - getting the healthcare you need and getting to live be damned.

What matters, the real meat of the whole thing - and I can't emphasize it enough because neither can they - is the shooter "looks trans". It's almost like they can't think of anything else to say!

I wish I was making all of this up.

I know what a lot of you might be thinking as I've valiantly hoped against hope for this, myself: that MAGA(ts) will regret it when: a) America sinks into national emergency/martial law starting on or soon after Jan 20th (no, they'll LOVE it - are you even kidding me?).

That they'll regret it when they lose their: b) Medicare, c) Medicaid, d) SNAP and/or all related forms of cash or non-cash assistance, e) Social Security and f) all other walls against danger, want and need such as the DOE, EPA, FDA, FDOT, FEMA, OSHA, FTC, FCC, etc. - all programs and agencies that Project 2025, Agenda 47, The American First Policy Institute (Stephen Miller's baby), Elmo & Co. and many congressional Rs have their sights on.

You can see the writing on the wall in observing Breitbart's comment section on a superficially non-Trumped-up topic such as the high cost of - and low ROI on - so-called health "care".

For them it's worth paying through the nose to get increasingly little in return - all so they can call any possibly non-gender-conforming person "trans", make fun of Black people and blame their problems on women, non-gender-conforming people, any other special interest group that annoys them and all people of various non-white shades and non-white religions, not to mention Demoncrats, libruls and progressives.

You're like, "Wait, this can't be all they signed up for, right? Hatred?"

It's exactly what they signed up for, Bertha.

They're fully prepared - excited, even - to start paying $20 for 12 10 eggs ("50% more eggs than in our last cartons!"), $10 for a gallon of gas and die in the streets once they can no longer afford their sky-high rents and mortgages in return for what Dear Leader's offering them.

That's the free-dum to yell hate slurs at the top of their ever-hatin' lungs anywhere they want and to blame everything going wrong on all the groups they can't stand, anyhow, from now 'til the end of time!

That's it. That's their one weird trick.

I just - I don't want anyone to eventually regret losing sleep at night hoping the other side will regret any of this. Everything they - and we - lose will be carefully orchestrated by heavily Russian-tinged media to be the fault of Dems, Biden, Hunter, Obama, Blacks, POC, "illegal aliens", a woman, a non-white man, and so on until you're nauseous from hearing it.

Dear Leader's freed them to say what they want and to do anything they want about it - whatever *it* might be. And for that? They'll gladly lose money, jobs, homes, a limb and their own lives to shitty or no health insurance, that's my feeling.

You can say, "Oh but see, that's what fascism is - where the Powers That Be raid everything from government coffers to our own wallets while distracting us with endless culture wars and political blame games in hopes no one will notice or care how they're bankrupting us", and you wouldn't be wrong.

The part I can't wrap my mind around is how roughly half the population can't wait for it to happen.

*Not linking to their comment section, found under their Disqus comments button.

ETA 7-22-24: Based on a reply from vvalkyri I've edited "[...] Joe not only campaigned from a basement but credibly refused to debate a proven gaslighting swindler" to say "[...] Joe not only campaigned from a basement but credibly stood his own [...]. Please see comment exchange for more.

Goddamn it.

Hot take? (Though not so hot as I knew by early Friday morning based on headlines alone he'd drop out by Sunday, and rued it deeply.)

Perhaps he's simply being gentlemanly enough to stop fighting the press, which desperately wants the partially-squeezed orange back, and to stop fighting the looooong list of no-name Democrats none of us would be able to identify in a line-up now, much less down the road (and see if I vote for even one of them if they have anything to do with this. Hell to the NOOOOOOO).

At some point perhaps it becomes beneath the dignity - not just of his office but of all he's accomplished in the last four years of single-handedly holding this country together - to continue fighting back. Perhaps! I personally would've happily ignored our godforsaken orange juice-swilling press and whomever these instantly forgettable left wingers are from now until the ballot boxes were full, but that's just me.

I also think his heart might've got broken over Obama's shocking, unexpected duplicity and that said duplicity might've fed into everyone else feeling a little braver putting on their Big Boy and Girl pants than they might've otherwise.

But I light a candle, not just for Joe's campaign, but for the immediate and long-term consequences of his bowing out.

The orange and his squeezers have been saying if Joe steps down from running he should resign his office effective immediately because nothing's ever good enough for wanna-be nor actual fascists, so expect "Biden pressured to resign immediately" headlines until you're dreaming about them for at least the next week or so.

Hopefully he doesn't succumb to that pressure! But hopefully he didn't succumb to the pressure to not run again so folks, our batting average here, with only two possible chances to avoid utter chaos and one already gone, is not looking so good.

If he succumbs to the pressure to step down anytime soon, I am serious, all bets are off. If he stays the course from now through January then whew!, I can finish writing this without having a panic attack of my own.

If he stays in office until January at least we'll have the peace and stability required to carry us through the elections, barring any unforeseen events. That's our best chance and the only one that won't plummet us into instant bedlam from now until perhaps well beyond November.

No Democrat, I predict, can carry this election besides him (he needed to don his dark sunners and go full-on Dark Brandon on our asses and yep - damn it. Make fun of them making fun of you! Noooooo). Now Kamala's our only hope - and if she wins I don't think she's the best fit or the right choice, but she's as close to a step in the right direction as I think we're gonna get.

Joe got very, very lucky.

In a historically unique spot running against a profane, graceless, gummy-mouthed hustler who's proven all he does well in office is golf excessively while fomenting hatred, cutting the rich's taxes and decimating education and other systems, with COVID as his backdrop Joe not only campaigned from a basement but credibly stood his own against a gaslighting swindler - and not only got away with it - he won the highest office of the land in the process. Now ain't that some five-dimensional chess?

How he was able to avoid publicly tousling with this guy set him up to avoid questions about his mental capacity (7-22-24: not that there necessarily were any; with thanks to vvalkyri), and once he was in office having a good set of folks around to help guide and steer policy as he desired was surely a huge asset, which will carry him well as long as he sticks with it.

Debating the orange was his only major misstep - in fact if I were him I would've re-caught COVID for the third time a few months ago and back to the basement I go, sunners and all. Debating him - even if he was, as he wasn't, in the best mental and physical condition of his life - only served to falsely legitimize the orange as worthy of office and fed the press's insatiable hunger for his reinstallment so they can get their numbers and cash coffers back up to "satisfactory" pre-Biden levels.

And clearly I feel this way because I think Joe slightly over-estimated his capabilities vis-à-vis public speaking, and vastly over-estimated his chances of the orange turning him down for a debate.

I also think there's no shame in admitting your capacities might be fading a bit - but even given that, you're still obviously capable of meeting the demands of your office - and that this country's collective ageism and crazed youth worship, unless the older person's first name is followed by the last name "Trump", bizarrely enough - lives on in infamous disgrace.

In short, because I can't take this anymore and must step away for a while, thank you President Biden for the last four years, for the peace and stability you brought from the chaos of the right's claws sinking deeper and deeper into our souls and psyches, and for having a heart.

‘Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungs-aufgabenübertragungsgesetz’: how viral tongue-twisters lightened up German language

My favorite is Part II, seen below (warning: dancing and rhyming are equally hilarious):

I'm losing my love for all things French besides the language and now this has me so riled up you'll notice I didn't even use a French title. Pas comme moi, non?

Really don't read it if slut-shaming's not your thing: French People Don’t Wear Shorts. They say, specifically, "people" in the title but I see no one but women discussed and not kindly.

After reading it I was like, "Oh, so that's why my JH French teacher wore skirts that could sweep floors". I always thought it was overkill, especially in hot weather.

In case you missed it, France sexualizes thighs.

I see how thighs could be sexual - they can be nice to look at, though it's like sexualizing shoulders: it takes several mostly aborted leaps to get me from, "This is why breasts are hidden in the US" to "This is why thighs are hidden in France."

Isn't it the height of hypocrisy coming from people who think it's normal - even good - to have affairs after marrying - no shame! I guess just don't let a thigh slip through your skirt's slit while you're at it?

One thing I didn't catch in French class (though I was absent a lot so who knows) was any info on France's apparently repressive culture.

Of all the fucked up things...not like I didn't see it coming as I've been following the news on her over the last few years but I think most of it was so slanted toward unfairly maligning her over issues she, like anyone going through similar stressors and illness, could not help, that I tended to dismiss it as simply a circus forming around her.

I mean, the paparazzi are not our friends. Not celeb's friends, either.

So I felt like yeah, she's going through some struggles but hopefully she pulls through, though it was clear the support she needed was so lacking as to make it nearly impossible. No person is an island and so on.

Her singing on Nothing Compares 2 You was so beautiful it's haunted me since the day it came out.

May she rest in peace.

Might be if we go to Firefox's Settings, search for "form(s)" and untick the checkbox next to "autosave addresses". Why Firefox might *want* to save entry titles found in textboxes as addresses eludes me but I've seen stranger things (ie, almost everything LastPass has ever done).

Tried the above just now, then cleared history/cache (something Firefox does for me automatically upon quitting anyhow), restarted Firefox and my past entry titles do seem to finally be gone *almost misses long list of goofy ass titles*

So there was boneless leg of lamb served on *checks notes* whatever the last holiday was along with maybe 10 pounds of unused lamb that I don't give until Easter to not get freezer burned so I defrosted about half of it this weekend because yay Overly Ambitious Me.

It gets to be late Sunday night; I'm like what am I gonna do with all of this lamb, so I cut it up, roasted one half and did this with the rest. The roast wound up in the trash - the New York Times recipe I picked for it this time was pretty much *gags* but the other NYT recipe I picked for the stew was just great.

Subbed ingredients and/or altered quantities and cooking times pretty much throughout, but it works. Maybe someday I'll try the NYT version just to see how it stacks up.

The whole reason I went with Spanish stew as opposed to regular was I had (and still have) no potatoes or celery on hand - I'm not a big potato fan and didn't miss them in this at all.

Spanish Lamb Stew

• 1-1 1/2 lb uncooked leg of lamb, cubed
• Garlic powder and cracked black pepper to sprinkle on lamb
• 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
• 2 large cubanelle or other mild/sweet peppers, chopped
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut in half
• Kosher salt for sauteed veggies
• 6-7oz Bella Sun Luci Bruschetta sundried tomato paste* (glass jar at Winn-Dixie near produce)
• 1 28oz can whole San Marzano tomatoes (keep and add juice to pot as well)
• 5 bay leaves
• 1-1 1/2 cup(s) red wine (Shiraz *shrug it's what I had*)
• 4 cloves fresh garlic, crushed (I used a mortar and pestle)
• 1 16oz can pinto or other mild light bean, unrinsed to ensure thickening
• 1 1/2-2 cups chicken and/or beef stock (to taste, less for thicker, more flavorful stew)
• Dutch oven (I used cast iron)

Grease and heat Dutch oven to medium low. Cube lamb, season generously with garlic powder and pepper, add to pot, brown on both sides, plate and set aside.
Add onions, peppers, half the butter and a light sprinkle of kosher salt to pot. Saute, stirring now and then, for 5 minutes.
Add other half of butter, reduce heat to low and saute veggies another 5 minutes.
Add sundried tomato paste, stir well to blend with veggies and cook 1-2 minutes.
Add red wine, scraping pot and stirring well to mix in fond***.
Add whole tomatoes, breaking apart with spoon as you stir.
Add bay leaves, crushed garlic, beans, broth and lamb, cook another 5 minutes and serve. Makes approximately 4-6 servings.

*Online search recommended subbing regular tomato paste for pimentón de la Vera**. Looking at my jar of sun-dried tomato paste I was like, "This is paste, right?" I suspect it actually made the whole dish.
**Still don't even know what this is - talk about winging it.
***Fond = the brown bits clinging to the bottom of your pot or pan, aka what gives food the Maillard effect

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you enjoyed the day, however you spent it, and your meal(s). Wondering if some of you might've dinner-shopped? One of my exes did, so one year we ate with my mom, then ate with his mom, then ate with his one sister, then ate with his other sister and boy, could he eat. Like, I was full after the first meal?

As a Baby Old I'm nearing the "What if I can never have good things again?" phase and it's giving me FOFOMO - Fear Of Fear Of Missing Out - so we had lamb, surprise, surprise.

Your Host happily screwed everything up *except for* the asparagus so that was something: I wanted a "rosy pink in the middle" leg of lamb - got closer to not even a blush (though it did have one upon removing it from the oven, I swear) and just a few normal baked sweet potatoes.

The latter doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it (while the former does after almost never getting it right)? But then I went full-on mom (she incinerated everything - to her it wasn't even done until she did) so we got this:

It's not your imagination: the food's upside down no matter which way you turn the picture. Shown: Dinner plate with sliced leg of lamb* (recipe below); baked sweet potato with butter, Saigon cinnamon, allspice; steamed asparagus with butter. Not pictured: pan gravy.

ETA 11-27-22: OK, I get the feeling you all are harshing on me because my sweet potato looks say, a little janky?

Dudes, I cook like a champ (lamb's hard to do; ask any cook). That was my plate; my guest's looks better. I probably should've posted theirs to begin with but they were being shy about taking meat and I didn't want to show a stingy plate. But since my starch is getting compared to uh, Yorkshire pudding in the single comment I got (which didn't even wish me a happy holiday - harsh, I tell you) here goes:

Better? My potato looks like it does, not because I burned it beyond belief (I ate most of the skin - the lower sides and bottom - not pictured - weren't burned!), it was just a mess once I cut it open. And I'm never posting another one of these Holiday Tales From The Table things again, y'all do not deserve me.

Luckily the meat was still tender - my guest seemed to love it - and the incinerated yams were still fluffy and tender inside. We sweated that one hard, thinking I'd blackened them all the way through but yeah...full-on crisis averted.

Marie Callender's coconut cream pie and some fancy chocolates were on for dessert, then there was too much pie leftover that Guest 1 wouldn't take home so I had Guest 2 stop by to have some, yet the pie, a little lamb and three bottles of wine in various flavors and states of use are still kicking around - and a good time was had by all.

*I was feeding just the 2 of us so went with a pound and a half of boneless leg of lamb - there's still lots more uncooked in my freezer - which I coated in marinade about a half hour before cooking, then cooked it at 320-330 degrees for an hour.

Marinade/pan gravy mixture was the juice of three small, very ripe lemons, about a tablespoon and a half of good-quality EVOO, half a stick of unsalted butter, a few shakes of sea salt, a few grinds of the black pepper mill and a few shakes of Parm cheese straight from my beloved green bottle which you will rip from my cold, dead hands, mixed together in a bowl and applied with a pastry brush.

Then (I know I did this backwards; I do blame the siren song of a beautiful day on my porch, where we hung out endlessly while I cooked, for all of my mishaps today) I cut slits all around the lamb just big enough to insert maybe a few dozen garlic slivers and topped it with five sprigs of rosemary. The pan juice this created was divine - used it as gravy with no alterations poured right on the meat.

So he's getting the Charlie Sheen treatment over at Chez MM. That's what I do when public figures lose their marbles in such similar ways! You're welcome.

I don't think Charlie wrote this; rather, it's a Daily Beast writer's re-working of one of his (arguably) better flights of fancy Back In The Day.

"Even by thinking about it!"

This Just In

Newsflash:
I am special,
and I will never be one of you!
I have a disease?
Bullshit!
I cured it with my brain,
with my mind.
I cured it,
I'm done.
You don't look like you're having a lot of fun.

As an aside, turns out this post might be a public service of sorts as the above poem and its many hilarious cousins have lost their original formatting at the source (the poems are still available in their original formatting over the span of four pages on The Wayback Machine - where no one can find them).

I was probably not for or against abortion until a close relative of mine had one then, even before it was done, I was anti: I tried to talk her out of it.

I offered to raise the child myself, assuming a child came to fruition.

I hounded her from the minute she told us about it until it was done, I think some weeks later. Our relationship, always a mess of petty infighting, stupid dramas and other unpleasantness, broke down some more. She left, as she was going to either way, to go find her dreams.

She got it done. I decided not to forgive her. We stopped speaking.

I stayed solidly anti-abortion through 2016ish or so, when changes Republican lawmakers wanted to make and/or were starting to implement saw people flood the media with horror stories of forced birth, wanted pregnancies gone wrong and explained what it meant, what it was leading up to. Reading their stories was when something in me slowly broke started to change.

I began realizing I knew nothing about a) how pregnancy works, b) how a zygote or embryo becomes a fully formed baby, c) how pregnancies don't always succeed and can threaten the life of a mother before, during or after gestation, d) how pregnancy can negatively impact a body and one's physical and mental health even without complications, and e) how being forced (or say, even "talked into") having an unwanted child can ruin finances, educational and employment prospects, relationships and futures all-around, including for the force-birthed child.

All these inner thoughts percolated away, my newfound distaste for forced birth growing stronger with each state's demolishment of our rights culminating in the overturning of Roe v. Wade (which btw, I had a few thoughts on 4 years ago).

I say all this to clear the air: I was obviously anti-abortion in my LiveJournal days, perhaps publicly though I can't recall now, and in my more private communications with others online, which I recall very well, if not the specifics of what I said, the overall gist of it.

Anything I said on it in those days I 100% believed (aka: felt strongly about; entirely certain of). I can't take it back anymore than I can take back that as a small child my eyes were blue (even worse: my hair was red) but changed 5-7 years later into their now-darker color.

Except I wasn't born but came into anti-abortion beliefs based on nothing besides a strong emotional reaction to a family matter, and out of ignorance and lack of knowledge on the topics of mental and bodily health, financial health and family planning - just for a start, there's so much more; I'm eliding most of it for the sake of expediency - maintained that position for roughly 25 more years.

But I tell you this now not just to clear the air but to make a point - if I can change my views then it seems anyone can, though it might come down to the company one keeps as well: I hang out on liberal social media. I read liberal and progressive news and viewpoints. The more I do of both, the more I come to understand what's at stake in so many of today's issues.

What really changed my mind - and what continues to keep it hopping from a pro-abortion perspective - is reading and hearing the stories of people who've suffered over being forced to do this or talked into doing that or being unable to do what it takes to save their own lives or futures.

It eventually made me feel bad for what I put my relative through while not knowing any better, not understanding matters of personal agency and autonomy and issues around consent and so much more as well as I could've. I wasn't raised nor educated to understand so I saw everything through what I recognize now as a very limited, nailed-shut, anti-feminist point of view.

If anyone's mind can be changed I'm positive it's by telling our stories in the most authentic and honest ways possible, so my advice is don't stop. The more anti-abortion someone is, I guarantee you the more they need to hear it. I can tell you so from my own personal experience.

And as some of us like to say, if men needed abortions they'd be available at every 7-11 so don't forget how much hypocrisy is at play: it's not about babies, it's almost purely about control.

Smiling, happy people onion hanging out on my cutting board.

It's so happy, isn't it? Happy onion, happy onion.

The smell of my neighbor's cooking keeps wafting in, day after day, shortening my lifespan.

It's bad when everyone's so stressed out even my cat's eating coffee - not drinking it, eating it, straight from the can.

Like "Screw it, by the time you brew this my fur might be standing on end" so I waited as he divebombed the can like a food trough.

To the Other Side I would say: May all your cat(s) live in just as interesting times. Motherfuckers.

Since the internet will inevitably lose its mind should I not clarify: 1) It didn't poison him. The dosage for that falls in the 80-150mg range, the lower end of which converts to about 1/16th of a teaspoon. Bowie had nowhere near that, maybe just a small lick before he decided to wait on the brew take his angst out on his Turbo scratcher. 2) He doesn't drink coffee, I guess he just likes the smell of fresh grounds? 3) The cats always have dry food and plenty of clean, fresh water available so it wasn't that, either.

Question #1: What would you do, what would people like you do, if there was a national abortion ban?

Answer: Your world would be on metaphorical fire. You'd be out in the streets. You'd be yelling and picketing and protesting outside of the places that need to hear you, you'd be ringing government switchboards off the hook, you'd be stopping traffic, you'd be writing government reps and pounding out posts and videos on blogs and social media.

Your reaction would be immediate, long-lasting, sustained. You wouldn't go away. The issue won't go away, and neither will you.

Question #2: So why aren't we reacting to the end of Roe vs. Wade like it's a national abortion ban? If we don't then chances are there'll be one, then it's too late. Then we'll have to fight that, too.

Mitch McConnell amply warned us a national ban's on the table. I'm not saying if we get out there like it's already in place that stops it from happening - I'm saying the chances of avoiding it are much worse if we don't stand up until enough of us get the right people in place to help push back effectively.

We can't wait for Biden or Pelosi or *insert name here*...nor similar leaders in name only. They won't tell you to take a stand - though chances are higher they'll work to do what's needed once enough of us do.

AOC told us to take a stand. We ought to listen to AOC.

I have no idea what they are!

For several years I've grown jalapenos and bell peppers from grocery store seeds; last year I harvested some green ghost or habanero peppers as well (not sure which, but one time they set me and my ex-landlord on fire via a cream sauce I made - even after boiling the piss out of them) off a plant inherited from a neighbor.

This year, despite avidly using frost covers at any drop in temp below 50 degrees I seem to have lost my bell peppers, habaneros/ghosts, and jalapeno plants entirely.

Over the years I've always sowed more bell pepper and jalapeno seeds from grocery store peppers but through the thicket of plants growing on the back porch I can't see that any of those seeds have ever taken.

Earlier this year I inherited a Carolina Reaper from a neighbor which was not in bud or bloom, then almost forgot about it until I started seeing yellow fruits a few weeks ago which finally ripened into little red balls of fire late last week, so I'm assuming they're Carolina Reaper, though I'm not entirely sure.

Here's them, picked:

I tend to use the same 2-3 pots to hold all my peppers (both seeds and established plants) so it's hard to say what they might be.

Seen in first pic: it's possible there are multiple peppers plants of unidentified genera, spider/airplane plant, rosemary, palmetto(?) though not "saw palmetto" (I have one of those, too), purple heart.

with my CSS: now (finally) it's decorated for Pride (links only; I wanted the header decorated too but am still Slava Ukraini-ing so had to get creative).

Do we like the colors? We like the colors, yes?

I'm only posting this for posterity in case anyone wonders why I'm not updating my style sheets at Pastebin or at style_tester to reflect more recent changes - I lose style sheets too easily so there's a local copy saved of this one and that's it.

Also, we like the colors.

Mary Marah Marie had a little a lot of lamb, as it turns out - over 5 pounds!

Costco had very reasonably priced lamb at $7.99 a pound (low quality steak costs more) but, and there are buts: it was boneless, it was meaty and the smallest one I could find was just a hair over five pounds, enough to feed two people 5-10 times over, and my freezer's at DANGER DOOR ABOUT TO BURST OPEN levels so yay, a challenge.

Luckily I could refrigerate the entire leg until the Big Day as the sell-by date was the 24th after buying it last Tuesday, which gave me all week to work down my freezer and not shop or get deliveries that involved freezing stuff. We cut the lamb into thirds today, froze two thirds in separate packages and cooked up the rest.

I've never cooked boneless leg of lamb before, though. Costco didn't have bone-in and I refuse to countenance Publix's prices whether they have it or not, not after the spectacle of seeing their cheapest bone-in was in the $50 range several years ago, so I made do.

"But how do I cook the damn thing?" Flop sweat crept over me as I googled for recipes. Recipe bloggers were like, "Lamb is sooooooo teeeeeeender and eeeeeeasy to cook" and all I could think was, "Motherfuckers, I screw this up watch me come find every last one of you". They make scrambling eggs sound harder and yeah, I dunno.

As a human clone of the original leg of lamb preparer/aficionado I'm breaking tradition by not having bone in and this lamb, without it, is shaped so oddly - with a wide, low profile and almost flat sides, uniformly thick through the middle - that my nerves practically shattered between buying it and today. If I'm gonna clone I'm gonna clone and this year I was following the cloner's recipe, so it matters.

I have Before pics but not After - after half a bottle of wine I forgot about After so then we just ate it, oh well.

The way my mom's mom me in my past life did this was to cut slits to stuff slivers of fresh garlic into the lamb, but I never feel that's quite enough.

I can't remember what Past Life me would've done besides garlic though, if anything, so a marinade was made: EVOO, fresh-squeezed lemon, herbs de Provence, stone-ground Dijon mustard - because of course something must be French - fresh-frozen rosemary leaves, fresh-ground black pepper, kosher salt and a few small cloves of garlic in the mortar and pestle.

Mixed it all up, brushed it on, added fresh-frozen rosemary sprigs, and let it rest for a few minutes before popping it in a 350 oven for about an hour and 20 minutes.

Sides got a bit complicated: the sweet potatoes (not pictured) were the size of buildings big, like "What was I thinking when I bought these?" big, so had to keep cooking at 400 while the lamb rested and I started asparagus, which I pan-fried. For some reason, though I was over half a bottle of wine by then, I remembered to take the After pic though not a Before:

We sat down to eat between 5:30 and 6. The lamb was indeed teeeender and quite amazing, though I'd been hoping for a medium-rare to medium roast and this was not it.

When I pulled it out it was ready to go back to being a lamb so when I upped the heat on the sweet potatoes I popped it back in with them, which got us just a hair into medium-well territory: still tender but the slices looked so much like a pork loin I was doing doubles.

The sweet potatoes, which I planned to cook separately to keep them marinade-free, wouldn't fit alongside my roasting pan so I had to jacket them and drop them in behind the onions. Normally you jacket a brown potato...sure enough the skin was soft (I like it crispy) but the insides were perfect fluff-bombs of goodness, and there was butter and maple syrup and honey and cinnamon and cinnamon sugar to put on them besides.

The asparagus (as usual - I'm 2-for-2 now on fucking asparagus up) was my only somewhat-miss: the bite was good (not too mushy, not too stringy or hard) and the flavor (cooked in olive oil, butter and balsamic) was pretty good - but we both noticed a meat aftertaste, specifically: lamb. I will never figure that one out.

Dessert was frozen strawberry cheesecake and for me, some black grapes and chocolate. By then we were ready to pass out so I'd call tonight's meal an overall blazing success.

*This is actually the most important religious holiday of the year to me - like what Passover is for Jews or whatever that meal is the Jehovah Witnesses eat, so like Publix's leg of lamb prices I will not countenance references to Ishtar, Esther, or the "fertility gods" either, thank you.

If you ever run across one of these metal reindeer just remember the metal rose and trumpet in his basket are not included (I added the trumpet while a friend of mine added the rose and his name).

Shopped at Fresh 4 Less today for the first time. The produce was no "fresher" than elsewhere and I wonder how they can have canned seafood but no canned anchovies and BelGioioso Romano by the block but no pre-shredded tub (I've looked all over for the latter only to conclude I must've got it at Publix)?

Today's haul was my very late dinner (each made in their own cast iron pan) - NY strip coated in garlic powder, kosher salt and fresh-cracked pepper alongside creamed spinach: sliced portabello mushrooms, organic chickpeas and diced yellow onions sauteed in butter and olive oil then de-glazed in white wine combined with a package of frozen spinach cooked and squeezed dry and finished in a few dollops of sour cream and heavy cream with some hand-shredded Romano on top.

Yummy.

This little fucker freaked me out. Stared at it for what felt like hours as it sat near my front door one night...have never seen one like it before or since.

Now that I see it has on a white robe with a fluffy collar (or is that "fluffy hoodie"?) I'm enamored.

It's hard to make these posts sitting outside in 48 degree weather after I've already been out here for a while waiting for Windows 11 to install on my Elitebook 840 G1 (why am I sitting outside freezing my ass off - ask me in the comments).

Out of the box Windows 11 looks like hell. MS has permanently removed (so far, anyhow) 1) the search box - which I use like a Run box (as in run.exe) and already miss the hell out of, 2) the ability to unlock the taskbar to re-arrange taskbar icons and 3) (possibly, unless I'm mistaken?) the Control Panel link on the menu found under Start icon right-click.

Centered and smooshed taskbar icons (including the Start icon, which is just an unreal thing to center) can be aligned left again and MS is trying to turn their search tool into Everything (good luck!) which I haven't had time to gauge the efficacy of as I'd need to run it side by side with Everything, which I'll get around to someday (maybe once I'm not freezing my ass off).

The install process was similar to installing any version of Windows from Vista on up so few surprises there; I was asked for a product key on a device that always gets digitally activated but skipped doing so without issue (the device activated once setup was complete) and the Offline Account link is now hidden behind a menu which I found by clicking on More Options - I think.

As far as choosing settings during install (privacy/security/advertising ID, and so on) the process seems faster and more streamlined - the options are all found on one screen now without hiding too many essentials you'll want to go fishing for afterward.

Once install was complete I was able to change the washed-out white and blue default theme - so reminiscent of Vista Basic and Windows 8 and 10 Home I briefly panicked as I thought I installed Pro (I did) to a more soothing purple/black theme ready out of the box, which for once seems to have fully turned the entire OS dark-themed, though I could quibble about dark black Explorer windows on lighter black backgrounds because sloppy design, but anyhow.

Though I've had zero time to play with the system outside of installing Firefox and all my add-ons it does seem faster, smoother and swoopier (this word might be endemic to me and me alone) in how it handles shading, backgrounds, and transitions.

MS has re-designed Settings with tighter line-heights, smaller fonts and more info packed in per page and gone with a dense vertical list view for Settings groups instead of the lighter, looser, airier old Windows 10 grids. I don't know how to feel about this though I don't entirely dislike it (I do like generous line heights though; these are not).

Outside of that MS is still spamming us from the Home screen to look at this or do do that; the Taskbar icons are clunky and washed out compared to Win10's and the Taskbar tray icons have needed help since Windows 8, so no change there.

The calendar and notifications panel have been combined and stacked which I'm pretty sure I don't like as if I never see another Windows notif again I'll be happy. UAC unfortunately still exists (I turned it off).

I tried to uninstall Microsoft Teams from Apps and Features; while it says it uninstalled its Chat icon still sits in my Taskbar and no, now that the Taskbar is permanently locked the icon can't be deleted (ETA 12-3-21: it can be deleted via Apps and Features; I believe I found it listed under Teams).

Lastly, this Elitebook isn't compatible with Windows 11, so says the Windows 11 Installation Assistant (so far none of my computers are) though one can still use the media creation tool to make a bootable USB or DVD image (!not recommended - potentially ruining my devices with early versions of OSes is just what I do for fun).

As of about 20 minutes ago. If you survived your first two shots they don't make you wait 15 minutes to make sure you're not allergic to your third one. I was like, "Really, I can just go?" Both major drugstores I checked (you know the ones) had your pick of open slots available the night before the day of so I take it at least in Florida people aren't taking advantage of the booster's availability.

Boosterism

• Who Is Eligible for a COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shot?
• How long does a booster shot take to reach full effectiveness? (Wrote my own headline and quoting the answer: "We found that 7–13 days after the booster shot there is a 48–68 percent reduction in the odds of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, and that 14–20 days after the booster the marginal effectiveness increases to 70–84 percent")
• Can I get a booster shot if I had the Moderna vaccine to begin with? (Again with my own headline and answer: "Only if you're immuno-compromised in some way" but! (see next two items)
• People Are Getting Moderna 'Boosters' Anyway
• FDA panel unanimously recommends Moderna Covid booster shots for at-risk adults (as of 4-5 hours ago)
• Covid booster shot's side effects similar to 2nd vaccine dose, CDC study finds (so yes my chills, muscle aches and exhaustion from Round 2? Here we come *counts down remaining hours; took 2-3 hours for me to become ill last time*)
• As for you J&J folks: J&J Covid vaccine recipients are better off getting Pfizer or Moderna booster, NIH study suggests
• J&J Covid Booster Wins Backing of FDA Advisory Panel (added day after posting)
• Mix-and-match COVID boosters are as good as—if not better than—all the same shots (via andrewducker, added shortly after posting)
• Getting a Booster Too Soon Could Cause This Serious Side Effect, Experts Warn

COVID miscellany

• Moderna Makes Twice as Many Antibodies as Pfizer, Study Says (which might be why they're only seeking approval for a half-dose)
• Vaccine warning as Israel data shows Pfizer protection 'vanishes' against Delta strain
• Big gap between Pfizer, Moderna vaccines seen for preventing COVID hospitalizations
• Study suggests Pfizer/BioNTech antibodies disappear in many by seven months
• New Covid variant found in Kentucky nursing home has deadly mutations that could evade virus antibodies
• Some people have a gene offering protection from Covid, experts say
• Merck pill seen as 'huge advance,' raises hope of preventing COVID-19 deaths
• These existing drugs can kill COVID-19 virus, study finds (ffs horse pill-popping, bleach-swilling people who aren't reading this anyhow: this does *not* mean "And now let's all drink some breastmilk"!)
• T-cell tests unreliable in establishing previous COVID-19
• People doing this work are 3 times more likely to get COVID-19
• After his wife was put on a ventilator, a husband faced an agonizing decision: Should he do whatever it took for her to wake up? (truly harrowing story)
• ‘You’re not getting this damn vaccine’: Alabama teen’s struggle for COVID shot mirrors struggles nationwide
• Hospital Calls Antivaxxers' Bluff: Grants Religious Exemption If Employees Swear Off Tylenol
• The [CDC's COVID-19-related eviction moratorium] ban on evictions has ended [as of Oct. 3rd]: Here's what to do if you're facing eviction
• Florida trying to block money Biden sent to school districts fined for mask mandates
• Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried urges Florida to speed up distribution of federal COVID relief dollars (this state, man smh *sigh*)
• Researchers release masks that instantaneously deactivate SARS-CoV-2
• A 3D-printed vaccine patch offers vaccination without a shot (added day after posting)

Just curious.

(This brings to mind fond memories (like of all my root canals) of a former roommate who told me and my ex-SO we could not keep our showerhead in our shared bathroom because it made the water "not wet enough". Now I have to worry about it being "not crispy enough", except I never do the thing they talk about before doing the other thing they talk about at this link, so I used to think I was doing it wrong! Ah, well.)

1,000 times more than it already has before it finally goes the fuck away/is reduced to a common cold I was ~excited~ about all the possible treatments for people already sick with the damn thing so linked to drugs with possible uses for it within various posts, including of course...ivermectin. *sigh*

It seems on the early word of people like myself sharing news on a compound that had barely been studied at all (to be clear, ivermectin *does* hold some promise as a COVID treatment - but if you're doing it yourself then yes, you're doing it wrong) the same people who do things like a) vote an orange in as president, b) think the orange is still president, c) drink colloidal silver because IT'S GOOD FOR YOU and make the propagandists of right-wing misinformation fIltHy rich by buying everything they see in the ads alongside said propaganda concluded that if smartasses on the left were merely talking about ivermectin as a possible COVID-19 treatment then by all means smartasses on the right should buy and take ivermectin to treat themselves when they fall ill with COVID-19.

Drink colloidal silver, it's probably safer.

In the US ivermectin's sold as a horse dewormer - OK, so it's for horses, animals which often weigh at least a ton more than the average human. People are apparently concocting their own dosages and treatments then pooping out big ol' WORMS! which they're affectionately calling rope worms and showing off, yes, the worms themselves, on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc. Not only is this gross (why would you show off a private deworming to a public audience), it's UNTRUE: those aren't rope worms these people are shitting out, those are the inner linings of their intestines. Without the inner lining you can have a leaky gut and a leaky gut can not only cause a variety of illnesses, it can kill you. So much for the cure not being worse than the...

People who do something like this? Don't trust a) the government, b) the medical- industrial complex (this I can give a small nod to, but still) nor c) the left, which means they don't trust science as they associate anything scienc-y with "the left". These are the same people who 1) refuse COVID vaccines and/or will refuse boosters and/or the non-mRNA shots still in the works, b) don't wear masks and therefore c) put all of our lives at risk.

I have been engendered recently to have some sympathy. No. I don't want people to take a drug that causes them to think they've scored a huge BONUS! treatment for COVID-19 witnessed by pushing their own intestinal linings out of their bodies and going, "And look, it deworms you, too!" so while I feel bad for whatever got them thinking it was possible to treat themselves for COVID and deworm themselves, I can't feel beyond that when these same fuckers are actively trying to, or at least don't care if they kill us all.

Case in hand: the president at one of my jobs. She a) refuses the vaccine, b) refuses to mask, c) over her not masking everyone else has stopped masking too regardless of their political stripe or flavor, perhaps in fear of her being the boss and what she might think if they "rebel". You know what she thinks? She tells me all the time. That the vaccines insert a tracker. That the government wants to control us and inflates the death count to scare us into complicity. That COVID is just the flu. That she doesn't care if she catches it, it's just nothing. That everyone makes too big a deal out of it.

I've tried to tell her how easily she can get other people, including me, sick or even kill us, how easily it spreads through the air - how her mere flu-like (assuming) illness can kill small babies, elderly women, people with weak immune systems. She just shrugs. I'll bet she probably goes home at night and takes ivermectin at the first sign of any COVID symptoms and while I'm sorry for the day she gets even sicker from that then she would've by just wearing a mask and getting her vaccine (she's really a fairly nice person!), I'm not too sorry for her, otherwise. It's like working around an active murderer.

While I mentioned using "matagus's very similar extension, Google Redirects Fixer & Tracking Remover" in a 7-24 update to my original post on this issue, his add-on seems to suffer the same issues it's always had with not stripping the redirect for copy/paste purposes, not stripping it from image URLs and so on.

So I kept looking through AMO and last week found google redirect rewrite remover. It too fails to strip the redirect from image URLs but does strip it on direct click and right click from within search results and for copy/paste purposes so at least is an improvement. If I find a more complete add-on I'll either update this to include it or write a new post.