Well That Didn't Work

Tried to draw a vacuum on the HVAC system because the evaporator is connected at this point of the reassembly.

No joy.

It went from -32 psi to -20 while I attempted to distract myself with a trip to the brewery, or about 30 minutes.

That means I didn't diagnose the leak correctly and have wasted a week of my time replacing a part that was, likely, just fine.

And I still have a week of work ahead of me to get it put back together to a drivable state.

And I don't want to.

I am just entirely discouraged by this adventure and I just want someone to come take the hulk away and never wrench again.

I will get over this, but right now...

I am pinning a LOT of hope on Marv's gauges being the source of the leak, not my repair.  We're pretty sure I didn't operate them correctly for the second draw down.

On the plus side, I got two of the three wiring projects I wanted to do done. 

The real trick will be to shut off my mind sufficiently to stop brooding on it until tomorrow when I can work on it. 

Still Not Done Being Mad

Even though it's been 25 years since 9/11 I am not done being angry about it.

I still feel that since it was done in the name of Islam that Islam should have done a lot more to show it didn't represent their feelings.

To the point that the next time someone does something in the name of Islam we just make Mecca the new land of the midnight sun with a Beatles soundtrack.

Then carpet bomb anyone who gets upset about it.

Because I am done.

I have noticed, however that much of the middle east has been a lot more taciturn about "Death to America" of late.

Even heard rumors that the current management of Saudi is a lot more moderate than their grandparents and there's a good chance that the Wahhabism wing will get a lot smaller.

One can hope.

To any and all Muslims in the US:  Tomorrow is not your day, so lay the fuck low; we're still licking our wounds and you aren't going to talk us down next time. 

Sad Day

My 2008 Mac Pro A1186 has died.

With it goes my copy of AutoCAD and Photoshop. 

Pessimistic Me?

Too many MAGA people moan about what they are not seeing done while ignoring the incredible wealth of good news in their midst.

I’ll give you just one example.

Did you know that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has created a “Second Amendment Section,” designed to protect the…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) May 6, 2026

Yes, it's good news that the DOJ is suing over an AWB.

But we can also see that Duncan v Bonta is not moving and it's been sitting there for...

Nine years since the initial, favorable, ruling.

Three years since the 9th Circus Circuit issued the unfavorable ruling saying the law could proceed and be enforced.

Waiting on the Supreme Court.

Again.

Still.

It took our side two years to file for certiorari, FFS!

So, good on the DOJ for suing Denver.  Should have the injustice removed in about ten years...  Assuming that the succeeding administrations and their DOJ keep the case going.

That's why we're pessimists!  They can't do a decade's worth of litigation in the two years remaining. 

We Can't

Can't stop Sharia because religious freedom.

Can't deport anyone because birthright citizenship.

Can't stop illegal aliens from... anything because they have the same rights as those here legally.

And I wonder.

Was the Constitution and Bill of Rights always a suicide pact?

Did the founders and their extensive notes and correspondence about freedom and liberty intend for it to become the chains of anarcho-tyranny? 

Drama Of My Own Making

I was in a rage.

I'd been driven away from having fun at a local brewery by a family that doesn't manage basic hygiene or do much of anything to keep the three kids from running wild while they drink.

Two days in a row.

So I did what any idiot would do and vented to Facebook.  Smart people don't do this.

One of the owners thought I was referring to them and not the family.

So I deleted the post and sent a PM apologizing.

Then I unfriended everyone I'd ever met through that business.

You know, like any idiot would.  Again, smart people don't do this.

To my shock (because idiot), this did not make anything better.

I am accustomed to people never noticing that I've unfriended them on Facebook.  There's people from 2009 who still have not said anything.

I've gotten it, mostly, sorted out with the owners.  Her and her husband are even refriended.

One of the beeristas, though, went off at length to a mutual friend and...

Well, I'm embarrassed by the situation I've made and not quite brave enough to actively apologize.  I made a weak attempt that Marv didn't even notice (and that I think got a cold shoulder).  All he saw was me trying to be small so as to not rub her nose in having to serve a prick like me.

So I'm going to try avoiding that employee until she says to a third party that she's done being actively angry or the heat death of the universe. 

On the plus side, I'm gonna save money not going out for beer much any more. 

The Flying Monkeys

I tend to get two modes of operation.

First is when I explain why I'm talking about something then talk about it.

The rationale gets repeated as the subject and I get comments about how wrong I am about what I said.  Ignoring that this is just and explanation about what I went on to talk about...

These are the kind of people who read "Well regulated militia," and say there's no reason to have a personal firearm.

Two blogs in particular send the flying monkeys like this.

They read what they think I said without getting to the conclusion and castigate me in a way that ends up justifying my feelings on any given matter.

They comment with little tests to show how clever they are and how uneducated I am.  Tests that don't have any bearing on the conclusion I've come to.

My second mode of operation is just saying what I thought about something with little to no explanation.

Now the predominate comments demand that I explain.

My position gets posted to one of these blogs and the flying monkeys come here to explain to me why I am wrong and why I feel the way I do.

So far, they've never managed to actually hit my reasons for feeling the way I do.

But it's starting to feel like these two blogs don't do anything but read other folks blogs so they can shit on them for their followers to expand out like flying monkeys and shit in the comments.

Been here before, it dies off after a bit.

I don't even read those blogs, I just have started recognizing the monkeys.

Since I piss them off so much, they should stop reading here too. 

I Tell You What

I am absolutely certain that people are sick of being on eggshells around me.

I can fix that!

Comms Down

Good thing I got Willard's phone a new battery, installed it, charged it and prodded him into picking it up.

Because it still doesn't take calls.

Emails disappear into the void.

Messages left with the daughter don't appear to be relayed.

Can't get past the gate at the gated community.

I am thinking I am being told to leave someone the fuck alone.

Message received.  Dang it.

Dunno Why

I keep goofing around with GURPS shit and I never get to play.

If I am very lucky, I get one or two sessions when FuzzyGeff makes his annual pilgrimage to Florida to visit Marv and I.

I loved tabletop role playing games once.

It was my main social activity at one time.

Now?

I do some reality checks and make characters that will never be played.

I polish the cannonball of converting Twilight: 2000 to GURPS 4e.

And...?

It's a little depressing.

Especially when I learn how woke and TDS the people who make and sell the games I still love are.

For Tat

President McThag, around noon on 11Sep01 would have been talking to a boomer captain and targeting a couple reentry vehicles to 21°25′21.0″N 39°49′34.2″E.

Then I would direct The State Department to ORDER the Saudi ambassador's ass to my office.

Whereupon I would inform him that he and his family had exactly 72 hours to gather up everyone involved or I would begin using my expansive nuclear arsenal on Islam's holy sites until there weren't any.

I checked, the oil is far enough below the surface that it will not be affected by radiation from the blasts, especially air-bursts.

I'd then have taken to TV and informed the rest of the world that, no shit, you're with us or against us.

The least support I would accept is staying out of the way.

Since the experiment of letting these places run themselves has spectacularly failed, every nation involved in this bullshit, who doesn't immediately get VERY cooperative, gets to be a province of the USA and once enough time and education is applied, perhaps their great grand kids could earn second class citizenship.

Lots of places would hate this, but I'm OK with hate, so long as they fear.

But that's just me.

I'm a vindictive cuss.

Maybe Pepperidge Farms

Remember when June was Men's Mental Health Awareness Month?

So Much For That

I've been reading, over and over, about how the cisnormative are assaulting and murdering wholesale the trans community.

I read the news and it's not a cisnormative person who shot up a school and murdered six people, including children.

Once again; It's not me or my side in this tiresome debate that's murdering people.

I was trying so hard to be reasonable and warn people too.

I guess it won't matter soon.

Toxicity

I am engaged in chemical warfare with the damned roaches.

Last time really knocked them back on their heels, this time I'm giving a much longer soak time than the minimum 2-hours.

It seems we do this every seven or eight years, though I think I know the source this time.

Fuck You 2022

The Precious died.

The Lovely Harvey broke her shoulder and got a near fatal infection.

Derpy Dingus McGee died.  He was a great cat.

Numerous home disasters ruined all the finances.

The red wave never materialized.

2023 shouldn't be worse, but I will not say it cannot.

I said that about 2020 and 2022 sure proved my dumb ass wrong.

The Difference

I remember getting fed up with a friend, Anglave, over his amazing ability to know nothing about a topic we were discussing, yet have all of the standard talking points at his fingertips.

Seeing how all I had was my own lying eyes against the power of Google and the mass media, I could never prove to his satisfaction that Google and the mass media were lying.

Now we have Elon Musk poking around under the hood of Twitter and we're finding that, yes, the places that I found to be biased and telling lies were biased and telling lies.

Well, Anglave, care to apologize?

Get ahead of the revelations that might be coming?

Like The Tea Party wasn't racist?

Like Global Warming Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Climate Change being a gigantic scam?

Like how the press buried dozens of stories about Obama and his terrorist buddy and racist friends?

Come, man up, admit you were misled and drove your friend away.

Avoidance

I have not been posting much because I have not been reading the news or other blogs much.

I have enough in my life to be mad and depressed about that I don't need to be finding other sources of it.

Maybe it was from growing up in a hyper-liberal college town that clued me in early to things that other people are just now talking about.

Welcome to the party.

I was Cassandra.

When I was right, I was not believed.

The level of utter stupidity that a hyper-liberal college down generated was epic.

And it spread.

Nobody believed it could, but...

Here we are.

You want to know why science died?

Because the morons in charge of grants didn't care for the advancement of knowledge unless it supported their preconceived conclusions.

No money for research outside an ever narrowing topic of discussion and no experiments which would cause the cash-tap to shut off.

It isn't scientists who make the decisions about where the money goes.  It's politicians, and they've no use for science if it doesn't advance their careers.  The same can be said for many businessmen.  Science doesn't sell.

It's why there's no Bell Labs.

It's why we cannot discuss the war on poverty.

It's why we cannot discuss the war on drugs.

It's why we cannot discuss immigration and the effects of not assimilating the people who move here from other nations.

It's why we cannot discuss the wisdom of letting subcultures hostile to the main culture exist and thrive, despite the constant evidence that allowing it is damaging our culture, nation and economy every day.

I tried to write to get my thoughts out and be informative and, perhaps, guide someone to knowledge if they were open to seeing it.

I tried.

But my little 1,000 hit a day blog doesn't reach many people.

But I get the most hate back from people who'd nominally agree with me, but since I took the wrong route to agreement, my concurrence was invalid.

It doesn't help much to see them cited as experts when they showed they didn't know what they fuck they were talking about several times when they ventured outside their narrow expertise.

Being an expert at one thing doesn't even imply expertise outside that field.

Murry-Gellman-Amnesia is so fucking real it hurts.

Sorrow

When looking at Texas being worked on, I am saddened that not one of the numerous "4-stacker" destroyers remains.

The Clemson and Wickes classes were everywhere for a while.

Then there were none.

I've also noticed that there don't appear to be plans to make museums of anything newer than the Korean war.

I think there's an effort to save USS Halyburton, but that's all I can think of.

We didn't even save the first US carrier with an angled deck as part of her design.

Boot Time One Hour

After running AVG for, like, five days straight, svchost was using ALL the RAM.

So I go for a reboot.

It hangs on the Starting Windows screen for ten minutes then dumps me into startup repair.

I let that run for a bit and the screen goes dark and the monitors go to sleep, but the drive is clicking like mad.

After about 40 minutes of that, the fans are down to idle speed and the clicking has stopped.

So I hold down the power button to force a shut-down and reboot.

Viola!  All better now!

Windows is so damn random sometimes and some of my problems are likely because it's a Bootcamp installation of it.

Well That Sucks

Hognose's old domain got bought and is in use by someone doing gun reviews.

Probably has no idea of the legacy of their domain name.

Loose Rounds, who'd hosted an archive of Weapon Man's blog has sold his domain too, and the archive is now gone.

The internet is this odd combination of eternal and ephemeral.