Author Archives: Joel

Memorize this, and you’re all set for that big drunken Christmas party! You’re welcome. The Shit-Shoveling Song(to the tune of the Wassail song) Here we go shit-shoveling across the dusty plainHere we go shit-shoveling in sunshine and in rainHorses shit … Continue reading →

Kinda smoky inside, since I kept standing there like an idiot with the stove door open, admiring the pretty flames. But at least no smoke started pouring from the roof, or … um … Yeah, just forget I said that. … Continue reading →

My good neighbor D came over after his workday, and helped me slide the stove into place. Went to the builders’ supply on Saturday with Landlady and got the last bit of stovepipe I needed to mate the old pipe … Continue reading →

Good news!  The repaired pressure pump has been installed. That center section, between the motor and the impellor, is what broke into pieces.  The company Landlady hired had a spare one that had obviously been lying around a warehouse for … Continue reading →

In the Hour of Promise In the hour of darkness, the hour of dreadYou crouch in silence and you stare at the threatening doorAnd the sweat of your hand is slick on the grip of your shotgunAnd the glow of … Continue reading →

From Tam, that aphorism-coining machine… This is the estranged wife of a one-term senator from a small state, a one-term senator whose main claim to fame in this world, other than being a philandering cad who never should have left … Continue reading →

Having finally finished cleaning up the messy job I made of grouting, and isn’t that water cold, I set the woodstove in place this morning… …but I still can’t use it, because… Yeah.  A little something missing there.  And now … Continue reading →

T’HEE Okay, okay.  I’ve got no sympathy for the rioters, and if I were gonna start stringing up taxeaters I wouldn’t start with Charles & …er, that lady.  Even if they lived here.  Which I’m aware they don’t, okay?  So … Continue reading →

James Bovard writing on Change We Can Believe In… How much evidence should the U.S. government be obliged to show before it kills you? None, according to the Obama administration. And how much evidence of your wrongdoing should the government … Continue reading →

When I was a kid in the sixties I wasn’t exactly Carlos the Jackal. But even I feared COINTELPRO enough not to fall for this… Antonio Martinez a.k.a. Muhammad Hussain, of Baltimore, Maryland, has been arrested, Wednesday, December 8, 2010, … Continue reading →

We had a little mystery solved yesterday evening. Some time ago a valued commenter we’ll call S complained that he kept commenting on certain posts, and his posts kept getting deleted. Yesterday afternoon I saw a blurb from Blogger about … Continue reading →

When you’re an American my age, you have strong opinions about the Beatles. It doesn’t have to make any sense. In the late sixties, the Beatles were like atmospheric oxygen – they were everywhere. I admit I wasn’t much of … Continue reading →

Never settle for small lies. I was looking for a copy of Kipling’s Tomlinson. Strumming through the Google list, my eye was caught by the words “Tomlinson” and “blasphemous,” juxtaposed oddly. Natch, I clicked. My eyes were assaulted by this: … Continue reading →

Pump service guy came out this afternoon, checked out the motor and impellor, declared them good – and actually had the part to replace what was broken, plus associated seals and such.  He didn’t come equipped to install the thing, … Continue reading →

H/T to Mayberry

TUAK turns two today.  Cute li’l toddler – we had cake.

Grouting tile is without doubt the most mindless activity ever devised by man.  It also takes a very long time.  To say the least, the mind tends to wander.  This permits a number of other random observations, possibly of less … Continue reading →

HAH!  Got your attention, didn’t I? Actually that pretty much summed up my ex-wife’s post-mortem of our marriage, which is why it caught my eye in this brief article about pandas and China’s never–ending struggle to save them from extinction. … Continue reading →

Wanna keep some small scrap of your self-esteem intact?  Have to travel by air anyway? Then you want…Fourth Amendment Underwear! Found it here.

Expecting shamelessness from Charles Rangel is like expecting blue from a cloudless sky.  But after this “apology” speech, you’d expect any body of people anywhere to rise as a group and pull him limb from limb. Instead: They gave him … Continue reading →