Author Archives: Joel

Our masters still have fuel for their custom 747s, so I feel alright. No, you can’t have a ride. But our masters’ thugs will be happy to give you some souvenir bullets if you try. You paid for them, too…

Here in this CNN article they’re crying out for something called a “smart grid” nationwide, in the apparent hope of moving forward the day when we can all not only be equally squalid but equally in the dark. Not one … Continue reading →

Cops Love iPhone Data Trail Detective Josh Fazio of the Will County Sheriff’s Department loves it when an iPhone turns up as evidence in a criminal case. The sophisticated cell phone and mobile computer is becoming as popular with police … Continue reading →

H/T to Sipsey Street.

All weekend I’ve been going, “I just need two more hours!” But we got a lot done on Landlady’s wiring on Saturday, and yesterday I got rained out good. (You don’t want to be down near the wash when it’s … Continue reading →

Says here wheat prices are going through the roof, due to international pressure on various export markets. That’s bad news if you eat a lot of bread, like I do. A fifty-pound sack of ground flour may seem like a … Continue reading →

Landlady and M came in last night, right on schedule. This morning after breakfast they did some work on Landlady’s house, while I went to work on the Lair. M came down and wanted to go to town for plumbing … Continue reading →

Does anybody know anything about small pressure cookers? Like, does somebody make one less than four quarts, not made of aluminum, and withing a poor old hermit’s means? I’ve spent some time researching them, and am getting confused. At this … Continue reading →

…I do hope it’s not an indication of how the day’s going to go.

The newest Nazgul, Elena Kagan, has just been confirmed. Upon receiving the news, Ms. Kagan said … well, she hasn’t actually said anything since her nomination, has she? So excellent news, as the government of our evil overlords maintains unbroken … Continue reading →

I understand why, in the narcissism-drenched, P.R.-scented corridors of the Jaye Edgar Hoover Building, where everyone looks like Scully and Mulder and acts better than Jodie Foster and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. put together, it would be automatically assumed that the … Continue reading →

Yup. It’s shocking, I know. You know those whole-body airport scanners that could never, ever store the image of your naked bod, no matter how sweetly you asked? Well, they’ve been storing images left and right.

It’s all fixed now. Congress is all cleaned up. “Drain the swamp we did, because this was a terrible place,” she said. “We have made a tremendous difference and I take great pride in that.” Resume your unquestioning faith in … Continue reading →

Late last week we went to a town about fifty miles away with the trailer, and I bought everything I needed to do the wall behind the wood stove in The Secret Lair. This was a bit of a nail-biter … Continue reading →

Via TJIC: Lots of people suffering out there, I hear, because the jobs they thought they could depend on collapsed out from under them and they don’t know how to get out of that comfy box that suddenly ain’t so … Continue reading →

…Says Jim Treacher at the DC Trawler. Here’s a video of a U.S. congressman getting caught saying something he thinks is true. I’m tellin’ ya, people. Spinning blades are the way to go.

So I’m hauling my shit-wagon up hill and down dale, shoving horses out of the way so I can get to their offerings. Most people would not find this a particularly appealing way to spend a morning; in fact people … Continue reading →

…When this guy can make himself look good by comparison. No, I was never a fan.

Okay, I am finally ready to commission the sign that will be planted in stucco above The Secret Lair’s door. Problem is, I’m not certain of exactly what it should say. The closest I’ve been able to come, and this … Continue reading →

…and I have to say… Yes, I know it’s a shooter cliché, and these weren’t shooter books. But still. Fingernails on a blackboard, it is like. Picture cred to this guy.