Monthly Archives: July 2022

July 13 Infodump

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Because I continue to only sit down to post every week or two, another series of otherwise unrelated items:

For the first time ever I am stopping midway through a bookshelf display simply because I’m just not feeling it. I liked the idea initially – creating a scene inspired by The Witcher, with Geralt and Yennefer – but something about the execution right now doesn’t feel right. I’d rather stop, tear down, and start a new one than attempt to figure out what isn’t working, how to potentially fix, and then act accordingly. Given where we are in the calendar, I really should just go ahead and jump directly into my Halloween display…

Heck, if I’m going to put together my Halloween display once I take the half-finished one apart, I should simultaneously just go ahead and put the Halloween tree up. In fact, I visited the local Hallmark store earlier this evening to check out the new ornaments that they’ve already put out, and there are a couple this year that would be great for Halloween use…

I’m continuing my efforts to find a successor to O’Faolain’s as my new preferred hangout away from home. I use the term “successor” very deliberately, because nothing is ever going to replace it. The fact of the matter is that O’Faolain’s was damn near perfect for me. It had everything: the right atmosphere/decor, hard cider on tap, awesome french fries (the most essential requirement,) otherwise decent Matthew-friendly (and Sally-friendly) eating options, TouchTunes-enabled jukebox… it just had everything I wanted in my favorite pub. Each of the three current contenders – The Ashburn Pub, Wicket Door Pub, and Finnegan’s – is lacking in one or more of these aspects. Ideally, my new favorite hangout would be no more than 20 minutes from my house, but I’m going to cast the net a bit wider in the hopes that there’s somewhere else that can top one of those three. Otherwise, it’ll be time to weigh the pros and cons of each and just run with it…

I’ve actually been in something of a funk the last couple days. I don’t think there’s any actual cause for it – it’s just a kind of malaise caused by the current state of affairs and my pessimism/nihilism about the future. These funks started to happen on infrequent occasions a few months into the pandemic, but actually started to subside during the second half of last year when things genuinely seemed to be getting better thanks to vaccines and common sense public health measures, Alas, COVID continues to evolve, with a new variant (BA.5) that the current vaccines and boosters don’t actually seem to prevent you from getting infected with. Despite having had COVID (most likely a different variant) just six weeks ago, I really need to start being more careful again. In fact, another requirement for my new favorite hangout is absolutely going to be outdoor seating – which actually eliminates one of the previously mentioned contenders (The Ashburn Pub…)

Heading back up in Philly in a little over a week to be spend some time up there with Manchild, finally see Keith for the first time in a year, and then see a Phillies game with the family. I wonder if I would experience these emotional funks less frequently if I lived closer to there and could realistically make day trips up there more often… 

Yesterday, I placed an order for the burgundy denim jacket that will become the fifth to be covered in an assortment of patches and pins. I’m actually planning a longer post in the near future about these jackets. They’ve come to represent and mean a number of different things to me, and actually even contribute to my mental well-being. So, yeah, making them the subject of an in-depth blog post seems like a moral imperative… 

Feel the need to state that it has now been two years and eight months since my last haircut. Obviously, much has changed in the interim, but back when I cut my mullet-tail off in the spring of 1995 I really thought that was going to be the last time I would have any kind of long hair. I’m sure that 23-year-old me would be quite stunned to know how long my hair is now…

Finally, in my last post, I wrote about my efforts (or lack thereof) to lost weight since the start of May. Things have nosedived a bit since then. So, tomorrow, I start doing the one thing that I tend to neglect most when I get really off-course in taking care of myself properly: weighing myself each morning and hold myself accountable each day. It’s been over a week since the last time I did so, and the number showing on the scale will almost certainly suck. Hopefully the damage isn’t not as bad as it did when I went off the rails at the end of last year.

July 3 Infodump

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It’s been over two years since O’Faolain’s became a permanent casualty of the pandemic, and I still haven’t found a suitable local replacement. Sally works today and Brandon is vacationing with his mom, and pre-pandemic this kind of weekend scenario typically meant spending a large chunk of the afternoon reading, temporarily taking over the jukebox, eating fries, doing some writing, and having a cider or two at O’Faolain’s. Admittedly, given the progression of Covid over the past 27+ months, I haven’t tried very hard to find my new favorite local spot away from home, but today was the kind of day screaming for such treatment.

So, after spending some time reading reviews of nearby pubs, I settled on The Ashburn Pub, where I’m currently pounding this out. Initial verdict: not a likely candidate. The atmosphere isn’t right, it’s a bit on the small side, and while they have cider in bottles, they don’t have it on tap. Furthermore, though there are a few items on the menu that look interesting, overall it isn’t doing that much for me. However, the jukebox is TouchTunes enabled, which is always a major plus. Alas, that isn’t enough, so the search will continue…

Along those lines, while deciding on The Ashburn Pub, a horrifying dystopian thought occurred to me: Red Robin is closer to my ideal pub than most of the other local places I’ve visited or considered. The truly frightening part is that I momentarily gave serious thought to going there. Clearly, unless there’s some hidden nearby currently unknown-to-me gem, Sally and I need to flee the exurbs to someplace that’s at least close to a proper urban area (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) as soon as it’s legitimately feasible…

Earlier this week, over on Facebook, someone who knew me back in high school engaged in some concern trolling with me because of a comment I left on a mutual friend’s post. What I said:

“The events of the last two years make it abundantly clear that women, non-ammosexual parents, blacks, and the LGTBQ+ community would absolutely be justified should decide to burn it all to the ground.

“If that time comes, this cis, straight, white male will help by supplying kerosene and lighters.”

The response:

“You scare me… Anger… justified, chaos and stupid online rhetoric isn’t.”

I am so fucking done with these moderate, “reasonable” assholes. The other side has been stating openly for years that “2nd Amendment solutions” are reasonably on the table should the American left go too far (I saw more than a few people state both in 2016 & 2020 that a Bernie Sanders presidency would justify such a use of violence.) In fact, they puts those words into action and fucking attempted a coup on January 6, 2021. Now, they are insisting that the public January 6 Committee hearings are somply grandstanding. Yet, my rhetoric – which in my mind was clearly a kind of metaphor and contained more than an hint of hyperbole – is a problem? My real mistake was attempting to debate this point with him. I need to remember more often that I’m truly out of fucks and that attempting to engage with such idiocy achieves nothing more than angering me…

By the way, not celebrating anything tomorrow. Nothing has materially changed since the BLM protests in the summer of 2020, women’s rights are being stripped away from them, the insane right-wing majority on the Supreme Court is busy making sure that Christian nationalists pretty much get whatever they want under the guise of “religious liberty,” and in the states where they currently control all the branches of government, the GOP is legally creating mini banana republics that make it exceedingly difficult to actually vote them out of power. Given that these are all signs of a slowly unfolding right-wing coup taking place, and that no one in a position to do so seems to be actively trying to derail it, it seems ridiculous to be celebrating the July 4 holiday… 

Part of yesterday afternoon was spent in downtown Frederick, and despite high humidity and temperatures in the upper 80s, I continually wore one of my denim jackets with the sleeves rolled up. Yes, I’m that dedicated to flying my freeky geek flag. A couple weeks ago, the realiation hit me that the jackets serve as my version of tattoos. The difference is that mine are removable and can be readily replaced with other depending on my mood. In fact, a couple of the jackets are more suitable for certain kinds of personal expression than other. I suppose it’s not surprising at all that Sally so easily readily talked me into adding patches and pins to a fifth jacket, rather than stop at four…

It wasn’t my intent, but for the past two months I’ve essentially maintained my weight rather than continue getting down to my goal weight. So, I have a good idea of what I need to do once I actually lose the remaining necessary pounds. However, I decided to let myself go for the last week of June and for the July 4 weekend. Haven’t stepped on a scale since June 22. Frankly, I am a little scared of what the scale states on the morning of July 5, but I have the utmost confidence in my ability to start doing all the right things again on that day…

That’s all I got for the moment.