Adaptive Curmudgeon

This is exactly what cable news sounds like to me:

The N Word And The M Word takes apart the hopeless and pathetic idea that a designated victim group can declare certain words (or images) cannot be uttered by the rest of us.  Well done sir!  Here’s the money quote:

“When words, letters, pictures, even, are verboten, we are fucking Eloi.”

It starts with blacks who’ve beaten us white “oppressors” so much that even I, a blogger with the diplomatic skills of a weasel, refer to “the N word”.  (You know, the word that is in every third Rap song.) How did they do that?  I love inappropriate language and would swear in front of the Pope!  They even got to me!

After that he goes after Muslims who’ll get their panties in a bundle over a cartoon but happily plant bombs that kill Muslims in droves.  Yeah, I’d noticed that too.

P.S.  I linked Eloi for those of you who have been remiss in your reading of Science Fiction from 1895.

P.S.  In a related vein I’d like to mention Rattail Bastard.  He points out that “Piss Christ”, which infuriates Christians, is back on display in New York.  Christians aren’t likely to resort to bombs or beheadings because their religion has outgrown that shit.  Good point!

Finally, some good news from Detroit.  A carjacker decided to mess with a trained boxer and got his ass handed to him.  It’s pure delight:

“I grabbed his arm and threw him to the ground,” Turner said, adding that he was able to grip Hardman’s trigger finger and force him to discharge the gun.

“After I shot the gun off until it was empty, I grabbed it from him,” Turner said.

But that’s not the best part!  The best part is when an already beaten robber tries to play Perrty Mason to get his piece back.

“He got up and said, ‘Give me my gun back; I got a CCW.’ Then I hit him with the gun.“

Yes yes yes!  When someone who’s tried to rob you wants his weapon back… you smack him with it.  Huzzah!

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Bayou Renaissance Man.

P.S. I haven’t followed up to find out if the carjacker really had a CCW but I doubt it.  Even if he did have a CCW (which I just can’t imagine) he doesn’t now and never will again.   Here’s a hint for future criminals; when you pick the wrong victim and he beats the crap out of you and takes your gun… you can either cringe or try to run but don’t ever try paperwork.  CCWs are for law abiding people and not swine.  Duh!

As I mentioned before I’d seen an actual non-theoretical Volt in the parking lot of an actual non-theoretical restaurant. Could I pick the owner from the customers inside?

I was looking for a professional (because Volts are expensive), who was urbane (because you don’t haul pigs in a Volt), politically active (because you buy a Volt over a Civic only for political reasons), and female (because I expect no man more macho than Woody Allen or Al Gore to own a Volt). Mrs. Curmudgeon mentioned the Volt was driven by a male last time we sighted it. I waved this off on the presumption that he was imprisoned in his wife’s car. (Gentlemen…how many of you drive/own mini-vans for that reason?)

I scanned an unlikely crowd and settled on a well dressed professional looking woman in perhaps her late 30’s. She was the Volt owner. I was sure of it.

She was lunching with another professional looking woman. Which one was the owner? They were so identical I couldn’t decide. For some reason all the likely choices were eating in pairs with a demographic clone of themselves. Mrs. Curmudgeon was the only one stuck having lunch in the company of a clueless hairy male who plays stupid games like “Volt hunter”. The men ate in groups, alone, or in pairs with no pattern. I have no idea what that means but it’s what I saw.

(Warning: Paranoid observation follows)

Curiously all the women had smart phones laying face up on their respective tables. I’ve seen this elsewhere too. Is it socially required to have the phone prominently displayed? What is the phone doing? Is it checking facebook? Calculating stock valuations? Playing porn? Is it there in case it rings once and it’s too hard to get it out of a pocket in time? Are they expecting an important call? From who? Their boss? Their dealer? What’s up with the phone?!?

In my eyes the prominent face up phone made it look disturbingly like they were carefully yet openly recording their conversations. (This whole line of thinking made my tinfoil hat vibrate.) Obviously that’s not true but check it out yourself next time you eat lunch somewhere. Check out the phone and where it’s placed. They looked like cops taping a suspect’s questioning or reporters recording an interview. In contrast, the men (who probably have iDevices too) universally keep them out of sight… as God intended. Am I the first person to notice the “phones on the table” effect?

(End paranoid observation)

Mrs. Curmudgeon hesitantly agreed with my “Volt owner” guess. Fifteen minutes later the women left in two generic econobox cars. Prediction failure!

I scanned again and settled on the only other likely people in the restaurant. They looked like two nurses. They had the requisite iDevices tracking their conversations. A nurse in an impractical $40,000 car seemed odd but that was my best call.

Mrs. Curmudgeon picked a couple of guys. Perhaps they’re really nice fellows that like to discuss poetry but the rough appearance was two muscle heads taking a break from powerlifting at the gym and possibly crushing cement with their bare hands. Jocks in a Volt? Impossible! If that’s true I’d expect to see vegan poets driving dump trucks.

You know where this is going right?

Sure enough the two fellows got up and drove away in the Volt. Both men were wearing identical gym shorts in 40 degree weather. Both looked strong enough to break my spine if I insulted their car.

Mrs. Curmudgeon was right and I was wrong! She was not humble about her accomplishment. She refrained from tap dancing on my head in joy but I can tell it was hard. I promised to blog about my inglorious failed prognostication and her superior intellect. I suck and she rocks. What else can I say?

Based on this new observation I’ve changed my demographic profile of Volt owners.

• Wrong demographic: A wealthy politically active white collar woman who is taking her friend on a break from their job at a non-profit community organizing charity to eat a light lunch of leafy greens.

• Right demographic: Matching pairs of short stocky body builders wearing gym clothes and taking a break from their mixed martial arts training regimen to wolf down a pound of meat before another two hours of hammering the heavy bag.

I have learned much today.

I always usually admit when I’m wrong. Despite my intense white hot hatred for the unsustainably political market failure that is the Volt; I was wrong. First I was wrong because I assumed I’d never see one driven by an actual human being on a non-theoretical road. I admitted as much when I reported seeing one in the wild. Now I am wrong because I have misunderstood their customer demographic.

Today, Mrs. Curmudgeon and myself saw the Volt for a second time. I can’t be sure it was the same Volt but that’s my guess. (I reason that when you see something as rare as the Loch Ness Monster and three weeks later you see a second Loch Ness Monster a mile away… it’s the same creature.)

Being an inquisitive (Adaptive!) Curmudgeon I began observing. My first observation was that the snow had melted off every car in the parking lot except the Volt. The absence of an engine meant the hood hadn’t shed it’s layer of ice. I don’t see anything wrong with ice on the hood but it was something I noticed.

My second thought was to quantify the Volt’s habitat. Shockingly it was not at a political rally, located in San Francisco (which is like a political rally with permanent residents), or in a dealer’s showroom. It was parked at a restaurant. Even more interesting, this restaurant doesn’t serve tofu. Surprises abound!

Nor was it a warm location. It’s not yet winter but it’s coming. I almost feel pity for any battery forced to live here. Can a Volt handle -20f weather? That would be impressive! I wouldn’t expect a Volt here in winter any more than I’d expect a robin to overwinter in Greenland. I root for it’s success just as I root for my diesel equipment to start on cold mornings in January.

Also it was in a smallish city surrounded on all sides by damn near nothing. Almost by definition this must be one of the “gas generator” Volts. I can’t see how a pure electric could get here unless someone towed it to the hinterlands and stranded in a 35 mile habitat. Gas or not, it also probably lives somewhere where it’s electric range would get it to it’s current location. Since ½ of its range is 17 miles I assume it lives within 15 minutes of this spot.

Then we entered the establishment where I began the game of “who brought the hippie car”.

I’d like to say something deep but one of the things for which I’m thankful is that this blog is not my job and I can ignore it.  Instead I’ll post a picture of “Christmas” (our sole remaining turkey) and presume you’re all having a wonderful day.

Sometimes I despair that dependency, government, regulation, shitty schools, and oh I don’t know… everything… is at odds with the ingenuity of the human spirit.  Don’t say it hasn’t happened to you.  I know it you’ve had that same nagging fear.

We should be an inventive creature.  We should be adaptable.  (With or without the Curmudgeonry.)  Yet here we are, the latest and most amazing generation of that overgrown monkey brained creature that started by walking upright and eventually became self-aware, and we sometimes get bogged down.  Sometimes we seem to forget that we rock.  We are meant to be awesome!  We were born to use our brain in the service of something unexpected and interesting.  Hopefully something fun.  We were meant to make the next version of the radioactive, glow in the dark, hovering, mousetrap.  Not, as many suppose, to shuffle papers or push around other humans.

The arc of history is not always upward and onward.  Sometimes it stagnates.  I don’t like the merest hint that I might be in a period of stagnation.  But sometimes it looks like it may be coming.  People without adequate technology to program PacMan flew to the moon.  They flew to the moon with sliderules!  Decades later I can have satellite TV but we collectively lost our shit and never went to the moon again.  Yes to “Bridezilla TV” but no to “space, the final frontier”?  Really?  Why?

On a smaller scale I’ve seen computers pop up everywhere but simultaneously dumb themselves down.  I used to meet geezers that had never seen a mouse and I found that understandable.  Now I meet kids who have never been without a smart phone that can call Hong Kong, yet they can’t swap their own batteries or understand where they’ve saved a file.  I find that reprehensible.

I don’t like sliding backwards.  I was promised hovercars and space flight, I got Twitter and Starbucks.  I demand a recount!

More desperately I get nervous at the local level.  The near universal lack of ability to “invent or fabricate” makes me nervous.  The market is awash with new cars but can’t always find a decent mechanic to fix an old one. For that matter I can’t find a stick shift car because apparently humans can no longer comprehend a clutch.  How can that happen?  (For that matter even with anti-lock brakes and auto transmissions have you seen how some people drive?  …but that’s another story.)

It shouldn’t be easier to find a surgeon than a plumber.  It shouldn’t be easier to have a new house built than find a carpenter to remodel a bathroom.  I can have a new garage built in a day but if the garage door breaks I have to fix it myself or go without.  Who saw that coming?

Luckily one can fight back against the sinking feeling.  First you turn off the TV (and set it on fire) and then you go fishing.  That doesn’t always work but you really should go fishing as often as possible.

If that doesn’t work I seek out people who like to display their manic works of creativity.  I’m talking about illogical but rabidly inventive gatherings like Sturgis.  South Dakota periodically hosts more lunatic mechanics per square mile than most places in the history of time.  Does a Harley need nitrous injection?  Is it logical to weld a chrome encrusted likeness of Marylin Monroe on a 30 degree rake springer fork?  Hell no…but it’s been done because it’s awesome.  Monster truck rallies, stock car races, 4×4 competitions, machine gun shoots, outlandishly intricate model train sets, steam-punked computers; some dude using a 3D printer to make something never before seen; these are the stuff of freedom leavened with intelligence (and sparked with a little craziness).

My favorite, all time best cure is an antique tractor festival.  There will be fellows there who wear overalls non-ironically.  They’ll nonchalantly talk of winching a rusted engine block out of a hedgerow and welding it back together from when a growing tree split it in half.  They’ll say this while leaning against the result which is now freshly painted and running smoother than it did when it was built.  (Often it was built when WWI was called “the great war”.)  The same goes for fellows who build their own steam engines.  I’m glad to know that hobbyists can and do re-enact the entire industrial revolution in their garage for fun.  What a relief!

That said I present the popinator.  This is well and truly the most useless gadget on God’s green earth.  On the other hand, look at what it has inside.  It is complex, it can target sounds, it can compute trajectories, it is something that could not be made without great technology and people with time to kill.  It, as stupid is it may seem, is the opposite of sliding into another Medieval doldrum.  It’s as whimsical as it is brilliant.  I have no intention of buying one but I’m glad to know that it exists.

H.T. to Musings Over A Pint.  (I might add that the fellow in that blog does a fair bit of brewing of his own beer.  Another ray of hope and push back against Brawndo Budweiser!)

It’s a sunny day at Curmudgeon Compound.  Squirrels are running around the oaks like the little maniacs they are.  The wood supply is ample enough that I can sit on my ass instead of attacking the cord or so that’s lying around waiting for “post-processing” (i.e. the wood splitter of doom).  The coffee was good this morning and tonight’s beer will be cold.  I just ate a meal of venison burgers and chocolate chip cookies.  The chickens have been unusually productive.  Our two turkeys, “Thanksgiving” and “Christmas”, are strutting around without the slightest clue what the calendar holds.  The chickadees (my favorite for birdwatching) are in high spirits.  Life is good.

I say this all to explain why I decided to re-consider my dismissive Any Rand post of yesterday.  Who can fret over a generator on a glorious day like today?  More to the point had I let my paranoia get in the way of a legitimate idea?  It could have been all in my head.  What sane person would have really stopped me from delivering generators to a people in need?

So I turned to the Internet to either prove or disprove my thesis.  I found three articles in ten minutes (the first of which specifically mentioned generators):

1. “The attorney general said his office has received hundreds of complaints from consumers in areas of the state hit hardest by Sandy – New York City, the Hudson Valley and Long Island… consumers also have reported possible gouging for emergency supplies like generators… General business law prohibits such increases in costs of essential items like food, water, gas, generators, batteries and flashlights, and services like transportation…”
2. “Before Sandy made landfall, the attorney general had issued an open letter to vendors across the state warning them that price inflation of necessary goods and services during a crisis is illegal.”
3. “Today’s action is the first in a series of steps my office will take as we continue to actively investigate the hundreds of complaints we’ve received from consumers of businesses preying on victims of Hurricane Sandy…”

How about that?  I can almost feel the hate.  Especially the first quote which specifically mentions generators.  Then I found this one which seemed particularly topical:

At one Sam’s Club store in Manchester, Conn., some customers complained that generators priced at $349 two weeks ago suddenly cost $999 as the storm approached, said Laura Lavoie, a nearby resident who visited that store Sunday.

“People were buying them and complaining about it,” she said. “One guy stormed out while we were walking in. … The guy said his wife wouldn’t let him buy (the same generator) three weeks ago when it was $349 and now he can’t afford to buy it.”

A spokesman for Wal-Mart, which owns Sam’s Club, said the store ran out of the lower-priced generator, a 3,600-watt model, and was forced to substitute the more expensive 7,000-watt unit.

“At no time did we raise the price of either model of generator in anticipation of, during, or following the storm,” said spokesman Mark Scott.

Isn’t that precious?  A $349 generator isn’t worth your time when the power is on but a $999 one is too expensive when the power is already off?

I can’t help but love the irony.  One sentence has a very special unicorn logic that wraps around stupid and goes all the way to pure comedy gold: “People were buying them and complaining about it”.

Can you imagine that?  People are voluntarily doing something and then bitching because it was necessary.  Suppose all hell has broken loose and there is one and only one thing that’ll make your life better.  It’s a specially built machine that can turn your house from a blackout to a semblance of normal.  It’s as if all of the industrial revolution is packaged into a lawnmower sized contraption specifically meant to solve your problem.  The store has exactly that machine.  It’s in stock and sitting there.  It’s waiting just for you, the lucky consumer, to purchase… right now, at the exact moment in all recorded history when you specifically want it.  Nobody’s holding a gun to your head.  You can walk out that door any time.  You voluntarily buy this special mechanical thing which can perform the special miracle you need right now.  (Incidentally, buying stuff is the purpose of cash.  Just in case you thought it was for some other reason that you go to work.)

You’ve got power.  Right now.  Wherever you want.  Whenever you want.  Ta da!

But now you, because you’re extra groovy important to the universe, do the super double nosedive into bullshit land; you complain because it “should be cheaper”.  It was cheaper.  When the lights were on.  You, clever being that you are, specifically chose not to buy it when the lights were on.  You wanted Sam’s Club to warehouse it for you in the off chance that some random time you might feel like wanting it.  Isn’t that great?

I lack that level of hubris.  If the power’s off and $999 puts it back on I’d be happy as a pig in shit to have my margarita blender up and running.  I’d be thankful!

Being thankful requires that one be humble, honest, and accept the world as it is.  Sometimes life sucks.  Bad shit hurts.  It’s no fun when the power goes down.  Nobody likes earthquakes, tornadoes, storms, war, famine, disease, or telemarketers.  But you pick your ass up and do what you can with the resources at hand.  When things look dire you might just have to bleed a little cash.  It takes galactic self absorption to deny that.  It takes a child in an adult’s role to piss on the people who have the stuff to solve problems, because they have the stuff to solve problems.  That’s why a lot of us rednecks are more than happy to laugh at cities.  Nobody would give a tin shit if we all died in a blizzard but cities invite their own despair and then act like toddlers when it happens.

In the immortal (crudely paraphrased) words of John Gault; fuck ’em.