Mystery Plumbing

Posted on December 28, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

My house is an archaeological exhibit of multi-generational half assed construction.

I’ve postulated a timeline to explain that which is otherwise insane.  In phase one the house was built by hicks that didn’t own a level because they didn’t need one.  Long ago.  Before electricity.  Likely before indoor plumbing.  They probably hewed the wood from the raw land using axes and their bare teeth.  Huzzah!

Then it was expanded by the next generation of hicks that retrofitted for modern conveniences like lights and shitters.  They didn’t own a level either but the workmanship looks good even if the materials are museum age now.

This generation of stuff was retrofitted again (which makes sense as the early generation of utilities was a mite…crude).  These were slightly less clever folks.  They expanded and moved plumbing around using the “just keep adding bends in the pipe till you get there” approach.  Their stuff is mostly solid if you overlook their wild misuse of fluid dynamics in the plumbing.  The didn’t own a level either.

The next generation was a gaggle of monkeys.  They rerouted everything and retrofitted whatever they got their hands on.  They doubled the size of the house…presumably with a blueprint that was sketched on a pizza box.  I assume all work was done with a beer in one hand and maybe brain damage.  They had a level but they used it as a tire iron.

Some of earlier generation of stuff was left and some was removed.  Occasionally a bit is still in use even though it serves no modern purpose.  I hear the Roman Coliseum has the same issues.

With each passing generation they appeared to have more time and less money.  The newer something is, the less likely the materials are anything but jerry rigged repurposed quasi fabricated crap.  Anyone who will spend a day tinkering with bits of wood because they won’t spring for a couple new 2″x4″ studs had better be either dying in the final chapters of “The Road” or they should be banned from owning a hammer.

Finally the place was bought by an arrogant bastard hick who is trying to fix what is broke, retrofit what is shoddy, and basically impose order on organic chaos.  Undoing stupid and making up for delayed (i.e. no) maintenance is a long process.  I’ll probably die before it’s done.  But by God I ‘aint leaving shit for the next generation (which will probably bulldoze it and install a house trailer).

Why am I mentioning this?  Because the pluming is performing in a way that appears to violate laws of nature.

More in part II.

Posted in Garagineering, Homesteading, Technology of Indignity | Leave a comment

Christmas And The Tractor Of The Damned: Part II

Posted on December 27, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

My six vast legions of loyal disinterested readers know I’ve got an antique tractor (or two).  They also know I am trying to use them as if they weren’t museum pieces but rather working machinery.  They also know (or have inferred) that I am apparently a shitty mechanic (or at least my tractor thinks so).  They also know that I have “rebuild an engine” on my bucket list.  I phrased it as follows (link):

If you are a man you should rebuild an engine at least once before you die.

The tractor kindly volunteered for the procedure by dying.  No problem right?  Wrong.  It turned into a mess.  After several (dozen) missteps the “tractor issue” boiled down to one of two possibilities:

Option 1:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” A line in Sudden Death (1983) by American writer Rita Mae Brown (possibly paraphrased from a Narcotics Anonymous text).

Option 2:

“Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Winston Churchill, 1941

I have trouble with this dichotomy.  I’d like to go with Churchill’s wisdom because it’s simple and direct.  Also Churchill was a bad ass son of a bitch who kept his nation together against the Nazis.  Meanwhile I’ve never read anything by Rita Mae Brown.  When in doubt bet with the guy stood firm against what must have seemed like the implosion of all of Western Civilization.

Then again I’m an Adaptive Curmudgeon and the Nazis had nothing to do with my dead tractor.  All around me modern Americans seem bent on living like indolent morons; including making bad life decisions over and over.  Are they brave in their persistence?  Or are they monkeys with cell phones who aren’t learning to avoid bad things?  If the tractor was a mess at some point does going back out to the garage with a wrench over and over become stupid?  Nobody wants to be While E. Coyote placing another on-line order to ACME?

Well, with my last post, I’ve let the cat out of the bag.  The tractor did have an end game.  (Or at least an interruption in the onslaught of suck.)  By what should have been a simple fix turned into a saga of misery, failure, false hope, and mechanical self immolation.  It was a Greek tragedy with wrenches.  It behooves me to share my experiences so you can laugh your ass off.

First I’m linking to past posts.  I had to look at them (while drinking) to re-experience the scope of screw up that I’ve just waded through.

Sherlock Holmes And The Ailing Tractor: Part I
Sherlock Holmes And The Ailing Tractor: Part II
Sherlock Holmes And The Ailing Tractor: Part III
Sherlock Holmes And The Ailing Tractor: Part IV
Sherlock Holmes And The Ailing Tractor: Part V (apparently at this point I gave up on Sherlock Holmes and became Urkel)
Ailing Tractor: Part VI
Ailing Tractor: Part VII
Ailing Tractor: Part VIII

Now I’ll draw a deep breath and write out the last part.   …Nah…I’ll leave that another few days.  It’s sunny out and I’ve got free wood to split.  Christmas is a time of forgiveness.  Gimme’ a day or two.

Posted in Garagineering, Tractor Of The Damned | 5 Comments

Christmas And The Tractor Of The Damned: Part I

Posted on December 26, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I have been a very good boy this year.  Santa brought me this…

Behold! We have attained the technological prowess of the 1940s!

It’s a two bottom Ferguson plow from the mid to late 1940’s.  I’ll bet the Reindeer really had to bust ass to haul that baby !

Posted in Garagineering, Tractor Of The Damned | 6 Comments

Failure Of My Cheapskate Nature

Posted on December 24, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I was driving home with another trailer of free wood.  (Blessed are the possessors of the chainsaws for the dead tree shall provide their heat.)  I was in a good mood because… well duh…the wood was free.  Free wood is puppy dogs and sunsets!  Free wood is money in the bank, fuel for the furnace, and landscaping all in one!  It’s miraculous in it’s absence of liquidity.  Ever seen a lawyer come and steal half your firewood?  Had a politician skim 10% of the top of the cord?  Had it vanish in a hard drive crash?  I think not.  Free wood is peace and joy damnit!

My joy made me stupid.  I decided to make one small purchase and stopped in town.  (What was I thinking?)  Shoppers were in full hormonal rush but I slipped truck and trailer into a parking lot and made a beeline for my intended product.  I picked it up and headed to the checkout feeling smug for having dodged Christmas commercialism.

Then, and I don’t know how this happened, I went apeshit and picked up an armload of stocking stuffers.  Great Caesar’s Ghost…what came over me?  I never make “impulse” buys.  None of it was a bad purchase but I just sorta’ don’t like to buy anything more expensive than a six pack.  (Impulse buys don’t fit with the mid of a guy who celebrates free wood at the death of a scraggly old tree.)  But I went and did it.  Go figure.

Oh well…it’s good stuff, I could afford it, and the price was right.  I have no regrets.  (But I ‘aint setting foot in a store again for a couple weeks!) Continue reading →

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Merry Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Every year I watch A Charlie Brown Christmas (Charles Schultz was a genius).  After last year I added a new tradition to our family Christmas celebration.  We gather around the inviting glow of the laptop and watch A Very Zombie Holiday.  It’s a heartwarming classic!

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The Pizza/Oak Derivation

Posted on December 22, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Last night I was plowing the driveway with my old tractor.  It’s an antique.  It’s older than Eric Clapton but younger than Clint Eastwood.  The average suburban snowblower is half the age (and roughly the intelligence of) Lindsay Lohan.  I recently rebuilt the tractor.  (I’ll discuss the mechanical rebuild elsewhere…suffice to say it is no longer yard art.)

My concern was sharing the three point hitch between the backblade and my wood wagon.  It’s a hassle to hook the backblade to the three point hitch so once it’s mounted I don’t like to take it off.  Meanwhile I move firewood in a little wagon that’s towed with a crossbar rigged to the three point hitch.  Two implements, one tractor.  Shall I just pretend the problem doesn’t exist?  No.  Unlike politicians, I must accept and work within the limitations present.

The obvious solution (to men) is another tractor.  Alas the axillary backup tractor is deader than a doornail off line big time temporarily.  Accepting grudgingly and provisionally a single tractor lifestyle, I needed the most efficient way to make it pull mutually exclusive objects.

Homesteading is all about efficiency.  You must find the most efficient way to do the things you’re planning or you’ll discover that a 24 hour work day is insufficient.  Paradoxically homesteading includes inherent inefficiency built into the system by your (and nature’s) constraints.  For example, I could hire the driveway plowed (which sucks and is expensive) or buy a new tractor (a cost which compares to hiring a plow guy like buying a Bentley compares to buying a Honda).  But I’m not a politician so I pay real cash for my decisions.  The cheapest alternative is to whine at the end of a snowed in driveway (the Occupy Wall Street Option).  I could move to Florida (The Retired Snowbird Option) but my dog likes it cold.

Driving a slow old tractor gives you time to think.  Everyone should spend hours driving at 5 mph.  It’s especially enlightening in 5 degree weather.  Freezing weather hones the mind and kills the weak.  I like winter.

While plowing I conjured up an idea that would work.  I’d use bolts, a clevis, pins, swearing, and disregard for design parameters to simultaneously pull both the backblade and the wood wagon in a big creaky redneck parade.  What a clever solution!  I think I deserve a medal.  Unfortunately the Nobel committee will never know.

How to test my new arrangement?  I could haul firewood from the woodpile to the house but I was getting late and the other family members (which greatly speed up the wood moving process) were camped in front of electronics in the warm house.  If I evacuated them to the woodpile I’d consume a lot of goodwill…like all of it.  I don’t want Santa pissed at me.

Then I remembered a small pile of wood I’d left cached in the forest two years ago.  (Note: when I stack crap in the back yard it’s cached and if I can use it someday it’s an asset.  And I don’t want to hear any crap about it from folks with manicured lawns surrounding their underwater McMansion.)

I decided to use the small remote pile as a test case.  It might be getting rotten by next winter and it will be inaccessible in the snow soon.  Also there is no chance in hell anyone but me would go get the wood.  (Most Americans will not walk more than 50 yards.  I think it’s in a manual somewhere.)  The time to strike was nigh!  I shouted “Charge!”, shifted the tractor into high range, and careened out into the darkness at a blistering 12 mph.

Ten minutes later I was peering through the dark forest looking for oak firewood.  The tractor’s dim 6 volt lights were just right for the task.  The lights were toast when I bought the old machine but I fixed them; another prizewinning action nobody will notice.  You’ll also note that if the tractor died I’d be stranded in the woods, alone, and in the dark…homesteaders are not afraid of nature!

There wasn’t much wood but it was well aged oak limbs.  The finest vintage of the firewood world.  Yay me!

Driving back with a partially loaded wagon, I pondered my payload.  The tractor is pretty fuel efficient so I burned maybe a quarter’s worth of gas.  I’d filled 1/3 of my small wagon and three wagon loads make a face cord.  (Roughly.)  It takes 3 face cords to make a full cord.  (Approximately.)  A full cord (cut, split, and delivered) is worth $150.  (In general.)  Meaning I had about 1/27th of $150 or about $5.50 – $0.25 = $5.25.  Figure that’s half a cheap cheese pizza?  Or one pint of good microbrew?

I pulled up to the house and started stacking firewood while babbling to my long suffering wife.  I was in high spirits.  I’d won the redneck lottery.  “I’ve got half a pizza here!  Tax free pizza!  It took ten minutes.  I’m making fifty bucks an hour right now.  How’s that for a return on investment?”

She smiled and nodded her head.  She didn’t even ask about the cached forest oak to pizza exchange rate I’d developed.

That’s why folks keep blogs.  To share their genius empirical scientific discoveries with the world.  If the Nobel prize committee is listening I’m available; just drop my a line.

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Kim Jong Il Is Dead

Posted on December 21, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Kim Jong Il is dead.  Adios fucker!

North Korea’s batshit crazy repressive dictator is the kind of guy who’s death improves the world.  Can you imagine being that pathetic?  What a waste of human potential.  The only sadness is that his repressed peasants didn’t get the pleasure of shooting him themselves.

Foreign policy wonks are worried that someone even worse will step into his place.  Who?  Stalin’s corpse?  The zombie of Pol Pot?  Kim Il Jong was a failure and a walking punchline.  How low can the bar get?

Kim Jong Il never did anything right.  He never cared for his people.  He never did anything inspiring.  He was never anything than a loser robot his father bred to carry on the family mantle of incompetence.  He was a mindblowing combination of incompetent and evil.  The only reason Kim Jong Il starved some 3,000,000 people is because that’s all he could accomplish.  He did the maximum evil with the maximum power which was handed to him on a silver platter.

What a crock to elevate a chimp like Kim Jong Il to any position of authority.  He shouldn’t have been running a carwash or tomato patch and they put him at the helm of a nation.

Worse yet it was power that was too concentrated.  No man should be able to kill millions.  No man should have the chance to enslave his nation.  There was no rational reason why a man-child like Jong Il had any power at all.

I decided to link a chart that compares the performance of free south Korea and repressed north Korea.   It’s not a perfect comparison but the two are a akin to a controlled experiment into how badly a centralized economy can screw it’s subjects.  The two nations started out roughly similar in the 1970’s but one has risen considerably while the other has has been circling the drain through two idiot losers with far too much power.

From the Washington Post. (Image is linked.)

Never underestimate the ability of a leader to destroy his people if he has centralized control of everything.

A.C.

P.S.  While I’m at it I’d like to suggest that any succession planning that examines the entire 3.8 billion population of planet earth and decides that the best possible human being to serve his people just by chance happens to be a member of the immediate family?  Fuck off!  It was monumentally stupid with Kim Il Sung -> Km Jong Il -> Kim Jong Un but it’s not particularly impressive when it happens anywhere.

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I Don’t Care If You Hang Up, But Drive

Posted on December 20, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Tam rolls out the snark about another feel good useless law in “This is why I am a misanthrope“.  A quick snippet to encourage you to read the whole thing:

“…they plead for yet another law, a law against cell phones [while driving]…

I would further note that using a hands-free cell phone is no more distracting than talking to an actual passenger, so when the 2019 Buicks from Government Motors come from the factory with ignition interlocks connected to ball gags, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

First of all that’s just goddamn beautiful.  The whole point of the English language is to facilitate quotes like that.

Now for my Curmudgeonly two cents:

The problem with shitty drivers on cell phones is not cell phones.  The problem is the degree to which we facilitated, tolerated, encouraged, and financed shitty driving.  Laws against doing stupid things will not overcome this underlying principle.

Modern cars are impressive technology.  Unfortunately they’ve been harnessed to the least common denominator approach to driving.  Traction control, anti lock brakes, automatic transmissions, all wheel drive, SUV design specs for cars that never leave pavement, idiot lights on the dash…these are symptoms of a disease.  The disease is the idea that no human is too fucking incompetent, clueless, unreliable, or stupid to pilot a motor vehicle.  Eliminating the effort required in driving is a bad idea.  Clueless monkeys and skilled operators alike should have to work to drive a car.

Old cars had a special feature…archaic design.  It took work to keep the damn things running down the blacktop.  At first it took a manual choke just to get it started on a cold day.  For decades, if you could not shift, you could not drive.  Even in the seventies if you could not pump brakes you might discover the excitement of a spinout in snow.  In the eighties came the 4×4 even for those who only drive in an inch of snow quarterly or haven’t seen a dirt road except for quaint postcards.  By now the ability to brake, shift, feel the road, or even understand traction are dead.

There is circuitry to protect the batteries of people who can’t figure out how to turn the headlights off.  Think about that!  We are sharing the road with people who can’t operate a light switch.  Laws against cell phones won’t help you with people that can’t handle an on/off switch.

Now, a personal story.  Recently I was driving home from the woods with a a heavily loaded trailer.  (Free wood!)  I ventured on a busy street swarming with busy shoppers busily buying Christmas crap.

I needed coffee and there was just enough room to parallel park in front of a coffee shop.  So that’s what I did.  I used judgment to size up the space available.  I used archaic technology called turn signals to indicate my intention.  I used clever optical devices called mirrors to observe the vehicle and trailer and their relation to obstacles.  I used a long forgotten feature of humanity called skill and experience to gauge how the combined turning radii of trailer and truck would develop.  In short, I parallel parked a ton of firewood and my vehicle using the skills that any driver should already possess.

It took ten seconds.  It wasn’t exciting.  No laws were violated.  I didn’t need an array of gadgetry to help me.  I do not have back up proximity alarms, cameras, or whatever the hell else they bolt on cars these days.  Because crutches don’t ever truly overcome lack of skill or attention.

While I was getting my coffee I watched several close calls between pedestrians crossing a parking lot and drivers who were trying to navigate out of it.   They were having trouble; one cohort with walking and the other cohort with not hitting walkers.  This will not be solved with laws against cell phones.

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In The End Zone

Posted on December 18, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I was forced to venture into a store between Thanksgiving and New Years.  That’s the commercial dead zone!  A time when I barely leave the homestead!  The store was infested with Christmas shoppers.

Sometimes you’ve got to go into the belly of the beast.

I made a plan.

I had a target.  A short succinct list.  I had a order of operations.  I had moxie.  I was going to get in, get what I wanted, and get out.  I’d be on the road before my presence was noticed.  This was going to be a surgical strike operation.  I put more effort into my exit strategy than Bush did in Iraq.

Of course I was doomed.

It was (in my eyes) a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  It was where the one ring to rule them all was forged.  It was the street scene from the Blade Runner.

The parking lot was NASCAR crossed with AARP.

The rent a cop at the door was hollow and bereft of life.  A zombie mall cop.  I should have killed him in mercy.  He looked like he’d have thanked me.

The musak was on a loop.  Grandma got run over by silver bells.  I won’t be home for Feliz Navidad.  I think I started hallucinating.

The damn store mugged me.  I got turned around.  The party split up.  Despite my intention to buy no more than we could carry,  a shopping cart appeared and stared filling itself.  The troops were wandering to and fro in the dazzling glimmer of commercialism and I was constantly jockeying toward the exit looking wild eyed and rabid.  I even made a $2 impulse buy.  (Shocking!)

I finally rounded up everyone and made a run for the exit.  They got hung up at the checkout.  Man down!  Money being vaporized!  Hit the deck!

I’m not the Marines…I left them behind.

A few minutes later they lurched out of the door.  I was idling the getaway car.  I zoomed up like an anti-commercial extraction force.  Ten seconds later we were rocketing down the road.  Whew!

We’d blown a middling amount of money.  That is to say a tiny fraction of the average shopper.  In fact this never fails to shock me:  During evasive maneuvers though the checkout I glanced at the display on several tellers.  Frankly Americans are monster good at spending money.  We were in the bottom tail end of a distribution that belies any thought of a recession.  How much shit can people conceivably buy?

All of our purchases were on rational things at fair prices.  Which is to say stuff I’d probably wind up buying sooner or later and stuff that I couldn’t get cheaper elsewhere.

Sadly none of it was spent on meat, tools, ammo, liquor, or fuel…thus I conclude it wasn’t strictly necessary.*

At least we got out alive.

I needed to recuperate.  I talked to my dog and then spent some quality time with my wood splitter.  A couple hours stacking oak and I was too tired to be jangled.  I felt like a normal human being again.  Then a dinner of venison.  Huzzah!  Followed by a quiet evening by the fire.  Perhaps my evening drink had a dollop of whatever the hell happened to be in the back of my liquor cabinet.**  Ah yes…life is good.

I’m not going into another damn store for several weeks.  The economy will have to muddle on without me.

A.C.

* My list of that which is strictly necessary is a bit… uh… short.  I’ll allow that we’d be wise to go beyond it occasionally; lest I go all Mosquito Coast.

** My usually ample liquor supply has not been adequately replenished the last several months.  Poor form!  What shall I do if the zombie apocalypse happens and I’m out of whiskey?!?  It wouldn’t do to let my preparedness falter.  After the holidays I’d better attend to the matter.

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Imaginary Interview

Posted on December 17, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

This interview was recorded at a meeting of the Society of Dour Armchair Economists (SDAE). The meeting (which was held in an undisclosed location) included a couple of journalism interns who interviewed founding member and SDAE dictator for life chairman A. Curmudgeon.  One of the two interns is now a Buddhist monk and the other has moved to a bunker in Idaho.

Q: Mr. Curmudgeon we’d like to thank you for agreeing to this interview.
A: Actually you’re figments of my imagination.  Do continue.

Q: Is the government going to shut down this weekend?
A: Not unless I’m a Chinese jet pilot. Can you imagine the press’ whining if it happened?

Q: But…
A: Think about it.  Airhead newscasters will compete to find and interview the most pitiful possible Government employee…

Q: Er…
A: They’d unearth some poor schmuck who would have every possible level of victim.  Not an EPA regulator or IRA auditor.  People hate them and want to use them as piñatas. They’d interview a sad, poor, octogenarian, gay, vegan, janitor with post-traumatic stress disorder who’s laid off from working at a the Pentagon’s American flag warehouse.

Q: Uh…
A: It would be excellent theater. Five minutes after Social Security checks stopped flowing they’d interview him. Actually it would be a her. A black her.  The interview would be on Christmas Eve.  In the snow.  They’d make this poor bastard stand in the snow without a coat and explain how miserable they are.  It would have to be someone with who mentors orphans and has a one legged dog named “Hope”. It would be a weepy story. Maybe they’d cry.  Yeah…then they’d cut to a picture of Newt Gingrich and say something like “The shutdown means Sara Sobstory here is going to have to live in a cardboard box, cook her cat for dinner, and sell her thirty six children for medical experiments to pay for the family’s iPod data plan.  We at the unbiased media think this is all because those racist bastard republicans are lying on piles of gold.  Now back to the studio for a story about how kittens love Socialized medical care.”

Q: Kittens love socialized medicine?
A: MY DOCTOR WORKS FOR ME NOT THE DAMN GOVERMENT!

Q: Are you ok?
A: I probably should switch to decaf.

Q: Back to the interview. When was the last budget passed?
A: Don’t you have Google? The last full actual complete real non-bullshit Federal budget was for Fiscal year 2010.

Q: That long ago?
A: That budget was over on September 30th 2010, fourteen months ago.

Q: So they’ve made no progress in fourteen months?
A: Actually it cleared the Senate in April of ’09. So it’s been two and a half years ago since the last “normal” budgeting…whatever “normal” means.

Q: But their job is…
A: …spending other peoples money. Beyond that politicians don’t do much. Of course some are more active than others. Several have been energetically hiking the Appalachian trail or starting money making enterprises. I think Nancy Pelosi was vacationing in her castle in Transylvania. And of course the President has been… well…Obamaing.

Q: Obamaing is a verb?
A: Of course. Politicians are like Muad’Dib. Their names have a clear meaning. For example when a used car salesman tries to sell me a piece of junk I’ll say; “Quit BARNEY FRANKING me.”

Q: Ouch!
A: See? You knew what I meant.

Q: But…
A: It’s fun. Try it. “If a burgalar tries to BLAGOJEVICH my stuff I’ll go all HILLARY on his ass!”

Q: (Cringing) Weren’t they, you know, passing legislation?
A: Well most of the really obnoxious stuff is done through regulation now. Meddling in oil pipelines, shutting down off shore drilling, dinking around with raw milk, bitching about driver’s with cell phones, wiretapping, performing unnatural acts with the Fed, throwing cash at Solyandra, running Government Motors. THE CHEVY VOLT PISSES ME OFF!

Q: Huh?
A: They’re probably coming for ‘Vera’ next.

Q: I’m concerned about that rifle you’re cleaning…
A: That’s Vera.

Q: Aaackk.
A: Didn’t they tell you I was a paranoid lunatic?

Q: But…
A: It’s a gun. I’m clinging to it. I should really get to church more often.

Q: I just dropped my MacBook. Can we start again?
A: Sure. Mind if I sharpen this knife while we talk?

Q: Uhhh…so when was the last real budget signed?
A: July 22, 2009.  Dude, you really don’t have Google?

Q: Google is too much work. So how has the budget process gone since the last “normalcy”?
A: It’s my understanding that Congressweasels and the Executive agreed on six consecutive stopgap spending bills.

Q: Wow that’s a lot…
A: And when the sixth one ran out they tried to duke it out in April of this year when the Debt Ceiling was reached.

Q: Government almost shut down then.  It was terrible!
A: Damn straight.  My tractor broke down that week.  Sigh… my poor tractor.

Q: And the near shutdown…that could have been tragic.
A: Yeah…whatever. Stupid carburetor…

Q: About the government?
A: Oh yeah, the stupid party and the evil party stood toe to toe on principle. Then they jointly decided to keep spending because why the hell not? It was like watching Stalin and Hitler decide who’s more moral before joining Pol Pot in a three way.

Q: It was a compromise.
A: They punted by claiming a special committee would solve things in the near future.

Q: Makes sense.
A: No it doesn’t!  Ever see a committee accomplish anything?

Q: Well I suppose they meant well.
A: No they didn’t. Anyway the ‘committee’ gambit only lasted a while.

Q: ‘Till when?
A: ‘Till now.  Shutdown in t-minus a couple hours.

Q: Oh no!
A: Calm down. ‘Aint gonna happen.

Q: Why?
A: Because Congressweasels really represent the people.  Or at least some of them.

Q: And what do the people want?
A: Fucking everything! They want free stuff, no payoff student loans, subsidized mortgages, golden retirement plans for community organizers, war with everyone who pisses us off, light bulb regulations, electric cars, polar bear self esteem, taxes lower than spending, and a handsome president with good hair. Everything all the time forever and free.

Q: That doesn’t sound realistic.
A: It’s not.

Q: Now I’m depressed.
A: Join the club.

Q: But won’t they compromise and come up with a budget solution?
A: Maybe for a while but there ‘aint no such thing as a free lunch so they’ll have to do it again shortly.

Q: (Crying)
A: Wait ’till I explain what ‘fiat currency’ means.

(Five minutes later both interns were terrified. One was banging his head on a wall and the other was trying to sell a kidney to buy gold.)

A: Relax, it’s not so bad.  The shit isn’t about to hit the fan…it already has.
Q: That’s the good news?

A: Sure…if you’re going to be stampeded by fail it’s nice to see it coming.
Q: (Speechless)

A: It’s not permanent. Congress and the executive can get back on track. They just need better incentives.  Given the proper incentives even debased immoral scum like the ones we continually vote for can rise to the occasion.
Q: Really?

A: Sure.  I had the same problem on my homestead.  My chickens went apeshit. Faltering production.  Fighting amongst themselves. Shitting on everything.  Costing more than they were worth.
Q: Hmmm…that does sound like Congress.

A: I applied better incentives and now they’re at top notch efficiency.  Improvement is always possible.
Q: Really?

A: Sure.  Let’s discuss it over dinner.  My treat!

Q: Thanks.  What’s on the menu?
A: BBQ Chicken.

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