This week is pretty uneventful, unless you’re a Leo, and since it’s supposed to be Leo’s month that’s important to talk about. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we are currently living through another period of MERCURY RETROGRADE. However, what makes this especially bad is that It’s moving retrograde into Leo on Monday and since that’s an important event (house change) being done wrongly (retrograde motion) that naturally causes an equivalent amount of terrestrial fuckupery. This is so bad that the effects will resonate to those signs not named Leo, but instead of everything going wrong, this will have more specific effects related to discomfort, loss of control, feline misbehavior, loss of face and the like.
After that we’ve still got MERCURY RETROGRADE to deal with, but nothing worse.
Leo: Wheel of Fortune reversed – this has the same reading as MERCURY RETROGRADE backing into the sign, so at least it’s consistent.
Virgo: Page of Swords reversed – a backstabbing little weasel.
Libra: 2 of Cups reversed – Promises broken.
Scorpio: 7 of Cups reversed – A huckster/charlatan/politico/salescritter makes a pitch, but not a great one.
Sagittarius: Justice reversed – Previous success overturned.
Capricorn: 7 of Wands – You’re outnumbered, but put up a heck of a fight. Quite possibly a successful one.
Aquarius: The Hanged Man reversed – Selfishness, role model, politics
Pisces: 6 of Wands reversed – Bad news, betrayal, delay.
Aries: 4 of Wands reversed – Prosperity, increase, having your shit together.
Taurus: The Chariot – Power, unchallenged control, vehicles, covering all the bases
Gemini: Ace of Swords – Great force leading to success
Cancer: 9 of Wands – Strength in opposition, delay, significant obstacles.
Prosperity, increase, having your shit together.
Seemingly good news makes me nervous.
You’re going to need your septic tank drained.
So I should shut each of the cats in a covered litter box all day?
🙀
What did they do to deserve that?
They were born cats?
😿
Had the vinyl, now have the CD.
I use to be “California Dreamin” but not the night mare of today. OTOH things have changed since I left in ’57.
DOOM yet again for Aries, I see
Well, us Leos got a double dose of “ terrestrial fuckupery”.
I don’t know if I can deal with more DOOM right now.
– “You’re outnumbered, but put up a heck of a fight. Quite possibly a successful one.”
Vamanos!
If indeed the Tips become tax free I may only tip the handyman that helps me rather than pay him for his service.
Incentives, how the hell do they work? Just like non-cash benefits and perks prior the IRS rule on those.
“Taurus: The Chariot – Power, unchallenged control, vehicles, covering all the bases” Well, my chariot is moving in the right direction. (Wish this horse were harnessed w another.) This week and next will reveal much. Hrm. I tried zoomin’ last night but being mostly foggy I didn’t think I’d be much company w/o everything turning into a therapy session, which would be remarkably rude. Would be nice to chat with Hayeksposives about epileptic ‘fogginess’ or mental congestion. Many quasi absence-moments last eve.
I awake without the mental epi-fog I’ve been stuck in the last couple days. I hope that keeps up. Certainly starting brighter. This week I have two phlebotomy practice seshs to get my eye in again, along w several dr/therapy appts, and a haircut on Friday. Then, next week I begin my full-time gig as Octapharma Plasma Phlebotomist. (FUCK, I WILL be getting a business card that says that. Fuck. Yes.) I…can’t find any training videos. Apparently this shit is *easy,* even for non-trained needle stickers. I still haven’t found a vid of someone donating plasma that kinda focuses on the needle/vein. I’ve never donated (I HIGHLY doubt my blood is good for anyone) but can easily imagine, but I’d still like to kinda know what I’m walking into. The first few days are apparently just vids, so that’s good. I don’t know if I’ll be doing vitals, blood pressure etc. Never have before.
Hrm. Keeping fog-free is fairly easy, but I am concerned I semi-pissed off Lady in MN who’s my only American ‘friend.’ She came back Stateside from Korea ’bout the same time I did, known each other for nearly a decade. Would love to be legit teammates, roommates w her to reconquer America.
Hope y’all are kickin’ ass and takin’ names. Hilariously, I’m going to (once again) be magically good at his new gig once he sorts it out. They are “excited” to have a male presence on the floor, making me the only dude working up front and not in-office. This bodes very well, though I haven’t seen much Talent yet. That mission sorts itself rather swiftly.
Mmmm, I have used the Zoom as a trauma-dump/therapy session more than a few times at the height of my son’s shenanigans, and they have talked me down off a ledge. It makes it sweeter now that I can brag on him. So now I listen, or try to, and every once in a while may come up with some useful advice.
Well. Today is starting very well. Morning pushup routine gets the right chems flowin’. 50 non stop is now the baseline. (other day i did 70. damn. good job, ev.)
(add in some Gentleman Fun if possible. Today it was. Extra Positive Chem flow.)
*I am kinda in therapy get-it-out mode. Dr appt Mon and phlebotomy practice sessions on Tues and Thurs. Wed has a psych appt to hopefully get meds sorted, along w another therapy session on Thurs. Work begins Monday, Aug 19. Still really have no idea what’s going on, but I’m betting it’s really, really easy. Living w my parents is a key problem, even though they’re the most blessed parents a person could ever ask for. The High-School Feel remains. Add worry and excitement of a new career with infinite paths to stability, growth and relocation. Many chemicals going through my already crowded brain. Today I don’t have that epileptic congestion the weekend was saddled with.
That is terrific news. Kinda do want to have a vent session on zoom w y’all. The places it can go will be interesting for all, methinks. Hrm.
Moje, I think the combination of opportunity and challenge XY has in front of him is a very good thing. He’s going to have to get his crap together to grab that brass ring, but there’s a brass ring hanging right there for the grabbing. Based on what you have posted, that sounds like just what he needs to launch.
As far as XX not willing to advocate for herself, I got nuthin’. I think it’s probably a self-confidence issue, but since I’ve never lacked for that, I can’t really say how to build it.
XX is kind, longsuffering, and gracious to a fault. I am so proud of her for being who she really is.
But it’s hindering her at work because she’s granting grace to people who know they’ve got a gem right where they want her. She has been passed over for full-time 4 times, 3 of those for people she trained. We have encouraged her to rattle her cage a little, but she won’t because she really likes her environment and her coworkers. They probably don’t care that much about her. She just says, “Well, I have more to learn.”
She wants to really dig into logistics, but her voice, when she speaks for herself, is too soft (metaphorically, not volume-wise).
We finally stopped asking and just told her she has 5 more years to get on somewhere full time with bennies, because that’s when her health insurance stops.
XY was born thinking he should be in charge. Now he is and he IS flourishing. I’m so happy and relieved that he found his niche. There’s money in being able to manage people.
LOL so last winter, I picked him up at work at like 2a because he stayed back to clean up by himself. Now, mind you, this kid’s housekeeping is suboptimal at best. He got in the car and he was PISSED. He started ranting and I’m driving and listening, and then he bursts out, “It’s like they don’t even SEE what needs to be done!” with no self-awareness whatsoever.
Sagittarius: Justice reversed – Previous success overturned.
That would require some sort of prior success.
From your previous post- “… making me the only dude working up front and not in-office. This bodes very well, though I haven’t seen much Talent yet. That mission sorts itself rather swiftly.”
Don’t dip your pen in the company ink, Ev
More on Celebrity (cruises) from Ben & David. The food looks amazing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYgL2wFUnvs
My current obsession
https://us.ponant.com/le-ponant
Not cheap, though. It’d have to be a very special occasion. Like retirement. Or an inheritance.
If I win the lottery, I’m booking this (well, the next generation, because they’re going to try to sell it at Monaco in September and get a new boat). I’ll have to think up 11 people with whom I’d want to spend a week on a yacht.
https://www.youtube.com/@motoryachtloon
Wow.
Always a reality check to realize I can’t even afford the Loon’s tender.
(the video includes more about accessibility, including on the port tenders)
I’m really impressed – even more excited for Glibscruise now!
I quite like Celebrity as a cruise company — I’ve been on their ships three times now, and yes, the food’s very good (but *not* “amazing”). Surprisingly to me, somedays the best food to be had was actually at The Trough (ship’s buffet, I think it was called the Oceanview Café). But the standard coffee available all-day is dreck. For extra charge (natch), you can have whatever kind of fancy-shmancy coffee you can think of in their specialty coffee bistro.
I am not a coffee drinker (I mean, I drink coffee, but I don’t super care about it), so that’s OK. Compared to some of Ben and David’s recent reviews on Cunard and Royal Caribbean, the food looked outstanding.
I’ve been interested with the Princess Cruises in Alaska. May try something like that when I’m finally ready to retire (from military) for a short vacation. (may try a few other AK stuff at the same time).
My parents are up in Alaska on a Princess ship right now. I’ll pester them for details when they get back…
I ordered a meal at Burger King once. Right before I ordered, while gazing at the menu on the wall I asked the girl in a very earnest tone “Does all of your food look just like those pictures?”
Another girl, with her back to me while making a milkshake overheard me. She started laughing so hard she bent over double and dropped the milkshake container thingy.
At a Chinese restaurant in Madison, WI the menu featured pictures for us whose Chinese restaurant experiences were a bit limited. The food looked even better than the pictures and was equally delicious. I can’t remember the name or even where it was in Mad-town. 40 years is a long time.
Today in the idiocy of foreseeable consequences:
Picture this: you’re resting on the porch of your beach home in Florida, when suddenly the deafening roar of an enormous spacecraft streaks through the skies overhead, shaking windows and doors with tremendous force.
Now imagine this happening more than 70 times a year.
Yes, buying a home next to Kennedy Space Center may result in you hearing a rocket launch for 90 seconds a couple of times a week.
I would fucking LOVE to see space launches a couple times a week from my porch. Except not in Florida, southern Texas, or California.
I should demand the city do something about the noise from the playground moved next to.
That’s easy. Just don’t lead them so much.
Gemini: Ace of Swords – Great force leading to success
Got-DAMN! It’s about time!
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we are currently living through another period of MERCURY RETROGRADE.”
We did? Well that explains….something.
“A huckster/charlatan/politico/salescritter makes a pitch, but not a great one.”
*Turns on TV*
Well, would you look at that…and I thought all this time horoscopes were nonsense.
More accurate than the jet cars of Popular Mechanics
https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/crash.htm
The last one is amusing because it’s true now.
That’s great
Not the whole car, but frequently, some of the subsystems have to be rebooted to work correctly. This has included both my climate control (will blow hot out d/s and cold out p/s regardless of temp setting) and the radio (no satellite band present when selected) of my entertainment system after battery installs in my current work truck, a 2009 GMC Yukon. So some of these were being foreshadowed.
Politicization of Everything, ch 7,623
European drugstore giant Rossmann announced Tuesday it will no longer buy Tesla
’s electric vehicles for its fleet, effective immediately, citing CEO Elon Musk’s pro-Trump political support.
Rossmann, based in Germany, said in a statement that its decision was “based on the incompatibility between the statements of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the values that Tesla represents with its products.”
“Elon Musk makes no secret of his support for Donald Trump,” Raoul Rossmann, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement. “Trump has repeatedly described climate change as a hoax – this attitude is in stark contrast to Tesla’s mission to contribute to environmental protection through the production of electric cars.”
While Rossmann only purchases about 180 electric vehicles a year — and only had 38 Teslas in its fleet, according to Bloomberg — the company’s decision to cut all Tesla EV purchases shows that Musk’s political decisions have begun to impact the automaker well beyond the U.S.
Shun the leper.
I’m sure TSLA futures are crashing on the reported loss of 38 Model 3 sales.
Why a drugstore exec should base any decisions whatsoever on “climate change” is an exercise for the reader.
Or the investor.
“Shun the Leper”
Also known as the follow-on to Operation Choke Point.
Ha, that is clever. The Teslas are a money pit. He will replace them with cheap economy gasoline cars cuz….Trump!
This is the real answer.
Foreign election interference!
And here I thought Tesla’s mission was to make Elon Musk rich.
China gold medal count
I don’t think of China as an athletic powerhouse. But they tied the US for the most gold medals this year. So I checked. They have been in the top tier for a long time.
Starting in 1992, when the former USSR, called the Unified team won the most golds
1992 – 16 (#4)
1996 – 16 (#4)
2000 – 28 (#3)
2004 – 32 (#2)
2008 – 48 (#1)
2012 – 39 (#2)
2016 – 26 (#3)
2020 – 38 (#2)
2024 – 40 (T #1)
My perception probably comes from the magnitude. The gap between the US and the USSR and the rest of the field used to be so great that you didn’t notice China with less than half as many gold medals.
Is it over yet? Every time I caught it on TV there was some other iteration of a sport where one or two medals should be awarded but had been divided up into separate medal events. Diving from three different heights. Track events of six different lengths. Ten different floor exercises. I was expecting, say, golf medals for closest to pin from 100 and 200 yards, best up and down from bunkers, longest drive, putting contests. But golf ,b-ball and a few others haven’t been corrupted yet into a dozen opportunities to win a medal.
They could definitely swap out Breaking with a Slam Dunk contest. Equally bogus as a sport, but more entertaining.
I thought it interesting that pretty much the only interest in breakdancing was the mini-story about Australia’s version of Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards.
Dr. Rachael Gunn, PhD, is proud to represent her native Australia as a b-girl, using “Raygun” as her street name. Her doctorate in cultural studies, awarded in 2017 from the prestigious Macquarie University in Sydney, is entitled “Deterritorializing Gender in Sydney’s Breakdancing Scene: a B-girl’s Experience of B-boying.”
From her publications, “We argue that breaking’s institutionalization via the Olympics will place breaking more firmly within this sporting nation’s hegemonic settler-colonial structures that rely upon racialized and genderized hierarchies.” This is how she describes her work: “My research is on the cultural politics of breaking. I look at gender, race, and the politics around identity and representation. I draw on cultural theory, feminist theory, interviews and my own experience as a breaker,” as she is otherwise employed as a college professor when not break-dancing.
Sadly, Raygun’s signature “kangaroo move” was not enough to advance her to the finals, where Ami Yuasa brought the glory of this sport’s first gold medal to her native Japan, while b-girl Nicka (Dominika Banevic) won the silver medal for Lithuania. B-Girl 671, also known as Liu Qingyi, won the bronze medal for China.
Even more sadly, breaking will not be featured at the Los Angeles games in 2028, so Dr. Raygun is a one-hit-wonder of international ridicule.
After watching a bit of her in action, my reaction.
b-ball
Clearly you haven’t seen the abomination that is 3v3 basketball.
Actually, it’s more watchable than the regular stuff, but it’s ridiculous to have both.
When you have over a billion people, a couple tend to be above average.
The medals are awarded on a DEI basis now, aren’t they?
Olympics: I am out.
So, I have a piece of chinesium electronics which stopped working. I cracked it open and found that the power regulator chip is obviously damaged and needing replacement. This operation is within my skill level, but I need to find a replacement. Problem is, the only datasheet I can find for the chip in the machine is in Chinese.
Do today’s translator websites handle a PDF? If I had specifications I could find an equivalent component (I have failed to find a source for the original that isn’t sketchy as hell)
The answer appears to be “Yes”
Yes
Are you asking a magic 8 ball?
Google has been getting better at translating websites on the fly – haven’t tested with pdfs yet.
I just tried the PDF for the datasheet on this chip. It looks good. At least good enough to hunt for a replacement.
Do they still even have olympic weightlifting?
Those guys were badasses.
Yes. I think it was an Italian weightlifter that failed in his lift a day or so ago.
Kamala Harris panned for requiring ID to enter Arizona rally after previously painting voter ID laws as racist
Vice President Harris was mocked online for requiring campaign rallygoers to present a government-issued ID upon entry, despite the Democratic presidential nominee opposing voter ID laws.
Ahead of Harris’ rally alongside vice presidential running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in Arizona on Friday, her campaign sent out an email advising that only confirmed RSVPs will be admitted.
The email said those on the RSVP list must present a matching government-issued photo ID in order to be admitted to the venue, KTAR reported.
The exact site of the Phoenix-area campaign event, first announced on July 30, was not revealed until Thursday. The email specified the event would take place at Desert Diamond Arena, located 15 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix, with attendees being admitted Friday between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., according to KTAR. The campaign reportedly said the Arizona Democratic Party would send out “non-transferrable invitations” by email on Thursday afternoon to attend Friday’s event
dumb and dumber . . . no one actually wants to win this election.
Holy stupidity, Batman!
Noted economic expert
Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday fiercely disagreed with former President Donald Trump’s suggestion this week that U.S. presidents should have a say in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions.
“I couldn’t … disagree more strongly,” Harris told reporters in Arizona, referring to the Republican presidential nominee’s comments. “The Fed is an independent entity, and as president, I would never interfere in the decisions that the Fed makes.”
With just 87 days until the election, the vice president also told reporters that she is preparing to unveil an official economic policy platform in the coming days.
“It’ll be focused on the economy and what we need to do to bring down costs and also strengthen the economy,” said Harris.
The suspense is killing me.
Mint trillion dollar coins, pass one out to every citizen?
I saw this cycle in Bolivia in the ’80s. Their bills were absolute works of art…the best one could get. They cost many times over as much to print as their face value. When the printer would no longer print bills on credit the govt started issuing checks. When the printer would no longer print up checks (yes, they literally ran out of checks) for them on credit the govt simply instructed citizens to draw more zeroes on the checks.
I’m not crying, you’re crying.