IFLA: The “Maybe You Should Skip This Week” Edition of the Horoscope for the Week of January 19

by | Jan 19, 2020 | Advice, IFLA | 160 comments

This week’s skies are just not good, with one possible exception.  If you are trying to change residences or buy/sell property, the planets are aligned for you.  If not…  And the sad thing is usually there are ways to avoid bad luck as most, maybe all indicators are specific to travelling or your home so you can plan on where to spend your time accordingly.  This week’s portents are bad for both scenarios.  First we have Mercury (change, chaos, instability) in line the waning crescent moon (failure, diminishment) on opposite sides of the sun, resulting in something along the lines of “things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”  Also crossing through the sun is an alignment of the earth and Saturn.  While this does NOT indicate that your house will burn down, most other domestic calamities are on the table including wind damage, the discovery of lead paint and a payment being delayed/lost.

Looking desperately for good news, this is a good week for fishing, and Friday is optimum for sodomy (I swear I am not making this up, I am using actual Astrology).  While fishing will be good, Mercury in Aquarius cautions against actually going all the way out into (onto?) the water to do so.  Stay on shore.  I must admit, my education in astrological reading is absolutely lacking in how ice fits in, so my warning against ice fishing might be completely baseless.  Venus in Pisces also bodes well for those looking to find a new romantic partner and that same waning crescent moon being in Scorpio is extra-auspicious for those looking for someone to engage in atypical romantic activities.  If you REALLY want to seal the deal, make a date for Friday, wear green and carry copper.  Mars is still in Sagittarius, so don’t try treachery, and Capricorn continues to host Jupiter and Saturn.  Thinking alchemically this indicates wisdom, tin and lead, so if there is some soldering you need to get done, do it this week.

The cards indicate a fairly momentous week, with SIX majors drawn.  The other strange thing is it is almost completely without male suits — no wands, and only one sword and that is in the hands of the Queen.  That last one is counterbalanced by the King of Coins, and all the rest are cups.  This week belongs to the ladyglibs.

Capricorn:  Queen of Swords – Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation.

Aquarius:  The Wheel of Fortune – Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity

Pisces:  Judgement reversed – Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity, deliberation, decision, sentence

Aries:  The Sun reversed – Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment, but in a lesser sense than if the card had been dawn upright.  The ceasing of growth.

Taurus:  King of Coins – Valor, realizing intelligence, business and intellectual aptitude, mathematical attainments, success

Gemini:  The Blank Card – Free will, escape from destiny or karma

Cancer:  2 of Cups – Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy

Leo:  6 of Cups reversed – The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently

Virgo:  10 of Cups reversed – Resting on your laurel, inattention to threats, indignation, violence

Libra:  The Chariot – Succor, providence, war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble

Scorpio:  Justice – Equity, rightness, probity, triumph of the deserving

Sagittarius:  Strength reversed – Weakness.  Duh.

 

 

About The Author

Not Adahn

Not Adahn

Despite all my rage, I am still just an impeccably dressed rat.

160 Comments

  1. DEG

    Leo: 6 of Cups reversed – The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently

    Huh? Should I expect a shitty week or a really shitty week? Sheesh. That’s all I want to know.

    I get to work part of this afternoon. Bugs came in that needed a response. Yay.

    Since I didn’t know this thread was up when I posted on the last thread, I’ll repost this video here.

  2. Tundra

    Hmmm, I’m going ice fishing next weekend. I can’t imagine even the stars could anticipate something so breathtakingly stupid.

    Leo: 6 of Cups reversed – The future, renewal, that which will come to pass presently

    That’s deep. Or not. I can’t tell.

    The Six of Cups reversed can mean that you are clinging to the past. You should explore your memories, but you should not allow yourself to remain there. While you may find it comforting to be in the security of home, you must also learn to forge your own path. The past should be used as a guide for the future. Learn to focus on the present, and truly be aware.

    Another reading of the Six of Cups reversed is that you may feel as though you are disconnected from your childhood self, and that child’s dreams, which may sometimes be unrealistic. Not reaching these goals can be painful, but sometimes reality carves a path for you that you must follow, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for your choices. Take the time to think about where you want to be now and how you can reach your goals, instead of just dreaming about them.

    Ooh, I like the idea of not blaming myself for bad choices. Tarot is neat!

  3. Tres Cool

    “Virgo: 10 of Cups reversed – Resting on your laurel, inattention to threats, indignation, violence”

    Based on how my last week turned out, it could be a fair cop.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    Random expostulation:

    There probably aren’t enough card carrying white supremacists in the continental US to fill the stands at the Bozeman High football field, but let’s get ourselves tied in knots about how they are taking over the country and thwarting the democratically established will of the decent folk.

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      Fun fact: I briefly misread that as There probably aren’t enough of us card carrying… but then I hit white supremacists and my mind screeched into reverse.

      I agree with you, btw – the old quote: “There would be a Klan meeting with ten people there, and six of them would be reporting back the next day.”. There are more people investigating and writing about possible white supremacists than actual white supremacists.

      • Rhywun

        All it takes is one doing something stupid.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Or a plant or two. Neither would surprise me.

    • l0b0t

      This is what white supremacy looks like. This band, Day Of The Sword was connected with the groups The Order and Covenant, Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord. In the 1990s, they were touring nationally and robbing banks in the towns to which they toured so as finance the coming race war. They are, with the exception of the band member who turned State’s evidence, in the Federal Penitentiary. The idea that these folk would support a wealthy NYC property developer with very strong Jewish connections doesn’t pass the laugh test. Are there still idiots like this in the US? Undoubtedly. DO they pose a threat on anything other than a local crankster gangster level? Not since the late 20th century. Is the Ku Klux Klan still around? Yes. When was the last time they endangered anyone? There was shootout at a Klan march in 1976, but the Klan has been combat ineffectual since the late 1960s. Today’s Klan is composed of undercover informants for FBI, BATFE, U.S. Marshals Service, and the IRS (often unwittingly working side-by-side) and a couple of very dim-bulb rednecks who can be entrapped into enacting stupidity. White power/ethnic determinism for white folk is an ideology so reviled that its espousal will see one ostracized from any group other than some shady meth-head bikers. Fear of it is just bloody silly.

      • JD is Unemployed

        they were touring nationally and robbing banks in the towns to which they toured

        Tonight, on America’s Dumbest Criminals…

      • Not Adahn

        Wasn’t that the plot to Point Break?

  5. LemonGrenade

    “Libra: The Chariot – Succor, providence, war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble” – oh, so a day ending in Y. Since this is an astrology/tarot post, I feel free to admit that I 1) named my daughter after the meanest girl at Sunnydale High on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and 2) she is more than living up to her namesake. If there is any destiny in naming, I fucked up big time.

    • Rhywun

      She’ll turn out great if spin-offs are anything to go by.

      • LemonGrenade

        … until she has children!

      • Rhywun

        Yeah, probably a good idea to nip that in the bud.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Ugh spoilers. Angel isn’t available on any of the streaming services I currently have, and I’m not buying DVDs just to give them right to the charity shop when I’m done – that’s not even the part that bothers me. I just cannot be bothered fiddling around with physical media when now it’s possible to do everything without getting up from the couch. I recently watched through all of Buffy which I haven’t seen since I was a teenager. Good times, much nostalgia. That episode were [character] dies is probably one of the most beautifully made pieces of sad TV ever.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Thanks d00d!

      • Rhywun

        If I treasure something enough, I want it on physical media.

        I will watch Angel multiple times in my life (already have, actually). Still need to get Buffy though.

        TL;DR I hate streaming.

      • Mojeaux

        Same.

        I love ebooks but if I love the book, I get it in hardback (if it’s available). Also, I have a way to save and convert my ebooks so I can keep them instead of just “leasing” them.

        I have no real need to keep CDs of music, but I keep the ones I have before I switched over to digital and I have all that saved in multiple places.

        I can’t pull “bought” digital movies off whatever device to burn or save, so if I want something badly enough, I will buy the DVD.

        I do rent movies off Amazon though, at $2.99. It’s no different from renting VHS tapes back in the day.

      • Rhywun

        Sadly, this only applies to movies/tv for me. I am all-in on digital fiction* and music**.

        *I am not so worried about Amazon going out of business or dropping my books as I am about movies and tv shows “disappearing”

        **But only in file form – again, no streaming

      • JD is Unemployed

        I used to be like that and then what with moving around too much I just got fed up with the clutter and started to sell/give away my DVDs and CDs.

      • Mojeaux

        So, with my CDs (I don’t have enough DVDs to justify this treatment), I bought this and these. Getting rid of the jewel cases is enough. The space saved is incredible and I actually like them better like this. If my husband happens to get me a CD he knows I want, I keep those jewel cases. I have the Frank Sinatra greatest hits 4-CD collection in a lovely case I keep.

      • Rhywun

        Oo that plus the alphabet dividers looks like a neat solution. I’m near that point where I either need another bookcase or something like this.

      • LemonGrenade

        Sorry? Hopefully the spoiler was vague enough not to ruin the whole series. I bought all of Angel on DVD shortly after it became available, and then on a recent vacation went ahead and bought the entire series over prime video because I felt like seeing it again and was nowhere near home. I’ve done that often enough, or bought the digital version of a movie I was too lazy to go sorting through my DVDs to watch, that these days I just go ahead and buy the digital version.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Nah it’s cool. I’m pretty sure the unwritten law of spoilers doesn’t apply to something that first aired 21 (!) years ago.

    • Not Adahn

      Nominative determinism FTL.

  6. slumbrew - double secret satan

    Gemini: The Blank Card – Free will, escape from destiny or karma

    Nice. So I’ve got that going for me.

  7. leon

    “Gemini: The Blank Card – Free will, escape from destiny or karma”

    The power is mine!!!!!

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      *fist bumps leon*

      • egould310

        I’m frightened by the total goal
        Drawing to the ragged hole
        And I ain’t got the power anymore
        No, I ain’t got the power anymore

        https://youtu.be/9PrnGo-lOVA

  8. Mojeaux

    Taurus: King of Coins – Valor, realizing intelligence, business and intellectual aptitude, mathematical attainments, success

    w00t!!!

    Had lots of stress last week. Lots of tension and anger. Come-to-Jesus meeting with XY, and prepping for one for XX. HOWEVER, all that stress and anger and tension worked out. Goals achieved and XY sorted out for a day or two at least. My head looks less like a Charlie Brown scribble-knot in a thought balloon.

    Go Chiefs.

    • Mojeaux

      Also. Before Chafed’s GlibFit post, I will announce I have taquitos with guac/sour cream dip and funnel cake bites (because I have a cookie scoop but I do not have that fancy funnel contraption).

      Mr. Mojeaux won a pizza from Papa John’s, so he’ll be going out later to pick it up.

      • hayeksplosives

        I beg the Powers that Be to open an NFL playoff open thread at 2PM Central so we have a place to go w/o hijacking other threads.

      • Mojeaux

        Concur!

        Chafed puts in a lot of work and don’t want to shit on his thread.

      • Old Man With Candy

        I’ll give SP a heads-up.

      • Jarflax

        Mr. Mojeaux won a pizza from Papa John’s, so he’ll be going out later to pick it up.

        I believe that is correctly referred to as losing.

      • Mojeaux

        Dude, free food.

      • AlmightyJB

        Papa John’s is fine. I like the pepperchini or whatever it is.

      • Jarflax

        Papa John’s sauce is syrup.

      • The Hyperbole

        + that oily garlic dipping sauce stuff.

      • Mojeaux

        Margarine.

        Transfats #FTW!

      • Ted S.

        For some values of “food”.

      • AlmightyJB

        Thanks for reminding me to add avocados, cilantro, red onion, and garlic to my groceries list! Already have lime.

      • Old Man With Candy

        If it’s of any comfort, on Friday night, The Dutch Geek and I went to the weekly food truck gathering in the next town over. I had fry bread topped with beans and cheese, with a side of onion rings. This is the OMWC Die Young Diet. Hasn’t worked so far, I’m still alive, but sooooo enjoyable.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Papa John’s; official pizza of mediocrity. I don’t think I’ve ever had a UK Papa John. Perhaps it’s better here? I doubt it. Yanks seem to think that McDonalds and Budweiser are better in the UK/Europe, not that I’d know. 95% of the food I have eaten in the USA was delicious *makes chef kiss gesture*. Y’all have food pretty much sorted out, even for self-restricting dietary cuntes like myself.

      • Mojeaux

        Pardon me for either not paying attention or going back to research, but are you a Brit or a US Expat? And if it’s not TMI, whereabouts are you?

      • JD is Unemployed

        Brit. England specifically, east coast. I have only been to the US as a tourist, Texas specifically.

      • Mojeaux

        Thanks. I have set a character’s home in Berwick-upon-Tweed. I obviously don’t know if you’re that far north.

        I have set a different family’s estate on the other side of the Scottish border.

        And my last English tale is set a little east of Carlisle.

      • l0b0t

        British food gets a bad rap but toad-in-the-hole, chip butties, bacon butties, non-custard type puddings, all yummy stuff.

      • Ted S.

        Mr. Mojeaux won a pizza from Papa John’s,

        My condolences.

      • Mojeaux

        Thank you. It’s appreciated.

    • DEG

      Good.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    The Blank Card – Free will, escape from destiny or karma

    Wait, what?

    Whycome I don’t get a “Get out of Jail free” card?

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GEMINI OVERLORDS!

  10. AlmightyJB

    “Resting on Laurels”. Well I’m off MTW, work from home on Thursday, so I’ll definitely be resting. The only violence I foresee is that which I will perpetuate against some defenseless paper targets

  11. hayeksplosives

    First we have Mercury (change, chaos, instability) in line the waning crescent moon (failure, diminishment) on opposite sides of the sun, resulting in something along the lines of “things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Also crossing through the sun is an alignment of the earth and Saturn. While this does NOT indicate that your house will burn down, most other domestic calamities are on the table including wind damage, the discovery of lead paint and a payment being delayed/lost.

    Yesterday I was a domestic whirlwind of sorting out junk, giving stuff away on NextDoor, and rearranging furniture. So far, all good.

    I guess the downside will reveal itself when my stepsons arrive to visit for a week. 😛

    At least my house is better organized. I’ve had this on my honey-do list for ages, got tired of waiting for the Mr, so I’m doing it myself. I thought if he saw me doing it, he’d be shamed into helping.

    HA! Joke was on me. But it’s done.

    • Mojeaux

      You would trust the mister to declutter and organize?! ?

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        Funny, in the couples I know, the women tend to be the messy ones.

      • Mojeaux

        I am. And then I clean it up.

        But decluttering and reorganizing is a completely different thing.

      • hayeksplosives

        ^^^ this Gliblady gets it.

      • Old Man With Candy

        SP and I are about even. Which is not a good thing.

      • Ted S.

        I thought that, like everybody else here, you were both odd.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Mathematical fact: two odds or two evens will always add up to an even. So this will always be a mystery.

      • Ted S.

        Modular arithmetic for the win!

  12. Brochettaward

    If the argument is that what Trump did and what the Dems are doing is just politics then make that argument. But this is just saying “the president is aloud to be a tyrant as long as he doesn’t break any big laws”

    Abuse of power has been used in the past, but with underlying crimes justifying the accusation. There is no underlying crime to justify the Democrats accusation.

    So the Republican strategy is to give the best audio clips for Dem reelection? Sounds about right.

    No. The strategy is to point out that no actual laws were broken. That the standard in the Constitution for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors and that the Democrats never actual established what laws were broken.

    • Not an Economist

      I am of the opinion that Abuse of Power can be impeachable. For example, if a President wins election, but his campaign is credibly accused of vote fraud and he then preemptively pardons everyone in his campaign, then that is Abuse of Power that would be impeachable. The President used a legal, Constitutional power to protect his followers (and himself) from the legal consequences of their actions.

      Personally, I think the only way Trump’s actions would be Abuse of Power if he knew that what Biden did was legal. Since nobody knows the full story of who knew what and when with Biden and the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor, I don’t think what Trump did is impeachable.

      • westernsloper

        What Biden was doing by being the one in charge of handing out aid while his son sat on a board of a company that potentially benefited from said aid was at best a blatant serious ethics violation and he should be investigated for it. At worst it was criminal. I remember reading something that stated Barrisma (sp?) was in line for direct USAID funds but was rejected last minute by some official who was actually paying attention. Who was pushing for that company to get USAID funds? There is a lot there to uncover that looks dirty. Trump mentioning possible corrupt activity be investigated by an ally is 100% not an impeachable offense. Regardless of who the possible corrupt individual is. If Biden is so clean he should have welcomed an investigation. Isn’t that how it goes these days?

  13. JD is Unemployed

    War! I’d better tool up.

  14. westernsloper

    extra-auspicious for those looking for someone to engage in atypical romantic activities.

    Any sort of romantic activity would be “atypical” in my case so I see that as a bonus.

    • JD is Unemployed

      ORLY? Have you and a close female friend or lover ever tried the Rwandan pudding cannon?

      • AlmightyJB

        I don’t want to know.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Maybe you’d prefer the Siberian corkstuffer? Easier for beginners.

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        a close female friend or lover

        I think that was the “atypical” part he was referring to.

      • JD is Unemployed

        Oh. Sorry dude. Maybe we could crowdfund for one?

      • westernsloper

        Never been to Rwanda, but I have witnessed the Hide the Cameroonian Beer Bottle (which was a Star so technically it was Hide the Nigerian Beer bottle) . Also experienced the Nigerian BMDAIFY as well as the Thai, “I’ll be done with you in four minutes”. Totally worth it!

  15. Rhywun

    OT: Why, oh why, are we not listening to the children?! We had our chance to save the Earth, and we blew it.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Did we?

      Hot damn! Maybe they’ll shut up now.

  16. Mojeaux

    @l0b0t, how are you doing?

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      On the plus side, he has figured out how to harness the energy of his blood pressure and has taken his entire neighborhood off the grid.

      (though, seriously, I hope things have improved)

    • l0b0t

      Fair to middling, I suppose. Thanks for asking. I’m finding sorting and divesting of soi much of my accumulated junk to be equally cathartic and sad/enraging. I’m about to throw away 1500+ books because apparently libraries in Queens don’t take book donations, nor do any of the nearby charity shops. I put them all out on our stoop on a “Free Books” table and immediately started getting nasty-grams from our HOA, threatening fines if I didn’t bring them inside immediately. The idea of throwing away books is bloody soul-crushing.

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        libraries in Queens don’t take book donations

        What the actual fuck?

        I had a grand purge a couple years back and dropped piles of books off at the local library.

      • l0b0t

        Thanks. The problem is that nobody will come pick them up. I would schlep them to the library as it’s only a few blocks away, but this several car loads of VERY heavy boxes and I’m too lazy to drag them off the Peninsula.

      • Mojeaux

        Oh that hurts.

    • Rhywun

      The first draft, “Ban British tourists”, didn’t pass muster, I guess.

      • JD is Unemployed

        It’s funny because it’s true.

      • slumbrew - double secret satan

        As I occasionally discuss with my Brit ex-pat next-door neighbor, if my drinking were ever to get out of hand I will just move to the U.K., where it would pass utterly without notice.

    • Not Adahn

      The accents.

  17. Gender Traitor

    This week belongs to the ladyglibs.

    w00t! Glibbroads rule!

    About time! ::ducks, runs::

    • JD is Unemployed

      What if I temporarily identify as a ladyglib?

      • AlmightyJB

        Then you would temporarily not really exist.

  18. Don Escaped Bloomington

    NewWife flies back today

    Capricorn: Queen of Swords – Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation.

    you’re saying I vacuumed for nothing ?

    • We're not saying BEAM's an alien, but . . .

      A woman’s happiness because someone else vacuumed supersedes even the most locked-in horoscope. You’re golden, d00d.

  19. We're not saying BEAM's an alien, but . . .

    Gemini’s horoscope this week? I’m lovin’ it™.

  20. Not Adahn

    Today’s science experiment: How long does spar urethane take to dry when it’s sub-20 in your garage?

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      I totally misread that as “spar urethra”.

      And I now have Hank Hill’s voice in my head.

      • Not Adahn

        I have never concerned myself about how many times I need to coat my urethra to protect it from moisture.

    • Spudalicious

      About a week.

      • Not Adahn

        Well, that’s going to suck.

      • Spudalicious

        Go to the hardware store and buy a $20 space heater.

      • Gustave Lytton

        How small in the garage and is it insulated? Plug in space heater is going to be 1500W. I use one in my single car garage that’s uninsulated on three sides. In high 30s to low 40s, it takes the chill off but doesn’t really warm much, and that’s with 260W of lighting as well. If NA’s space is in the 20’s, it sounds even worse.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Yeah, I was about to say not at all. And by the time it actually does there will be so much random dust and debris from the air that’s landed on it by then that it’ll look like shit.

      • Not Adahn

        It’s really just to keep mildew from setting in. Between the inevitable solvent spills and wrench slippages, I’m not even trying to make the bench pretty.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Fair enough.

      • Not Adahn

        Well, that and I’m completely incapable of doing any kind of finish work.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Once it cures, can sand it lightly with a extra fine grit and recoat if necessary.

    • Mojeaux

      How about use resin/epoxy and a heat gun?

      • Not Adahn

        Or maybe just a space heater?

      • Mojeaux

        I did that when I used premixed sheetrock mud and needed to get the wall done fast. I like the drying time of powdered, but it dries hard as a rock and doesn’t sand easily.

      • The Hyperbole

        How volatile are spar urethane fumes?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Unless he’s putting down 5 gallons of it, I wouldn’t worry about it.

        Now acetone based dyes are a whole nother story. I know if at least three guys that have blown the windows out.

      • Don Escaped Bloomington

        it’s highly flammable

        but the LFL is 1% so, to Scruff’s point,
        you only need 100 pounds of air ( ~1500ft^3) to dilute it to a safe zone

        don’t forget: flammable vapors fall, flammable liquids float

  21. The Late P Brooks

    The strategy is to point out that no actual laws were broken. That the standard in the Constitution for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors and that the Democrats never actual established what laws were broken.

    Mean Orange Meanie is mean.

    I rest my case, your lordship.

  22. Spudalicious

    “ Libra: The Chariot – Succor, providence, war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble”

    Looks like I’m going to kick someone’s ass this week.

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      TBF, you say that every week.

      • Spudalicious

        If you expect it, you can avoid it.

      • Spudalicious

        And to be perfectly honest, I haven’t been in a fight since I was 12 at the school bus stop.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Ahem. You got punched out by a midget in a dress in San Francisco.

      • Old Man With Candy

        I was smart and jumped in the cab while your face was distracting his fists.

      • Ted S.

        I didn’t know you were a dress-wearing midget.

      • westernsloper

        Spud got beat up by a midget in drag in San Fran? Go on……….

      • Old Man With Candy

        I’ll let him make up some face-saving lie before telling what really happened.

      • leon

        I don’t remember punching a potato in San Fransisco…

    • egould310

      “ Honduran migrants waved their country’s flag and sang the national anthem as they approached the bridge.”

      They sound like proud Hondurans. They should stay in Honduras.

      • leon

        Let people be proud. Often they are fleeing oppressive regimes that they don’t think are legitimate. Like Cuban refugees.

  23. Fatty Bolger

    ‘It was going for my throat’: Florida python hunters wrestle invasive snakes

    The state encourages hunters to capture or kill the giant, invasive south Asian snakes that are decimating local wildlife. Dozens of hunters are prowling the Everglades during Florida’s 10-day Python Bowl, which ends Monday. Armed with long metal hooks that resemble fireplace pokers and bags, many hunters catch the snakes and take them in live.

    Those who take the most longest and heaviest pythons each will win $2,000 in cash. Other prizes include off-road vehicles.

    This made me think of Pro L.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    And by the time it actually does there will be so much random dust and debris from the air that’s landed on it by then that it’ll look like shit.

    Non-skid surface, FTW!

    It will dry slowly, but it will dry.

  25. Mojeaux

    With our upcoming move (don’t know when or where), I am happily anticipating not having to be responsible for the house or air or heat or electricity or plumbing or anything. Now, Mr. Mojeaux doesn’t like the idea of renting but I’m all for it. If we could have an apartment (2 problems with that) (one of which is that Mr. Mojeaux flatly refuses), I would want that. When the kids are out of the house (which may be sooner than I’m comfortable with, since we may be preparing to emancipate XY at 16 since he can’t stand us or being here), I am insistent upon an apartment (with a pool) and Mr. Mojeaux is resigning himself to the idea. After all. we wouldn’t be married to an apartment the way we would be to a house. We’re in our 50s now and I’ll be damned if I want to worry about the lawn and snow anymore. Also, we may be able to travel when the kids are gone.

    Anyway, with all that, I can enjoy looking at pictures of lovely homes again for their own sake, knowing I am never going to have to clean any of that or be responsible for maintaining it. It’s like the swimming pool. Sure, I want one really badly. I want to not be respinsible for all that bullshit more than I want the swimming pool.

    Downsizing life #FTW!

    • Fourscore

      While it may seem that the youngsters are eager to leave the nest they expect the door to be open in the event life is different than they thought. Sometimes it takes several attempts before they succeed in learning to fly. Even after that sometimes we have to welcome them back. My son was 35-36 when his recent marriage was unmanageable (20 years ago). He moved back in for a few weeks, until things got sorted out. My daughter spent a lot of her days off with us and may still return, who knows?.

      I returned home once, for a month, but only while I was getting my school business sorted out. OTOH, my folks were always happy to see me ’cause I worked around the house and always brought my dad a bottle or two of refreshments that adults could enjoy together.

      Teenagers can be the worst, until that one day, when they introduce you to a friend, as being “The Best Mom in the World”. It will happen Leave the door unlocked but don’t give them a key…

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Or maybe just a space heater?

    Yes.

    • slumbrew - double secret satan

      Ooof, #12 strikes again. I always have to pause when that shot is included.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    The unbearable lightness of being an insufferable pontificating douchebag

    Architectural critics anticipated that modern life would change the sensation of space. Almost 30 years ago, the French anthropologist Marc Augé coined the word non-place to describe a family of transitional locations where people’s sense of self becomes suppressed or even vanishes. Non-places include airports, hotels, shopping malls, supermarkets, and highways. There’s a sorrow to these sites, because unlike legitimate ones, human beings never really occupy non-places; they simply move through them on their way to “anthropological places,” as Augé called them, such as schools, homes, and monuments.

    Non-places have both proliferated and declined in the decades since. On the one hand, there are far more of them, and people encounter them more frequently. More airports and train stations in which more passengers transit more often. More hotel lobbies and conference centers, many boasting their own food courts and shopping plazas, non-places nested within non-places.

    On the other hand, the anonymity and uselessness of non-places has been undermined by the smartphone. Every gate waiting area, every plush lobby couch cluster, every wood-veneered coffee shop lean-to has become capable of transforming itself into any space for any patron. The airport or café is also an office and a movie theater, a knitting club, and a classroom.

    Non-places always garnered sneers. Augé himself dubbed their rise an “invasion” that brought about “supermodernity,” a massive overabundance of dead space devoted to individual rather than collective activity. He predicted that the uniformity of these places—every airport and hotel is like every other—would proliferate into a scourge, a plague that would strip the built environment of opportunities for humans to express themselves.

    What a steaming puddle of incomprehensible twaddle.

    Just go find a suitably tall building and jump off.

    • Rhywun

      devoted to individual rather than collective activity

      …and there it is.

    • Mojeaux

      I understand what he said.

      I don’t agree about their “uselessness” to the individual.

      They may be sterile, but they are sterile. Minimalist, clean lines, presumably clean, and wonderfully anonymizing.

      After being one of a graduating class of 15, going to BYU where I was just a number and nobody cared about me or what I did was a respite, a GIFT. I go to the library to work to take advantage of a non-place.

      They have their emotional uses.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “a massive overabundance of dead space devoted to individual rather than collective activity.”

      There it is. They always give up their motivations somewhere in the text.

      And architect philosophers are probably the most pretentious intellectuals to ever exist. Just try and make a building that’s not ugly, works, and can be built, guys.

  28. l0b0t

    I’m posting via telephone so I can’t be arsed to do a link but the latest Mad Lads video from Count Dankula is about Evel Knievel and it is wonderful.

    • Old Man With Candy

      The Pride of Butte, Montana.

  29. Rhywun

    I created an ad on Facebook that read: “Are you tired of DIVISIVENESS and POLARIZATION? You can be a good patriot without being a nationalist. Amitai Etzioni shows how in RECLAIMING PATRIOTISM.” Facebook’s response: “Your ad was rejected because it doesn’t comply with our advertising policies.”

    I thought Facebook accepted anything and everything from liars and fakes? That’s what Biden said.

    • leon

      Being pretensious is against Facebook policy.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    I understand what he said.

    I slogged through his nonsensical jibberjabber, and what i got was, “We’re all slaves to our mobile devices.”

    What that has to do with hotel lobby mind control, I know not.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    “a massive overabundance of dead space devoted to individual rather than collective activity.”

    I suspect that’s a shoutout to the halcyon days of rich adventurers hobnobbing in the luxurious lobbies of hotels inaccessible to the lower castes. Nowadays, one must scurry througyh as quickly as possible, to avoid being in the company of software salesmen, or worse.

    • We're not saying BEAM's an alien, but . . .

      . . . avoid being in the company of software salesmen, or worse.

      Yeah, you might find yourself in the company of one of those icky white cracker flyover country gun-totin’ Bible-thumpin’ bitter-clingin’ deplorables, and we all know how awful that can be!

      Although it could be some asscrack from Toronto who thinks Canada is everything you can see from the top of the CN Tower on a clear day. I’ve run into one or two of those traveling in Europe, and they’re über embarrassing.

    • AlmightyJB

      Worse?

      • Ted S.

        Lower-middle-class tourists.

    • leon

      Have you ever tried Jira? It would make it super simple to organize your time with software salesmen

    • grrizzly

      The executive lounges are inaccessible to the lower castes in hotels–not the lobbies.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Between elite status and outright selling access as part of club/executive rooms, they’re not doing a very good job of it.

  32. Festus

    Sagittarius – Strength reversed, weakness. Duh. Uncanny.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Romo looks dorkier than usual, in that hat.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Ow, my ear. And the remote is out of reach.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    And a fly-by from the B2.

    • Rhywun

      Brings a tear, doesn’t it?

  36. Grumbletarian

    Looking desperately for good news, this is a good week for fishing

    Pelosi delaying the articles of impeachment makes so much sense now.

  37. grrizzly

    The Bruins gave up a 3-0 lead. Sad.