LIGHTEN UP PART ONE (Maybe of a series)

 Things have been getting a bit too serious around here so maybe we should 'lighten up' and show some humour in the blog posts again.

Not Richard's old and unfunny 'dad' jokes though, that's a given.

No, we need some fresh input.

Maybe Richard can brush up on his home-made cartoons which he is good at. His nickname of the 'stick man' wasn't for his sexual conquests that's for damned sure.

Then again, Robert and his new best friend AI could come up with some funnies.

I'll see if I can download a free cartoon maker programme*.

Have fun and I recommend that, to help that happen you should sin a lot.

* Most of those 'free' apps are scams though that at best seek to lock you in to subscriptions or at worst steal all your data.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 END DAYS

THE CATALYST*

* And hopefully not the cataclysmist. 

We all know that Donald Trump is a buffoon who has become inexplicably wealthy and influential.

He is egotistical, narcissistic, greedy and generally awful as a human being but ...

                                                     ... and he does have a big butt ... there are some things that he is doing that, by accident, are maybe an acceleration of what is likely to happen, over time, anyway. Things like: the slimming down of the bloated USA government and institutions; the fall of the USA 'empire'; the rise of China, India and Pakistan as global powers; the consolidation of billionaire 'oligarchs' in positions of political power etc.

There's one thing that he is triggering, more by default than by deliberation and that's the polarisation of the geopolitical landscape.

A while ago I wrote a post about the unification of South America. See:

THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW PART TWO

I could have followed this up with the unification of North America, Europe, Africa and the 'sub continent'. Maybe I will sometime given the incredible number of comments that post attracted.

Trump's annexation plans for Canada and Greenland, for all its bluster, has some possibility for the future - but not as he would plan it. His trade war ambitions against Canada and Mexico have at their root, a desire to weaken those countries and their economies to make them dependant on and subservient to the USA. This will in time, blow up in his face and that of any follow-on right wing imperialistic presidents. Like with The Tarot the prediction is not what will happen but what might happen:

Tarot readings are often used not as a means of predicting a fixed future, but rather as a tool for exploring potential paths and gaining insights into the present, helping individuals make conscious choices and understand their current situation.

Trumps braggadocio is more likely to weaken the USA economically and militarily rather than its neighbours and, bizarrely make (in the longterm future) a possible scenario of unification of the three powers that make up North America - USA, Canada and Mexico.

Similarly, his geopolitical dabbling in European affairs, his attacks on NATO and the UN and his siding with Russia against the wants and needs of Ukraine, Germany, France, UK, the Scandinavian countries etc. might accelerate (and there are already signs of this like France stating that it could position its nuclear arsenal in Germany, closer to Russia) a more formal coming together of Western Europe (with some of the Eastern European countries like Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic etc as well as turkey).

It's not a far stretch to see China collecting its Asian neighbours together as well into an Asian consolidation and, India, Pakistan and the 'sub-continent' countries doing the same if they could ever get over their religious and cultural differences. I did suggest this as long-term though. Much longer-term could be the unification of Africa.

We live in interesting times.

START MAKING SENSE

Yes, the great David Byrne and Talking Heads, prescient as always.

We need people like these artists to point out the fallacious arguments that politicians and their partisan media put forward and Byrne is on who does it best.

Reality does follow art sometimes and the impressive Justin Trudeau hasn't been shy to take it to Trump and his cronies. No doubt you've been following the lates Trump fiascoes but here's Trudeau - on point (en pointe).

 

Yes, and as I guess you picked up - Trump is indeed 'burning down the house'.

NEW POST THE CHURCH OF THE BLESSED CURMUDGEON

 

HELL'S BELLS - THE LAST JUDGEMENT

FILLING GROOVY*

* Or, filling - gravy.

What's this?

No, it's not a 'cowpat' even though there is some similarity.

According to Richard, in a recent post, it was his lunch - a potato-top pie.

It looks disgusting and maybe the cowpat would give it a run for its money (pun intended).

The old and obviously confused guy just had a colonoscopy, the preparation for which removes shit from the body. I guess he just missed all that shit and is hell-bent (ask Robert) on getting it back in.

Now I like to eat the occasional pie, sometimes cooking my own. When buying from a bakery though I stick with:

• Pumpkin or other vegetable pies
• Butter chicken pies
• Smoked fish pies.

Fortunately up north there are some specialty pie shops that carry extensive ranges of gourmet pies like:

• Wild pork and kumara
• Paua
• Seafood
• Pulled beef, lamb or pork
• Venison
• Roast peppermint and vegetables
• Various steak combinations
• Various curry styles
• And my favourites - pumpkin, butter chicken and smoked fish.

Yummy.

OK - I had to do it:

PSST - D'YA WANNA BUY A BRIDGE?

 

No? Then how about an old house?

We listed today so things are on the move.

Here's a link: RAY WHITE

JUST J J J JIGGLE IT A BIT*

 * With apologies to The The The Guy - and Arkwright.

The Old Girl was using the washing machine today and called out to alert me that the machine had stopped working halfway through the wash cycle. It had locked up and was beeping its head off trying to tell us that there was a problem.

"We'd better get a man in." she said.

"A 'man' would cost us several hundred dollars" I replied, "it'd be cheaper probably to buy another (reconditioned) one."

The washing machine - A Fisher and Paykel GW series has given us great service for about 20 years.

I said that I'd check out the instruction manual (fortunately I've learned to keep all of the manuals that come with things we buy) and, if necessary, on-line to see if there was a solution. There were lots of suggestions but none that seemed to relate to our particular problem.

"We'd better get a man in." The Old Girl said again.

I wasn't going to do that straight away as tradespeople, particularly fix-it people** for dedicated company products charge 'an arm and a leg' for services and this is exacerbated by the fact that we live 30 minutes from town meaning an hour's travelling time.

What I did, when The Old Girl was at work in her office (my study) was manoeuvre the machine out of its dedicated space, empty out the heavy and wet towels and clothing that most likely contributed to overloading and set the machine to 'spin'. Nothing happened but the machine made some noises like it was trying to engage the motor. I then turned it off, removed the plug from the wall socket and tipped the machine over to a 45 degree angle. I propped it up so that it wouldn't come down on top of me and made sure that no water was leaking out. I looked at the workings underneath - things like this pump and wiring ...

... plus the bottom of the drum.

Using all the knowledge of things mechanical and electrical that I've built up over the years I poked, prodded, twisted, thumped and j j j jiggled everything that was within reach. I then re-righted the machine, pushed it back into place, reattached the water lines and the drain hose, plugged it in and turned it on to the 'spin' setting. 'Clunk', 'clank' and 'whirr' it said before starting up its spin cycle and emptying out the water in the drum. Job done. I put half of the amount of wet washing back into the machine - just in case - and set it to the normal wash settings. It's now working perfectly.

Hey! I'm pleased.

** The more observant reader will have noticed that I wrote 'tradespeople' and not 'tradesmen'. I'm not being particularly PC as, on the last 3 occasions that I've had tradespeople call in to do jobs - air conditioning yearly service, heat pumps filter changes and window washing - the tradesperson was a young woman. "More power to them" I say.

"EE-AH-HA-HA-HA"

 I'm going to miss our seagull* when we leave here.

Our seagull is a black backed gull - a karoro:

He's been living here or should I say, we've been living here in his habitat for over 15 years. Karoro generally live for at least 20 years and our old mate - we call him John - is starting to show his age.

He's raised many offspring and it's been a joy watching them grow up and learn to fly. John lives on the beach in front of us and sensibly made his home yeras ago next to a freshwater stream that comes down from Mount Aubrey up behind our house

I walked out at low tide the other day and was able to get quite close to John. I guess he's familiar with us and at his age maybe doesn't want to keep flying away. I feed him sometimes with meat scraps. I like him.

* Not Robert's Holy Seagull. I don't trust that guy.

YOU'VE EATEN ALL THE BLUEBERRIES MATEY!

 

I like fruit and in New Zealand we have a great selection of sensibly (not too forced) grown varieties that, if you stick to seasonality are fresh, crisp and flavoursome. We are not as dependant on internationally grown stuff like in USA and Europe that, while looking big and good tend to be bland and flabby.

Bananas and 'exotics' by and large are imported and it's important to choose wisely in the supermarket because, away from the inert gas environment in your own home these overdevelop rapidly.

I try to make sure that we use up the fruit we buy as quickly as possible although a soft banana is perfect for making a banana cake or a tuna and banana toasted sandwich.

Blueberries tend to be expensive with at best a small punnet costing about $5. I buy two at a time keeping one for myself that I use up in three portions for my breakfast cereal. The other I tell The Old Girl is hers and exhort her to not forget them and eat them while they are fresh. This doesn't always work and sometimes she has entirely forgotten or leaves a half full punnet in the fridge for a week. This bugs me and sometimes I use them up - picking out the manky ones and trying to eat the dried-out and now basically flavourless ones. It's best to 'drown' these in milk on top of Weetbix.

All OK you'd think but invariably I hear a call from the kitchen:

"You've eaten all the blueberries matey!"

Sheesh! 

... GOING ...

 

Nearly there.

... GOING ...

 

Won't be long now.

GOING ...