my journal: various subjects, opinionating, CW at times
The title explains itself.
If you're interested in the ramblings of a middle-aged man with chronic conditions who, at times, sees things a little too clearly for his own good, then read on.
Sometimes I get political, but it won't be all the time.
I don't mind comments in general but if you're going to differ with what I write, that's fine--as long as you can explain your position clearly & reasonably. Rants, shouting & general incoherence will be ignored or flagged, depending on the situation. Try to remember that not everyone else in this world holds your beliefs.
Every so often I may post art or snapshots of projects I'm working on.
If you're still interested after reading all the above, great. (I do wonder at how much time you have on your hands, though)
Went out this afternoon to pick up a med, & a few food items. On my old steel horse.
🔹The bad: Heat. Sweat (like a horse!). Had to spend money, which I usually dislike. The cargo rack came partly loose when I was just starting the ride back home; I had to pull over, fix it & tighten the screws.
🔹The good: no major flareup this time. Saved money--no ride fares. Got some exercise, which I need badly. As so many times before, no automobile got near me unnoticed. The cargo rack incident confirmed my instinct to keep spare screws in my pack. Drank just over 3 liters of H2O on the trip...guess that's good.
My head still hurts, though. Barely enough energy to bathe...after that I'll tell the world "f**k off" & then lie down.
The rest can wait til tomorrow.
@slowdecline48 I hope the headache is better. It sucks when they last for awhile. They say it's gonna be an abnormally hot summer. How do they know? They can predict from one day to the next but they can tell with certainty what the summer's gonna be like 😐 BS stay cool Slow *sending good vibes and some cold breezes*
@mytwistedsoul Supposedly today's weather satellites & data-crunching computers can amass mucho weather info & devise more accurate climate models than in years past. I believe it but here's the thing: a climate is an extremely complex system...so complex that no model, even when made by the best mainframe you have, can mimic a real climate perfectly over a very long period. There's local weather, big parts like the jetstream, cyclical phenomena like El Niño, chaotic intrusions like volcano eruptions that affect the weather, etc. further you extrapolate into the future with a theoretical model, the more you deal in probabilities at best. Maybe we will have an abnormally hot summer. Do we know that with 100% confidence? Of course not. We cannot be that certain.
This is good news...good news indeed.
It's rare to see silver get to $30/oz., let alone go above it.
Gold is currently $2,419.80 per & platinum, $1,094.80 per. Excellent. 😁 All the metals are still going up & down day-to-day, but over the last several months they've moved upward overall. Stocks indexes are still positive overall but at this point, their movements don't quite make sense given the current economy & sticky core inflation...thus, "alternative investments" are looking better to thinking people every day.
Times like this make me glad I started getting into this stuff. That was in the middle of 2020. I could've started earlier, but hindsight is 20/20 & all that. And my timing was still pretty good overall, even though I hadn't intended it in the beginning.
I pity anyone who starts buying gold right now. (S)He will have missed the rise over the last five years.
Thus far I've read posts from a couple members about them getting in trouble for posting the wrong things. Two different threads. Sometimes they were the wrong opinions. I hope that doesn't happen to me here...but it could. If there's anyone in CupsLand with a possibility of raising the ire of the leaders &/or staff be being too outspoken, it would be me.
I started working on a poem. A real poem, not just a little haiku. Dunno when I'll finish it, or where to post it whenever it's done...It should properly be in my thread in the Poetry forum. But considering the final part of it will be focused on bolt-ons (I detest bolt-ons), it might get taken down if I posted it there. I might post the poem here instead. It'll be done when it's done. Aside from that, no news today.
"Luck must be dealt with like health: enjoy it when it is good, be patient when it is bad."
- La Rochefoucauld
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA
@slowdecline48 😂 that never works
@mytwistedsoul You're tellin' me!... 😂
We should start a group or something... "Insomniacs Anonymous". Imagine the meetings... They would never be held in the morning or before 3 p.m. Coffee, cigarettes & donuts would be a must, in enough quantity for everyone. No one would be bright-eyed & bushy-tailed, ever.
@slowdecline48 Definitely lots and lots of coffee. And donuts. Because we need the sugar rush too! Some days it feels like there's never enough coffee. The first bright eyed bushy tailed person that shows up gets hurt lol 😈
The markets have been bullish 🐂 overall for months now...I'm a bit uneasy about it. They just don't make sense, given stubborn core inflation, ongoing Near East tensions & their effect on global oil shipping, uncertainty about the consequences of the AI revolution, etc. I am not alone in my suspicion, either:
The latter quote is from last week.
I have a question for all the pro-Palestine protestors, if they were interested in listening...
Just about everyone involved in the pro-Ham--er, pro-Palestine campus camps claims (s)he is involved because (s)he cares about the Palestinian people, is scandalized by the current war's casualty rate, etc. Consider the following:
There is currently an ongoing conflict between Armenia & Azerbaijan (a.k.a. Turkey's Mini-Me). Recently, several hundred thousand Armenians were displaced from the city of Artsakh once they realized they couldn't outfight their Azeri enemies. If they hadn't fled, they would all have been killed (those who refused to run or didn't move fast enough were killed). It was basically an Armenian nakba.
Also, since the Houthi militias in western/northern Yemen began firing missiles at passing ships, Saudi Arabia's military has restarted its attacks in Yemen. This is a revival of a war the Saudi government waged against the Houthis in earnest since 2015, after a few Houthi insurgents raided a town within Saudi territory proper & killed a few citizens. Their naval blockade around the heel of the Arabian peninsula is still going & has been there for years; the Saudi government maintains it to prevent the Houthis from receiving weapon shipments & support from Iran (the Houthis are a hard-core Shi'ite outfit, so it makes sense). It partly blocks everything else from coming in too; one of the results has been widespread famine in the Yemeni population--in addition to the hundreds of thousands already killed as collateral damage during the Houthi-Saudi conflict. The death toll is probably in the low millions now. So my question is this:
If you protest out of concern for the Palestinians as innocent human beings, then why haven't you protested about the above-mentioned catastrophes?
Because, I haven't seen or heard anything about that.
@slowdecline48 Probably partly because this doesn't fit in any where to cause a farther divide amongst people. Tbh I haven't heard much about this myself until the helicopter crash. They've already started pointing fingers at who caused the crash. Although they said that there was extremely dense fog which seems to be the mostly likely cause imo
@mytwistedsoul Ah yes, the crash that killed PM Raisi. Israel's government put out a preemptive announcement: "It wasn't us"...because of course all the usual suspects will blame Israel. "The Mossad did it!" 🙄
@slowdecline48 Yeah there's fingers pointing in every direction. And tbh I wonder if he really is d*ad. And the UN had a moment of silence for him *smh*
@mytwistedsoul Yeah, it's sickening. I'm pretty sure he's dead at this point. Not that it will change anything in Iran...another official close to Khameinei will most likely take the throne. Many Iranians were celebratory upon hearing on Raisi's demise, despite the considerable risk of acting that way in public. Those Persian dissidents have more courage than many national leaders & UN-affiliated bureaucrats, by far. Perhaps that isn't a big surprise.
@slowdecline48 You're right. Someone else will fill his shoes and chances are that person will be even worse in one way or another. I saw them celebrating and tbh my first thought was holy sh*t that's on camera. If the wrong person sees it there will be h*LL to pay
The "debate"* between Trump & Biden has been scheduled. It will be broadcast live on CNN on the big night. 🙄 If you'd like to know my thoughts, here's a snapshot of my response in a thread outside CupsLand:
Here I am again.
Yeccchh.
More than half my life is gone...I devoted so many years to perfecting my art & learning crafts (mostly woodwork), only for my body to start falling apart in an unanticipated & rather early fashion. Finally learned how to use watercolor brushes as a result, but still...it is a net loss of output.
I grew up reading & drawing, took my studies seriously when I was in college until my senior year... Once the "new atheist" movement took off, I was in it for a few years & explored atheism, skepticism, secularism. Later I got bit by the history bug & went down a few rabbit holes from there. I cannot remember all the titles of what I read or all the history vids I watched & downloaded from You2b. Now I can't have a decent convo with most people--& not with practically everyone under 30.
All of the above made for a lonely life, now. Being mostly solitary & focused is one way to live...but age & time changes everything.
"Trouble in mind, I'm blue
But I won't be blue always
You know the sun gonna shine
In my back door someday"
- old blues standard