Category: OCF

Now is the Heating System of My Discontent Turned Glorious Prose by This Sun of a Gun

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Camera Girl and I are huddled together over mugs of tea trying to stave off hypothermia.  The heating system finally gave up the ghost last night and the house has settled down to ambient temperatures.  We slipped below fifty-five degrees a little while ago and I’ve begun to understand how the Donner party got to where they did.  I got off the phone with the “tech manager” a while ago and she was very sympathetic to my plight.  I didn’t swear at the woman so that speaks well of me but I did question the competency and integrity of the company.  Their pre-recorded message that plays while you’re on hold tells me that they are growing by leaps and bounds and have branches from Vermont to Delaware.  Thinking about the viability of every state in that area doesn’t increase my confidence in the business model or mission statement of the “Company.”

This stream of consciousness post is meant to document my descent into cold induced dementia.  Now I can fully understand Joe Biden.  His brain is frozen and no meaningful thinking can occur.  I forgive him for everything except for the child sniffing and for his cruelty to Corn Pop.  Soon I will send Camera Girl off to one of her daughters’ houses to survive.  I will stay here and sacrifice myself as a protest against the cruelty and incompetence of “Big Oil” or, more accurately, “Small Oil.”

My only regret is that I couldn’t live to see Liz Cheney drummed out of the Republican Party and booted out of Congress.  Wait, that’s not true.  There are other things I wish I could have lived to see.  For instance:

  • Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, AOC and Liz Cheney forced to work as Amway reps.
  • The ZMan move out of Lagos on the Chesapeake
  • Joe Biden audibly fart during the State of the Union address.
  • Kamala Harris run away screaming at a press conference and never be heard from again.
  • Lori Lightfoot, Anthony Fauci, Beto O’Rourke and Bill deBlasio arrested for impersonating human beings.
  • The Mario Cuomo Bridge renamed the Tappan Zee Bridge, Andrew Cuomo renamed Tappan Zee and Chris Cuomo legally renamed Fredo.
  • The Squad deported to wherever anyone is willing to take them.
  • Fredo, Don Lemon, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Anderson Cooper and Chris Hayes forced by court order to serve for five years as dunk tank clowns in a travelling carnival.

Tell the world my story.

My 2022 Resolutions

photog OCF

I reviewed what was being put up on the site and I thought of some improvements.

  • Avoid repetition. Looking over the output I have produced in the last couple of years I note a lot of sameness.  Banging away at the same few themes must be tiresome for the reader.
  • Don’t write something just to have something to write. If there’s nothing worth saying, wait till there is.
  • Eliminate doom and gloom. It’s stupid.
  • Increase the amount of cultural content (reviews, photography, fiction, humor).

 

Hopefully these changes will improve the content for the readers and for myself.

Happy New Year

31DEC2021 – OCF Update – New Year’s Eve Message

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After my very depressing non-predictions post I thought it was a good idea to post something a little bit more positive.to balance out the end of the year.

Camera Girl went out and got chicken chop suey from our favorite local Chinese restaurant and we’ll watch some fun movies and celebrate the New Year on a good note.  We’ve managed to eat or give away most of the Christmas leftovers and even most of the Christmas cookies which is quite an accomplishment.  Everyone in the family is doing pretty well and even this state hasn’t resorted to masking in grocery stores or other establishments.  I heard a local health care authority admit on television that the omicron “plague” while causing tremendous numbers of infected is failing to cause many serious cases and even fewer deaths.  It looks like the COVID panic will be allowed to evaporate.  So things are looking up even here in the Evil Empire.

I’m still in the very early stages of learning how to use the new camera (Sony A7 IV).  But so far it checks all the boxes I needed.  Tomorrow, if weather permits, I’ll have Camera Girl unleash the hounds and do a tracking autofocus test on them.  So expect some info soon.  I want to see what the larger file size allows me in cropping my macro shots.

Like everyone else, I’ll be counting my pennies from now on.  Food and everything else is becoming horribly expensive so avoiding waste will have to become a priority.  Luckily Camera girl is very frugal.  I’ll unleash this super power of hers by not calling her cheap anymore.

And finally in the New Year I resolve to spend more of my day writing my fiction.  It will probably cut into my blogging time but I see now it’s unavoidable.  Those morning hours are the only time when creativity exists.

So Happy New Year everyone out there in the big, wide wonderful world that doesn’t believe what Dementia Joe says.  We’ll make progress in 2022 and we’ll figure out a way to prosper despite the awful people who make it their business to torture us.  In fact I predict they will be the ones suffering this year.

Happy New Year.

Christmas in the Woke World

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Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

If you have very religious friends then you know that many people have always felt that the public face of Christmas has always been tainted by the commercial nature of the holiday in our culture.  They are outraged that the secular elements of Christmas overshadow the sacred nature of the holiday.

Maybe from their point of view what is happening in the culture now is no worse than the former commercialism.  Well, now it’s everyone else’s turn to be outraged.  Of course, the present outrage isn’t confined to commercialism.  We’re dealing with the destruction of a whole civilization and its replacement by nihilism.  But maybe the course of action everyone will be forced to adopt is basically the same as that taken by religious people living in a secular society.  The religious communities have to provide analogs for all the secular institutions around them.  They send their children to religious grammar and high schools.  Their churches sponsor children’s sports teams and fraternal organizations and social occasions where families can get together and young people can find friends.  And these organizations can act as networking opportunities for professional advancement and community projects.  Even politics can be centered around church membership.

If you don’t happen to be religious this may pose a problem in today’s woke society.  Outside of churches the Left has exerted massive pressure to warp and control the other organizations existing in the world today.  Public schools are hotbeds of homosexual recruitment and even stranger things like the indoctrination of middle-school kids into the transgender delusion.  The Boy Scouts have been co-opted, the large corporations are saturated with diversity, inclusion and equity programming and the federal government is an occupying army.

So, there’s only one way forward.  You have to do it all yourself.  Anything you want to preserve about Christmas, you are going to have to sponsor personally.  So, let’s say you want to encourage the religious aspects of Christmas.  Then you are going to have to make sure you bring the kids to church and tell them what you believe.  And if there are cultural traditions or family traditions you want to preserve then you better take the time to teach the kids and the grandkids about them and why they are important.  And let’s face it, if you don’t really believe in the importance of these things, you won’t be able to convince anyone else that they are important.

Luckily for me, I love old fashioned Christmas.  I love getting together with the family and eating a great big meal and passing the time together playing games and telling stories about the old days to the kids and talking about the minor news and events in the family and the community.  I love to put on some old movie like “A Christmas Carol” or “A Christmas Story” and introduce it to another generation.  I love to spend time with my kids and grandkids and hear about their lives and maybe provide a sympathetic ear to someone who needs to talk or make the encouraging noises that everyone likes to hear and sometimes really needs.  And if the talk turns to things going on in the larger world state your opinion honestly and fearlessly.  Don’t mince words about the Democrats and especially not about the truly insane fringes of the Left.

And Christmas is just one chapter of what needs to be done.  Every aspect of normal life and Western Civilization needs the same treatment.  Be vocal and comfortable about cheerleading for the good things in the old culture that need to be defended and nurtured.  Encourage the kids to think about important parts of their lives that they will have to attend to.  Finding a job, finding a spouse, raising a family.  These are things that don’t go without saying.  Say them.  Provide practical help for things like career counseling, finding activities, even providing them with help like a lift to a job or an activity.  After all most parents are stretched pretty thin.  If a granddad has the time, he should make himself useful.

So that’s enough talk.  We’re headed out Christmas Eve in the afternoon to one of my daughters.  That’s going to be fun.  And then Christmas dinner is at my house and that will be grand.  All the grandkids will be there and I will be in my glory.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

23DEC2021 – OCF Update – Pre-Holiday Catastrophes

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Here at the Compound we have threats and invasions on all sides.  A critter has gotten into the basement and the heating system is staging a revolt.  I woke up this morning to Camera Girl informing me with wide-eyed terror that she could hear footsteps in the basement.  There’s a dropped ceiling down there and a lurker in the darkness was making its presence felt.  I went downstairs with a flashlight, a rickety ladder, a two handed ax handle and steely determination but the invader escaped my every attempt.  I’m glad I watched Alien a few weeks ago.  I knew not to enter the air ducts without at least a flamethrower.  I have contracted with big game hunter Frank Buck to “bring ’em back alive.”  Actually I would prefer if he brings it back dead but whatever the prevailing animal ethics are I just want to restore Camera Girl’s joie de vivre.  I will confess that I hope it’s at least a racoon.  If somehow it could be a fisher cat that would provide me with some kind of rollicking adventure story for Christmas but the space is kind of limited.  More likely it’s a chipmunk.

The heating problem has been an ongoing saga.  On December 7th (a day that now does live in infamy) we had the power venter replaced.  This is a fan that exhausts the high temperature exhaust gases from a house without a chimney.  The unfortunate tech who performed this waged an unholy war against cramped space and dimensional constraints of the new unit.  But since the replacement it’s been one problem after another.  Yesterday we had an emergency visit at 9pm to correct a number of heating outages.  Today they continued and I exhorted the service provider that I needed his “top man.”  I envision a sort of Indiana Jones of HVAC technicians coming on the job and battling the forces of entropy to restore my heating system to alignment with Truth, Justice, the American Way and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

So while I hold down the fort in anticipation of these rescue missions I look out on the wreckage that is Dementia Joe’s America.  Harpies threaten to have Joe Manchin burned at the stake for refusing to cough up some multi-trillions of dollars of spoils from our great grandchildren and bureaucrats threaten to fire anyone who refuses to capitulate to weekly vaccine injections.  These truly are the days of miracles and wonder.  One day soon we will look back on this period and wonder how in the world we allowed ourselves to be abused so badly by such evil men for so long for no good reason.

Well, I’ll have more interesting things to yammer about later but Indiana has arrived and the battle for combustion supremacy must be fought and lost before sundown.

Merry Christmas.

 

19DEC2021 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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You may have noticed a definite lull in posting yesterday.  I had my two older grandsons over for a Marvel Universe Marathon.  We had copious desserts and Camera Girl’s best spaghetti and meatballs and sausage dinner.  I voted for the original Iron Man movie and they added Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame.  Now, considering that “Endgame” clocks in at three hours long, that’s a lot of movies for one day.  But we filled in the time with much witty banter at the expense of the on-screen “heroes.”  The most egregious of the diversity and equity “improvements” was Girl Captain Marvel.  Basically she is Superman with estrogen.  But in addition, the whole girl power agenda was on open display.  And I railed against it most vocally.

But there was still a lot of fun in the movies.  And it was really great to have the kids over for dinner.  We talked about their school situations.  The older fellow is preparing for college and the younger is in high school too.  They have two weeks off for Christmas which is pretty good.  But they were good company for their old grandad and I felt like one of the kids myself.

Omicron continues to look like the variant that couldn’t.  South Africa is a month into the spike and the deaths just haven’t happened.  Based on the new cases data the spike may already be past.  If that is so then I’d say by New Year we will be able to infer that omicron is the endemic benign end state of the COVID-19 virus.  Of course Dementia Joe is desperate to keep this thing going.  And unfortunately, the Sixth Circuit Court just gave him the green light to force large companies to implement the vaccine mandate.  Ah, the horrors of the administrative state.

The train wreck that is the American economy continues to struggle along with “supply chain” holes and rampant inflation punishing the public in a way that is sure to make outrage the dominant emotion in 2022.  And the breakdown in law and order completes the dysfunctional reality of the Biden regime’s profile in a way that is sure to make the midterms truly awful for the Democrats.  Whether the Republicans will be smart enough to use this to their benefit remains to be seen.

Christmas is upon us.  I’ve so far indulged in three of my various versions of the “Christmas Carol” movies.  Highly satisfying.  Camera Girl is serving roast beast this Christmas, her butcher describes the cut as a “spoon roast.”  This is some cut of sirloin beef.  Last time she made one it was very, very good, so I am anticipating “another triumph.”

So have a good day.

Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

 

Overheard in a Post Office

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner

I get out into the real world so infrequently that I forget there are other people still inhabiting this planet.  But today I had to send off a package and buy some stamps for Camera Girl’s Christmas cards.  I was standing in one of the lines, which thankfully no longer requires a stupid mask, and there was an elderly lady probably in her late seventies in the next line with a mask on.  I was waiting for my mail lady to finish solving some kind of partial postal differential equation so I unintentionally eavesdropped on the conversation going on in the other line.  Apparently, the postman and the old lady were acquaintances and were discussing some kind of holiday performance, possibly a play, and the man asked her whether she liked it and she said she enjoyed the way they enforced their mask mandate and social distancing.  Then she asked him if he liked the intermission speech and he rather heatedly exclaimed that no he wasn’t happy that they had preached some social justice message at him.  He said, “No, I’m done with diversity, I’ve had diversity up to here.  I don’t want to hear who or what you’re sleeping with and I certainly don’t want it creeping into the story I’m watching.”  I could see that the old lady was taken aback.  He added a few other statements about how he felt about being the target of proselytizing and then got her the stamps she wanted.

So. this is a public conversation and from a federal employee no less.  I have to say this gave me a boost.  I had to stop myself from cheering and clapping.  I’ll tell you I wish that guy had been working on my postal problems.  I know he’s got the right stuff, for a postman anyway.  So even here in Dunwich, at the nexus of all things diabolical and woke there still lives a few hardy souls who aren’t writing their pronouns on their business cards and taping “Black Lives Matter” on their car bumpers.

Just a quick anecdote but worth considering.

16DEC2021 – OCF Update – A Quiet Day

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Good morning, good morning.  Less than ten days to Christmas and the grandkids are buzzing with anticipation.  Camera Girl is like some kind of kitchen prisoner slaving away at cookie dough and stockpiling the gravies and other ingredients she’ll need for the roast beast that will be served for Christmas dinner.  And I, even I, am experiencing the pre-Christmas rebirth that makes this such a great time.  I can watch one of the Christmas Carol versions and still get the thrill of seeing Scrooge repent his inhumanity.  I can still see him marvel at Fezziwig’s kindness and get a kind of sympathetic response when I look back on my own life and remember when I was the beneficiary of an act of true kindness from a family member or a friend, or even better, from a total stranger.  And maybe a lot of other people have this sort of feeling at this time of the year too.

As for the site, I will have a lot of chores in the next week or so.  This may cut into my posting a bit but I’m sure everyone else is also busy.  A few less outrages to read about won’t harm any of us, even the most bloody minded.  I’ll try to include all the positive things I can find or think of but since traffic goes down quite a bit at this time of year I’m sure I’ll be forgiven for any lapses.  So enjoy the 16th of December and we’ll see what emerges today.

12DEC2021 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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Good afternoon folks.

On the personal front yesterday was another enjoyable family get together without any nonsense about masks or social distancing or vaccine passes.  I had a chance to talk with my two older grandsons about which movies we would watch next week when they stay over.  We decided that Iron Man (the first installment) was probably the best of the bunch.  We decided to add Thor: Ragnorak just because I never saw it and they said it wasn’t the worst.  Camera Girl is beginning her holiday food planning.  Soon sacks of flour and barrels of sugar and butter will be delivered to the loading dock by petty dwarves and elvish butchers will transport cured hams and legs of lamb.  She also brought my attention that the grackles are beginning to swarm around the fields.  Remarkably, hundreds of these black birds will swirl down like a black tornado and cover the ground and the branches of the surrounding trees and find and eat every single grass seed and insect on the ground.  And then as if by magic the whole flock will fill the air and shoot off to a new spot and repeat the whole thing again.  I’ll have to try and get a photo of them taking off.

Some fairly interesting information on the “omicron variant.”  The data coming out of South Africa, which seems to be ground zero for this new strain continues to be extremely positive.  The transmisability of omicron is off the charts” meaning it is infecting people at a phenomenal rate.  The testing of the populations shows that 25% of the population has already been infected.  But the death rate is miniscule.  Since the beginning of the surge the daily death rate for the whole country is about 25 deaths a day.  Compare this to the earlier waves like the delta variant when the daily death rate was 500 to 600 deaths a day.  If the variant continues at this rate, the entire population of South Africa will have been exposed to it in a couple more weeks.  If the spike ends there without a serious death rate that will go a long way to convincing rational people that herd immunity to a weakened endemic strain has been reached there and soon worldwide.  At that point it will be prudent to dump your Pfizer stock.

This week saw a large number of articles out there about the growing anger over the abolition of law and order in the blue cities and states.  Reports from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, New York and especially Chicago range in tone from disbelief and fear to outrage and anger.  The escalating severity of the crime epidemic is finally registering with the people who are responsible for its existence.  Of course, they won’t do anything to fix the problem so my sympathy is basically nonexistent.  As I’ve stated they’ll get my attention when cannibalism is formalized in San Francisco.  Hopefully that  will be before Pelosi emigrates to Florida so she can be the main ingredient for a really lousy soup.

Well, things appear to be hotting up.  Dementia Joe has ordered the media to declare that inflation is not a problem.  For some reason the public has its doubts.  The courts have halted all his vaccine mandates and if the omicron variant fizzles by January Dopey Joe may have to declare victory against COVID again.  I don’t expect that to get him much applause.

So the prospects for a Merry Christmas are encouraging and if Manchin hangs tough on Build Back Better a Happy New Year is looking more possible.  Have a nice Sunday and I’ll post whatever seems interesting.

10DEC2021 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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  • Urban Mayors and Prosecutors continue to get called out by their constituencies for the complete breakdown of law and order in their cities.
  • Federal judges continue to put together a patchwork of stays against Dementia Joe’s volley of vaccination mandates.
  • Fauci and company continue to call for a permanent vaccination regime.
  • Polls show Democrat and especially Biden popularity in free fall.
  • Economy mired in runaway inflation and the word recession beginning to be whispered in economic circles.
  • The omicron variant getting closer and closer to being confirmed as the benign end of the COVID-19 nightmare.
  • Jussie Smollett’s jury felt safe to admit reality in their verdict.  I’m sure this pathetic excuse for a man will get off with a slap on his limp wrist.  Even Dave Chappelle knew from the outset that no one could believe this story.  But it is comforting to see that fantasy is starting to recede even in places like Chicago.  Not that it will save these places but it’s comforting in the same way that knowing that gravity will keep the Earth in its orbit.

Yeah, it’s just another Friday.  Well, I did my chores yesterday, moved the snow off the driveways and cleared a few leaves out of the gutters.  Tomorrow’s another grandchild birthday party here with a rematch of the worst pool players under five feet tall.  Should be fun.

I’m freezing my review of Justified Deadly Force at the top row of the site for a while to try to give it the maximum visibility I can.  If anyone wants to link to it I’d really appreciate it.

Hope to get some writing done today so stay tuned.