November 18, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: November 18, 2024, staged call-in questions.
Five years ago today: November 18, 2020, he skipped town.
Nine years ago today: November 18, 2016, my last solo Thanksgiving.
Random years ago today: November 18, 1982, a birthday guitar cake.

           Here’s my first cherry pie in months. And some scalloped potatoes. This wards off the morning chills. Unfortunately, I got to not feeling well later today, so expect time out, which means lots of editorial. Watching TV is an altogether different type of illness, and I will not be doing that. For the curious, it is a general feeling of unease coupled with shoulder pains directly attributable to lifting the floor boards. I take it not many men my age lift such things a lot. I discover the new oven to be “slow” so add five minutes, and it also takes 6 minutes to preheat. Here’s a tempting view of the pie-in-progress.

           I’ve had a part-time fascination with flying boats, the big “transatlantic” clipper airplanes of the 1930s. They are now extinct for one of the simplest reasons. After World War II, there were not airstrips all around the world. The flying boats could not land in rough weather and were generally docked on land anyway. But you can’t beat the concept ocean-liner-like luxury that the final designs embodied. These made sense before the war, since most important cities were located on the seafront and you docked walking distance from the hotels.
           So if you wondered what happened to all those airplane and submarine designers after 1945, take a look at behemoths like the “Princess”. Trivia, if you wonder why so many airplanes of the era had twin tails instead of one large, it is so they would fit into the hangars of the day. Zip forward to the three Chinese astronauts rescued from their space station. Damage to the capsule has left the three rescuers stranded.
           Meanwhile, I’m going shopping. Because the Internet has slowed to nothing and there are reports of huge major ISP shutdowns. It began exactly at the same time the Epstein victim interviews. So much for free speech. Wait, there is one exception, but let me check first. Yep, Gab is still up. This is the outfit that the establishment hates because they own all their protocol layers and servers. Gab cannot be shut down by ulterior interests. My guess is these are swarm attacks by parties afraid of revelations. This brand of attack may have worked five years ago. Not no more, the recovery will be quick.

           Hmmm, 430 hits on the pie picture. Let’s try the spud picture. You are never really retired until you can have this type of dish for breakfast. Later, the pie wins, hands down.

           Time out, even when not planned. It’s been long enough with my new office chair to realize it’s altered my sleep patterns. It’s big news for me, as it makes me lose time. Like nothing done on my floor today. I can fall asleep for hours without any discomfort like the neck cramps of my old chair. Productivity suffers, but you know, isn’t it about time? I tried to train myself to slow down some twenty years ago. That went nowhere.
           Since I have nothing for you, here is a description of a number. Every bank transaction is recorded here with a unique identifier. Today’s was 0569-09:04. It’s an evolved system, both numbers are ordinal, not cardinal. The first is the bank sequence, fleshed out to four digits, which you can’t spreadsheet unless the number is presented as characters instead of numerals. The dash would do this, but could also be misinterpreted as a minus sign. This sequence number can also be a duplicate, so the second number is the timestamp. The colon forces the whole string to be characters. This string is further matched to a counter which tells me today was the 2,022th transaction, which serves as a “check for reasonableness” on this ancient account.
           Bottom line? Thanks to the new stove, on midnight November 30, we will have 51ȼ left in said bank account. But no panic. We have an infrastructure that absorbs any such impacts.

Picture of the day.
The Old Mill, Arkansas.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           I chatted up a lady in the grocery aisle. At least my age, but I was impressed by her looks. She radared my second look and pushed her cart past mine, as I cleared by throat and kind of whispered, “Oh my.” She kept going around 30 feet, then took and interest in the tinfoil shelving, bending over for a closer look, which she got. However boys, never respond directly to a physical incentive from older gals. They know and they are just testing to see if you are over that phase.
           Sure enough, as I zagged up the next aisle, there she was, from the opposite direction she'd been heading. This is where experience takes over. I asked her if she was also looking for the pie filling. Ice broken instantly. Within the next couple minutes I knew she had been divorced, and “found a good man” around six hears ago. And wisely is holding on to him. I generally kept the conversation focused on baking and cooking, letting the story evolve on its own. She cannot sing or play guitar.
           Then it was over, she showed the usual signs of never having quite met anybody like me in a long, long time. She will never know how close she came. Let’s see if I can stoke readership with another photo from the new oven. This one shows the growing expertise on browning the muffins, and the cherry pie before the free-for-all.

           Upset tummy, something I get every five years, so I don’t mess around. I was in Lakeland and drove straight home. I had “Paris Echo” playing and I guessed right, our protagonist is 31 and the story is a very smooth setup to another fictional Holocaust fairy tail. For the record, I do not deny the Holocaust, but I am a Zundelist. That is, I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but that it did not happen the way they claim it did. Too many holes in that story big enough to drive a Tesla through. As Zundel also said, if it happened, it was horrible enough and there should be no need to lie about it. The other aspect is I no longer accept any “evidence” unless it stems from outside the group who have every reason to embellish the facts.
           Back home hours later I’m still unsettled, so Festus Tuesday is cancelled. Here’s news for others not feeling well—you are not longer allowed in. While Trump can’t touch the ten million current visa holders, he has moved to block all immigrants that might become a burden on the system, especially fat ones. All who have taken any type of government assistance will also be under the microscope. The dragnet will also include households where even one non-citizen has ever taken any public assistance. For Trump, this is a hugely popular move.

           This move will hugely impact degenerate cities like New York where almost half of all rent-controlled housing is occupied by not born in the USA. An ABC reporter has the new nickname “Piggy” after trying to gaslight Trump. Taiwan is on an anti-ship shopping spree, which says they no longer trust the USA so much. Meet the Barracuda 500. Cheap, fast, and nimble, it used A.I so it can operate without external guidance. It can punch a big hole in any warship.

           That is suddenly important now that the USA has fielded EMP weapons. Called CHAMP, they can direct microwave beams on specific targets by overlying them. Rumor was it they will soon be miniaturized in drones. Most sources say the US has around 100 of the conventional type and used them against Iran.

Last Laugh