Got It All In

The big move home to Colorado proceeds apace.

My youngest helped me pack all my shit in Charlottesville - helped me drive out here too - and his big brother helped me move it all from the PODS thingie into what seems like a very tiny apartment. (it's not all that bad, but I'm still going to call it Hovel III - it's got some issues)

Anyway, it's all inside, and now I'm attempting to disprove one of the basic tenets of physical science, ie: You can't reduce volume by rearranging mass.

I got the internet and the TV up and runnin' tho' - I'll call that a partial win.

So now that I've been thru a dozen or so items on a punch list that shouldn't be my fuckin' job, all I have to do is to figure out if I can do something about the Smoker Stench in a 50-year-old apartment that seems not to have had its duct work cleaned for at least half that time.

Yeehaw and away we go.

They Call It The American Dream

...because you have to be asleep to believe it.

It's not supposed to be The American Dream to head out on the morning of your 50th birthday realizing you'll be working the same crappy little job at the same crappy little wage for the rest of your crappy little life, while the drive time DJ tries to happy-talk you out of the feeling that you and everybody in your family would be better off if you had a fatal accident on the way to the office today.

Attempted Normalcy

I'm looking forward to returning to something more or less resembling a normal existence - when not every day is fraught with the bullshit drama coming from Washington and Cult45.

Here's a taste of what normal is supposed to be.

Remember though - "normal" will still be a long way off even after we get Trump out of the White House and a few more Republicans out of Congress.

We have to commit to the same kind of rebuilding process that's necessary after every war.

And war is what this is.

Of all Trump's failings, one of the big ones is the simple fact that his understanding of war is strictly in terms of MeatSpace (tanks and planes and missiles and explode-y things), while the adversary is engaged in prosecuting this war in CyberSpace. Which is of course, typical - the side that's losing is almost always trying to fight the war according to the doctrines they developed in some previous war.

We ain't done yet - we ain't won yet - but at least we're starting to get a handle on it.

Happy Whatever Doesn't Offend You

... or does... or something else entirely.  We do get to choose.

The world starts to die every year at the beginning of Summer, and the world starts to come back to life every year at the end of Autumn. Just get past the bottom and you're on your way back up again.

Keep Pluggin' Away

Bill Watterson retired from writing and drawing "Calvin & Hobbes" about 18 years ago, but the timelessness of his message -- to always remain thoughtful, imaginative, and playful -- will stick in our culture forever, if we're lucky. Case in point: Cartoonist Gavin Aung Than, who pens comics on his blog Zen Pencils, created this tribute to Watterson that has struck a chord with the Internet over the last few days.

Than took the text from a commencement speech Watterson delivered at Kenyon College in 1995, and illustrated it in the style of "Calvin & Hobbes." He explains that this is the first time he's intentionally attempted to mimic Watterson, although the man has been an inspiration for his art as well as his career.

If you want to buy a print of Than's cartoon, you may be out of luck. He explains that since Watterson famously refuses to license his work, preferring to let his art speak for itself, selling this "would be against the whole spirit of Calvin and Hobbes." However, you can (and should) click over to his site and browse his other, non-Watterson related artwork.

hat tip = HuffPo via Democratic Underground