Day: May 9, 2006

Lovely Daughter recently bought her first new car. She names all her cars and this one is Yolanda Yaris. She loves the lil bugger (in a very platonic sense–no, not platonic in the modern pejorated sense, in the ancient Platonic sense. *heh*), but we always hurt the ones we love, eh? Meditating on Yolanda’s name, she emerged wi8th this lil mnemonic for you, just to help y’all recall her Lovely Car’s name:

“Yolanda the Yodeling Yaris Yakked Yogurt Yesterday…Yuck!”

(Note: because of her work with a private social services agency and cos I’m just a tad protective, I obscured/blurred out her face. It doesn’t look anything like the pic! *sheesh!* folks, get your eyes checked! Oh, and yeh, that’s Buttons, the dog we’ve done a lotta doctorin’ n nursin’ of recently, layin’ there at her feet. He got bored while I was taking a buncha pics, yawned and plopped down. :-))

We now return to our regularly scheduled blog posting…

*heh*

Well, I knew the previous owners of our home had done a few things on the cheap. After all, I’ve spent the last eleven years upgrading lots of the cheapy “gotta do this to make it an attractive buy” things.

But I’d been holding off on upgrading the cheapo water heater until… yeh. It’s started a very, very small leak. One that will only get larger. And yeh, I could patch it, but why? It’ll just start again somewhere else, likely when I least expect it; probably when we’re gone for a weekend or something, right?

So. It’s not a tough job. Really about a 2 on a scale of 1-19, and that mostly for the hassle of hauling the old one off.

But. Another (though decent) tank water heater, or should I install a tankless job? Bosch makes one I find attractive. Total cost of installing it (myself) would only be about twice that of a typical old tech tank heater. Natural gas, so I wouldn’t have to run a 240 electrical circuit/line. That’s nice, cos I don’t have room for a new 240 circuit on our current primary service panel, and I’d hate to run one off the exterior panel that does have room for another circuit. OK, maybe bump the difficulty to a 3 cos I’d have to enlarge the vent stack hole, install a larger vent stack and new flashing, etc., but big stinking deal, eh? The escalation to a three would mostly be cos I no longer like climbing on the roof. Used to free climb, but that was over 30 years ago, yah know…

Oh, well. Gonna have to make a decision in the next week or so, I believe. I’m leaning to the tankless, despite the new vent stack I’d need to install. Any comments, suggestions?

It won’t be after you read this post by Heidi at Euphoric Reality.

This is a certified RCOB (blinded by a Red Curtain of Blood rage) moment.

The feds who have engaged in this behavior should be tried (for whatever capital offense can be made to stick) and shot and left for scavengers. And their descendents unto the seventh generation should be hounded from the face of the country these quislings have dishonored.

A tanning booth on the sun for every fedgov traitor who engages in this sort of behavior is far, far too kind.

Now, are you going to CLICK on over there and read what has me about to stroke out?

This is my Tuesday Open Post. Link to this post and track back. More below the post.

---

For more on developing the right attitude toward terrorists, may I commend to your attention the “escape fiction with a none too hidden message” found in The Weapon, by Michael Z. Williamson. A brief sample from chapter six…

I hate terrorists. To me, anyone who attacks civilians in lieu of soldiers (collateral casualties do happen, but aren’t an excuse to be abused) is a gutless turd. I don’t care what the historians have to say about Lenin, the “Irish Republican Army” (which was neither Irish, Republican, nor an army), Hamas, al Qaeda… or any other group of thugs in history, or those running around now. They attack civilians to create terror, to force a government to yield. They do not attack politicians directly, or soldiers or cops. They attack civilians “because they have no choice” (and because their penises are too small for real fights and they lack the intelligence to stage real revolutions)… I don’t care how “noble” the cause is, how oppressed you feel you are, how “romantic” or “elegant” it is to shoot kids, blow up offices, destroy marketplaces, you will get naught but a bullet from me. If you want a fight, call me. That’s why I’m here.

Oh, there’s much more in that vein, of course. Buy a copy and start passing it around to weenie faux liberals you know. Tell them it’s a Libertarian anti-war book or something. *heh* It’s available here, here or here, at various prices and in various formats.

Sure, it’s light reading, not “literature” at all—something to zip right through for purely entertainment value—but Williamson does tell the story well, and his protagonist has the right attitude about dealing with terrorists…

Of course, it’s really about waging war on government anarcho-tyranny… the worst form of terrorism, where citizens are turned into subjects by force or threat of force and petty bureaucrats rule.

Oh, and about irony. Massive, gargantuan irony… *sigh*

The Weapon

---

Go ahead and link to this post and track back. And see some other fine blogs’ linkfests at