Very Cold This Weekend!

 Very cold but also dry and everything subject to change, day-to-day and even hour to hour-- such is meteorology. By this time I should be familiar with this dismal winter song and dance routine. But I still find it annoying. I can deal more easily with extreme cold if winds are light and we have at least some sunshine, and no snow or ice whatsoever. I'm also annoyed by scumbags who want to buy my house. Real estate vultures, in other words. They should rot in hell. 

Some of these photos were taken within a few blocks of my house, and others were taken not much farther away, within a mile or two. God forbid there should be any development in this area. I like things the way they are. 

Windy Today

 I'm starting to see a little dust in the air. And I'm dealing with stuff. Gee, I really detest our Governor. Abbot, Paxton, and that other shithead whose name always escapes me are all cut from the same soiled scrap of toilet paper-- in my humble opinion. How about some VISTAS?

JN.1??

I'm starting to see headlines about this new Covid variant but they seem sensationalized. I'm as vaccinated as anyone can be, but I don't know whether the latest vaccine offers any protection or what degree of protection. I've seen no signs of local hospitals under any strain. I suppose if you are in poor health, have numerous risk factors, and have not been vaccinated at all, you are likely to have severe illness if you are infected with JN.1, but even a case of the flu would be risky for such people. So, although I think, I just don't know. Wait and see. The latest winter storm does not seem to have any potential to bring us any particularly severe winter weather. There's nothing very much out of the ordinary in the extended forecast. No precipitation of any kind. But since weather forecasts are subject to change without notice, from day to day, who knows? Again, I must wait and see. 

The local "freedom to choose" one's energy provider is not likely to make anyone very happy. In fact, it seems that in every case one must pay a hefty deposit, enter into some sort of long term contract with a nasty early termination fee, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that most of the options available are actually mini-ENRONs, and likely to fold within a few years, leaving you dead in the water, with no electric service. Researching the many options is a time-consuming affair, and I think many do not realize how much they will have to pay upfront, and that their electricity will cost them MORE. I had about 12 cents per kilowatt hour with the local utility. I've seen options up to 16 cents, and the best deal I've found so far is at 13.9 cents with a $150 deposit. Most of these "companies" are more like brokers than generators and I expect rotten service. I called up one customer contact number and found someone who must have been in India. Local? What does local mean anymore? This is shit for the birds. 

HEY HEY HEY

 How about some VISTAS today?

Meanwhile, I think we are about to discover, here in Lubbock, that the "power to choose" is a rip-off. Higher electric bills, another deposit to pay, and needless complications. A lot of people are going to be screwed, badly. 

It's Hard To Be Optimistic

 Let's face it. Most people just aren't very bright, and even those who are fairly bright have a tendency to be short-sighted, selfish, mean-spirited, and painfully superstitious. I consider any and all religions to be forms of superstition. And then you've got your psychopaths and sociopaths. What a zoo. Humanity isn't much of an improvement over a tribe of chimpanzees. In fact, a chimpanzee with the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction is quite frightening. Bang bang. Shoot shoot. I'm still waiting for the appearance of a viral agent that will devastate the human reproductive apparatus in males AND females. Put on the brakes! I've been looking at the various alternatives for electric service and they all look about equally bad to me. So far I've found lots of bad ratings. If I do nothing I'll be assigned to one of three default providers. And none of them look good. What a mess. I believe in natural monopolies, and in general I detest private sector, for-profit, utilities and healthcare. If anything accelerates entropy, the transformation of our environment into waste that can't be transformed into anything useful, it's capitalism. Party hearty and turn the planet into a mass of what amounts to shit. Toxic shit. But some people make obscene amounts of money doing that, so, obviously, the process will go on until it can't anymore. Finally, everyone and everything is dead. RIP. 

See the moon? It's dead. But the chimps have already claimed it! They've left their shit on it!