Something Random

Happy Dios de Los Muertos! 1730583022683.png 1730583036798.png 1730583062169.png 1730583127940.png

(To me, it's a much cooler holiday than halloween.)
 
In parts of Europe we have the All Saints' Day (Allerheiligen in southern Germany).
 
Dios de Los Muertos: Days of the Dead. Nov 1-2.

To celebrate, I went out to a favorite Mexican restaurant for my favorite Mexican dish, carnitas. 😋

I told the guy "If you'll pardon my French, Feliz Dios de Los Muertos." He took my money.
 
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Halloween is stripper Christmas. The peak of cosplay season, plus we live along the beautiful coast of Lake Michigan for all the fall photo opportunities. I've been busy a lot this month. Ironically, Halloween itself was the only night in the past few weeks I didn't have anything scheduled. I can't say anything about Day of the Dead, but bless whomever decided that October means dressing up and wanting pictures taken in either leaves or abandoned buildings.

The National Park is currently buying up random homes that are surrounded by the Indiana Dunes, so there are a lot of hidden places along Route 12/20 that haven't been lived in or cleaned up at all but also haven't been torn down or touched in years. They're great for spooky-season needs. I always want to do more in abandoned industrial and commercial real estate but I never know how safe it will be. I've done photo shoots in the Gary Methodist Church and Horace Mann High School, both well-known for anyone involved in Urban Exploration. One of my FAVORITE shooting locations is actually an abandoned parking garage across the road from the commuter transit hub here. Anonymous concrete and hard shadows are amazingly versatile and moody.

I'm partial to tostadas, myself. We don't have much here for Asian food but we do have a variety of Latin options. It's all wonderful.
 
A lot of those foods are not very healthy. It helps to avoid the fried parts and use leaner cuts of proteins.
I know it is a stereotype that the midwest is obese and unhealthy. Is good, clean, Mexican food available where you live?
 
I miss the Mexican food in California, though I think the Chinese here is a bit better. I could do with my pizza being a little less middle-eastern (all the pizza shops in town are operated by refugees from the 80s). And a good curry place would be appreciated.
 
In the 80s and 90s I traveled often for "business" and would try to find known foods in various countries. Italian was usually the safest because they had recognizable food that was pretty good. In some East Asian regions they had NO CLUE how to make a pizza.
😂
🤣

French was good if you were at a fine restaurant, e.g., for a special meeting. I don't care too much for authentic Chinese food, but I like some American versions that vary all over the place.
 
LM is talking about his time leading CIA wetwork Ops again.

I'm a big believer in getting novel cuisine when I can. Food is usually is usually a highlight of any trip to a major city. IMO, every culture on Earth has ain't kind of great food. You just have to go find it.
 
I'm talking about restaurants in various regions. Many cuisines are awesome, but many are nauseous. You must be like that Gordon Ramsey dude that eats and cooks weird stuff in remote countries. Now I avoid the major cities except for transit points.

I don't know why those faces like gargoyles are so huge.
 
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The limitations of food I can get locally are pretty frustrating. In the Gary area, we basically have Mexican, Pizza (locally, not even good pizza. Pequod's or Nancy's might only be an 75 minutes of Chicago driving away but that's still an undertaking) and GFS-grade Chinese buffets. There are of course steakhouses and Greek diners as well, but AFAIK we have one Vietnamese place, one Lebanese restaurant, one place that's Castilian-Spanish and a couple Indian restaurants and Sushi places within 20 miles of where I live. This is particularly frustrating because I know my neighbors are often West African, South American and Caribbean immigrants who have amazing cuisines of their own.

I can and do try to visit unique places when I can. I love Egyptian and Ethiopian food when I can get then and Korean food might be my all-time favorite. I've taken weekend trips to places like Denver and NOLA specifically just because I knew I'd get a couple great meals out of it.

Anthony Bourdain was the "try something everywhere and drink where the locals do" guy. Gordon Ramsey is the man who yells at chefs. They're both iconic chefs.

If I had the budget to take long trips to SE Asia I'd go in a heartbeat. My best friend and I have been trying to pull off a trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos for years now but the pandemic cancelled our original reservations and these days she has a white collar job and 10 entire vacation days to use over the course of a year. Maybe when I turn 50 we'll finally get away with it.
 
I do like eating the local cuisine when I travel. Danish traditional foods are called "Gammel Dansk mal", literally translated to "Old Danish food". The traditional foods are called "old" because they aren't eaten regularly by normal Danes. Both because they aren't healthy and are inconvenient.

The ones I can get on board with most are Smørrebrød, basically an open-faced sandwich, and Rødgrød med fløde: A dessert made from berries cooked into a pudding-like consistency and served with cream.

The most frustrating thing is their insistence on using utensils for everything. They'll take an otherwise amazing hamburger and douse it in sauce. I believe this is just to make sure I don't try to eat it like an American. Personal sized pizzas also are served unsliced but with a fork and knife.
 
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Hamburgers are designed to be in a bun and hand held.
However, pizzas should be eaten with knife and fork. Do you have pizza in Napoli?
 
Mercutio said:
The limitations of food I can get locally are pretty frustrating. In the Gary area, we basically have Mexican, Pizza (locally, not even good pizza. Pequod's or Nancy's might only be an 75 minutes of Chicago driving away but that's still an undertaking) and GFS-grade Chinese buffets. There are of course steakhouses and Greek diners as well, but AFAIK we have one Vietnamese place, one Lebanese restaurant, one place that's Castilian-Spanish and a couple Indian restaurants and Sushi places within 20 miles of where I live. This is particularly frustrating because I know my neighbors are often West African, South American and Caribbean immigrants who have amazing cuisines of their own.

I can and do try to visit unique places when I can. I love Egyptian and Ethiopian food when I can get then and Korean food might be my all-time favorite. I've taken weekend trips to places like Denver and NOLA specifically just because I knew I'd get a couple great meals out of it.

Anthony Bourdain was the "try something everywhere and drink where the locals do" guy. Gordon Ramsey is the man who yells at chefs. They're both iconic chefs.

If I had the budget to take long trips to SE Asia I'd go in a heartbeat. My best friend and I have been trying to pull off a trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos for years now but the pandemic cancelled our original reservations and these days she has a white collar job and 10 entire vacation days to use over the course of a year. Maybe when I turn 50 we'll finally get away with it.
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I found the guy with mental and addiction that killed himself. Is that him? It's not clear how many Michelin Tires he had compared to the blond guy with hair like a Gumby. ;)

Be careful with eating foods in areas without good sanitation. Parasites are possible and can remain undiagnosed for long periods. Take whatever other travel precautions (vaccines and/or prophylactics, anti-biotonics in case of infections) are advisable for the region. I think you should take a shorter trip first to see how you like it.
 
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I'm pretty sure Neanderthals did not have pizza. :LOL: They did likely have an animal protein-heavy diet.
 
The truth is that any pizza is going to be a good pizza. Even deeply shitty pizza is good pizza. Like Pizza Hut is absolute garbage but sometimes it hits. I usually like tavern style better than deep dish (and people do pick that up and eat it) but it turns into a case of which component of the dish you want to put forward or most want to taste. The minute somebody tells me there's only one right sort of crust or even sauce for a pizza, they're already wrong.

I had a Japanese-style pizza while I was in NYC. It had scallops, sliced hard boiled egg, corn and mayo on it. It was delicious.
 
I have dozens of pictures of my partner leaving offerings at the Roscoe Village Rat Hole. Which was probably actually a squirrel. She was a big believer in leaving stuff for it. Usually at least a shooter (tiny bottle of booze). Sometimes food. Often whatever change she had in her pocketbook.
The hole is gone now. Apparently, they're going to make a real monument out of it somewhere in the neighborhood, as well they should.

I get to wear my "Big Sexy Voter" sticker today.
Indiana changed our voting laws to make lines look artificially longer. We had seven voting stations instead of the usual ~30 at my polling place and only people who are actively voting were allowed in the gymnasium where I vote. It really did take about five times as long as normal to cast a ballot and the line was well out the door before I left this morning. I'm sure this was done as a form of voter suppression; the state will be able to close polls at 6 (eastern, naturally) and say that there were only X people voting without giving any heed to anyone waiting outside the polling place. Sucks to be you if you had to deal with public transit or work a little late on central time (like, hey, two of the reliably blue counties up by Chicago).
 
I cannot view the U-Tubes, but that rat-hole is rather weird. It looks like all sorts of materials including illegal ones were being stored there, so it's a good idea they removed it. Maybe it belongs in a museum or simular rather than a public street.
 
We just want our rat hole back. It was there for actual decades before anyone did anything about it, and it was well known enough to be a joke around Chicago for at least the last five years or so.

Estradiol isn't illegal. It's a controlled substance in about the same way as a common antibiotic and nothing particularly bad will happen if you take it when it isn't prescribed to you unless you keep doing it over and over for a long time. There are plenty of reasons women need it for hormone replacement but it's also commonly available as a street drug for people who don't want to go through formal gender confirmation processes, which often involve months or years of arguing with a psychiatrist.

Something I have learned about because of my side hustle is that Chicago is the end of a pipeline that originates in the south, moves to New Orleans and then up north. Trans or Pretrans persons go to NOLA or Atlanta as places that are relatively hospitable to the queer-of-gender and then travel north to Chicago (because the city offers easy access to affirming medical care and, you know, human rights) when spots open up in the various programs that allow for low cost treatment. Official affirming care is often adversarial since many providers want to involve multiple specialists including mental health practitioners, who generally are asked to keep people from making changes to their bodies, although this is finally starting to change. Because of this, hormone treatments of all sorts are often sold outside prescription drug systems. All you really need it to make it is someone with a .edu email address and a shipping address at a university or hospital to order the basic substances involved, plus a couple thousand bucks worth of materials and some basic chemistry gear.
 
Mercutio said:
We just want our rat hole back. It was there for actual decades before anyone did anything about it, and it was well known enough to be a joke around Chicago for at least the last five years or so.

Estradiol isn't illegal. It's a controlled substance in about the same way as a common antibiotic and nothing particularly bad will happen if you take it when it isn't prescribed to you unless you keep doing it over and over for a long time. There are plenty of reasons women need it for hormone replacement but it's also commonly available as a street drug for people who don't want to go through formal gender confirmation processes, which often involve months or years of arguing with a psychiatrist.
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You are probably familiar with 21CFR 1306 and your state's pharmacy laws, and I'm not talking about a scheduled substance. If anyone picks it up then that's not OK as it was not prescribed to them. There are also possibly local laws about attractive nuisances that would fall under.
 
I was in at my precinct not long after they opened up, around 7:30. I stopped in and voted before I went the rest of the way to the job site I was needed at this morning. No line to speak of.
 
It's going to be worse than people understand. No one anywhere along the line will be able to stop any of the worst ideas the administration will have other than possibly Generals in the Pentagon, and even they will be reassigned or forced to resign until enough yes-men are put in position.
Ukraine is SOL. Mr. Art of the Deal may even put Taiwan on the table.

Maybe we'll get lucky and Trump's sentencing in New York will mean real prison time, but how disgusting is it that a convicted rapist who oversaw the deaths of millions was the choice of the people over a competent woman?
 
Gaza will be a parking lot by February. The West Bank likely by March. Trump has flat out said that Israel should, and I quote, "finish the job." Those who didn't vote for Kamala because it'd be akin to getting blood on their hands have just slipped into the bathtub full of blood.

Ukraine I'll give a couple months just because they're tough as nails but with the US pulling out of NATO as well, they're boned and so is the rest of Europe if Putin gets any designs on gaining back the old USSR borders.

Taiwan is likely gone within the year. Japan is freaking the fuck out, and understandably so. Maybe SK can hold out, but with Russian and Chinese support? Especially from a China who's freshly reinvigorated by taking out the little island """"province"""" who'd been spitting in their eyes for the last hundredish years? If we don't see nukes fly before 2030 I'll be shocked.

That's not to even get into the ramifications of a second term here at home. I'm expecting most if not all of the policy recommendations from the Heritage Foundation's bible (or scribbled-on copy of Mein Kampf, if you prefer) to make it into law somehow since we're in the worst possible timeline where he also has legislative support. Trans peoples' very existence will be deemed "pornographic" and I wouldn't be surprised if we see more restrictions on marriage and gender and what-have-you. I'm terrified for my sister and cousins, and disgusted that the country we grew up in decided both them and their rights simply don't matter. I'm too white, male, able-bodied and straight to be a target of the admin myself, but no doubt that my parents will be, considering the cuts he wants to make to social security. They're both on disability.

I don't even expect Trump to live halfway through the term -- the way he eats Big Macs like Tic Tacs I'd be shocked if his heart doesn't give out before 2027, especially as old as he is. And President Vance will likely be worse, and not just in the way that he's basically Trump but still able to string words together semi-coherently, but also in that he doesn't seem particularly inclined to give a shit about the constitution in any context other than as toilet paper.

I have a possible exit path, my girlfriend is Canadian and I'm in an industry that they'd like more workers for, but honestly, Pierre Poilievre seems to just be Canadian Trump, and it's entirely likely that he's going to form the next government up there. The only reason I'm still holding myself somewhat glued together is for her.
 
If he doesn't have a massive coronary from eating too many Big Macs I think Trump will be mentally unfit before his term is halfway up. He has the same signs of dementia I saw in my mother. It took her less than two years to go from mostly functional to not being able to get out much resembling intelligible speech. In less than four years she was incontinent and stopped walking. Trump is definitely well on the way to that path. Vance will be worse though if Trump can't serve.

My only hope is we have people in three letter agencies for exactly this sort of thing. When they see the guardrails are falling, they start taking out those responsible. My guess is that means Vance, Trump, probably Trump's three oldest children, a good number of GOP Congresspeople, some cabinet members, perhaps even a few on the Supreme Court. Yes, it sounds like something out of a movie, but there are enough people able and willing to prevent this country from going into the toilet by any means necessary. Then it's also possible the military turns against him, stages a coup, then installs a more reasonable person in power until the next election. If Musk's businesses suffer on account of Trump's policies, I wouldn't put it past him to put out a contract on Trump and Vance. He's already a Bond villain in every other way. So there lots of potential outs. Even the migrants he wants to deport number in the millions. That's a fucking army if they can organize themselves.

As for Israel, amazing how a country bought into existence by Nazi Germany has pretty much become the very same thing-namely the Fourth Reich run by Jews.

I'm white, straight, hopefully still able-bodied once my ribs heal, so I'm also unlikely to be a target of this administration but the cuts to Medicare and Social Security will hurt. Thankfully my fixed expenses, meaning everything, are only around $20K a year.
 
Switched out my bunk LaserJet that was only as cheap as it was because they expected you to go with an HP+ subscription and the printer doesn't function without it to a Brother laser copier. I found a DCP-L2640DW for a bit less than $200 (US) brand new at an Office Depot and took it -- especially since with that purchase I was able to turn around and get a big box of paper (10... reams? I think it calls them? 10 packs of 500 sheets, more than I'll ever possibly need or use) for less than $30. I wouldn't have spent the money, but it was a good deal for what it is and I'd been on the lookout for a while anyway. The reason the MFP line starts at 300 bucks or so is because it also includes Fax hardware. Which I don't and likely will never need again, seeing how I can send and receive virtual faxes by connecting with an app on my phone.

I like to think I'm not a fool, because before I did buy it, I checked that model against Brother's published list of models supporting PCL6 and PostScript emulation. Thankfully it turns out I'm not a fool, because it does have it, and it does work. The printer will connect to a network both via WiFi and via an RJ45 ethernet port. I can't imagine it's capable of any more than 10/100, or that it'd need to be. With the PostScript emulation, printing with a generic PS driver from Windows 95 and 98 was as simple as installing the HP Standard TCP/IP Port Monitor driver (Win9x does not, by default, support directly printing over TCP/IP) and pointing it at the static IP I'd set the printer to. I used a driver meant for an HP LaserJet 4/4M PS. The curious thing is that driver doesn't seem to support double-sided printing like the rest of the machines I've used it with do with the generic AirPrint support the printer also has, I wonder if there is a more generic driver that does, or if perhaps there's even an included driver that does. This bears further experimentation.
 
Best I figured out was handling printing through an application that allows you to print only odds/evens and then sticking the stack back in the tray. A driver for a Brother HL-5030 calls this "manual duplexing" and implements this regardless of application, but it makes the formatting kinda wonky, so I prefer the good old LaserJet 4 PS driver.
 
I have to do manual duplexing on my LaserJet 1022. The only issue is if pages get stuck together, and then you have to reprint some pages all over again.

My CLP500 and Phaser 6510 both have duplex printing.
 
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