Cable Still a Distant Dream

For reasons too boring to go into, I didn't fool with splicing the torn phone line until today. I didn't think it had any power yet, but I wanted to be ready when the power returned, so I went out in the yard with a cheap extension cord and some electrical tape and got to work. And the damn phone wires shocked me. I thought they only carried 6 volts, but it tingled pretty good. Anyway, that told me the power was back, so I hacked up the extension cord, made a truly hideous splice, and went back in and connected to the Internet. And here I am.

Coincidentally, the electricity came on a few minutes later, so that's pretty exciting. Still no cable, but at least I don't have to hand-wash any more underwear. Oh God. If I had only waited a few more hours.

For purposes of possible future litigation, let me say that FP&L turned the electricity back on BEFORE cleaning up the downed wires in this neighborhood. Which I warned them about earlier in the week. I was going to warn them again, but I decided to let the world worry about its own problems for once. Also, there was an explosion and a brief fire at the top of the pole next to the house, as soon as the power returned, but it went out, so all is well as far as I'm concerned. Hope it was a cat.

Here is some stuff I could not publish until now.

Wilma – The Lost Posts – 04 – 8:02 p.m. 10-27

Right Again; no Surprise

It continually amazes me that people fail to realize that I am right about absolutely everything.

Case in point: hurricane Wilma.

The juice went off late Sunday night. It’s Thursday. The juice is coming back on. All that crap about weeks without power...that was for the little people. The boneheads who live in three-house developments halfway to Shark River. Real people like me, we are getting our power back in a hurry. Like I said we would.

Tonight my old man told me there was electricity at the marina. I rode over there with him, just to experience the thrill of flipping a light switch and having something happen. Cocoplum Marina is part of Cocoplum (surprisingly), one of the newer, wealthier neighborhoods in Miami. All the powerlines are buried. They had power after Andrew, which was like Katrina plus Wilma plus the sensation of standing directly behind a jet engine. I told him the reason was the underground lines, and that in the aftermath of Wilma, Cocoplum would have power before the rest of the Gables. And they did.

Now if necessary, I can go sleep on the boat. But it isn’t necessary. It’s a beautiful night. It’s in the sixties, there’s no rain, there’s a light breeze…if the weather were like this every day, Miami might not be such a turdhole.

My original prediction was that it would take FP&L twice as long to restore power (not including the dead day after the storm) as it did after Katrina. Why? Because Katrina knocked out half as many customers. That means I should have electricity tomorrow night.

Like I keep saying, I haven’t had a bad time. I think hurricanes do a good job of making it very obvious who all the dangerous idiots are, because they’re the ones suffering most. They went into the storm with no food, no gas, no batteries, no coolers, and no brains. They’re the morons shooting each other over bags of ice. Me, I’ve had grilled cheeseburgers and cold draft beer and Django Reinhardt. My worst suffering has been enduring two cold showers, and that would never have happened had the batteries on the boat not gone out.

I think Val Prieto--whom I do not include among the dangerous idiots--has actually suffered more than I have, and he has a generator. In fact, I think a lot of his suffering has been CAUSED by the generator. It makes a damn racket. He has to feed it gas, which is a pain to get. All he gets out of it is TV, a fridge, and the Internet. I don’t know if I want to spend my beer-drinking time scrounging for gas to feed a noisy generator, just so I can avoid using a cooler. I do envy his gas water heater, though.

ManCamp was completely mashed by Wilma. The cheap, cruddy tube-steel frame that held up the “roof” looked like Michael Moore sat on it. The royal Poinciana tree in front of the house looked distinctly less than royal. It looked more like a royal hatrack with three leaves. And the wonderful trash trees that gave ManCamp shade…we spent the afternoon cutting them down.

Val and his neighbor Pat spent yesterday cutting the trees, and Val and I put in three hours today with a chainsaw and brute force, and Val has at least another day to go. While we were working today, Ignatowsky the ManCamp Lizard clung to a branch in a neighboring tree, doing angry lizard pushups to signal his disapproval. With the trees gone, now he’ll have to sit in our laps.

I know it’s annoying when I talk about what a drag the hurricane HASN’T been, so I’ll continue just to make it worse. We worked in the open air, with no shade, and in spite of my total lack of skin pigment, I didn’t even get pink. The temperature was mild, and thanks to the clouds, the sun was so gently that even a near-albino like me could spend three hours in it without blistering.

I’m not sore, and I’m not even tired. I have a nice deep scratch going around one ankle, but I think it looks manly.

I’m telling you, as hurricanes go, this has been a cakewalk.

Tomorrow night, or the next night at the latest, I’ll be blogging on AC instead of relying on a laptop battery. I may not have an Internet connection, but then again, I might. The phone was working right after the storm, and if it starts working again when the electricity comes on, I’ll have glorious dial-up.

In conclusion, whiners must hang, and Wilma is my bitch.

Wilma – The Lost Posts – 05 – 10:16 a.m. 10-28

More Than a Slogan

What a glorious morning. I just had EGG MCMUFFINS. And I don’t mean cold moldy Egg McMuffins I found under my car seat. I ate those days ago. No, I mean hot, grease-dripping McMuffins with a tall cup of lukewarm, litigation-prufe™ McDonald’s coffee. If McDonald’s is back on its feet, can the rest of the world be far behind?

Egg McMuffins are my absolute favorite breakfast food, ranking slightly higher than biscuits and gravy on the logarithmic Fat-O-Meter scale. I know that’s a blasphemous thing to say, but damn that grease feels good sliding down my throat.

The cup has the new McDonald’s slogan on the side, in fifteen different languages: “I’m lovin’ it,” Me encanta,” and even something written in Cyrillic letters. Thinking back to the fourteen minutes of college Russian I took, I come up with the phonetic phrase, “Ya shto giooblioo.” Does that mean anything? I think it means, “We will bury you” or “Our women have sturdier ankles than yours.”

The radio says Scooter Libby got himself indicted for making false statements to a grand jury. If so, my guess is that either we have a Ronnie Earle prosecution, or Libby is a giant idiot who deserves what he got. If, as the pundits tell us, there was no crime committed prior to the grand jury proceedings, Libby would have to have been really stupid to commit a fresh, actionable crime by lying to the grand jury. I hate to see anyone associated with the White House get in actual trouble, as contrasted with the fantasy scandals liberals have been pumping out since 2000. But if you’re dumb enough or arrogant enough to lie to a grand jury, you deserve your punishment.

The problem with indicting Republicans in Washington—I’m sure no one on television has the gonads to say this, but it’s true—is that they’ll face black juries who despise them. The DC area is about 90% black, and 90% of American blacks hate Republicans, and if Scooter ends up facing these people in court, they may vote to convict while they’re getting dressed to drive to the courthouse.

Democrats surely know that black juries are much more likely to convict Republicans, and they are surely planning to take advantage of it. They know they’ll get verdicts they like, and they also know that Republicans will never be brave enough to say, “We are being convicted because black people hate us.” This is a variation on what Ronnie Earle did in Texas. He indicted Tom DeLay in a county nearly as liberal as San Francisco, and he’s fighting tooth and nail to make sure DeLay faces trial there.

It’s a scary thing. It means any Republican in Washington is a target, and they’ll have to be extra careful not to give the left the faintest excuse to call for special prosecutors. It also means liberal politicians can get away with things that would ground prosecution in other venues.

I hope whichever judge ends up handling this mess will be ethical enough to realize that he is in danger of going down in history as part of a mass lynching. I hope he’ll either hold a bench trial, judging the case himself, or grant a change of venue so Libby has a chance to try his case before a jury representing a broader sample of the American population. Trying Scooter Libby in DC is like trying Al Sharpton in front of a jury of skinheads.

I’m not too excited about the merits of the indictment itself. I don’t know exactly what happened, so it’s too early to jump to conclusions. I can tell you this: everyone, virtually without exception, will say something untrue if he is required to testify long enough. People forget things, and they remember things the way they wish they had happened, and they lie. It happens in just about every lawsuit. And perjury indictments are very rare. Why? Because prosecutors realize that if they tried every person who made false statements under oath, half of the population of the US would be in jail. Most lawyers would be in jail. The Oath of Attorney—which Florida attorneys attest to before the state Supreme Court—says you swear you won’t delay cases in order to make more money. But delaying cases is a standard tactic in virtually every field of law. Where are the cops? I’ll go quietly.

To get in trouble for making false statements, you have to act up pretty badly. It can’t be something as silly as misstating your old address or saying you had eggs for breakfast when you actually had oatmeal. Only a Ronnie Earle would try to hammer you for a mistake or a trivial lie. There has to be some evidence that you were trying to get away with something, or that your testimony was frivolous. I can’t research the standard right now, but I can tell you from common sense that that’s the basic idea.

It looks like Libby is in trouble because he gave two conflicting stories about how he learned who Valerie Plame was. That could be important, or it could be trivial and not worthy of punishment. He testified about this stuff a long, long time after it happened, and for all we know now, he may have made an honest mistake. If you think testifying accurately is easy, try remembering what you were doing during a particular week in 2003.

I can tell from the radio news that liberals are completely flaccid today because Karl Rove didn’t get indicted. They think Karl Rove is the magical force that cost them Congress, the Supreme Court, a bunch of federal judgeships, a pile of governors’ offices, and the Presidency. They think that the day after Karl gets indicted, George Bush will abdicate and put Cindy Sheehan in charge, and everyone will have to drive a Prius and turn vegan.

Of course, that isn’t true. Karl Rove isn’t even crucial to the successful operation of the Bush White House, and Republicans rule the country not because of clever Svengalis, but because we have moved to the center and Democrats have moved farther left. Democrats still pimp socialism and affirmative action and excessive taxation and lax security, while Republicans are giving way on homosexuality and abortion and the reduction of federal spending. Indict 50 Karl Roves, and people will still vote for the party that seems least insane, and that’s us. Hillary Clinton knows that, and that’s why she is actively alienating the far left right now.

It’s obvious that liberals are upset, because the liberals at the local radio stations announce the Libby indictment like this: “Scooter Libby indicted for making false statements to a federal grand jury, but KARL ROVE ISN’T OUT OF THE WOODS YET.” In other words, “We went through this long, teasing drama and got a crappy little fish no one cares about, but we’re going to keep holding hands and chanting until Fitzgerald comes out and swears on his mother’s grave that he’s not going to indict Karl Rove.” They say a few words about Libby, and then at a higher volume, they remind everyone that KARL ROVE COULD STILL BE INDICTED.

Whatever. Who cares? This is the low tide of the Bush II administration, so one more setback won’t make any difference. Let’s get it over with now and get back to work. The public has a ten-second attention span, and if the economy is strong in 2006, no one will care about Karl Rove and Scooter Libby paying fines over the most trivial scandal since the so-called Plastic Turkey.

We’re still in charge. We’re still getting to pick two new Supreme Court Justices (at least), we’re still running Congress, and the left is still floundering, trying to make the public swallow manure and telling them it’s strawberryJell-O. Our message is, “The Democrats are a bunch of far-left kooks.” Their message is, “You WANT a bunch of far-left kooks. You’re just too stupid to know it.”

If they get Karl and Scooter, no one on the right will care, and the voting public will wonder why this was supposed to impress them. Rove and Libby didn’t authorize a burglary. They didn’t steal a thousand FBI files and hide them in Bush’s basement, under the care of a fat, bepimpled barroom bouncer. They didn’t steal money from the Small Business Administration and use it to cover their losses in a fraudulent land deal. At worst, they tried to outsmart a prosecutor, the same way every American tries to outsmart the cops during traffic stops.

Ho hum. I’m not scared. How can anyone be scared when McMuffins are cooking?

Incidentally, has anyone been able to determine what the term “frog-march” means? Liberals say they want to see Karl Rove “frog-marched” out of the White House in handcuffs. Is it from a ballet about frogs? Maybe it’s a French term. Yes, that’s it. It must be a reference to the French military. If memory serves, they only march in reverse. So I guess liberals want Karl Rove to walk out of the White House backwards.

Let me know if I got that right.

Wilma – The Lost Posts – 06 – 5:53 p.m. 10-28

Flagging Spirits Revived by Cast Iron

The bastards at FP&L have apparently been reading my blog, because the power still isn’t on here. Unimportant customers like hospitals and fire stations are up and running, and I suffer in the dark. With my beer and McMuffins. And the books I bought today. And CDs. And the piano. And grilled burgers piled high with Swiss cheese.

But there is one bright spot in all this misery. UPS is functioning, and today they brought me my Ebay skillet. I bought a used Griswold #6. I already had my mother’s old skillet and a newish Wagner with a polished interior, but I wanted to see what the old Griswolds looked like. The person who bought my mother’s skillet new—my grandmother or great-grandmother—was an Eastern Kentucky tightwad, so I’m sure they didn’t get the best one they could find. It has no brand name on it. Just a “6.” I wanted to check out the upscale skillets of that era.

The Griswold is significantly nicer than I expected. Modern manufacturers make skillets so rough you could use them to sand tables, and regardless of their PR bullshit (“The improved rough surface is IMPOSSIBLE for burned cheese to stick to, UNLESS YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!), they aren’t as good as smooth skillets. The Griswold is smoother all over, not just inside, and the cooking surface has been carefully machined.

I almost get tired of being right.

I think I’ll buy a few more of these things, in bigger sizes. Then I can keep my Lodge and Benjamin & Medwin junk for spares.

It’s no wonder cast iron is so unpopular. The modern stuff is garbage. Why is it that with all of the technological improvements that have surely occurred in the field of metal casting, skillets have gotten worse? Cars have cast-iron engines, and they’re better than they ever were.

I’m going to add a layer of seasoning to the skillet, simply because there is something scary about cooking on someone else’s old grease. For all I know, they were frying turds in there.

I also got my medical supplies today. I got the cinnamon capsules I ordered, so no more inhaling powdered cinnamon before breakfast. And I have my green tea extract and a fresh supply of tasty fish oil. With all the heart-healthy supplements in my body, it’s no wonder I bleed for half a day when I cut myself.

I’m starting to wonder if the power will ever go back on. In a while, I’m going to go to my father’s boat and put several bags of water in the freezer so I’ll have ice tomorrow. Half of the people who lost electricity have had their power fixed, but ice is still a pain to locate.

The nighttime temperatures will be quite comfortable for the foreseeable future, and the days aren’t bad, either, so I’m not on pins and needles.

I’m a little sick of hearing people talk about how great it is to meet their neighbors, and how the hurricane is “bringing out the best in everyone.” Screw that. Hating your neighbors is a fine Miami tradition, and I intend to continue it. I have no idea who the people across the street are, and I don’t intend to risk finding out by offering to help them and their bucktoothed, rickety kids move tree limbs.

Seems to me that people are as mean and rude as ever. The only reason ice isn’t selling for ninety dollars a bag is that the legislature made it illegal to gouge. If you don’t believe me, read about Andrew.

All right; time for a little more piano before it gets dark. After that, I’ll go looking for idle FP&L trucks and pee on the door handles.

Wilma – The Lost Posts – 07 – 11:05 a.m. 10-29

Steve’s Hand Laundry Opens

It occurred to me just now that the reason I’m not as miserable as other hurricane victims may be that I spent four months on a kibbutz.

A few minutes ago, I faced the much-postponed chore of loading numerous pairs of underwear into a utility sink for hand-washing, and it reminded me of kibbutz life. I picked grapefruit on Kibbutz Geva in 1984, and the only AC-powered device I had access to was the overhead light in the room I shared with a German and a Finn. The kibbutz laundry provided me with clean work clothes every day, but if I wanted my own things clean, the only safe thing was to wash them myself. If you sent your clothes to the laundry, there was no guarantee that they would come back.

They gave us free washing powder, and we used to dump our things in a sink and wash them ourselves.

For a good part of the time I spent on Geva, the climate was a lot like it is here now. Cool nights and comfortable days, with a soft breeze most of the time. It wasn’t bad at all, even when the real summer weather kicked in and I had to move my cot outside at night.

They gave us kerosene heaters for our rooms. We used them in March and April (my first two months). The smell was horrendous, but it was better than shivering all night. I may have to look into buying a heater like that soon.

I’m starting to think they’re really serious about leaving us in the dark for two more weeks. I’m pretty sure it’s because the volunteers from up north let us down. They showed up in droves for Katrina, but the FP&L announcements on the radio say more workers “are coming.” If they’re coming, they aren’t here yet, right?

I suppose it’s inconvenient to make the same days-long drive twice in two months. And the second time, it’s not an adventure. It’s just a drag.

There are houses within two blocks of me that have power, but my little area is still doing without. They haven’t even shown up to get the downed wires.

C’est la vie, if you will accuse me for speaking Surrender Monkese. I’ll live. I can go to the boat whenever I want, and I can make pounds and pounds of ice for the cooler, so life is not unpleasant.

I think a lot of people are upset because they miss the boob tube. Back when I was a television addict, I really suffered when I had to turn it off and experience life for a few days. Karl Marx said religion was the opiate of the masses, but he would have changed that if he had seen television. It’s a big, soft electronic nipple that keeps you from pouting and crying. It used to be that people could only be truly passive when they slept. Now you can be passive from the minute you get home until the second Jay Leno kisses you goodnight.

I don’t miss television much at all, except for the news and the episode of CSI I watch while exercising. Since taking up the piano, I have had little use for the big flickering nanny. Unplugging from the Matrix isn’t that hard when you’re already weaned.

I have some new books now, so when I can’t practice the piano or listen to CDs, I have something to fall back on. I did a very nerdy thing and bought a copy of the novelization of the movie Serenity. I was terrified by the section of the bookstore where I found it. Did you know they have entire books dedicated to role-playing games? And then there’s manga, which is apparently a genre of Japanese cartoon books that appeal to the sadistic and the fetish-inclined. Two high school kids were on the floor reading this garbage when I walked down the aisle. I had to step over them. You have to wonder what kind of sick samurai rape fantasies go through their heads after reading that manure. I guess we learn the answer when kids like that act on their inclinations and go to jail.

I also got a “dummies” book about music theory, and a biography of Hank Williams. The real Hank Williams, not the guy who sings the theme for Monday Night Football or the dopehead kid currently trying to make a name for himself in Nashville. That should be pretty good reading. Hank Williams was probably the most talented American songwriter of all time. Damn near everything he wrote after a certain age became a major hit and then a classic. Not even Hoagie Carmichael had a record like that. And Hank Williams died before he turned 30, which makes his achievements even more impressive.

From time to time I go out in the road and see if anyone has moved the downed power lines. They’ll get around to it sooner or later.

Okay, I think my laundry has soaked long enough.