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On July 16, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I am tired and taking the night off, but expect a rather effusive review of Ghostbusters tomorrow night.

Two quick stories

On July 15, 2016July 15, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Work2 Comments

Been out and about all day, and leaving to see Ghostbusters in a few, so this will have to be quick: I left OtherJob a bit early to join my wife and son at her work’s “Family Day” celebration, a sort of tacit admission that people who work where my wife works have families that have no idea what the hell it actually is that they do for a living and so they have a day every year to show them around. Upon entering the facility I was greeted with this sign, which I have cropped the hell out of to avoid anything especially identifying:

I have never in my life been asked to “proceed to the Accountability Area,” which is terrifying, and perhaps not quite as welcoming as they wanted it to be.

Photography was prohibited in most of the facility and I therefore had to stealth this second picture. But these signs were everywhere:

…so, yeah. My wife works in a super exciting place.

Speaking of my job, I had a great conversation at OtherJob this afternoon with a family that was turning in a flatly unholy number of prize tickets at our redemption counter. When I have several kids at once, I write down everyone’s names so I can keep them straight. Usually this proceeds without embarrassment. But there was this one particular girl whose name, for some reason, I found entirely impossible to keep straight. At first I thought her name was Harley, then found out it was Karli, then kept calling her Kayley for some reason. Then I met her three older brothers, who were Grant, Lincoln, and Jackson.

“All Presidents?” I said. “And they named you Kayley?” Well, no, dammit, her name was Karli, and I totally typed Harley just now and had to delete it.

“She’s the youngest of the girls in the family,” her mom said. “She has girl cousins named Madison and Kennedy.”

“So what I’m hearing is she should have been named Hillary,” I said.

It… uh… could have gone over a bit better. Fuck you I’m hilarious.

On Mike Pence…

On July 14, 2016July 14, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Politics2 Comments

…might be the title of the post I would write about Mike Pence joining Donald Trump’s ticket, were I able to do anything other than laugh hysterically at the idea.

Bye, Mike. Your ignorant, bigoted ass won’t be missed at all.

In which I spend money I don’t have

On July 14, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy6 Comments

No, I didn’t buy a new car, but I’m thinking about it: I’m at a Ford dealership right now getting a recall repair done (for free) and literally just as I was sitting down to write this post I got an email with an estimate for all the repairs they think the car needs and it’s roughly 1 1/2 times the actual value of the car. It’s running well for something that is about to fall the fuck apart, but even the shit that’s in BRIGHT RED SCREAMING HOLY SHIT YOU’RE GOING TO DIE font adds up to “may as well total the thing” territory. So I’ve been sitting here in the dealership for an hour already and there’s possibly as much as another two before I can leave, so fuck it, I’m researching new cars.

I don’t really need another SUV. I was driving a two-door Toyota Yaris (which I loved) when the boy came along, and upgrading to something with four doors seemed like a critical necessity what with several years of car seats in our future, and we’d been through a spate of scenarios where we’d had to borrow other people’s cars to move stuff right around the same time. The Yaris, despite being tiny, rode really high, and I quickly discovered that after driving that and then an SUV I don’t ever want to sit down in a car ever again, eliminating virtually every sedan on the market. I want to climb into my seat so that I don’t have to grunt like some sort of animal when I get out of it. Despite its age, I’ve been pretty happy with the current (’01) Escape, so replacing it with another seems reasonable. I just sat down and priced one out on the internet, and discovered to my mild amusement that I could put myself into a new Escape for a lower monthly cost than a Kia Soul (my other leading choice) would end up being, despite the Escape being a few thousand dollars more expensive. Plus: union-made, a big plus.

(The punch line is I probably could afford a new car if I could just curb my comic book habit and dial back on how often I pay for meals. That is insane, but true. Today’s post was very nearly about how comic books are better now than I remember them being at any point in my life. It’s crazy how much money I’m spending on comics every week. Crazy.)

I am aware used cars exist, mind you. And I know the current car was bought used and worked out okay. I just… nah. I know about driving shit off the lot and it losing half its value and all that nonsense. And every computer I’ve ever bought has been obsolete when I bought it, and my Xbox will eventually be on sale for half what I just paid for it, and blah blah blah. Shit loses value. Welcome to reality. I don’t plan on trying to resell anything I buy in two years; this is not worth worrying about at the moment.

Maybe I should get working on the new book before I do something stupid.

Cedric the Entertainer on Trump/Gingrich 2016

On July 13, 2016July 12, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn PoliticsLeave a comment

It’s 5:15 AM

On July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Work1 Comment

…I’m awake, fuck it. Not quite the 3:00 in the morning blues, but it’ll have to be close enough.

I am pretty sure that I have been sweating for 20 straight hours, guys. Yesterday was a bit of a scorcher– I say “a bit” because 1) by historical standards it actually wasn’t really all that bad and 2) it’s going to be worse today, but the first thing I did when I got to work yesterday morning was help to unload an eighteen-wheeler full of furniture. At the time I commented that it wasn’t actually that bad of a truck, and it wasn’t– mostly big, square boxes that aren’t difficult to balance on a dolly and very few sofas, which are impossible to balance right and are the bane of my existence. What I wasn’t aware of was that for the next eleven hours of my work shift, constituting nearly 18000 steps and nearly eleven miles of walking, I was not ever going to actually stop sweating at any point. Which may have accounted at least partially for my poor performance as a salesman yesterday, come to think of it. I went through eight refills of the liter-sized water bottle I keep with me and never stopped feeling dehydrated.

I have blisters on my feet. I have to do it all over again today.

Then I got home from work, said good night to my son, ate some dinner, watched PREACHER, and went to bed. See anything missing? For some reason, I declared myself too tired to take a shower, which was some seriously poor decision making right there. Why am I typing on my blog and not in the shower right now, since I’m awake? Well, my wife leaves for work way before I do and I’m letting her do her morning ablutions before I rinse the filth off my disgusting meat-shell. I can smell myself, guys, and when I woke up this morning from a mild nightmare and had to get out of bed because I could hear a sound I couldn’t identify in the house, I came back to what was basically a pool of sweat in my fucking bed that I couldn’t make myself lie back down in.

The pillow is still awesome, though.

I will get used to this schedule, where I have three really long days to balance out two of what are basically half-days and two days off. I’m not there yet, but I will be; I’m not worried about it. But I’m wearing tennis shoes to work today, and when I get off from my half day tomorrow I am driving directly to the New Balance store in Granger, handing my credit card to the first salesperson who talks to me, and telling her that money is no object (how much can shoes possibly cost?) and to put something black on my feet that will make them feel like they are surrounded by love and honey and magic all day long. Because my current dress shoes do not fit that qualification. At all.

You think my bed’s dry yet? Technically I don’t have to be up for another hour.

EDIT: just in case, for some reason, anyone doubts me: last night’s sleep and yesterday’s steps. Today is going to be rough.

Because I suspect today’s gonna be another rough one

On July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Photography3 Comments

Have this:

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So, yeah, what had happened was…

On July 10, 2016July 10, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

I know for damn sure that I’m far from alone if I look at the last week and just have no goddamn idea where to even start. I could probably generate half a dozen posts from national and local/semi-local news events alone, and that’s before we get to the part where I turned 40 this week and my mom had surgery on my birthday and I don’t even remember if I mentioned it around here (she’s fine) and after eight months of sick leave and unemployment I was at work for 54 hours last week and it was both week 3 at a new job (certainly within the learning curve for anyone, right?) and my first week on the sales floor.

(Which went well, even if all the stories I have from the week are about things that went wrong, including a nearly seven thousand dollar sale today that went south due to financing issues and wasted, literally, four hours of my time out of the last two days. My supervisors appear to be very happy with me so far and I’m enjoying the job quite a lot.)

Oh, and I’ve started unfriending “all lives matter” people on Facebook, particularly if I know you only because we worked together at a majority-black school and after repeatedly pointing out to you that the words “more” or “only” or “just” do not appear in the phrase “black lives matter,” you still point-blank refuse to affirmatively answer the question “Do you believe that the lives of your black students have value?” At that point I have given you every possible goddamn chance to do the right thing and you’ve repeatedly chosen not to so you’re just a fucking racist and I don’t care if it makes you feel bad. If being called a racist makes you feel bad, I can come up with a real good way to keep that from happening.

Because that happened this week too, and white folk, I am, by and large, done with you, and I’m doubly done with explaining simple shit that you have had ample time to comprehend at this point. White people’s need to be at the center of every single conversation, and their inability to deal with the idea that there might be anything in the universe that is not about them, has pushed me to my breaking point. I’m done.

Also, this: