Month: December 2025

This Is The Day

We made it to the end, y’all. Everyone’s so excited to see 2025 out as if the badness and sadness will leave with it. We’ll wake up tomorrow in a new month in a new year in the new half of a decade and everything will be exactly the same.

Except if you’re in the US, your medical deductible will have reset, so you have a new max out of pocket to reach. May you all have excellent health the entire 2026 year, or have something catastrophic happen in February, when it’s cold and unpleasant out so you can recover and not feel bad about missing stuff, and hopefully blow that moop right out of the water so the rest of the year is reasonable.

Also the whole thing about getting the catastrophe out of the way early. Licking toads and all. Which I never understood. I mean, I don’t know how licking a toad could possibly be the worst thing to happen all day so you get it out of the way early, because it’s just a toad. And presumably if it was a toad you could get your hands on and actually lick, it’d likely be YOUR toad, so you’d know if it was reasonably sanitary, and if you were really lucky it’d be the kind that makes you hallucinate, so that would be a really good thing, and, from all points of view, it would be the worst thing that could happen to the toad that day.

I dunno. I’m bored. It’s 7pm and I know I’m not going to make it to midnight. So happy new year. Happy new moop.

Have a Manic Street Preachers video

Ring Out

Now is the solstice of the year
Winter is the glad song that you hear
Seven maids move in seven time
Have the lads up ready in a line

Ring out these bells
Ring out, ring solstice bells
Ring solstice bells

Join together ‘neath the mistletoe
By the holy oak whereon it grows
Seven druids dance in seven time
Sing the song the bells call loudly chiming

Ring out these bells
Ring out, ring solstice bells
Ring solstice bells

Praise be to the distant sister sun
Joyful as the silver planets run
Seven maids move in seven time
Sing the song the bells call loudly chiming

Ring out these bells
Ring out, ring solstice bells
Ring solstice bells

Ring out, ring out those solstice bells
Ring out, ring out those solstice bells

Praise be to the distant sister sun
Joyful as the silver planets run
Seven maids move in seven time
Sing the song the bells call loudly chiming

Ring out these bells
Ring out, ring solstice bells
Ring solstice bells

Ring on, ring out
Ring on, ring out
Ring on, ring out
Ring on, ring out

New Equipment

So I’d been working on this post yesterday (Dec 18th) and it was all full of angst about getting a new work computer and where I was going to put it, and would I be able to plug it in, and then … I don’t know. At some point I cleared off my side desk so when the computer showed up today I had a place to put it.

It was literally one of the “I put this off forever and in reality it took 15 minutes” things and I can 100% promise you that I have learned nothing from this. I will procrastinate on everything until my brain decides it’s time to do one of the things on the list and then I will do that thing in that moment and go “dude, that was like, 15 minutes… why did I wait so long?” and the cycle will repeat.

The fun part is that sometimes my brain will decide it’s time to do something at really stupid moments. I think probably the biggest benefit of living alone is that when I wake up at 3 in the morning and feel like playing a game, or reading a book, or coloring my hair, or ordering my groceries, or I get struck with the desperate need to sort and pair all of my socks, or literally whatever it is whenever it is, I don’t have to worry about disturbing anyone else — except the dog, really. The cats mostly ignore what I’m doing as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them.

Anyhow. The new hardware showed up today and it’s a Windows PC and it is surprisingly heavy. It’s dense you know? Not just heavy, but dense. It came with a wired keyboard and mouse, which is good because the keyboard is a little small for me and I don’t like the way the keys feel. They’re very soft. I’ve also never been a touchpad fan. Obviously I would’ve used my own keyboard and mouse, so it’s nice that they’re actually provided by the job. I’ll probably still replace them with my own because I have no idea how they feel yet. That’s all still in the box.

The computer is also a touchscreen, which is a huge pain in a house with cats. There’s also a docking station so I’m hoping I can get two monitors set up and not have to open the notebook at all.

I’m getting a little concerned about the number of computers in my house and I think I’m drifting close to the evil lair 101 enrollment requirements, but again… The cats aren’t bothered and so far nothing has exploded.

You’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking, but the secret is, now that we’re all thinking it, it can’t happen because it’s too cliche. In a similar line, I bought like a 5-lb container of animal-friendly deicer, so there’s a good chance that Baltimore City (or at least my general region) won’t have much in the way of ice. You’re welcome.