The great winter storm of 2022 is over, at least here in Seattle. From a few people back east and midwestern, I've heard worse stories than any I could tell.

Our power never went out. Our hot water remained nice and hot. This dilapidated house is barely insulated, so my room got kinda cold. That's about all.

It was entertaining, though. After freezing rain overnight on Thursday, everything was covered with a thick sheet of ice on Friday morning. Only idiots were driving, and I loved watching them out the window.

There's a four-way stop at the corner, with both streets on a fairly steep incline and under ice, so it was an all-day skiderama. There were only two wrecks, though. Should've been more.

Before dawn on our fully frozen Friday morning, I went to the bathroom to pee. As I finished and flushed, my annoying flatmate Dean came out of his bedroom, fully dressed, zipping up his jacket. He was about to go out the door and down the street, to stand and wait for a bus to his job — a bus that wasn't coming. Bus service had been cancelled county-wide.

He stopped and talked to me like he always does, about what he'd be cooking at the hotel kitchen today, and what he'd cooked yesterday, but he was in a hurry. "No time to talk," he said after boring me for two minutes too long talking. "Gotta catch my bus," he said, walking toward the door, and my morning moral crisis was underway:

Should I tell Dean that bus service has been cancelled? Or let him stand in the cold for half an hour, maybe longer?

I told him, but in the course of about five seconds, I sure thought a lot about not. Angel and Devil on each shoulder, arguing through my head...

This morning, getting myself together to go to the family breakfast, I found my lost notebook I've been looking for all week. So maybe I'll have better stories than these to tell, as I flip through its pages tonight.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• After the Fukushima disaster, Japan swore to phase out nuclear power. But not anymore.

• Facebook is sued by Ethiopians and Kenyan rights group for fueling Tigray War

• The IRS is required to conduct audits of the president and vice president while they are in office—but Trump apparently got a pass.

• Iceland v Iceland Foods is decided in Iceland's favor

• Poor and diverse areas of Seattle and Portland offered slower and more expensive internet

• Groundwater in California’s Central Valley disappearing at alarming rate

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because climate change isn't 'coming', it's underway. It'll kill billions, and we're not doing squat about it.

• California city residents pay $300,000 to veteran brutalized by officer who didn’t want to be filmed

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because all cops are bastards, or they know who the bastard cops are and do nothing about it, which is the same thing.

• When Christian evangelist Franklin Graham and hate-group leader Tony Perkins are calling you a sinner, it’s probably because you made the mistake of being kind.

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because Republicans are the enemy of common sense, common decency, simple truth, and democracy.
Mystery links
Like life itself, there's
no knowing where you're going

• click

• click

• click

Clicks ahoy

• Thousands of weed users are still in jail. Marijuana CEOs rake in millions.

• Fascism isn't looming.

• Traveling the Grand Canyon in a Metz 22 Speedster in 1914

• Whale fall

• Traumatic insemination

• What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫

• Caballo Negro (Black Horse) — Pérez Prado y Su Orquesta

• Chunga's Revenge — Frank Zappa

• The Logical Song — Supertramp

• Over at the Frankenstein Place — Rocky Horror

• White Trash Beautiful — Everlast

Auld Lang Syne,
ya bastards

• Joyce Bryant

• Herbert Deutsch

• Joseph Kittinger

• Don Lewis

• Lee Lorenz

• Dorothy Pitman Hughes

12/24/2022
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
Special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.