Everything is everything

End times, or just a passing fancy?

A search at the Google News page under 'power outages' shows how frayed and tattered our civilized infrastructure is growing. New Orleans is still largely a dead city, and the worst part of the storm season is still ahead of us. When you exist at the mercy of a predatory government, it's hard to figure out the agenda -- are they trying to make us desperate enough to join the military (just in time for the big invasion of Iran) -- or are we approaching the hour of the knife, when the privileged and the powerful just start culling the herds of useless 'eaters' by the billions?

The only good news I have -- and it's entirely local -- is that SuperFiancee advises me the River City area gets its electricity from hydroelectric installations along the Ohio River. At least we aren't as dependent on a dwindling natural gas supply as other areas are. None of which will matter, if a battery of tornadoes takes all the lines down.

More locally, the car curse continues -- the part that was ordered for SuperFiancee's vehicle turned out to be incorrect, and the new one didn't come in as it was supposed to yesterday. Last we heard were promises that as soon as it arrived, the mechanic would 'pull people' and get them to work, and if it showed up last night, they would 'work all night if they had to'... but, you know, it was supposed to be fixed in time for SuperFiancee to pick me up at work Monday night at 8 (when my shift was scheduled to end) and instead, I had to hustle out of there early at 5:15 to catch the last bus, as not only was the car not operative, but SuperFiancee's family seems to have given up on us after a month of support services, leaving us pretty much on our own.

We'd figured the car would have to be fixed yesterday, which happened to be my day off, so it wouldn't be a problem rolling into Wednesday, but here we are rolling into Wednesday and it's still a problem. If we don't get satisfaction today, I'll be leaving work early again tonight... during a week when I'd volunteered to do overtime, because we don't have enough people working the evening shifts.

Maddening.

I had a pleasant day off yesterday, though... got several more articles posted to the Martian Vision site, took the girls out to lunch at Fat Jimmy's and dessert at Graeter's Ice Cream, and just generally lolled about in a most satisfactory fashion. I wanted to take a moment to note my thanks to Mike Norton for leaving a few comments there, which it's been too crazy around here for me to answer, but which are nonetheless hugely appreciated.

The hit counter hasn't exactly been going nuts over there, but I know how the Internet works... now that the stuff is up again, it will start creeping into search engines, and people will turn it up randomly, and eventually, a whole new subset of assmunches will start whining and sobbing like infants about how I've said mean things about the Modern Age Superboy and Frank Miller's DAREDEVIL and they think they're gonna cry.

These are trying times, friends. We all have to do what we can.

I want, as always, to note SuperFiancee's ongoing support for all my foolish efforts. When I couldn't get the frickin' A: drive on this home PC to work well Monday, she took a discful of Martian Vision to work with her and loaded about 40 of my tediously long winded essays up onto the site her damn self for me, where many of them still sit, awaiting final editing and posting.

I could probably go on existing without her, but I wouldn't call it living, and I certainly wouldn't enjoy it. I'm grateful every waking moment for her and the SuperKids; without them, this would be, to paraphrase schoolteacher Matthew Burke, 'a busted axle 40 years'.

I will almost certainly have some news about an ongoing thing with my writing by this weekend, but right now, putting down anything firm would be premature. However, the news will almost certainly be bad, and I have a post for the most part finished, I'm just waiting on the ending. Either I hear something by this weekend, or I don't; either eventuality will give me a pretty good idea where I stand.

And on that note, I have a very early bus to catch, although I should also state my gratitude to SuperFiancee's co-worker Lexus, who lives across the street from us and who is giving SF a ride to work today, sparing her a couple of bus trips. Public transportation is fine when you can't avoid it, and I'm glad we have it available (and would ride it at night if it ran out to the sticks when I get off work), but if you don't have to get into a cattle car, well, I say, don't. And judging from the traffic I see out there every day, most of you (even those billions who will never read this) agree with me.

Gotta go. If you have electricity and air conditioning right now -- and I assume you at least have the former, if you're reading this at all -- enjoy them while they last.