Author: Kim du Toit

Nothing New

Gummint, Travels

Here’s an interesting consequence of the Chinkvirus:

Denmark is set to introduce a government-sponsored coronavirus vaccine passport in coordination with airlines early this year, a national Danish broadcaster has revealed.

Now the idea of a “vaccination passport” has a whole bunch of people tied in knots, as it’s just one step away from the old “Papieren bitte”  way to install restrictions, tracking and control on travel.

I’m not one of them.  In the first place, proof of vaccination has always been a fact of life when traveling anywhere outside your home country;  try visiting India or Africa without proof of smallpox/yellow fever/etc. etc. in your passport, and you’ll be turned away from the boarding area.  (This, by the way, is as much to ensure that not only are you immune to catching the pox whilst Over There looking at strange temples etc., but that you don’t bring said pox back with you to an un-vaccinated home population.)  The only reason one doesn’t need proof of vaccination when traveling from the U.S. to places like Britishland and Euroland is because said diseases are not only notionally extinct (except where, surprise surprise there are large numbers of illegal and un-vaccinated border-jumpers), but where children are routinely vaccinated in order to attend school and so on.

So I’m indifferent to the idea of a Chinkvirus vaccination passport as part of international travel — and for that matter, in terms of local travel and behavior as well — and especially because once inoculated, I wouldn’t have to wear a stupid and ineffective face-condom every time I wanted to go out of the house.

Of course, the conspiracy morons are going to insist that Gummint is going to use Pox Passports to track individuals’ movements and behaviors, and of course that is a valid concern.  Just remember, though, that we’re talking about Government here:  the morons who can’t find their own assholes with both hands, a map and a trail of crumbs.

I know that in movies, government agents always require just a few clicks on their (Apple — LOL) laptops to create all sorts of data reports at the drop of a hat — the risible Person Of Interest  TV series being the apotheosis thereof.  Longtime students of both government, database systems and the combination thereof know that this facility is very much part of the suspension of belief required to view any work of fiction these days.

Besides, I’m relying on the criminal marketplace to produce passable copies of said documents in sufficient numbers to make the entire thing untenable — just as fake driver’s licenses can and have been used to enable fraudulent voting.

It’s a non-issue, and we have bigger things to worry about.

As If

Marxists

Here’s a good one:

Biden inauguration theme will be ‘America United’

Really?

Hey Biden, unite this:

…you fraudulent, conniving, dishonest little toad.  And that goes for everyone in your administration, your party, and all your supporters too.  As we say here in Texas, “Fuck all y’all.”

I just wish our range opened earlier, so I could exercise my other important finger right now too.  Oh well, later…

Apologia

Bad News

In everyday terms, it’s called “stupidity”, “absentmindedness” or “careless”.

For all the Readers who emailed me to ask if I was okay, following the weekend’s late / non-existent posts, let me reassure you that I’m fine, just an idiot.

You see, the post that appeared on Sunday was actually supposed to appear on Saturday, only Idiot Kim scheduled the wrong date for it — hence the radio silence on Saturday — and yesterday’s post about… well, never mind, it’s too late now and will appear next Sunday.

And today’s New Roundup wasn’t completed, either — it sat completed, but Idiot Kim Pt. II hadn’t hit the “Update” button.   Please go back and see the completed version, which has a bikini pic.

This time, it’s not Hosting Matters’ fault, but mine all mine, I tell ya.

Personally, I blame the Democrats.

Normal blogging service will resume after a gallon of coffee.

News Roundup

Bad News

With commentary shorter than a female hobbit.


…long on warning, short on details, e.g. how long should you abstain from that single malt?  One day, two weeks, forever?  (If forever, count me out:  I’ll take my chances with the Chinkvirus.)


…and yet (speaking of sculptures of giant cunts) I find this less disgusting than the idea of adding Obama to Mount Rushmore.


…remind me again how wonderful modern cars are.


…and while you’re there, remind me again how much I hate the music business.


…our latest entry in the “guess the scumbag’s race” competition.  Also from Chicago:

(that would be 0.35% in the blue dot, btw:  14 out of 4,018)


…with the predictable outcome.  What makes this interesting is that the rozzers arrested and imprisoned the wrong people for the murders.

Veganuary and Dry January?
…oh dear, I forgot.  Which reminds me, I need to slice up the biltong and get a fresh case of gin.


…even allowing for Titsy’s hyperbole, I still got a thrill running down my leg.


…which reminds me of the old bridge joke:  “If you’ve got a good hand, you don’t need a partner.”

And finally…


…wait, Roller Girl is 50?  OMG I’m getting really old.

2020 Hangover

Bad News

…and not the kind which follows delightful over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages, either.

No, I’m talking about the spiteful year of 2020, which saw us spared only a plague of crotch-eating crickets (no idea how it missed that one), but saw fit to land three quick punches in the face during the last three days of December.

1.) The clothes dryer packed up — heating element just quit, making it about as useful as a stud bull without testicles — it would go through the motions just fine, but no result.  And — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — it happened two months after the manufacturer’s warranty had expired.  However: when I was rummaging around in the papers surrounding its purchase so I’d have the details when I arranged for a service call, lo! there on the invoice was an additional cost for:  ta-daaaa! an extended warranty (which I hardly ever buy but I had this time), and it had over a year still to run.

This didn’t end the problem.  I called Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM, as they call themselves now) to see what they could do, and was directed to their (outsourced) repair company who handled such calls.  After grappling with the poxy automated telephone system — add this bastard thing to my Ten Hates — I discovered that this outfit was only responsible for the warranty on items purchased since 2019, and my purchase from 2017 was handled by yet another company, and no of course they had no idea who that could be.  So I called NFM and politely asked what the fuck they were doing by sending me to the wrong address, so to speak.  To be fair, NFM was as always a delight to deal with:  attentive, sympathetic and helpful, they apologized fulsomely and sent me to the proper company who, of course, had an automated telephone menu which eventually got me the number of a certified repair outlet in my area… whose number was no longer in service.  So I went back to the company’s poxy website — which was designed by the same people who designed the ObamaCare government website — and eventually found a place which promised to send a guy round after the New Year to fix  the dryer.  (To be continued.)

2.) The next day (before New Year’s Eve) was cold and windy, and raining buckets.  So, this being 2020, it came as no surprise when New Wife called plaintively from her school to inform me that Sputum (her Fiat 500, thus named because of its color) was refusing to start.  Lights were working, but engine she no crank.  She and the school maintenance guy had tried to jump-start the thing, but no luck.  Shit.  A new starter motor loomed in our future, $1,200 installed.  So I went over, tried to push-start the car (stick shift, yay) so we could at least get it home or to the shop (did I mention that the day was freezing, wet and windy?) and… no joy.  So maybe not the starter motor, but some chip in the ignition system?  Crap.  Called our car service guys (EuroSport in Plano, blessings be upon them), and they said that while they couldn’t attend to the car until the New Year (natch) because they were closed on New Year’s Eve, they’d organize a tow the next day and at least get Sputum to their shop.

I took New Wife to work on New Year’s Eve (half-day only) and waited for the tow service to arrive.  They did, and took care of the business without any fuss.  I went off and did the pre-NYE grocery shopping, then went back to pick up New Wife.

3.) And lo did the “Check Engine” light come on in the Tiguan — and to be fair to VW, that light only comes on when there’s something quite seriously wrong.  No chance to get the thing checked, of course, because New Year’s Eve.  I crept home nervously, therefore, and New Wife and I faced the prospect of no cars instead of two for the entire long weekend — and we had planned on going out a bit because we both had cabin fever and needed to.

So we spent the entire weekend cooped up in our apartment, snarling at each other.  (Okay, to be fair, she moped and I was doing the snarling, as you might expect.)

The following Monday dawned bright and fair — no rain, no freezing temperatures, this was 2021, wasn’t it? — so I took her to work and set about the business of getting both cars attended to.  Here’s the full report.

Sputum’s battery was dead — stone dead, despite the lights and such working — it was no longer capable of taking a charge.  So one new battery, duly installed, and the Fiat was as good as new.  The mechanic did mention that there were some signs of rodent infestation (nests containing acorns, hence squirrels), and they’d nibbled on some of the wires, but no serious damage.  (I mention this because it will be important later.)  Our apartment complex is quite heavily forested and there are a jillion of the little tree-rats all over the place, but can I shoot them out of the trees with my trusty Baikal pellet gun?  Oh no, because city ordinance #2375-4 para. 48 “No discharge of guns including pellet guns in city limits”.  Anyway, the outcome, Fiat-wise, was not bad especially as I discovered that this was the car’s original, four-year-old battery, so all in all, not a bad outcome.

And now we come to the Tiguan’s warning light.  “Kim, at first glance it looks as though you may be having an issue with the turbo”, a comment which struck fear to my heart (and more especially to my wallet) because a new turbo is over $1,500 and double that for installation.  So I waited with trepidation for the final diagnosis, hoping that maybe it was just the sensor that was at fault (only a few hundred dollars to replace that).

It was neither.  “It looks as though you’ve had some serious rodent infestation, and they’ve chewed the wires connecting the sensor to the turbo.”

Cost of replacing the wire (which, of course, in the modern parlance means a new sensor because it’s a single unit):  $160 plus labor.

So all in all, what had threatened to cost me close to $5,000 to fix both cars in 2020, eventually cost me less than $500 in 2021.

And the clothes dryer was duly attended to — turns out it was the control panel at fault, and not the heating coil or motor — and the fix took less than half an hour.

So life is good, so far in 2021.  But later in the month will come the Presidential Inauguration, whereupon I expect not only socialism but crotch-eating crickets to follow soon thereafter.

You heard it here first.