Best Of Times
24/10/21 07:19
I'm listening to this Neil Young album and it's skipping like crazy. I don't know how much longer I can listen to it. It's just too distracting. Yeah, that's the right word. I'm not a big Neil Young fan but it's different enough that I thought I might give it a listen this morning, Speaking of distracting, I've started watching Breaking Bad on Netflix. I've had enough people tell me to give a watch that I told myself when I'm between shows I'll tune in and I'll see what all the excitement is about.
I'm three episodes in and I think if it doesn't start getting better or more interesting I may have to turn it off. It has this 1970's kind of feel to it that has me feeling like I'm watching some cop show sitcom from that era. It's almost cheesy if that makes any sense. The main character, Walter White, is a chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and is literally coughing up blood before the end of the second episode. What kind of show starts off by killing off the main character before the plot even starts to unfold?
Characters come and go in different scenes almost as though the director of the show is trying this and that character to see if he or she makes the show any more or less interesting. Knowing as I do that this series ran for some five seasons, I found myself wondering which characters would be around and which ones were destined to drop out after an episode, or maybe a just scene, or two.
And I don't know if this is appropriate or not, but I found myself laughing out loud at a lot of the scenes that maybe weren't supposed to be humorous. I mean, who locks up a drug dealer in their basement and secures them by the neck to a pole using a bicycle lock? To think that Walter was about to let him go before he discovers that the drug dealer had taken a piece of a broken plate and planned to stab and kill Walt once he freed him.
Walter finally finds the testosterone he needs to strangle the bastard as he flails about while sticking Walter here and there with the jagged shard. The writers of this show are wasting no time in turning this sheep of a chemistry teacher into a meth maker, and now with the basement scene, a killer. You start to wonder if there isn't anything they can't do with the character that they've developed. The acting across the board is pretty good and the women in the show are easy on the eyes. I still wonder just a little bit if my laughing here and there isn't somehow off kilter. Not unlike the show itself, I might add.
I got a text from the Ev man while I was out food shopping yesterday. He was inquiring as to what spare keys I did or did not have for his apartment and his car. I'm thinking to myself, what did he lose now and how will we replace the things that I'm thinking he lost. Come to find out, he was laying the groundwork for what he was planning to do later in the day. We discussed the various options with him later that day but he was determined to do what he thought best so that was that.
Doing what he did, and going where he went, is par for the course when he feels the need for a reset in his life. I'm not sure if it's the things that are catching up with him or maybe just the totality of the events in his life that leave him feeling the need for a reset. Whichever the case, he always has a plan for better or worse. It's a safe option and one that we as his parents fully endorse. No one but the Ev man makes decisions for the Ev man. We're there for him, as usual, for what it's worth.
Debbie Rah-Rah is coming to town tomorrow. It's always good to see her. Word has it that she's bringing up the usual chow mien dish for her mum. I don't think I get the chow mien thing, quite frankly. I mean, I know what chow mein is but what is so special about this chow mien that can't be found in the chow mein made locally? Maybe I don't know what chow mein is. Maybe there is a special recipe that is only found in dishes prepared in one or two restaurants down Ms. Rah-Rah's way. Nonetheless, the G's are in with both feet when it comes to this dish. Bon Appetite!
What is this we're hearing about a trip to Alaska? The Rah-Rah's, minus one Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, have made plans to take a trip to Alaska in early 2022. There was a time in my life when I might have considered such a trip but, as of late, not so much. It's not like the missus and I were invited or anything. You don't invite people that you know who have no intention or interest in doing anything of the sort. Were it not for the air travel, who knows. But there is air travel so there's that.
We stopped over to the Ev man's last night when we were in town to visit Debbie Rah-Rah and Mrs G. There was mail to check and we wanted to make sure that he hadn't left one or more appliances on when he left his apartment the previous day. Everything seemed to be in order although the place was in need of a good sprucing. I'll need to make arrangements to pack up a few things here at home and make my way over there sometime this week before the Ev man returns home. That's the plan, anyway.
I was telling the missus that the Ev man's place gets away from him from time to time and there is a point somewhere along the line when it becomes maybe a little intolerable or overwhelming and he just can't get it done by himself. I'm not looking to make excuses for him but that's just a fact. Well, it's my interpretation of things anyway. I know I'm over the target when he welcomes what I think of as a helping hand. It doesn't happen very often but I'm good with doing what I can if it will help get him back on track. After looking at his place, all I can say is, the sooner the better. I think the Ev man would agree with me.
I'm at loose ends this morning. I have plans to get on over to the Ev man's today as previously noted. I've got my bucket loaded with this and that so I'm not caught short handed once I get to work. I have to remember to bring a wrench or two since he has a table that is getting little wobbly. The missus suggested that I take advantage of the laundry room around the corner from his unit to do any washes that need to be done. This is starting to look like a 3-4 hour job. I'm going solo since that works best for me. No distractions, no delays, and no nonsense!
I've only got so much energy so I'll need to parcel it out properly if I'm to make it through the day and get everything done that needs to be done. The good news is that his apartment is smallish so the scope of what needs to be done is limited. I've already brought over a few things so that's one or two less things that I need to do today. I'm probably going to pay dearly for all the twisting and turning that I'll be doing in the course of the day but that's a worry for another day. Here's hoping that I have enough juice left after it's all said and done to get a bike ride in at the end of the day.
The missus has been complaining lately that our washing machine has been acting a little strange. It's going all unbalanced all of a sudden and it's making a bit of a racket that you can't ignore. It actually won't complete the cycle and she has to jigger things here in order to get it going again. The fellas came yesterday morning to replace Evan's bedroom window so that gave me the chance to fiddle with the washing machine while the missus worked in the back room on a few work-related matters.
I googled the washing machine issue and came up with a couple of possibilities. That had me taking the machine apart and looking for a loose nut in the bottom of the tub. There weren't so many parts that I had to worry about which part went where once I started to put its all back together so that was good. The kicker was that the nut wasn't loose by the time I got everything taken apart so that was not time well spent. That's the downside of troubleshooting, I suppose.
The upside, if there is any, is that I discovered something that I thought might be contributing to the problem when I was taking its all apart. There are four pieces of foam that are strategically placed on the inside of the tub that prevent the tub from moving too far in one direction or another when it's going through certain cycles that require a certain amount of agitation. One of the four pieces was pretty worn and that may have caused the machine to move too far in one direction thereby causing it all to go off into a cocked hat as it were.
I reinforced the foam with another piece of foam that I had lying around so we'll see if that does the trick. I'd hoped that the missus would do a wash last night so I could test out my theory. She was too tired after working all day and it wasn't so important that it couldn't wait for another day. Whether or not she'll test it out before I leave this morning remains to be seen. We're all on a pretty tight schedule today so maybe it waits a bit longer. It's not the end of the world.
Fast forward 24 hours and a long 24 hours it has been. Cleaning Ev's apartment took far longer than I expected. I referred to some sprucing that needed to be done but just sprucing was not going to get the job done. I left the scrubbing of this and that until the end which may not have been the best strategy. When the time came for a little muscle power, there wasn't much left in the tank. It was so bad that I was washing the floor on my way out the door by pushing a rag around with my foot since I feared that if I got down on all fours I might not be able to get up. If I had only had a mop.
I was telling the missus when I got home a little after 7 that his wool rug is a problem. The pilling, even after two years, is just making a mess of things in his apartment. My suggestion was that we work with him to replace the rug. It was like light was dawning on Marblehead. The minute I threw out the suggestion, our collective focus was on getting rid of the rug and finding a suitable replacement. The missus didn't say that in so many words, but her silence spoke volumes.
I was dragging my feet and unbelievably bleary eyed by the time I got done with Ev's apartment. I haven't been that dogged tired in a long time. I had all I could do to take familiar roads home since taking any other route would have been to tempt fate. I worried from time to time that I might be going too fast without realizing it so I was feeling grateful when I had a set or two of taillights to follow. I was reminded of just how mindless an activity like driving a car can be since I was on complete auto pilot but managed fine nonetheless.
I felt bad that I had to leave the Ev man with a refrigerator that was, by and large, empty. I know he has a bad habit of not throwing things away when they should be tossed out. I fully expected to find things in his refrigerator that I would be throwing away. I didn't even have to look at dates in most cases (ugh.) By the time I finished sorting it all out, he didn't have much left. Looking on the brighter side, it was a lot easier to clean once I could see what I needed to clean. He warned me about the microwave and he wasn't wrong. I need to remind him to cover things he intends to cook in the microwave. Yo, dude.
The Ev man was at our house when I returned from a day cleaning his apartment. His plan was to spend the night but I'm up this morning and he's nowhere to be found. He does that sometimes. Without a word of warning, he picks up and departs. No notes, no nothing. He's a free man in Paris, as the saying goes, so no harm, no foul. We'll catch up with him sooner or later.
This time of the year is such good weather for having soup for lunch or dinner. I'm pretty good when it comes to throwing together a batch of chili but I'm not very good when it comes to making a decent soup. If I'm not mistaken, it's one of those kitchen sink deals. Right? You throw a pot on the stove and then you throw everything in but the kitchen sink. The missus makes a mean lentil soup now that I think of it so maybe I'll ask her to brush off that recipe. That'll be just perfect for a weekend night if the timing works out right.
It's disturbing to me that you can walk into a supermarket and see row after row of canned soups but not a damn one of them is healthy for you. The ingredient listing looks pretty good until you get to the part where it lists just how much sodium you get in every serving. It's enough to kill a damn horse. We're talking 700 grams, or milligrams, of sodium per serving give or take. I can't eat that in good conscience. I won't put it into my body. I just won't do it. I mean, who eats that stuff? It's hard to believe that there was a time when manufacturers weren't required to put labels on canned goods. God only knows what we were putting in our bodies back in the day.
I'm not sure if we'll be paying Mrs G a visit this weekend or not. They're giving out Covid booster shots at her place now since the CDC is now recommending them for people in her particular age group. It's a crock of hooey, it is. I guess they've had a couple of cases of Covid popping up in here and there and they're not taking any chances. Apparently, the efficacy of the shots administered some six months ago is wearing thin so that's making folks just a little bit jumpy. I'd like to see them take a stand against the vaccines and put their faith in the baby Jesus for a change. Let him decide when it's time to go.
We did tell Mrs G that we'd get her out and about for a ride to see the Fall foliage so we need to think about when we're going to do that. The colors out and about are starting to look a little muted so the time to do this is now. I'm all about keeping our word when we say we're going to do something. It may have gone in one ear and out the other when we first told her but we can't take any chances that it didn't. Go in one ear and out the other ear, I mean. I don't know that our ride will include a trip to Whole Markets or not but, as they say in the movies, hope springs eternal.
We said something to Debbie Rah-Rah about getting her a cooler to put in the back of her SUV this past week. It's something we're wanting to get for her for Christmas and we needed to know one way or the other whether or not she was interested. It turns out that she is so now we just need to decide on when to make the purchase. Hearing as we are about supply chain issues and the like, it would behoove us to get the order in and get it wrapped before the holiday season is upon us in earnest. Having a cooler as we do, we can't imagine life without it. Did I mention that it keeps things both hot or cold? She's going to love it!
I saw a tweet today that went something like this: "Even if 100% of all humans took a Covid vaccine this week, Covid would not disappear and it would still be killing people and the government would return none of your freedom." Man, is that the living truth. Just look at other countries like Australia that have become a complete police state by using Covid as a cudgel to control and beat the living hell out of their citizenry. We're not quite there yet but we're heading in that direction at warp speed.
I think there are enough people and enough organizations pushing back that we might be able to avert any all out effort to go full tyranny on the part of our government officials. There are enough sensible people in government to see Covid for what it is; a seemingly seasonal virus that is just something that we are going to have to live with. That's the current consensus anyway. We do what we can to protect the elderly and we give them what we can to make sure that they have everything they need to make decisions about what drugs they wish to take or not take.
These attacks on the unvaccinated are totally unwarranted. Disallowing them entry to establishments based on their vaccination status is out and out discrimination. I'll stand with them in their fight for their freedoms until the cows come home. I'm glad to see some of the airlines backing off their plans to fire their employees who choose not to get vaccinated. Other companies are doing the same. This is not going to end well for the democrats and Sleepy Joe Biden who think that firing health care workers, policemen, and firemen who don't want to get vaccinated is the right thing to do. It's not.
There doesn't seem to be any end in sight for the supply chain issues and all those container ships still sitting off our east and west coasts. Biden's approval rating in most states is sitting around 37%. Dr Fauci has been exposed for the fraud that he is for lying to Congress about the Wuhan lab and his funding gain of function experiments. Alec Baldwin has still not been charged with killing a cinematographer after allegedly discharging a prop gun on a movie set in New Mexico. Inflation is still raging at 5%, Bill Belachik is still coach of the New England Patriots despite the team's abysmal record of 2-5, and Hunter Biden, the bagman, is still selling access to the White House. What a world we live in.
I'm three episodes in and I think if it doesn't start getting better or more interesting I may have to turn it off. It has this 1970's kind of feel to it that has me feeling like I'm watching some cop show sitcom from that era. It's almost cheesy if that makes any sense. The main character, Walter White, is a chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and is literally coughing up blood before the end of the second episode. What kind of show starts off by killing off the main character before the plot even starts to unfold?
Characters come and go in different scenes almost as though the director of the show is trying this and that character to see if he or she makes the show any more or less interesting. Knowing as I do that this series ran for some five seasons, I found myself wondering which characters would be around and which ones were destined to drop out after an episode, or maybe a just scene, or two.
And I don't know if this is appropriate or not, but I found myself laughing out loud at a lot of the scenes that maybe weren't supposed to be humorous. I mean, who locks up a drug dealer in their basement and secures them by the neck to a pole using a bicycle lock? To think that Walter was about to let him go before he discovers that the drug dealer had taken a piece of a broken plate and planned to stab and kill Walt once he freed him.
Walter finally finds the testosterone he needs to strangle the bastard as he flails about while sticking Walter here and there with the jagged shard. The writers of this show are wasting no time in turning this sheep of a chemistry teacher into a meth maker, and now with the basement scene, a killer. You start to wonder if there isn't anything they can't do with the character that they've developed. The acting across the board is pretty good and the women in the show are easy on the eyes. I still wonder just a little bit if my laughing here and there isn't somehow off kilter. Not unlike the show itself, I might add.
I got a text from the Ev man while I was out food shopping yesterday. He was inquiring as to what spare keys I did or did not have for his apartment and his car. I'm thinking to myself, what did he lose now and how will we replace the things that I'm thinking he lost. Come to find out, he was laying the groundwork for what he was planning to do later in the day. We discussed the various options with him later that day but he was determined to do what he thought best so that was that.
Doing what he did, and going where he went, is par for the course when he feels the need for a reset in his life. I'm not sure if it's the things that are catching up with him or maybe just the totality of the events in his life that leave him feeling the need for a reset. Whichever the case, he always has a plan for better or worse. It's a safe option and one that we as his parents fully endorse. No one but the Ev man makes decisions for the Ev man. We're there for him, as usual, for what it's worth.
Debbie Rah-Rah is coming to town tomorrow. It's always good to see her. Word has it that she's bringing up the usual chow mien dish for her mum. I don't think I get the chow mien thing, quite frankly. I mean, I know what chow mein is but what is so special about this chow mien that can't be found in the chow mein made locally? Maybe I don't know what chow mein is. Maybe there is a special recipe that is only found in dishes prepared in one or two restaurants down Ms. Rah-Rah's way. Nonetheless, the G's are in with both feet when it comes to this dish. Bon Appetite!
What is this we're hearing about a trip to Alaska? The Rah-Rah's, minus one Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, have made plans to take a trip to Alaska in early 2022. There was a time in my life when I might have considered such a trip but, as of late, not so much. It's not like the missus and I were invited or anything. You don't invite people that you know who have no intention or interest in doing anything of the sort. Were it not for the air travel, who knows. But there is air travel so there's that.
We stopped over to the Ev man's last night when we were in town to visit Debbie Rah-Rah and Mrs G. There was mail to check and we wanted to make sure that he hadn't left one or more appliances on when he left his apartment the previous day. Everything seemed to be in order although the place was in need of a good sprucing. I'll need to make arrangements to pack up a few things here at home and make my way over there sometime this week before the Ev man returns home. That's the plan, anyway.
I was telling the missus that the Ev man's place gets away from him from time to time and there is a point somewhere along the line when it becomes maybe a little intolerable or overwhelming and he just can't get it done by himself. I'm not looking to make excuses for him but that's just a fact. Well, it's my interpretation of things anyway. I know I'm over the target when he welcomes what I think of as a helping hand. It doesn't happen very often but I'm good with doing what I can if it will help get him back on track. After looking at his place, all I can say is, the sooner the better. I think the Ev man would agree with me.
I'm at loose ends this morning. I have plans to get on over to the Ev man's today as previously noted. I've got my bucket loaded with this and that so I'm not caught short handed once I get to work. I have to remember to bring a wrench or two since he has a table that is getting little wobbly. The missus suggested that I take advantage of the laundry room around the corner from his unit to do any washes that need to be done. This is starting to look like a 3-4 hour job. I'm going solo since that works best for me. No distractions, no delays, and no nonsense!
I've only got so much energy so I'll need to parcel it out properly if I'm to make it through the day and get everything done that needs to be done. The good news is that his apartment is smallish so the scope of what needs to be done is limited. I've already brought over a few things so that's one or two less things that I need to do today. I'm probably going to pay dearly for all the twisting and turning that I'll be doing in the course of the day but that's a worry for another day. Here's hoping that I have enough juice left after it's all said and done to get a bike ride in at the end of the day.
The missus has been complaining lately that our washing machine has been acting a little strange. It's going all unbalanced all of a sudden and it's making a bit of a racket that you can't ignore. It actually won't complete the cycle and she has to jigger things here in order to get it going again. The fellas came yesterday morning to replace Evan's bedroom window so that gave me the chance to fiddle with the washing machine while the missus worked in the back room on a few work-related matters.
I googled the washing machine issue and came up with a couple of possibilities. That had me taking the machine apart and looking for a loose nut in the bottom of the tub. There weren't so many parts that I had to worry about which part went where once I started to put its all back together so that was good. The kicker was that the nut wasn't loose by the time I got everything taken apart so that was not time well spent. That's the downside of troubleshooting, I suppose.
The upside, if there is any, is that I discovered something that I thought might be contributing to the problem when I was taking its all apart. There are four pieces of foam that are strategically placed on the inside of the tub that prevent the tub from moving too far in one direction or another when it's going through certain cycles that require a certain amount of agitation. One of the four pieces was pretty worn and that may have caused the machine to move too far in one direction thereby causing it all to go off into a cocked hat as it were.
I reinforced the foam with another piece of foam that I had lying around so we'll see if that does the trick. I'd hoped that the missus would do a wash last night so I could test out my theory. She was too tired after working all day and it wasn't so important that it couldn't wait for another day. Whether or not she'll test it out before I leave this morning remains to be seen. We're all on a pretty tight schedule today so maybe it waits a bit longer. It's not the end of the world.
Fast forward 24 hours and a long 24 hours it has been. Cleaning Ev's apartment took far longer than I expected. I referred to some sprucing that needed to be done but just sprucing was not going to get the job done. I left the scrubbing of this and that until the end which may not have been the best strategy. When the time came for a little muscle power, there wasn't much left in the tank. It was so bad that I was washing the floor on my way out the door by pushing a rag around with my foot since I feared that if I got down on all fours I might not be able to get up. If I had only had a mop.
I was telling the missus when I got home a little after 7 that his wool rug is a problem. The pilling, even after two years, is just making a mess of things in his apartment. My suggestion was that we work with him to replace the rug. It was like light was dawning on Marblehead. The minute I threw out the suggestion, our collective focus was on getting rid of the rug and finding a suitable replacement. The missus didn't say that in so many words, but her silence spoke volumes.
I was dragging my feet and unbelievably bleary eyed by the time I got done with Ev's apartment. I haven't been that dogged tired in a long time. I had all I could do to take familiar roads home since taking any other route would have been to tempt fate. I worried from time to time that I might be going too fast without realizing it so I was feeling grateful when I had a set or two of taillights to follow. I was reminded of just how mindless an activity like driving a car can be since I was on complete auto pilot but managed fine nonetheless.
I felt bad that I had to leave the Ev man with a refrigerator that was, by and large, empty. I know he has a bad habit of not throwing things away when they should be tossed out. I fully expected to find things in his refrigerator that I would be throwing away. I didn't even have to look at dates in most cases (ugh.) By the time I finished sorting it all out, he didn't have much left. Looking on the brighter side, it was a lot easier to clean once I could see what I needed to clean. He warned me about the microwave and he wasn't wrong. I need to remind him to cover things he intends to cook in the microwave. Yo, dude.
The Ev man was at our house when I returned from a day cleaning his apartment. His plan was to spend the night but I'm up this morning and he's nowhere to be found. He does that sometimes. Without a word of warning, he picks up and departs. No notes, no nothing. He's a free man in Paris, as the saying goes, so no harm, no foul. We'll catch up with him sooner or later.
This time of the year is such good weather for having soup for lunch or dinner. I'm pretty good when it comes to throwing together a batch of chili but I'm not very good when it comes to making a decent soup. If I'm not mistaken, it's one of those kitchen sink deals. Right? You throw a pot on the stove and then you throw everything in but the kitchen sink. The missus makes a mean lentil soup now that I think of it so maybe I'll ask her to brush off that recipe. That'll be just perfect for a weekend night if the timing works out right.
It's disturbing to me that you can walk into a supermarket and see row after row of canned soups but not a damn one of them is healthy for you. The ingredient listing looks pretty good until you get to the part where it lists just how much sodium you get in every serving. It's enough to kill a damn horse. We're talking 700 grams, or milligrams, of sodium per serving give or take. I can't eat that in good conscience. I won't put it into my body. I just won't do it. I mean, who eats that stuff? It's hard to believe that there was a time when manufacturers weren't required to put labels on canned goods. God only knows what we were putting in our bodies back in the day.
I'm not sure if we'll be paying Mrs G a visit this weekend or not. They're giving out Covid booster shots at her place now since the CDC is now recommending them for people in her particular age group. It's a crock of hooey, it is. I guess they've had a couple of cases of Covid popping up in here and there and they're not taking any chances. Apparently, the efficacy of the shots administered some six months ago is wearing thin so that's making folks just a little bit jumpy. I'd like to see them take a stand against the vaccines and put their faith in the baby Jesus for a change. Let him decide when it's time to go.
We did tell Mrs G that we'd get her out and about for a ride to see the Fall foliage so we need to think about when we're going to do that. The colors out and about are starting to look a little muted so the time to do this is now. I'm all about keeping our word when we say we're going to do something. It may have gone in one ear and out the other when we first told her but we can't take any chances that it didn't. Go in one ear and out the other ear, I mean. I don't know that our ride will include a trip to Whole Markets or not but, as they say in the movies, hope springs eternal.
We said something to Debbie Rah-Rah about getting her a cooler to put in the back of her SUV this past week. It's something we're wanting to get for her for Christmas and we needed to know one way or the other whether or not she was interested. It turns out that she is so now we just need to decide on when to make the purchase. Hearing as we are about supply chain issues and the like, it would behoove us to get the order in and get it wrapped before the holiday season is upon us in earnest. Having a cooler as we do, we can't imagine life without it. Did I mention that it keeps things both hot or cold? She's going to love it!
I saw a tweet today that went something like this: "Even if 100% of all humans took a Covid vaccine this week, Covid would not disappear and it would still be killing people and the government would return none of your freedom." Man, is that the living truth. Just look at other countries like Australia that have become a complete police state by using Covid as a cudgel to control and beat the living hell out of their citizenry. We're not quite there yet but we're heading in that direction at warp speed.
I think there are enough people and enough organizations pushing back that we might be able to avert any all out effort to go full tyranny on the part of our government officials. There are enough sensible people in government to see Covid for what it is; a seemingly seasonal virus that is just something that we are going to have to live with. That's the current consensus anyway. We do what we can to protect the elderly and we give them what we can to make sure that they have everything they need to make decisions about what drugs they wish to take or not take.
These attacks on the unvaccinated are totally unwarranted. Disallowing them entry to establishments based on their vaccination status is out and out discrimination. I'll stand with them in their fight for their freedoms until the cows come home. I'm glad to see some of the airlines backing off their plans to fire their employees who choose not to get vaccinated. Other companies are doing the same. This is not going to end well for the democrats and Sleepy Joe Biden who think that firing health care workers, policemen, and firemen who don't want to get vaccinated is the right thing to do. It's not.
There doesn't seem to be any end in sight for the supply chain issues and all those container ships still sitting off our east and west coasts. Biden's approval rating in most states is sitting around 37%. Dr Fauci has been exposed for the fraud that he is for lying to Congress about the Wuhan lab and his funding gain of function experiments. Alec Baldwin has still not been charged with killing a cinematographer after allegedly discharging a prop gun on a movie set in New Mexico. Inflation is still raging at 5%, Bill Belachik is still coach of the New England Patriots despite the team's abysmal record of 2-5, and Hunter Biden, the bagman, is still selling access to the White House. What a world we live in.