Tag: Cooking

Daily Life, Government, Motivation, Politics, Solving the wrong problem

I Caught A Case Of The Apathy
  • Yesterday I was mad and frustrated. I was fed up with people on Facebook posting virtue-signaling Covid case count memes. Frustration at the lack of media coverage around alleged election fraud. I’ve had it with government lockdowns and killing of the economy and small businesses. I’m pissed that nobody in government is ever held accountable for anything. As a healthcare worker I’m exhausted with the hospital working conditions and no end in sight. I sat down and started writing a long post about all this. About two-thirds of the way through I suddenly felt a huge wave of apathy settle in. Why care about any of this? It feels like the massive engine of the deep state, big tech, and the media empire is an unstoppable force. Nothing will change. There’s too much money, too much power, too much corruption. What’s the point? Why bother writing (venting) for a grand total of about three readers? I deleted my words and walked away. I’m not as apathetic today, but I do wonder if I’d be happier if I stopped paying attention to the news? I suspect this blog would do better if I just focused on one thing… cooking or fly fishing or something.
  • A powerful solar storm is occurring Dec 9/10 that may produce northern lights visible in many northern states. We had cloud cover last night, so no luck. I’ll be looking again tonight.
  • It’s amazing how shameless the media is. They’re now shocked that the Hunter Biden investigation went largely unnoticed prior to the election. WTF. How do these “journalists” look at themselves in the mirror in the morning?
  • My hospital is drowning. Our staffing shortages are dangerous. Despite what the media reports, it’s not entirely due to covid. The city and state are frantically waving their hands in the air and desperate to do something to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed. The solution? Let’s pass more regulations preventing youth sports and further limit restaurant capacity. That’s like when someone says they can’t afford new tires for their car, the government solution is to try and create smoother paved roads to reduce tire wear. How about, oh I don’t know, add resources to the health care system? We have a perfectly capable national guard who could spin up a response within days. I get that there are cost and liability issues when interacting with private entities, but I’m pretty sure we can figure that out. Rather than fix the leaks in the dam, we’re too busy educating people on the importance of wearing Gore-Tex and galoshes.
  • I saw an ad for a bracelet with a little symbol for every national park you’ve visited. Made me look up my list. I’ve been to 13. Not bad. How many have you been to?
  • Watched Hillbilly Elegy. Very good, highly recommend.
  • This is seriously freaky. Don’t watch if home alone at night.
  • Still have not made machaca. Haven’t forgotten, the timing just hasn’t worked out yet. I have a week off coming up and plenty of snow in the forecast. Skiing and cooking sounds like a fine way to spend my time.

Song of the day: The Who “Young man blues – live at Isle of Wight“

Daily Life, Government, Politics

The Delicate Art Of Zoom Cooking
  • Last night Mrs Troutdog and I participated in an on-line Zoom cooking class. It was sort of a corporate thank you gift. They sent a meal kit with all the ingredients, aprons emblazoned with the corporate logo, and a bottle of wine paired for the meal. Everyone connected on-line at the appointed hour and a celebrity chef walked us through putting our meal together. Or at least that’s how it was supposed to go. To the chef’s credit, this would be a hard forum to work in. He’s got an hour to get this done. It’s not in-person so people can’t really ask questions. Because it was real-time there was no way to go backwards if you missed a step. The chef was high energy and moved quickly. The end result was a frenetic hour of us trying to chop, stir, sauté, and mix while desperately trying to keep up. There were zesting accidents that drew blood. Literally every bowel, pan, and dish in the kitchen got pulled out at some point. We were laughing like maniacs as we just randomly threw ingredients in pans because we’d missed what he did. It ended up being pretty fun, but the kitchen looked like a war zone at the end. Good times, but I sure miss doing things in person with people.
  • Project Veritas dropped another recorded call from CNN. In it they discuss that they are not going to air the Hunter Biden emails. If you’re an honest person and have been a fan of CNN, I’d hope this at least makes you wonder what else they’re choosing not to report.
  • The great shearing event happened yesterday. To my great surprise, Mrs Troutdog said she likes my hair a little long, it just needed to not be so unruly. I feel sorry for the hairdresser trying to interpret my cutting instructions. “We’re trying to cut it today, so it will grow out correctly in a Brad Pitt look. Not Fight Club Brad Pitt, but Legends of the Fall or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Brad Pitt. Can you do that?” She gave me a long look and said, “so do you want it above the ears or over the ears?”. Sadly, I did not come out looking like Brad Pitt.
  • While they haven’t all been Democrats, the vast majority of the “rules for thee, not for me” crowd have been. Why is that? At some point, people are going to have had enough. The randomness of the rules shutting down bars, restaurants, and boutiques, yet the Walmarts and Costcos remain open isn’t going to be tolerated forever. At some point this is going to get ugly and violent. Do these power hungry elites really want to put our police in the position of enforcing arbitrary rules on some poor schmuck who’s going to lose his business? I can’t eat at a restaurant, but I can go to Home Depot and stand in line with hoards of other people to buy tacky inflatable Santas and other Christmas crap? I hope people start pushing back soon.
  • It’s interesting how peoples perception of distance changes. We’ve got friends who just moved to our little town from LA. Previously they would have thought nothing of driving 45 minutes to go 20 miles just to do an errand. I caught him yesterday complaining that there was no easy route to get out of the neighborhood to the store (that’s two miles down the road).
  • The clock is running out for Trump. The electoral college votes on December 14. Seven business days left to make something happen. I don’t see it occurring. Do I think there was pretty significant fraud? Yep. To the level that Powell and Giuliani are claiming? Not so sure about that. Mrs Troutdog gets frustrated at me for being so pessimistic, but I think the swamp, the establishment, the deep state or whatever you want to call it, is just too entrenched. These people don’t want the status quo to change. I honestly don’t think the republican party wants to be in charge – they’d have to actually take a stand on something and that might risk their re-election chances. Much easier to run to the TV cameras and make fiery speeches, then go back and do nothing. Sorry, I’m a little cynical today.

Song of the day: X “More fun in the new world (live 1983)”