Almost Compiled
This is a quartet of micro stacks I wrote this evening: “Slumpin'”, “Looped”, “Shutdown:”, and “Reboot”.
I’m reading “Vineland” at the present. A scene in which one character, Sasha, is trying to cash a check was the trigger for this series. The manager can’t cash the check because a stop payment has been put on it. Sasha asks how is that possible, because it’s night. The manager then explains, “It’s computers. They never sleep. They’re on 24 hours.”
Cheers
Slumpin’
Looped
Shutdown:
ReBoot
Monday’s Theme Music — United
Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, September 21, 2026.
Sunny but overcast day, giving it a humid, warm feeling. 76 F, we expect a high in the mid 80s today. It may have rained in parts of town but we didn’t see or feel it.
I’m a little late to this post. Got up and went into novel writing mode, emerging a few hours later. Like, oops — what happened to the time?
I’m pleased that the other networks are responding to Trump’s dictatorial behavior by providing a united front. Backing up a little, Trump raged that three news outlets, CNN, MS Now, and Politico, were putting out ‘fake news’ and declared them banned. Today, basically, the other news outlets demonstrating what the absence of news coverage will mean.
Trump loves the camera. He needs the news programs. As much as he rails against them, without them, Trump would fade away.
Jump to Trump’s new helipad opening today. Without the major news network, it was reportedly very unclear about what was going on. Trump will fume about it and his right-wing news allies will attempt to fill the gap. But the problem with the right-wing news outlets is that they’re right-wing. As much as Trump complains about mainstream media being ‘left-wing’, that’s where most people get their news.
Trump being Trump, though, he’ll often cut off his nose to spite his face, as the expression goes. He probably won’t back down soon.
I’m also pleased by the network moves because my wife was roaring, “Why don’t the other news networks stand up for each other? What’s wrong with them?”
So the move will restore a little peace to my house.
Today’s music comes from a group called The Brotherhood of Man. When I read of the networks’ united front against Trump, The Neurons pulled up the 1969 song, “United We Stand”.
Although syrupy, its sentiment serves today well.
Sample Lyrics
For united we stand
Divided we fall
And if our backs should ever be against the wall
We’ll be together, together, you and I
Trump feeds off creating tension and especially thrives on being contentious and divisive. It always gives me a laugh to remember him saying that he wants to be remembered as a unifier.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Now eighteen months into Trump’s second term, we know that history will not describe him as a ‘unifier’. The way he attacks and divides people — including members of his own party — it’s almost like he doesn’t understand the definition of ‘unifier’…
My wish for you today is that life treats you well and rewards you with love, joy, good health, and good food.
Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music – Moron
Ashland, southern Oregon. Wednesday, September 16, 2026.
Summer’s pullback continues. Thunderstorms are forecast for the area. With a temperature now of 64 and a high of 78 F, we’re leaning toward the cool side.
Sour mood again. Sorry. Apologies.
Mom is being discharged from the hospital. She’s to return to Heritage Grove assisted living. My sister, Gina, is taking her. Gina reports Mom is loopy and confused. They have her on O2. It feels like it’s a setup for another mess, which leaves me and my sisters down. With all of Mom’s issues, we know that only one thing can resolve her problems. The weariness just drags on.
Likewise, Trump news is a drag on the soul. His EPA is repealing pollution limits on fossil fuel power plants. Speaking with Trumplike stupidity, an EPA administrator said, “”The days of Biden and Obama working to destroy natural gas and coal are over.”
Yeah. That’s what Presidents Obama and Biden were doing. Sure. Had nothing to do with climate change. BTW, 2026 is set to go down as the hottest on record. But please, let’s put more pollutants in the air and water so that what we breathe and drink harms our health. People are already struggling with healthcare costs. Let’s load more problems. That’s Trump’s backwards thinking.
Never mind the history books full of stories about smoke from burning coal darkening the skies. Forget rivers on fire and cancer rising as industries dumped their pollutants into water systems.
And please, do ignore all the studies which show that improving the air and water quality led to increases in productivity.
No, Trump and the GOP are just going back in time, dragging us with them.
And what’s hilarious is that Trump wants more AI because he thinks the Chinese are pulling ahead. Without knowing how AI can generate profits and without regard to what all those AI centers can do to our health and environment, Trump wants to bull on.
It’s sadly funny but he’s amazing stupid, greedy, and short-sighted. But as said by many, because the truth is clear, Trump only cares about Trump.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Gosh, yes, Donald Trump, once you say, beautiful, it changes everything! Why, that’s amazing! You ARE such a genius, you idiot.
Here’s a photo of an American city back before the EPA was created, along with the regulations to protect the air, land, and water. You’re a fool if you can stand in that, look around, breathe in, and call it beautiful. As a 70-year-old, I lived through that air in my childhood and survived, and don’t want to see us go back to those days.
But when it comes to facts, truths, and history, Trump is an utter moron.
Which brings me around to my morning mental music stream. I don’t listen to a lot of Primus but I always liked the premise of “Moron TV”. Released in 2011, it’s a diatribe against how TV is used to shape children’s opinion. While that’s the focus, I think politics share this methodology, especially the Trump and MAGA crowd.
Sample Lyrics
Just when I thought I’d seen it all
They pull a cretin from the shelves
And flash that filth under their nails
To make us feel better about ourselves
Well that one’s fit for a sex tape
Well that one’s fit for a dad
Well that one had more babies
Than anyone’s ever had
That one married a rock star
That made all little girls squeal
And that one want to be president
Cause she’s got more eye appeal
May your day come dressed in peace and grace and you finish with joy and happiness.
Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music — Goner
Ashland, southern Oregon. Sunday, September 13, 2026.
Autumn is moving in like it owns the place. Summer looks like a goner. It’s 60 F right now, and feels chillier than that. Rain fell this morning. Sunshine has arrived but today’s high is projected to be an anemic 70 F.
Mom’s story goes on. She and I spoke briefly Friday and Saturday. I called again today but she didn’t answer. She seems like she’s in a good mood. Her voice is soft and weak. Long periods of silence dominate as she catches her breath or pauses to remember what she was saying. She often becomes bitter and angry, complaining about her daughters, her room, and problems that she has.
I’ve been a little harsh and angry with my sisters. Ali commented on a previous post saying that she thought my sisters were being strict.
Ali is right. This is exactly what I told my sisters to act months ago. They are acting in everyone’s best interest, limiting contact with Mom, using just one of us as a front.
I have the best relationship with Mom, so it falls to me to the messenger. I’m a little emotionally fatigued by the role. It’s stacking on top of other things happening in life.
That’s how it goes. Life doesn’t take time outs.
Reading the digital news today, it’s easy at this point to write Trump off as a goner. His popularity is falling but most prices and the overall cost of living is not. Some prescription drug prices fell but not nearly as many as he claims.
Oil prices are not falling as Trump’s Iran War continues.
Some records are falling, such as the Atlantic hurricanes record. This is the longest period on record, 103 days since the season began, without a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. El Nino is being blamed.
I’ve always liked the word goner. I heard it mournfully declared of people in many western movies when I was a child. Things like, “Looks like Clem is a goner,” was part of the dialogue.
So I’m practicing saying it about Trump. “Looks like Trump is a goner.” I could be speaking of him politically, metaphorically, or about his popularity. “Looks like Trump is a goner” works in all three areas.
Thinking about Trump being a goner brought the song into my morning mental music stream. “Goner” is a melancholy twenty one pilots song which was released in 2015. The song has simple lyrics and a straightforward structure.
Sample Lyrics
I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath
I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath
I wanna be known by you
I wanna be known by you
I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath
I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath
I wanna be known by you
I wanna be known by you
h/t to Genius.com
May good times and good health fill your hours today and tonight, and on in an unbroken string of days, weeks, and months.
Cheers
The Negotiations
Grandma and her granddaughter came into the coffee shop. They’re lovely regulars.
Today, the granddaughter declared, “I want ice cream.”
Grandma said, “No, you can’t have ice cream for lunch.”
“I want ice cream.”
“How ’bout chicken noodle soup?”
The granddaughter pouted. “I want chocolate ice cream.”
“How ’bout if you eat chicken noodle soup first and then you can have a little ice cream?”
“I will have chicken noodle soup and then chocolate ice cream,” the little girl agreed.
They moved to the counter and ordered the soup.
The barista said, “I’m sorry, we’re out of the soup.”
Grandma was amazed. “You’re out of the soup?”
“How ’bout a piece of pizza focaccia bread for lunch?” the barista suggested.
As grandma and her granddaughter agreed, the barista said, “Oh, no. We’re out of focaccia pizza, too.”
“You’re out of the pizza thing, too?” Grandma was amazed.
A breakfast burrito was suggested as a compromise.
No ice cream was ever ordered.
Yet.
Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts
A woman and a young boy stood near me in the coffee shop. Appearing to be about ten years old, he was occupied with a phone.
Smiling, the woman asked him, “Are you playing Pokemon?”
The boy briskly nodded.
She patted his shoulder. “Your mother used to love to play Pokemon. She played all the time.”
The kid looked up at her like she’d changed into a flying creature.
I laughed to myself, kind of amazed to think that children who used to play Pokemon now have children playing Pokemon. It’s been around that long.
But it’s the thing really to think of your children having children or grandchildren. Just another measurement of how life advances.
Tuesday’s Theme Music — Clocks
Ashland, southern Oregon. Tuesday, September 8, 2026.
I hope everyone had a good weekend.
It’s warming here again. 54 F at my house this morning. Sunshine and the fronts, which could be the name of a rock band but isn’t, are expected to warm us into the high 80s today. While the sky is blue over our green and brown landscape, clouds varnish it with gray.
One of the things about holidays in the US are SALES! We used to be inundated with mailers and radio and television commercials about how the sales.
Well, I stream and don’t watch over the air or cable channels so I had none of those. Heard nothing on the radio about the sales this year. Nor were there flyers in the snail mail.
Never fear, they sales were shown in the mail inbox. I always have a huge collection of offers. Not the old Viagra stuff, no. This is the standard LOOK AT WHAT WE’RE SELLING AT GREAT PRICES STUFF. Lot of subscription offers. Last chances to REALLY SAVE was going to end LAST NIGHT.
The sales ended. I bought nothing. Some things don’t change. I’m sure I’ll have more chances in the future, despite their declaration that this was my LAST CHANCE. I just need to click through my mail, trashing all these GREAT OFFERS.
Meanwhile, I’m worrying about our fellow humans in Hawaii as another storm bears down on them.
Do we have a Salute Gate brewing? Trump failed to return the Marines’ salute when he left Marine One. Remember how conservatives raised a storm about President Obama saluting with a coffee cup? I’m sure this will be worse…not. Trump Double Standards are strictly enforced.
I love trackers and appreciate and respect the people that put them together for us.
I already regularly check the National Debt Clock, watching as the numbers spin and climb, showing exactly how much more debt we as a nation are in by the second.
Then there’s the IranWarClock. This displays how long the Trump Iran War — TIW for short — has been going, and how long it’s been since Trump said it would be over. Thanks to this site, I know that Trump has shifted the TIW’s timeline eight times, and that it has now been going on 192 days.
Now, Daily Kos has pointed me toward one developed by Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University: the Iran War Energy Cost Tracker. This tells us how much the TIW is costing our nation to the second. It then helpfully shows how much more each American household is paying for energy thanks to the TIW.
Then there’s the Measles Outbreaks tracker to see what’s going on with measles in the US and around the world.
GasPricesLive is good to compare how much we’re paying for gasoline per gallon.
For more fun, you can go to the Trump Timer, which shows how many days until his second term ends.
It’s all just information. Facts and figures. History.
All this thinking about clocks, trackers, and time has The Neurons busy with rock songs about time in my morning mental music stream. Among these are “Time Won’t Let Me” by the Outsiders, “Clocks” by Coldplay, and “Time” by The Alan Parsons Project.
There are other songs — Cher, The Doors, Jim Croce, BB King, Chicago, the Rolling Stones, the Guess Who…it’s a long list.
But here we go, with “Clocks” by Coldplay and “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders.
May you have the time and will to do all you need and want to do.
Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music — Moon Man
Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, September 7, 2026.
Our valley will warm back up today. It’s 52 F now but the high is supposed to be in the upper 70s. Sunshine and blue sky are all my vantage offers. Warmer tomorrow, in the low 80s, and low 90s by Wednesday.
It’s Labor Day in the US. Happy Labor Day! Labor Day used to mark the unofficial end of the summer and the start of the autumn and school year when I was growing up. As I moved to other areas, I discovered the school year starting in August as districts frontloaded the school calendar in anticipation of school closures for snow days.
This is one of those holidays Mom enjoyed as family. It usually meant a gathering and cookout. I feel fortunate to have such memories of enjoying life, delicious food, fun company.
For today, there is no cookout. We’re going to friends later for dinner and games. I go on with my normal routines.
Trump launched another part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! last weekend. He’s been making some outrageous claims by changing the names of places, generating AI images, and doing his pathetic little kicks dance. And Trump changed his hair style to some very ugly reviews. He’s even trying to fix the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — again — crowing — again — how great it’ll be, which stirred a lot of mocking about him and his previous claims, and the amount of money Trump has spent trying to fix it.
With all that bad press happening, Trump went to the net and — quick. LOOK — SQUIRREL!
“THE MOON IS OURS”
Yes, that’s Donald Trump, current Oval Office occupant, highest elected position in the land, acting like a cartoon villain.
Just to prove how much of a fool he is, and keep us distracted, Trump also floated changing New Mexico’s name.
Trump Floats Renaming New Mexico as ‘New America,’ Prompting Pushback
I’m sure MAGAzens are chortling, “Look how Trump is owning the libs!” Meanwhile, they’re paying a lot more for food and gas. For example, gas prices on Labor Day 2024 were about $3.29 a gallon. Thanks to Trump, they’re at a record Labor Day high.
Fuel prices at record Labor Day high in US thanks to Iran War and refinery issues
The gas price per gallon US average is $4.14, 32 cents per gallon more than the previous record, set in 2012.
Affordability remains a crisis in the US, Trump’s war with Iran is dragging on — 191 days and counting — he hasn’t released the Epstein files…it’s a long list of failures and broken promises.
That’s the Trump legacy.
That’s the MAGA legacy.
In honor of Trump’s absurdity, my morning mental music stream is gushing with songs about the moon. So many are out there…”Dark Side of the Moon” punched in fast. But I ended up with “Man on the Moon” by R.E.M.
Sample Lyrics
Mott the Hoople and the Game of Life
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Monopoly, twenty-one checkers, and chess
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let’s play Twister, let’s play Risk
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
See you in Heaven if you make the list
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, Andy, did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Andy, are you goofing on Elvis?
Hey baby, are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
The 1992 song was a tribute to comedian Andy Kaufman. It’s also about questioning truth, history, and reality, and losing track of these things. It’s a suitable song to reflect what we seem to be seeing from Trump and his long, very public decline.
As always, I wish the best for you and yours on this day as well as every other day.
Cheers
