Hey June, Don't Make it Hot
Take a slow month and make it... a single blog post.
June was kind of on the slower side; so we're gonna just pack everything into a single post.
Ready? Go!
June Is Not My Jam
Though I was not among them, some people around here were downright stoked that June had arrived...
Drew's Cruise
On Saturday the 6th some gnarly-looking thunderclouds rolled in.
For the record, that isn't my Ferrari precariously parked under the ominously leaning tree; it's our distant neighbor Drew's: I guess he did the math on it...
Aaaand, yeah...
It got pretty dark...
And then, after all that build-up, all it did was pee a little...
Lame. I was kind of hoping to get to see Drew's Ferrari become a Ferraren'tanymori.
Give Me Liberty and Give Me Meth
In other news, the server I keep running in our living room (to host things like my personal knowledge base, some Git repositories, et cetera) seemed to have inexplicably crapped out on me somehow; so on Tuesday the 9th, I headed over to my parents' house, thinking I'd have to dig one of my unused machines out of storage and swap out a memory module or, God forbid, the whole motherboard.
But then, when I got there and plugged the thing in, it booted up again just fine.
So... I guess I've discovered a whole new step in the IT diagnostic process?
- Try turning it off and turning it back on
- Try unplugging it and plugging it back in
- Try taking it to your parents' house for a visit, then bringing it back home.
- ...starting to get into real-work territory by this point...
The main reason that I'd gone to work on the server in the first place, was that I've been doing a lot of writing again recently, and I had become interested in the idea of leveraging AI to do the grunt work of fleshing out the scaffolding for various stories, or scenes, or whatnot...
But, unless you're writing the Joy Luck Club, your plot's probably going to tend to have some kind of sex, or violence, or sexual violence, or violent sex, or drug usage, or at least true-to-life characters who make occasional use of things like racial slurs, or misogynistic slurs, or homophobic slurs, or just gratuitous amounts of profanity.
...And it turns out that all the mainstream LLMs have been nerfed to the point that they refuse to depict any of those things, even just in fiction: If you want any kind of meaningful dialogue to help you brainstorm, you pretty much have to roll your own system on your own hardware and choose a model that's been "abliterated," such that its refusal behaviors have been drastically diminished or removed altogether.
...And, indeed, what if I have this killer idea for one of the greatest TV shows of all time... like maybe a show called Baking Bread; and it's about this guy who sees Drew's Ferrari from his living-room window and decides that he wants a Ferrari too; but he can't afford one, so he sets up a meth lab in his bedroom closet, figuring that the ungodly stench of his neighbor Ruth cooking fish around the clock will mask any odors from his illicit cook; but then the guy realizes that he has no means of distribution, so he teams up with his sister who bakes cupcakes, and they slip the meth into the cupcakes unbeknownst to her customers, and suddenly word gets around that these damn cupcakes are shockingly good, and even addictingly so, and people just can't get enough of them, and BAM! Profits ensue. Ferrari incoming.
Here's the thing though: I don't know anything about baking bread or cupcakes, except that...
- it's a delicate process
- the DEA seems to hate cupcakes, and...
- people have been known to blow themselves to smithereens trying to do it
That's why coming up with some specifics for one of the "baking" scenes would be the perfect kind of job to farm out to AI—if only I were just running my own, and all of the guard rails had been taken off, so that it would just answer my question instead of politely refusing.
So?
Exhibit A: LocalAI running on a Linux box in our living room...
I mean, I haven't consulted an actual meth cook to get an expert opinion—though I'm quite certain there has to be at least one within a quarter mile of me as we speak.
But, then again, I don't need them having a laugh at my expense...
So, yeah; I decided to go it on my own later that evening: I just added the mothballs and the lighter fluid at the same time, right at the beginning.
The explosion was spectacular!
Social Wetworking
On Friday the 12th, Athennia stayed home from work because she had a Zoom call with the CEO of a company in Horsham regarding a "cleanroom supervisor" position they have available... for a higher salary and at less than half of her current commute.
That went extraordinarily well and led to the scheduling of a follow-up interview with the man who would be her immediate boss.
Meanwhile, I received word that my second payout from the Facebook privacy settlement had been disbursed—which is insane, since I don't even remember how many months have passed since the first one... and also, I literally have been a Facebook user for 12 years now.
I could slip methamphetamine into cupcakes for real, and I STILL wouldn't be as much of an asshole as you are. Clean it up, bud!
Fortunately, the American legal system was there to make things right; and I texted Athennia the big news posthaste...
Hey, just found out I've got $4.67 coming my way; so, if you'd like me to treat to dinner tonight, Slim-Jims from 7-Eleven are on me!
Naturally, this was issued via email, on some cyber-digital bullshitty Master-Card thing that I would have absolutely no convenient way of using.
Ordinarily, my go-to solution would simply be to buy myself an Amazon gift card for that exact amount, just to wipe the full balance off the card and transfer it somewhere I'd be guaranteed to be able to spend it.
But Amazon changed their gift card policy sometime after the last time I did that, and now it's a $5.00 minimum.
Fortunately, it occurred to me that groceries aren't taxed; and so, if I was just able to find two foodstuffs on Amazon's website that added up to $4.67, I'd be able to make sure that Zuckerschmuck and company felt the full brunt of the consequences for their actions!
Awwww, yeah...
The strawberry wafers were... interesting.
...In the sense that, if you've ever said to yourself, "Hey, what if they made a strawberry-scented candle that was also an edible strawberry-flavored candle?" you should consider grabbing yourself a box of these.
Every time I ate one, it felt like the whole inside of my mouth was coated in wax. Finally I took a look at the ingredients and realized why...
Two pounds of butter, two pounds of oil, and two pounds of lard! And don't worry if a few flecks of strawberry powder accidentally fall in the vat from someone walkin' by the assembly line too quickly. It ain't the end of the world.
Next time Facebook violates my privacy, maybe they should cut out the middlemen and send me some Pop-Tarts or something directly.
Class of 2026? ...Or 2039?
Saturday the 13th was a very big day: We celebrated Olivia's graduation... from pre-school.
We had pizza from Schiano's, and meth-less cupcakes for dessert...
See? Liv still has all her teeth! No meth in there at all.
"Or IS there, Uncle Kev?"
The Best Policy
Late in the afternoon on Sunday the 14th, I was on my way out to the kitchen to make some more coffee, when I espied a police cruiser hanging out over by the dumpsters.
Next thing I knew, he was headed right for me!
If you're gonna cook meth, don't put it on your blog.
Before I could even curse myself for such a blatant opsec fail, the lone cruiser had cloned itself into a full quartet...
It seemed as though the youngest of Hoodrat's three little hellspawns had simply decided, halfway through the walk over to GIANT, that he didn't feel like listening to his aunt anymore; and he'd just fucked off to parts unknown before finding his way back to their doorstep.
I was a little miffed that four units were able to show up in a timely fashion, even though they're usually nowhere to be found when I call in to complain about some assclownery.
And then the aunt showed up, with the other two kids in tow. She's kind of a mumbler to begin with; but between the four police cruisers' engines idling, and everyone's A/C compressors humming away, all I kept hearing were strings of mumbled syllables from the aunt, followed by what quickly became a catchphrase with a cringe-factor that increased each time she used it...
She must've said it at least seven times... and, you know, I'm not a trained psychologist; and part of me hates being so cynical; but...
Whatever.
Later that night we had a pretty decent storm roll through...
Seeing this much rain fall on a five-acre apartment complex without a single storm drain on the premises always reminds me of the hoops we had to jump through back in 2023 when we were under contract on the Kutztown property...
I mean, what am I, some schmuck who secretly gets a free pass because the mayor's my fifth cousin thrice removed?
...Or some big corporation to whom the rules don't apply, because we need all the space we can get if we're going to fit 90 apartments here, and these five acres are sitting on a slight slope anyway; so f*ck putting in a drainage system when we can just let everything run down the street and become someone else's problem six blocks away?
Nah, man; I'm just a little fish. Hit me with everything you've got! 👍
Here's a video from our security camera the following day, showing Hoodrat's kids in the parking lot with their aunt. The little one makes it about 10 steps before he starts to drift; and you don't need audio to clearly tell that his listening skills are absolutely off the charts... just in the wrong direction...
The nice thing about not enabling audio is that you get to Madlibs in whatever you want and create your own story out of it ;)
Frogger's Day
On Wednesday the 17th Riley headed over to Kassie's to spend the night there, and they went to Six Flags on Thursday.
And then on Saturday we celebrated Father's Day a day early at my parents' house with Kelly and Steve's family.
This picture of a frog in the pool was the only one anyone took all day; so I hope he's a dad...
Meet and Greet
Tuesday the 23rd, Riley slept over at Kassie's again; and they went to Hurricane Harbor the next day.
Cool sunset that evening...
Then on Thursday, Athennia played hooky from work to attend an in-person interview, tour the cleanroom, and meet some of the staff at her hopefully new job one day very soon.
And, on Friday evening, she and her best friend Emily hung out for the first time in more than a year and had dinner and talked for more than four hours at Miller's Ale House.
Pros and Cones
This past Saturday afternoon, Athennia noticed that Odin kept licking—and then biting at—the same part of his body; and then when we investigated, we saw that he had torn off enough fur to leave a dime-sized bald spot around... not an open wound, per se, but definitely something big enough that it certainly wouldn't heal itself if we let him keep picking at it.
There's a meth joke just begging to be made here; but honestly, it's too sad.
Athennia went out and got him a cone of shame (an Elizabethan collar) to prevent him from agitating the area any further until it scabs over and starts to heal...
Needless to say, he hates it; and it's nothing short of heartbreaking to watch him keep trying to back his way out of it as though he thinks he just has a plastic bag stuck on his head or something :(
But, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. 🤷♂️
Speaking of cones, the jackasses from the township still haven't returned to fix the mess they made when they tore up our parking lot last month... nor have the jackasses who own this complex seen fit to light up the township's phone with non-stop complaints from dawn 'til dusk every day until that happens.
They're locked in a battle of Any Dumb You Can Dumb, I Can Dumb Dumber, and somehow they're both winning.
Luckily, Teef practically lives in the parking lot—either to use his wife's car as his personal cannabis lounge, or to sit on the hood of his BMW like he's just... I don't even know... the biggest turd in the litter box.
Almost every time I happen to walk past the window and look out—day or night, rain or shine—he's out there; and it just makes me think of the Cyberdelia scene toward the beginning of the movie Hackers...
Sometimes he just sort of ambles around the lot like an absolute shadeball; and I'll play a game from the imagined point of view of someone else who doesn't pay as close attention to things around here as I do, and who might be watching him at that same moment but only for the very first time.
Exhibit A: Here he is on Sunday, nowhere near his own car and instead lurking around Keith's Mercedes for no discernible reason...
Whatchu be goin' near Keef's car for?
Feeling the Heat
Last night Riley had her first kickboxing class—which came about last week when Athennia went to pick her up at Kassie's, and Noelle pulled her aside and explained that Kassie was interested in trying it out but was too nervous to go alone.
Riley decided she'd at least give it a try; and so she'll be attending four sessions as part of a free trial to see whether it's something she wants to continue doing.
She said the first session was more intense than she had expected, but she still had fun over all.
And today, Athennia sent me a screenshot of her weather app... delivering a forecast so ridiculous I couldn't help but read it in Strong Bad's voice...
At least Athennia will have a comfortable week. While the rest of the country works off of the Fahrenheit scale, she prefers to use Hellsius.
Converting from Fahrenheit to Hellsius couldn't be simpler: There's none of that \(F = \frac{9}{5}C\) garbage like when you convert into Celsius.
That's because Hellsius is essentially just a binary distinction into one of two ranges: If it's 95 degrees Fahrenheit or below, it's "freezing"; and, if it's above 95, it's only "cold."
That's how my darling wife perceives world...
She could come home from work and I could say, "Honey, I'm so sorry about the smoke damage: Like a moron, I left a bar of tungsten sitting out unattended, thinking it would probably be fine; and then, wouldn't you know, the damn thing melted itself due to the sweltering temperatures in the kitchen, and then it set the table on fire, and then that spread halfway through the living room by the time I noticed the fire alarm going off."
And she would just say, "Brrr... it's chilly in here."
...You're saying it's chili? As in, it's absolutely hot as #$%^?
'Cause, we're... we're getting into triple digits here; and when it's a balmy 105 degrees, inside or out, "chilly" isn't necessarily the first word I'd reach for.
This afternoon, the guy who interviewed Athennia in person last week called her boss Brian. (I imagine it would've been sooner, except that Brian had been on vacation, and today was his first availability.)
I was really hoping maybe she'd have received an offer letter in time for us to report on; but I guess that'll have to wait until next month.
Until then...
Cats in Heat (or at Least Hot)
Lucky and Odin look like the Wicked Witch of the West, post-drench...
Penny figured she'd try hiding from the heat under a blanket. Good luck with that...
Two days in, Penny and Odin are over it...
Penny finally told me to just wake her up in November...
...but then she realized it was too hot to even fall asleep in the first place...
Once the temps go above 90, I don't have to fight with her about running the air conditioner anymore: It basically comes, so, should we perchance go ahead and turn it on now, or should we just all die?
So far, "let's turn the air on" has won :)