If only I could’ve held out for another year

I haven’t really paid much attention to cars in a while, especially since I’d just gotten a new one less than a year ago, and that whole having-a-baby thing kind of tends to take mental capacity away from just about everything else in the galaxy for the vast majority of our waking lives.  But my Apple News feed randomly spit out this article about a Nissan electric car with an attractive looking thumbnail so I clicked it, and then I’m staring at my screen with a not bad look on my face at the Nissan Ariya, that’s supposedly going to hit the United States in 2021, and there’s a piece of me thinking damn, if I could’ve only held out for one more year.

And it’s not like I couldn’t have; my old Kia Forte was still running fine, and at “just” 150,000 miles, I probably could’ve easily gone longer, especially with the sheer lack of driving that’s been done during this fucking coronavirus pandemic keeping smart people like me sheltered in place more often than not.  I just simply wanted a new car, and I wanted a bigger car, because a baby was on the way, and it would’ve behooved me to be ready with a larger and more comfortable vehicle for my pregnant wife and then-eventual kid.

But if I were able to hold out for another year, then most definitely the Nissan Ariya would’ve been in the conversation, when I would be looking for a new car.  I used to always be dubious about electric cars, because of their supposed mileage range per charge, but considering my new car now and most Tesla Model 3’s typically range 280-300 miles per charge, and there’s really not a tremendous difference.  The real angst lies in the scenario of taking an electric car out on a road trip, and running out of juice with no idea of where to get more, in the middle of the night.

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New Father Brogging, #014

2.5 weeks vs. 16 weeks

It’s been a few weeks since I wrote one of these, not that I had any real intention of making this a regularly scheduled thing by any stretch of the imagination.  But for my own sake of remembrance and for those who want to kind of live life as a new dad with me, I still feel like writing these posts every now and then, so I can one day look back and see where my head was at during this time of my life, as well as hers. 

Plus I occasionally fantasize of my daughter one day as an adult, reading my life’s blathering, and if she’s anything like me, getting teary-eyed at dad’s own words back from when she was but a mere infant.  But that’s completely contingent on the brog still being online 19-22 years from now, as well as her being remotely interested in what _dad_ has to say about things in life and the world.  However, in regards to the former, considering I’ve been brogging for quite literally 20 years, I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to think I couldn’t keep it up for another 20.

Anyway, to those new dads out there who feel like their worlds are becoming microscopic in the sense that you have absolutely no time to yourself, I can officially vouch for the notion that things to get easier in time.  Believe me, I’d gone through my period of feeling like my world was the size of a lima bean and I’d wonder just how long it would be before I could have 30 minutes to myself.

But over the last few weeks, mythical wife and I have been attempting to do some sleep training with our little infant child, and trying our best to establish a general routine of feeding times and naps, to maximize her growth as well as buy us some bits of time throughout the daytime where she’s sleeping and we can do our own things for 30-50 minutes at a time.  And honestly, so far, it’s going fairly satisfactory, but knowing my mentality, we may have just jinxed it by acknowledging it, and next thing I know, she’ll be going through some other sleep regression stage, and then I’ll be back to being frustrated and fried all over again.

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Oh, Georgia #666

Nothing surprises me anymore: Georgia governor Yosemite Sam attempts to appease his god-king baked potato in charge, by signing an executive order that effectively prevents localities from having the ability to legally mandate mask wearing in public AKA cities aren’t allowed to legally make mask wearing mandatory

If it weren’t the president and all of his followers making all these choices, I’m pretty sure there would be hundreds of politicians and bureaucrats that could technically be guilty of plotting first-degree murder.  If the definition of first-degree murder is that it was premeditated and well-thought out, that seems pretty fair to say that all these old white shitheads in politics are all taking great planning and thinking through the systematic potential killing of thousands of American citizens.  If that’s not premeditation, then I don’t know what is.

Anyway, at this point, I really don’t have any more words to add to the endless slope that America continues to slide down.  This country fucking sucks now and if not for the fact that my entire life and career is here, as well as all of my friends and family, mythical wife and I have often “joked” about the notion of packing our shit and moving abroad to like Korea.  Not to mention the immigration process is painstakingly arduous on both sides of the world.  But it’s still a discussion worth having these days, and if money weren’t an object, it could become a fantasy worth making into a reality.

But the picture alone is worth the metaphorical thousand words, but not really a thousand, because I don’t know enough synonyms for “shitheads” and “bigots,” and frankly both of these clowns are so simplistically terrible that there aren’t even close to a thousand words to describe them.  One hates everyone on the planet that isn’t a fellow billionaire and doesn’t challenge his way of life, and the other will do absolutely anything to appease his god-king, even if it means sacrificing American lives, but it’s okay because the vast majority of the lives at risk will most likely be blacks and Hispanics and the poors, and they’re less than human beings to both.

I mean seriously, look at Bubba in the above picture.  He’s basically eyeing the baked potato’s toadstool, wondering if he should use the swirl or the pinch once they’re in private quarters, and the mask he’s wearing isn’t so much to protect himself from coronavirus as much as it is to contain the rabid salivating he’s probably doing at the thought of getting to pleasure his idol.

But that’s low-brow of me to make such a crude observation.  However, I’m also not plotting on killing thousands of Americans on a daily basis, so when the day is over, a little crude narrative making doesn’t seem so bad in comparison now does it?

I think the saddest part of everything is that everyone seems content to wait until November to see what chips will fall come the next presidential election.  But last time I checked, in America, it’s entirely possible to fire inadequate workers from the job, and it really makes me sad that the office of president seems to be immune from it, regardless of being impeached or not.  Regardless, everyone seems to have this wait until November attitude, but there’s a lot of shit for America to continue to fall into and hang on in until then, and I can’t help but wonder why we’re all waiting, as a nation, instead of acting.  I feel like the country has never been so close to a mass mutiny as it’s been now, but wondering just how much more bullshit will have to happen before anything ever occurs. Because November might be too late for this country, and before we know it, America will have a million casualties due to coronavirus, while the rest of the entire fucking planet won’t even come close to that, combined.

I’ve made a lot of analogies to books and movies and television over the last few weeks to describe the state of the nation, but another one came into mind last night: The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick.  Originally a book, turned into a television series, but basically, America is taken over by the Axis of Evil.  Now without expounding on that much, all I have to really ask is that would America actually be worse off under German/Japanese rule than it is now?

Not a sermon, just a thought.  But sad that we’ve gotten to the point where such a question even comes to fruition.

When politics actually hit home

Often times, no matter how much bitching and complaining we as ‘Muricans do about politics, when the day is over, not a lot really happens.  A penny tax doesn’t mean people are unable to feed themselves, and when the government talks about some convoluted bill or law that passes, most of the time very little noticeable things actually occur.  Maybe it’s naïve and insular for me to make such blanket statements, but at least in my little world, the things that happen as the result of stalling and bickering in Washington seldom really feel like they affect life on the home front.

In a prior post, I made a remark about how at no point in the history of my life, has it ever felt so physically tangible, the feeling of disappointment and letdown happening to the American people of the United States until more recently.  As stated, no matter how much I may disagree or not like something that’s now law, a lot of the time it doesn’t really impact the daily living of my life or my family.

Until now.

My wife is a teacher.  My child is immunocompromised.  I’ll just state those facts, and if you understand why this is a major problem today maybe you’ll continue reading.  If not, well go fuck off.

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This is really the state of America in 2020

No matter how much I never liked to admit to feeling it, now that the faucet’s been turned, it seems like not a day goes by where the words don’t pass through my lips, and it doesn’t make me feel any better verbalizing it now as it did when I first came to the realization that right now, America sucks.

Talking with a friend about the state of the world, I found myself saying things that I’d never said before in regards to how I felt, mostly because I’ve been isolated, and mythical wife and I try not to talk about things too much because they really are that depressing, but what came out of my fingers in text is that I don’t think it’s ever felt so physically possible to feel just how much our country is letting us down, the way America is completely and utterly failing the American people on a daily basis right now.

It really is becoming impossible to keep up with all the ways things are fucked up, at least for me, who likes to jot down notes on a daily basis so I can remember the things happening in history for another day, especially in case I feel inspired to write about them at some point.  But it’s downright sad and pathetic the things that emerge on a daily basis about the state of America in the state of the world currently, and I realize that it becomes a little more difficult every day to not grow more jaded and nihilistic about how things are, which are definitely things I don’t want to be happening when I’m in a period of my life where I’m trying to enjoy and savor the time of new fatherhood and spending time with my baby.

It’s kind of not fair that America is in such chaos and forced to hunker, when all I want to do is show my kid the great big world and can’t, because neither of us want to get the coronavirus that’s fucking everywhere and risk our lives.

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Still got it

It’s funny.  As I’ve been combing through every single one of my old posts, I came across this one from back in 2011, where I had been applauding Julio Franco’s endless love of the game when he was signing with a semi-pro team in Japan at the age of 52.  I stated that I never wanted to see him ever stop playing the game of baseball back then.

Well it’s 2020 now, the world is at its knees, buckled by a global pandemic which has now been contained primarily in an America that had no clue or want to actually combat it, but out in presumably South Korea, video has surfaced of a now 61-year old Julio Franco, still taking cuts inside the batting cage.  And still with his trademark wonky batting stance, great bat speed and the ball coming off his bat with a satisfying crack.

To my understanding, he’s been a hitting coach for the KBO’s Lotte Giants, and has been since 2016, which means that he is still actively getting paid to contribute to the game of baseball.  God bless this guy and his passion for the game that can probably never be rivaled throughout the passage of time.

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It’s kind of appropriate that it sucks

When I caught wind that the WWE was going to unveil a brand-new United States Championship design, I had a moment of dread; if it looked baller, then I was undoubtedly going want to get a replica, no matter how many times in my life at this point I’ve said NO MOAR BLETS.

Plus, I’ve been very unhappy with the WWE Shop for having available replicas of just about every single championship belt design over the last 30 years, except for the one and only WWE-branded belt that I want: the NXT UK Tag Team Championship.  Seriously, they have shit like the yellow Intercontinental belt that the Ultimate Warrior wore like, twice, and the old European Championship which only existed for like 3-4 years, but they do not have the NXT UK Tag, which unlike the litany of “tribute” belts they seem to release on a weekly basis, is an active championship in the company right fucking now.

To hell if I was going to be wooed by a brand new US Championship belt before I could get the one and only belt that I really want*

*not entirely true, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a Ring of Honor World or John Cena US spinner belts as well

But then Monday Night RAW came and aired, and because I don’t have cable television and don’t actually watch RAW anymore, I had to wait and see when the pictures broke on Twitter, and unlike the NXT UK Tag, the WWE Shop was more than ready to push the new shit available online like a software hotfix.

And the verdict is . . . it sucks.  Whew!

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