High on the hog

Going in for cataract surgery today.

Yikes!  Was this sudden turn of events or something that was planned some time ago?  I ask because when I got my new glasses a few months ago the eye guy said that I'm getting cataracts but there was no sense of urgency indicated.  Except for some halos around bright lights at night time I don't have any problems, yet.  Any clues about the progression of cataracts would be much appreciated, Uncle Ken; I suspect that both eyes require the surgical procedure, no?  I think you are the first member of the Institute that is qualified to speak of things that are "better than a sharp stick in the eye."  Good luck with your recovery!

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Mr. Beagles sounds like a very happy camper, counting down the hours until he is behind the wheel of his new, shiny, red truck.  Is is red, isn't it?  Earlier posts indicated that you wanted a manual transmission but it sounds like that is off the table or did you get lucky?  Modern vehicles baffle me with all the screens and gizmos but such is progress.  I don't mind the safety features but I think that some of the convenience features take things a little too far.  There's an awful lot of stuff that can go wrong with all the electronics but then again, those same electronics make it easier to solve any problems.  I like the fact that you can get a gadget that you can plug into a port and it will tell you what's going on when that damn "check engine" light comes on; might save a trip to a mechanic if it's only a loose connection somewhere.

Speaking of the end of an era, the 2020s and beyond will not have CD players in them.

But you can still play your eight-track tapes, right?  Just kidding, but another thing I noticed about all pickup trucks is that they all have a second row of seats, like crew cabs, or so it seems to me.  Trucks used to be classified by capacity, such as a half-ton or three-quarter ton pickup, but I don't know if they still do that.  Towing capacity seems to be the big metric these days and a trailer hitch is probably standard but it's been almost twenty years since I drove any pickup trucks.  Place I worked at had a couple of Fords, an F-150 and an F-250,  The 150 was nice but the 250 was a little too big for me to negotiate the side streets and alleys.   But damn!  You knew you were driving a truck, that's for sure.

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I don't think any sane person can keep up with all of the political drama that's been going on lately.  If Congress stays true to form the impeachment inquiry will stall and nothing will come of it.  Trump has the political establishment and mainstream media  bamboozled and they are unable or unwilling to do anything but the increasing pressure will cause Trump to self-implode, and that will be that.  He's starting to remind me of the Humphrey Bogart character in The Caine Mutiny and it's only a matter of time before Trump dives off the deep end and bails out.

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A couple of years ago I mentioned a Netflix film by the Korean director Bong Joon-Ho.  It was called Okja and it was about a big, genetically modified pig and it looks like the film maker was prescient.  The Chinese now have a program of their own to breed giant pigs, the size of polar bears.  It's a brave new world.