Saw some pretty awful video out of China today.  I can’t verify its authenticity, so I won’t post it, but it looks legitimate to me, and the source is trustworthy.  If it is, the timeline will have gone something like this: the virus starts in Wuhan when a communist eats an under-cooked bat for Christmas.  Of course, the communists don’t celebrate Christmas, so the timing is just a coincidence.  The virus instantly begins to spread with alarming rapidity.  Chinese doctors sound the alarm.  Those doctors are either arrested or killed by the government.  But the word is out, so China responds to all inquiries by downplaying the virus, stating explicitly there have been no instances of human-to-human spreading.  The first reported death is January 11.  The government continues to attempt to downplay everything for another week or so, but the virus is spreading far more rapidly than expected, so on January 23, the government locks down the entire city of Wuhan, which is over 11 million people.  The world praises China’s draconian actions, meanwhile more doctors are arrested and “disappeared,” and for the next two weeks, much of China’s massive army is deployed domestically, with soldiers going door to door and forcibly taking everyone’s temperature.  Any household found to have a member with a temperature is literally welded shut, leaving the occupants trapped and left for dead.  Reporting of this gets out.  So China expels all American journalists on March 16.  The government immediately stops testing for coronavirus.  A few days later, the government announces that there are suddenly no new cases of coronavirus and declares victory of the virus.  Anecdotal reporting by Chinese dissidents indicates as many as 90,000 cases had already overrun Wuhan hospitals by mid-January, and video surfaces allegedly showing corpses stacked in the hallways of hospitals.  Though China continues to report no new cases, the Wuhan lockdown failed to contain the virus, and now many of the larger coastal cities of China are being absolutely ravaged.  At the end of march, squads of government agents appear in the affected cities, wearing hazmat suites and armed with rifles, going door to door executing the sick.  Within 72 hours, the virus has been effectively eliminated.  China then sends millions of masks and assorted other PPE to the United States and other countries throughout the world (since they won’t be needing them any more).  On April 7, yesterday, China lifts the lockdown on Wuhan.
I’m guessing it will be quite some time before American journalists are allowed to return.

N.P.: “Off” – Diorama

Good evening, most allegiant reader…
Another day of Elysium.  The extroverts in the neighborhood attempted some sort of weird uprising by trying to get the other extroverts to come out of their hovels and dance in the driveway for 5 minutes at 10:00.  Yeah.  They taped a shitily-done invitation on the mailboxes.  So, first of all, no one did it, because it’s fucking stupid.  Second of all, it’s just fucking stupid.  But it is a good measure of the rather pathetic and desperate measures they’ll go to to feel some kind of connection, some sense of community.
I’ll confess, the longer this goes on, the more I’m going to resent it when it stops.  I’ve heard some of the wiser talking heads discussing how many of the distancing behaviors will really need to become permanent.  They are, of course, absolutely correct, but I’m afraid it will not come to pass.  Ten minutes after The Order is lifted, The Herd will flock right back into one another’s disease vectors, compulsively touching each other, Which, of course, will return everything suddenly back toward The Way It Used To Be:  Thirty minutes after The Order is lifted, the first post-virus shooting or bombing will happen.  And about 24-36 hours after that, people will start showing up at hospitals sick again, and the Second Wave of The Virus will be confirmed.  The Orders will be reinstated, but The Herd won’t be as compliant this time around.  And that’s when…ah…ne’mind, dear reader.  You’ve got enough to worry about with the present goings-on.
Stay well.

N.P.: “Bug Powder Dust” – Bomb the Bass

I reread “Masque of the Red Death” last night.  First time I’ve read it during an actual pandemic (former lives don’t count), which gave it a new…urgency, I guess.  Maybe just relevancy?  I’m not sure, but it was an interesting experience which I highly recommend.
I’d also like to dig out DeFoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year.”  It’s been about 10 years since I read it last…that’s always a great read, but I suspect it will have new poignancy this time ’round.

N.P.: “Secret Separation” – The Fixx

Laziest day I’ve had in a while, dear reader.  Unsure why.  I may have overdone it with the benadryl last night.  May have overdone a few things last night.  Anyway, whiskey and wings this afternoon, but virtually no writing.  But it’s still early.   We’ll see.  At least there is rain.

N.P.: “Flatline” – Hyper

What’s happening, dear reader?  I hope you are well.  I continue to be happier than a pig in shit with the isolation and social distancing.  Absolutely magical.  Please don’t mistake my enthusiasm as any kind of endorsement of or failure to take seriously The Virus.  It is truly horrible and needs to fuck off as soon as.  I’m just talking about the new societal measures.  It’s amusing how wonderful the extroverts are so long as they live in an extroverted world.  But a couple days in an introverted world and they just go to bits.  I wonder if the discomfort they feel in our world is at all similar to what we have to endure living in their world, decade after decade.
Anyway, I hope everybody’s okay.

N.P.: “Trauma Team” – Vector Seven

I’m laying off my usual nonsense today to take a little Pause for the Cause and say thank you to nurses.  Their calling is one of the most difficult even in the best of times, and now they are being called upon like never before to basically save humanity.  And they are answering that call selflessly and (in my humble opinion) heroically.  And they have my unending gratitude and respect.

N.P.: “One Vision” – Queen

“What are you doing?”
“Watching the neighbors fuck.”
“Again?  Are they getting any better at it?”
“Not really.  What are you doing?”
“I got a recipe for making pruno in the Instant Pot.  I need to get my hands on some yeast.”
“What?  What’s in the recipe?”
“It says all you need is grape juice, granulated sugar, and wine yeast.”
“What made you think of making pruno in the Instant Pot?”
“A recipe just showed up in my feed.  It doesn’t actually mention pruno…it says it’s just wine.  But how good can it possibly be?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“Amen, sista.”
“I’ve heard a lot of stores are out of yeast.”
“Horseshit!  Seriously?  Bastards.  Bunch of barbarians in this town.”
“But you know what they do have?  Actual wine.  You can just buy wine.  Don’t need to resort to making your own just yet.”
“I’m just exploring the seemingly unending possibilities of the Instant Pot.  Boom…look at this: instant pot moonshine.  Here’s Instant Pot gin.  This is amazing.”
“Oh no…not moonshine!  That’s got to be really harsh on one’s liver.”
“But it’s so good for one’s soul.”
“At the expense of one’s liver.  You seem to be pretty excited about the prospect of making booze in the Instant Pot.”
“I got pretty worked up when I found out it can sterilize surgical instruments.  That’s when I started wondering “What can’t this thing do?  Ima make booze.  Instant Pot Hooch”
“It’s not going to stink, is it?  I don’t want this place smelling like a distillery.  Can you do it in the garage?”
“Oh hell….this says the wine takes 48 hours in the Instant Pot!”
“Is that a deal-breaker?”
“Well, no, but goddamn.”
“Guess it needs time to ferment.  And it will probably turn the Instant Pot purple.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad.  Aw, dammit…the moonshine recipe is bullshit.”
“Uh oh…why?”
“Because the last step is ‘adding the Everclear.’   I want to make booze, not flavoring.  You can add Everclear to anything and call it moonshine.  You can add Everclear to chocolate pudding. Whaddaya got?  Chocolate pudding with Everclear on it?  Nope. You’ve got chocolate pudding moonshine.  Which I just made up as an example but now that I’m thinking about it.  Chocolate pudding moonshine sounds possibly awesome.  I wanna get drunk on pudding.”
“You’re so weird.”
“You’re the one watching the neighbors fuck.  How’s that going?”
“Sucks.  You’d think they’d get better at it eventually, but no…just the same thing.”
“Maybe their cable is out.  I’m going to the store.”
“For yeast?”
“Nah…Everclear and chocolate pudding.”
“So weird.”

N.P.: “Another Brick In the Wall” – Fury Weekend

I lost a bet and had to start watching Outlander today.  I don’t like Outlander.  This is the plot: English nurse in WWII inexplicably wanders into a renaissance faire and finds it surprisingly difficult to leave.  That’s it.  Halfway through season 1 and I’m sitting there, bored out of my tree, and asking myself, “If a dragon suddenly flew out of the sky and killed the entire cast with a fireball, would I care?”  And the answer was a very quick “no.”  In fact, I then started wishing that a dragon would suddenly fly out of the sky and kill the entire cast.  I’m going to give it a few more episodes, but if I still don’t give a rat’s about any of the characters, I’m pulling the plug.
Also, I wrote a bunch of stuff today.

N.P.: “Override (Original Mix)” – Zardonic

Let me say up front that I have no problem with vegetarians.  It’s not for me, of course, but I respect their rights and wishes, just as I hope they respect mine.  But they don’t.  Nor does society.  As a carnivore, I continue to watch my rights and wishes shat upon routinely, whilst my vegetarian brethren seem to only become more precious and entitled about their own agendas.
On an almost daily basis now, some story shows up in my feed about some aggrieved vegetarian who has been apparently just destroyed because some restaurant put a pork chop on their plate or some such.  These are never local news stories, but national, or, in today’s case, an international news story (with today’s aggrieved and permanently damaged vegan having been served something with butter on it in Jolly Auld England.  Today, when there is officially a pandemic wreaking havoc throughout the world and several nations are evidently on the brink of economic if not societal collapse, I have to read about some fucking British hippy who got butter on her toast.  To wit:
A British Airways passenger who requested a special vegan meal was served it with butter and cheese.  Sophie Fingerbottom was traveling on British Airways flight BA288 from Phoenix, US, to London Heathrow.  She tweeted a picture of her VGML meal, which had a “special meal” sticker on it, next to a butter sachet and cheddar cheese triangle.  She captioned the image: “15 years ago I would have expected it, but you’re *still* serving cheese and butter with VGMLs at a time when veganism has never been so popular and well catered for elsewhere.  What happened to quality control and crew awareness?”  British Airways responded: ‘We’re sorry you were given dairy products with your vegan meal, Sophie.  We’re grateful you made us aware of this.”
Which is a perfectly reasonable response.
That, somehow, in this world, is an actual international news story.  What the fuck for?  Who cares?  So what?  Holy shit…get over it.  Why are vegetarians so precious about their vegetarianism?  The non-vegan food in the above-mentioned stupidity was enclosed in individual packaging and not touching the vegan food.  Are you seriously that fragile?  Look…I’m a carnivore.  There are myriad reasons for this, but the top two are these: 1) With all the fragile vegetarians running around eating roots and twigs and bullshit, becoming soft, losing not only their hunting instincts but gradually forgetting how to conjugate the verb “to hunt” all together since such violent words scare them, humans would quickly slip from the top of the food chain down to someplace dangerously and embarrassingly beneath cattle.  And 2) I have heard the screams of the lettuce and the carrots as they are ripped from the ground, torn from the only home they’ve every known, only to be chopped up, cooked, and ruthlessly consumed by hippies who through some perverse mutation are completely deaf to the vegetables cries of anguish.  As such, my entire life has been spent ordering plain hamburgers but being served hamburgers with what seems to be an entire salad bar, not in some enclosed package on the side, but right fucking there on the burger, under the bun, touching the meat.  Literally my entire life.  It happened twice last week.  And do you know what I’ve been told?  For literal decades?  “Oh, get over it…just scrape it off.”  Which, historically, is what I do.  Because I don’t want to be a fragile little snowflake that’s gonna throw a bitch-fit and expect the world to turn according to my specifications every time I don’t get my way.  And that’s with all manner of vegetables actually touching my meat.  I get the impression the fit-throwing vegetarians in question here might starve to death if faced with such a cruel and brutal reality.
Of course, that’s not what happened.  They didn’t just shrug it off.  They didn’t just do a lot of cussing and call the airline abusive names.  Noooooo.  They called up their activist friends at The Vegan Society, who issued Very Strong Statements in the media and threatened to litigate viciously.  “Veganism is not just a diet, but a deeply held ethical conviction that harming animals is wrong, so it can be really upsetting for a vegan to be given animal products when they have specifically ordered a vegan option,” whined Matt Turner, testicularly challenged spokeswuss for The Vegan Society.  “Vegan meals often have to be ordered in advance and sometimes don’t make it on board the plane.  We are campaigning to see a vegan option added to standard in-flight menus across the board so that everyone has the choice to order them.  Vegan passengers should always be able to fly with ease and confidence that they will be catered for.”
It was at this point that, had I been in charge of the airline, I likely would have extended a polite invitation to not only Matt Turner but the entire Vegan Society to toss my salad.  Which is probably, upon some reflection, part of the reason I am not in charge of the airline.  But seriously, again, I face the opposite of this (vegetables served against my specific wishes with my meat) on an almost daily basis, and its not even a local interest story.  Why is this shit in the international news?  Of course the airline said what they had to say: “We take pride in delivering thousands of special meals daily to our customers across the globe to the highest of standards.  We are extremely sorry that our customer has had a negative experience.  The reported issues is being investigated with out catering partner and we will take action to ensure this does not occur in the future.”
Again, I have no issue with vegetarianism…I think everybody should eat whatever the hell they want.  I just don’t understand why an errant wrapped pad of butter becomes a literal international incident with attorney’s and corporate spokespeople issuing carefully worded statements while I and other carnivores are forced to suffer in silence.  #Can’tUnhearTheScreamsOfTheCarrots

N.P.: “Beautiful World” – DEVO

If one were to say that I slept my ass off last night, one would be correct.  I didn’t have a whole lot of ass to begin with, but after last night, nothing.  No way to sit down.  Nothing for anybody to try to kick.  Nada.  And it was totally worth it.  Slept my ass off.
Anyway, most resilient reader, how are things?  Grand, I hope.  Daily life here continues to be positively amazing with The Herd banished to their weird homes.  Virtually every aspect of life is improved.  No traffic, no noise, no endless bleating of idiots and their little opinions, no fucking neighbors or Jesus people hanging on the doorbell, no me answering the door with weapons in an attempt to convince them not to repeat their mistake.  That insipid Disneyland is closed until further notice.  It just doesn’t get better than this.  Or does it?  Let’s see what happens next week. 😉

N.P.: “The Diamond Sinners” – Pig