I was recently in search of an affordable diet!

Three main courses and three snacks comprise my normal daily diet, in late 2020. Breakfast is typically a combo of a fried egg, piece of toast and a glass of milk. For lunch, I try to have some form of a salad. Dinner will be Healthy Choice combinations. That leaves the three snack periods. I like to call them S1 Through S3. For S1, I normally try to have a Yoplait yogurt, then for S2 (afternoon), I typically wander a bit or even have nothing at all. S3 is my late afternoon or evening snacks, and that is where I will likely have a problem with drinking too much beer! All in all, I will normally hit somewhere around 1800 calories, give or take. Any weight loss I’d accomplish on this sort of regime, would then be the domain of me getting some good exercise….

So then, I had two challenges facing me this date; losing (or maintaining my weight if I was close to 175 pounds) and enjoying as diversified menu that wouldn’t bankrupt me in the bargain!

In order to track my culinary meanderings, I developed a FileMaker data file that allows me to see both the calories consumed along with the estimated cost, for each meal. I’ve maintained this set of records for over half a decade. Here’s a sample, below..

The ‘ETM’ entry referenced for breakfast, is a code I use to indicate that I had an egg, toast and milk. Lunch was a treat for me as I visited McD’s. (Something I do about twice a month). And, then there came the dinner and S3 period where I ate junk food and drank too much beer… (habits I’ve been trying to break, as of late).

Lastly, and to the good, I do ‘lightly’ track my activities. [Note: It’s really not very accurate, as I also generally walk one to two miles a day, and do other forms of light exercise fitting for a man of 70 years].

When I’m in a weight loss mode, I prefer to shoot for about 1400 calories a day. Yes, that is correct. And, I’ve been fairly successful over the past year of 2020. When I’m not in that mode, I try for about 1800 calories. Everything, weight wise, really hinges on how much exercise I manage to get, on any specific day..

So, my challenge for the month of December 2020, would be to do the following; eat well – yet cheaply, maintain a weight that was close to 175, exercise each day and do all of that within a very strict monetary budget. Whoa! A real challenge, for sure!

How Democratic Mayors handle virtual cities!

No actual reference is made to any real city

There is a popular city building desktop game that goes by the name of Cities and Skylines. In the game, you can build up a city complete with residential, commercial and industrial zones. It not unusual to have 60K plus little people running around going to work or parks or shopping. The computer keeps track of each by name, current destination and where they reside. Pretty neat. The game also allows for you, the Mayor, to play like you’re a God. It’s my understanding that Governors, such as Newsom and Cuomo, both love to play it for hours upon hours. In the game you can tweak the number of public services such ad electricity, water, the fire Departments and even the Police. What fun! One of the most instructive is an option known at city planning and ordinances. Let me give you an example of how I recently played a game….

My city, which I named Portland, was doing quite well. All the services were working, including the picking up of trash on a regular basis. But then, I discovered a fly in the ointment. One particular suburb had switch from the very popular Democratic platform I endorsed to one supported by the Republicans. As Mayor, I saw this as a real problem. Of the approximately 10 thousand in an eight block area, some were even demanding lower taxes! I was confounded, as I had done so much for the sniveling little turds, in the past. As a bold sort of Mayor, one who takes matters into my own hands, I immediately decided to cut back on trash removal as a punishment. I also began a campaign to pit the blacks against the whites. Because, as everyone knows, a divided citizenry is a controllable one. To my astonishment, problems began to occur on almost a daily basis. I then determined that more drastic measures were in need and so made the decision to de-fund the area’s police by simply shutting down the local headquarters. I figured that would show the little shitheads who was really the boss…

Things were quiet for about a day, before riots began to spring up here and there. Apparently some really crazy individuals had also made it in to that locale and were busy jazzing up the people things. As the Mayor of an entire city, I could not stand to allow my good and highly taxed citizens, in other parts of the city, to become ‘infected’. I therefore made the decision to wall off the entire eight block area while removing ALL services including; law enforcement, fire protection along with water and power. I figured that would quiet the bastards down right quick!.

Sadly, (and through no fault of my own), things chaotic! Old ladies were being assaulted, businesses burned and mostly importantly – No fucking one of those morons were listening to me… Their Mayor! So, as sad as it made me, I did the only thing I could think of and called in an air strike, to cauterize the wound the most efficiently. You see that’s what us Democratic Mayors do best!

Elections going forward…

The November election of 2020 was different from any we’ve had in recent memory. For the first time, and due to the Covid-19 scourge, millions of American voted by mail…. or did they?

Having been the recipient of mail courtesy of the United States postal system for many decades, I can attest to the inconsistencies of service. I’ve had outgoing mail disappear, never to be seen again. I’ve had bank statements from someone else show up in my mailbox. I’ve had mangled mortgage payments show up a month later, never having reached their intended destination. Yes, I am asked to believe that broken down and aging agency somehow managed to get millions of ballots to and then from various state’s voting agencies in good time? Let’s just say that I have my doubts…

But, let’s say that somehow Biden, a candidate who typically garnered a few hundred at the few rallies he participated in versus the thousands who showed for Trump’s actually garnered 6 million more votes. And, somehow Biden managed to do that only in the key swing states…. Sort of like a magic act, it seemed to me. OK. Well and good. But, this will be the last election of that kind, ever. In the future, I can foresee the people of our Nation demanding in person voting, even if said voters have to wade through volcanic magma to do so.

I also foresee so interesting results, when the next Congressional election happens, in two years. Perhaps they will even be fair…

The thing is, I think the Democrats and Biden cheated. Pure and simple. In addition, I feel confident that Biden will investigated by the Senate on the payouts from the Ukraine, Russia and China in a quid pro quo scheme that involved his son, Hunter as well as other well known players. He will be found guilty and thrown out of office, leaving Harris to reluctantly set into his shoes. I could even foresee individuals, such as Pelosi, work to make that investigation happen. Sleepy old Biden had done his part and will soon to be cast aside for someone that is at least not demented. These are the kinds of scenarios that the elite in the Democratic organization truly excel at. They work behind closed doors, parse their public statements and tell everyone what to be afraid of and how they will fix it… for a price. These are the kind of people that are an anathema to the functioning of any free Republic.

Assuming that the election was, in fact, rigged. (It was)! The American public should be in for some ‘exciting times’ in short term. Biden… no, scratch that.. Harris will go, all in, on; opening the borders, defunding the police, freeing dangerous criminals, removing the Electoral College and taxing the living hell out of corporations…. Companies that will merely pass that along to the hapless public. You know, the public that Biden swore he would not tax…. Look at it this way, no more tax breaks people, with a 7% higher price on consumer goods. See, what I mean about parsing. Biden will not directly tax us, corporations will tax us. Sweet deal. Yes?

The only fly in the Left’s rampaging march towards Socialism, is the fact that the Republicans still have the Senate majority. A fact that is going to hurt Biden severely moving forward. I strongly feel that most true Americans (I’m discounting the eleven million undocumented aliens currently living here) really want just a few basic services from their Federal government; they want security at our Nation’s borders, vs a vie the military and they want some control over interstate commerce. That was all the Founding Fathers ever saw the role of government ever being in control of. In my opinion, the two Houses of Congress have since become morbidly obese and even cancerous at their core. The orgasmic party, for many of our paid servants goes on nonstop, with little to no thought about the people they were elected to serve.

Beef Merlot by Healthy Choice!

Whenever I decide to have a TV styled dinner from the frozen food isle, I like to go with such meals as those provided by Healthy Choice (a member brand of the Conagra company).

On the short list of things I like with the Beef Merlot meal is as follows;

Gluten free

180 calories

Low sodium at 575 mg

Lo Carbs at 24g

Great taste

Easy to prepare – see below

The above are all ‘hot button items’ for me, an aging man who is maintaining his weight via a good diet.

When I say easy to prepare, I’m talking 4 minutes in an 1100 watt microwave and you’re basically done.

On sale, this meal can be had for $3 which makes it a player in my book.

Thanksgiving… meh!

Traditionally, Thanksgiving Day, is an annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Looking back on 2020, I’m sorry, but I was having a bit of difficulty this year…

Beginning, and happening right off the bat in January, America was visited with an infectious virus from China. A virus that went on to wreck havoc for individual citizens and for businesses in America. No, I was not very thankful for that.

Then, there were the riots that spread all over America, over the alleged killing of a black man by the police. Upon investigation and after reviewing police and medical reports, he had a interesting cocktail of substances in his body that would easily and likely did kill him…. the officers knee notwithstanding. The guy was also apparently something of a crook. And, yet factions of the extreme Left aka Antifa and BLM took it upon themselves to destroy hundreds of businesses (many black owned btw) in what? The name of justice?? Again, I was rather pissed off and whatever love I had had for blacks had pretty much dissipated.

Then, there was the election in November. An election that saw tens of ‘mail-in’ ballots to wit there was a very high likelihood of shenanigans to be exploited. I feel quite certain that what should have been a cakewalk victory for Trump, was upended by cheating in key swing states. This bit of bullshit continued the divide that was growing in America, and which was spread by the Left leaning mass media.

So, as our country was headed into the day, November 26, we were all supposed to be thankful? Biden the lame as President, Governors like Cuomo and Newsom busy locking down entire states, An economy with a National debt of 27 trillion and no end in sight. A country almost at each other’s throats! You know what, I plan to hunker down and wait for 2025 when Trump is once against asked to take the reins of a smoldering wreck of a Republic. Assuming there is anything to salvage.

The world versus China on Covid-19!

Antarctica. A better place for viral research.

It is a fact that some Chinese scientists and the government of China showed an incredible amount of naivety when they elected to have, not one but two, level 4 bio-research labs in a very populous part of the Chinese mainland. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province in the People’s Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China at just over 11 million.

Adding insult to injury, the two labs were situated only a few miles from a wet market. A market that is packed with all sorts of live animals, birds, fish and even bats. (You know, the sort of bats that are known to carry the SARS virus, as in various strains of the coronavirus… such as the Covid-19 disease).

Way back when, I hung out with a group of American born Chinese, while I attended Southern Illinois University in the early 70’s. Frank Chin was my neighbor in a duplex I lived in off campus. I believe that he was pretty typical of just about everyone I’ve ever met of his race. Energetic, very intelligent and precise. Not the sort of individual or mentality that would be carelessly slinging viral particles around in a lab that was literally drowning in a sea of humanity…

At best, the release of the SARS-CoV-2 viral particles was insanely sloppy. At worst, it was fully intentional. Either way, I believe that there are grounds for the world courts to bring some form of charges for the deaths of over a million souls and counting. I’d really like to see that happen…Perhaps, just as it took that second plane crashing in to World Trade building 2, everyone might finally understand the potential for terrorist and societal de-stabilization that might be involved here.

The truth is, we all live in a very dangerous and a volatile world. At the very least, there might be developed mutual agreement among all the developed nations, that these sorts of labs need to be relocated in places where few humans or animals are present… Perhaps, somewhere in the antarctic, would be a good choice.

Just playing solitare!

http://forsythkid.blogspot.com/2017/12/just-playing-solitare.html

Sometimes good connections, in space, are not enough.

‘Teliometric spindles so fresh and so pure! At each infant’s birth, so strong and so sure! Each cell that does so divide… Keeps silent count, by which it must always abide. Time moves on, and we all will surely see, each person’s gene’s expressed from both of thee. Then, as it happens, some grow of older age, with teliometric shredding their end times prophetic sage.’ DanO

An old man eating soup…Vegetable beef soup

While sitting in a cafeteria at a care center, recently, I heard an old man state: ‘Good living is like a bowl of homemade vegetable beef soup. It’s a crazy mix of assorted veggies with some meat tossed in to make the whole thing work. It takes effort to prepare correctly, quite a while to cook, but in the end it’s an awesome experience.’

I told him that didn’t make much sense to me. He responded to my by asking, ‘Do you even like making soup?’ He asked with a concerned face.

I said no, not particularly. Too much work. Me, I like the canned stuff. You know, it’s quick and cheap. He smiled, took a spoonful close to his mouth, blew on it and then gulped it down. ‘There you go’, he said with a smile. You just made a Democratic Party case for me…. That which is good always comes at a cost to build. That which is cheap also comes at an even higher cost… over time’.

Strange times….

Look at this in Wisconsin! A day AFTER the election, Biden receives a dump of 143,379 votes at 3:42AM, when they learned he was losing badly. This is unbelievable!

Pretzel candle grilling (PCG). Will a new eating craze soon sweep the nation?

Forsyth MO. – In an otherwise completely nondescript small town located in southwestern Missouri, a revolutionary new grilling technique was born. The question now is just how popular the practice will become!

I was sitting at a local bar on an otherwise droll sort of cheerless day in January where the outside temperature was near freezing. Unfortunately, so was the bar due to a heating unit failure. So, it was, in an attempt maintain a modicum of body heat, that I had absconded with a small candle sitting on the bar that gave my chilled fingers some small amount of life-giving heat….

There I sat, sipping my brew-ski while watching flat screen TV at the far end of the bar. Suddenly, a somewhat strange looking man sitting next to me, roughly reached over and grabbed my candle. I was sure a fight was brewing when he did that and looked at him with a glare. Instead, the strange man smiled at me and proceeded to take a pretzel from a bag, slide it onto a straw and then held it over the flame. After a moment or two, he grabbed that morsel and ate it. A smile of satisfaction breaking out on his face.

‘I say there. sir.’ I intoned in a strident tone of voice that broke. ‘ But, what the heck are you doing with those pretzels and MY candle?’

He smiled back at me, and then handed me the straw and another pretzel and said, ‘Here. Give it a try.’

As I was a bit flummoxed and unsure, I decided to do as he had instructed….. Then, after a moment or two, I grabbed the now warm morsel and ate it. Too my great surprise, it was incredible, as there was a hint of pumpkin pie taste that must have been given off by the pumpkin pie scented paraffin.

After that moment, it was with wild abandon that we both began to grill pretzels while drinking, laughing and watching the fog given off each time we exhaled into the cold bar air….

And so, something new came out of the evening, as I intend to bring pretzels and candles with me on my next visit….