perfidy

Twelve years ago today, I made a good decision. I wasn't sure that it was a good decision at the time. But that was only because most of the decisions I'd made as a nominal adult had been, on the whole, tragically unwise. This one, though, was wise, and by far the best choice I've made.

A dozen years of marriage was incomprehensible to the younger me. It has been more than I hoped, but harder too. I have more joy in one day of my life now than I did in weeks or years before. Not necessarily more fun. But more joy.

Life is good. My wife is the biggest reason why.

[wik]: Our anniversary is on Valentine's day by accident, not some sort of sappy design. And while I admit that not being able to forget my anniversary is a plus, it's annoying to hear people go, "aaww" when they find out.

Sure you would. And its only one, anyhow; me, Kasey and baby Anneliese:

The internet movie firearms database is hours of fun. This page I particularly enjoyed.

Rather literally:

[wik] another dead youtube link, alas.

At 2:07 this morning, #3 daughter came into the world, delivered by me.  Granted my wife did most of the work, but I didn't drop the baby, so we'll call that a win.

The midwife arrived about a half hour after the baby, and pronounced everything good.  Funny, through the years I've had a fair bit of emergency training, but baby delivery was really the last thing I expected to have to deal with.

A few notes:

• There are much worse ways to waste time than Goblin War Machine.  The quadcycle main thing, safety hazard wheel things, extra-springy spring things and a quick shooty thing are a good combo.  My son is very frustrated that his biggest king distance is only 75 feet, while I've gotten 108.

• Making fun of the wife not having a baby seems to have sped things up.  I should have thought of that sooner.

[wik] A decade later, I am still pissed that this game died along with Flash.

Mrs. Buckethead is stubbornly refusing to give birth.  This is frustrating, because I arranged for a week off from work to commence when the baby arrives.  I bought a copy of Civ V so I'd be ready.  We're already three days past the due date, now, and I'm getting impatient.

An update to my earlier smoking post - Smoking, it's all good. I went into the local smoke shop to get some American Spirit smokes; explaining that for a while now, my throat has been getting raw from smoking. The smoking nut explained that it was probably the result of the new FSC cigarettes - "Fire Safe Cigarettes," which came into being early last year loaded with an additive that supposedly helps the cigarette extinguish itself if left unattended.

It seems that lots of people have complained about the additives. And my sore throats started pretty much from when the change was made. So, the smoking nut recommended the roll your own path, because the FSC has not extended to hand-rolled papers.

This was just before Christmas, and since then I've been almost entirely smoking hand-rolled smokes. I've seen several benefits:

• My throat feels about a thousand times better.
• I smoke about half as many hand-rolled as regular smokes.  Not because  of the difficulty of making them or anything like that, I just smoke less.
• I've learned a new skill.  A very minor skill, but hey.
• I pay a lot less.

When I first went in, almost exactly a month ago, I bought a variety pack of pouches of tobacco, a box of 200 filter cigarette tubes, and a clever tobaccy-packing thingy.  All that cost about $30.  So I bought a zippo lighter and fluid to bring it up to the cost of a carton of cowboy killers.  (Strangely, in the middle of rural Virginia, one of the five zippos they had in stock had Chief Wahoo on it.  So I had to get it.)  All that lasted until after New Years', when I bought some more tobacco, in bigger more cost-effective tins and another box of tubes.  In the time that I normally would have smoked at least three cartons - $120 - I've spent $100, of which $25 was lighter and tobaccopackythingy and won't have to be bought again; and I still have half a pound of tobacco and almost a full box of tubes left, which should last me another couple weeks at least.

So, in recurring costs, we have $75 for a month and a half, or more, of smoking v. $225 for the five cartons of regular Marlboros I'd have smoked over the same period.  So, I have cut my smoking costs by two thirds and it could go lower if I buy the tobacco in even larger quantities.

Not bad.

A couple fun what if links:

• Hawaiian Libertarian points to an article about how life might be different if the Fed had never existed. I think the the most important item is that the present-day dollar might not be worth 4.5 cents compared to the 1913 dollar. We could get back there, though, if we adopted the Buckethead currency plan.

• Radley Balko aims us in the direction of a list of Eight Crazy Constitutional Scenarios. My favorites:

  5. Two House Members Could Stage a Coup 

  We’ve all seen those late-night C-Span telecasts of the near-empty House chamber where one member is in the chair and the other is on the floor speaking to an empty chamber. Suppose word came during this “session” of the House that the president and vice president had been simultaneously killed. What’s to stop the House member on the floor from moving that he (or theh guy in the chair) be elected speaker of the House and the member in the chair saying, “Without objection, it is so ordered.” I’m not saying this would hold up in court, but technically the new “speaker” would then become president by virtue of presidential succession law. It’s a legal House session unless there’s another member present who suggests the absence of a quorum.

  6. Congress Could Allow the President to be Recalled

  There’s no way short of impeachment to remove a sitting president, right? Wrong. The 25th amendment creates a huge loophole. In order to provide for cases of presidential disability, the amendment allows a majority of the cabinet to declare the president disabled, subject to a congressional override if the president insists he’s fine. But the amendment also permits “such other body as Congress may by law provide” to issue a disability finding. The amendment’s sponsors no doubt intended this to mean a panel of physicians. But they didn’t say that. So what’s to stop Congress from declaring the American public as a whole that “other body” and empowering a majority of them to decide, at any time, the president is unable to discharge his duties? Voila, a backdoor recall provision! (Of course, this would just elevate the vice president to acting president, but still.)

I think we'll see something along these lines in our lifetime.