Green Birds Gangrened

Good afternoon, Stroock's Books. The temp was nine degrees out there this morning. Nine degrees. 

We are, for no reason whatsoever, worried about our heating system. A tech looked at it a couple of weeks ago. The system blows hot air, gets on temperature and shuts down. What's the effing problem [the effing problem is that you have diagnosed anxiety issues and refuse to deal wit them, knobhead-Ed]?

Related and baaaaah! That Eagles loss in overtime last night left us with a bad, bitter taste in our mouth. Four ints will do that to one. We hate getting that worked up over things that just don't matter. For about 5 minutes we wanted to douse ourselves in gasoline, strike a match, and jump out a window. [I thought you were a Giants fan-Ed]. Anyway, that's three in a row for the Eagles. Here we go again [We?-Ed]. 

....What is that knocking sound coming from the roof? A critter get in the attic?... A crow picking at something on the roof, maybe the gutter... It's gone now. 

Okay...31 days, or one month, without a cigar, and without cigars on our mind very much. Given the above noted temperature, we'll keep abstaining. 

Breitbart reports: 'White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles revealed that President Donald Trump will get out and “campaign like it’s 2024 again” for the 2026 midterm elections.' Good. Trump campaigned like mad in 2018 and won the senate and key governorships like Florida and Georgia. The 2018 midterm is badly misunderstood. House, senate, governorships. The GOP won two of three, thanks to Trump.

Chronicles Magazine...chronicles(!) the demise of MTV which will soon go off air. Which is fine. MTV's been crap, for what, 20 years? At least. 'For the first half of its existence, MTV felt genuinely refreshing: It was the first channel dedicated to pumping out music videos 24 hours a day,' says author Noel Yaxley. The Stroock's got cable in 1982, and MTV was the first thing we remember watching. Actually, the music was horrible. Spandau Ballet, Peter Schilling*...okay, Stray Cats was good. MTV sustained us through the late 80s and into the 90s. Singled Out (1995) was the last thing on MTV we cared about**, and we had more or less bailed on the network by 1998. 

Related...Cynical Publius asks if the 80s/90s were a Golden Age and concludes yes, yes they were. We must admit Cynical Publius makes a strong case. Do click over. 

We ourselves like nostalgia on the 20, that is 20 years after. Hence our periodic forays back to 2005 this year. No novel in print, or even finished, and a trickle of magazine articles coming out. Actually, we won't have a magazine article in print between December 2004 and August 2006, when we had the cover of Strategy and Tactics issue #238. We've written about our massive Duke of Marlborough article before. The wait was agony. Other than that, we were a more or less permanent sub at Bernards High.

On Substack, an Ulsterman is telling us how bad Israel is. Do we start trolling him? 'That's just what your mom said to Gerry Adams last night.'

DOGE Report: Chapter two of the Derry battle looks fine. We found a few more details to put in the book. Heavy drinking was expected of the average RUC man. We're not talking about a couple of afterwork pints, neither. One or two mentions will take care of that. Just a nod, sometimes, is all that's needed. Chapter three down. Is it perfect? No. Is it good enough? Aye.

*Click on the Peter Schilling link. One can already see the high-concept schlock (slop?) that will eventually make music videos unwatchable. 

**We recall watching a couple of weird late-night shows during the summer of 1997. Oddville?