Chapter 325

Woke up at 7, a bit sore from the night in a sleeping bag on a thin camping mattress, but overall we slept well, it started raining gently but our tent didn’t let a single drop in.

The girlfriend prepared a big breakfast spread of oranges, hard-boiled eggs, cooked chicken breasts and tea, while I put everything away. Then we got in the car and when I put it in reverse, BANG! I bumped into a brick pedestal surrounding a tree, putting a big dent in our bumper and chipping the paint. I had to then promise I’d spend 48 hours not making fun of the Chinese for being bad drivers, and the girlfriend rose it to a full week, which is fair enough, that was quite the blunder.

We slowly made our way home, choosing the scenic route by the lake before we got on the highway. When we arrived near our city, we took a detour to a ghetto industrial suburb to stop for sesame noodles, and then got home. We unpacked the car, we had brought an awful lot of stuff just for one night, the joys of having a vehicle and not having to lug all our shit around.

I drove the car to the repair place, to ask them to remove the back seat. We’d been brainstorming and toying with the idea of turning our car into a tiny RV, and the first step would be to gut the back, before building a frame and a bed of sorts. I thought it would complicated, but the guy just got a ratchet wrench and showed me how to do it. So then I drove to a hardware store, the size of a cupboard, and the grumpy lady there didn’t have the 14-mm socket I needed. I drove to a bigger store, and got it.

I removed the back seat and seat belts, and put it all in storage. Then I prepared a chicken by gutting it, stuffing the cavity with onions and butter, seasoning it, and putting it in the oven. I headed to the gym and did a chest workout, which is always the most pleasant to do. I listened to Suffocation’s new live album, and it was bittersweet. On one hand, I’m a die-hard Suffoc’ fan with a tattoo to prove it, their live shows are superb and I could listen to their early material endlessly, but I’m also wondering what’s the point. Almost all the songs are from 25+ years ago and have been a mainstay of their live sets ever since they came out, and yeah, the sound quality is spotless, but I much prefer the energy and chemistry of the Live in Quebec City album from 2005.

I got home, made a salad to go with the roast chicken, and the meal was fantastic. We ate while watching Foundation, the first episode was quite good but then they went way, way off-script from the Isaac Asimov novels. Let’s see how it pans out, whether it retains a bit of depth or becomes a cliché-fest. Then I read the news before bed, Kyle Rittenhouse got cleared of all charges and of course plenty of wokels and leftoids are seething. Ah well. I'd say overall it was pretty clear that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense and that the legitimacy (or complete lack thereof) of the BLM and commie rioters is irrelevant there, but it's just weird as hell how a minor was there with a gun in the first place, if I may state my opinion on the whole thing. When I was 17, I was sneaking out to drink beer in the park, not to go to a fiery but mostly peaceful riot with a rifle.

A friend went on Facebook and angrily typed that it’s proof that the jury has been brainwashed by Fox News. But if you wanna talk about brainwashing, biases and horrible fallacies, that shit comes from both sides. He was labeled as a white supremacist (a pretty juicy accusation with zero basis to it), and I particularly liked how he was called antisemitic (because one of the guys he shot was a jew, something he of course couldn't have known beforehand) yet it was constantly stated by left-wing memes and journalists that the fact that all three guys he shot turned out to be convicted criminal scumbags should be ignored, because he had no way to know. I love a good ol' contradiction.

Anyway, plenty has been said about the topic, by people smarter and having more free time than me so I’ll leave it at that. #ClownWorld.