FYI: My power was out again yesterday.

Lights went out just after 5PM and came on again around 7PM, so it wasn't the longest outage, it just came at a bad time on one of the hottest days of the year. And, of course, it was the second outage in eight days.

What caused it? No idea. I drove around the neighborhood and saw no sign. Did someone cut down a tree? Georgia Power's notification said it was caused by "storm damage." On a cloudless, sunny day. With no wind. Sure, okay. Maybe lingering from last week, I guess.

It's hard to pretend we aren't living in end times when I'm starting to master the art of kerosene lamp maintenance.

UPDATE 4:40PM: My power is out again today!

Two days in a row, three outages in nine days. And counting. At least this time a thunderstorm really did pass through, so now's the time for yesterday's excuse, (increasingly misnamed) Georgia Power.

If the housing market wasn't so fucked up, we'd start looking for a new house. I'm so mad, I'm ready to start voting for some Democratic Socialists!

UPDATE 7:10PM: Estimated time of restoration is 9PM. I just took the boys for a walk around the neighborhood (better than sitting in my 80° house, I figured) and there are limbs down everywhere. So you get a pass this time, Georgia Power. There's nothing you can do against Mother Nature (except maybe proactively cut down more limbs or bury power lines or cut back on your fossil fuel plants). Nothing.

UPDATE 2:56AM: Power! (Just thought you'd like some closure.)

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I know they tell me I shouldn't be worried about invasive Joro spiders here in Georgia, but is no one else concerned that they spin one of the the strongest webs in the world and multiple Joro spiders hang out in the same web? Foreign gangs with nets hanging around just outside my garage? Between this and the rise of AI, I'm definitely not enjoying living in the future as much as I thought I would.

UPDATE: The morning after I posted this, I opened the back door to discover that a Joro spider had spun a giant web covering the doorway. He was just waiting for me to step out.... Is it still called paranoia if they really are out to get you?

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FYI: My power is out again.

Some rough weather came through the neighborhood yesterday afternoon. About 15 miles up the road, several trees and some traffic lights were downed. We thought we got through unscathed,, but no sooner had the sun gone down then the power went out. As I type this on my phone at midnight, it's been out for three hours. Georgia Power tells me a tree fell on our lines. Current estimated time of restoration is four hours from now.

This is the second extended outage this summer. It happened back on June during the day. At least at night I don't miss the air conditioning.

What's so wrong with my neighborhood that this sort of extended blackout happens at least twice a year? Isn't there a long term solution to this? I bet data centers don't have this problem.

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The hiccup in today's voting was that I had to do it twice. The first time I went all the way through the very long ballot for 31 local and state positions and studiously reviewed my choices only to have the system tell me it could not print my ballot, that I should remove my card and speak to an election officer. I did as instructed. The officer consulted another officer and together they decided I should just try again from the beginning. I cannot tell a lie: I selected a lot fewer boxes the second time through. Sorry, nonpartisan candidates for Judge - Superior Court Coweta Judicial Circuit (To Succeed C. Jephson Bendinger).

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Seeing that this blog doubles as my personal diary, I feel I need to make note of the passing of Friend Michael, killed too young by cancer.

Rummaging around my archives for a pic of Mike to commemorate the sad occasion, I found this, taken (probably by James) in the parking lot of Medieval Times in Lawrenceville in June 2013.

Talking comic books and acting like big dorks. Yeah, I think pretty accurately encapsulates our three decade friendship.

Thanks for the good times, Mike.

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The only downside to watching over two hundred hours of Olympic coverage in recent weeks is the constant bombardment of advertisements for the latest entry in the Georgia governor race, Rick Jackson. Apparently, he's a billionaire, and I only know that because A) he brags about it in his ads, and B) he bought ads in seemingly every possible commercial break. From someone who likes to remind us that he's a self-made billionaire, that doesn't seem like a very effective use of money.

The story of his by-his-bootstraps, up-from-foster-care wealth isn't the only thing I've learned from his commercials. He's also really into cutting taxes. A billionaire who doesn't want to pay taxes? How novel. I wonder if neither of us pays, which one comes out ahead?

To be fair, it seems everyone in the race wants to cut my taxes. Getting rid of income tax is a hot topic in Georgia politics right now. I say "right now," but it's a fact of life that no one ever wants to pay taxes. And, as an added bonus, if the state government doesn't have any money, then they don't have to worry that some of that money might be spent on people who "want to sit on your butt, binge watch Netflix, and scarf down Cheetos," to quote the Rick Jackson on my television. What kind of worthless scum likes watching movies and eating delicious snacks? Fuck those losers!

It would be disingenuous to call Rick Jackson an outsider in Georgia politics. He has long been a prominent (and deep-pocketed) donor to state and national Republicans. His late entry into this election indicates he doesn't think he's getting his money's worth from the current candidates. Though I'm no fan of his recent vow to become "Trump's favorite governor," I have read enough about Jackson to suspect he's probably a better human being than his vainglorious attempt to buy an election would indicate. It's nice to think that there are very fine people on both sides.

Therefore, I assume Jackson would be pleased to hear that many, many, many repeated viewings of his life story have already left an impact on my life. I'm so sick of his commercials that I have nicknamed the mute button on my remote the "Rick Jackson button."

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Since I usually post about Georgia home football games, I suppose I should mention that the final tickets in my annual season package were for today's home finale against the 1-9 Charlotte 49ers. I did not go. I gave the tickets to the daughter of a high-school friend who went to Georgia Tech (ha-ha!), which means I watched from the comfort of my couch as freshman running back Bo Walker's two-touchdown debut paved the way to a 35-3 route. Good for Bo. I hope he makes a lot of other people's money playing ball.

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Earlier in the week, Kirby Smart was goaded by the press into essentially saying that UGA football fans lacked greatness for leaving last week's Marshal blowout by the fourth quarter.

"I think people should love to be at a Georgia home game because there's only so many of them. It's limited opportunities."

He has a point. How dare we not sit in the sun for three hours to watch our third string players scrimmage against an inferior opponent to extend a 31-game home winning streak? The coaches do it every day. Never mind that they're paid to do it whereas UGA fans are charged $80 per ticket for the opportunity. Yeah, fuck us.

And then today, five hours before kickoff, because of the weatherman's prediction of a 66% chance of thunderstorms before the end of the game, Georgia moved up their game against Austin Peay, an FCS school UGA was beating so badly in 2018 that they decided to not even play the last 5 minutes. So even the die-hard Georgia fans had a hard time making the kickoff of a "game" that history tells us won't even go the distance. How dare we? I mean, I was never intending to travel 4 hours to attend this beatdown, so I'm part of the problem, but man, our fans (me included) are the worst!

The good news is that starting next year, SEC is mandating that teams play an additional SEC opponent for a total of 9 of 12 games. Georgia will certainly keep playing Tech (of the ACC), meaning there will be no more than two cupcakes a year for the foreseeable future. That certainly can't hurt fan enthusiasm and attendence, which is great. We can use all the help we can get because as Coach Smart will tell you, we're shitty.

UPDATE: As I type this, the lightning "weather delay" that was declared at halftime has now started its second hour. I'm sure Kirby will have some choice words for those fans who will choose to go home as opposed to continuing to wait out (undefeated) Mother Nature. Quiters.

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Back in May, Google drove through my neighborhood to update their Street View (for the first time since March 2022). Right now this is what you get if you Google my house:

The good news is that Google is very concerned about my privacy. Per their Google-Contributed Street View Imagery Policy (google.com/streetview/policy/):

We have developed cutting-edge face and license plate blurring technology that is designed to blur identifiable faces and license plates within Google-contributed imagery in Street View.

That's nice. But sometimes it isn't enough to blur just a face.

"I see you've noticed the ears. They're actually easy to explain...."

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FYI: My power is out. Again. Estimated time of restoration is 3 hours. No one can blame a tornado today. Apparently, the power can't even stay on through some light rain anymore.

UPDATE: It's back on! And in just a shade under two hours. They're getting faster.

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