I named him Jeff.

In all likelihood you won't get any posts this weekend till later in the evening. So I'm going to give you this post as filler. It's a ridiculous post - but hey, at least it won't be about the economy and how the world is coming to an end.

A few years back Mr S. and I got one of those preying mantis pods from the local garden store. We had intended to place it in the garden. At some some we arrived at the idea we'd hatch the sack inside.

I can't remember if I thought they'd have a better chance if they were a little bigger before we put them out. Or I just wanted to see the whole hatching thing. At any rate - we bought an old cheap fish tank and put the sack in. The pod eventually hatched and we were presented with all these manti. At some point we realized we needed to feed them, and even wound up driving to Concord to buy crickets because none were sold locally. I know.. entering crazy town. I swear to you - I'm sane. Curious. But sane.

Anyway. The end result was complete amazement and how the species could continue to exist at all. Most of them died because they couldn't even escape from their own skin. The molting process doesn't seem to suit them well. In the end we had one mantis. Frankly I don't remember what we did with him. I think we might have released him.

Fast forward to about a month ago. The Mr. and I were coming home and discovered a mantis at the front door. So I scooped him up. I told Mr S. that he wouldn't survive his first molt. And anyway - I didn't think these things were native here. Like that gave me complete license to keep him captive. The only reason he was here was probably the result of people like me who had bought pods from the local garden store. The Mr. was so not happy, because I'd already named him. He started out in a small Styrofoam cup. Because, he was allegedly "temporary".

Jeff did survive his first molt. And second. And third.

I told Mr S. that I would release him as soon as he molted his wings. That way he could fly to where ever a mate was. Besides - he probably wouldn't have survived this long outdoors anyway.

So, it's been hanging out in a big Styrofoam takeaway soup bowl.

The thing is - he seems to be oddly happy with his environment. And why wouldn't he be? Food comes to him.

For a couple of weeks now we've been leaving the lid off, and he pretty much just hangs out around his soup cup. It knows he has wings (if he is a "he"), because he freaked out at his shadow last night and made a huge display. But, he seems quite acclimated to us. Which sounds weird to say. I know insects really don't have any capacity for that. I've even had him at the computer a few times while I was working, and he doesn't attempt to get away at all. He just hangs out. He could fly anywhere he wanted.

A couple of days ago we found a couple of other matis's - so maybe they are native, but Jeff is like a thoroughbred compared to them. He's all giant and and green. And I've named him. So... there's that.

Did you know these things can live 18 months?

This is what the bad economy has done to me. Reduced to playing with insects. But, hey - everyone else is playing with yo-yos again. I saw a guy just tonight hanging out in a parking lot by himself yo-yo'ing. Pretty soon it will just be playing with sticks and rocks.

Small - but something.

Did you know mantis's can make this loud scraping noise?

Me neither!

I suppose it's something along the lines of what a cricket does, but on a much grander scale. Because Jeff started doing this last night, and freaked the bunnies completely out. They started stamping and wouldn't settle down until we moved him into another room and closed the door. The bunnies are pretty good bugler alarms. It was a sound they'd never heard before, and it made them super unhappy.

We also suspect Jeff is a girl now. If you were curious or anything.

More interesting than any insect had a right to be. The rise and fall of Jeff the mantid.

We woke up on Sunday and found that Jeff had died. We were surprised she lived as long as she did. Still, it was somewhat of a bummer. Which proves you can get attached to anything. Truthfully she turned out to be a really clean pet. Although the last couple of weeks she did start to take on a fishy tone. We were trying to resolve how we'd handle that.

We were always fascinated about how well she adjusted to being handled. She had no fear of us, and in the end seemed like she owned us rather than us owning her. Without putting to many human characteristics on her - she seemed to like the human interaction. Which I think mostly amounted to enjoying body heat. Even though they are cold blooded, she often sought places that were warmer. Computer monitors. People. The fireplace.

This picture was from the first escape. You can see how big and fat she was. We kept the lid on her a lot more after that. It took us a while to find her.



She never flew, and the only time she'd use her wings was to threaten. Which always made this amazingly loud scraping sound. And the only time she seemed inclined to leave her cup was when it was time to lay an egg sack. She laid her last one a couple of days before she died. 3 and a half in total. Though only one is fertilized.

Even then, she wouldn't fly anywhere. Opting instead to just fall off the table. On Friday she did this and took off. We let her, because she'd been cooped up for a while. This is where she encountered Saffron and threatened her. Which was pretty funny.

It was totally unexpected that there could be any attempt to domesticate these things. But, she seemed content to just hang out on her Styrofoam cup. Often unattended. When you'd walk into the room, she'd swing her head around and just watch you.



I think the best hope is getting them when they are an inch of so in size. Before they get their wings and become adults. Feeding her moths seemed to give us the biggest bang for the insect food buck. In summer that was much easier.

Anyway.

The End.

Jeff Lewis Color.

I don't remember exactly when I started watching Flipping Out. I think I was full tilt into my crapshack. I loved the show immediately. It's one thing to remodel a kitchen or bathroom. But gutting a house is a pain (hold on - let me center myself) of epic proportions. You get to be annoyed by every single segment of the contracting sector. And the thing about contractors? Every single one of them will tell you what you've done is wrong.

You could hire the best, and the next one you bring in will tell you that guy didn't do something right. Code enforcement could have done the job! And I can assure you - every single contractor you parade in will tell you it's wrong. And they all have these enormous personalities. Some try to start living at your house. Seriously.

I related to the show right away, because managing contractors is like herding cats. It will make you lose your mind.

I didn't even know he was going to be at the Dwell event. Mr S. saw these paint cans with Jeff Lewis Color on them, and we thought that was funny enough. Then we saw Zoila. The whole crew was there. Even Gage.

So much weirdness.

One thing is certain - you never know what you are going to get here at the snarkolepsy blog. To be honest, even I don't know, as most of this stuff is completely unplanned. You will have to excuse my crappy pictures. I didn't expect this to happen, and then I felt kinda creepy taking photos. I don't know why.



So anyway - I guess Jeff is a girl. And I guess I sort of mated her last night!?!



It was about the freakiest thing ever. I wasn't even completely sure of their sexes. Only what the Internet told me. And then because he was so much smaller than her(Jeff. No I'm not changing it's name) I thought he was food.

She took his head off and I thought that was the end of that. I knew they mated when that happened, but I thought they needed to be coupled at the time.

Um... turns out not. She eats his head, and his body finds a life of its own and actually sort of walks around on its own to find um.. the sweet spot? I don't know what to call it.

Ridiculously, since I didn't expect this insect to mate in complete captivity, I may now be stuck with an egg sack I have to coddle for a few months. I'm telling you, you can't make this crap up.

Right on queue.

I wrote this article a couple of days ago and didn't publish it because it's hard to convince anyone that the Fed isn't causing all the inflation we see. Since we are now printing a sub 1% growth I'm going to say I still believe a lot of the inflation being seen outside of housing is drought related and is in fact temporary. Painful, but temporary. I got a robocall from the water company this morning about water restrictions. They've never called before.

The numerous articles I've read in the past couple of days that call for interest rates to be raised only reinforced my belief. Good luck with all of that. Mortgage application volume was down 1.2% last week when interest rates were at their lowest in more than 6 months. And it's the "busy spring buying season". Don't believe me though - believe this chart of bank earning for the first quarter.

You don't seriously think we print a sub 1% growth number and the market continues to hit all time highs. Do you?

~

This post is brought to you by Jeff Cox at CNBC who writes: "Deflation 'greatest hoax' as prices keep rising." where he goes on to talk about the price of everything rising most especially food.

For the record I have been more in the deflation camp for pretty much the whole recession. There have been many periods where I thought inflation would eventually win out. I ultimately think inflation always wins. I've never lived through another period of deflation like we had in the Great Recession and when I go through the Misery Index inflation has been dominate at least 90% of the time they have been keeping records. Inflation is the norm. Deflation is a very abnormal occurrence according to history.

Having said that - just because you print money, doesn't mean people will spend it. People and businesses have all sort of reasons for hoarding money. Which is essentially why inflation has been a problem to take hold. Banks had new capitol holding requirements, so they swept up a lot of cash and just parked it. Businesses in many cases remember when the banks stopped lending to anyone - and that leaves a BIG mark. Of course they are going to keep a larger cash cushion now. Before the recession we didn't even know banks could stop lending. You just always thought "if I have good credit and make money - there is a good chance I will get a loan. Not a guarantee - but you have a good chance. After the recession we know that not to be true.

Why do I bring this up now? Because in March I wrote an article titled "This is going to make inflation look way worse than it is.", where I talk about how the drought is going to make people freak out about hyperinflation. This is causing all sorts of pundits like Jeff Cox at CNBC to say the Fed will need to raise rates to combat this out of control inflation. The thing is....the drought induced inflation is not caused by money printing. It's caused by a drought. And people don't understand how this trickles out through the economy. There is nothing the Fed can do about this particular type of inflation.

Nothing in the economy indicates things are getting strong enough to warrant a rate increase. So says interest rates. If things were that great, why is it becoming easier and easier to find loans under 4%? YOY home sales are actually down. Retail earning are a mess. Rental rates have topped a little while ago, and many markets are now showing price declines for homes. But when you pop into the store and spend 5 bucks on 4 limes as I did a couple of weeks ago it freaks people out. Still, as far as I know - the Fed can't control the weather.

Inflation wins for now. But not for long. I'm sticking with my deflation call (hopefully for the last time) until the end of the year.

Moving ahead.

Yesterday - my soul was as as black as the tar I had to rip out and have reinstalled in my bathroom. I was starting to become superstitious about my house. Which is so totally unlike me. But, for a minute I was starting to think Jeff Lewis was looking sane.

You remember my house is a dead people house. Right? I was starting to think I might need an exorcism to extricate the bad mojo, and get my project moving.

Fixing houses apparently can make you the most bi-polar freak on the planet. Take one step out of your comfort zone, and things go badly quickly. Which is where I've been at for the past two weeks.

It all started with this master bathroom. The one that was up on jacks you ask? Why yes.. that one. I knew the bathroom was f-ed. What I didn't know was - the previous owners had pulled out some support beams.





From the first inspection of the house on - I was under the impression the bathroom was up on jacks due to all the dry-rot. Until alpha contractor arrived and told me my house was not going to pass inspection if I didn't fix it. Oh yeah - it isn't lost on me that it wasn't flagged on my inspection, but you can guarantee that some other inspector will flag it just to fuck up my day. In this market.. you can't take chances like that.

Anyway.. I get through that bit of madness, and I'm ready to put in the waterproof barrier for the walk in.



The previous owners had already removed the tub - so I figured having a walk-in would be somewhat unique for the neighborhood. My roofer told me he had done tar burn downs on like 20 of these types of showers. This is a process of burning tar sheets to weld them together to form a waterproof liner.

Normally you have a guy with a tar bucket come in - but in California, tar isn't really used as much anymore. When you see roofs being put on, they don't pull a big flaming tar melting machine around with them. So I figured - times change. Building codes change, and this is the new modern way they do these things.

Nope! Alpha contractor comes in, and has a fit. It isn't sloped right. Water is going to collect in the corners. At any rate..I need to call my guy to have him rip it out. Which he does - but my tile guy can't do his work. Which sets him back several days. And, oh by the way - he is coming from Sacramento. More than two hours away. So he drove out that day for no good fucking reason.

Anyway - today I had a roofer out. Who has done the job to alpha contractors satisfaction. It's my tile guys' roofer. Who also came from Sacramento. Even though I had to pay his gas both ways - it cost me 400 bucks less than anyone I could get locally. I just hate having guys travel 4 hours to do a one hour job.



So, the moral of the story is - I now know the correct way to do one of those walk in showers, but I would rather lay down in a hot bed of tar before I feel like doing another one.

Everything is going to be okay.

I think.

Yesterday was pretty much a meltdown. It was the first day I'd felt I'd lost control of my project. My kitchen guy is now at the house helping me with some stuff while we are waiting for the kitchen to arrive. He is a really good guy. A bit of a control freak - but he does amazing work.

From here on out.... lets just call him the alpha contractor.

Oh yeah. I've come to realise you can tell who the alpha contractor is - by who has the most ginormous truck. Honestly. I know what the hierarchy of the contractor in my house by the size of his truck. You notice lawn guys normally drive around in somewhat small trucks. They are lower on the contractor hierarchy.

So anyway.. back to the alpha contractor. Lets just say - he and I have a struggle of wills occasionally. Well.. pretty often. Since he is the alpha contractor, and really the professional - he tends to want to do things his way. But unlike a lot of people who turn houses - we've been working on houses for a long time. We definitely don't do things as quickly as someone does that job 24/7 - but we aren't dumb asses either.

So it took me about an hour yesterday to convince him that our pocket doors wouldn't suck. He hates them because they always tend to jam up over time. Which is true. Plus, the doors are not hollow core, and therefore heavy and more prone to jam up over time. After Mr S. hunted down some super heavy duty hardware to make sure that doesn't happen - he was fine. But it was a struggle.

I know I should be happy he doesn't just say okay to everything I want.. and I am. I just want some happy mediums some day. I know.. greeeeedy!

Which brings me to my other revelation. When I started this whole thing I was absolutely convinced I wasn't going to be anything like Jeff Lewis from Flipping Out. I felt I was neurotic. Just not that neurotic. But - I totally get it now. Contractors drive you to insanity. You really have to walk around with a tape measure and a level making sure they are doing everything correctly. It isn't like I haven't often been driven crazy by contractors, but with such a short project time frame - they can really grind you down to the nubbins.

In other news - I made it through the DMV. It was mostly fine. The interesting thing is, that Mr S's licence expires in July. So, we thought we would both renew at the same time.

Apparently if you renew early - you have to take the test. Which would have been fine if he had known that before hand. He would have just done a once through refresher read while we were waiting. But - if he renews 60 days before his licence expires, he can sail right through without the test. I don't really understand the logic of that. Its like they penalize you for being proactive. Whatever.

Whew.

Remember a few weeks ago I chopped down my neighbors hedge on their property literally in the time in between the old neighbors moving out and the new neighbor moving in. It's the most Jeff Lewis thing I ever done. But what was I going to do? Ask the new neighbors to cut the hedge right after they move in? That sucks. Welcome to the neighborhood - you need to spend a couple hundred bucks cutting that hedge back. Nice to meet you!

Everything had been quiet until yesterday when I saw them over the fence taking pictures of my yard and the hedge. It was obvious that they had noticed someone had chopped it down. I sort of panicked because I thought we would hear about it right away or never. They moved in two weeks ago.

I'm like  shit - what am I going to say? Mr S. wanted to ignore it and deny it. I decided I would act confused and say the old neighbors trimmed it every year.  I mean they did trim it last year,  but they always made it uncomfortable because I always had to ask. The ultimate goal was to make them aware in needs to be trimmed without me having to ask.

Anyway. I'm out in the front yard and they walk up to me. My head starts running a million miles a minute because I'm still not sure what I'm going to say. Here we go I guess I say to myself. We shake hands and introduce each other. They tell me they want to chop down another large tree in their yard that doesn't bother me as much because it doesn't get so close to my house. I'm like yeah - it's your property - you can do whatever you want with it - but can we talk about this hedge? It grows 10 feet in every direction. To my relief instead of digging in their heels and not wanting to trim it, they said they were are already talking about thinning it out.

That thing is seriously 20 feet deep. Their yard would be so much bigger. But they came to this decision on their very own. And it's such a relief. The way Californians feel about trees is a little crazy. You'd think they were killing babies when they trimmed a tree back.

Anyway- Best neighbor day ever.

So, that's how they survive!

Here at the Snarkolepsy blog, we've had a fascination for mantids for years. It started a handful of years ago when I bought an egg sac and decided that I was going to hatch offspring in a fish tank to improve the odds of getting more of them to live.

Yeah, not so much.

Turns out Mantids are as dumb as Pandas when it comes to reproduction, and I gave up on that after one season. Most of them don't survive the molting process. So many die in the molting process in fact, I wasn't sure how this insect wasn't extinct.

Then a few years ago I started seeing them pop up in the wild. Which was odd. I don't know most things about mantids, but I didn't think I had a climate for them. Mostly grassland and such. But the past few years I've been seeing them every year. I'm guessing the constant influx of egg sacs have tipped the balance. I mean, even if you get just one or two to live, it's a numbers game. You can buy an unlimited number of those sacks at OSH.

Anyway, this guy almost lost his home this morning. I was going to take a stick and ferret out all that crap I thought the spiders were causing. And because I'm short I almost didn't see him. But.. hey - at least I know the spiders and matids are cooperating.

I decided against bring him inside and naming it Jeff like I did those other years. I'm just too tired. Thanks PMB. Here, here, and here.

P.S. I've turned back on word verification because I have some spammers who've subbed to my rss. If it becomes too bothersome, just email me.

This is what caused the bank runs.

The "Bank Walk" continues. Bank deposits now down 4.1%.

This is your sibling, your neighbor, people with money sitting in a bank account, each at their own pace deciding they're sick of earning 0%. Each day, someone new, moving their money out of 0% and into 4% T-Bills. pic.twitter.com/OGbS1FHqU0

— Jeff Weniger (@JeffWeniger) April 3, 2023

I have to admit, I didn't really think very deeply about the rising interest rates in regards to capital flight. As everyone who reads this blog knows, I focus on housing because housing touches everyone. Most people don't have enough money to care about savings interest. And it's been so long time since interest rates were this high. Most of us have never gotten a chance on the good side of  the interest rate hike train. 

I haven't really moved any money yet because I have a good credit union paying me 3.10 in interest. I have been saving for land the entire pandemic and am earning some pretty decent interest there.. 

With interest rates this high, people will be motivated to move. Big banks pay nothing in interest. So people are moving their funds to money markets. Which honestly I hadn't heard about since i was a kid. But all of us are waking up it it now. 

A few months ago Mr S. told me that when he was a kid he thought all you had to do was make a million bucks. Then you could live off the interest.

Trumps press conferences are the BEST. He could spend the rest of his Presidency in a full out Roast Battle with the media and some of us would LOVE it.

Even Jeff Ross was like - Trump roast battled his way into the White House. And it's true.

Just write.

Last night I was telling Mr S. I had the most incredible writers block ever. Well, why not write about Jeff - He said. Or the crappy time we had getting new cell phones.

Mr S. - I have plenty of things to write about - I just can't get them out. Snarkolepsy, He says - sometimes the only way to cure writers block, is to write.

I think one of my problems is that once people start disappearing I start getting agitated. It really makes me panicky.

The recession is really a little like walking out onto a frozen lake on a sunny day. You know at some point you are going to fall through. And, no matter how well you pick your steps - you still feel like you may never make it to the other side. Each day you make it, but you know that tomorrow you have to walk the lake again, and people are constantly punching holes in the ice.

As much as I try to enjoy the stuff I'm doing, you can't escape the feeling of danger.

Take for instance last week. I had to take the Chrysler in for a new tire. The place was empty, and the guy working the place started giving me the soft glove treatment. Most people might have thought "hey, look at that, I have the power now". For me.. it made a shiver run down my spine. Not that I don't enjoy the better treatment. Yet, when repair shops are fighting for your business - it's just something that is noticeable.

I've been going to this place off and on the whole time I've lived in this city. While they care about customer support, the vibe was completely different.



Then, the freeways the past two weekends have been completely empty. This is last weekend going through Oakland at 6:00pm.



This was on 280 in Sunnyvale around noon this weekend. At those times both of those freeways should be pretty busy.

This is just something that is filling my head with a lot of static right now, and making it hard for me to write.

Everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room.

 

Update - I guess I just noticed the housing market did, in one year, what it took more than five years to do before the housing crisis. You can see for yourself in a bigger chart here. You have to hit the 25 yr chart button.

The stock market hit an all time high today. And yesterday. And maybe tomorrow.  I guess the market only goes up. Said in the most sarcastic way. So..... it's quite hard to put words to anything right now. I mean, Elon is our new richest man over Jeff Bezos who sends me LITERALLY anything I effing want. ANYTHING.

For some reason people believe that the economy is kinda okay when in reality we are floating on the biggest air pocket in history. No one seems concerned at all of this activity is predicated by a FIREHOSE of Fed liquidity.  Trump literally saved EVERYONE. Including prisoners. People are not even paying attention honestly. Stocks going up 100% in a year or 200%. Or more. This effing INSANE activity in houses in the above chart. I am the biggest housing bull on the face of the planet, and no one can deny this is a bubble. Yet interest rates are at an all time low. Riddle me that Batman.

People are so delusional they are actually talking about inflation again. Which makes me believe they learned nothing from the housing crisis. ALL of this money printing is going to go into DEBT service. People are FLOATING in debt. People seem to think that inflation is going to get dicey. IT's NOT.

Almost anything you need repaired is taking roughly six weeks. I had a window spontaneously crack, and it took me 6 weeks to get a repair. And it wasn't a big window. I bought an oven a month ago, and I still have no ETA. If you need ANYTHING, it's going to take at least a month. Hell... I was even at the mall, and another lady was wanting to try things on, and they have all of their dressing rooms closed. If you are not buying off the rack, you aren't buying. These things are causing a massive distortion. So, there might be inflation right now - but it's VERY transitory.

And finally, when Trump leaves....... that means the pumper in Chief leaves too. He was masterful in pumping up the market and enthusiasm. Even I thought the Trump bump would evaporate after a year in office, but it never did.

I believe this year is going to leave a mark like no other. And I've been through at least one solid ass woop'in.

I just thought I would give you this chart of when Trump tried to reduce the balance sheet. I was pretty happy at the first two arrows. but I believe he or the Fed made policy error and tried to reduce to quickly and then had to restart it to almost previous levels. Then came the pandemic.

So, no matter what the new Fed says they are going to do, they will not reduce the balance sheet ANY time soon. If ever.

George Bush definitely ruined capitalism.

Good.

"This Is The Final Straw": Elon Musk Melts Down, Says He's Suing Alameda County &; Moving Tesla Out Of California.

I think Elon gets way more money from the Californian taxpayer than we get in benefit. He doesn't make any profit. He just bleeds us dry with subsidies. Let some other State pay for all of his shit.

The State almost gifted him that plant after NUMMI went out. He doesn't go anywhere that doesn't give him free rent. (in my opinion - which I'm only saying because he will try to destroy whoever he wants and hope you run out of money first)

Also... I find it funny that people are so upset about Jeff Bezos not paying any taxes  - but Elon does MUCH worse stuff and no one says anything.

So really... good riddance. Let him grift elsewhere. Texas seems to be welcoming him with open arms which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. YOU GO TEXAS. Hope you like paying for stuff.

I knew Texas would become crazier than California eventually.

The car company otherwise known as....

For the past three weeks I've started to watch the ghost lot at the car company otherwise known as. (I don't really want to say their name right now) Each time I passed it, there would be about 5 car carriers just kind sitting in the lot. Some of the carriers were empty and some had cars. And I don't know who owns the carriers, but you'd think you wouldn't have those things just sitting around. This lot has been there for months and it was the first time I'd seen carriers in the lot. And these were just parked. Usually they come out of the other side of the building full of cars.

I'd been meaning to get shots, but during the week I can't find a place to park and on the weekends I've been doing and taxes and stuff and just didn't have the energy to take photos. Today there were only two carriers in the lot and two flat bed trailers.

The last time I took pictures of this place they didn't have a guard shack. They do now, so I had to be kinda careful. They must have called security at the company next to us because they came to keep an eye on us as we were parked in their lot and on their property.

The first and second photos look like they are almost identical, but look at the cones. This was a three image sweep. I can't get a good read on how many cars are in there now.

In general I think the carpocalypse is still on. And has anyone else seen the 350,000 VW's they have sitting in the desert down South? One of my amazing readers Jeff sent this to me and I was stunned.

That's a new excuse for sure.

KB Home shares crater toward worst day since 1992.

"The lowered guidance was due to lower than usual deliveries in Texas and delays in California due to the wildfires, the homebuilder's CEO Jeff Mezger said in a conference call."  Emphasis mine.

Yes... It's not at all due to the price cuts new homes have had to take.  Margins can't look good.

Additionally - there is a LOT of "cratering" going on.

VR came ~so~ close this time.

Microsoft says it’s no longer planning VR support on Xbox.

I think VR is finally rolling over. It makes me a little sad because part of me hoped it would work this time.

Mr S. and I met in the first wave of VR so I've always watched this sector really closely. But I guess I ultimately feel the same way I always have. People just don't like to wear glasses. I said it in the 3D craze. I said it in the Google Glass craze. And I've been saying it with VR.

These glasses are pain in the ass, and you need to have a really spectacular reason to wear them for very long. And the hardware just wasn't there yet.

I actually feel more optimistic about augmented reality right now than VR. At least augmented reality companies are starting to target a group that is already used to wearing helmets and bulky headwear. Manufacturing and repair.

This is what Cnet writes :

"But Spencer told CNET's sister site Giant Bomb something different in June 2017. In a candid interview with Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann, Spencer admitted he had misgivings about whether VR was ready, saying he was merely "long-term bullish" about the tech. "I worry that a couple years ago, we had maybe an over-exuberance around VR which put more interest in it than maybe the tech and experiences could deliver," he said."

And you guys wonder why I'm so negative all the time. I see this stuff in person and then I see it being written about and the media really hypes things.

Go on with your bad self San Fransisco.

"San Francisco leaders hate Trump enough they voted to limit the city’s water rather than do this".

For months, San Francisco, a hotbed of anti-Donald Trump sentiment, has found itself in the awkward position of being aligned with his administration over California water policy.
On Tuesday, the city’s leaders said the alliance was unbearable.

In an 11-0 vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed in a resolution to support the State Water Resources Control Board’s proposal to leave more water in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries to benefit struggling fish populations. The supervisors’ vote is subject to veto by Mayor London Breed, although the board could override the veto.

The vote splits the city from the Trump administration and instead moves its support to a state plan that its utilities commission warns could lead to severe drinking water shortages for its nearly 884,000 residents.

The resolution explicitly says the city must divorce itself from the Trump administration and its congressional allies such as Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, who’s branded the state plan a “water grab.” The Trump administration has vowed to sue the state if the so-called Bay-Delta plan goes forward, saying it would interfere with the operation of key reservoirs owned by the federal government in the San Joaquin Valley.

“Under the cloud of climate change denial and anti-science populism, the debate around the Bay-Delta Plan has transcended the realm of rational, environmental discourse toward a political and populist, anti-conservation rally cry, fueled by the strategic lobbying of a federal Republican administration aiming to destabilize California’s status as a Democratic stronghold,” the resolution says."

Some things in California are just sorta going off the rails right now. Seriously - like two days ago there was a commercial for a democrat who was trying to align himself with Trump policies, but claim they were not Trump policies. When they clearly are. I was like - what the eff just happened?

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.

Anyone who's been reading my blog for a year or more will know that all the Mantids around here get named Jeff. Here, here and here. Except this one.

I wasn't going to have a mantis as a pet this year. I forget what I had going on at the time, but I just didn't have the energy this year. Yeah, I know it sounds off kilter, but people have birds as pets, and this pet only lasts a few months. Anyway.

I saw her almost week ago and scooped her up. I figured it's late in the season. She hasn't found a mate yet, and it's going to get cold soon. I guesstimate she'd last a week or so due to her color. When they get old they get a deeper brown color.

So, I had her in the house for a couple of days. Not even in an enclosure because I wasn't going to feed her really. She's super temporary. She basically just stayed in the kitchen on her own. She's not very strong now and even though she has wings she's not going to go exploring.

After a couple of days I thought we should set her free because I didn't want to have to track down her dead carcass.

Later that night I noticed she was still there. And it was getting cold. So I broke down and brought her back in for the evening. Oh yes I did.

We fed and watered her.

The next day I put her outside again. Only to find that evening she was still in the same place. And last night it was starting to get super chilly. By the time I brought her in you could tell she was like "what the eff"? I was living with heat. She was really weak.

I guess I'm going to stick her back out today and see what happens. It's the first time I've brought the same mantid into the house three times.