This has not been a good day. I could not take a shower, because our pipes froze (but only the hot water pipe to the bathroom; it was something like -20°C when I got up). Then I discovered the snowplows had sealed off my driveway and the sidewalk with a dense wall of snow, so I had to go out and clear that in the frigid weather. I went in to work for a few hours, and when I came back, the whole house reeked of gas — to be on the safe side, we called the gas company to check it out, but then it turned out that something had cracked in our snowblower, and it had dumped a whole tank of gas in our garage. That’s going to need repair before the next storm.

Everything sucked, basically.

Clearly, the problem is that I posted something cynical and grumpy about this stupid New Year thing, so the calendrical deities are smiting me for dissing the whole concept of “resolutions”. My attitude is the problem. I have to appease the gods of karma now. I must…

OK, I resolve to be more cheerful and less negative. I shall fantasize that Trump and Stephen Miller will start by nibbling each others toes, and choke to death by playing Ouroboros ending in ass-ophagy. This will be the year that global climate change ends, Pewdiepie, Milo, and the Kardashians are forgotten and ignored, the Catholic church goes bankrupt, and everyone realizes that video games are more entertaining than church. I will smile now and then.

Good enough, O Inimical Universe? Curse lifted?

Do you really believe that one arbitrary moment in an arbitrary day of the year represents a kind of metamorphic transition in the state of reality? Because it doesn’t. Changing a digit on your calendar doesn’t do a single significant thing. The chaos of yesterday continues unchanged into the chaos of today. If you were fucked in 2018, you’re still fucked in 2019.

Only difference is that now you might have a hangover.

I find it helpful to go into a new year with the most dismal expectations — just assume the trajectory we’re on will continue, unless we do something. And a “resolution” is not an accomplishment.

This guy was in a terrible motorcycle accident that mangled his foot so terribly that it had to be amputated. So he took it home and made tacos from the meat, and served it (with their knowledge and consent) to ten of his friends.

Huh. Interesting.

I wondered what I would do if a friend offered to serve me a meal made with bits of himself. I think I’d be willing, and most of my reservation would be from the practice of ethical vegetarianism. But then I’d think that much of my reason for cutting back on meat is to reduce the load humans place on the environment, and what could be more environmentally-minded than eating people? So I’d probably go along with it for the novelty.

If it was my own limb…no, I wouldn’t go this route. I’d be disappointed if I didn’t taste good, especially since I expect some exquisite marbling of my flesh, and I think I’d be tender. I don’t need one more thing to be held in judgment over me, though.

No, I know exactly what I’d do in this situation that I would hope I never experience. Dermestid beetles would get a good meal. Then degreasing and bleaching. Then I’d rearticulate it and mount it on a tasteful frame and hang it on my office wall.

What else would you do with a piece of you? Bury it and let it rot? Burn it?

The BBC has released 16,000 of their sound-effect files for download for non-commercial use. There’s some weird stuff in here: I stumbled across “Standard orgy with smashing glass, screams, footsteps and whipping sounds“, for instance, so now I finally know what an orgy sounds like.

It’s not quite what I expected.

POWER TO THE BABIES!