Went to a car dealership today. No one approached me, no one gave me the hard sell. No one slapped the roof and asked what it would take to get me into this baby. They had the car I was interested in seeing - well, a version of it. There were 3496 permutations of the car, I think, and they had 49. The prices were all higher than what the websites said. Higher by a lot. See, you go in thinking "this is my maximum," and you find something a bit higher that's 5X better than what your previous maximum would buy, and everything shifts. All of a sudden you're in another bracket. And you're also at the bottom of it.

I found a guy and took a test drive. I loved it. Incredible pickup, great handling. It flew out of the parking lot to the service road, which has some nice curves so you can feel how it handles. Sleek design that does not look like the wad-pods that characterize the class of vehicle in my search - it reminded me of my old beloved Eclipse. There are elements of the instrument panel placement about which I am not entirely happy, but damn, this thing was nifty. And you wouldn't believe what it was if I told you.

It gets 54 miles to the gallon. I told the salesman that I was less concerned with how much gas it took as I was concerned with what it did with the gas I gave it. He understood immediately on a MAN LEVEL and shifted the pitch away from granola to steak. Forget the hypermiling, let's talk subwoofers in the back.

There's one coming soon that matches what I want, more or less, and I had them hold it for me. I've a few days to explore other cars, and it's off to the Sensible but Strikingly Styled and Less Expensive place tomorrow. I have three weeks.

I hate this. There's a Diner coming up on the subject on Monday, so that's all I'll say. Except that there's a dealership in the same vicinity that have cars sitting up in windows on the second floor, and every time I pass I think of sex workers in Amsterdam.

You know, of course, that the California fires were set to take attention away from the drones and orbs. I read that today. On this very internet. Nonsense, of course, but it reminded me that I checked out of Drone Discourse about two weeks ago for one simple reason: I concluded that the videos that weren't, you know, planes, were fake. Maybe one or two might be real. But a mental switch went "click" and the mental croupier's wand just took them all off the felt. This might not be the correct thing to do, but I can't help it. My Mulder poster said "I wanted to believe, but then I noticed too many videos mistaking artifacting at high levels of zoom for some sort of kinetic activity, and then the orbs began appearing in coordinated fashions that defied simple explanation, but no one else had any video of the same incident from a different angle, so." It's a big poster.

Related, in the subject of the firehose of falsity: I was looking at YouTube comments, and yes, yes, I know, I know. They appended a critique of a recent Disney movie. There's nothing odd about this:

A few comments below:

AI? The first one ends "No respect, none at all," and then the bot is told is increase the Dangerfield quotient by 20%, and we get "there is no respect at all." A few other subtle differences. It is apparent to anyone browsing the conversation that these are identical. The second one joined in December, 2011, and the page has no content. The account has one followed, probably a YouTube default thing. The first account does not exist anyore.

Why? What's the point? I can invent a few reasons - construct a false internet persona, juke views on this or that, boost the video with high-value comments that indicate engagement, and all the other BS metrics that run the world.

I don't need anyone to tell me this is BS and disinfo and chumbotting and russian social manipulation or whatever. The minute any official agency starts to tell me it's BS, though, that's when I give it all a second look.

I'm on a street corner in England. I'm leaving soon but I decided to while away some time by collecting cabinetry, to see if anybody wants to come up and give me cabinetry. As I stand there in the street it turns out many people do, and after an hour or so I have about five small cabinets. A man comes up and starts talking about the various difficulties of getting rid of free cabinetry, wondering how I will do it. He seems interesting until he turns out to be something of a weirdo, and when he put a hand in my shoulder I tell him not to and he says oh you don't like being touched. and I said I'm from North Dakota, we shouldn't even be on the same block let alone standing so close. When I woke up I did not have any plans for getting rid of the cabinets.

You know what I thought? Let's start from the beginning. Again. Why not. And you know what that means, right? LANCE LEBEEF.

LANCE CHINSLAB.

He's got an odd and disconcerting distant look when first we meet him.

Solution is here. No, I didn't remember it, either!

This year we're going back a (gulp) half century. Remember, just because they were low-charting in the top 250 doesn't mean they didn't rise up the next year. For my rankings I use the Whitburn collection, and I'm sure there are other charts that dispute these particular ranks. Who cares! It's just for fun.

I guarantee you've heard this man before.

Jim Gilstrap. He sang the theme to "Good Times." And more:

Gilstrap was born November 10, 1946, in Daingerfield, Texas to Jodie and Pearlie Mae (Tolbert) Gilstrap. He joined the U.S. Navy Reserve. He began his career in the music industry when he returned from serving in the Vietnam War.[4] Early groups he worked with include the Doodletown Pipers.

I hope he got title-song residuals, but you suspect not.

The conclusion of the first full week in the Fortress of Solitude comes to an end with no great revelations about myself, alas, and also hoorah. You don’t want to discover that you’re perfectly fine being all by yourself, but you also don’t want to lear that you’re perfectly miserable, either. I spend most of my time in my studio, because it’s cold, and I don’t feel like heating up the entire house so I can wander about in San-Diego-temp comfort. I am eating proper meals, not just scavenging off random meat and Hungry Man bowls of carbo-glop.

I have routines in the evening that keep me productive, so I’m not just staring at the TV watching true crime shows. I do the treadmill in the evening. I go to bed earlier than usual. Birch sleeps on the bed with me, instead of on his own little bed. This is new, and I appreciate it, except for the snores and morning breath.

Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you for your visits, and I'll see you Monday,