You Need A Higher Dose of Meditation

Unsurprisingly, vacuums abhor Nature, too.

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing seems to go right? Well, you're having another one right now, because today we've got neither news coverage, an Earwigs cartoon, or even Busty Ross buffing her nails.

Rather, you've just accidentally stumbled into a whiny rant from which there is no escape, assuming you don't know that there are an infinite number of other websites only a click away.

Our subject du jour is "stress" - and how we personally try to cope with it.

The Stressors:

• Yesterday, daughter Jarlsberg made the long drive back to Oklahoma City (always a source of parental worry). No sooner had she departed than previously unpredicted storms popped up along her entire route. And for those who don't live in Texas or Oklahoma, we should specify that when storms "pop up" (which sounds cute and fun), it can also mean the appearance of volleyball-sized hail traveling faster than the speed of sound, and tornadoes whose sizes are described on a scale ranging from "F1" to "F5" depending on how many times you use the F-word upon seeing the funnel heading your way. (Spoiler alert: she made the trip without incident).

• We simultaneously had a visit from a (ha!) service technician from Frontier Communications. The idea was to increase our Internet speed - a gift from Frontier for having screwed up our account every month for an entire year. When the tech left, our Internet was indeed blazingly fast for the 5 minutes it stayed connected. And - oops! - our television was completely out.

We subsequently spent four agonizing hours on tech support lines - getting hung up on at least three times despite our inordinate civility and goodwill - and ended the day with Internet working sporadically, but still no TV. Which wouldn't be a great loss, but when Drudge is screaming in red headlines "NUCLEAR WAR AT ANY DAMN SECOND!" it does rather pique one's curiosity about what might be happening on the news.

• Added to this, here at Castle Jarlsberg, we're preparing to do some major renovations. How major? Let's just say that the word "gut" is the most frequently used verb. For those of us who are, by nature, barnacles, it can be highly disconcerting to entertain the idea of throwing things out, tearing things down, and then having new things built, painted, patched, plumbed, or plundered by the same sorts of pathological "service providers" that Frontier Communications uses to terrorize their customers.

• And then there's all the usual background stress, including that pesky "possible nuclear war" thing, random Facebook killers (happily, that one has sorted itself out), pro-Trump and anti-Trump people beating the snot out of each other in Berkeley, the infirmities of advancing age, the stock market (we lost a bundle today), and - oh yeah - a blog deadline!

How We Cope With Stress:

• We'll bet you said "by drinking," right?! HA! Well, okay, we do have a snort or so of Clan MacGregor.

• Cheap Chinese food also works in the short term.

• But the most important factor in reducing stress is: listening to a good, loud vacuum cleaner. We're not joking in the least. For us, that jet engine whine with just a soupçon of suck is the sound of peace and relaxation (not to mention a great help with our unending smoke-detector-shriek tinnitus).

At this very moment, we're using the Amazon Echo device (with 7 microphones reporting our every utterance to the NSA) to play an endless loop of a vacuum cleaner in order to keep our heart rate beneath that of a meth-addicted hummingbird. And when we go to bed at night, to soothe us into stress-free slumber, we'll listen to our MP3 recording of a vacuum cleaner in a thunderstorm. 

In any event, just complaining about all of this stuff has helped us feel a bit better. And if we unfortunately stressed YOU out in the process, well, here's 8 hours of sonic relief...

Holidazed

Click picture for larger/clearer version

As you've already noticed, we're skipping the news today because we didn't feel like spending Easter trying to find a rib-tickling angle to Donald Trump and Kim Jung Un's ongoing game of nuclear chicken. Oh, there's probably a joke to be had about the Easter Bunny and a "hare raising" arms race, but we've got far too much pride to go down that road.

But hey, at least there's an Earwigs cartoon tucked into your basket of goodies between the Cadbury eggs and marshmallow Peeps, as well as this blast from the past...

FROM THE VAULT: Originally Published April 12, 2009

Equal Deployment Opportunity

A significant number of ISIS fighters became WASWAS fighters yesterday, after finding themselves on the receiving end of the United States' "Mother Of All Bombs" - the 21,000 pound MOAB which is our largest non-nuclear armament. It had never previously been used in combat, because our previous president was better known for deploying "the mother of all jeans" when dressing casually.

The bomb, the destructive power of which can not be described without using a lengthy chain of expletives, took out a tunnel complex in Nangahar province, Afghanistan. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the same area where a member of our special forces, Staff Sgt Mark De Alencar, was tragically killed in action only days ago.

In other words, this is the very definition of the Trump administration "sending a clear message."

And not just to ISIS. It seems reasonable to think that preposterously gigantic explosions that turn America's enemies into pink mist might also be raising eyebrows in Syria, North Korea, Russia, Iran, and über-liberal parts of California.

By the way, when we heard that the "Mother of All Bombs" had been dropped from an aircraft, we were tempted to make a joke about Hillary Clinton being ejected by United Airlines mid-flight. But we didn't because it was too easy.

Not to mention, too cruel a thing to do to ISIS.