runaway infinite consumption at all costs … aka … cancer

Don’t laugh … I’ve personally known two people who died of an overdose, one got turned to a vegetable (he’s still alive, if you can call it that) and several who did overdose but survived.

Xmas version 2025.12.25 just got released … next incremental release is 2026.01.25, which will work its way up during the year to the final annual version of 2026.12.25

Lucky you … I’m up in northern Ontario and in most of the places up here Sudbury/Timmins/New Liskeard/North Bay … the supply seems to have dried up over the years … we used to see lots, now we see a lot less.

Here in Canada in Ontario, up until about five years ago, they used to sell panettone everywhere during Christmas … grocers used to stock them everywhere and about four or five different brands. Cheaper ones came in all plastic wrapping and more expensive ones came wrapped in plastic and contained in fancy decorative cardboard boxes. And back then, we had the choice of size and they were usually large sized.

Now we have limited supplies and the displays for them are even hard to find. We only have one brand now ‘Massimo’ and they are more the smaller size. Every year now, all my Italian Canadian friends go on a frenzy looking for them … as soon as they come out, they disappear.

Don’t know what happened to the supply but we don’t see much of them any more.

Unless they can pull out their gun and shoot at something or someone … or tackle someone … they aren’t very good at doing anything else.

If you can’t afford the traditional funeral or even the immediate cremation … there are other “options”.

Gotta wonder what they were smoking in the middle east 3000 years ago to come up with these biblically accurate angels

It should be considered a workplace hazard at this point … and workers should be compensated for it

… also the price of things.

Corporations especially grocers just got a big chance to raise prices … even if the tariffs go away, none of them will bring the prices down again. They’ll just pocket the difference and let everyone pay the new high prices which will stay in place.

Hot egg nog can’t melt candy cane beams

Really?

Where’s Abe Vigoda? Isn’t he still alive?

Both cats have the same plan

Kill Doug … kill the other cat … kill the two legged beast that invades this space during the day.

We did a little tour on our own into Germany one spring, about 20 years ago. It was only a few days, we didn’t have much money and we absolutely didn’t know what we were doing. We rented a car and just started wandering. It was just at the point of technology where GPS was still new. We didn’t have any so we just started driving with a shitty map and no clue.

We had done some traveling in other countries before and we had met several famously obnoxious German tourists. We had partly expected to meet equally arrogant Germans in their home country.

Instead we met the most open, kind hearted, brilliant people ever. Everywhere we stopped, we’d meet three or four locals who were more than happy to give directions, recommend restaurants, bars, tea shops and sites to see.

At one point we met a truck driver who gave us a ton of information and showed us a driving route on a big format ringed binder map book. When he was done talking, he left the book. We told him he was forgetting his book and he said we could have it as it had detailed updated map info of the entire country. It was an expensive book and I knew it, so I told him not to give it away. He insisted and said he didn’t mind.

I still have that map book on my shelf and whenever I see it, I think of that trip and all those people we met.

Totally loved Germany after that.

People like me between the ages of about 40 - 55 are at a great period for riding motorcycles. There are a lot of people selling amazing old bikes that young people either don’t or can’t buy. We’re at a good age for insurance (if we have years of experience). I love biking and I’ve accumulated 6 old motorcycles with 3 on the road and 3 as project bikes. I don’t think this period will last tho … as those old bikes will start to become too expensive to maintain and mechanics no longer want to service old bikes. And everyone will be switching to powerful electric bikes that will look like full sized motorcycles.

What all this means in terms of your noisy neighbour is that there is a 50/50 chance that he won’t be riding for very long.

Sometimes these old guys just enjoy riding and continue riding for a long time.

Or they give up on it because they end up scaring themselves with a near accident or their bike breaks down because they don’t know all the ways of taking care of a bike (it’s all dependent on the make, model, age, type and little details of the bike) … they often end up with a mechanical problem and they either don’t want to fix it, it’s too expensive or they just don’t know how and just give up on the bike and biking.

There’s a big change happening in motorcycling these days. A lot of older people (50+) are buying motorcycles because they always wanted to ride but they couldn’t afford it when they were younger. Mix in the fact that many old riders are now giving up their bikes and selling them … but young riders are not buying them because a young new rider can’t afford the insurance for the bike. Younger riders will go for new smaller engine bikes and many of them are now migrating towards electric bikes … it’s getting to the point where small engine bikes are as powerful, fast and economical as a good sized electric bike. Plus its easier for a young new rider to insure an electric bike than a gas powered one.

The danger with all those old riders is that many of them didn’t grow up riding a motorcycle … they always wanted to but never had the chance. But now that they’re older, have a bit money and have a bit of time, they want to ride but they’re old now … which means, they don’t have the reflexes, they don’t have the strength and they don’t have the awareness of what it feels like to get hurt on a bike. Most riders like myself learned to ride as kids on dirt bikes and ATVs … it’s a great training ground because you ride fast and do all sorts of stupid things … and most importantly, you fall and hurt yourself … so you learn from a young age what it feels like to fall on a bike a low speed and that it hurts a lot … you realize that if you go faster on a paved highway, you’re really going to get hurt.

Being an older rider you don’t get that experience and those guys usually only have one accident … and it either severely hurts them for life and they give up riding … or it kills them.

Slowing down and avoid high traffic areas … and don’t ride during peak hours.

Riding a motorcycle was fun up until about 20 years ago. There were a lot fewer vehicles and the driving was slower. Now you have many more vehicles, modern designed wide lane straightened highways and modern vehicles with more acceleration and speed to the point that everyone thinks it’s normal to drive 20kph faster than the posted speed limit (I’m in Canada so we measure in kilometers)

Those are some really meth looking teeth

I ride motorcycle and I always love that argument. I have stock pipes on my bike and I prefer them to be as quiet as possible so that I hear as much of the road as possible, as well as other vehicles.

Yes loud motorcycles do make others aware of your presence … especially if they are very loud pipes.

What no one ever wants to admit is that you usually hear the loud pipes AFTER the bike/vehicle has passed you or is moving away. You seldom hear a loud motorcycle coming at you, especially if you are in a car with sound proofing or sound dampening. You definitely hear the big loud motorcycle pipes as the idiot is driving away from you.

The other thing I love about morons that enjoy big loud motorcycle pipes is that they are the same idiots that want an open air sound system for their motorcycle. So they get the loud pipes and then get a really powerful sound system so that they can listen to their muffled music over the sound of loud pipes, the highway and the buffeting winds as they drive down the highway. Usually, these are the same idiots that lose their hearing by the time they’re 50.