i have to warn you - if you're going to eat red peppers, beets & carrots together in these sorts of quantities on a daily basis, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility of producing truly scary looking shit.

it's the scariest shit i've ever seen, i tell you.

i hope i'm ok. i feel ok...a little better once it's passed, even...

the thing that's unsettling me is not exactly the fear that i'm passing blood; all evidence is it's just what i ate, and i feel fine. the thing that's unsettling me is that i wouldn't know if i was. so, yeah - it's probably just the beta-carotene and betaine, together. but, what if it isn't? how am i supposed to know?

well?

if i'm really paranoid, i guess i can look for clots and clumps, right? i should actually be able to tell the difference between a tinted fecal matter and actual blood clots, right?

so, i dunno - am i going to get used to this? if i'm eating beets everyday, it would seem i'd need to.

so, this is where the breakfast bowl is in terms of calories, right now:

avocado - 240   (150 g)

ice cream - 224    (200 ml)

all bran - 125    (45 g)

banana - 121    (136 g)

soy milk - 96    (400 ml)

strawberry - 48    (150 g)

kiwi - 45       (75 g)

flax - 37.4    (1 tbsp / 7 g)

yogurt - 23    (2 tbsp / 67 g)

guava - 13.6  (20 g)

yeast - 11.25   (1 tsp / 3 g)

============

984.25 calories

i believe that is a complete breakfast.

we'll need to double check - and see if it can be maximized any further.

see, you can do these studies, and you should, but the outcomes are obvious.

again - if worn correctly, mask use may moderately reduce the risk of infection in scenarios where only moderate distancing is possible. but, in the real-world scenario of shopping at a store, where nobody wears them correctly and people are only distancing when they're yelled at, they're all but useless, and if you're in a high risk category then you should just not enter these stores at all.

so long as people are engaging in these types of activities, pretending that you're slowing the spread by shutting down bars is just empty theatre.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/researchers-show-extent-of-covid-19-spread-in-a-grocery-store-1.5169995

i hear fauci has been offered a job as a play-by-play announcer on monday night football if this head-doctor thing doesn't work out, in the end.

we know he can't throw a ball; we're not sure if he can catch one.

whole lotta hurt? c'mon. that's right out of chris berman's pile of cliches.

i don't have a file, i have a filing cabinet.

i'd love to be searchable in this sort of database - that would be the best way to ensure my own immortality that i could imagine.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/declassification-centre-historical-documents-1.5785571

and, if i can't smell does that mean....?

i don't feel sick, otherwise - this is all just entirely consistent with exposure to second hand smoke and generalized air pollution, and occam's razor tells me i don't need exotic covid-19 solutions to explain what i'm experiencing.

and, i just noticed some condensation on the window, as an apparent consequence of the heating turning down over the last few days, something i'm not sure i grasp the significance of. i wonder - did the smoking cop like warmer inside temperatures? is the decrease in temperature evidence that she's gone?

the flip side is that it demonstrates that i've created a barrier between in and outside, even if the barrier between up and downstairs isn't so good. if there was more airflow between in and out, the humidity wouldn't have built up on all of the windows.

if the issue upstairs is finally dealt with, that barrier should be a net positive. if it isn't, i might find myself needing to open the window frequently all winter.

unfortunately, the pollution outside this time of year is so bad that going grocery shopping knocks out my sense of smell for a day or two so i'm having a little difficulty sensing my surroundings. it's not all the cars, either - this street didn't seem that bad when i moved in, but, nowadays, this might be the only house for blocks with non-smokers, however tentative that claim actually is. with everybody home and chain smoking, you're talking about 100+ chain smokers in a space not much bigger than a city block. so, when you walk down the street, it's an overwhelming and oppressively strong stench - bad enough that it's doubled me over coughing. and, you can smell it, too, i'm not exaggerating.

so, i just bluntly don't know if things are better right now or if i just can't tell that they're still just as bad. i guess i'll find out in the next day or two, as my sense of smell recovers from massive over-exposure to the pollution outside.

so, i tried calling around and realized it was hopeless - nobody that works in these stores knows what they're doing, and there's no database to find excess stock, i just need to look around and get lucky.

the store i found a bunch at was particularly useful to me because they had an almost unopened carton on the top of the shelf. so, i just looked up and grabbed it.

i'm going to need to float around, there's no way around it.

we're going to get about a week or so of nicer weather starting midweek, so i'll wait it out a bit and just ride up tecumseh to the edge of town and then take wyandotte back if i haven't found any. that should cover 75% of the grocery stores in town, with the rest being somewhat south of here.

that means i can reasonably hope to get a substantive amount done over the next few days, as i've got this more or less worked out.

a large amount of the reaction to these kind of displays is just plain ignorance of the historical and cultural significance of samhain, and what these people ultimately need to stop their whining is a bit of a history lesson of the origins of western culture.

samhain is a celtic religious festival that is thought to be very ancient and has origins in the less colonized regions of the british isles, like ireland and the north of scotland. these displays are ultimately an offering to the spirit world, and deeply spiritual in nature, whether the owner of that house realizes it or not.

attempting to shut down a samhain display is quite truly an infringement of this person's personal belief system, even if it's been blurred and confused over time - like any other, really. the major religions are all syncretic. none of us really understand what we're doing, not really.

i would call on the whiners of maple ridge to make an attempt to understand the people around them, rather than condemn them, like ignorant savages.

and, that woman should resign from the liberal party and join the conservative party. i hope this is an issue in the riding, and i hope she loses because of it.

it's important that he not cave into this kind of right-wing zealotry and continues to stand his ground.

these whiners need to grow up and mind their own business.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/maple-ridge-halloween-display-1.5785333

...and if the greens are not on the ballot in your state, i would endorse spoiling your ballot.

so, what is my pasta bowl looking like now, then?

- red peppers (250 g) 

- carrots (110 g)  

- beets (82 g)  

- pasta (55 g, dry)

- nutritional yeast (1 heaping tsp)

- sunflower seeds (raw, hulled) (1 tbsp) <---for b5, mostly, but other things too

- hemp seeds (raw, hulled) (1 tbsp)

- cheddar cheese (60 g)

- pro-biotic yogurt (2 tbsp)   <------b5, mostly

- full fatted soy milk (200 ml)    <-----d, b12, b7, b16

- lime  (1, ~37 g)

i think that the only remaining consideration will be adding ingredients for the salad dressing.

and, maybe trying to find a way to get a bigger fridge.

so, who's going to win the election?

i may not have the insight that you'd have hoped for. but, i'm going to wait until tomorrow before i post a final analysis. i wouldn't expect much, though.

right now, i want to remind you of what i'm thinking about the situation.

i am a leftist, and donald trump is, by far, the most left-wing president we've seen in decades on virtually every issue that actually matters. when he upsets people, he does so by leaning left far more often than he does so by leaning right. but, he also represents a party that, with the confirmation of amy barrett, has reaffirmed itself as being so far right that it's outside of any reasonable discourse. this is a very strange juxtaposition - the most right-wing party in the history of democracy in an alliance, however uneasy, with the most left-wing president since the dawn of neo-liberalism.

if i could vote for trump without the republican party as backdrop, i might consider it. that's not possible.

his opponent, joesph biden, is just about the most textbook, run-of-the-mill, old-timey conservative that you could pull out of the bottom of the barrel. he's run that way, too - constantly positioning himself to the right of trump, and doing so in a way that is not at all unconvincing. he's managed to peel off a substantive chunk of the republican party, along with a substantive chunk of it's base, along with it.

so, what are we going to get if joe biden wins? i'm truly led to the conclusion that it's what the republican party actually wants, if it could just do a substitution, or perhaps make a trade. how many draft picks do they want for hunter? and, that's the literal exact opposite of what i want.

so, if trump wins, the republican party will remain in charge and have to deal with trump until they can fully neutralize or otherwise get rid of him; if biden wins, the republican party will remain in charge by taking over the democrats from the inside out. it's a win-win for the republicans, then.

...and a lose-lose for the left.

it is for that reason that i'd prefer to see donald trump win; at least there is some possibility of revolt, that way, even if the contemporary movements lack any meaningful revolutionary potential. at the end of four years, maybe we'll be back to talking about class again. and, what is the result of four more years of environmental activism? i'd have to think it will be more than biden will ever accomplish. after all, trump is right to point out that mr. biden has yet to accomplish much of anything he hasn't tried to evade and distance himself from.

so, my endorsement is not just for the green party and howard hawkins but for four years of protests and revolt. i've been toying with this since the start, but my mind is made up - we're better off revolting against trump than disappointing ourselves with biden.

but, that might just be the point. i'll get to that tomorrow.