Three U.S. Speed Bumps

As any fule kno, I yield to no man for the love of my adopted country.  I am an American by choice, and doubleplusproud I am to be that.

However:  there are three things peculiar to the U.S. that got up my nose soon after I arrived here, and they have continued to bug the hell out of me ever since.

1) Date format:  I know that we can do pretty much anything we want because Murka, but FFS why do we insist on mm/dd/yy (or /yyyy ever since Y2K) when the rest of the world uses dd/mm/yyyy?  It makes no sense, forces one to insert an unnecessary comma when writing out the date — e.g. November 19 COMMA 2024, to prevent numbers running into each other — when going with the universal format would just make things easier.  For everybody.

2) Gallons:  I have no problem with using Imperial weights and measures, because they make things easier for everyday life over the artificial metric system.  But why the hell do we have a liquid gallon that is smaller than the Imperial gallon?  I was looking at a lovely old car’s specs the other day, and saw that it had a “tiny” 15-gallon fuel tank — and then realized that it was a Jaguar, and they were quoting Imperial gallons (in this case 18 U.S. gallons).  I mean, we don’t have a mile that’s shorter than an Imperial mile — we could just go metric for that, don’t get me started — so why a use a smaller gallon measure?

3) Floor numbers:   When you step into an elevator / lift in any developed country outside the U.S., you see the selector thus:

…but in the U.S., it’s:    

Why no ground floor?  Once again, it’s something we do that nobody else does, and it often leads to confusion when talking to a non-Murkin.  FFS, every building has a floor that’s at ground-level, so why not use the “G” and say “ground floor”?

No doubt there are all sorts of sound reasons why we Murkins have gone our own way — and don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with that mindset, e.g.:

…but I do need to wave my hands when such non-conformity makes absolutely no sense at all.

In all three of the above cases.

No Chance Totty

I see that some Republican tart ran for office earlier in the year:

Of course, she ran as a conservative “independent” (“Republican” is the kiss of death  up there in Minneapolis).  That didn’t fool anyone, so she duly lost 46-54% to some liberal “independent”.  Yeah, her background is kinda shady too, so that may have had something to do with it.

Too bad, because:

Rather toothsome, wot?  We need to see more of that kind of representation, methinks.

Seeing Double

Two newsreaders on Brit TV, both onetime contestants on some dance show, both with a pouty lower lip and both rather MILF-y — and I can only tell them apart when they’re side by side:

L–R:  Kate Silverton and Natasha Kaplinsky.

Of course, confusion is my normal state these days…

“Dear Dr. Kim:

“Dear Dr. Kim:

“I am uncomfortable about my girlfriend’s recent suggestions to spice up our sex life. Something has made her racier all of a sudden. She keeps asking to try S&M.

“She has always been adventurous when it comes to intimacy. She loves role play and dressing up. She says ordinary sex is too vanilla and boring.  Recently her tastes have become more extreme. She says she can’t get sexually excited if there isn’t an element of risk.

“Previously, I was happy to indulge her. I’ve never said no to sex in public places and I find blindfolding her a turn on. But now I’m concerned because she’s even started to mention choking.

“This for me is another thing entirely. It scares me. I don’t want to give it or receive it. Why would I want to hurt the woman I love? And I know it could go wrong. I am not prepared to take a risk. I would be devastated if she came to harm.

“I really don’t want to do any of this, but I don’t know how to refuse without making her think I am a bit of a bore in bed.

“I am 31 and she is 42. She’s a fair bit older than me and much more experienced too. We have been together for a year and I’ve really fallen for her. She’s gorgeous, clever and keeps me on my toes.  But I am scared that if I refuse her new tastes she may get bored of me. Or that she will go out looking for someone who will be more edgy – someone who doesn’t care about her like I do – and potentially put herself in danger.

“Should I say yes and hope that if we try it once she won’t want to do it again?

Apprehensive

Dear Appy,

You have only one choice.

Ditch the bitch. 

I’m afraid that this “gorgeous and clever” woman has some serious psychological issues — issues so profound that you need to put distance — lots of distance — between her insane ass and your dick.

And by the way?  This escalation of her kink is going to get worse, if you can imagine that.  (If you can’t, then that’s all the more reason to GTFO.)

I guarantee you that if you don’t leave, this infatuation that you feel for her will disappear very shortly and you’ll be left with… probably a dead body and whole lot of ‘splaining to the rozzers.

Get out now while you can.

Same Story, Different People

Here’s an Ozempic story.

I know that I seem to be talking about this topic a lot, because my own results have been pretty pleasing.  But as Nadine Dorries describes her own journey towards going this route, I’m pretty sure that a large number of my Readers are in a similar situation to hers — I know that my own symptoms were pretty much parallel to hers — and maybe this will help you.  Here’s Mrs. Dorries in a pre- and post pic:

Just as a reminder:  I went from 277lbs peak to just over 220lbs, although it’s taken me a while longer — about six months — but there have been other benefits.

After a quarter-century of taking blood-pressure meds, I may not have to take them for much longer.  (According to the last doctor I saw a couple weeks ago, my BP of 113/90 was better than hers — and because I’d been feeling so rotten, I’d forgotten to take my BP meds for two days beforehand.)  Here’s hoping.

I have had absolutely no side-effects from Ozempic.  I was briefly concerned that (please pardon the graphic description) that I’d gone from an everyday, set-your-watch bowel movement to very occasional visits to the toilet.  But as my doctor explained, my daily food intake had been reduced by two-thirds (maybe more, even), so that wasn’t unexpected.

Which leads to this point:  my relationship with food hasn’t changed.  I still have cravings for a particular taste or type of food;  but when it comes to actually eating it, I eat far less of it — sometimes as little as 25% of it in terms of quantity.  (Four cheese sticks becomes one, two fried eggs become one egg, half-finished, and so on.  Daily bread has turned into once a week, and one slice of toast instead of two per sitting withal.)

But all those other horror stories that people have ascribed to Ozempic?  Not one.

I will admit, as I’ve said before, that my muscle mass seems to have gone down along with the saddlebags of fat, but I’ve always been muscular — even over-muscled, perhaps — so that hasn’t bothered me at all.  My ass seems to have, shall we say, slackened somewhat.  But FFS, I’ll be turning 70 in November (!) so “old-man-flabby-ass” was always going to be in my future anyway.

I’ve been told to exercise, but that’s not going to happen.  My sole “exercise” is a 100-yard daily walk (uphill both ways, uh huh) to the mailbox to check the mail, and a similar uphill distance to our garage to get the car.  The new apartment is actually walking distance from a bakery (I know, bread ungood shuddup), so I’m planning on walking there whenever I need to get more bread;  the only problem is that north Texas is not, as we say, pedestrian friendly, so it seems that the health benefits of that quarter-mile walk may be somewhat offset by becoming some F-150’s hood ornament.  But I’ll give it a shot anyway.

The biggest bummer is that insurance does not pay for Ozempic and the other drugs of that ilk even though, as in my case, its original purpose is absolutely medical:  to address pre-diabetic or Type 2 diabetes conditions.  I have no idea why this is so.  But as New Wife puts it, it’s better than dying from diabetes-induced problems (heart attack, organ failure etc.).

So there ya have it.  It’s all food (or, less food) for thought.  Hope this helped.