Well…we had our last tour of the trip today out to the Colosseum and it was a lot of fun…I finally got to see in person what I’ve seen so many times in movies and tv shows…we had a great tour guide named Vera who really knew her stuff and I learned a lot so that was cool…one of the weird things I saw was what I wanted to see in the old city…where Julius Caesar was cremated and I have a photo of the stone altar where that happened and it used to have a temple over it but it’s gone…walking through the old city really gave me a feel for how it was like to live in those times and the ruins were fantastic…we saw the old senate and a huge church that is only half there but is still huge…and to see the entire city from the hill where some of the emperors lived was really neat…and I got out ahead of the pain by taking tylenol, ibuprofen, and my gout medicine so I got through it with little pain and Vera recommended a restaurant for lunch and I had seafood pasta with clams, mussels, shrimp, and fish with a langostine crustacean on top…another yummy meal that I’m not sure you can get in the US…at least not in Muskegon…
Get the hell off big social media…
Well…if you’re not one of the maga faithful, (and if you’re here you’re not) you need to get the hell off the social media giants like meta, facebook, and x since they are doing evil across the world and fostering the far right takeover of many countries…ole elon single handedly handed an election to the fascist Orban in Turkey by blocking all of the ads by his challenger on x and since the mainstream media is all under the control of Orban, the last avenue for the challenger to get his message out was squashed by the right win billionaires who really like to have fascists in control…and the same thing is happening in Brazil where the right wing challenger to the progressive Lula is being given free advertising on x while ole elon blocks Lula from airing any ads at all…is there any better reason to tax billionaires out of existence? The money and influence they have has resulted in essentially buying elections in foreign countries to install the fascist assholes that the tech bros just love…I think we need to encourage people to get the hell off these platforms to take away the power these thugs have and make home grown software that take the control away from these fascists that it’s been shown their business model is to do as much damage as they can…I for one am not on anything from meta or x or anything that rewards these assholes for being assholes…geez…
God, are these folks stupid…
Well…the idiot repubs in the senate called Jack Smith in for a grilling that they thought would distract Americans from 6 dollar a gallon gas and runaway inflation that they are responsible for…and the ringleader of this farce was a senator from Missouri named eric schmitt who really thought he had evidence that Jack Smith perjured himself in previous testimony to the senate…and he constructed lie filled questions that he wouldn’t even show the evidence he thought he had against Smith saying that Smith lied when he said he hadn’t been to an Atlanta Hawks game on some date a few years ago…the only problem, pointed out by dem senator Amy Klobuchar was that schmitt confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes which was the game that Smith actually went to…so this moron schmitt spent hours of staff time and the senate’s time on a gotcha question that was entirely wrong and tried to impugn Smith’s honesty just to try to say that if Smith lied about that, he could have lied about the idiot trump stealing top secret materials that we have all seen the photos of…where the hell do the repubs find people this stupid and why do they elect them as senators? Man, I hate these morons…geez…
September 30th
Well…the abuse I’ve been pouring on my body really hit home yesterday with my right hip and toe just howling at me after walking around all morning and then the Vatican trip…so I attacked it with the prescription meds for my gout and switched up to tylenol and this morning I’ll treat with ibuprofen and tylenol since we have the Colosseum tour today…I do feel like I’ve let my daughter down by feeling the pain and showing it yesterday but she won’t see it again…I can suck it up for two more days and get through it…the Vatican tour was pretty cool but the Sistene chapel was a bit of letdown…we didn’t get to see the Last Supper but after seeing so much art work on this trip it all runs together…we did get to see “The Pieta” in St. Peter’s yesterday and that was cool…as was the entire cathedral…just spectacular as a historical building to me but being an atheist, the religious part of it was lost on me…we did have another great tour guide named Stefano who was fun so that was cool…now I need to suck it up and get started on the pain killers…more later…
Walked to the Vatican…
Well…as we were wandering around this morning just taking in the sights, we found ourselves at a castle on the Tiber river that runs through Rome…it was huge and pretty cool and had these thousand year old bridges that still carry car traffic over the river…when we walked up to the front of the castle and looked left…we could see the Vatican in the distance and couldn’t believe it was that close…so we walked over to it and stood around in St. Peter’s square where the pope holds his audiences and some place this kid from Ada never thought he’d ever be…and we are going back there this afternoon to take a semi private guided tour that takes about 3 hours to see everything…and I can’t wait to see the Sistine chapel and the DaVinci paintings of the ceilings and wall that holds the “Last Supper” that I have only seen in photos up to now…I understand you can’t even talk in there and I have to wear long pants or they won’t let me in…but that will be the last time I’ll not have shorts on until we get on the plane to go back to the states Friday…lunch time…
Another lie about jobs…
Well…as the idiot trump is out there lying again about creating jobs to buy votes, let’s take a look at the other bribes that the repubs never did follow through on…remember the aluminum plant that was supposed to create 3,000 jobs in Missouri? Yeah, you don’t because after the election it was supposed to affect it was revealed that it was all a scam to let a Russian oligarch pour money into the elections there and give the repubs who touted it a bribe to help launder money…and how about idiot boy’s 5,000 dollar check that would go out only if the repubs win this fall…and the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin that was supposed to add 15,000 jobs to the state…yeah, that only added less than a thousand…and now we have a 15 billion dollar steel plant the just miraculously happens to be going in in Iowa where the repubs are in real trouble of losing the state…people should be looking at the trail of lies the repubs have left every time there is an election and remember that this is just a distraction from the highest inflation in decades and gas and diesel prices at their highest level in history…how is this new steel plant going to help people put food on the table and afford to fill up the car? Of course it’s not and is part of the repubs “bread and circuses” charade to buy votes…geez…
September 29th
Well…up and moving at 5am today and that is getting to be normal on this trip and I am fine with that…gives me time to have 2 cups of coffee before I jump in the shower to get ready for the day…hag a nice day yesterday and walked around seeing all kind of stuff…Rome is interesting visually everywhere you look and we saw cool buildings and ruins as we walked just to figure out what Rome is like…man, this is one busy city and there are cars everywhere…even on the tiny streets where everyone walks so you really have to keep your eyes and ears open…after we got back here we took it easy for a while and then out to another great dinner and I had spinach fettuccini with a veal ragout and just a int of tomato sauce…and I can say I’ve never eaten like this in my life…so today we are starting off with a walk to the Trevi fountain before breakfast and then we take the subway over to the Vatican for a semi private tour that will last a few hours and will get to see the Cistine chapel and everything else there and then we’ll just wander around…when we were walking I looked up and just a little ways away there was the Colosseum and that was so cool…okay, need to get going and have coffee to be ready to head out…more later…
Inflation is running away…
Well…of course, the idiot trump lies about inflation and prices for everything that are soaring…and it is not just gas and diesel prices but all prices across the board…the inflation rate year over year that was just released shows that inflation is at 4.2%…twice as high as it ever was under Biden and double the feds target…and that is one reason why they raised interest rates last week…to try to slow the economy down but I think the economy is not heating up but it is just a result of the idiot trump’s stupid war in Iran…when fuel prices have doubled just because of the idiot, that has nothing to do with the general economy which I think is actually in a recession right now due to high prices on everything that is a direct result of tariffs and stupidity…and now the spectre of food shortages is starting to rear it’s head as thousands of farmers are declaring bankruptcy due to the high cost of inputs like fuel and fertilizer and have stopped planting…when is the last time you heard of food shortages when the dems were in charge? Never is the correct answer since they adhere to actual economic principles and not a 4 year olds understanding of the economy…as I’ve said before the economy is heading for a terrible reckoning due to the stupidity of the idiot trump and we are all going to pay the price for the maga assholes electing him…geez…
Last move to the last hotel…
Well…I think I’m a pretty crappy traveler and pretty sure I don’t want to do another marathon trip like this one…god am I an old fart or what? I am looking forward to seeing Rome over the next 4 days that I have only seen in movies and tv shows…and I want to hear and smell it, too so I can take those memories into my older age like hearing the church bells ringing here while we had dinner last night…going to be hot in Rome at about 85 degrees F but the locals we’ve spoken to have said this is nothing to what they suffered in the heat wave all summer…I was really expecting some fall temps but I guess I’ll have to wait til I get home for that…I have relaxed about the trip and the depression that was trying to grab me has pretty much dissipated after talking to my daughter last night…I have to remember that she is normally pretty reserved and that doesn’t mean she is unhappy…something I forgot for a couple of days…so, I need to continue packing to be downstairs for the walk to the train station around 10…off we go…
Do they really want to lose?
Well…with the video of idiot boy’s chief of staff riding on a hotel cart spraying champagne around with 2 women and the younger idiot trump pushing it (yeah, I know, AI generated but by Scavino) the central idea is “let them eat cake” (the famous line attributed to Marie Antoinette when told that the peasants had no bread) we see that they are the most tone deaf bunch of pricks who have ever infested this country…the “I’ve got mine” crowd who don’t care that gas is over 5 bucks a gallon and diesel is over 7 bucks for the rest of us and many families are struggling to put food on the table…that is all you need to remember when you go to vote in a month…these assholes don’t care that they’ve spent 50 billion dollars on a war that no one but them wanted as they cut medicaid and bleat we can’t afford to help people who need it…50 billion dollars would have paid for medicare for all for years and gotten rid of student loan debt but these assholes don’t care…and the cost of the billion dollar ballroom that idiot boy lied and said would be paid for by private donations would have restored SNAP assistance for millions of people…so remember their actions are the “let them eat cake” of our time and vote these assholes out this fall…geez…