The Brontosaurus is a gift shop.

The first time we saw them, though, was around the time that Paul Reubens died, and the T-Rex was dressed like Pee Wee Herman in a grey pin-striped suit and red bow tie.

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I fumbled my phone and didn’t even realize I had taken a picture, let alone a 9 photo burst. I couldn’t recreate this if I tried.

The post Accidental Art appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

Free Harassment Training On Craigslist

At the top of the list, this morning was a Craigslist post that would fall neatly into the latter category. It was a simple post titled “ICE Hotline,” and the description just said, “Report the illegals.” There were two pictures in the ad: one of the ICE seal and another with ICE contact information. I’m not sure what the point of the ad was. Probably just to make the poster feel smug and sanctimonious.

Nothin’ Fer Nothin’

When I checked in later this evening, I saw a picture of a box fan sitting on four air filters. The ad was titled “Smoke Filter.” The description only said, “Free instructions to make very effective, hi volume filter for you home,” Why not just put the instructions in the ad? Why make it a whole thing where I have to reach out to you? Why not just fuck off and not bother making a Craigslist ad that no one is going to see anyway? Make a video and post it to TikTok or YouTube and let people who are looking for instructions for making an air filter find it.

Btw, I fully grasp the irony of me saying, “Why not just fuck off and not bother making an ad no one is going to see anyway?” while writing a blog post no one is going to see. I’m not pretending to be helpful, though.

“Get A Bucket And A Mop For That…”

These two Craigslist ads came on the heels of an ad I saw earlier this week. It’s a photo of a guy, standing in a bathroom holding a mop handle. The description reads, “I am a great home cleaner and go through a lot of mops. I switch to a new mop and have no need for this one.”

At first glance, it seems like a post about a mop handle. Weird, sure, but almost everything that people are giving away on Craigslist is weird. When you examine the picture a little more closely, however, you can see his cock bulging through his shorts. You can actually see the outline of his German army helmet and everything. The internet is a weird place.

I Didn’t Spend My Whole Day On Craigslist, Though

I painted the wall in my garage today. Most of the day was spent sanding the cabinets, drawers, and walls in my garage with the door closed because I didn’t want to deal with the wind blowing for the I-don’t-know-how-manyith-consecutive-day. It was a poor choice that I will pay for with my lungs when I’m older.

Today was the first day since I started this ridiculous garage remodeling project that I didn’t want to be out there. I just didn’t want to work on it anymore. I’m sick of it. The thought of sanding all of those drawers made me want to just put everything back and call it good enough. I persevered, and as usually happens, I discovered that it wasn’t as bad as I had built it up in my mind. It was actually really easy and went super quickly.

All my prep work is done, and all that is left is to paint everything. So, before I called it a day, I threw a coat of primer on the walls. I was hoping that seeing the plywood painted white would give me the burst of inspiration and motivation I needed to drive this project home. It didn’t. It looks like shit. The primer drew all of the lignans out of the wood, so the whole wall looks like a nursing home mattress, or maybe one you might find on the Craigslist free section. It will look better after I paint it… I hope.

The post The Craigslist Free Section Is Up To Shenannigans Today appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

Never mind that the Hughes fire was even further away than the Palisades fire or that the wind wasn’t blowing nearly as strongly as it was two weeks ago. It was upwind, and the smoke polluted the skies above us, so I could kind of understand the alarm. More so than two weeks ago, anyway. At least this time, there is evidence that a fire is burning somewhere.

The fact remains, however, that Simi Valley is in no real danger of burning. We’re not going to have hurricane-force winds like we did two weeks ago. The Santa Ana winds will blow like they do every year in mid-January through tomorrow, then they will subside, shift from the west, it’ll rain over the weekend, and then this fire season will finally officially be over. Then, we can focus our attention on the flooding and mudslides.

I just wish people would familiarize themselves with their surroundings, climate, weather patterns, and the natural rhythms of the place they live. It’s incredibly liberating. When you understand what is and is not a threat to your safety, it frees your mind to focus on what’s actually important. And then, I won’t have an endless stream of notifications from people asking if they need to evacuate from a fire burning 40 miles away.

The post Now, That’s Something To Take Note Of appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

I also built a little box to hold another drawer that I had that never had any sort of cabinet or enclosure.

After lunch, I moved on to the big project. I have a rolling cabinet with 25 drawers in it. It was too tall the way it was, so I wanted to make it shorter. I also wanted to build a stationary base for it since it never gets moved. By taking the wheels and top tray off, I was able to buy myself over 5 inches. That meant that I could add two drawers to the top. So, I started by building the base, and that’s where things went south.

I Fucking Hate Welding!

Welding can be so gratifying…when it goes well. The problem is that it seldom ever goes well. That’s mainly because I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing because I weld so infrequently that I forget what I learned the last time. Tonight was a particularly spectacular cluster fuck of welding ineptitude. My welds were shit, they were splattering everywhere, and I was blowing holes in the metal. I adjusted the settings, but it didn’t help.

I changed the wire from .35 to .25, and I also changed the tip. It was a totally different experience after that. The metal flowed like warm butter, but only for one joint. The other three were much like before I changed the wire. I was well and truly pissed off by the time I was done. Fortunately, I’ll never have to see my abhorrent welds again because they are hidden away from sight underneath a cabinet. When I’m dead and my belongings are scavenged by pickers at my estate sale, someone will get a good laugh when they see what I did.

This garage makeover is getting excitingly close to the end. Once I build the box for the two drawers, I can start painting everything, and then I can finally put everything away and clean up the garage! It’s still a long way from over, but I can see the finish line. It’s a thin line way off in the distance, but it’s there!

The post Things Are Heating Up Now! appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

Full disclosure: If you’re looking for a recipe to learn how to make the ultimate gluten-free brownie totally from scratch by blending a variety of hella expensive gluten-free flours, this ain’t it. The good folks at King Arthur have already figured out the perfect blend of flour, and I can’t imagine improving upon it. I understand if you’re a purist, but come on, haven’t you sacrificed enough by not being able to eat gluten?

Besides, the only part of the recipe that comes premixed is the flour. You still need eggs, water, butter, chocolate chips, nuts, and whatever else you want in your ultimate gluten-free brownies. That’s almost from scratch.

It’s a hell of a lot scratchier than the brownies I used to make when I was a kid, that’s for sure. They came in a box with a paper tray that you pour the mix into. Then, you stirred in water, popped the paper tray into the microwave, and voila! you had “brownies.”

Alright, Let’s Learn How To Make The Ultimate Gluten-Free Brownie

Serving Size:

16

Time:

1 hour

Difficulty:

Super Easy

Ingredients

• 1 Box King Arthur Gluten-Free Ultimate Fudge Brownie Mix
• 1 Stick of Butter (1/2 Cup)
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Tablespoons Water
• 1 Cup GHIRARDELLI 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Premium Baking Chips

Directions

1. This recipe calls for melting a whole stick of butter, but before I melt it, I like to use it to grease the pan. You can use a light or dark metal pan or a glass pan. I’ve only used a dark metal pan because that’s all I have, and these brownies are to die for, so why try to improve on perfection? I prefer an 8″ x 8″ pan because it makes the brownies thicker than a 9″ x 9″ pan. Liberally apply butter to the bottom and all four sides of the pan, and then set the pan aside.
2. Melt the butter. I put the butter in my mixing bowl and microwave it for 45 seconds to 1 minute.
3. Whisk the butter, two eggs, and two tablespoons of water until blended.
4. Mix in the King Arthur Gluten-Free-Ultimate Fudge Brownie Mix until the batter is smooth and creamy and there are no lumps or dry powder left in the bowl. Don’t use the whisk for this step; you’ll never get all of the batter out of it. Use a spoon or spatula.
5. Mix in 1 Cup of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Premium Baking Chips. Obviously, if you like nuts or anything else in your brownies, you can add them here. I just came around to liking nuts in my brownies a few years ago, and then I developed a nut allergy.
6. Pour the batter into the greased baking pan.
7. Bake at 325º for about 50 minutes. The directions say to bake it for 40 – 45 minutes, but I’ve tried that, but they always need at least five more minutes. Of course, your oven, pan, and altitude are going to affect how long it takes to cook, so start on the low end and check on them.
8. Take them out of the oven and let them cool for at least 15 minutes. I like to let them cool completely because I think they taste better that way.
9. Enjoy!

The post How To Make The Ultimate Gluten-Free Brownie appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

I know I sound like an out-of-touch, curmudgeonly, troglodytic Luddite when I say that I hope TikTok is gone for good, but I’m not. I was actually early to TikTok. It was the only trend that I’ve ever been on time for, let alone early. I was even on TikTok before my Gen Z kids. I downloaded the app in December of 2018, and I loved it. It was fresh and original and just like Vine before it, full of creativity.

There were creators who would spend hours elaborately applying makeup and prosthetics to create original characters and then make a series of videos as that character. Then, they would wake up the next day and create a whole new character. I admired their dedication and imagination. And the dancers! I envy anyone who can move and control their body like a talented dancer. I especially enjoyed watching all of the shuffle videos. No amount of slow-down tutorials could help me grasp that movement.

But then, in April of 2019, Jimmy Fallon and The Roots popped up on my FYP, and I thought to myself, Well, this app is dead. Once the celebrities find out about an app, the plumbers, pressurewashers, and landscapers aren’t far behind. Before long, your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles are on there, using it wrong.

Hindsight And All that

Obviously, I was wrong. If COVID hadn’t happened, though, would I still have been wrong? I’m not so sure. I closed the app in April 2019 and didn’t open it up again until May 2020, and omg, how it had changed. The creativity was gone. It had no spirit, no edge, and no originality. Now, it was nothing but people pontificating in their parked cars.

I get it. The only privacy most people have access to in the course of their day is in their car. But for fucks sake, has everyone become so narcissistic that they can’t be bothered to think about their audience and create an aesthetic experience for their viewers? Of course, most viewers probably aren’t even looking at their screens while the videos are playing, which is why they’re not bothered. Apparently, it works, though, because these videos are rewarded by the algorithm, prompting more and more people to make bad videos.

Even the creators who had put so much thought, time, and effort into their videos a year earlier were now just talking to their cameras. And, of course, there were oh so many landscapers, plumbers, and pressure washers. Then came the trend of uploading pressure-washing videos with totally unrelated audio. The app was truly ruined. I’m sure a lot of my disdain for TikTok comes from my healthy, adult attention span.

My Eyes Are Here, Pal

My biggest peeve about TikTok, though, was the vertical format. I don’t know about TikTok’s other 170,000,000 users in the United States, but my eyes sit next to each other, horizontally on my face. They are not situated one above the other. Watching vertical video is like trying to look through the gap between boards in a fence. It’s unnatural and wrong. During the Woolsey Fire in 2018, I drove by a bunch of people taking pictures of the fire across the valley through the filthy windshields of their cars, and they were all holding their phones vertically. Those are gonna be some award-winning pics, I thought to myself as I drove by.

Shorts: The GoBots Of Short-Form Vertical Video

YouTube Shorts is even worse because it’s just recycled TikTok’s and clips from movies and TV shows. Movies that were shot in a 16:9 aspect ratio and meant to be viewed on a giant movie theater screen are cropped and edited for a 9:16 phone screen. And the people editing them can’t even be bothered to edit them well. Instead of cutting from one character to another, they slowly pan between them, so the whole time one person is talking, all we see is the background of the set until they come into view just as they finish talking. You’re uploading someone else’s work, and you can’t even put forth the effort to edit it well?

It’s Not Really Goodbye, After All

TikTok, unfortunately, is not gone for good. They didn’t even have to shut down the app last night. The Biden Administration said they would not enforce the law banning Byte Dance from operating in the U.S. That means that no one made Byte Dance shut down TikTok. It punished itself. I’m sure the incoming Trump Administration made a deal with Byte Dance to kill TikTok today so that he could resurrect it when he becomes president tomorrow and be the hero for so many drug-addled, ADHD, Gen Z dopamine addicts.

Bonnie was in Starbucks this morning, and the two baristas were lamenting how sad the world is today without TikTok. One of them said, “But Trump said he’ll bring it back, so it’s not gone for good!” Everything is politics now. Even an app that started as a platform for teenage girls to shake their asses at the camera.

Fuck Me!

I couldn’t even finish writing this post before TikTok was reinstated.

Are we great again yet?

The post TikTok Is Banned In The U.S.A. And I’m Glad appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

Unfortunately, the majority of my meals these days come in bowl form, so my tray doesn’t get as much use as it would have if I had bought it when I first had the inclination. I’m reminded of the scene in Home Alone 2 when Kevin tells the freaky bird lady that he outgrew his rollerblades because he was afraid of getting them dirty.

You Gotta Smash That Hot Iron

I think I wrote in a previous post that throughout my life, I have put what I want on the back burner because I have never felt I had earned it. I’ve delayed gratification for so long that once I finally get what I want, my interest in it has waned, or the opportunity has passed.

When I was in my teens and twenties, I wanted nothing more than a top-of-the-line stereo system in my car. I never got one because I could never justify the expense. I settled for cheap, second-hand components, jury-rigged and haphazardly installed in the fleet of vehicles I owned in my teens and twenties.

In the late oughts and early teens, I wanted an iMac. They were so expensive, and just like the car stereo, I could never justify it, especially with a family to support. I wish I had just bit the bullet and bought one. Instead, I bought an HP laptop that didn’t have the specs to edit video. How many opportunities did I miss out on?

Time Is Our Only Currency

Time feels much more precious to me now that I’m an old man. It’s always been precious to me, but now, it feels irreplaceable. The “Somedays” and “Onedays” seem less and less likely. I’m realizing the urgency with which I must act on any whim, dream, fantasy, idea, or goal before time runs out. Either mine or it’s.

That’s what the purge in my garage is about. I’m cleansing my space of the things that I don’t want to make room and time for the things that I do want. It seems like a simple and obvious exercise, but it’s been a massive mental and emotional struggle. It’s been a physical struggle, too. Bonnie noticed how fucked up my hands were this afternoon. I have cuts, gouges, scrapes, scabs, and scars all over, and all new.

I’m Evolving

This experience has changed the way I think about my time and my priorities. Doing what I want has always felt awful. It feels like what I imagine infidelity would feel like. It feels wrong. Or rather, it felt wrong. After two weeks of diligently working toward a goal, I don’t feel anxious or guilty about doing something for myself. I feel a little anxious and guilty about not feeling anxious and guilty about doing something for myself, but it’s negligible.

They say your surroundings are a reflection of what’s going on inside of you, and I fully believe that. When my space is a mess, my mind is a mess. I’m not sure which is causing the other, but I know that when I clean and organize my surroundings, I feel better. So, I’m clearing my mind while I’m clearing my garage so that I will have space in both to focus on what really matters. I don’t want to miss any more meals with my mess tray.

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It Was Always Going To Be An Off Day

I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. Bonnie and the kids got up about an hour later because she had to drive them to the airport. I went back to bed after they left, but it took another couple of hours to fall asleep. I slept until ten and woke up to my mother-in-law frantically pacing around the house. That’s a whole story on its own.

A Late Start

Waking up so late throws off my whole routine, and I have a hard time finding my groove again. As such, progress in the garage was limited. I finished sheathing the short wall and moved on to planning the workbench, but I hit a snag. The corner cabinet that I was going to use won’t work, so I have to figure something else out; otherwise, I’ll have a big, dead, useless space in the corner. Besides that piece not working, the metal supports I was going to use as the base of the workbench won’t work either. That was a huge blow because the whole workbench was designed around them. So, now I’m starting all over from scratch. It’s for the best, though, because now I have an even better layout planned.

Tomorrow is a new day, and with any luck, I’ll have at least some of the workbench built. I’ve overestimated my rate of progress with every step of this project, so I’m not setting my sights too high.

The post It Was One Of Those Days appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

I took everything off the walls and pulled down all the plywood. I thought it would be a good idea to move some wires while I had the studs exposed. Actually, I couldn’t put insulation in or put plywood on the lower half of the wall until I moved the wires. I also reconnected a light above the workbench that I disconnected several years ago.

I Can’t Enjoy Anything

The wind finally stopped blowing today. It was sunny and 69º, so I opened the garage door to get some fresh air and enjoy the beautiful day. So, naturally, someone would have to come along and ruin it. While I was on the ladder making the connection, two salesmen from a construction company approached me to ask if I had any work for them.

The first approached and asked if he could give me a quote on any projects. I just said no without stopping what I was doing. Then, just a few minutes later, the other guy approached me. He wanted to give me a brochure, but I told him to just set it on the bandsaw – which was at the front of the garage. Both of the men apologized to me. I had no intention of being rude to them, but I also wasn’t going to stop what I was doing to talk to them.

One Step Closer

Once I was satisfied with the wiring, I put up the insulation. I don’t have a staple gun, so I used tacks. I got all of the plywood up on the big wall, but that’s as far as I got. It was too dark outside to see what I was cutting on the table saw, and I was tired, so I cleaned up and called it a day.

The post Best Laid Plans… appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.