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Every. Damn. Night. Right Before Bedtime.

Well That Explains It!

drlisalippman: One second they are lying on the floor. The next they are flying past you, ears back, taking the couch like a hurdle, doing a ful lap of the living room like the house just turned into a racetrack. Then just as suddenly, they stop, sides heaving, looking very pleased with themselves. Every dog owner has had this experience.

Vets actually have a name for it. We call it a FRAP, a Frenetic Random Activity Period. And it is not your dog being silly or overtired. It is happiness that built up faster than they could spend it any other way.

Dogs store energy and feeling all day in a body that mostly just walks and waits. A FRAP is the release valve. It shows up most after a bath, right when you get home, late at night when the day finally goes quiet, any moment relief or joy hits harder than usual. The zoomies are not random at all. They are what pure, uncomplicated happiness looks like when it has nowhere else to go but their legs.

A lot of dogs even run the same signature route every time, the same loop around the same furniture like the path is already mapped out in their head before they take off. If yours always rounds the couch the same direction or always ends with a slide into the same rug, that is not your imagination. Many dogs genuinely have a personal track.

The gentle note I always include, because real change matters. A dog who suddenly starts doing this so hard they crash into furniture, or who seems distressed rather than gleeful during it, is worth a mention to your vet. But your dog absolutely losing it around the living room for no reason at all? That is just joy, taking a victory lap.

Does your dog have a regular FRAP time?

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Colicky ManBaby Has Yet Another Meltdown

I’ve said it before: all journalists should just stop reporting on his rallies,  press briefings ego fluffing sessions, and accordion-hands announcements. Stop hanging on every word that spews from his rancid anus-mouth. He’s a malignant narcissist and if you stop giving him attention it will cut off his oxygen more effectively than anything else.

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It Only Took Six Years…

BOUT DAMN TIME: Trump’s DOJ has finally admitted that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

Trump has spent nearly 6 years trying to argue that he defeated Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. He has investigated, intimidated, issued subpoenas, and tried to overhaul the voting system to prevent future “fraud,” alleging that the 2020 election was stolen from him… He never found any evidence.

That didn’t stop Trump. At Trump-a-Palooza just last week, Trump reiterated, “We won the presidency three times” and “If I have to I’ll come back twice- three times. You’ll say get this guy out of here, get him out.”

Ready for Trump to “get out,” Nicholas Wilson sued Trump for violating the 22nd Amendment, which reads, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” So if Trump really won in 2020, then he would have been elected to the office of President three times (which is more than twice), violated the Constitution, and must be removed from office immediately. Yay!

Trump’s DOJ couldn’t let that happen. They filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing, “Plaintiff alleges that Trump was elected President in 2020, that allegation is untrue.” In fact, “Trump was elected President in 2016 and 2024. In 2020, Joe Biden was elected President.”

Wow, it only took them 6 years!

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And Her Face Just Ghostly

Munich Machine – A Whiter Shade Of Pale (1978)

Another lesser-known project by “The Godfather of EDM,” Giorgio Moroder. It was also the debut of Chris Bennet, whom he collaborated with on Giorgio & Chris the following year.

My two favorite tracks on the album harken from Side 2 of the original vinyl release: La Nuit Blanche and In Love With Love.

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“I Don’t Understand How People Can Be Afraid Of A Fat, Elderly Man Who Wears Apricot Makeup”

Here’s what the brilliant E. Jean Carroll said about Trump: She’s earned every penny of those $88 MILLION verdicts.

“I don’t understand how people can be afraid of a fat, elderly man who wears apricot makeup, his hair done up like Tippi Hedren in The Birds and sits in a courtroom and moans and groans and complains and snorts. When the jury got a load of him, they were mesmerized. You’ve never seen anything like it…”

“He never sat still. And he talked the entire time, within earshot of the judge. He belittled Alina Habba, his own attorney. He would spit as he was talking. He didn’t smell so good.”

“The high point was the moment he stood up, with steam coming off his back and hot air blowing out his ears because Robbie Kaplan [Carroll’s lawyer] was giving the final argument and she was asking the jury how much it would take to make him stop. And she drove him so crazy, he stood up in the courtroom and left.”

“When a man is innocent… he stays and fights. He lost right at that second. He couldn’t have looked more guilty.”

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Ostentatious Doesn’t Even BEGIN To Describe This Monstrosity

Let’s see…a 4 car garage plus an addition 2 car garage, a Billiards Room, a  Billards Gallery, His ‘n Hers Offices, His ‘n Hers Bathrooms, His ‘n Hers Powder Rooms, Assistant’s Office, Conservatory, a BALL ROOM, a 21′ x 44′ Entry Hall with its own BAR, Butler’s Pantry, Elevator, a Hers Closet that’s bigger than our Living Room, and not one, but two Family Rooms…

It’s like those old illusion drawings where you’re supposed to locate all the things that are fucked up.

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So That’s What’s Going On…

Downtown Phoenix Apartment Tower Heads To Auction After $128M Loan Goes Unpaid

X Phoenix, the 330 unit apartment community at 200 W. Monroe Street in Downtown Phoenix, is headed toward a trustee sale after its developer failed to repay a $128 million loan tied to the property.

According to Maricopa County documents, lender Mack Real Estate Group has scheduled the first phase of X Phoenix to be sold at auction on December 10 at Maricopa County Superior Court.

The property originally opened as a roughly $100 million development and marked Chicago based The X Company’s entry into the Phoenix market.

Ben and I were discussing this only a couple days ago; about how it seemed all progress had ground to a halt. To be honest, the entire concept and design of X Phoenix was odd from the beginning. Based on its description it sounded more like a high-tech dormitory for young adults (private bedrooms and baths, but shared living and kitchen facilities) than a traditional apartment building. Nevertheless it seemed to fill up quickly. Maybe I’m just old, but…no thanks!

The first phase of this building went up pretty quickly. It was directly north of City Hall so I saw it every day.

They started construction on Phase 2 in late 2023 or early 2024, and it seemed it was taking forever. When I retired from the City in January 2025, it still wasn’t finished, although it looked close enough that would probably be done by the end of the year.

Well, imagine my surprise when I was downtown a couple weeks ago and saw that it still wasn’t completed, and in fact, looked like precious little had been done since I last saw it 20 months ago. At least now I know why.

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In Which Your Host Effects A Successful Repair On A Piece Of Vintage Stereo Gear Without Destroying It

The other day I was dusting in the Living Room and after I moved my big Yamaha (as in main component) CD player to get underneath it I went to put on some music and the drawer wouldn’t open. I know it wasn’t the belt because I had successfully changed that with the proper size and thickness a couple weeks ago and it had been working without any problem ever since. No, this was something new. I was able to pry the drawer open with my fingernail and it worked just fine afterward, but the next time I moved it the problem returned.

I finally got tired of dealing with it, so I popped the cover yesterday to see if I could determine what was happening. I had the cover off 30 seconds and I immediately identified the problem.

There’s a wide copper grounding strap that makes contact with the metal tray when it slides into place. The raised nubbin that makes the actual contact with the strap was getting snagged on the strap when the tray attempted to slide out.

When I changed the belt, I pressed down on the copper strap a little too forcefully, and since tolerances are everything in this equipment, it made contact just fine, but was too tight to let the drawer slide back out. I gently bent the piece back upward a hair’s breadth, and everything worked normally again; something I need to keep in mind in case I ever have to swap the drawer belt on this unit again.

I don’t know why this just started acting up, or why it worked fine and then stopped once the unit had been moved (probably because I haven’t used it but a couple times since I changed the belt, preferring instead to concentrate on my portable players) but it’s fixed now, and that’s good enough for me.

When I was doing some research the other day, I learned that the DAC (Digital To Analog Converter) in this player was actually made by Panasonic. Panasonic, not Yamaha itself or even Sony. Panasonic.

Why is this significant? This deck dates from the period that Technics/Panasonic were pushing their own “MASH” (“Multistage Noise Shaping,” a 1-bit digital-to-analog conversion technology developed by Technics/Panasonic to improve sound quality and reduce distortion in CD playback) chips—yet there is no “MASH” branding anywhere on this player.

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Back On The Prednisone

I finished up my last 7-week titrated dose of Prednisone this past Sunday. By Monday morning I was already sprouting new blisters on my thighs and upper arms. And by sprouting I don’t mean the usual one or two blisters that appeared overnight when I was on the Prednisone. I mean there were a dozen, and I swore as the morning drew on I could almost see them form in real time.

Fortunately I had a previously scheduled appointment with my dermatologist that day. She agreed that I obviously needed to stay on the medication while we wait for the Duplixent to take full effect (estimates range anywhere from five to eight months for the complete treatment of pemphigoid). So I’m back on another titrated regiment; this time only 3 weeks, to be reassessed when I see her at the end of the month. She also added  30 days of doxicycline and a B-vitamin suppliment to the mix.

And as far as the extremely stubborn areas on my neck, I mentioned to my physical therapist a couple weeks ago that no matter what I did they weren’t healing; they’d scab over, but would slough off at the slightest provocation in the shower the next day. She suggested putting xeroform under whatever bandages I was using. That made sense; the area on my wrist that they pulled for the to patch my tongue where the tumor was removed was covered with xeroform for weeks before it had healed enough to be exposed to the air.

So for the last two weeks I’ve been using the xeroform on my neck, wrapped in a gauze bandage and I’m seeing a definite improvement.

I hated going out wrapped in gauze like that because I was so concerned about what people would think, but then I said “Fuck it. I need to heal and what people may infer from my gauze (and the leprosy-like sores on my arms) isn’t important.”

Some days I feel like I’m a walking advertisement for the pharmaceutical industry, but you know what? Two days on the new regimen and the blisters stopped forming within 24 hours and we’re back on the healing path.

She’s not giving up and neither am I.

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