Author: Mark Alexander

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No Tiedrich Today

Not because Jeff didn’t post; it’s because I read through it and I just can’t.

I’m sure I’ll continue next week.

Meanwhile, enjoy knowing that Elonia fucked up big time:

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Torturing Myself, Holiday Style

 

When I was at lymphedema therapy last week, I told my therapist I was feeling pretty discouraged and quipped, “Maybe I’ll be able to eat by next Christmas!”

“Pfft,” she responded. “You’ll be eating long before then.”

I can’t say I totally believe her, but she’s been doing this work with folks in my situation far longer than I’ve been in this situation, and if nothing else, I appreciate her positivity.

On a totally different note, also last week morbid curiosity drove me to look for photos of the type of surgery I went through in September. (Google “split-lip mandibulotomy” if you like seeing raw hamburger.) Sure, I’d been shown drawings and diagrams prior to the surgery but I wasn’t prepared for the actual photos. After seeing them, I have two thoughts:

    1. It’s amazing they got me put back together at all, and it’s fucking incredible that four months out, I actually look as good as I do.
    2. I can’t stress how lucky I am that a numb left jaw and lower lip—and apparently transient swallowing problems are all I walked away with from this.

So for all my bitching, I am thankful that it’s gone as well as it has. Things could’ve been worse. Much worse.

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Hello, Old Friend

Yamaha CDX-730

My holiday present to myself.

Okay, to most of you, this is just another piece of BPC [black plastic crap] from the early 90s, but to me, it’s an old friend. (And it’s not plastic; that’s an anodized aluminum faceplate and solid metal case.)

I bought this identical model back in July 1990 to replace my very first CD player that I got sometime in the mid 80s. How do I know the date? I was living in San Francisco at the time, I’d just gotten a mid-year bonus, and my mom was visiting. One day we went shopping and I came home with a new futon mattress (it was the 90s, after all), and this little gem.

It was my player for ten years or so and then it just disappeared. I don’t remember getting rid of it, but all of a sudden it was gone from the photographic record—along with my memory of what happened to it. At some point I think I must’ve pivoted to playing all my CDs through my DVD player and probably just felt that it was redundant and didn’t need it any more.

All I’m sure of is that it was gone by the time I moved back to Phoenix in 2002. At some point in 2003—after surviving seven weeks of radiation for my first cancer—I rewarded myself by returning to a dedicated CD player and then flipping units in and out of my system on almost a monthly basis trying to find digital nirvana (buying this shit used was still dirt cheap back then).

At some point between then and 2022 I got rid of my last CD player, only replacing it with a CDX-530 when I decided to get over myself and stop mourning the loss of my remaining discs. (I couldn’t find a CDX-730 at the time.)

When the 530 got too picky about reading discs, and my attempts to resuscitate it failed, I bit the bullet and bought a brand new player. It’s served me well over the past few years, and it sounded fine, but it never truly wowed me, y’know? It lacked the “personality” of those awesome 90s era machines, and since I really wanted a 730, I set a trigger on eBay to notify me whenever one was posted.

To be honest, the pickings have been slim since I first set that trigger. They don’t show up that often (I don’t know it’s because they’ve all died and been consigned to landfills, or if  they’re tanks and people hold onto them forever) but when they do show up they’re either listed as not working at all (after watching literally dozens of repair videos on these things, it might be a simple fix but I didn’t want to deal with it) or working but so beat up cosmetically they were an automatic pass.

Then a couple weeks ago I woke to an email that another had been posted and—though it was missing the remote control (a common issue)—it was pristine and working.

It arrived today. And yes, it works—and looks as good as it did in the seller’s photos.

And I have a secret to share: Yamaha hasn’t changed their CD remote codes in the last 40 years. While it would be nice to have the original remote that was paired with this player, they seem to be impossible to find, and pretty much any Yamaha CD remote will cover all the basic functions on any player. (As of this writing, I’m using the one from the new player I bought two years ago and it’s working fine, although I have ordered an era-appropriate remote so this one can go back with my 2 year old player should I decide to sell it.)

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OMG!

From Mock Paper Scissors:

OK, guys, this is gross and I’m sorry/not sorry to be writing about it, but it is important.

Yikes – no wonder the DOJ is scrambling to tell us not to believe what’s in the files about Trump.

www.mediaite.com/media/news/o…

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) December 23, 2025 at 6:50 AM

CNN has more on the Epstein-Nassar letter here, but here’s the important part:

“Dear L.N.,” the letters reads, “As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home. Good luck! We shared one thing … our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our President also shares our love of young, nubile girls.” The letter makes another lewd reference to Trump’s treatment of women.

“Life is unfair,” the letter reads.

Q: is “I have taken the ‘short route’ home” some sort of euphemism saying he was killing himself?

Merde-a-Lardo itself was subpoena’ed:

Prosecutors subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago for employment records in Maxwell case

The Mar-a-Lago club was subpoenaed to produce documents in the case of United States v. Ghislaine Maxwell on Nov. 29, 2021, according to a copy of the subpoena included in the new files.

The subpoena demanded “Any and all employment records relating to [redacted].”

It is not clear who appeared on the club’s behalf.

Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

…could it be because:

“The FBI received a tip in October 2020 that appears to be from an unidentified female who said she had information about a ‘Jeffrey Epstein party’ in 2000. The person’s information is redacted in the FBI’s summary of the tip, which is included in the new files.”

“The woman alleged that someone named Ghislaine Lisa Villeneuve brought her to the party. Later, someone said that Donald Trump had invited everyone to Mar-A-Lago, according to the tipster.”

And here’s the document itself embedded as an image in this tweet.

 

We’re trying to imagine the Republican freakout if literally any of this was about Obama or Biden

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) December 23, 2025 at 7:29 AM

Meanwhile, Morning Joe is carrying water for his old pal:

Scarborough: “Trump is not on Epstein’s list. There’s nothing in there really damning about Trump or Bill Clinton. So one of the great mysteries is not what Trump’s hiding, it’s why if he’s not in the files – which all the reporting says he’s not – why is he so obsessed on blocking access to them?”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 22, 2025 at 7:21 AM

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