I finally realized I need a title three days later

It is Friday. You already know that. The social chairwoman has yet to inform me of any weekend plans.

Congress continues along in a dysfunctional way. Both parties are to blame. I wonder if things would be different had the XVII Amendment not passed. Originally, the House was to represent the people while the Senate represented the States. That is why the Senate was not chosen through popular vote. If Senators were voting the will of their State lawmakers instead of individual voters I bet things would move a bit more smoothly. Now the senate is just filled with guys from big Congressional districts who worry about getting re-elected so they can feed at the lobbyist pig trough instead of making sure they are voting the wishes of Indiana, Texas, or Ohio. Note, I did not use the phrase 'the people of...'  in any case I bet there are at least 25 Senators who could not cite a single case and decision that disqualifies Gorsuch from serving on the Supreme Court. There are none that are so egregious that they represent an unsound legal mind.

Ah, that is too much political crap for a Friday.

Have a great weekend.

Wherein I declare your ideas as remarkably stupid and moronic

English is a bastard language rooted in Saxon and French and ancient Briton, Gaelic and a smattering of Latin roots. American English swipes words from Spanish and the Romance languages reflecting the true melting pot dynamic of our nation. English is a real pain to learn. Spelling is inconsistent, pronunciation is very regional. The dialect spoken in Scotland is a world away from the version spoken in tidewater Virginia.

In English we have the same word mean many things; consider sight and cite, to, too, and two for example. It is all complicated enough, but at least we don't have feminine and masculine verbs. In English he walks, she walks, we walk, they walk. The verb is the same regardless of the pronoun or article. This is not so in languages like French or Spanish. They have a different verb and article depending on the word being masculine or feminine. It is why most English speakers hate learning languages --the conjugating of verbs. Bah.

There is a movement underfoot where the Perpetually Aggrieved want to eliminate masculine and feminine pronouns. Instead of he or she they want to be called "ze" or "zir". I want to be "His royal bigness and arbiter of taste". I also demand you utter " Bippity Boppity Boo" at the end of every sentence when addressing me. 

"Joe, Your Royal Highness and Arbiter of Taste, will you tell me more? Bippity Boppity, Boo".

Yes, that is just as silly as the whole made up pronoun thing. If Bruce Jenner wants to slap on a dress and be called she, well, OK. If Darla wants to wear a flannel shirt and be called Dave then so what? As far as i am concerned if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck. But i tell you here I will not refer to fellow humans by any old pronoun they care to make up. Ever. Sorry, I'm an old fart. I will not purposely change centuries of English grammar so that instead of 'she went to the store' we write 'them went to the store'. 

I bet crazed Social Justice Warriors are going nuts over the masculine and feminine verbs in the Romance Languages or is the silliness confined to our college campii?

In any case it is just dumb and I will not play along. Bippity, Boppity, Boo.

I'm sorry

I'm just not feeling it. I really just have nothing to offer.

I bought donuts this morning.  There is that.

Have a good day.

I got a haircut last Friday

Monday. 'Nuff said on that subject.

I see Joe Biden laments he did not run for President. He thinks he could have won. I think so too. I suspect a significant number of Trump votes were anti Clinton votes. Mine was.

One more week until real baseball. I am ready.

Feel free to create the balance of tne content in your mind. It will likely be more interesting than anything I can come up with.

Have a great day.

Just like that

Birds are chirping. The weather is fine. My coffee is hot and black, as God intended. I am breathing. I am sure my wife loves me, a little anyway. Life is good.

I hope you enjoy your Sunday.

You are welcome

I was on my way to the grocery store late yesterday afternoon. As I turned out of my cul-de-sac onto the street that leads out of the subdivision I noticed smoke coming out of a neighbor's garage. It looked like they were grilling or something. These are the same people who chain their dog to the tree in front of their house even though their backyard is fenced and use their truck bed to shoot off fireworks so the idea that they are grilling deep in the garage is not a far-fetched notion.

As I got to the corner I noticed the smoke was black and heavy and swirling out of the open garage door. This was no charcoal grill! I threw the Escape into reverse and sped back towards the house. As I jumped out of the car I could see the red and orange tongues of flame in the front corner of the garage. I knew they had small kids so I ran to the door. I hit the doorbell repeatedly. All three kids ran to the door and stared at me through the glass panels next to the door. They ranged in age from about seven to three or four. None made an effort to open the door. I shouted that they should get their mom, the garage was on fire. She burst out he door a few seconds later.

The kids ran across the street crying in panic and hysteria. The mother tried to kick the flames, but the fire was three or four feet high by then, the garage was filled with thick black smoke. I asked her if she had a rake or shovel I could use to drag whatever was on fire out into the drive to spread it out. She just stared at me and ran out the side door of the garage. Of course opening that door caused a draft that fed the flames further. At this point the fire was about three feet in diameter and three or four feet high and the boxes and packaging that fueled the flames were burning fast and hot. You could not see the back of the garage for the smoke.

She dragged in a hose and started spraying the flames. After a minute or so the fire was a smoldering mass, but the danger of burning down the house seemed to have passed. I asked her if she had it under control. She again just stared at me and shouted to the kids that it was OK. Two came back up the drive. One curled into a hysterical crying ball. I suppose, without evidence, he was the one who set the fire. His reaction was far beyond fear.

I asked the woman again if she was OK now. Again she just looked at me. I shrugged and got back in my car and headed to the store. I would say that I wasn't really looking for a thank you, except that I was. If I had not driven by when I did the wall of the garage would have caught. A minute or two later and who knows?

When I came back from the grocery the garage door was closed. I would have thought they would want to air out the smoke odor.

I don't guess this qualifies me for the Boy's Life "True Scouts in Action" feature.

A metaphor

OK, I will spell it out -- I'm busy as a beaver today.

Hmmmm part 2

So the Trump team was under surveillance after all. And just what is incedental mean anyway? Clearly this was under the auspices of the Obama Administration and NOT related to foreign or Russian investigations.

Hmmm.  

This may get interesting and ugly.

another lazy post

A decade or so I stated that I would never post a YouTube video on the old blogaroo. I firmly held that resorting to video was a crutch to compensate for lack of content. It was lazy blogging. I think I broke that pledge about two months later. That is how we roll around here. I have written 5634 posts (not all published) counting this one in the twelve years since I started this blog. I don't know how many of those posts included videos. I suspect quite a few. I do know we can add another to that tally:

This old 80's tune popped up on my iPod the other day. Go ahead and listen. A couple minutes spent in Nostalgia Alley won't hurt a thing. If you are too young to remember the 1980's, then you might hear something new.

So, if you have read this far it is clear that my writers block continues. I started this site on March 22, 2005 with a mixture of high hopes and trepidation. Twelve years ago today. There are bloggers who have been around longer. There are bloggers with significantly higher readership. There are many, many bloggers who are better writers. I am, by definition and fact, just an average Joe in the blogging world.

I am pretty sure that 135 of my first 150 visitors 12 years ago was me, checking to see if anyone had read my crap. Some things don't change. I still seek approbation. I'm still a jerk. I am opinionated. I am probably a lot less funny than I think I am. Sarcasm is still my best weapon. I still don't know what I am trying to accomplish here.

I don't have a huge readership, but you are loyal.

Before I delve into the maudlin, let me just offer a heartfelt  thank you for reading to all of you who have stopped by in the past twelve years. I can say with complete candor that each of your visits and comments has helped make my day a little more pleasant.

Good news and bad

i am once again connected to the interwebz. I can surf the news and blogs with abandon and impunity. There is no need to worry about data usage. I can have access to hundreds of channels on my big screen TV. I do not even have to find the station I want, I just speak o the remote and the magic box finds my program or station. That is the good.

Now the bad news, if you are a fan of this bloggity example of personal navel-gazing; I have nothing of interest to report. The weather is unabashedly March. Politicians are behaving remarkably political. My daughter prepared a great birthday dinner for me last night, both my boys came home to honor me. Having my family all together pleased me more than I can express, but I suspect that has little interest to you. In fact, my annual first-day-of-spring birthday passed with no fanfare at all. For the curious among you this was the double nickels birthday. I can still remember when that seemed really, really old. Life is what it is. God is good and has blessed me in ways I cannot describe. Thc fact that I cannot entertain you today is something we will both survive.

I hope your day is good.

I love you so much I am using valuable hotspot cell data to put up this post

I told my internet/cable provider to stick it up their...on Friday. I'm sick of the constant outages and frequent price changes -- like charging me at random for premium channels I never asked for and never wanted. I told them to shut it off. I called the other guys who will be here Monday. I have no illusions, the other guys will be just as bad. I will save about $50 bucks a month with the new customer discount. When the new guys raise their rates I will just go back to the current crappy provider at their lower introductory rates. Neither company understands the value of customer loyalty.

To bridge the gap I bought n antenna for the main TV. I get about 20 local stations including a bunch of broadcast stations playing old TV fare from my youth and even before. You know, stuff from when the world was black and white with shades of gray. Lots of cowboys, lots of magical hot chicks.

I am getting a kick out of watching old Johnny Carson episodes. It is strange to watch Carson and his guests smoking away during the interviews. I find it amazing that the same basic jokes we hear these days were used describing Reagan. Funny how every Republican President is inept, bumbling, and a puppet of an evil cabinet. Last night's rerun from 1974 was fascinating from a historical perspective; they were talking about Nixon, Watergate, and streaking.

This was all the rage at the time. I had this 45 rpm record. A local ice cream shop offered a free banana split to any streaker who came to the window. I don't know if they paid off. I remember streaking down the block on a late night dare from my neighbor on one of numerous back yard summer campouts. Streaking was just another fad that faded away. I suspect winter had more than a little to do with it.

Where are you Dustbury?

Slow

I'm having internet issues. Posting will be light for a while.

One part of me says 12 years is enough.

We shall see when the repairs are made

I didn't want to leave either of you hanging

hmm

I was skeptical when Trump claimed he was wiretapped by the Obama administration. Then we see that there were reports back in January that claim his aids were under surveillance.

Now the DOJ says they need more time to see if Trump was under investigation. Sorry, if he wasn't then it takes no time to reply that there is no record. The request to Conress to delay responding looks like there is fire under the smoke and the agencies involved are trying to smother it right quick.

314

Apricot, peach, apple, sugar cream, black raspberry, pecan, lemon

I watched Butler play 'Nova. I'm now an expert

It is that time of year. Folks who know diddly about basketball opine on the relative merits of teams they have never seen play a single game. These so-called experts lament the inclusion and exclusion of marginal teams, each of which one could make an argument for and against. If you are a player at "should have been a 15th seed university" you can take solace in the fact that had you just won a few more games there would have been no question about your inclusion to the big tournament.

To those who cry about the seeds. Get over it. You have to win every game to be the champ. It does not matter where you are on the bracket, win and nothing else matters. Crying about being an eight seed opposed to a sixth seed is a waste of time. It does not make you appear a college basketball cognoscenti. It makes you a petulant know-it-all cry baby

Finally, if you do fill out a bracket, take a stand. Filling out multiple brackets to hedge your bets is just lame.

I won't share my uniformed, best guess, flip-a-coin, oh-who-cares-bracket. Decades of experience shows my Magic 8 Ball is a liar. My selections never survive the first weekend.

All before I have even had a drop of coffee

I have been up since just after 3:00. I don't know why. It is especially irritating because I did not go to bed until midnight. When I say I don't know why, I may be fibbing a little. I have a bad case of heartburn. I feel it all the way into my throat. I took a couple of antacids and drank a big slug of generic Malox, to no avail. I am a bit confused by the acid reflux. I had the most benign of meals for dinner last night - chicken and noodles.

I have sat here in my office surfing the interwebz in the dark. Yesterday my brain prompted me with a memory from a nearly forgotten class in European history where one single lecture focused on the post WWI cultural, artistic, and scientific movements in Weimar Berlin. For some reason the phrase "Berlin Modeling School" came to mind. I suppose the professor was talking about the Bauhaus School. 1920's Berlin led me to more than two hours of surface research on art, Dadaism, architecture, literature, cinema, cabarets, and even some YouTube clips of some famous Kaberet performers. That led me to Christopher Isherwood. Descriptions of his books led me to think about Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

This led me to a fuzzy thesis regarding the 20's and the decadence of the "lost generation". I wondered why the post war years after The Great War led to the libertine 1920's and the post WWII years led to unprecedented economic and technological growth. Then I decided I didn't really care and that someone else has likely published whole denuded forests worth of paper on the subject. Finally, I decided that it is all just too much work for a predawn Monday mind.

Historian Barbara Tuchman was entirely correct when she stated that research is endlessly seductive.

And thus you get a glimpse into my head. It is often not a fun place to be.

Every time ...

...I watch Rudy I think he is a bigger dick with each viewing. What an overbearing jerk.

Somebody owes me an hour of weekend

I ain't late. Well, not much anyway. As far as I am concerned it is just after 8:00. I don't care what the clock says. I challenge anyone to prove the ridiculous clock changing rule has any benefit at all.

Maybe we need to sick the SJWs on the case. Any hourly wage workers on the clock at 2:00 AM this morning got cheated out of an hour of work and wages. The graveyard shift sucks anyway and now archaic clock laws are doubling down on the agony. Workers unite! Stop Time Until Paid all I Demand should be the new protest slogan. I hope to see marchers carrying STUPID signs as soon as Monday.

I ventured out into the cold to get some Sunday donuts for the wife this morning. As I pause for a sip of coffee I notice a few things odd about the preceding sentence. First, I assume donuts bought on a Sunday are no different than those purchased on any other day of the week. I have no idea why I needed to call them Sunday donuts.  I admit that I have no more idea what that particular phraseology means than you do. Second,  I am disingenuous to claim I bought the bakery goods only for my wife. If that was the case, the box from the bakery would have been filed with nothing but unfilled bars iced with chocolate.  I also bought a couple of cake donuts, a jelly-filled and some plain yeast donuts for me to eat over the next few days. Sorry if my opening sentence of this paragraph mislead you in any way.

I have a new rule. I will stop reading any article, editorial, blog post, or comment that references that the 2016 election was hacked. The same goes for any television report. There is absolutely no evidence the election was compromised by hacking. The DNC and John Podesta had their emails hacked. That is far different than nefarious persons affecting the outcome of voting. It is a small but intrinsic difference. I'm done with it. Any person claiming, even out of habit or ignorance, the election was hacked is either a damnable liar or so uniformed and ignorant they are not worth considering. I will give those succumbing to such inaccuracies the same credence I would a scientist who maintains the Earth is flat.

My coffee cup is down to the imaginary dregs. I'm off for a refill and that gives me an excuse to end this phlegmatic effort. Enjoy your Sunday, even if you did get cheated out of an hour of your weekend.

In my head

A Post With No Name

I just read a Screeching article from a disenchanted Blue Stater who thinks the blue states should take their ball and go home. They pay all of the taxes, have the best art, and are moving towards utopia while the red states are hate-mongers, white supremicists, Russia-loving, food stamp abusing rednecks who want to screw up everything.

In his revised history the Democrats had a majority power until after the Civil War when evil Republicans won by giving away land. I guess he forgot about that whole Democrats were in favor of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation thing. Only progressive economics brought the country around to truth in the Great Depression. In his revised history Trump is the most Imperial President ever, after jus six weeks in office. ObamaCare would have worked great, only it had to be mucked up to please the red state troglodytes. I guess he forgot that all of the ACA was written and passed by Democrats and only Democrats. I'm surprised he didn't blame it on the Russian bogey man.

The author of this "think piece" envisions a wonderful world with high speed rail, open borders that attract the world's best and brightest, free universities and a violence free society with strict gun control. He laments that blue state policies to combat climate change might help ignorant red staters. But the good news is that a progressive approach to foreign relations can allow us to reduce the military to pre-WWI levels.

I say go ahead. See how many of those suburban counties vote to stay red. Take a look at California, those closest example of your liberal promised land. Seperate, go your own way. Go ahead.

Oh, and good luck with the food thing. Growing stuff takes lots of land, thus farm country is sparsely populated. But I, for one,  would rather have food in my pantry than access to good quality opera or art studios.

Your position may vary.


Via Hot Air

Get the government out of medicine and costs will go down

There is a correlation between financial aid and the steep rise in college costs. The more federal aid, the higher the cost to attend. Look it up.

There is a similar problem with health care. Why do we need health insurance? Because the costs are so high. The government has tried for years to manage healthcare. The result is excessive costs. Very few can afford the costs of healthcare. A mere doctor visit cost hundreds of dollars. Prescription costs are outrageous. The ACA or now ObamaCare Lite are attempts to fix the symptoms, not the problem.

We need to reduce the costs of health care, not make sure people can afford insurance to pay for it. When Medicare pays $30 for a procedure that costs $100 that means you or I will have to pay $170 to have the same care.

The real question is why that procedure costs $100. How many tests and unnecessary work is done because after the fact some lawyer is going to go back and ask why a very expensive test wasn't done that might have discovered that case of lung rabies that killed poor Jane, when there were no symptoms or indications she had anything more than a simple cold. "He should have known". Too much cost is added to medical care in "cover your ass" testing. Prescription drug costs are sky high because ten years after a drug is released and approved by the FDA three people had an adverse reaction out of millions who received the benefits as advertised. Boom. There is a class action lawsuit and someone has to pay those lawyers. And why isn't the FDA ever a defendant? They approved the drug. Do you want to reduce health costs? Tort reform is a good place to start.

Open up medicine to the free market. Let doctors advertise and compete just like the ambulance chaser lawyers out there. "I'm Dr. Barry 'The Knife' McLean and I can get you that appendectomy for just $40". Why not?

Let people choose the level of insurance coverage they want. Why is the Federal Government deciding what should be covered? Why should my wife and I be forced to pay for pregnancy coverage? Why should you be required to get hair transplant coverage? That is like telling me I must buy a round of martinis when I go out for a burger. What if I only want tea?

Maybe you want better prescription drug coverage. Maybe my neighbor only needs coverage for catastrophic emergencies. Why should the Feds decide those questions? We all make choices and live with them.

I could live with the Government creating a high risk pool or covering those who are uninsurable. I get that Anthem does not want to take on the risk of Tony down the street who has had a couple of heart attacks. Like most Americans I am for offering a helping hand.

Government is using a sledgehammer to fix a loose watch gear.

a July post in March

Like many people of my age I grew up without air conditioning. I did not think it a burden, no one I knew had air conditioning either. My bedroom was on the northeast corner of the house. While I had two windows, a large one on the north side and a smaller on the east, the chances of a cooling cross breeze coming in through the screens on a sultry summer night was usually less than zero.

There is something about a summer night. The cicadas strum and the crickets fiddle in their endless cacophonous symphony to the moon and stars. I would lie in bed listening to the night sounds and the regular passing of trains a few blocks north. They would sound their big air horns as they approached the Maish Road crossing, picking up speed as they headed east out of town. I can still hear in my mind the screech of steel on steel as the brakes slowed the inbound trains, the bang of cars taking up slack, the steady rhythmic click and clack as the cars passed over the rail connections.

I don't know what evoked the ancient memory of night sounds; of the low rumble of trains, of the chirp of insects, of the whisper of an owls wings in flight, the occasional scream of a bat in the summer air. I am not sure of why I think of sweat, tossing and turning in the night, of lonely musings and pre-dawns spent with Louis L'Amour or the latest book I filched from my mother after she went to bed.

I don't know what stirred those memories this morning. Perhaps it is because I stayed up late reading last night. Maybe it is just old memories leaking through to flood today's reality away. I should have stored this post away until summer's heat invited the insects to replicate their intricate music into the night sky. But the regular rhythm of the steel wheels of late night trains clicking over the rails will have to be provided from my imagination and memory. The tracks a few blocks north of this house are moribund and dead. They will soon be transmuted into a public greenway, a walking and biking path for suburbanites to exercise in a straight line from point A to point B and back. Besides, the night sounds will be muted by the closed windows of the air conditioned house.

If a cicada cries it lonely paen of sex into the empty night and no one hears it, does it exist?

A bit of this, a little of that, a dolup of mayo, a tablespoon of fat

It is another early morning here at the homestead. Once again my eyes popped open at four in the aye em. So it goes. I'm not complaining, merely stating fact. Rain and thunder is moving through the area. Perhaps that woke me. I doubt it. I usually sleep great when it storms. I blame it on supper. I had a bacon cheeseburger topped with jalapeños and peanut butter. You read that right. Don't judge until you have tried it. Anyway I think the peppers are stirring up dissent and perhaps outright revolution deep in my guts. It could be that my appendix is about to burst. It could be gas. It could be a monster case of hypochondria. It could be that all of my recent bellyaching and complaining has caused...bellyaches.

A blind man could see what I did there.

The whole Trump wiretap kerfuffle is not going away soon I think. One thing is for sure; either Trump or Obama is going to be embarrassed.  I don't mean in the blushing cheeks sense, but rather in a significant political and media sense. The real question is can we trust the media to report the truth? Can the Obama sycophants in the press shed eight years of fawning to tarnish the media darling's image if Trump is telling the truth? Time will tell. I'm betting Trump hatred is enough to bury the story, no matter what.

What is up with this paper-thin old man skin I have developed? I bumped my hand on the door jam yesterday and when I looked down I was bleeding, A couple of hours later I had a mysterious two-inch scratch that was bleeding on the same arm. Either I am losing my mind or I am routinely having my brain wiped after doing battle in the Matrix. Perhaps I took a shiv to the gut, that would explain my pains this morning.

I'm starting to really hate politics

I wrote a version of this some months ago. You can look it up. There was NO hack of the 2016 election by the Russians or anyone else. There is no evidence, zip, zero, nada, rien. Some email accounts and the DNC were hacked. There is no evidence the election was hacked. Any reporter, politician, or Democrat who claims otherwise is a liar, disingenuous, or ignorant of the facts. Period.

Next. Even if Trump was in contact with the Russians, it had nothing to do with your vote, my vote, or a vote for anyone. Those having a hissy fit over Trump's possible discussions with the Russians conveniently ignore that the Clinton Foundation was taking in millions from foreign governments. How many conversations with foreign powers did she, or her surrogates, have in the four years she spent campaigning for the 2016 election?

If the Obama administration did investigate or initiate surveillance on Trump or his cohorts in the months leading up to the election it would rank as a monumental political idiocy. Even if there was a small chance that Trump might win, his new administration would find out about it. At least Nixon used his own men to snoop on the Democrats. He was not dumb enough to use the Justice Department.

On the other hand, those who indignantly claim that Barrack Onama would never do such a thing must have forgotten he sicked the IRS on his political enemies, he had his AG run guns into Mexican drug lords in an attempt to force through gun control measures and he outright lied about the murder of Americans in Benghazi. Obama's hands are far from clean.

Would someone please take away Trump's access to twitter?

In the kitchen

My youngest came home for he weekend. I have not seen him in a while. We went to my daughter's and had pizza last night. My oldest son has plans so he missed the mini-reunion. I may make a lasagna this evening for supper. That is one of the boy's favorite meals.

Long-time readers know I do most of the cooking around here. I enjoy it. I always have. One of my first merit badges as a young Boy Scout was the one for cooking. I make no claims I am a better-than-average preparer of food. Your mom or wife is probably a better cook. My daughter is very good. My youngest works as a restaurant cook and has for a number of years. I have no doubt he could turn out ten perfect omelets to my one.

I do fine with the comfort foods. I can make a good batch of mashed spuds. My scalloped potatoes are good. My wife says my fried chicken is only second to her mom's. I make killer white gravy.  I can do chili or various casseroles. Most of you can probably do it just as well, if not better. All three of my kids claim I make the best lasagna. The youngest says this and he worked for a couple of years in an Italian restaurant.

Me, I don't know. I never care for my own cooking. I always think most other people's food is better. I enjoy the process. I take great pride when everything comes together at just the right time. I do not particularly like baking though.

Honestly, I have always maintained that anyone who can read a recipe can cook. Sure, you may have to figure out how to dice an onion or develop some knife skills, but turning out decent food isn't that hard. I have cooked long enough that I don't usually need a recipe for the old standards, but if I wanted to try something new I go by written directions. It is not brain surgery.

I enjoy watching cooking shows on TV. My method is simple: watch, learn, do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. That is life.

a post without a local weather report

A couple of years ago my son-in-law gifted me an Amazon Echo. It wasn't my birthday or Christmas. He knows I like gadgets and is a great guy. At the time the device was a nice music speaker with a few skills. It could tell me the weather forecast or the score of a ball game. I programmed it to give me selected news headlines. It would answer basic questions or serve as an alarm. Today the app can do a ton of stuff, but is still rather basic compared to what digital devices will be in the near future. But I dig my Echo. I can even compete on Jeopardy questions.

For Christmas my wife gave me an Echo Dot to use in my office. I can listen to internet radio or streaming music without using my phone. The sound is pretty basic, this device is the size of a hockey puck. But when listening to talk radio or sports talk the quality of sound is not as important. Sometimes I like to listen to music in my office. In that case I can connect the Dot to my Bose Soundlink II Bluetooth speaker. It is pretty cool. I find it handy to control my music with voice commands. For instance if a song comes on Pandora that I don't like I can just say "Alexa skip" instead of fumbling for my phone, unlocking the screen, launching the Pandora App and pushing the fast forward button. In fact, I can launch the app on the Echo just by telling it to play Pandora.

For a lazy cuss like me, that is pretty cool.

Oh, and I lied. There is a dusting of snow on the ground.

Mystifying Myths

It is a cold Friday. There was a dusting of snow overnight. In a rare twist, I have a conference call this morning and a meeting this afternoon. I will have to turn in my salesman card, working on a Friday afternoon. Hah! I wish the stereotype was true, I usually work on Friday afternoons.

In other news, there isn't any. I am in a rut, or perhaps a creative void. Putting electronic "pen" to the screen has been a challenge. Do I skip blogging altogether? Do I post a series of short blatherings repeating "I got nothing" in various ungrammatical ways? Should I haunt the archives and toss up a series of reruns to rebore you (the first time wasn't enough I guess). In desperation I have opted for all of the above.

But I did tell you about my weather this morning. There is that. About three hundred years ago I worked as a librarian in a small town of about 1,500 people. One of my elderly patrons told me she always notes the date and weather on the lid of the oatmeal can whenever she fixes oatmeal. I found that a strange habit, especially when she said she does not keep the cans when they are empty. I guess this blog is my oatmeal can.

Who are you?

Oh, to be born in a different time. Today, you are what you imagine yourself to be. Do you want to be a living Ken doll? No problem. Believe deep down you are a man woman dragon? You can do that. Even if you are a male and identify as a woman (or vice versa),  modern society is on board.

When I was an older teen, I identified as a 21 year old. Every time I tried to get a 12 pack of Strohs the clerk refused to sell it to me because I was 18, or 19, or even 20. I told them I identified as an older male, but no one recognized my rights. It did not help that at 21 I looked about 16. Heck I was still being regularly carded into my thirties. But it is clear I was discriminated against by an aged-defined society.

Today, I identify as a smart, quirky, 23 year old with six pack abs and devastatingly good looks. My mirror discriminates and that is an undeniable fact. So do the twenty-something coeds at the mall who fail to give me a glance, not even to subtly check out my ass. The horror, the pain, the tragedy. Society is unfair!

I also identify as a person with a well-funded bank account. Apparently, Chase Bank is not up to date with identity politics; they keep insisting I have actual funds in my account before they approve debit card purchases. They are guilty of being...monietists? In any case it is a clear case of discrimination.

Look, it is great to pretend. We all have a bit of Walter Mitty hiding deep within us. At various times I was sure I was Captain Blood, Robin Hood, Big Jake, or Geronimo. At ten I was sure I was Simon Kenton. For a time, I believed I was a writer, a deep thinker, a philosopher, a gentleman.

Alas, as Popeye so adequately stated it, "I yam what I yam". You are too. Biology never lies. If you want to cross dress, have horns surgically installed, or undergo takeadickoffme surgery, it is none of my business. That doesn't mean I have to agree with your new identity any more than you have to believe I am better looking than Zac  Effron.

The old man is snoring

Thunder is rumbling overhead as the morning starts. Waves of storms passed through here since early last evening. We just have lots of wind and rain, but these same cells proved deadly in other locations, spawning tornadoes and downed trees. The associated change in pressure has caused me to have a massive headache, one bad enough to wake me up. Spring, I hate you. On the other hand, my head pain may be the onset of a cold. The granddaughter is mildly sick and my nose has started as steady drip. My sinus pressure could just be a massive buildup of snot.

Variations on the theme of the day (but no Prince):

Edited to remove the videos. I'm sure you are OK.