Category Archives: Paul

February 26, 2022 · 23:45

Hey MLB – READ THE ROOM!!!

An open list of suggestions to the MLB Players Association and owners, who are currently involved in a months-long pissing contest which is delaying the opening of spring training camps and threatens to very soon delay or eliminate a chunk of the regular season —

As I said above – READ THE ROOM!!! In case it might not be obvious to all of you chuckleheads, we, the American and baseball-loving public, are ***NOT*** in the mood for your shit right now.

  • Russia is invading Ukraine while Madman Putin threatens worldwide destruction.
  • It’s year three of COVID, where we still have over 1,800 deaths PER DAY in the United States, but the CDC is bowing to political pressure from morons and cultists and reducing mask useage mandates.
  • It’s year seven of the GOP revealing itself as a fascist cult and enemy of democracy in the United States.
  • The aforementioned fascist, white supremacist, anti-science, anti-knowledge, anti-democracy cultists are trying to ban and burn books, ban medical care regarding abortion and medical treatment for trans folks.

Given all of this, we’re exhausted, frustrated, and furious. We need a break. We were really looking forward to going to the park, sitting in the bleachers, having a beverage and a couple of hot dogs, and catching a game.

But again, it’s the greedy billionaires vs the greedy millionaires, debating once again which group is the most clueless and selfish.

Guess what, guys? WE DON’T CARE ABOUT THE DETAILS. We really and truly don’t.

But we’re going to care a LOT for completely different reasons if you don’t pull your heads out the bodily orifices where you’ve stuck them. If we don’t actually have baseball to go to in April, if we don’t have a way to shut out all of the things above for a couple of hours, if you can’t see common sense and compromise, we’re all going to be mightily pissed off.

We’re not going to be pissed off at the players. We’re not going to be pissed off at the owners. We’re going to be pissed off at ***ALL*** of you.

You think you’ll get by because you have massive TV and radio contracts… which are worthless if you’re not playing games. You have massive naming rights on your stadiums… which are worthless if no one’s in the stands.

Consider also all of those who rely on you for jobs at your stadiums, parking, office staff, and all of the tens of thousands of suppliers and merchants near your stadiums. Bars, restaurants, and so on.

It’s been one thing when you’ve pulled this stunt before, in relatively good times. We got by, although your finances and attendance and popularity always took a hit.

No worries! The fans will always come back! Right?

But these aren’t good times, relatively or not. Things sort of suck right now. We need a pick me up, we need a break – and you’re going to pile on just to prove that you can be more petty and shortsighted than the other guys?

Think very, very carefully about that decision. Take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine and ponder how badly Putin has miscalculated. Your decisions are inconsequential compared to Putin’s mistakes, but for those who love the game, who need the game, and whose livelihoods depend on the game, they’re non-trivial.

Don’t screw up.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Freakin' Idiots!, LA Angels, Paul

February 18, 2022 · 23:48

Three Days

Hey! It’s a three-day weekend! I literally didn’t even realize that until it came up in a meeting this afternoon.

And I don’t have to go to the hangar! That gig’s done!

I don’t even know what I’ll do with myself.

Maybe (hold on, this is going to be a radical concept!) read one of those books that’s been sitting there.

Maybe (buckle in!) watch a movie or a couple episodes of a TV show that I started years and years ago.

Maybe (inconceivable!) I’ll just sit and watch birds and clouds.

Let the adventure begin!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Paul

February 7, 2022 · 00:05

One Of Those Days

It’s never a good thing when “something” wakes you up at 02:27 and you can’t quite put your finger on it laying there in the dark.

Then you realize that you’re up to your eyeballs in “dark” – what happened to the light from the clock, the cable box, the night light, the light from the kitchen night lights… Well, the winds are HOWLING again, so I guess that’s not too surprising? It’s tough to make sense of things when it’s 02:28.

Okay, the power’s out. But why is there still light from the street lights? Maybe they’re on a different circuit of some sort?

By the light of the ever-present cellphone, I got into some sweats and went exploring, cautious of the possibility that there might be a loose wire down out there. And the first immediate odd thing is that there are houses up and down the street with lights.

Is it us? Check the breaker box, toggle the master circuit breaker, doesn’t make any difference.

A closer examination shows that the houses on either side of us are dark, and the two houses directly across the street. But everyone else is fine.

Watson, by the power of logical deduction, I have determined that something has gone wonky on the power pole across the street. Wouldn’t it feed those five houses and not any of the others?

Having some idea of what’s going on (or at least an educated guess) I get on my phone to put in an outage report with DWP. Then I fall asleep out on the couch. Fitfully.

My only real concern is the two refrigerator/freezer units. But as long as we keep the doors closed, they should be good for a bunch of hours.

At about 05:00 I hear a truck outside and go hustling out. But it’s not DWP, it’s Spectrum. Their driver says that he was sent out because there’s a cluster of several houses here that have gone offline. Yep, that would be us, but I think we need DWP. He’ll have Spectrum follow up with DWP.

I check my phone again and find that DWP has left several voice mails, but been blocked because, A) It’s the middle of the freaking night, and B) they’re calling from a number that’s not in my phone books, so my phone is treating them as spammers. Okay, yes, that’s what I’ve programmed and it’s a good little robot phone, but timing is everything. I call DWP back and they want to know if I still need help. Yes, thank you, that would be why I put in an outage report. (How come the cable company knows about this and they don’t?!)

About 08:45 the DWP rolls up and I go out to let them know what I know. Uh, duh, dude, and the guy points at the power pole. (Okay, trying to be helpful, but I was probably being a stereotype from some ad.)

Well, THERE‘s your problem! That cable on the left isn’t supposed to be hanging loose like that.

We sit around for a while waiting for a truck with a bucket lift on it, then it’s time to be rescued from the Dark Ages.

On the side of the transformer, up near the top, there’s a bump or wart. That’s where that wire should connect. So they grab that dangling wire (carefully), unscrew the clamps on that bump/wart and clean out the debris, strip an inch or two of insulation off of the end of the dangling wire, and insert it into the side of the bump/wart thing. There was a very satisfying ZZAAAAAAAPPP!! and flash. They clamped the bump/wart thing back down, and we were again on speaking terms with with the electrons.

Then I went to get breakfast and got stuck behind the long-winded, annoying dude from Hell.

Then I got home and found out that they had messed up my breakfast order.

And DAMN IT, I took too long to type this out, it’s after midnight! As of yesterday I had another streak of 245 days in a row posting on the site, and while this will count in my head, it breaks the streak so far as WordPress is concerned.

SHAZZBATT!!!

 

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Filed under Castle Willett, Paul, Photography

February 4, 2022 · 23:41

Revelations On A Long Friday

Question everything.

I just tonight realized that the version of the Bowie song “Ashes to Ashes” that I love is not actually by Davie Bowie. I had always thought that it was a live version or something, but always believed it was him. Nope, it’s a Tears For Fears cover.

Gobsmacked. It’s going to be a hell of a weekend.

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Filed under Music, Paul

February 1, 2022 · 23:51

So, February, Let’s Talk

January’s gone, welcome February.

You’re a short month, and I don’t say that in a derogatory way! To me it’s a huge advantage, since you don’t have to hang on as long, stretch out the misery. You can do great things, get in, get out, be a hero!

You’ve got that whole “love holiday” thing going on! Tough to screw that up, am I right?

Yeah, tomorrow there’s the “groundhog thing” and we’ll all be quoting Bill Murray all day, but that’s not a bad thing! Just go with the flow and maybe play a little less Sonny & Cher, if you know what I mean.

So, focus, get ‘er done, you can be the favorite month of the year! Hell, with a little effort, you can be the favorite month of the last two and a half years!

It’s your big chance, February!

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Filed under Farce, Paul

January 31, 2022 · 23:56

Bye Bye January!

What, only seven minutes left in the month? Wow. And I’ve got a “239 days in a row” posting streak going.

Not my best look, but appropriate.

This is what happens when you accidentally hit some button without knowing it while picking up the phone to read some message. I don’t know that I could duplicate this shot for a million dollars, but sometimes you’re in the wrong place at the right time, or vice versa.

Captions?

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Filed under Paul, Photography

January 30, 2022 · 23:23

My Weekend – January 30th

I hope you all had a pleasant and relaxing weekend. For me – mixed results.

I got a lot of work done on a project for the CAF SoCal Wing, and while it’s “work,” and a fair amount of it, that whole gig is wrapping up so the sooner I get it done the sooner I can reclaim a bunch of my time, so that’s a net good thing.

I checked my car periodically to see if it will work, i.e., let me shift out of “park.” In six or seven checks over the last two days, it locked up three times, the rest of the time was fine. Anyone want to bet that once I get it to the repair shop this week it won’t do it AT ALL for the repair guys to diagnose?

The Kings are on the road and playing well! It’s a pleasant surprise. Perhaps they have a legit chance to get into the playoffs for the first time in about four years. They lost in an overtime shootout yesterday in Philadelphia but won today in Pittsburg.

We did not go to space today, for the fourth day in a row. SpaceX is trying to launch a satellite but after three days of lousy weather today was perfect. Right up until the point where a cruise ship sailed into the restricted area where debris could fall if there was a failure on the rocket, so the launch got scrubbed at T-0:33. They’ll make a fifth try tomorrow.

Then, of course, after a roller coaster ride of a season, where at one point we were 3-4 and folks doubted we would make the playoffs, let alone win our Division, let alone make it to the AFC Championship game, but we had turned it around to the point where we were favorites to go to our third Super Bowl in a row, getting to here with that mind blowing last second comeback and overtime win last week – after all of that, we choked after building an early 21-3 lead and lost in overtime this week.

Yeah, that sort of sucks. A lot. I’ll live, I’m an adult, I understand that 31 of the 32 teams all finish the season with a loss, I remember that there were years and years when an 8-8 season was a triumph and we never even fantasized about making the playoffs at all, and now we’ve been in the AFC Championship game for a ticket to the Super Bowl four years in a row, we’ve cashed that ticket two of those four years, and we won the Super Bowl in one of the two appearances. (*deep breath*) Nonetheless, this stings.

After a bit of “destruction therapy” (crushing soda cans for recycling, they make a very satisfying “crunch” as they collapse into little hockey puck sized bits of jagged aluminum) it was time to go out with the old:

…and in with the new.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in sixteen days! (Assuming they can settle the lockout/strike issues by then.)

Let’s hope that the week ahead will be productive and non-stressful for all. (HAH!) It’s time for the stress levels from politics, COVID, and “life” to back away from that red line on the meter.

 

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Filed under KC Chiefs, LA Angels, LA Kings, Paul, Photography, Space

January 28, 2022 · 23:20

Those Blocking-The-Carl’s-Jr-DriveThru-Lane Blues

I was headed out to pick up dinner. A quick drive about a mile and a half to the Carl’s Jr drive through. Not a sign of trouble on my horizon.

I place the order, talking to the “Charlie Brown’s teacher” voiced machine in the driveway. We’ll see what we actually get.

I’m second in line, waiting my turn. No worries. The guy in front of me leaves and I drive up and stop at the window.

I have to get my wallet out, so just to be safe I put the car in “park,” keep my foot on the brakes. Do the minor league contortionist thing, get out the wallet, fish out the cash.

I get my change, a medium and a large drink, ask which is which. Later we’ll find out that he got it backwards, but maybe that was just a side effect of the timeline shift to the other, less friendly timeline…

It takes a bit because there’s a custom burger being ordered. There are several cars lined up behind me by the time my bag o’ food comes.

I get everything settled, reach over to go home…

…and the car won’t shift out of “park.”

What am I doing wrong?

Foot on the brake, it won’t go unless that’s depressed. No problem there.

I’m pushing the release button on the gear shift, right? Again, no problem. So why can’t I move the shift lever?

The honking starts. I have my food, the folks behind have been waiting a while, let’s go!

Try turning the car off, then back on. No problem. Foot on brake, gear shift button pushed, and … no joy. I’m stuck in “park.”

The guy in the Carl’s Jr wants to know if there’s a problem with my order. Nope, just a problem with my car.

The next five minutes or so are chaotic. There’s a lot of angst. Confusion abounds.

The Carls Jr folks finally send someone out to the parking lot to get the five or six cars stacked up there to back out, drive around to the parking lot, and come in to get their food in the lobby. One of them has an anatomically improbable suggestion for me. Creative, but unlikely.

Folks in the restaurant are coming to the window and trying to give me advice and suggestions. “Make sure that you have your foot on the brake!” Thank you, good one, I know that, learned it early in the ten years and 85,000+ miles I’ve had the car. Have I tried…? Yes, yes I have, but thanks!

It’s time for reinforcements. I can’t even get out of the car, since the driver’s door is up against the little shelf at the pickup window, and the passenger side door doesn’t have much more clearance on the other side, where there’s an automated car wash attached to the Shell station next door. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll have to try to see if I can put the top down (I’m driving a Volvo convertible) without hitting the roof of the drive-thru in order to get out.

Call AAA. They want to send a link to their app to deal with this. Sorry, that’s bullshit, I’m having a moment here and I want to talk to a human who can HELP!

I finally get someone, explain the situation. They’ll send someone. They have a whole list of places where I can be towed where I can get special AAA discounts on service, would I like one of them?

I haven’t had time to spend two seconds thinking about where I want to get towed to. It’s after 18:30 on a Friday night – who would be open? Let’s just get towed home, keep it simple for now, buy time to think about what to do next. Okay, they’ll be here in something like 45 minutes to an hour.

WHAT? Okay, I’m not going anywhere…

And through it all, I keep questioning myself. Why would the car just break like this? It hasn’t been acting up, nothing got spilled into the gear shift lever box, there wasn’t any big, nasty sound. Maybe it’s me just blindly and unconsciously doing something really simple and stupid wrong and I can’t see it?

User error located between the steering wheel and the bucket seats?

Then begins the routine of having the Carl’s Jr folks ask if I’m making any progress, turning the car off and on a few times, pumping the brakes (I know there’s an interlock switch on the brakes, maybe that’s gone flakey), smacking the shift lever a couple of times (percussive maintenance!), getting nowhere, turning off the car, and waiting for the Carl’s Jr folks to come back and ask if I’m making any progress.

What’s that saying about insanity being where you do the same things over and over and keep expecting a different outcome?

After a dozen or two rounds, nine minutes elapsed time according to my phone calls to AAA, no one is more surprised than I am when I start the car smoothly shifts out of park like there was never any problem at all.

There aren’t any of the Carl’s Jr folks at the window, so I’m not going to waste any time waiting for them to come back so that I can say goodbye. (I’m sure they’ll remember me, if not for the stupid broken car, then for the head-to-toe Chiefs clothing.)

I drive home, carefully, waiting for the next shoe to drop, while also desperately trying to call AAA back to wave off the scheduled tow truck. Fortunately, this must be a fairly common experience since there’s a relatively simple way to do this with just a couple of button pushes on the phone.

The mile and a half drive was uneventful. No sign that anything at all was so wrong just seconds ago.

Not for all of the tea in China would I shift out of “drive.”

I get home, park in the driveway, shift the car into “park,” set the brake, and shut down the car.

Out of curiosity, I turn it back on. Foot on the brake. Reach for the gear shift lever.

It’s locked in “park” like it was set in stone.

Whatever. I’ll mess around with it some time on Monday and if it starts, I’ll drive it off to my favorite repair shop. If not, well, I’ve got plenty of time to futz with it without blocking the Carl’s Jr drive-thru lane.

The food is cold.

And the guy did get it wrong. The Dr Pepper is in the small cup, the Diet Coke is in the big one.

Yeeeech!

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Filed under Distracted Driving, Paul

January 24, 2022 · 22:22

Würdle

I will *NOT* be posting any Wordle scores.

For those who have been blessedly sheltered somehow from this latest obsession, it’s a free phone app game where the goal is to find a five-letter word in less than six guesses. If you have a letter that’s correct and in the correct position, it shows green on the next line. If you have a letter that’s included in the secret word, but you have it in the wrong position, you get a yellow square. If you guess the word, you can post your score for everyone to see. Everyone gets the same word, one per day.

Okay. Whatever.

The game went viral about two weeks ago. Today I started hearing about bots that have been developed for Twitter to post the word immediately after the new game comes out for the day, thus spoiling it for everyone. I’m amazed it took so long for this to start.

There are strategies out there on picking your starter word.

Okay. Whatever.

There have been way, way too few good jokes.

But what got to me today was a news article on a reputable media outlet with lots of high-brow analysis of “what your starter word tells you about your personality.”

Lemme try this one…

My starter word is “I’m too busy to have time for this stupid game so bugger off!!”

I think that I know what that says about my personality!

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Filed under Farce, Paul

January 22, 2022 · 23:58

DIY Silver Lining #2

Earlier in January I posted a picture of a portion of my home office desktop, with two monitors showing live views of Tokyo and Venice. A comment from Jemima Pett suggested also watching live webcams from nature reserves.

Not to worry – I’ve got that covered.

On the left, the Cornell Lab FeederWatch Cam At Sapsucker Woods in Ithica, New York. If you don’t want to watch these birds, Cornell Labs has a whole lineup of other webcams around the world.

On the right, the Live Jellyfish Cam from Monterey Bay Aquarium. Again, if you don’t want to watch the jellies, there are a number of other webcams there, including the otters out in Monterey Bay.

 

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