Sorry I disappeared for a few days. I have some stuff going on, it hasn’t been just pure sackism. Although to be honest, there has been some sackism. In any case, I’ve been dabbling with some stuff that takes me far outside my comfort zone. No, it’s not homosexuality. It’s something I hope to have enough courage to share with you guys soon. But we’ll see. There’s at least a 35% chance I’ll shitcan all of it, and that’ll be that. Stay tuned.
It’s still winter here, in case you were wondering. We had one and a half days of spring, on Friday and Saturday. And by Sunday it was full-on winter again. Also, the wind is blowing like a bastard out there. There’s garbage cascading through the neighborhood, and tree limbs falling. Last night it was gusting so strongly it felt like the house was going to come apart. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but this is bullshit.
Toney and I are going to Atlantic City on Sunday, leaving the kids by themselves overnight. They’re 22 and 19 now, but it’s still not a slam-dunk that there won’t be shenanigans. But, screw it. This is our summer of travel. All four of us are flying to Myrtle Beach in May, and Toney and I are going to Las Vegas for a week in September. With some quickie overnighters here and there, like this Atlantic City deal. For the record, it’ll be about food, drink, and decompression. Wot’s wrong with that? Nothing, I say. Should be fun. If the boys burn the house down, we’ve got insurance. Right? Right.
I’ve been fairly invested in the young baseball season and my team, the Cincinnati Reds, are 2-13. Meaning they’ve won two, and lost thirteen. Currently, they’ve lost eight games in a row. WTF? They’re absolutely terrible. They’ve been in “rebuilding” mode for about five years. Shouldn’t that shit be rebuilt by now? It only took four years to construct the Golden Gate Bridge, for godsakes. In all seriousness, how does the manager still have a job? I don’t understand. Oh well.
Do you watch Homeland? The first four seasons or so were fantastic. Then it took a steep nosedive and became ludicrous. LUDICROUS! But this year — Season 7 — is really good again. How often does that happen? I think it’s fairly rare, right? When the shittiness starts to creep… it almost never stops creeping. But they’ve turned it around somehow. It’s great! Can you think of any other shows that went bad, and became good again?
My cell phone is about two years old, and it’s suddenly become sluggish. There’s a brief, yet completely infuriating, lag that wasn’t there a month ago. It’s a Droid Turbo 2, and it’s probably the best phone I’ve ever had. It’s close to perfect, in my estimation. But I think they build this kind of crap into them. I think there’s an internal timer and the slowness is triggered at some pre-determined number of days past activation. Is that paranoid? A month ago it never crossed my mind to upgrade, and now I’m thinking about it. See how it works? Man, oh man. I’m getting fired up.
Other conspiracies I’ve uncovered through the years: I believe Kleenex adds sneezing powder to their products to cause the use of more Kleenex, gas pumps randomly switch from 87 octane to the more expensive 89 or 93, and NOBODY needs Chapstick until they starting using it — once they make that first swipe… they’re a prisoner for life.
Do you have any personal conspiracy theories? Please share them, won’t you?
Speaking of conspiracy theories, RIP Art Bell. I loved that guy. He was very odd, and (as the linked headline mentions) mysterious. But he was a great broadcaster and raconteur. George Noory is OK, but he doesn’t have the edginess or the humor of the original host of Coast to Coast. Art will be missed.
And I need to go to work now. I have more stuff in my notebook — it’s been a while — but not enough minutes on the clock. There’s always next time, though
Have a great day, my friends.
I’ll see you again soon.
Now playing in the bunker
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Welcome Back!
First!
My guess is a podcast??
Ive been watching The Walking Dead since the beginning. All the fighting with Negan lasted 8 or 10 episodes longer than it should have in my opinion. They were dragging it out and I was quickly loosing interest. But the fight is over and so is the season so I’ll probably start watching again.
Spoiler alert
Jeff has done audio here a time or two.
I feel your pain. I am a Pirates fan. Although we are doing alright this year. But I have never seen a pitcher pitch one or two pitches and then get yanked. Amazing.
“Cheers” sucked in the middle – then finished fairly strong.
The Reds never really get hot until it’s too late in the season to matter. They are such a shadow their former selves. But that’s the way it is with Ohio professional sports teams, I reckon. Oh, for the days of “The Big Red Machine!” There was never a better-assembled team of superstars in baseball–period!
Conspiracies….Hmmmm. Here are a couple:
-we were the last family in our neighborhood to get cable TV. My mom swore that the government used it to listen in our conversations (kinda like Siri or Amazon Echo?)
-I don’t trust GPSs! I think they work with Big Oil to send people out of their way! Every person should know how to read (and properly FOLD) a road map.
-I’m fairly convinced that flu shots have some kind of mind-control additive (or something) in them.
I really hope you’re attempting to do a podcast, Jeff. I recall a few years back you did one or two audio-only posts and I enjoyed it. And then it all disappeared into obscurity or something. I’d also accept, and still actively hope for, a new book or a follow-up to your Ridiculous Adventures in Surburbia Volume One.
Its not a conspiracy, it’s real, and more companies than you think are doing it.
Planned obsolescence…the actual process of building in to your product a decrease in functionality over time, thus forcing consumers to buy newer “better” versions sooner than they had planned.
Seriously, don’t move to Tampa and follow the Rays. It’s more heartbreaking than being a Reds fan, as they totally depleted the talent to save the almighty dollar.
The Looming Tower on Hulu, altho it got lame mid season, and it’s only a one season show depicting the events that led to 9 11, is good again. 11 22 63(also hulu) crashed and burned at the end. I won’t watch another James Franco produced show.
The hot dog and hot dog buns conspiracy has always irked me. You have to buy four packs of hot dogs and five packs of buns to break even.
Art Bell was da bomb.
Regarding hot dogs: https://xkcd.com/1641/
I’ve never use chapstick due to the fact I’ve never had chapped lips. You connect the dots.
Perhaps you live in warmer climates? In the winter, as soon as I turn on the defrost and/or heater in my car, I can actually feel my lips being devoid of all moisture. I slather them with petroleum jelly. Chapped lips hurt and it messes up my lipstick. Dried, cracked painted lips look like a mortician went to town on my face.
SNL has a multi-year cycle of going from good to sucking and back to good.
No. It’s sucked since the 80s.
If you think of SNL as comedy, it’s gone a little up and down. If you view it as social commentary, it’s been there all along, through the turbulent post-Vietnam, post-Watergate years, through the Reagan revolution, through wars in the middle east and western Asia, through famine in Africa — and the miracle of democracy on that troubled continent, through 9/11 and America’s search for meaning in the post-American century, and into the red-hot incompetence of a racist, sexist administration — SNL has been there, sometimes quietly whispering to us, sometimes embracing us with song in sadness, sometimes shouting indignation with ballsy glee. We’ve left them from time to time, but they’ve always been there for us, doing their best in sickness and in hell. They never gave up.
John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG-_ZDrypec
Thanks for mentioning Art Bell. He was my constant midnight companion while
working night shift in the 90’s. In my opinion, the best interviewer
ever. R.I.P. my friend. To the Wild Card Line!
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/r-i-p-art-bell-1945-2018/
Jeff, are you taking square dancing lessons?
Conspiracy – the mirrors in dressing rooms at stores make you look skinnier than you are.
Is Boone Maxwell teaching them?
If you buy a bidet in America a toilet paper “representative”
will visit your home and break your legs if refuse to get rid of it.
My conspiracy theory is there is an ingredient in shaving cream the dulls blades prematurely.
Excuse me while I adjust my Reynolds wrap….
When a grocery store – or any store, really – gets wind of the fact that I like a product and buy it regularly, they discontinue that product. Even if I pay cash and don’t use the Tracking Club card, somehow they Know.
This is no conspiracy–it is an absolute bona fide FACT! Happens to me all the time. Restaurants do it to me, too. When I really start to like a certain menu offering, it is snatched from the lineup faster than you can say, “Bob’s your uncle!”
I can hear the corporate minions chattering in a distant surveillance control room buried in a bunker underneath some mountain: “Watch what that fat bald guy picks up and make sure we discontinue it immediately!”
I’m fairly certain that’s how it happens…
Shit I thought that was an exclusive that I had. Almost relieved to hear this happening to others. It has us almost becoming impulse buyers. We look at something and think, we need to get this now, before it is discontinued.
That’s Costco to a tee. I buy something I like, then when I go to Costco again it’s gone. I learned my lesson with the “Irish” sausages they sell in the days prior to St. Patrick’s Day, and I buy a ludicrous amount for the freezer now. Costco magic away other products I like too.
At the regular grocery store I have noticed 2 of our household staples be discontinued in the last couple of months 😡
Try following the Detroit Tigers, even casually. In addition to being in a “rebuilding” mode (i.e. the team is comprised mostly of over-the-hill former big bats and not-ready-for the-majors hopefuls), they’ve had a bunch of games rained/snowed out this season. Including games that were supposed to make up previous rain outs.
My conspiracy theory: Elvis Presley’s twin brother Jesse, widely purported to have died at birth, was actually sold to another family by his impoverished, Great-Depression-stricken parents. When Elvis rose to stardom, Jesse surfaced and was paid off by Col. Tom Parker to stay quiet. Then the real Elvis was killed in an accident during his time in the army, and eager to keep the money train rolling, Parker contacted Jesse and convinced him to replace Elvis. Thus it was Jesse, not Elvis, who sang on everything recorded after about 1960, acted in all those shitty movies, and ultimately died on the john in 1977…
Probably.
I happened to be driving from Memphis to Atlanta last month, a route that took me directly to Tupelo Mississippi. We stopped at Elvis’ birthplace. It did not appear to be worth the $8 to go inside – that’s about 50 cents a square foot. Damn it was small. Picked up a small pink Cadillac and a new steering wheel cover in the gift shop. There is a good movie in the visitor center and some really interesting photos of Elvis as a natural blond (there are not many of those).
I agree 100% re: Homeland. I barely paid attention the last two seasons, but am hooked this season.
Read this morning that the opioid crisis has caused a sharp rise in organ transplant. Conspiracy?
Sackism Homo is playing the Agora this weekend.
Jeff, are you going to try stand up?
Conspiracy theory: There are actually only 4,972 staples per box. I counted. Numerous times.
Damn – I’m at work and someone walked by… lost my train of thought. The above is an incomplete thought
I had a conspiracy theory that I was going to share in this comment, but then a jet airliner passed overhead and the chem-trail behind it forced me to forget what it was.
The wind changed the direction of my HD over the air antenna. bad news is that I lost one channel, but I gained 8!! only issue is that my wife watches the one that I lost 🙁
It’s the time of the month and the time of the season when I’m down to seeds and stems again, financially, emotionally and spiritually. When I need a little pick-me-up, I frequently turn to Americana, especially when Commander Cody is playing piano and Nicolette Larson is doing most of the singing. Of course, partly, I just needed to change that goddamn comment counter.
May your spirit rise with the pale moon.
John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAd-U6CYjIw
. . . and, while we’re waiting for Jeff to get back from Atlantic City, why not enjoy some Junior Brown? It’s only three and a half minutes, so be sure to stick around for Junior’s solo.
John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgZnNz4quHA
In case Jeff’s still in Atlantic City I’ll recommend the Baltimore Grill on Atlantic Ave behind the Tropicana. Cheap beer and very, very good pizza.