My Music Monday

Song with a day of the week in the title.....and you have to go consecutively.  I started on Friday, so I'm up to Sunday.

As it turns out, Sunday is a big draw in the music world. I almost did a Blondie song, but you get those a lot from me. I also did a Counting Crows song. I almost did any number of versions of "Gloomy Sunday" - a song that has been around since 1936. And of course, you almost got Morrissey.

I went with the Monkees and their song, "Pleasant Valley Sunday"

While the gentlemen could play instruments and write music, it was well into their recording before they were able to do so. Still, they did their own singing, so that's more than most of the Partridge's did.

Honestly, I expected a clip where they run room to room and into a hallway trying to lose whomever was following him. Sadly, that is not the case.

Egg Man

I'm coasting today.   Ralph makes me laugh.

It's funny at 00:00:09 in length.  But if you look on YouTube, someone has taken it to the 10 hour mark with repeats.

Enjoy your day of eggs, chocolate and Jesus.





Song by: Beastie Boys

Take a Walk

It was a good picture week for Shep.  Not so much for Sophie.

He seems to take a toy to a chair and sometimes to bed. This time it was the turkey. 

We took Shep to the Solstice Steps. His first trip to Lake Erie. 

Look at those big ass paws. 

The next day we took him to Lake View Cemetery.....and the James Garfield memorial. 

Crazy Eyes.  Or Eye. Singular.  But still cute. 

While at the cemetery, we took Shep to Daffodil Hill.......the same place Petey got this picture taken two years ago.....and made the front page of the paper. 

This is one of his best pictures yet. 

Whilst at the cemetery, Shep took upon himself to keep us safe from all the marble beasts. This one was just a horse, but he fended of a lion who resided there as well. 

Song by: Eddie Vedder & Neil Young

Near the Cross

Today is the day that all my quasi-religious employees will try to wish me a GOOD Friday.  ....and it's all I can do to not find a way to put them into corrective action as some kind of retribution.

I have two meetings - the last one ends at 12:15p.  My hope is; I get out of work early.  ....that would be an Easter miracle.


And just for shits and giggles, because I don't / can't / won't talk about the largest non-nuclear bomb the United States has ever dropped just got dropped yesterday (at least SCROTUS if fulfilling one of his campaign talking points - he LOVES nukes!)  ......I have an Arrested Development clip.







Song by: Iris DeMent

12 of 12

So I'm doing my 85th 12 of 12.

Normally it is 12 pictures taken on the 12th of the month. Since I only post once per day, you get my images the following day. All pictures taken with my iPhone. Click images to enlarge, if you choose.

Created by Chad Darnell and picked up from, what I can tell, any number of random bloggers who then link back to him and vice versa. Chad is no longer doing this, nor is successor coordinating the linking of other 12 of 12'ers anymore. Now it's just Erik and myself - that I know of. 

I still continue to do this, because of all my consistent post topics, I actually like this one the most.

05:12. A.M. dog walk.   ...avec lighted leash.

05:45.  Doggie b'fast time. 

06:25.  Time to tie my tie time. 

The pattern is called "Erythromycin Under a Microscope".  I shit you not. 

06:36.  Taking out the trash. 

06:55.  Mobile Order Pick-Up. 

Venit black tea. No sugar. No water. 

9:30. Running a Report for certain CPT codes

12:45.  Operations Meeting. 

14:05.  On my way to see the chairman of my department. 

Got to follow this guy. I could have easily passed him, but why would I?

18:37.  Finishing a draft of a presentation for tomorrow (today).  

It's gonna be an ugly meeting. 

18:45. Heading home, but first.....

18:55. ... I still have to grab groceries. 

The place was more packed than I've ever seen.

19:20.  ....and I still had to make dinner. 

Fish and snow peas. Simple. Fast. Good. 

....and now your Baker's Dozen

21:30.  My favourite Girl Scout Cookie. 

Rememberances

This is one fucked up White House.

And yes, I know that might the understatement of the century.

I find even though you probably know what I'm talking about, I have to actually reference it here, so archivists in future generations will have some specifics regarding my talking points.

Sean Spicer: Super Douche, sorry Uninformed Super Douche, and his comments on Hitler not using chemical weapons to kill people, or his 'own people'. Both highly untrue. Oh - and those killings went on that Holocaust Centers.

Today we just call those the JCC.

While as disappointing and disturbing that he said it at all.........and on Passover (!) no less...it's just not surprising.

I can't tell if he's just straight-up stupid, cocky and thinking no one will challenge him, just completely uniformed about history (which is oddly, different than 'straight-up stupid') or just some fucking pawn - a willing one - in this stupid regime.

There was surprise though:  the apology.

I almost titled this post "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word".

He not only apologized, but called it a 'mistake' - what he said, I'm assuming. He probably meant it was a mistake that he got called out, but hey.............it's the closest thing we might get to him being human ever.

Spicer gets about half a point of credit for that. And I'm being generous.

It's really about the arrogance. He's the media-face of this administration, which has to be one shitty job, but he accepted it. I don't care what the panels on Bill Maher's show says about Spicer being a really good guy who has gotten caught up in a bad situation and not the Sean they know.

I don't think they know him. I don't think people change that much or that quickly.

It is the arrogance of this administration. The one that thinks they can get away with saying such shit to make a point that is clearly incorrect - - on so many levels. They know they have their supporters who believe the shit they say - even when wrong. They're not the ones the apology is for - because, they'll never hear it. Not really.

I have said it before - - and I'm sure I'll say it again - - every time I think this White House can't sink any lower, they somehow exceed my expectations. I've come to a realization that there is nothing they won't / can't say. Or that they'll truly be held accountable for their words / actions.



The title image is purposeful. Hopefully whenever someone Goooooooogle's 'Spicer' that picture will come up.




Song by:  John Williams & Itzhak Perlman

Airplane

I am sure you've all heard about, or seen, the United Airlines "incident" from yesterday.

I mean, W.T.F. ?????

You all seemed to comment, back in the day when I was a road worrier warrior, that you didn't know how I did it. Looking back on it, I'm not sure how I did either.

Parts of me really misses the travel. Most of me does not.

Even seeing the diagram of the plane with its available seating just made my stomach tighten up. I was the guy who knew my flight was at 06:23, so at 06:23 the morning before, I was checking into my flight and securing or changing my seat.............and then checking my status for upgrades. I was the obsessed business traveler.

Still, while the video - and the entire scenario are disturbing, at best - in a way it doesn't surprise me that much. Airline travel has devolved, much like US politics........think of United as the Dump of airways.

I see no PR way for United to get out of this unscathed. I mean, they already haven't, but I have to believe it will get worse. It's bad enough to be on end of  being bumped.......and worse if you're already on the plane (which is practically unheard of). But how do you recover when you got dragged off the fucking plane so one of your own employees can take the seat???

I'll assume it was a pilot who had to get to a location where they had none that were able to fly due to having met or exceeded their hours in air. Still.........it don't look good.

I love United saying they're 'trying to locate the passenger'.  Oh, they'd be finding me pretty easily, I suspect. And they won't be off the hook for less than 4 all you can fly for the rest of your life for free passes.............on Delta.

Song by: Widespread Panic

My Music Monday

Consecutive days of the week is the theme this month.  Erik said I was evil.  Erik, who made me do songs after 1990 about tattoos.  And I'm the one that's evil??

I started with Friday.  So I have Saturday, Sunday and Monday left in my rotation. While today is Monday, it's also Saturday.

I thought of being evil.....and doing the Bay City Rollers. But that means torturing myself too, so where's the fun in that?

I'm going with Crowded House, from their last album, Intriguer, which is somehow seven years old. It's not a bad album at all, but compared to some of the stellar work they'd done in the past, it's not a stand-out disk either.

Look at it this way:  you're not hearing the Bay City Rollers or Elton John's, "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting".

You can thank me later.

Stuck in the Past

My word. It's 21:39 and I'm just starting to think about blogging for tomorrow today.

As I was contemplating a subject, I came upon a few old entries that I made the mistake of reading. I've mentioned before that touching on those is like going down a rabbit hole. Or a rat's nest. Depending.

I even read the comments - which made me smile and made me sad.

A frequent commenter was Birdie.  She has been gone for about two and one-half years. I just really enjoyed meeting with her, corresponding with her and her general support of my blog and other things in my life.

As I read through the post where I mentioned her death, I also saw the part where my friend Steven had recently been diagnosed with what was allegedly liver cancer. He fought valiantly for another two years, but he did pass away last November.

That was a little sadder to me, as our relationship was different than Birdie and myself. He and I talked, texted and emailed all throughout his treatment and up to his ultimate demise. Near the end it was texting only. And only when he had enough strength.

At one point, his family was texting me for him. They said he wasn't able to anymore and then that he was sleeping all the time. They said they'd let me know when he passed.

I'm still waiting for that call.

Being resourceful, I did check the Albany papers and found his obituary. I read the guestbook - it was all very nice and all very generic, though I don't know what I was actually expecting.

I've been thinking a lot about Steven these last few weeks for some reason. I got to say goodbye to him - many times. On a whim, I called his cell phone just so I could hear his voice - not knowing where his cellphone now resided (or if). Imagine my surprise when an old woman picked up. I immediately hung up.

Now, I suppose it could have been his mother, but I suspect his carrier has already recycled his cell number. In an odd way it helped bring some kind of closure.

So while I didn't actually have a topic for today, re-reading my own blog brought me one.



Song by: Aimee Mann

How Do You Sleep?

Hopefully animal pictures will help us momentarily forget that we are counteracting the gassing of Syrian people by bombing the shit out the same country and people.

Dump was soooooo moved by the pictures of the men, women and children who were affected by said gas attack - the same ones he enacted the two failed travel bans against - that he just had to take matters into his own hand and let loose his destruction. The same kind of action he warned Obama not to do.

If there is such a thing as double or triple irony, this guy has it.

Now we'll watch SCRTOUS' approval rating surge from 35% to 38%.

Until then, we can watch Shep's approval rating skyrocket from 99.6% to 99.9% (3% margin or error............NOT!)

Sorry, no Soph this week.

When he crashes....he crashes hard.....and takes up the entire bed. 

...but it turns out, he's moveable. 

Lazy indoor squirrel watching. 

.....until he sees something. 

The few times I ever take naps, now it seems I have to share a sofa. 

Sure, I was curled up into a little ball and not stretched out, but.......totally worth it. 

Song by: John Lennon

Time Won't Let Me

Freshman year of college, I admittedly took Math 104 ......twice.


One could attribute that foible to me being bad at math.......which I kind of was, but equal part blame could be placed on excessive alcohol intake and my inability to make it to West Campus due to said alcohol intake.

The thing with math and me: I always got the concept of the subject..........after the test.

It was a cycle I had, and one in which I had an extremely hard time breaking. Looking back on it all, I suppose it was possible I had ADD or some such leaning disability. Tutors never seemed to help.

Anyhoooo........I always found it quite comical that I'm now in charge of tens of millions of dollars in budgets and that I base most of my day on certain statistics, in reports that I run, analyze and from which I base future growth and strategy.

Not only do I no longer have an aversion to mathematics and stats, but fully embrace it. And more importantly, I understand it.

The people at Time, seem to be me.........back in Mount Hall.....in 1981.  They don't grab the concept of percentages............or the word 'almost'.


Don't worry Time-folks. I eventually got it. You will too.



Song by: the Outsiders

Rape Me

Oh. My. Fucking. G-d.

This is brilliant. Pure comedy gold.

GOLD, I tellz ya.

....and I'd be laughing harder, if underneath the surface it wasn't all so fucking tragic.

Well....tragic for anyone who isn't a FOX or SCROTUS supporter.....who are just shrugging their shoulders and thinking 'what's the big deal?'.

I snickered, just six days ago, when without any sense of irony, Dump acknowledged National Sex Abuse Awareness Month.

"Grab her by the pussy", indeed.

Four days after that, he's defending Bill O'FuckingReilly.


I'm repeating it again: Dump had the balls to proclaim April to be National Sex Abuse Awareness Month!!!!!

I mean - who better than a predator himself?


And of course he is backing O'Reilly. While people might have thought before that FOX "News" was in bed with the GOP, well now, the White House and Murdoch & Co are just performing non-stop, around the clock (I said 'clock!)  annilingus on each other.

And old white guy defending an old white guy.  How original.

Let's assume that Dump doesn't know the facts of the story. I mean, he doesn't seem to know facts. Period. So why would he be so well informed this time?  But this is a man who is paying out $25M for Dump University fraud claims, without admitting guilt.   So $13M {known} payments from FOX don't imply guilt in SCROTUSville {population: 1}.  Still, should he be so cavalier to presume innocence on someone so quickly?  It's not like O'Reilly has the best fucking track record, he's got his own recorded exploits, like Dump. They both have patterns.

I'm surprised that Dump didn't nominate Bill Cosby to head the FDA with his vast knowledge of roofies. What a wasted opportunity.

So, GOP women - you twats who voted for this D-bag - I'm having less and less sympathy for you. I certainly not saying 'you deserved it' when you a bunch of guys in a bar surround you while you're on your back taking on a train, and hearing the chant "1-2-3-4 nail that pussy to the floor".

But you GOP women looked away with his Billy Bush pussy grabbing comments. You ignored the stories of him walking in on under aged girls changing their clothes. You laughed off the creepiness of saying he'd date his own daughter. You know for a fact that he fucked around on his wives (at least two of them). He's degraded women publicly on their looks......or because of their looks.

So, while you GOP women might not have deserved to be raped, or grabbed, abused (be it physically, emotionally or verbally) or demeaned and assaulted......you're as much a part of the problem as Dump is.  You pulled the lever for him. And that's not a euphemism.

He showed you he is a sexual abuser. It's on tape. Now a sexual abuser is defending a sexual abuser - saying he did nothing wrong. He's not saying he didn't do it. He's saying "it's NOT wrong!".

If you think his words and actions do not matter, think again. Now men can, will and have emulate(d) this behaviour.

Yes, you might not deserve what you get, but you did kind of asked for it......last November 8th.



Song by: Nirvana  (yes, I've already used this before, but it works)

Middle of the Night

This is just getting out of control.

So I woke at my usual 05:00 time (well, it's now Shep time - as no matter when he goes to bed, he wants to get up and out at 05:00), and as I am "getting ready", I am looking at my emails.

Lo and behold there is one from 0:20 from the neighbor across the street saying something vague enough, but clear enough:

"if the telephone pole wasn't already down, the person last night would have taken it down".

It was still too dark to go out and check, so Shep and I went about our walk, and then in for b'fast.

Leaving for work, the sun was still below the horizon, but I could spot something shiny in the ivy - I even told 710 it was probably a headlight.

Further emails mentioned that a car went across that cement island (though they missed hitting all the signs), across the other lane and up - almost - into our yard. The neighbor mentioned it seemed like they hit something dead-on that stopped the automobile.

I'm guessing they hit the end of the telephone pole that is still laying on the hill.....and the outward facing end has lots of metal from the semi-left street light fixtures. Oh - and that tree that they hit.

As you'd expect, all occupants were gone before the po-po arrived. Fled. Again. The stolen car / outstanding warrant / drunk-high / no insurance - license ratio to accidents in the 216 must be sky high.

And apparently the po-po had the car pulled from our property and taken away.

So, I guess my question is this:  isn't there some responsibility of the police department to somehow inform you there has been an accident at your residence and that they brought in equipment which damages your property?  Cuz I have yet to hear from them.

Still - two {known} accidents in the last eight days is excessive, even for us.

710 and I differ on how to protect the property. He doesn't want to pay for large stones / boulders. I kind of want the drivers to be maimed by large immovable rocks.

....and I have taken the path less traveled, and it has made all the difference.

Silly 710 thinks we should lobby for a guardrail at the cement island, as cars will "bounce off it" and get back into traffic. I don't think cars going 50-70 mph will "bounce" back into traffic. I think we'd just end up with a big chunk of guardrail in on our hill.

I suppose tomorrow I'll call city hall and see what they plan to do about the increase in accidents - if anything. I suspect the runaround, as we straddle two cities, no one wants to respond to emergency calls, it's highly doubtful either will want to pick up the tab.

More to come...........no doubt.




Song by: Loudon Wainwright III

Throw

I was going to make "a joke" about how SCROTUS was 'great' at baseball and how there is no one better in the world at throwing than he is.

But then if you read the CNN article, he says just that. More or less. I shit you not. He goes on to say that some coach he had said he was the best he'd ever seen. Naturally, said coach is dead, that that would stop Dump.

And of course, it wasn't just baseball he was good at. Excellent in football and wrestling.

That fat tub-o-lard now says certain people wanted him to go pro back in the day, but he claimed there was no money in it at the time. Whomever those "people" were are probably all dead too and cannot corroborate his tale.


Dump won't throw out the first pitch because he just found out that there were black and Hispanic people in the sport.

Well............that's my guess.



Song by: LCD Soundsystem

My Music Monday

My month to pick the theme for Erik and myself.  I'm doing with days of the week.

Sure, it seems easy enough. "Seems" being the optimal word. I'm making it a little tougher....for both of us.

Whatever day of the week you start with, you have to then go sequentially - so, if you start with a Tuesday, then your subsequent weeks have to be Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  ....and  think I'll go on record that there are not a ton of songs with 'Wednesday' in the title.

My first selection, semi-technically, fulfills the entire week. It's the Cure's "Friday I'm in Love".  In the song they mention every day of the week.

The Cure did more pop-ish music than people care to admit, or give them credit for. I think they balanced that aspect of their work nicely against some of the more progressive rock-ish things they did as well.

I think my biggest surprise is that this video has been viewed over 36M times.

Candy Perfume Girl

I got nothing.

It's pushing 22:00 and I got nothing.

Well, I have nothing witty to say, nothing insightful and I'm opting to stay away from SCROTUS, Michael Flynn, Russia, North Carolina's bathrooms or Ivanka & Co's sketchy finances and their ethical ties to the businesses they still own and in regards to their government "jobs".

Oh fuck it.

I'm sure you saw this a week or two ago, but why not do a little jabbing at the little tart tramp.







Song by: Madonna

New Toy

Who doesn't love a little Lena Lovich reference?

Well, probably most of you going........"whoooooo?"  No worries, I did more for myself than anyone else.

But it's Saturday. The only reason you people real tune-in here. .....and yet, I'm ok with that.

Squirrel. 

Kooper and Shep. 

It's like this every meet up. 

...then this. 

I am loving Shep's flying ears. 

A daily visit to Sophie in her chair. It can't be avoided. 

....and now the reason for the blog title.

I might never allow 710 to go into a store alone again.  The duck is annoying as fuck, and of course, Shep LOVES it.

To be honest, we laugh then somewhere throughout the house we hear its honk. He's been taking it everywhere. Even his armadillo has taken a back seat.




Song by: Lena Lovich

the Lion's Share

I got nothing.

It's been a tough week and I still have a day to go.

I sit here - sleepy, but listening to some oddly crisp thunder approaching. Shep got me up early to walk yesterday, and going back to sleep never materialized.  Three-quarters through the walk it started to rain. I wasn't prepared for that.

Now it's been raining (or pouring) on and off all day.

And now thunder.  Oh.....and just law lightening.

There might be thunderstorms today too. March 1st was uneventful in many ways, so maybe we'll be going out like a lion, as we certainly did not come in like one.

Work-wise it is going out like one too......but not in a good way. I hate when month close comes on the last day of the week. It's not that I have to work on weekends to see how we ended up financially, as I could do that on Monday, but I know I won't.  I'll be checking and running reports just so I know how to (or not) respond to higher-ups at the beginning of the week.

But for now, it's bed time.


Song by: 10,000 Maniacs

Private Eyes

So......what's up in SCROTUSVille (population: 1)?

It looks as if Dump will be signing away yours and my rights to internet privacy.  Yayyyyy.

Now, to be fair, I haven't assumed in forever that there is any actual internet privacy. But let's say there was some: Congress had the wherewithal to strip what few curtains there was and revealing all.

Now, you would think the last people who would want web privacy to go bye-bye would be the GOP. You have your Oklahoma senator meeting under aged boys on-line looking to pork them in a Motel 6 less than 1,000 feet from a church!  You know that tryst wasn't set up with two coffee cans and some string.

There's the Mark Sanford trails and tails (and tales) of his Argentinian lover - tracked down via e-lectronic mail.

Then there are all the hookers, politicians wearing diapers.....it goes on and on. Oh, and Dump getting pissed on by Russian hookers. Because that came via the web too.

Yes. the Dems have their issues too, but they had the sense to vote against this.

If someone wants to read my browser history, have at it. You're going to find a lot more Peter Griffin clips than Colby Keller ones. But for full disclosure, you will find some of those.

I scrolled (and scrolled) down CNN (online), NYT and other sources to find who is truly covering this repeal of privacy. Only found something on Washington Post - - and that was way way way down the screen.....below the electronic fold, if you will. In the Cleveland paper, a small article appeared......on page 6.

Again with the distractions of Ivanka getting a government job - - one for which she's not qualified and probably couldn't pass the civil service test to get had she been someone off the street. But while we talk about that - and the papers write about that - while the administration passes shit like this and coal production / fewer environmental concerns as you're looking at that whore daughter (no....not you Tiffany. It's never about you. Ever.).

I don't think it's coincidence that SCROTUS just switched from Android to an iPhone either. Though Tim Cook is probably going "fuuuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkk no!"

Remember how hard it was to hack after those San Bernadino killings a while back? Dump was allllllllllll about Cook and Apple taking the helm to do that hacking too - to which they refused. So, now that privacy is harder to achieve, SCROTUS wants to take less risk.   Oh, the irony.

My lord, I hate that man.



Song by: Daryl Hall & John Oates

Record of the Month

I figured I'd do a monthly 'what I'm listening to' kind of thing. This could be viewed as a lame placeholder kind of post. And probably it is. But it's my blog! So there!

Honestly, back in the mid-80s, if you had suggested that Depeche Mode would still be recording music 30+ years later, I'd have rolled my eyes at you. Or at least behind your back. Yet at least 33 years after purchasing my first DM record, they have just released their 14th disk, Spirit.

I wish I could say that Spirit is a winner, but they can't all be, can they?

Oh, the album has its moments for sure. The opening number "Going Backwards" is stellar.

Allegedly, the album was conceived, written and recorded well before the U.S. 2016 election - but Martin Gore's writing takes in the tenor of the world, if not the United States. ...and "going backwards" I've read reviews where people are wondering "why so much on politics".  I don't mind that, assuming the songs are good. Much of the mid to late '60s music was based on the political climate.  It can be an outlet for change.

The U.K. has it's political issues, but Depeche Mode seems to focus on the U.S.  .....or at least that's my take. And we've made ourselves an easy target.

I like "Poorman" too. It's never a song that is going to hit radio, but it has a hypnotic quality and I like the "heys". It's a little heavy-handed lyrically, but I can get past that.

I can probably do without the drudgery that is "Poison Heart". The remix (if you get the deluxe version) doesn't make the song any better.  Ditto with "Fail".  And while I like "So Much Love", the remix is a total disaster.

"The Worst Crime" isn't the worst, but it feels like it has been done before.

Actually, that is the worst thing about this disk: they HAVE done it all before. There is almost nothing new. Playing the Angel (2005) might have been their last disk that the band had an edge.

Oddly, I feel like they still have potential.  You hear something like "Going Backwards" and think, "I really enjoy them again".....but Spirit doesn't sustain that momentum. It could.....it just doesn't.