Well…just got back from driving 78 miles to see the house that came up in my e-mails yesterday and it was such a bust…Muir is the dumpiest little village I have ever seen and I can’t believe anyone would want to live there…let’s start with the “paved” road the house is on…it may have been paved 40 years ago but now it’s just crumbles of asphalt and the “good neighborhood” it’s in consists of the house next door that may have been painted in the 1800’s when it was built but it sure looks like it hasn’t been since then….and the next door neighbor is a rusted out trailer with at least 3 derelict cars in the yard…but I couldn’t tell since the entire lot was overgrown with brush and weeds….if you say the words “white trash”…that is the description of the entire area…I mean trump signs in almost every yard right beside the burned out cars and roofs with blue tarps on them all over the place….it looks like the place was abandoned by time in the 1930’s….so, yeah, a pretty big bust but I guess that’s to be expected….some realtors really do lie…..
Category Archives: Misc
RIP Sean Connery
Well…damn, I hate 2020…and even more with the news that Sean Connery died last night at his home in the Bahamas at 90…he was another actor that spanned much of my life and I enjoyed every performance of his that I saw, from the Bond movies through the later ones like the Hunt for Red October and the Indiana Jones Movie to many more…cripes I was only 9 when the first Bond movie came out…and I always found it funny that as a Scottish actor, he had to do a British accent for many of his films….but, I’m weird that way…I do know that he will be missed by Scotland and the rest of the world…RIP, Sean…
People are back to being idiots….
Well…I was wrong the other day when I congratulated the people of Michigan for doing a good job on social distancing…at least about the idiots who are infesting the trails with the warmer weather…I mean 8 guys riding bikes in a group taking up the entire trail? And people having a frickin picnic in the pavilion with at least 20 people there….people…stop being idiots…you are going to get us old folks killed if you keep this crap up…you know, I was okay with all of the restrictions on everything but all of the stores keep ratcheting things up to the point where I won’t even be able to go grocery shopping with making people wait outside so only a certain number of people are in the stores at one time…and this is all spurred on by people being idiots and not distancing and taking the whole family to the grocery store for a damn outing….so, I’m going to do one more grocery run this week and stock up on everything I can and then plan on not being back there for a couple of months….so, I take it back Michigan….you are acting like idiots and we’re all gonna die…
Hey Michiganders….
Well…hey Michiganders…I know we’re all sitting around with plenty of time on our hands and I have a suggestion how to use some of it…with the new, voter passed law from last year, everyone has the ability to request a permanent absentee ballot so, if there are still coronavirus problems in November, or if you’re busy, or for any other reason, you can have a ballot sent to your home so you can fill it out at your leisure…and that means that the repubs can’t shut down your polling place, or move them or change ID requirements to keep our side from voting here in Michigan…I did it when I moved into GR and changed my address and the county clerks, or city clerks will send you the forms necessary to do it…so, let’s do this one little change that will keep the repubs from stealing any more elections here in Michigan…I know you’ll feel better for it…vote!
Good job, Michiganders…
Well…with the second day of stay at home here in Michigan, there is a company who is using location data and other things to track how effectively the tactic is working…and the report they put out this morning says that, so far, Michiganders are taking this order very seriously and are doing the best job of isolating in the country…so, I say good job, Michganders! Now if we can just work on the whole hoarding thing and realize that you don’t need to go to the grocery store every day and you don’t need 10 gallons of milk or 200 rolls of toilet paper…as an old guy, I thank you all for not exposing me to this damn virus and I say keep it up…we can beat this if we just pay attention and keep doing what our health experts are asking us to…
The latest Star Wars movie…
Well….the latest and last Star Wars movie showed up on Plex yesterday and I just had to watch it last night…finally, a Star Wars that lived up to the first three in the series…it kept me interested all the way through and there was a chemistry between the three leads that has been missing in most of the other movies and that was a fun to see…and there were a couple of pretty cool easter eggs that I laughed at…during a scene where the leads were walking through a bar, there was one to Doctor Who when one of the patrons in the bar was a Sontarun…and near the end of the movie, they fixed one of the big mistakes from the original movie where Chewy was the only one of the leads who didn’t get a medal in the last scene…when Leia dies near the end, one of her aides hands the medal she got to Chewy and I thought that was pretty cool….all in all, a fitting conclusion to the Star Wars saga…and well worth watching if you’re a fan…
That Peloton commercial…
Well…you know, people must really have time on their hands when you look at the volume of comments and memes that have followed the airing of the Peloton holiday commercial where a husband gives his wife a Peloton for Christmas. Lots of commenters have gone straight to the “yeah, she spent the entire year to lose 4 pounds” meme and that it is some kind of spousal abuse when a husband gets his fit, 116 pound wife an exercise machine and she appears to be afraid when she starts to use it…and then shows the year’s worth of selfies to her husband to prove that she was really using it? But, I don’t buy into that interpretation at all…no one is going to spend 2500 bucks on any piece of exercise equipment as a present unless the sig other has made it clear that one is wanted…and I’ve lived through the fear of starting to change your life and add exercise when I started my daily rides some 20 years ago….so, a little apprehension is not unusual…especially when your performance is out there on Peloton’s site for all to see. The thing that irks me about all of the Peloton commercials is that every damn person in them lives in at least a million dollar house, apartment, or condo…which makes sense for a 2,500 dollar bike but still irks me. Where are the wood paneled basements where most of these machines end up? And every damn person in these commercials appears to be fit already so what were they doing to be fit before and what makes them want to abandon that for riding indoors and not going anywhere? As I said before, with the volume of comments and bitching about this commercial, lots of people have time on their hands, I know I do or I wouldn’t be writing about this…at least it gave me a topic that is not the idiot trump and that is welcome…
RIP Rick Ocasek
Well…another one of those that I just hate to do…Rick Ocasek of the Cars died yesterday at the age of 75…I know that as we age, this is going to happen more and more often, but it doesn’t make it any easier to take…I really liked the Cars from their first album when I heard “Let the good times roll” and it became the soundtrack of any time that I had to myself when my kids were little and school and work and kids got to be a bit much and I had to get away…and the pair of songs from “Heartbeat City”, “Moving in stereo” and “All mixed up” just spoke to me where I was emotionally at the time…and “Drive’s” protagonist saying “Who’s going to tell you when it’s too late? Who’s going to tell you things aren’t so great? Can’t go on, thinking nothing’s wrong…who’s going to drive you home, tonight?” just ached with the realization that a friend has done everything he can do and needs to let go….I still listen to the Cars in almost every playlist that I have and the fact that both Ben Orr and now Rick Ocasek are gone is going to make it a little more empty when I hear them…RIP Rick…
RIP Peter Fonda…
Well…as I get older and time passes, more and more people who have been part of my time on this planet are dying and yesterday we had another one go…Peter Fonda. I still remember the first time I saw Easy Rider and how foreign it seemed to a 16 year old from Ada…but I loved the movie and the idea of freedom that it proposed…and the exposure of the festering hatred of anything “other” that still plagues the south was so clearly rendered in the movie that I began to recognize it in my own little corner of the world. I think I’ve probably seen that film at least 20 times over the years and will still watch it for the music and nostalgia that it brings to me every time now that I am not the 16 year old kid seeing it for the first time. So, RIP Peter…
House 8
Well….after doing another 4 hours on the house today, I can finally say that I can see progress…I did decide to do a color change on the garage door and the porch roof that came out better than the yellow I started with….and it looks more modern…I am going to leave the entry doors yellow for now but the trim around them will be the new brown that I chose for the rest of it…got the garage door and it’s surrounding trim done today and will attack the rest of the trim on the front of the garage tomorrow if my body will take it…I did get some work done on the yard in front of the house today with using the new string trimmer to clean it up some…and I whacked my left ankle a few times, too, leaving it bloody but it was worth it….even used the trimmer to take the grass down since I can’t get the mowers running…after cleaning up the weeds, I took to edging the front sidewalks since the grass had overgrown the sidewalk by 6 inches a side and looked pretty sketchy with lots of debris that I had to sweep up…and I got the weeds beside the house taken down and will need to take the spade to remove the moss that has overgrown the patio blocks…I can’t wait to get the water on and take the power washer to it…now I just need to get started on the interior so I can get the condemnation lifted as soon as the windows are done…man, I’m beat…but I know that once the rest of the hard stuff is done, it will be a cruise from there…I hope….