FERRERMAN- AGAIN?

 This might sound odd coming from a guy whose favorite team just went down in two in the NL Wild Card playoffs, but I like the WC format. There are two ways to get a slot in the WC in MLB. You earn it by coming on strong at the end of the long-ass season like the San Diego Padres did, or you default to it like my Chicago Cubs did by floundering at the end, defaulting to wins and losses. All through September it was a given that the Cubs had the WC in the NL Central Division. Their mission was to play for the best record and attain homefield advantage against their opponent. That's big. That's what the Padres fought for and that's what they got. The team with the better record gets all three games in front of the home folks. In any sport that's gold. Home cookin'! Everybody wants it. It helps.  I didn't expect a lot from the Cubs back in Spring Training. Two of our star pitchers were hurt and out for the season. That's tough on any team. You don't make pl...

Rich people are odd ducks. Money means everything to them, yet it also means nothing. They pay big money to congress to save on taxes, mostly I think because they can, and they like the pride of ownership that they get with congresspersons in their pockets. I recall hearing that in 1860 before the Civil War began there were more millionaires in Vicksburg, Mississippi than in New York City. This, of course, was because payroll was non-existent in their ledgers because they owned the people that were making them wealthy. It has always seemed to me that, instead of frequent tax cuts for the wealthy, really good accountants would be cheaper than congresspersons. But I'm poor, and that may be why. I worked at a restaurant/bar in Chicago's South Loop where 4 or 5 guys were partners in the venture. None of them had restaurant backgrounds. One, Curtis, was a big-time tax attorney. Closing out my register one night, my till was 1 penny short.  Curtis looked at me and said, "Well......

They drag me back in... Well, I was NOT  licking my wounds and drowning my hurt fee fees after this site's unexplained ambush of my last post. I actually had to come out of retirement and beautify this town a little. My landlord remembered I was a retired painter and asked if I'd be interested in doing a few small jobs for him. Of course, I wasn't  but he's a nice guy and it's always a good idea to keep the landlord happy, so I didn't hesitate to say yes. I find him to be very agreeable, and he encouraged me to take my time and work at my own pace. No pressure.  I don't remember the last time I had a decent nap! That fucks me up. I spent a couple decades getting up early to enjoy my mornings before making a 7 am start somewhere in Tennessee or Illinois, but being as there was no pressure, a noon start was fine. Not a one of these 'jobsites' was more than 4 minutes away! Small town life. The last one is right outside my door. It's good to know I c...

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 I hate it when something goes wrong and you have done two or three things new or different about the same time, and it's that much harder to pin down the cause. It becomes a sort of chicken or egg thing.  The laptop is behaving strangely. I think it's heading up on two years' service to me, but I also recently got Norton anti-virus protection. Is one or the other wrong, or both maybe? This laptop is a Lenovo I bought one Sunday morning when whatever I had at the time went belly up. It seems a year of service is about all I can expect from a laptop. What with planned obsolescence being the foundation of capitalism, I'm probably right. I remember going to Best Buy years ago to get my first laptop and telling the kid there that I had very rudimentary skills and needs to match as far as a computer went, so I didn't want to spend a lot because I didn't plan on performing any computery stunts; just Facebook and maybe that Twitter thing and possibly doing a little wri...

Trump is a salesman. Not a very good one, but his skillset screams of the used car huckster he would have been in life if he had not been born into wealth. Think of a guy like a Herb Tarlick from WKRP in Cincinnati with his garish suits. You want people to notice and remember you. They may not remember your name, but they will  remember the plaid sportscoat and green pants. Trump's the worst dancer this side of Elaine Benes, but he regularly breaks out into his double-jerk off dance to the Village People's "YMCA". He must know it's a gay anthem. He must not care. It's his song and his dance. He does like to co-opt things.  No doubt Trump is the least presidential of all presidents ever. He had zero political bonafides, never having been elected to any office. Spin is everything in politics and this was made to look like a strength rather than a weakness. The republicans had been pushing the need for a businessman in the White House; someone who understood spen...