Today is Sunday, August 26 and there are only 67 until National Calzone Day.  Get your orders in early so you don’t have to wait in line.  Today we remember the birthdays of Johann Lambert, Earl Biggers and Geraldine Ferraro.  On this day in 1791 John Fitch was granted a US patent for his working steamboat, in 1907 Houdini escaped from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 52 seconds and in 1973 the University of Texas (Arlington) was the first accredited school to offer belly dancing.  In Namibia it is Namibia Day and in the US it is National Women’s Equality Day, Susan B Anthony Day and National Cherry Popsicle Day.

 

I really do not have much to talk about this week.  Yes, commercials continue to drive me crazy, but I am sure you all know that.  I am constantly amazed by the new drugs that come out each week, targeting the same moderate to severe problems.  And why only moderate to severe problems?  Does that mean that I cannot get treatment for mild to moderate issues?  Do I have to wait for it to get worse before I can do anything about it? 

What I find interesting is that almost everyone of them tells you to be tested for TB before taking.  Is there something in it that makes you susceptible to TB?  Also, they all warn against suicidal thoughts.  What is in this stuff that makes you want to hurt yourself?  This is especially interesting in drugs for treating depression.  It reminds me of a pill they gave us for my son when he was a kid.

We had taken him to a doctor because he was very congested and was having problems with his sinuses.  The doctor prescribed a medication and told us it would help him.  Our pharmacist filled the prescription and we started him on it.  Over a couple days we noticed that there was no significant improvement.  In reading the info on it, one of the side effects listed was that it could cause nasal congestion.  When we called the doctor and mentioned it to him, he suggested that we have him stop taking it.  Duh! 

The commercials always tell you to talk to your doctor about whatever drug they are promoting.  I wonder what the doctor’s response is when someone asks them about a drug they saw advertised.  “Yes, Jim that is a very effective drug.  I have heard great things about it; however, you do not suffer from any menopause issues so I don’t really think it would be for you.”

Speaking of commercials, I was watching one about cars the other day and they were touting the big sales on the 2018 models.  Apparently they are trying to make room for the 2019 models.  I am not going to go into the commercial, but it did make me wonder.  What happens to all the 2018 models that do not get sold?  I drive by dealerships that have row upon row of cars sitting there waiting for someone to come and jump on a deal.  At some point those models will be replaced with the next year’s models.  Where do the old ones go? Are they sold to movie producers to use in car chases and crashes?  Can they be recycled and the parts reused?  Just wondering.

One other thing I to mention is shirt sleeves.  I have experienced this before and have started seeing it again.  When I do shirts in the laundry, I have noticed that, with short sleeved shirts, when I take them out of the dryer, sometimes some of the sleeves are inside-out.  What makes it interesting is that when a sleeve is inside-out it is generally the left one.  I have become aware of how I take off my shirt so that I am sure that both sleeves are right-side out.  The shirts still come out with the left sleeve inside-out.  Not all of them but usually at least half of them.  I can’t help but wonder what it is about the left sleeve, at least with my shirts.  Someday I hope to figure this out.

Like I said I do not have much this week.  I will try and come up with some new adventures for next week.  Please check back.

This week our fact tells us that it is illegal in Reno, Nevada to conceal a spray-painted shopping cart in your basement.  Apparently, spray-painting shopping carts was a common way to steal them.  It seems enough people were hiding them in their basements that a law was required to stop the act.  It would seem to me that if you have the cart in your basement, it has already been stolen, spray-painted or not.  Just another one of those things that makes me shake my head in disbelief.

Today is Sunday, August 19 and there are only 73 days until Halloween, so go out and start buying candy.  Just be careful that your stuff for trick or treaters doesn’t have Christmas decorations on it.  Today we remember the birthdays of John Dryden, Seth Thomas and Malcolm Forbes.  On this day in 1909 the first race was held at the Indianapolis 500 Speedway, in 1960 Francis Gary Powers was convicted of spying by the USSR (the U-2 incident) and in 1967 the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” single hit #1.  In the US it is National Aviation Day and National Soft Ice Cream Day.

Recently, I talked about some of Barbara’s family coming to NJ to visit and I mentioned that we went down the shore and got to see the fireworks over the boardwalk.  I noticed an interesting thing that night as we walked, watched the kids go on rides and ate fried food.  Early in the evening, they began setting up the launchers on the beach for the fireworks.  As they did that, people started to gather, sitting on the benches facing the launch area.  I am talking about several hours before the show would start.  These benches had backs that could be moved so that you could look at the ocean or switched so that you could watch the show go by on the boardwalk.  The people sitting on the benches all sat facing the ocean.

As the time got closer for the show to start, people started to crowd the boardwalk in the area where the fireworks were going to go off.  It got quite packed and I have to admit I am not sure why.  The area where they were being done had no tall buildings or trees or anything that would obstruct your view.  The fireworks were all sent straight up into the air and you could see them from just about anywhere and yet a large crowd of people pushed into a relatively small area.  The people sitting on the benches got to watch them launch, but, having seen that before, I am not sure what the big thrill was.  We were a couple hundred feet from “ground zero” and had a great view.  Also, we were not packed into a crowd and were relatively comfortable watching and eating.

I find the entire boardwalk thing very interesting.  I watched people spend a lot of money so that their kid could hammer a platform and try to get a frog into a moving lily pad.  If they did they would win a prize.  Not once did it seem to occur to anyone that they could have purchased five or six “prizes” at Walmart for what they spent there.  We went in to one of the arcades and watched people pump tons of money into machines to win tickets that could be cashed in for more prizes.  But let’s be honest.  Who doesn’t want to spend $20 so their kid can get a plastic spider and some gum?

I was grocery shopping recently and it occurred to me that I am becoming, at best curmudgeonly and at worst a curmudgeon.  The former means that I am still the “me” I have always been, but things can get me peeved.  The latter means that everything gets me peeved and I am not the loveable guy I used to be.  I want to believe that I am curmudgeonly, at least for now.

I realized that many of the things I experienced on my shopping sojourn set me off.  The drive to the store entailed riding behind every 90 year old with a driver’s license.  I swear that one woman in front of me had to alternate between seeing where she was going and using the gas and brake pedals.  There was no way she was doing them at the same time.  I managed to get behind one guy that made me want to run up to his car and ask if he was okay.  He drove as if he was in the middle of a seizure or something.  I found myself complaining out loud, as if it would help.  For information purposes let me just say that it does not.

When I got to the store parking lot, it seemed like every car in front of me was waiting for the same handicapped parking space to open up, although I did think that a couple of the old guys were just napping.  At least one third of the lot was empty, but most of the cars were waiting for people to load their groceries and leave so that they could take the space and not have to walk an extra 10 feet.  Maybe if they walked a little they would not have a butt the size of Rhode Island.  The problem was getting by them to the open spaces.  These people who are so reluctant to walk pull their car up in such a way that you cannot get by them.  I guess they feel they are preventing you from getting their space.  What makes it worse is that they pull up so far that the car in the space cannot get out.  Now they have to back up which creates a whole other set of problems.

Let me tell you something else I discovered.  Early afternoon is not a good time to go grocery shopping.  Unless, of course, you like putting yourself in situations that make you want to strangle people.  I was behind one man who walked down the middle of the aisle.  He would take seven or eight steps, stop and look around as if on a tour, take another set of seven or eight steps, look around and on and on and on.  Fortunately, the rows are not that long and after 15 minutes we got to the end and I was able to get around him.  When I was finished and leaving the store I saw him again and he was only about one third of the way through the store and only had six items in his cart.

This week our fact tells us that every two thousand frowns creates one wrinkle.  Let me tell you, this past week, alone, I saw a number of women who must have spent most of their life frowning.  Cheer up people!  You’ll feel better and you won’t have as many wrinkles.

Today is Sunday, August 19 and there are only 73 days until Halloween, so go out and start buying candy.  Just be careful that your stuff for trick or treaters doesn’t have Christmas decorations on it.  Today we remember the birthdays of John Dryden, Seth Thomas and Malcolm Forbes.  On this day in 1909 the first race was held at the Indianapolis 500 Speedway, in 1960 Francis Gary Powers was convicted of spying by the USSR (the U-2 incident) and in 1967 the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” single hit #1.  In the US it is National Aviation Day and National Soft Ice Cream Day.

Recently, I talked about some of Barbara’s family coming to NJ to visit and I mentioned that we went down the shore and got to see the fireworks over the boardwalk.  I noticed an interesting thing that night as we walked, watched the kids go on rides and ate fried food.  Early in the evening, they began setting up the launchers on the beach for the fireworks.  As they did that, people started to gather, sitting on the benches facing the launch area.  I am talking about several hours before the show would start.  These benches had backs that could be moved so that you could look at the ocean or switched so that you could watch the show go by on the boardwalk.  The people sitting on the benches all sat facing the ocean.

As the time got closer for the show to start, people started to crowd the boardwalk in the area where the fireworks were going to go off.  It got quite packed and I have to admit I am not sure why.  The area where they were being done had no tall buildings or trees or anything that would obstruct your view.  The fireworks were all sent straight up into the air and you could see them from just about anywhere and yet a large crowd of people pushed into a relatively small area.  The people sitting on the benches got to watch them launch, but, having seen that before, I am not sure what the big thrill was.  We were a couple hundred feet from “ground zero” and had a great view.  Also, we were not packed into a crowd and were relatively comfortable watching and eating.

I find the entire boardwalk thing very interesting.  I watched people spend a lot of money so that their kid could hammer a platform and try to get a frog into a moving lily pad.  If they did they would win a prize.  Not once did it seem to occur to anyone that they could have purchased five or six “prizes” at Walmart for what they spent there.  We went in to one of the arcades and watched people pump tons of money into machines to win tickets that could be cashed in for more prizes.  But let’s be honest.  Who doesn’t want to spend $20 so their kid can get a plastic spider and some gum?

I was grocery shopping recently and it occurred to me that I am becoming, at best curmudgeonly and at worst a curmudgeon.  The former means that I am still the “me” I have always been, but things can get me peeved.  The latter means that everything gets me peeved and I am not the loveable guy I used to be.  I want to believe that I am curmudgeonly, at least for now.

I realized that many of the things I experienced on my shopping sojourn set me off.  The drive to the store entailed riding behind every 90 year old with a driver’s license.  I swear that one woman in front of me had to alternate between seeing where she was going and using the gas and brake pedals.  There was no way she was doing them at the same time.  I managed to get behind one guy that made me want to run up to his car and ask if he was okay.  He drove as if he was in the middle of a seizure or something.  I found myself complaining out loud, as if it would help.  For information purposes let me just say that it does not.

When I got to the store parking lot, it seemed like every car in front of me was waiting for the same handicapped parking space to open up, although I did think that a couple of the old guys were just napping.  At least one third of the lot was empty, but most of the cars were waiting for people to load their groceries and leave so that they could take the space and not have to walk an extra 10 feet.  Maybe if they walked a little they would not have a butt the size of Rhode Island.  The problem was getting by them to the open spaces.  These people who are so reluctant to walk pull their car up in such a way that you cannot get by them.  I guess they feel they are preventing you from getting their space.  What makes it worse is that they pull up so far that the car in the space cannot get out.  Now they have to back up which creates a whole other set of problems.

Let me tell you something else I discovered.  Early afternoon is not a good time to go grocery shopping.  Unless, of course, you like putting yourself in situations that make you want to strangle people.  I was behind one man who walked down the middle of the aisle.  He would take seven or eight steps, stop and look around as if on a tour, take another set of seven or eight steps, look around and on and on and on.  Fortunately, the rows are not that long and after 15 minutes we got to the end and I was able to get around him.  When I was finished and leaving the store I saw him again and he was only about one third of the way through the store and only had six items in his cart.

This week our fact tells us that every two thousand frowns creates one wrinkle.  Let me tell you, this past week, alone, I saw a number of women who must have spent most of their life frowning.  Cheer up people!  You’ll feel better and you won’t have as many wrinkles.

Today is Sunday, August 12 and there are only 22 days until Labor Day, the unofficial last day of summer.  Just a tip to parents – try not to look too happy when doing back-to-school shopping with your kids.  Today we remember the birthdays of Robert Mills, Cecil B deMille and Ralph Waite.  On this day in 1508 Ponce de Leon arrived in Puerto Rico, in 1877 Thomas Edison invented the Edisonphone, a sound recording device, and in 1953 Ann Davidson, the first woman to sail solo across the Atlantic, arrived in Miami.  World-wide it is Ponce de Leon Day, in Thailand it is the Queen’s Birthday, in Texas it is Pioneer Day and in the US it is National Julienne Fries Day and National Middle Child Day.

This past week Barbara’s daughter, two of her grandkids and a family friend visited us.  We had the opportunity to take them to see a number of great things and have some cool experiences.  One of the things they commented on was the fact that people here in the north are very different from the people in South Carolina.  Having spent time down there I have to agree.  What makes it interesting is that they had a hard time getting used to the abrupt, bordering on rude attitude of people here and I had a difficult time adjusting to the laid back, more polite attitude of people down there.

One of the things they had a tough time with were the people who acted as if they were the only ones in an area.  You know the type I mean, the ones who simply stop where they are and block an aisle or walkway so that they can chat or read a text or try to figure out where they are going.  The ones that you are tempted to smack on the back of the head and say, “Are you aware that there are other people here trying to get past you?”  I, of course, would lace that comment with some profanity, but I deferred using it here in deference to the more delicate @&*%!$# readers.

A couple other experiences they had were not having to get out of your car to get gas and NJ diner food.  As most of you may know, NJ is one of the only states where you cannot pump your own gas.  We all agreed that this was an especially nice thing when it is rainy and windy out.  Their first night here, I took them to a local diner.  Meals served at a diner are sizable and can usually provide food for more than one meal.  Shortly after Barbara arrived here I took her to a diner for breakfast.  She ate well and then got two more days of breakfast from what she brought home.  Suffice it to say no one went home hungry that evening.

One of the days included a trip down the shore.  On the way, we stopped at an outlet mall for some shopping.  While they were all in one store, I sat outside enjoying the breeze.  Behind me was a pretzel store with the smell of fresh pretzels wafting out.  What I found interesting was the response from two groups of people that walked by.  A small group commented on how good it smelled.  One person said, “Ooh, I love that smell.  I have to go get a pretzel.”  A couple came by and one said, “That smell is disgusting.  Walk faster.”  I sided with the group that loved the smell, but resisted the urge to buy one.  I was so proud of me (but it was only because I knew what I would be eating later on the boardwalk).

We got down to a place where you can really get the full “down the shore” experience.  We walked the boards, went to a restaurant and ordered a pizza that is, honestly, 27” in diameter.  There were four adults, one 13 year-old girl and a three year-old boy and we could not finish the pizza.  We made a valiant effort, but were unsuccessful.  Fortunately, after walking, spending some time in the arcade and going on a few rides, we were able to eat some fried treats (specifically Barbara and I had fried Rice Krispie Treats) while we enjoyed the weekly fireworks.

One of the sights I noticed that evening was the number of very overweight guys who walked around in shorts with the legs pulled up in the crotch, athletic t shirts, caps on backwards and tattoos on their calves.  There was nothing overly attractive about them, but they walked around as if they were the coolest, in spite of their tendency to waddle.  Again, let me stress that I am not exactly physically fit – my 6 pack abs are kept in a foam cooler and I could stand to drop a few (okay more than a few) pounds, but I do not walk around trying to convince people of my coolness by wearing my hat backwards and having my lower legs tattooed.  I’m just saying.

One more thing and then I will close for this week.  We dropped our visitors at the airport for their flight home last night.  Because of weather the flight was delayed.  Next we got a call from Barbara’s daughter saying they were overbooked and were offering money for people to give up their seats.  So here is my question – if you have a plane that will hold 130 people and you booked 140, why are you offering people money to give up a seat just so you can give it to someone else?  If you are going to fill the seat anyway, why not just let the person who has it use it and save the money?  Another question is how do you overbook?  If I am holding a ticket for seat 15 B, is someone else also holding seat 15 B?  Does it go to whoever registers first?  I will need to try to find out more about this.

This week our fact tells us that if you have three quarters, four dimes and four pennies, you have $1.19.  you also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.  Not that it matters because when was the last time someone asked for change for a dollar?  Nowadays, you can pay for parking with a credit card so you don’t really need quarters.  Besides, how often do you see anything that is less than a dollar, anyway?