Guilt

  One of the many things that addle me is this: Why do so many really wealthy people—like actors, and athletes, and politicians, and dot-com millionaires, and TV pundits/talking heads…...etc—Who didn’t really work very hard for their wealth, and have the capitalist system to thank for their, well, unearned wealth….. Well, why do they all seem to become socialists? How come is that?? Except for the ones who have become commies, of course….. Ya’ know, I used to capitalize words like communist and socialist and such, but quit doing that when the lefties began the practice of capitalizing every ethnicity other than white, which is habitually written in lower case. On a related note, why is it do you s’pose that coastal big cities have overwhelming crime and bums on the street? Not that I have any answers—I just have questions.

  OK then. Baseball is finally over for my beloved Giants. Thank goodness. This leadership pair of Farhan Zaidi and Gabe Kapler has created a baseball team and method that’s just pitiful. It’s painful to watch. And boring. Tedious. A struggle. Never knowing from day to day who is going to be on the club as players or where they might be in the batting order or what positions they might play. No stars. The way Kapler handles pitchers makes it even worse. One result of the inconstancy in player positions is that the Giants lead all of baseball in errors committed in an era of lower error rates in baseball. I can’t be the only one who sees the problem and the source of said problem. It’s no puzzle why the Giants find it impossible to sign truly first rate talent. I’m a big fan of Mike Yastrzemski and Brandon Crawford, but, other than that…….Who would want to subject themselves to that nonsense, anyhow? It’s no wonder that the ballpark is habitually empty, or nearly so. ...

 Yeah….I’m a baseball guy. I live for baseball season….I have a grand-son playing baseball in Bakersfield Little League, and a daughter playing adult softball in Plumas Lake. Well, not actually IN the lake—that’s just the name of the town. I subscribe to MLB.TV. Because that’s where I can watch the MLB games featuring my beloved, yet incompetent, SF Giants. However, I have a couple of complaints about MLB.TV. I find that MLB shows endless commercials during the National Anthem. You’d think that a sport that wants to drape itself in Red, White, and Blue could carve out enough time for the anthem. You’d think. I find that I have to listen to the radio broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio to get the Anthem, then launch MLB.TV to watch the game. Look, I have my issues with the butchering of the Anthem by “stylized” singers, but it’s still the Anthem, and it’s important. Then there’s the idiotic “Baseball Zen” nonsense that they use for time fillers between innings. I figure the...

  I’m wondering if any other baseball fans/followers are unhappy with the homogenization of the American and National Leagues. At this point, there’s really no difference—As an example, the Giants, at the beginning of this season, will have played their first 15 games, and 12 of them have been against American League teams. The only games they’ve played against a traditional National League team is a 3 game series against the Dodgers. I don’t really see any point of having National League and American League teams. Just call is Big Boys Baseball (or something) and divvy up the teams in 4 team configurations based on geography, or political bent, or total tattoos, or whatever you want to use. Give the little divisions whimsical local names, like the Peppercorn Division, or the Cornfield Division, or whatever. There’s currently 30 MLB teams, so if they made up 10 more, there would be 40 teams, or ten 4-team divisions. Just think!! Ten Champions every year!! And the...

  Watching the local (Portland, Oregon) news this AM, and this stands out—Calling the situation with the “homeless” a crisis cheapens the word “Crisis”. When there’s a true crisis, they’ll need to make up a new word, because what they’re calling a crisis now is a government problem that can be addressed quickly and easily by institutionalizing the crazies in the population and arresting much of the rest for the crimes they commit and the arrest warrants already issued for crimes already committed. Those who are left will scatter. A “Crisis” is when the Russians launch nuclear missiles, or if a 5 mile wide asteroid is on a collision course with the Earth. A bunch of drug addicts, alcoholics, and nut cases living in tents on the sidewalk just doesn’t make the grade. As usual, you’re welcome.

  My love affair with a cat came to an end recently. Well, not really…..Quigley died before he could manage to have one last Spring fling, but the love affair remains. He now has a peaceful corner of the yard. Here’s what I wrote on Facebook: Quigley was my side-kick for a really long time. He was never really over-friendly…..even with me. He was a one man tomcat. And I was the man. He attached himself to me as a kitten. And I was with him when he died of old age. The pictures are of me and him when he was a kitten, and then one of him in his prime on critter patrol in the front yard of our house in Ohio several years ago. I called him Quig, Q-Tip, Q-Cat, and “The Mostly Crazy White Tomcat”, as well as Quigley. He would answer to a simple calling out of “Q”. He was large, muscular, beautiful, and dangerous. He had the gait of a tiger. I’ve pretty much always had a cat as a companion, but never for as long as this guy. I’ll miss him. He was born in Santa Clarita, Cal...

  Yep. I caught some baseball on Opening Day. Watched some Cleveland/KC and some Brewers/Cubs. Much as they’ve homogenized the game, and as much as I abhor that, I watched. And listened. It’s still baseball. Mostly it’s turned into the American League version of a “baseball-like” game, but it’s all we’ve got now. I don’t really see the purpose of even having an American League and then real baseball in the National League. It’s all the same. And that’s awful. Time was, the American league played in smaller parks, and real baseball was played in larger parks. The American League was a “bloop and a blast” game dominated by home runs, while the National League was a “grind-it-out” league dominated by batting average and base stealing. My main team is the Giants, and has been for as long as I can remember, but I lived in Youngstown Ohio for a number of years and became an Indians fan. So today, since the Giants don’t start on time (they start tomorrow at home), I put o...

  Honestly…..If you insist on calling vegetables “veggies”, I will no longer take you seriously about pretty much anything. And now I hear that at Disney resorts, there is no longer a welcoming phrase of “Ladies and Gentlemen…..Boys and Girls”--It’s been replaced with the gender-neutral term “Dreamers of All Ages”. What a Bunch-O-Hooey. No more “Boys and Girls”…..Don’t even say those words at a Disney resort, I guess. Look, I have grand-daughters and grand-sons. They are, in fact, “boys and girls”. And I’d like to think that they’re also welcome at Disneyland in the off-chance that their parents can afford the entry fee. You’ve just gotta wonder where Disney stands on Mickey and Minnie Mouse these days. Or Daisy and Donald Duck. I was watching some MST 3K—Something about 50’s era spaceships and such. An old serial made into a movie, I think. What I wonder about is why did capes go out of fashion with aliens? They look right snappy. The cherry trees here in Ca...

  Up here in bucolic Castle Rock, we had 2 consecutive non-rainy days. So I cut the grass. Made me feel like I live in the ‘burbs again. I actually like taking care of a lawn.   Even with all of the hoop-la about climate change/global warming the rabbits on our hill and the squirrels and all the birds seem to think it’s Spring. The cherry and apple trees and tulips agree. We have neighbors who have turkeys and ducks. Other neighbors have chickens. Maybe I could build an aviary and we could have squab. Tasty little critters. There’s also doves and American robins the size of barnyard fowl here. I bet they’d taste pretty good too.  I bring this up because the price of gasoline is causing my food budget to shrink. Commercials on TV are always louder than the programming. I have a TV that compensates, but it’s still overwhelming. I was just wondering if the advertisers know that I have a “mute” button. I also wonder if advertisers (and the programming staff of ...

  My Bride makes a dish that I really like. She has always called it Mexican Meat. I call it Messkin Meat, but I mean no disrespect by that. It’s a name for the meat dish, not the people who are now and have always been my friends. They understand that I’m actually harmless. At least they THINK that I’m harmless. You might find disagreement if you look hard enough. I like all sorts of Mexican food, and when I’ve got a cold or the flu or otherwise just don’t feel quite right, I medicate myself with Jalapenos. It’s something that works. But….Mexican Meat. Our little Terrier-Dog, Lil, gets meat scraps all the time. Parts of steaks, chops, chicken skin…..She’s a lucky dog. But she does draw the line at rancid and “sorta” rancid hamburger meat. Back to Mexican Meat. Today, I did a regrettable thing and happened by while the Bride was cooking up a Mess-O-Messkin Meat at the same time that she was preparing Lil a meat plate. Lil got some trimmings from a pot roa...

  It tickles me to watch the “weather” reports on news programs. Tickles me even MORE to watch The Weather Channel. I’ve been living in the Pacific Northwest for about 6 or 7 years now, and I’m here to tell you that we have wide deep rivers and massive lakes that are just chock full of fresh clean sweet water. It never really quits the rainy season here. The standing joke (based, of course, in truth) is that we have two seasons—Winter and August. Typically, we usually have about 3 months of decent weather—middle of July into sometime in September. That’s it. Then it rains. A smattering of snow, and that’s always a treat, but it’s rain. And, frankly, it takes the gas right out of me after a month or so. Boredom and depression in the winter are very real things up in these parts. True, we’re not as hammered as, say, North Dakota, but it’s still pretty grim. Which brings me to the weathermen (this included weatherwomen, just to make sure you know I’m not a sexi...

Looks like we will, after all, have a baseball season this year. The millionaires and billionaires buried the hatchet and agreed to disagree for another 5 or so years. Best I can tell, the biggest thing they agreed to was having a designated hitter in the National League. Shit. I don’t even like divisional play, much less this clap-trap. Pitchers are no longer baseball players. They’re just chuckers of orbs. They shouldn’t be allowed to even call themselves baseball players. Or qualify for MVP voting—that really should be reserved for players. Same goes for career designated hitters. They are not baseball players. They simply bat-swingers, and nothing more. Even though the season is starting late, they have also agreed on a full 162 game slate. This means, of course, that there’s going to be a crap-load of 7 inning double headers. More heresy, you ask me. 7 innings does not a baseball game make. They did this nonsense because the owners only pay their employees for g...

  With all the talk up here in the greater Pacific Northwest about the never-ending drought (regardless of the flooding, I guess) and global warming, and protests against fossil fuel, and that idiot Greta Thurnberg…….The sky is falling crowd….. Well, the Dogwoods here in Castle Rock are blooming, the birds are nesting and, from what I can tell, making little birds. So, counting the crises (not the Wuhan Flu, but the other ones), we got Fossil Fuel, Global Warming, Climate Change, Flooding, Drought, War, Gun Violence, Police Brutality…..I’m certain that there’s more. But in these parts, it just looks like Spring is right around the corner. At least the Dogwoods and the birds think so. Soon as it warms up a little (it was 22 degrees American this morning), and dries out some, my big crisis will be mowing the grass. Another big Springtime event is re-setting the clocks for Daylight Savings Time, which happens this weekend. Really looking forward to that. We ...

  I don’t live an expensive life. My house in bucolic Castle Rock was built in 1935. I drive a 21 year old VW Beetle. I’m a retired Law Enforcement Officer and my medical benefits are supplied by MediCare. That’s not an extravagant life. I’m on a fixed income. I have Social Security and some retirement benefits from the two agencies I worked for (for 32 years). I’m a U.S. Army veteran. I’ve always done my part. Paid my taxes. Voted. Respected the elected officials. Always carried my own water, you could say. I felt sorry for Joe Biden. He seemed (and seems) befuddled. He lurches when he walks. His wife has to hold his hand on steps to prevent him from stumbling. I felt sorry for him. I really did. When Donald Trump was president, the gas station here in Castle Rock sold gasoline for $2.75 a gallon, more or less. Today, I filled up the VW at the gas station and paid a heart-stopping $4.99 and 9/10ths a gallon. In Castle Rock, for Chris...

  Ya’ know…..I first started farting around on the Internet a really long time ago. The first browser I used was called Cello. Us Cello users called ourselves cellists. This pre-dated Netscape by quite a distance. Everything was text-based, because the speed of downloading information was restricted to, at the most, a 14.4 or 9600 baud POTS modem speed. And graphics eat up a crap-load of bandwidth. Don’t know what POTS is? Shame on you. That’s Plain Old Telephone Service. Modem was short for Modulate-Demodulate, which is now irrelevant, but the term has hung on. No, no one knows why. I remember clearly when I bought an upgrade to the IBM 386 I had been using. The machine I got had a Pentium 60 processor, 14.4 modem, 4 MB of RAM, a 560 MB hard drive, a sound card, a color monitor and Windows 3.1. Brother, that was a MACHINE!! I bought it at Circuit City. Back in those days, everything was freely accessible, and the WWW was only a small part of the experience. E-...

  Energy shortages? Easy. Go nuclear. Remember…..”The China Syndrome” was just a movie, not a scientific expose. Remember…..Nuclear disasters like Chernobyl fail to have the millions of years of on-going disaster that the Chicken Little folks would have you believe. Nuclear. That’s the answer. Maybe the ONLY answer. Get yourself enough working nuclear power plants and you put the Russian oil and gas industry completely out of business. OPEC too. And no, I don’t really want to hear all about solar, hydro-electric, or wind. There’s not enough of that to even power all the cell phones in the USA, not to mention the onset of electric cars. Don’t be stupid.

  As promised, here’s the follow-up info on the cold brew coffee maker. Mine came with instructions, and each instance makes about 2 quarts of concentrated coffee. To make that much cold coffee takes 2 cups of ground coffee and a whole bunch of water. Plus, of course, the two days wait. I only waited about a day and a half. You put the coffee in the strainer, put the water and the strainer in the carafe, screw down the water-tight lid, and give it a shake. Like a martini shake. Like that. It’s to get the coffee grounds damp. Then stick it in the fridge. Give it a courtesy shake once in a while to keep the grounds moist. What you get at the end of the process is a really tasty, highly concentrated carafe of cold coffee. I mixed it with diet coca cola and Hoo-Boy was it good. I’m thinking it’ll make a really good hot drink all by itself, watered down, with booze, with cream, whatever...I’m a fan. The balance of the 2 quarts of coffee is in the carafe, in ...

  I don’t know about you, but I’ve just about had it with the MLBPA—That’s the “Player’s Association” of major league baseball players to the uninitiated. Think union. Yeah, the owners are all richer than God…..Billionaires, I think. At least most of them. And their investment keeps growing. Yep—they actually make money even if they have a losing team. But it’s their team. They're the owners, after all. A back-up second baseman who plays half the games in a season, hits .220 with 10 RBI’s and 15 errors still makes league minimum. Oh, that’s in the neighborhood of $750,000.00 a year. And that’s a lot of scratch just to play a game. But the player’s association wants a shit-load more. They can KMA. If I was an owner, here’s what I would do: I’d cancel the contracts of every player on the roster who refuses to play after a given date (like today, maybe). Let them sue. It’ll take years to resolve the lawsuits. Next, I’ll have open try-outs for the major ...

  Interesting weather up here in the greater Pacific Northwest. Interesting if you’re REALLY into rain. On an average year, it rains for 9 months, then, if lucky, we get about 3 months of decent weather. If it fails to rain for more than 3 consecutive days, even in August, the weather reports and the local newspaper start talking about drought. Idiots. Then, there’s the constant rejoinder as follows: “We really need the rain…..That’s why it’s so green here”. MEGO. We are just now recovering from flooding due to what was called a “Pineapple Express”--A non-ending stream of heavy rain originating in the South Pacific (or thereabouts) and aimed directly at me. It rained for three days straight. I’m seeing a little bit of sun today, so I guess it’s mostly over for the time being, but the Cowlitz river (the one that runs right through the middle of bucolic Castle Rock) flooded—Not in Castle Rock, but elsewhere. The grater Seattle area was also hammered…..but they, of course, ...

  Looks like there’s three really big stories today: -1) No one has any idea when, or if, baseball will return. Or, for that matter, what it might look like if it does return. -2) Russia is taking over the Ukraine without invading, leaving the idiot Biden completely flummoxed. Like he wasn’t already….. -3) The spoiled child of a Canadian head of state cannot get enough of his emergency powers. And then there’s this…..I’ll celebrate President’s Day again if we ever get an actual president.