Guilt

.....except the NFL, the NBA, and the Oakland A's. 36 U.S. Code § 301 - National Anthem (a) Designation.— The composition consisting of the words and music known as the Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem. (b) Conduct During Playing.— During a rendition of the national anthem— (1) when the flag is displayed— (A) individuals in uniform should give the military salute at the first note of the anthem and maintain that position until the last note; (B) members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute in the manner provided for individuals in uniform; and (C) all other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, and men not in uniform, if applicable, should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart; and (2) when the flag is not displayed, all present should face toward the music and act in the sa...

Just a couple of thoughts about America's favorite pastime (and mine)--Baseball. 1) If the Baseball Hall of Fame really is meant to enshrine the best major league players, then Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Roger Clemens (among others) belong there. If, on the other hand, the Hall is meant to happily thank above average players who have otherwise led pristine lives, then leave those named players out. While you're at it, however, you'll need to cleanse the Hall of some existing members for being something other than model citizens. Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth come immediately to mind. 2) What with just about every play being subject to video review, and machine called balls and strikes on the horizon, why not just eliminate all the field umpires? Perhaps one could be retained to make balk calls, but nothing else is really needed at this point. 3) The length of games is still an issue. The only solution that I can see is to change the number of...

Do you, like me, wonder what happened to manhood in America? I recently read an article re-printed by Blue Lives Matter that ran down a Portland, Oregon Home Depot employee. He heard a woman screaming for help in the parking lot—she was trying to get help for what she called out as a kidnapping. Our Home Depot Employee called 911 and followed the dispatchers instructions—Follow the kidnapper and continue to report facts until the police arrived. That's what he did, leaving the Home Depot property for about 10 minutes. For his efforts, Home Depot fired him. They have since offered him his job back (which he declined) due to bad press. Just a recent example of the wussification of the American Male. Same thing in baseball. No more home plate collisions Too dangerous. No more “take-out” slides at second. Somebody might be get hurt. It goes on and on. School-boys in the second and third grade punished for drawing pictures of handguns. Here's w...

Phonics doesn't even start with an “F”. It's shit like this that makes space aliens fly right by Earth without stopping to give us the cure for cancer.

Even at my advanced age, I like a good show--I went and saw Boston at the Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield with my daughter.  What a grand show with a dandy sidekick.  They opened with Rock-N-Roll Band, and it brought to mind other songs, by rock bands, about becoming or being a band. Here's the list I immediately came up with.  These are all great tunes.  Feel free to let me know about all the ones I missed: Overnight Sensation--Raspberries We Built This City--Starship Rock and Roll Band--Boston Grand Funk--We're An American Band Foreigner--Jukebox Hero Moody Blues--I'm Just A Singer In A Rock-N-Roll Band AC/DC--It's A Long Way To The Top Dire Straits--Money For Nothing The Byrds--So You Want To Be A Rock-N-Roll Star Eagles--New Kid In Town Stones--It's Only Rock and Roll Kiss--Rock-N-Roll (All Night) All American Boy--Bill Parsons (and others)

I enjoy reading aloud. Depending on the subject matter. I inadvertently obtained a copy of The Book Of Guys in the mid-90s and devoured it. I have since read aloud the preface and “Lonesome Shorty” more times than I can recall. I have read and re-read the book cover to cover on an “as-needed” basis. It's “needed” more often than you might imagine. This is side-splittingly funny stuff, sometimes not exactly in the “HAHA” way, but in the “HolyCrap” manner. This guy Keillor knows my life experience. I have purchased more copies of this book whenever the need arose. Whenever I meet a man (of my generation in particular—Boomers) who has come to the conclusion that women simply cannot be understood nor can they be satisfied, I give that man a copy of The Book Of Guys for his very own. It's comforting to know that you're not alone. Those who think that this subject matter is too dark need to re-evaluate what happened to their manhood during the ...

I've been watching a dandy “Made-For-And-By-HULU” narrow-cast program entitled “Dimension 404”. Figure it as all the good stuff from The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, The Net, and a host of other similar ideas that you'll immediately recognize. Mark Hamill does the verbal intro. Good stuff. Then I watched the current episode which was titled simply “Bob”. Another dandy story, this time about a deployed Army Captain (Psychologist-type), who is separated from wife and daughter during the holiday season and seems to be a work-aholic. A good starting place by any measure. But I just have to wonder how large a percentage of deployed Army Medical Corps Captains are Asian lesbians involved in a bi-racial non-white relationship while raising an ethnically ambiguous 10 year old daughter. Yes, they share a passionate kiss, but it's really hard to tell if there's any tongue involved. Just wondering………. Not that I'm going to quit watching this program, any mo...

A couple of notes to eBay sellers: 1) A used item is not “Vintage” simply because it's used. If you're trying to make an old decrepit item seem fashionable, try just renaming it instead. F'rinstance, if you're offering for sale an old, beat-up lamp, try advertising it as a vacuum cleaner. 2) “Patina” is a real word, and, according to Webster, means “ a green or brown film on the surface of bronze or similar metals, produced by oxidation over a long period”. If you have an old rusted license plate frame, it does NOT have a “patina”, it has “rust”. As always…..You're welcome.

The list of people I follow on Facebook dwindles ever so close to zero. It's pathetic, really. But, like everyone else, I suppose, I am drawn to it. You might call it a guilty pleasure, but I don't feel guilty and it's a fair distance from pleasurable. Given the minuscule number of folks I now follow, one might think I have no more need to gripe. One would be wrong, and I forgive one. I cannot seem to prevent myself from clicking on those moronic “Lists” of the 37 worst haircuts, or the 17 most hideous tattoos. You know that crap as well as I do. But I'm weak. I just clicked on one that promised the 25 worst cars ever made. As if………. OK, some of them were bad designs. OK. But I owned and drove a bunch of the cars in the list and liked them. I drive one of them even to this day, and I like it. Fact is, I mostly like stuff. Cars included. Some of the ones that I didn't ever own, drive (or still own and drive) were cars that I...

There's a real guy named Jack Handy and he's really funny. He has books and such entitled “Deep Thoughts”. The official web site is located at http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/ Here's some samples to whet your appetite: I bet a fun thing would be to go way back in time to where there was going to be an eclipse and tell the cave men, "If I have come to destroy you, may the sun be blotted out from the sky." Just then the eclipse would start, and they'd probably try to kill you or something, but then you could explain about the rotation of the moon and all, and everyone would get a good laugh. A man doesn't automatically get my respect. He has to get down in the dirt and beg for it. Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It's a shark riding on an elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they see. I wouldn't be surp...

Yeah, OK, I know what I said, but, well, my first choice was really PlayStation Vue anyhow, not really Sling TV. I discovered that the channel line-up on Sling didn't really fire my rockets all that much. All that business you read about the Sling interface being bad was bullshit from the jump, but the channel line-up just wasn't my cup-o-tea. If you actually LIKE FoxSports juunque, it would be a great thing. On the plus side, getting out of Sling TV during the free trial was easy and direct. After I left Sling TV, they even sent me an offer for a free ROKU (with two months pre-paid on my part) if I would just not leave. Bless their little hearts. I kept after the Sony Entertainment web-site trying to get my password thing straightened out, and hot-damn it finally worked. Of course, I'm also waiting for Google to get into the mix. Google. They run the world. Who could have anticipated a world where a search engine was bigger than IBM? Or, for that matter,...

I'm a cable-cutter. I think that some people would call me a cord-cutter, but that just seems sort of delivery-room oriented, and that's not what I'm into these days. I started cable-cutting early on, but didn't really finish the job until quite recently. My local cable company is Comcast, but it's been others in the past. They're all the same. Really. For the past year and a half, I've had only the most basic TV service from the cable company to augment my Internet service. Turns out that the cable company does some things really well, like Internet service and phone service (which I also don't use, but have in the past), and some things not so much. Like TV delivery. Odd that what they started out doing well—TV service—Is where they fall flat now. Times change. Television has changed. This month, I had a nice young man from the cable company pay me a visit. His name was Vinsent and he was both personable and knowledg...

I'm in the process of buying a house. All is well, my credit and income to debt ratio is grand, my FICA score is through the roof. I've been renting this house for a couple of years, and now the owners want to sell, so we made a deal. I'm buying the house that I live in already—The owners and I get along famously and the house is a peach. We decided to do it ourselves without involving a real estate agent. I've never done it like this before and neither had the seller. ITS AN ADVENTURE FOR CHRISTSAKE!! We are now at the point of getting the loan past the demon of the deal—the Underwriter. I've had at least a couple of bone-headed questions from the underwriter so far and, frankly, I expect at least one more. I really wonder what the basic qualifications for being a real estate underwriter are—Must be something akin to being an IRS examiner—You know...Someone who knows absolutely nothing about anything. Sorta like Barack Obama’s qualifications to ...

In other news, I noticed a new zombie-comedy being touted on Netflix—A made for Netflix thing starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant, two of my favorites. It's called The Santa Clarita Diet, and the run-up inferred that Drew was going to be a zombie and Timothy was going to be her husband, living a normal life in the El Lay 'Burbs when Drew turns into a zombie and hilarity ensues. I was ready. It's funny enough, but it's no iZombie (although that what it seems to want to be). Good enough to have me watch at least one episode beyond the pilot. Here's my problem with it………..It's the identical problem I have with just about every Made-For-Netflix series in their current offerings: The only couple that isn't bi-racial is Drew and Timothy. At least in the one episode I saw. They live in the 'Burbs. Santa Clarita. I've been to Santa Clarita more than once and I'm here to tell you that most of the couples living there are not...

I'm as confused as a boy with a map can be. I see on the local news that this is the Chinese New Year. The Year of the Rooster. Where is the protest to this sexist, demeaning behavior? Should this not truly be the “Year of the Chicken” in order to be inclusive? Where are you Oh Cupcake Generation? Have you no soul? Have you no courage? It's as plain as the nose on your face that this should be the “Year of the Poultry” in order to not be specisist. Fair is fair and this is offensive, you see. I've done my part by pointing this out. The Cupcakes must now riot.

Lifeguard. No, not Lifebouy…..That's bath soap. It's been cold, snowy, foggy, and rainy here in The Land Of Perpetual Rainfall. Then there's that thing where I work. I work as a part-time security guy at the local community college. Part-time because if I work over 75 hours in any given month the state of Washington requires that the IHL (Institution of Higher Learnin') supply me with benefits—remember benefits? I do. Medical, dental, sick leave, snow days (yes, the full-timers at the IHL get “snow” days). It's just too dangerous for the full-timers to get to work on snowy days, but the security department must still be staffed, so, well, you get the picture….I feel no need to spell it out any further. Anyhow, I reached the magical 75 hour mark early this month mostly because SOMEBODY had to work on all those snowy days. So, I've been watching some old movies on the 48 inch wide screen high definition TV. I have a working home WIFI system cour...