Posted on March 3, 2024
From the end of the World Series somewhere in the fall (It keeps getting moved.) until the end of March Earl and I are in exile. It’s a long season to be without our mutually favorite sport; and as hockey, football, and basketball all take their turns we become more and more glum.
But this is March 3. Pitchers and catchers showed up for spring training almost a month ago, and it’s less than a month to Opening Day which is scheduled for March 28. It doesn’t matter who you’re rooting for on that day, because all 30 major league baseball teams play somewhere and the next season of hope begins. There are volumes written about that hope. One of my mother’s favorite was a poem called “Casey at the Bat.”
Earl and I always purchase the MLB package on Xfinity, which means we have access to all the games for the entire season. That’s 2430 games. The package is $150 to buy a seat at the Altar of Hope. It’s not a bad deal if you’re a baseball fan. In fact, it is $7.50 a game to watch on TV. Try seeing a game live for that!
Play ball!
Posted on March 2, 2024
The Sandbar has been a local establishment long before Earl and I came to town in 2001, but we’d never been there until tonight. I had no preconceived notion of what to expect, although I’d been warned by our dining companions that it could be loud. Even though we got there early, it already was.
We chose a table in the corner, hopefully the better to hear one another and avoid the multiple TVs on multiple channels that marked The Sandbar as a sports bar. My back was to the screens, so it didn’t faze me.
We ordered water, drinks, and dinner and listened to the loud and quiet take turns as customers came and went. Loud won most of the time, and we had to lean over the table to shout at each other.
Still, in our quest for great dive bar hamburgers, Earl was not disappointed. In fact, he rated The Sandbar right up there with the Chatterbox, the gold standard around here.
See more 10 Minutes in category Dining/Food
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Posted on March 1, 2024
It’s not a crisis on the level of governmental intervention, but it is a personal antidote to the problems of the world right now. While Hungary, Israel, the United States, and other sovereignties duke it out, I’m studying cubes.
Not Rubik’s or office cubicles. Not ice or watermelon pieces. Rather, those small tissue cubes like Puff’s® or Kleenex®
I’ve been a Puff’s® devotee since its inception in 2010. Yes, Puff’s® has been around long before then, but that was when the cube was introduced. I love the cube, although it’s more expensive in many ways than the larger family sized box. I’m a sucker for the design.
But . . . one day Earl, who does our shopping, came home almost apoplectically apologetic that he couldn’t find a Puff’s® cube and bought a Kleenex® cube instead.
That was a couple years ago. Since then I’ve concluded that Kleenex® is as good as Puff®. But here’s another thing to be wary of: the number of tissues in each cube differs, which impacts the per tissue price.
The two empty boxes on my desk are proof. The Puff® box says it has 48 two-ply tissues while the Kleenex® one says 85 three-ply tissues. On the face of it, the latter seems like a better deal.
But, according to the internet, the most economical thing to do is to use toilet paper for your nasal concerns. A roll of toilet paper has almost four times as many sheets as a box of tissues and costs about half as much.
That’s nothing to sneeze at.
See more 10 Minutes in category Things to Ponder
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Posted on February 29, 2024
The media is all over Leap Day. This morning Facebook featured a woman who turns 100 today, but is celebrating only her twenty-fifth birthday. CBS News provided a lengthy historical perspective on the need for Leap Day every four years. It has to do with the rotation of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. And the Associated Press gave me some facts about February 29.
For example, on this date in 1892, Britain and the United States agreed to arbitration over their dispute regarding seal hunting in the Bering Sea. (Bear in mind, this is not the same thing as settling the dispute.) In 1940 Hattie McDaniel became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award. And in 1968, the 5th Dimension won the record of the year award at the Grammys for “Up, Up, and Away.”
Today President Biden and former president Trump both visited Texas and ramped up the rhetoric about the border crisis. I wonder if this event will be remembered in Leap Days to come.
See more 10 Minutes in category Nostalgia, Politics
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Posted on February 28, 2024
You’ve all had experiences when you called a major company and gotten into the automated queue where Robot Voice first suggests we go online to resolve our issue. Believe me, if I thought my question was that easy to solve, I would go online. But usually it’s not. You’ve also had the experience where Robot Voice wants verification “to get you to the right agent.”
This is the point where I take affirmative action. Usually it consists of hitting “0” umpteen times in a row, which confuses Robot Voice and often puts me at the front of the line to speak with a human. Hitting the pound sign can also do the same thing.
Today this didn’t work with Xfinity (aka Comcast). When I hit “0” several times in a row, Robot Voice politely said “Goodbye.” I was not deterred. Dialed the 800 number again; listened to the same yak-yak, asked for an agent. Robot Voice asked if I wanted to resolve this issue online. “Please answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”
Now normally I approach these glitches with calm resolve, because I believe you get further by being pleasant, even if it’s to a robot. But after an hour on this project I’d had it and yelled, “No, no, no, no, no” as loud as I could. Guess what? I moved to the front of the line and spoke with Human Agent Daisy who solved my problem in an instant.
It really doesn’t matter what the problem was; this blog isn’t about that. It’s about how you get a human. Just add yelling “No” more than once to your list, especially when you need to communicate with Xfinity.
See more 10 Minutes in category Annoyances, Technology
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Posted on February 27, 2024
Today are the Republican and Democratic primaries in my state. To vote, in advance you had to declare one party or the other and then get the ballot for which party you declared. It isn’t at all like the national election in November.
Biden and Trump will most likely win their parties’ nominations. There isn’t anyone formidable on either ballot. Still, there are issues.
The Republicans in Michigan are in disarray. So are the Democrats for different reasons. If you want to study this, there is ample opportunity online. My bottom line is that this primary could be a proxy for what happens this November.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen nominations for presidential candidates evolve from the various conventions to every state having a primary to determine the nominee. I’m not sure which I prefer, because each has pros and cons. What I do not prefer is lobbying, advertising, false testimony, vicious accusations, cruel acronyms, and lack of polite discourse.
And between now and the general election in November, I shall be subjected to all the above.
See more 10 Minutes in category Politics
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Posted on February 26, 2024
I rarely post book reviews, but the selection for last night’s Great Book Club (aka The Buddy Book Club) deserves comment. Written by Celeste Ng (pronounced Eng), Our Missing Hearts is her third novel. It was reviewed by Stephen King (yes, that King) for the New York Times, so I’m reviewing it for you.
Set in the future where things are dire, the story revolves around eleven-year-old Bird, whose mother disappeared three years before. Much of the novel is about Bird’s search for his mother to learn why she left.
These bones have been fleshed out in many other YA and adult fiction, but Ng’s take is unique in my opinion. Besides being a good writer, she has meticulously created a plot that is intricate but believable (provided you accept the dystopian society Bird and his contemporaries live in.) You almost have to read it twice to get how tightly the story is woven. The three questions Duchess asks Bird to verify that he really is Bird are not out of the blue. That the Duchess inherits a technology company seems irrelevant, until it isn’t. And even the mother’s name is symbolic.
I read Ng’s first book, Everything I Never Told You, and liked it a lot. Her second, Little Fires Everywhere, did nothing for me. But with Our Missing Hearts, she is back on my list.
See more 10 Minutes in category Writing
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Posted on February 25, 2024
I’ve been working on playing the original score of Chopin’s Waltz for a couple months. I don’t particularly like it, just as I didn’t like “Moonlight Sonata,” but there is so much to be learned from these pieces that I persist. In Chopin’s case, it’s the fingering in various measures.
I have a small hand, which makes things beyond octaves difficult. Chopin doesn’t care. I researched the internet and learned Chopin didn’t have a very large hand either, but he made the most of what he had. Which is why he cavorts all over the piano. I’m not good at cavorting.
Tomorrow I go for my monthly piano lesson, and I’ll play the Chopin piece and ask for more time to make it better. And I believe I can. Will never cavort, but can at least trill.
Posted on February 24, 2024
I was talking with C. yesterday; his week included what I call a drive-by goodbye from a client he’d had for over four years. This client sent him a text that her firm had hired someone else for their online marketing and could C. send her all the appropriate passwords and delete his contact information from their website and any other materials.
I suppose that’s proper protocol, the passing on of IDs and passwords, but the protocol for letting a vendor go certainly wasn’t proper in my book. It was, however, an example of a growing trend.
People no longer take time to say “Goodbye” in person. In this case, I don’t necessarily think a formal face-to-face meeting was necessary, but I do think the client owed C. the courtesy of a phone call. And a thank you for the years of good work. If I had been C. the manner in which this transition was handled equals a burning bridge.
See more 10 Minutes in category Annoyances, Changing Scene, Technology
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Posted on February 23, 2024
Years ago, before the infamous Wall came down, I was invited to visit Berlin. It didn’t take long to decline the invitation, as I was concerned about my safety. I had a vision of being in a café with a friend, opining about politics, being overheard by some government agent, and escorted away for questioning.
I feel the same way about Alabama.
On February 16, that state’s supreme court ruled that frozen embryos created and stored for in vitro fertilization (IVF) were children. One result of this ruling is that parents can sue for punitive damages when their child, in or out of a uterus, dies. Another result is that some of the eight clinics in Alabama that provided IVF services are pausing their programs for fear of prosecution if something goes wrong.
Personally I am not convinced that IVF is a good thing. There are moral implications, medical repercussions, and economic considerations. At the same time, I don’t believe a state government should make such a ruling, just as I don’t believe the Supreme Court of the United States should have rescinded Roe v. Wade.
A good law or a bad law, it was the law of the country that accepted various religions and peoples who had differing views about conception. It was inclusive in that regard. And if your religion forbids abortion or IVF, then why can’t you follow that without insisting others with differing opinions do the same thing? It’s scary.
One other question: If frozen embryos are children, who gets the tax deduction?
