On Becoming a Billionaire

Well, we're just about at brunch time on the day after Christmas.  A winter advisory will be taking effect very shortly.  Snow, ice, and freezing rain are in our forecast for this afternoon and this evening.  Now, doesn't that sound simply wonderful.  Our temps are sitting just below the 30 (F) degree mark and are not expected to rise much.  This is how it goes.

Yesterday was Christmas and it was nice and quiet... mostly.  My neighbors did pop their volume up for a bit, so filled the same Christmas spirit, I popped mine up, too.  I put on some terrible Christmasy romance on Netflix with voluminous string orchestrations.  And, as expected, they shortly dropped their volume down to an acceptable level.  This was me being the good neighbor and reminding them that I can be just as loud as they are, something they are not too particularly fond of.  

Otherwise, yesterday was fairly quiet.  Howie and I ate ham and scalloped potatoes.  Both were delicious.  I have leftovers will will keep my belly happy for the next week.

I did have breakfast with my brother this morning, the reason this is a mid-morning post rather than morning.  He's fine.  He has a well paying job now.  It's 12 month contract.  He's going to try for an extension, if you getting himself permanently hired.  He hasn't said so, but I suspect he and his wife had accumulated a lot of debt.  He also reminded me he's out of touch with what's been happening with the Orange Anus.  So, I did some enlightening.

And I watched City of Shadows on Neflix.  This is an intense psychological thriller.  And it was good.  Some might find a few of the scenes a bit grisly, burnt cadavers can be disgusting.

As I said early, my brother's a bit out of touch with everything the Orange Anus is doing, and saying.  I think this is quite common, not only with Republican voters, but with Democrats as well.  My brother also said that he only checks the news about once a week.  Ignorance is bliss, isn't it.  Again, I suspect that there are a number of Democratic voters who do the same thing.  When I was growing up, we watched the local news and the national news everyday.  I don't think that happens anymore.  Republicans will watch Fox Entertainment because they like the disinformation the hosts and talking heads spew out.  Sleazebag liberals watch NBC, ABC, CNN, and CBS.  But even we, the sleazebags, are turning away from the sources of Main Stream Media.  There are too many other viably accurate sources.  This is why Larry Ellison, the 81 year-old billionaire who bought CBS is throwing his money away.  Even though he's older, he's a lot like me, in that he, too, watched the local news and the national news when they were still legitimate.  That's changed.  Americans are going to tune into CBS the way Republicans tune into Fox Entertainment, because there already is a Fox Entertainment.  Becoming a billionaire doesn't make one smart, just ruthless.

Yesterday

 Holy Crap!  Retail was so terribly slow yesterday.  Not one customer.  These are the slow days we usually have in February.  By March, the stream of lawn and garden customers is beginning to pick up.  That isn't happening.  Most stores in the area aren't making plan.  I don't doubt a lot of it has to do with prices.  It isn't like the orange retail giant I work for isn't making money.  The business just is not earing them the revenue they've budgeted.  In flooring, we're offering a special deal until 3/19, but it's only on the top of the line carpet and pad: 10% off.  I laughed.  Instead of spending $4 per square foot, they want customers to spend $7, and for that they'll take off .70.  That will only fly so far.

Outside, we're under a snow warning.  A band of heavy snow is moving through the area.  But not here.  The skies are overcast, but that's about it... except for the occasional, single flurry that has managed to make a suicide dash from the clouds.

I did skip the treadmill yesterday, but I'll be back on it today.  That means I'll get my steps in.  Yesterday, even without the treadmill, I managed to get 13, 889 steps in, that's because business was so slow and could do lap, after lap, after lap around the store.

Here's a pic of one of my daffodils.

And, for those who haven't heard, yesterday Tucker Carlson relvealed the first edited video of January 6.  His version shows snippets of the rioters quietly walking through the halls of Congress.  He has the number one propaganda show on cable.  Tucker doesn't care if he manages to incites violence.  His boss, Rupert, would probably like that.  However, we do need to keep things in perspective.  Tucker may have his fan base, but on a daily basis CBS evening news. with its 5.3 million viewers nearly doubles Tucker's fan club.  NBC easily doubles Tuck's base with well over 7 million viewers, and Disney owned ABC News almost triples Tuck's base.  Those three networks combined, garner well over 6 times Carlson's base.  This also doesn't take into account those who watch cable news.  However, people talk about Tucker and his antics, whether that makes him more dangerous than not, I don't know.  What does make him more of a threat is the influence he wields among the crazies, the Trumpers, and the MAGA brained who will deny realityforever.

The HO HO HO

 So, I signed up for CBS All Access last evening.  There aren't a lot of shows I want to watch, but there are a few, and in December "The Stand" is going to drop.  After that I'll probably cancel out.  I can't see wasting my money on something I'm not going to watch.  This is what's good about 'no subscription contracts.'  

Oh, and today is my weekend, Saturday and Sunday all wrapped up in one day.  Tomorrow I go back to work for another 5 days.  Don't color me excited.  We have potential customers asking how far out our installations are scheduled.  Well, we don't.  We tell people 2 - 3 weeks.  That's not the answer they want to hear.  But, this is how life is right now during the time of Covid.

And, speaking of Covid.  We had a customer yesterday wearing a black T-shirt that read 'I'd rather get Covid-19 then vote for Biden.'  I almost laughed at him... but didn't, the large, home improvement retailer I work for has no problem taking money from morons.  Anyway, this customer bought a pallet of cheap laminate and asked if we could load it into the back of his pick-up truck.  No problem.  So we put the pallet on a fork lift.  As we approached his truck, he dropped down his tailgate and we saw he had all this PVC piping bolted to it.  That's my flag holder, he explained.  "I can fly five flags in that sucker when I'm driving."  Of course, you can guess who's flags he was talking about.  That's right, the Idiot Jerk.  And, of course, I couldn't laugh at him because we're not supposed to laugh at idiocy.,, at least not while we're standing face to face.  We did have a hearty ho ho ho when we got back inside the building.

 And finally, when I got back from Planet Fitness yesterday I snapped a picture of my Zinnias, still blooming in November.

Under the Dome - greed at CBS

I will be the first to admit when it comes to television viewing I'm not like most people.  I don't use a TV drama or sitcom to set my schedule, which means you will never find me sitting down in front of the television every Wednesday or Thursday or Sunday night to watch some show to which I've found myself addicted.  I have FIOS so I can watch quite a number of shows 'On Demand,' not that I do since most of the time I don't know what is playing and I don't want to waste the time to check out the line-up of movies and TV shows.

That being said I will admit to have been a bit interested in the CBS version of Stephen King's "Under the Dome."  When I saw the trailer I said to myself, "hey, I might want to watch some of that," not because it looked interesting, but there was all this press about how it was going to be a limited series, too long to be called mini yet non-renewable: one novel broken down into 13 episodes.  And of course the first 5 episodes had already aired by the time I remembered that I might want to watch at least one show.  So, I turned to FIOS, checked out the line-up under CBS and there it was:  "Under the Dome."  Then I did what apparently a number of people do when they stream TV, watched 3 episodes: bang, bang, bang.  Basically, at that point, I was done watching for a couple of weeks and then I did the same thing, which is how I watched "Under the Dome," in 4 sittings rather then 13.  I guess you could call it Fast Track TV.

This baby should have come crashing down.

The show itself was okay; a pretty boy, a pretty girl and a villain who barely made it into 2 dimensions.  The kids were interesting, in fact they were the only reason went back for a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sitting.  The pretty boy was pretty and so was the pretty girl and their storyline was also pretty.. uninteresting.  I will also admit that towards the end of that 4th sitting I was waiting for that damn dome to come down so the show could be put to rest.  Remember the hype, too long to be a mini and non-renewable... Bullshit.  Evidently some time during the summer some pudding brain at CBS decided the ratings were good enough to turn "Under the Dome" into a series, in spite of what had been said.  So the dome didn't come down and my anticipation had all been for naught.  Now I am glad that the actors will still be getting paychecks next season, and I am sure there were some few people out there who fell down on their knees, their hosannas filling the heavens, when the renewal was announced.  Not me.  Will I watch any of next season?  Probably not.  Let me be perfectly honest, the only reason I watched it at all was because I knew there was going to be a big payoff at the end.  Special effects would splash across the screen and the dome would come down, but it didn't, and I feel gipped.  Eventually the dome will come down, when the ratings are dismal and nobody, even those who fell to their knees, will be watching.  And that will turn this series into a failure all because some jello head was thinking about how many more dollars in ad sales they could generate by stretching something already thin into another 13 episodes.  This is CBS crapping in it's pants.