Remarkably Bright Creatures

Good Monday morning!  We are starting the new week with temps in the mid 40s (F).  Things are supposed to heat up a bit and by this afternoon we should be in the mid 60s (F).  That's not bad for this time of year.  There is a heat wave that's going to be moving east that's threatening to ratchet up the temps quite a bit, but that's not until next week, and how high they'll go is anybody's guess.

Since yesterday was Sunday, it was a full work day for me.  Boy was it slow.  We did have a customer come in wanting to pay for an install, but he also wanted us to give him a $700 credit from a promotion that expired a week ago.  I told him no, he would need to come back and talk to the associate who, he claimed, told him we would give him the discount.  That was wrong of me.  I should have called management and let them give him the bad news.  You have no idea how often these incidents happen.  They are a constant.  This customer will come back in on Wednesday when the associate is working, and they'll give him the expired promotion.  Last week we had a customer who had an $8000 install and he told us that he'd pay for it then and there, but only if we gave him $700.  There was no promotion going on.  I told him "no," and he insisted on talking to management.  The manager gave him $200 off.  These people are breaking the system and management is going to let them break it in order to get the reduced sale.

I watched Remarkably Bright Creatures last evening.  It's on Netflix.  I liked it a lot.  Sally Field, who going to be 80 (something) does a remarkably good job portraying a mother still coming to terms with tragedy.  Lewis Pullman does a good job a portraying a man realizing that not all dreams come true, and why EELS are important.  It's quite touching at times.  And, of course, there is Marcellus, the octopus.

And there was a very good opinion piece in the Guardian this morning on the Republican party.  Sydney Blumenthal makes some very good points about why the GOP refuses to stand up to him.  My opinion is that in their heart of hearts, every Republican Senator and Congressman is as cowardly as the Orange Anus.  They are both loud and spineless as they bend their knees to the power they've always wanted.  They will parrot and amplify every lie because it's so easy to do.  The truth is that they simply don't care about either America, or it's people.  Like Orangie, it's all about themselves.

Does anyone know if the ceasefire with Iran is on?  Or is it off?  Because it's Monday, I suppose that it is still on.  TACO doesn't happen until Tuesday.  Either way, gas prices are going to go higher.  This is a given.  Not that anyone in the GOP objects, that would mean opposing their glorious leader.  In the meantime, Iran is going to continue to troll the hell out of him.

Vlad's Teeny, Tiny Party

So, it's Sunday, a day of rest, and I'm going to work all day.  My rest days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Hopefully the weather will be warmer on those days. That doesn't mean it's not going to get warm today.  This afternoon's temp is going to be in the low 70s (F).  Tomorrow, however, the daily highs are will start a run of afternoon highs in the upper 60s (F).  Believe me, those are not bad temps.  There are very few of us who want to jump into the hot, hot days of summer.

I have no workouts scheduled on Saturdays, so yesterday was a rather easy day for me.  I did do things in the morning.  This doesn't mean that anything was actually done.  Drizzle started in the morning and ended fall throughout Central PA until mid afternoon.  Eventually the sun came out, so when I left work everything was nice.

Retail was interesting.  I sold my tile floor job.  I got a measure.  Management should be happy.  I'm going to miss my sales goal for the week, but then sales are down.  Biggly.  How do I know?  I can see all of the sales figures for every flooring specialist in our district.  Of the over 25 flooring specialists, only a handful have positive numbers. That tile job I sold was for $902.  People are beginning to cheap it out.

Here's a pic of the purply flowers I bought.  They'll be planted tomorrow morning.

So, Orangie's blow bro Vlad threw a party for Victory Day and nobody came... well, that's not quite right.  There was a small crowd.  I believe the fact that there was a internet blackout over all of Moscow probably had something to do with that.  Also, the fact that there was a threat of a Ukrainian attack might have effected the turnout as well.  The North Koreans were there.  I didn't see an exact count, but it may have been that there were more North Koreans marching in the parade than Russians, perhaps because so many Russians have died in Putin's useless war.  He's becoming a very unpopular person in Russia, and this is good.

And the fallout continues to grow for Orangie's golden statue.  You know it's bad when is televangelist friend and crackpot Mark Burns is running around shrieking "it's not a golden calf!"  No, it isn't.  It's a 22 foot golden statue of Orangie swathed in a flowing robe, and he prayed over it and blessed it.  Mark Burns must not believe in the 2nd commandment.

Finally, Secretary of Transportation is getting a lot of grief because he and his family recorded a reality TV show of them traveling across the country.  Maybe if he were doing his job, a man wouldn't have been hit and killed by a Frontier plane taking off yesterday.  That's right, a man was hit by a plane.