Discovery

Well, it's Friday, outside it's sunny, and I have the day off.  Temps are predicted to climb into the mid 60s (F).  Now, doesn't that sound like a wonderful day for yardwork.  I've a branch on one of my river birch trees that's broken and needs to be cut completely off.  I might even get out the weed wacker.

As expected, yesterday was slow I work.  I did manage to get $2000 vinyl floor tile sale.  That was nice.  I don't expect any of my flooring measures to sell, so that might be all the sales that I get this week.  

I like Star Trek and have been watching the last season of Discovery.  I don't like the one story arcs a lot of TV series have become very fond of over the past few years.  I prefer episodic storylines.  Star Trek dove into the deep end of the story arc pool right from the beginning and, in my opinion, has been struggling ever since.  Each season the Galaxy is about to be destroyed, and they always seem to be up against an advanced technology that always proves to be weaker than the captain and crew of the Discovery.  This year's no different, and I sit there out of loyalty to the series feeling glad that this is the last year.  Discovery is not what Gene Roddenberry envisioned.

Rock and Roll is my preferred choice of music, and that includes what was once called alternative rock.  I also have, possibly some might think it a bad habit, of fixating on one group when I begin writing a new book.  For years it was Fallout Boy.  For The Body in History, I've gone back a few decades to a little known Aussie band called Midnight Oil.  Here they playing one of their little ditties called Sell My Soul.  It should be played very loud.

Since I did work yesterday, I only got to read snippets of the Trump trial in NYC.  There's a great video of him speaking at some point, probably during the lunch break, where he's outside and a gust of wind grabs his hair and lifts it up proving to the world that he wears a wig, or a rug, or whatever you want to call it.  There were lots of mini-bombshells dropped during Pecker's testimony, including the fact that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was in on the payoff.  That should not be surprising to anyone.  She's such a load.

And, as expected, the Supreme Court is going to wait their decision on Trump's immunity until the end of June.  The conservative branch is going to help their god as much as they can.

 

The 5% of Simpflation

Yesterday was one of relaxation... for the most part.  Alexa played Vivaldi for me while I did a little cleaning, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and finished several loads of laundry.  At one point, Lily jumped off the sofa and gave herself a booboo paw.  I heard a little yelp, and then she came limping up to me to sit, holding her left front paw off the floor.  Booboo paws seem to happen here on a regular basis, with both dogs.  I did what I always do, petted her head, told her how terrible the booboo paw was and 45 minutes later (if that) everything was forgotten.  

I saw this interesting piece in The Guardian regarding skimpflation.  This happens when the price stays the same, or may even go up, for a product or service while the quality declines.  You see, one of the golden rules of economics is that companies need to increase revenue by 5% every year.  If there's not enough product for sale and they might not hit that 5%, they will reduce the quality of that product without reducing the customer's price since lower production costs will help them hit that 5%.  Thanks to the pandemic, payroll costs have gone up which is another hit on that 5%.  Again, they will do whatever needs to be done to hit that 5%.  However, these corporations are growing concerned because consumers are angry.  At some point, someone is going to have to take the hit.  We, the ones who are spending the bucks have to take control.  

One of my favorite environmental bands of the 80's was Midnight Oil.  They disbanded for a time while one of them went into Australian politics.  Well, they're back and I'm loving this new song.

And the House passed this infrastructure bill... and as might be expected, Republicans are calling this communism.  Dumb asses. They hate it. They will shriek about it being a waste of their tax dollars.  The truth is their greed keeps them from caring about America.  They are the party of 'me:' my money, my taxes, my guns, my rules, and my regulations.  Screw everybody else.