Alexander

 It's Sunday, and our temps are not predicted to be as warm as they were yesterday.  At one point, I check the outside temps and they were sitting at a comfy 57 (F).  We are in the heart of the winter.  Not that I'm complaining.  These warm days are saving me bunches of $$$ on my heating bill.  Today, if the forecasters are correct, we're supposed to be visited by showers.  That was supposed to happen yesterday and didn't.  Tomorrow night we have been told to expect wet snow.  

Even though retail was slow yesterday, I managed to get 2 blind measures.  Today, one of my carpet install customers is supposed to stop in and pay.  That will add around $6700 to my sales for the week.  As I did last year, I'm not doing to badly this year.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my measures and sales are better than one of the full time associates'.  He comments every now and then about how he and I are in a "horserace."  Because I only work 22 hours a week and he works 40, he should be doing much, much better, though rather than point this out, that's management's job, I usually just smile.

I began watching the Netflix documentary on Alexander last evening.  I was interested for several reasons, one of them being a general interest in Greek history, another being that a number of Conservatives who began shrieking like mindless banshees because Alexander is portrayed as being bisexual, something historically noted for centuries.  Except for a 2 minute scene, there is relatively little sexuality in Alexander, so if you're interested in Greek history and are worried that might offend you, just blink during that bit.  For those not offended, I have to tell you I was impressed.  The details provided by a number of scholars from several universities, give Alexander a depth I wasn't expecting.  

Oh, and tonight's the Super Bowl. (Sigh).  And I won't be watching.  I am working, though, and the store should begin clearing out between 1 and 2 PM because they need to prepare for Super Bowl parties and Taylor Swift hate groups.   As I've said, I'm not watching, but I suspect that if the camera man focuses in on Taylor every few minutes, half of the Conservatives in the country will either turn off the game or go blind.  Either way, they lose.

Joni Mitchell

 Yesterday was sunny, temps in the mid 40s (F).  We have the same forecast for today... and tomorrow.  Later in the week the temps are going to be up in the mid 50s (F).  Like last year, and the year before, this winter is turning out to be rather warm.  I tell people that we have no idea how Global Warming is going to effect Central PA.  For all I know, we might end up being a tropical rain forest.

Up until around 2 in the afternoon, business was steady.  I managed to get 2 measures and a shutter lead.  Management should be very happy.  Today I'll have to call a customer who's having specialty blinds made.  We have his window measurements.  Hopefully, he'll come in tomorrow to have them designed.  I really dislike the blind side of the business... and yes, that's supposed to be humorous.

The Grammy Awards were last night.  Other than the Oscars, I don't watch award shows, though I will admit to have been tempted to turn on Paramount when I got home from work.  I ended up playing Starfield.  I'm beginning to build my first outpost.  But then I also knew I had already missed the one thing I had wanted to watch: Joni Mitchell.  For those who don't know, Joni is 80 years old and is a stroke survivor. She won a Grammy and she sang Both Sides Now.  I was a very big Joni fan... still am.  Occasionally in my books you can find a lines from one of her songs.  For example, in The Body Under Ice, Eli makes a reference to the "hissing of summer lawns."  Anyway, here's a bad video of Joni from last night.

And I'm sure MAGA world suffered a crushing body blow when Taylor Swift made history by being the first artist to win Album of the Year for the 4th time!  One of the funniest things I saw was a picture of her head with Trump's face superimposed over hers.  It must grate him all to Hell to have someone as famous, and, I expect, richer than he is to basically treat him like the shit pile he is.  Except for encouraging people to register to vote, which many have done, she has stayed fairly quiet about her politics.  Believe me when I tell you, MAGA world is terrified that she is going to endorse Joe Biden.  Giver her time, boys and girls, give her time.

The Art of Refinement

 Well, it's Friday, the end of the work week for some of you.  Not for me. 

Our temps outside are 44 (F) with a high today expected to be in the low 50s (F), and it's expected to be partly sunny today.  Tomorrow, and for the next 4 or 5 days, our forecasters are calling for full sunshine during the day.  That's fine with me.  Nights are shorter and days are longer.  Soon a spring time will be had by all.

A pic of the new training room will most likely be posted on Monday.  I'm still doing a few changes, like take an old Samsung TV down.  I used it when I was on the treadmill, but now all the equipment faces the big screen, so it's no longer necessary.  I'm thinking about moving it down to the writing room.

I rowed for 15 minutes yesterday, and burned 100 calories.  Nice.  One of the big things I'm going to have to learn is to rely more on the metric system.  Everything is in meters.  Nothing is in Imperial.  Another minor difference is that there aren't very many rowing videos, and those that I've found are "how to," instructions.  I probably just need to refine my search, perhaps look for Rowing on the Thames, or the Seine, or the Mississippi.

And I need you to steel yourselves.  Evidently this picture, and others quite similar are scaring people shitless.

Or perhaps I should refine that comment to say that picture is frightening the Hell out of Republicans.  I, myself, am not a fan of Taylor's music.  Her romance with Travis Kelce is somewhat interesting and I will glance at comments every now and then.  Conservatives, on the other hand, hate Taylor; she gets women to vote, and that's a losing cause for the GOP.  But then Republicans have never had someone like Taylor on their side.  Nope.  They have people like Kid Rock.  In fact, I saw where the Orange Anus is going to be doing some sort of fund raiser with the Kid.  I'm sure that will be a hot ticket.  Taylor spoke out and over 34,000 women registered to vote.  I'm sure that when the Kid speaks out, a certain, small percentage of that number will go out and buy a case of cheap beer.  Republicans will never learn the art of refinement.

Letting Go

 There's dense fog outside my window.  The temps are going to fine today, but no sun, and tomorrow?  When they're forecasting 100% chance of rain you know there's not going to be a break in the clouds.  And the rain?  It might be torrential at times.  This being said, it's also a Sunday, usually a slow day in retail, and I have to work.  Oh, Joy!

Yesterday, I went to the store and when I got home realized I'd not put a few things on my list, so I'll be heading out again this morning after I finish this entry.  One of the things I picked up yesterday was a piece of beef for London Broil.  Pricy! I've decided to start a holiday tradition where I'm going to be having London Broil on Christmas day.  

I spent some time sanding down the door frame from the dining room to the kitchen yesterday, now there's dust everywhere, so a decent cleaning will take place this morning as well.  And, speaking of the kitchen, I realized that the painting will soon be coming to an end, that leaves a bit of tiling to do, and then the floor.  The tiling is going to be easy, and I bought enough of the same tile so I don't need to concern myself with running out.  

The final draft for The Body in Motion might be finished this afternoon.  Then I'll need to print it off and read through it one more time.  I once worked with a man who wrote a non-fiction boon on autism.  He had an editor he was paying very handsomely, who kept wanting changes, on changes, on changes, at least that what this author told me.  Truthfully, there are some people who simply can not let things go, which I suspect was the case for this author.  After working on his manuscript for years, I suspect it wasn't a demanding editor he was dealing with, but rather the editing process had become a crutch upon which he leaned upon so much that he was just afraid to let go.  I don't have that problem.  I'm to interested in moving onto the next project.  

That big harrumph you heard last week was Bob when he found out Time had named Taylor Swift as it's person of the year.

And, since it's the weekend, things are bound to be politically slow.  The Orange Anus will probably hold some sort of mini-rally that he'll say was huuuge, really huuuge, because lying is second nature to him.  And no doubt he will bring up Taylor Swift and call her a 3rd rate entertainer who's been desperately trying to get him to perform at least one of her songs at his mini-rallies.

Swifty gets Tooled

Well, it's Monday.  I have the day off.  Plans were in the works to go see "It, Chapter 2" this evening... I've asked for a postponement until next weekend.  I have so much crap to do today.  Blame goes to the split days off.  I hate them.  Catching up, not only on my household chores, but also my 'to do' list, is virtually impossible.
I see where the Idiot Jerk's planned Koffee Klatch with the Taliban crashed and very publicly burned badly.  In case you didn't realize it, this was part of his re-election strategy.  You know?  On 9/11 announce that a 'peace accord' had been reached with the Taliban... the guys who shielded Bin Laden for all those years.  His base, his adoring fan club, would have heralded this enormous breakthrough causing a lot of voters to see him as a 'peacemaker.'  They don't realize it's all done for PR.  They're trying to make this Idiot Jerk look pretty.  They were hoping for another 'North Korean' breakthrough... except that one is rapidly falling apart.  Kim Dumb Junk got exactly what he wanted, acceptance as the legitimate ruler of a ruthless dictatorship.  Remember when the Idiot Jerk said that Kim "had to make some difficult decisions?"  The only thing the Idiot Jerk is any good at is blowing smoke up the asses of his believers.
And this 2nd bit is for Bob.  If he hasn't heard this, it may actually make him squeal with delight.  The rabid fan base of his least favorite pop start Taylor Swift, (Swifty, as he calls her) evidently have burning diarrhea of the mouth.  For those who don't know, she's the one with CGI lyrics who sells millions of $$$ in music to pop fans who love floundering around in the shallow depths of her emotion.  Yeah, you know what I mean... she's the white version of Beyonce.  But then, that's why they're Pop Stars... they go Pop!
Anyway, Taylor released an album called "Lover," (I think that's what it's called) about a week ago and it shrieked to the number one position in the charts.  She loves being in number one.  However, one week later a Rock & Roll group named Tool (don't you just love that name?) released an album called Fear Inoculum.  Holy Shit!  Sales are great!  In fact, they're so great Tool has knocked Taylor's ass out of the number one spot... after only one week.  That's right, she was only number one for one week.  I like Tool.  I have a number of their albums.  Isn't it great when Rock & Roll puts Pop in the shallow end of the pool?  For those who've never heard them, here's the title track of their new album, the one that kicked Swifty into the gutter.

Beyonce - golden egg or turd?

Last week, to almost every body's surprise, Beyoncé dropped a new, self-titled album/ video compilation on ITunes.  Target was not happy and will not sell the CD when it is released.  I went to the Rolling Stone website and discovered there was some weird battle going on between the Beyoncé fans and the Taylor Swift fans.  This made me laugh since I don't listen to either one of those lady's music, it's Pop, here today and gone tomorrow.  I got another big laugh from some guy named Steve Stoute who published something on Linkdin.  Evidently Led Zeppelin is finally releasing their body of work on Spotify.  He figures Beyoncé was smarter by using ITunes, you know, making more money.  I think he's wrong.  Led Zeppelin wrote their music about 50 years ago and it's still popular, and it wasn't Pop.  You don't need a studio filled with electronics to duplicate their music.  They have created not only music, but durability.  While she may make oodles of money from this album, she minimized the possibility of a long term effect.  Down loadable music becomes forgettable music because something new is going to be available next week and it only takes a very short time to download it.

One of the things I found interesting about Beyoncé's surprise was that evidently you needed to buy the whole package at one time.  Single song sales usually tend to build album sales since most of a musician's fans will buy the album, but a hell of a lot more people will buy single songs, you know, the hits.  Like your great aunt Mabel in Oshkosh who hears one song and falls in love with it.  Chances are she's not going to buy the entire album.  Why should she waste the money when she only really likes one song?  This whole package deals sounds to me a lot like a bad Hollywood movie.  You know what I'm talking about.  Those films that don't have a leg to stand on, let alone legs to walk.  They make all of their money in that first weekend and then disappear.  From a marketing standpoint, I'd say forcing your audience to buy the entire album up front is bad business sense.  In order for that to work every song needs to be a diamond and all of those diamonds need to make up one hell of a crown of jewels.  Historically speaking there are only a handful of albums which have actually succeeded in pulling that off.

I'm sure someone, somewhere, thought this idea was going to go off like gangbusters and it did sell over 600,000 copies right off the bat, however it's the long term sales which are important.  If, down the road, listeners find they can begin purchasing the album a song at a time, people are going to ask "what's this shit about?"  Especially if they paid full price for something which only has five or six songs on it that they like.  Good move or bad move?  Who's going to really make out in the end?  I'd say probably Led Zeppelin.  Only time will tell us if Beyoncé dropped a golden egg or a turd.