Pillion

Our afternoon high might hit 70 (F).  That would be nice.  There is some yardwork that needs to be done.  By next week, we're going to be steamy, at least for a few days.  I'm wondering if I should put the window A/C unit in the workout room, for those days when I'm sweating my but off.

And the lack of listing updates for blogs is... weird.  According to Blogger's stats, I've had over 75,000 hits during the past 7 days, so someone, somewhere, is reading what I write.

I watched Pillion last evening.  It's been called a Rom/Com but even though there were moments of romance and definitely moments of good comedy, I think it was more of a character study of 2 individuals looking for love.  One breaks down the barriers standing in the way, the other either cannot or will not.  The key and the ring hanging around Alexander Skarsgard's neck are important.  The key may be to his motorcycle, or it may be the key to his heart, something he needs to keep safely locked up.  I liked the movie, though probably not for the reasons so many other people did.  By the way, for those who don't know, a pillion is the back passenger seat on a motorcycle.

Oh, and I worked yesterday.  I had a vinyl plank flooring sale, not an install, just a sale to a rather interesting couple.  They were older and whiter.  He asked about getting his military discount and I told him not to worry.  I asked what branch of service, he said Air Force, and went on to tell me that he'd been in Vietnam for only 21 days.  The only 21 days was important to him.  I told them I'd been in the Navy and had spent two cruises in the Western Pacific, most of that time being spent in Vietnam.  One cruise was 8 months long, the other 9 months long.  That impressed them.  She leaned forward and asked what I thought of our current president and the war in Iran.  I told her I thought he was doing a very bad job.  She was surprised.  She said, "don't you know?  He's keeping back the Muslim hoards."  I stayed silent.  Nothing was going to change their minds.  They have no idea how many Muslims work in my store, or how many Hindis.  This couple represents the ignorance of Orangie's base.  They honestly have no idea how the world works.

Not a Phisher

 We've got cloudy skies here in Central PA.  The humidity is also thick.  A cold front went through that brought us drizzles and cooler temps that hung around all day yesterday.  Sometime this afternoon warm temps should announce their arrival with thunderstorms, at least that's the forecast.  

Yesterday was sort of a meh day, sort of not.  I did get over a 1000 words written in the new book.  That's good, but really that's about it.  No games.  No TV.   Very little social media.  No accomplishments I can point to, other than all those words.

Today things are different.  A load of laundry is in the dryer; there's no way it would dry outside on the rack.  And I've just uninstalled the Panda Security from this laptop.  I've had issues with it blocking certain websites in the past, but this morning it decided that Blogger was a security risk.  Yes, after all of these years Blogger has become a phishing site.  And, rather than go through the process of setting up Blogger as a safe site, I simply deleted Panda Dome.  I have Microsoft Defender, so I did have a bit of security redundancy going on.

I've been thinking about hiring an online trainer.  They're usually less expensive than a personal trainer and honestly, I don't know if I want someone critiquing my crunches and squats.

Here's a picture of Howie watching Aliens.

And, of course, the Supreme Court took another swipe at Democracy yesterday by telling Americans that Federal Judges and make rulings that effect the entire country.  While this is bad, the Court also allowed a glimmer of light through in this decision:  It also effects the decision of Federal Judges loyal to the Orange Anus.  

And Jeff Bezos gets married today... I think, at least there's a lot of shit on social media about a wedding.  If it is today, wouldn't it be amusing if the proceedings were interrupted by drones?

Comments

 Well, it was somewhat sunny yesterday, on and off, mostly off, with drizzles.  We got the edge of the storm that so much rain on New York City.  Today we're supposed to have sunny skies with the temps on the rebound, climbing up into the low 70s (F).  This coming week we're suppose to reach the mid 80s (F) before it's time to snuggle under the wooly blankets as the temps crash down in the the mid 50s (F).

Yesterday much was accomplished, in spite of the naps.  Yes, I said naps.  Both Thursday and Friday I was nappy.  Thing got done around the times I wasted time with fifteen minute naps.  In fact, there were so many naps that I wondered if perhaps I might be coming down with something.  Well, I got my answer around 2 in the morning when I woke up with a runny nose.  I hate that, having to get up in the middle of the night to blow my nose.  And it wasn't just once.  So, I have a cold.  Lucky for me my cold symptoms are just drowsiness and a runny nose.  They usually don't stick around too long, either, ;a day and a half, maybe two.  I don't mind the drowsiness, but I do hate the runny nose.

As happens to all bloggers, occasionally we get comments that are best deleted, like those from the Bombay Hooker's Club.  Yesterday, I received a comment from "Anonymous" on an entry I wrote back in 2017 that evidently the writer thought would provoke me.  It did, and instead of deleting it I responded thus:

And, of course, the country runs out of money today and those horses ass in the House are going to try and push through something that they know the Senate is going to vote against because our Senators know an asswipe when they see one.  Supposedly the ring leader for this is Matty Gaetz, though you can bet he's not the only insurrectionist involved.  You would think that these people would realize that when members of their own party point to their inability to govern, calling it chaotic, they would understand they need a new course of action.  Nope.  These people don't care that a majority of Americans are looking at them and thinking "asswipes," or that this stunt is going to lose them voters in the next election.  These 21 people are not only shitting in their pants, they're sitting down and squishing it around because they want an authoritarian government led by their Lord and Savior Donald Trump.  They are destined to fail... badly, and the longer this continues, the worse their downfall will be.

Bad Editing

 When the alarm went off this morning the temp was 49 (F) outside.  That's the chilliest it's been so far.  The high today is supposed to be in the low 70s (F), with rain in the forecast for tonight.  Tomorrow things are predicted to warm up.

Blogger has evidently gone through some sort of update.  Even though I'm signed in, and am writing today's entry, it still wants me to tell list me as Anonymous.  This is like those updates we have to deal with at work.  They're always a surprise.  No warning, just new screens that work differently, or have disappeared completely.  One of our Customer Order Specialists said we just need to play around with them to see how they work; she likes to think she's authoritatively smart.  She isn't.  Playing around with screens is extremely difficult when you have a customer sitting there waiting to pay for a $5000 blind installation.

One of the things I've been talking to my religious friends about is the Great De-Churching.  Knowing that I need to have my game up, I've done a lot of research and in doing so, I've found this website where mainline Christians are attempt to deal with the transformation, at least that's what they call it.  The size of congregations has dropped drastically over the past 2 decades (what they call the transformation) and they can't get a handle on why this is happening.  I've told my friends this is because Christians are relying on a document that declared divine in 476, and it is badly edited.  It never occurred to them that Christianity my be a work in progress whose ending was eons in the future.  These people don't seem to understand that given the chance, mankind will push his fingers into everything he possibly can.

Here's a picture of Lily on the porch.

For those who didn't see, Ken Paxton, the AG from Texas was acquitted yesterday.  Horseshit.  Corruption in the Republican party has never been this bad.  When I saw the headline, I will admit to being a little surprised, but then I reminded myself that a Republican state Senate was never going to convict a loyal Republican Trumpist.  They have no idea how much damage they are doing to their Brand, which is good for Democrats.

Dickies

So, it's Monday... a holiday, no less, and I get to work.  We didn't get any thunderstorms, however the sky is overcast and from time to time we have a drizzly, misty, rainy, shitty weather.  And it's not really supposed to improve.  I'm off on Wednesday and Thursday, the weather was supposed to be sunny, but now we may be dealing with Albert.
Blogger has done some changes... one that apparently is not too popular is their notification system.  Prior to the change I'd get an email when ever someone commented... that no longer happens.  Now I actually have to sign into the blog and click on the comments button.  Another thing that's going away are the polls.  Never used them myself.  In fact, I'm not really a poll person... well, I guess I should clarify that since it depends upon the pole.
The Idiot Jerk has also been Tweeting up a shit storm this past weekend.  My, doesn't this guy have a lot of anger and hatred inside.  I hate to rain on his parade, but... well... things aren't going to get any better... ever.  He's a corpulent loud mouth who's realizing just how expensive loyalty can be.
One nice thing about to day is they're feeding us at the store.  They used always grill burgers and hot dogs, with potato and macaroni salads, chips... you know?  the picnic shindig stuff.  However, that's changed.  Today we're getting Dickey's barbecue.  Someone in management loves Dickey's.  You will notice I'm not advantage of that name.  You can all have fun and create your own pun.  As I said when I heard they were serving us Dickies.... What the hell!!  That was followed by... you mean the phony turtlenecks?  Of course, I was joking.  Which is almost as funny as standing in a gay bar and shouting "Will the Real Dickey please stand up!"
For those who don't find that funny, now might be a good time to shower off.

Oh, and for those of you who don't know, here's a picture of a red dickie.

Nice, huh?

CTR and the Fail situation

Years ago, when I first started blogging, I had thought if you become popular enough you can actually make money by sharing your opinions.  It didn't turn out that way.  The first blog I had was through Typepad and I was not impressed with the Ads, neither were the people who read my blogs.  As a result I dropped the ads and eventually Typepad, moving over to Blogger.  I could get ads here but don't really see an in point in that.  Advertising only pays if people click through your ads, and by people I mean multitudes.  Being the inquisitive sort of person I am, I educated myself because you never know, some day advertising may actually be relevant... probably not.  You see there is something called a CTR or Click Through Rate, which is the % of readers who actually click on the Ad.  The average CTR on an average blog for a Banner Ad is about 1.1%.  This means that for every 500 readers you can expect 5.5 people to check out the Ad, which earns you nothing.

The whole thing is rather interesting.  If you have a high volume blog where millions hit, advertisers will actually pay you for space.  Then the CTR is their worry, and CTR's are usually low.   But then, to the rescue, comes "The Impression."  For all of those people who are looking at the Ad and not clicking through, there is a formula for calculating how big of an impression the Ad is making on them.  Think of it as subtle brainwashing.  It's been around for years.  You see Impression advertising in print and on television and now tacked on to videos on the Internet.  Any time you click on a video at a news site you're going to be tortured with a commercial.  In fact they are every where.  Muting them out doesn't help because in the Advertiser's minds they're still making an impression on you.  You may not need to buy a car right now, but when you do they're betting if you've seen enough Toyota Ads you'll consider buying a Toyota.

Do a Google image search and you'll be amazed at how many charts have been published detailing all sorts of minutiae about the CTR.  Some of them are amusing, like this one which shows that Ipad and Iphone owners click through more often the Android users.

This information is important to Advertisers because it lets them know what kind of Ads to place on what kind of blogs or websites.  What's sad is this information is based on 45 billion monthly impressions.  To this means advertising on the Internet is pretty much a fail / fail situation.