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No shrimp, no doodles

CRANKY
OLD FART

#241

leftovers
& links

 
Friday,
Dec. 2, 2022
After twenty years in winterific places where it snows for real, I came back to Seattle a few months ago, and the city's first snowfall of 2022 was on Wednesday. About half an inch fell where I live, atop a hill on the city's west-ish side.

Snow is infrequent here, but it happens, and even for Seattle, half an inch is very nearly no snow at all. For this feather dusting, though, they closed the airport, sent kids home from school early, and put chains on all the city buses' rear tires.

Maybe more snow accumulated in other parts of town, or maybe Seattle is run by wimps.

Last week, my flatmate Dean offered to cook an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner for me and the other flatmate, Robert. I said OK, and the meal was OK.

He's a professional chef, as he often reminds us, but Dean and I share a refrigerator, and his food handling habits frighten me. Raw meat and leftovers sit uncovered in the fridge, sometimes until after they've molded.

And he offered to cook for us again last night.

Ah, no thanks. I chanced it with his beef for Thanksgiving, but last night he was prepping shrimp, and seafood is a little more susceptible to listeria or salmonella and everything else you don 't want as a side order.

Dean and Robert shared the shrimp without me, and as it cooked, and even now the next morning, it smells… wrong to me, too pungently shrimpy. And during the night, there was a lot of traffic to the toilet.

Mostly, though, it was 'no thanks' to the shrimp because I didn't move into this house to be anybody's buddy, and I don't want to eat two two dinners with Dean in a week.

Yesterday's Google doodle was animated, and that's stupid, Google.

It didn't make me smile, and I didn't even look at it. I annoyed me is all, same as ads that move when I'm trying to read an article, so I used my ad-blockers to make the Google logo go away forever. I'll never see another of their too many doodles, unless one's good enough that I want to see it.

'Cranky old fart' is what I call this page, and not for nothing.

Here's the news you need,
whether you know it or not

Congress votes to avert rail strike amid dire warnings 

Most of what's on your shelves, and probably your clothes and your car and your bed, rode on rails to get where you bought them. A railroad strike, looming to begin on December 9th, would be a Very Big Deal, so Biden and Congress are making this strike illegal before it happens.

Republicans would like to outlaw all strikes, and probably will when they're next in power. Meanwhile, Dems and Republicans have worked together to make this particular strike illegal.

Here's hoping the unions have the balls to strike anyway. Labor has a long history of breaking the law — civil disobedience, it used to be called — and when the law is wrong, breaking it is right. 

American railroads are fabulously profitable, and all the workers are asking for is paid sick leave. Fuck, yeah. Strike, I say.

Secret 9/11 memo reveals Bush rewriting the history of the 9/11 attacks and the warnings he'd tuned out 

Anybody here seen my old friend George? Can you tell me where he's gone? Thought I saw him stealing the Presidency, and not giving a damn about terrorists until 9/11/2001, and then morphing that attack into a war that had nothing to do with it...

Starbucks illegally refused to negotiate with union, NLRB rules

Amazon CEO says company won't take down antisemitic film 

US approves anti-drone system sale to Qatar worth $1bn 

Beliefs about humanity, not higher power, predict extraordinary altruism 

U.S. to pay millions to move tribes threatened by climate change 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because climate change isn't 'coming', it's underway. It'll kill billions, and we're not doing squat about it.

City of LaFollette investigator shredded documents tied to investigation which led to two officers fired 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because all cops are bastards, or they know who the bastard cops are and do nothing about it, which is the same thing.  

McCarthy says Republicans will investigate Jan. 6 committee’s work 

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because Republicans are the enemy of common sense, common decency, simple truth, and democracy.

Links I liked

Why you should stop reading news 

Biden just knifed labor unions in the back. They shouldn't forget it. 

The Caganer: a weird tradition in the Catalan Christmas culture 

8 essential gadgets from the 1980s that are now obsolete 

Pong is now 50 years old. Here's the story of its invention. 

How on earth did that crow do that? 

Garden hermits 

Berserk llama syndrome 

Blue Peacock 

Mystery links
Like life itself, there's no
knowing where you're going

click 

click 

click 

♫♬  Mix tape of my mind  ♫

• "Crystal Blue Persuasion" — Tommy James and the Shondells 

• "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" — Ennio Morricone 

• "Lovely Day" — Bill Withers 

• "Ride Captain Ride" — Blues Image 

• "You're So Cool" — Hans Zimmer 

The End

Aline Kominsky-Crumb 

Christine McVie 

Donald Perkins 

Gaylord Perry 

12/2/2022   

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
 
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
 
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie...

8 comments:

  1. Re the Caganer - At some point when we lived in SF, Shawna and I sublet an apartment at 19th and Valencia, or maybe 22nd and Valencia, from a couple from Catalan. They were (or one of them was) coworkers with her somewhere. We went over to their place before subletting, and they had a hidden shitting santa, just like the tradition.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I didn't know a caganer was supposed to be hidden. Where did you find it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Behind a small Christmas tree on the mantel or something. I'm unsure if "hidden" is a requirement, but I do remember that it was in an obscure place, not like, the center of the dinner table. Definitely behind something.

      Delete
  3. The Phoenix Giants of the Pacific Coast League (AAA) moved to Tacoma, WA in 1960. Tacoma lumberman Ben Cheney contributed his name and a shitload of cash to build a "state-of-the-art" minor league stadium that seated 8,000 or so. There wasn't a bad seat in the stadium; you could hear the player chatter during batting practice from just about anywhere in the house.

    I mention this because Gaylord Perry, whose obit appears in today's update, was a member of that team, and the next year was promoted to the Giants. There were a few other terrific players on the team. Gaylord's brother Bob was another starter, on his way to San Francisco. The third starter, soon promoted to first starter was later Hall-of-Famer Juan Marichal. Six-time MLB all-star Willie McCovey spent a little over half the year at first base before being called up to S.F. Dusty Rhodes spent the year in left field after a major league career that featured an unbelievable World Series performance. Matty Alou, one of three Alou brothers to star in the major leagues was center fielder for the year. Three-time MLB all-star Tom Haller spent the year behind the plate on his way to S.F. There were a dozen other future MLB players on the team.

    The team was managed by Red Davis, who led the Pacific Coast League in game ejections -- a colorful character.

    I was fortunate enough to see a couple dozen games in that lovely concrete ballpark in 1960, and many more in subsequent years. At fifty cents, admission was just about the best deal in town.

    John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With the minor leagues, you don't know who the real stars are until you look at a program ten years later. What I like best is, the batters run to first base no matter what.

      Cheney Stadium was maybe my favorite minor league park. I saw Tacoma's teams there when they were the Giants, then the Tigers.

      Also saw some Goodwill Games at Cheney. Great place to watch a game, and yeah, like you say, no need to spend money on a good seat because they're all good seats.

      Saw a Rainiers game there in my 2018 visit to Seattle, and they'd 'improved' the place and it felt less welcoming. At least, that was my impression. Have you been there lately? Am I nuts?

      Delete
    2. Strike, you say to the railroad workers, but its more complicated than you understand. What would you have them do, risk their jobs, arrests?

      Delete
    3. Everything is more complicated than I understand, even things I understand.

      Delete
  4. 1) No. 2) Probably. Me too.

    jtb

    ReplyDelete

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