CRANKY OLD FART #297
leftovers & links
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
In a long text conversation with my brother Dick a few days ago, I learned a piece of family history I’d never heard.
When he was 5 and I was an infant, Dick was mauled by the family dog. There was lots of blood, lots of stitches, and he needed emergency surgery to put his eyeball back into the socket. There are no scars on his face, so the surgeon must’ve done a good job.
”Did the family at least get rid of the dog?” I texted back.
The family did not get rid of the dog. Maybe Dick had been teasing the critter. Little kids do that sometimes, but so frickin’ what? If the family dog chews a kid’s face, you get rid of the dog — don’t you? Not in my family…
I texted my mom to ask why we didn’t get rid of the dog, and she only barely remembered the incident at all.
“Yes, I remember we rushed Dickie to the hospital, and he needed surgery, but I don’t remember the dog.”
The next day she texted me that she did remember the dog, and everyone liked the dog so much they just couldn’t bear to get rid of it.”
Wow.
I used to like baseball a lot. Still kinda do, but less and less, and here’s a sliver of why.
On the local big league team’s opening weekend, I clicked the radio on, to listen to the play-by-play. It’s an old habit, but I alway’s forget that times have changed. The game was already underway, and the first thing I heard was, “And after two innings, your Home Town Bank score is…”
Yes, a bank pays the ball team big wads of money to have the play-by-play announcers never say what the score is. Instead, during every game, they’ll only say what “the Home Town Bank score” is.
I grew up with baseball, so I still care a little what the score is, but I do not and never will care even microscopically what the Home Town Bank score might be.
If you’re keeping Home Town Bank score at home, you might remember that I complained about the Home Town Bank score last summer. I’ll keep complaining about it every time I hear it, but I don’t expect to hear it very often. I clicked it off and the game went on without me, as it will all summer.
On the brighter side of baseball, I’ve just discovered that a minor league team plays in a county park on my side of town, and they have “$3 Thursdays” — beer, hot dogs, nachos, and fish sticks are only $3 each.
The ticket, though, still costs $12, and that’s a lot, so I’m undecided. What’ll make up my mind is probably the size of the crowd — if the stands are full, fun is highly unlikely. Give me a half-full stadium, and maybe I’ll be there.
Hi, Doug Holland, and welcome to your new digest from Microsoft Viva.
Oh, let us dance jovially. I’ve been auto-subscribed to yet another un-asked-for Microsoft service, this time shoving “Microsoft Viva Insights” at me, promising to check my to-dos, set up a dashboard, see who’s in my network, configure settings, etc.
Microsoft might not be the world’s most evil company — they try, but there’s so much competition — but they’re the company that most aggressively aims its evil at me.
Everything Microsoft does, others do better, like the undeleteable Edge browser, the rarely helpful Cortana inquiry box, the insufferable but default-selected Bing search engine, and Microsoft Word, which I’m forced to use at work, but don’t even have on my computer at home.
So the uninvited arrival of Microsoft Viva in my inbox did not delight me. After I’d gone through the several required clicks to unsubscribe from this unknown abomination I’d never subscribed to or even heard of, a no-reply email told me that “Microsoft respects my privacy,” and promised they wouldn’t bother me again.
Thing is, I hadn’t given Microsoft my email address, nor had I logged in to any Microsoft service. And yet I they emailed me. This is the “privacy” they claim to respect.
I gave the screen my middle finger, and if there was an option to email them a bomb I would’ve.
It is hard to envision a movie of less interest than the upcoming Air, which seems to be the true story of how Nike and Michael Jordan came to a marketing agreement. With a capital eff, who Effing cares?
The hearing for my Post Office job abandonment is next week, but I’m abandoning the hearing.
Another leftover from that job at the Post Office is that I keep getting memos from management. The latest is a reminder to maintain up-to-date personal information, including emergency contacts.
Every job sends dumb memos, of course. I get them at my current job, too, but at other jobs the memos are sent by email. At the Post Office, they’re on paper and come through the mail. Even long after I stopped working there.
Which reminds me, in the tall tales I’m telling my mom at breakfast, I’m about to quit the Post Office gig, and I’m thinking I might work in a doughnut shop next.
News you need,
whether you know it or not
• Planned Parenthood seeks to block Utah ban on abortion clinics
• Houston Public Library reports dramatic spike in users after dropping fines
• Projected collapse of crucial Antarctic current met with media silence
• 32 dead as tornadoes torment from Arkansas to Delaware
• 1,000-plus years of tree rings confirm historic extremity of 2021 western North America heat wave
• Climate change: Catalonia in grip of worst drought in decades
• Sudan’s Nile fishermen worry as climate change means fewer fish
• ICE is grabbing data from schools and abortion clinics
• Chicago Police payouts top half a billion dollars since 2016
• Family of 18-year-old mom who was killed by school officer will get $13 million
• Cop charged with reckless endangerment, menacing, third-degree assault and harassment
• Bailiffs violently clash with housing activists in Detroit to evict a terminally ill woman
• Irvo Otieno: Death of man in police custody ruled a homicide
• Police union director indicted for importing and distributing cop-killing fentanyl
• DeSantis signs permitless gun carry law at low-key ceremony
• Marjorie Taylor Greene uses Trump crowd to spread ugly, anti-American lies (video)
• Fugitive former aide to Republican ex-Maryland governor dies in confrontation with FBI
Mystery links
There’s no knowing where you’re going
• Click • Click • Click • Click • Click
My browser history
without the porn
• Unlocking the Secrets of “2001: A Space Odyssey” 55 years on
• Bill Nye explains light-years and the vastness of the universe
• Radio signals keep coming from deep space. Here’s what they really are.
♫♬ It don’t mean a thing ♫
if it don’t have that swing
• All You Need Is Greed — Shakin’ Stevens
• He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother — The Hollies
• Li’l Clanton Shuffle — Frank Zappa
Eventually, everyone
leaves the building
• Heklina
4/5/2023
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 ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf’s, CaptCreate’s Log, Katameme, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, One Finger Medical, Two Finger Magical, Miss Miriam’s Mirror, Nebulously Burnished, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I’ve stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn’t always shitty.
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