Category: Entertainment

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It’s been with some amusement that I’ve been hearing about the BudLight Boycott.

It’s been characterized as a boycott in many of the media reports.

I think that overstates what’s going on.

A Boycott suggests that there’s an organizing group. Folks with an agenda, newsletter, signs, and protesters.

I think this is far more organic and not organized. I think this is individual people saying they’re tired of a particular aspect of American life and are choosing individually to avoid a product.

I didn’t talk to anyone about my decision to avoid BudLight. Indeed, I was very disappointed to discover that my beloved Corona was owned by Anheuser-Busch. I thought Modello was still an independent company.

It’s not a problem, I like Blue Moon just as well. For me, Corona versus Blue Moon is more often a matter of pricing. Given that I don’t drink a lot of beer I guess it’s a nonissue because a 12 pack lasts me more than a month. I like a beer sometimes with lunch and sometimes it’s nice to have a beer after I’ve been out doing yard work.

Next beer run, I’ll be buying Blue Moon.

I’ve not talked to anyone about boycotting. I don’t much care what other people are doing. I chose to distance myself from Anheuser-Busch because I personally am weary of the Trans Shit.

I’m also weary of corporate America and politicians pandering to the latest fad. The only way to register my annoyance with companies is not to use their products, so Anheuser-Busch, among others, doesn’t get my dollar.

I suspect that the rest of normal folks like me, make similar choices all the time. I know Jewish folks who will not buy BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, or Mercedes. I’d hope you don’t need an explanation, if you do, you can look it up. I also know American folks who will not buy a Japanese car. Neither of these groups are racist, nor are they boycotting, they just have a very long memory, and a plethora of other options.

Where Target is concerned It’s not as easy. I really like the Super Target. I like being able to go one place and get what I need. If I hit the Super Target early enough I don’t even have to deal with a bunch of people. Wouldn’t be surprised to find a lot of people in the same boat.

That being said, I’m planning to give Costco a whirl for groceries this week. The problem is the portion size and subsequent storage of items. I might be back at the Super Target, or I’ll just go to a regular grocery store.

The point is I’m not actively boycotting Target, I’m choosing not to patronize them when / if it’s convenient to do so.

I’m doing that with a lot of products.

I’d bet that from a marketing standpoint that’s a whole lot tougher to deal with, or correct.

How do you combat apathy that is a result of your customer base not being really angry at you, rather they’re just not interested in your virtue signaling, and therefore your company’s products.

Worse, I’d bet that once a corporation has become known for virtue signaling and pandering, they will have a tough time coming back from it. Almost any advertising campaign would be viewed through the same lens.

I recently loaded up on Apple Products. I was replacing worn out devices and preserving a software investment. I actually didn’t enjoy going to the Apple Store.

In the back of my mind was the thought, “I wish Apple would just sell Technology and avoid politics,” And then I was helped by a jittery blue haired young lady who almost scolded me for not making a shopping appointment. It was the epitome of what I found distasteful about putting money in Apple’s pocket.

Will I purchase other Apple Products? Probably. Will I be excited about those purchases? Probably no more than being excited about a visit to the dentist. I’ll have to do it, I know it’s gonna be expensive, and that’s just the way it is. If I’m not the only customer to feel that way, then Apple isn’t going to do much growing.

They’re not the only company who may be facing this kind of issue, but they’re one of the largest and most visible.

NorthFace is another company that is well known but perhaps a bit more niche than Apple. Their most recent ad might have reduced their annual sales for much the same reasons.

Why buy NorthFace which is arguably an expensive brand when you can buy Mountain Hardwear, or Patagonia, or Osprey.

NorthFace is a company that should have put the money they spent on a crappy ad, into improving quality. I had a NorthFace 3 season jacket that was 12 years old. It had held up well but needed to be retired.

I went to a store that handled NorthFace and found that similar jackets were badly made, more expensive, seemed to use cheap materials, (they felt cheap,) the zippers were awful, and were overall less flexible.

I ended up buying 2 Costco jackets for a total of $40 that have taken the place of the 3 season I had.

The pity is I’d gone back to a store explicitly to purchase another NorthFace 3 season jacket.

When I bought my jacket I paid something like $400 for it and didn’t blink. The quality was great and the versatility was worth every penny. I even bought another one for my other half.

I’m not boycotting NorthFace, I just won’t look at their products. That shitty ad with a genderfuck drag queen did nothing but fully take NorthFace off my radar. If that ad turned me off what did it do to the rest of America?

I don’t really think there is any boycott against any company in particular. I think it’s just an overall tiredness of average everyday folks with everything woke.

Honestly, this whole woke thing might be finally coming to an end. If it is, good riddance to bad rubbish.

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There’s so much that’s just nuts!

My god, the CNN town hall (which I didn’t care to watch,) appears to have had Donald Trump on. Then they CNN, and apparently the rest of the news media are losing their minds over Trump… BEING Trump.

What surprised them about him?

Then we have Anderson Cooper apologizing for having Trump on. And to some extent Anderson Cooper almost seemed to be saying that free speech should be denied Trump specifically.

Then we have MSNBC loading up Al Sharpton to lecture us on all things racist. In Sharpton’s world view, no matter what a white fucker is doing, even if it’s trying to help the black community, it’s always racist unless the white people be putting money in Sharpton’s hand. Trump, according to Sharpton is the Über racist of all racists, Trump is the combination of all the members of the KKK ever and all the members of the Nazi party. It’s easy to understand, Trump weakened Sharpton’s ability to convince Black people they are always oppressed. That’s how Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and BLM make their money.

Then we have the Biden’s growing scandal. Shell companies? Wasn’t that one of the things that the Trump Impeachment(s) and all the subsequent lawsuits have looked into regarding Trump?

How can President Biden expect to not be impeached?

For that matter when the DOJ/FBI is refusing to honor a congressional subpoena something is seriously wrong and we should bring everything to a screeching halt because if we can’t trust the DOJ and / or the executive branch of government then we need to bring our full attention to fixing that.

Then we have the young man in NY who stepped up to subdue someone who was clearly deranged and stated that he was going to kill someone. While terrifying the passengers in a subway car.

Sadly this young man is going to be tried for manslaughter.

The message is clear, if you’re out in public, do not interfere in any criminal behavior. Do not protect your fellow citizens. If there’s a rape happening, or a mugging, or whatever… don’t get involved. If you do, you’ll be charged with a crime. Your life will never be the same and this is doubly true if you happen to be white and the person engaging in criminal activity is black.

So much for progress in eliminating racism.

The young man had to cough up $100,000 in bail. But wait, isn’t New York a Bail Free state? Or does that only apply if you’re not white?

And finally… Title 42 has expired. Title 42 is being touted as one of the last items restraining the illegals trying to get into the country.

I’m not sure that Title 42 was having that function per se, since it was about COVID and diseases in general. I will admit seeing the large numbers of people camped and reading reports of other migrant caravans heading north is concerning. How many uneducated poor people can we absorb? Ellis Island in 62 years of operation processed only 12 million or so. It’s thought that we’ll exceed 12 million in one year.

So now we have… what? Do we have a border at all? Do we have a country? Do we have any privilege of citizenship? I suppose the privilege is to be paying for Illegals, paying for Ukraine, paying for a government that isn’t constrained in its spending at all?

If we don’t have a border, then that sort of says we don’t have a country. If we don’t actually have a country, then why pay federal taxes?

Perhaps we should be paying only state taxes and calling our Governors, Presidents. Perhaps each of the states should be looked at as an individual country. Maybe then we as citizens could force our leaders to listen. California could go full communist and Gavin Newsom could cream his jeans over suddenly being dictator for life.

Texas could secure their border and enforce that security with guns. Then again, if there’s no United States and therefore no money, resources, or free shit to be had, There’s no advantage for immigrants making the trip.

Well, that’s one way to stop illegal immigration.

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Something that made me smile…

In preparation for possibly selling the house, I’ve been cleaning closets.

The other half, God rest his soul was a heck of a packrat and had a habit of saving all kinds of paperwork in boxes, backpacks, shopping bags, and disused briefcases. Each one of which I must now open and determine from which epoc the paperwork within belongs.

That’s enough fun and I have found a lot of very strange things. I’ve also happened upon a treasure trove of CDs all of them classical music and none of them digitized. I’m at a complete loss as to why this would be. The resources to digitize and store all of his music on his computer, ipad, iphone or whatever were available. For some reason it just never got done and to the best of my knowledge I was never asked to do it or help. 

It’s one of those questions I’ll have to ask him when I see him next. I do hope that I can call him to the gates of heaven to chat for a moment or two before I’m put on the express elevator to hell. I doubt they’ll allow phonecalls between the two places and the long distance charges would be outrageous even if such calls were allowed.

Another part of cleaning out the closets has been dealing with the porn collection. There are quite a few videos we accumulated over the years. After the fire, we replaced a lot of what we originally owned on VHS tapes with DVDs or BluRays. As technology advanced and porn houses started offering their movies digitally I allocated a chunk of space on our server to store movies. I’ve also transferred many movies to the server, so that they are available on demand on virtually any device with a screen in the house.

As I was sorting movies from the shelf in the closet, I noticed a number of titles were not on the server and were not available for download from the production houses. So while going through the heartwrenching task of sorting or trashing things from boxes, bags, etc. I also began moving videos to the server. Once the DVD is on the server, I’ve been boxing them for storage and transport. 

This process has gone quite well. After moving the videos to the server, I decided to do a little quality check and so I told a player application to play the videos. I wasn’t watching them actively, I was spot checking as I walked something to the trash or checked on the dog.

The Dog will only allow me about an hour before he brings a ball in and drops it loudly next to my foot.

Anyhow, between laundry, sorting paperwork and the dog demanding that I play, I completely forgot about the videos playing on the TV in the bedroom. The volume was low and I was distracted. I’d returned to the front bedroom closet concentrating on the mountain of paperwork and odd bits & pieces of stuff collected over the past 13  years or so. 

I would ocassionally hear a voice, but couldn’t make it out, and thought that it was coming from outside the house. (The weather is nice so it’s routine for the crazy woman and her crazy man to be screaming at each other, one in the house and the other in the yard. Everytime they start up I first imagine an episode of COPS and then tune them out.)

Several hours pass as I’m digging through paperwork, playing with the dog, and tossing stuff into the recycle bin. During all this time I’ve been hearing voices and simply assumed it was the neighbors then cursed their classless nature under my breath…

Until one of the performers in a movie had a particularly loud orgasmic release.

Then I remembered the videos were playing in the other bedroom and found myself taking back all the unkind things I’d been thinking and muttering about the crazy neighbor and her mate.

So, Note to self, turn the volume up so I can hear the video playing the the other room, or turn the volume down and be happily surprised when I walk into the bedroom and see the porn is still running.

And now I’m off to throw the ball for the dog once again. I can’t deny him, but do think he’s mastered distracting me from the tasks that I need to accomplish.

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I think it’s only me…

I keep catching articles or snippets of news, and thinking that I’m losing what’s left of my mind.

What’s weird and making me think I’m losing my mind is that, apparently nobody else thinks anything is amiss. Meanwhile my head is exploding and all I can think to do is run screaming into the wilderness.

For example:

There was a shooting in Louisville KY at a bank. An NPR report says, it appears that the shooting started in a conference room. There’s a lot of the other usual “guns bad” rhetoric and there there’s the obligatory doctors comment. In other words, the report was really “Boilerplate”.

What caught my attention was that the reporter speaks of psychological issues and how perhaps red flag laws are necessary everywhere. Then the reporter introduces the Doctor to make comments as an Osteopathic physician.

That’s when my brain said, “WAIT Just A DANG MINUTE!!!”

What the hell?

My first thought based on the word Osteopathic was, “A bone specialist”. My second thought was, “Why is a bone specialist commenting on a clearly psychological issue?” My next thought was, “Clearly I’ve misremembered the definition, I should look it up.”

For context, here’s the way stuff like this is stored in my head.

For clarity, I’ll use a common word. We know that osteoporosis is degeneration of the bones often attributed to aging.

Osteo – Greek for bone.

Porosis –  a condition (as of a bone) characterized by porosity

So osteoporosis literally means porous bones.

The word Pathic – perceiving, suffering, or affected in a (specified) way.

(As an aside this one is odd because there was one dictionary that said this word was either a homosexual bottom, or a catamite. These are not the definitions I was taught and means that I must carefully evaluate context if I see this word in the “wild” so to speak.)

Therefore you would expect for an Osteopath to study bones and the conditions or diseases that affect them.

OR I suppose you could use the odd dictionary (American Heritage online, by the way) and you’d come up with someone who has sex with bones????

If that’s not weird enough… Hang on, because this is where things get really weird.

The American Osteopathic Association website says something a bit different when defining what a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine is. The definition isn’t simple, it’s actually kind of a word salad and takes a whole lot more linguistic processing power to process than it should. A word that is a Title should be very clear in my opinion.

Here is the answer to What is a DO?

Short answer, these guys probably started out as Chiropractors and / or Massage Therapists. Both of which, have their place but neither of which I want doing a psychological assessment on me.

In either case, if the Osteopathic Doctor actually studied and was licensed to treat diseases of bones, OR if they’re Chiropractors & Massage Therapists, they’re not qualified to speak on issues of psychology.

Personally, I like the clarity of Cardiologist, Psychologist, Ophthalmologist, Endocrinologist, etc. See the pattern? You’re looking at compound words. The Ologist says study of, and the word preceding it, says what’s being studied.

I’m sorry it took such a long way to get around to the point.

The problem is that when you have some knowledge of what words mean, or worse yet, that so many of our common words have roots in ancient languages and their root meanings, prefixes, and suffixes, are rattling around in your head, it’s maddening.

If you’re at all like me, you find your brain being rebooted all the time because you take the word apart and know what something is. Or at least what it’s supposed to be.

Except NOW the word may, or may not, mean what you thought it did regardless of the common root word, or even the long accepted definition.

Which is why I keep thinking I’m losing my mind.

I have a fairly decent vocabulary, so when I’m listening to, or reading something, I’m getting meaning transferred to me by the specific words being used, and apply a certain level of precision based on the definitions stored in my head.

When those words suddenly lead me off into the weeds, off the rails, or down the rabbit hole, because contextually they don’t appear to have the meaning stored in my brain I start to ask questions.

One of those questions is; “Did I just have a stroke?”

Then I realize that in the case of the NPR piece, they wanted the gravitas of a “medical professional” making comments.

The best they could come up with was a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine.

Either the reporter didn’t know what that meant or didn’t care, and assumed that the majority of the American public wouldn’t know or care that the “Doctor” speaking was completely outside their lane.

One of my very best friends is a real “Doctor”. He legitimately holds a Phd. while he is very intelligent, and can speak eloquently on 18th century English Literature, I wouldn’t want him performing heart surgery on me or anyone else.

However, my friend could as legitimately spoken about the shooter in Louisville as the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine on NPR.

With my friend, at least you wouldn’t have to process through a word salad that Kamala Harris couldn’t get through, to find out he’s not really qualified to speak on matters of Psychology.

The problem is that when words don’t have precise meaning then the point, or message those words were trying to convey is muddy at best.

I suppose what caused me to write this insane rabbit hole is that I frequently wonder why it is that I don’t understand what people are saying. I hear or read the words but the meaning is unclear.

Right now, on my desk is a form that says, “In addition to completing form XXX-YYY, please also supply the following documents if the following box is checked.”

Okay, none of the boxes are checked. So I shouldn’t have to supply those documents.

Except that’s not the case. It turns out they do want one of the documents, and according to the person I spoke with, they always want that particular document.

The organization could save themselves a lot of phone calls and unnecessary mail by simply being clear. Either always check the box next to that document, OR reword the instructions.

When I spoke with the representative after submitting the form, and the organization bouncing it back twice, they treated me like a moron because I’d followed their instructions precisely.

I first started noticing this lack of clarity many years ago. I thought it was the world that was the problem. It was little things at first and I was convinced I was right…

Now I question my rightness because the rest of the world seems to be getting along just fine with blurry meaning, poorly written instructions, and misleading reports about the news of the day.

If the rest of the world sees no problem, then the problem must be mine alone.

I wonder, should I see a psychologist, psychiatrist, or would an osteopathic doctor due just as well. I’ve been described by some as bone headed…

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Wow! That’s pretty interesting.

Tucker Carlson is out at Fox.

I never saw it coming. I have to wonder what’s going to happen to Fox’s ratings now. Sure Tucker Carlson wasn’t the only popular anchor on the network but he’s gotta be at least one of the top 5.

Honestly, I wonder if this is Fox caving into the woke mob who have been screaming for Carlson’s blood for a long time. This past year they’ve become more obnoxious and shrill. I’m sure Whoopi and the rest of the rancid cunts on The View will be having orgasms today.

[Please note, I do not know if the women on The View actually are, or have rancid cunts. That is simply my opinion of them based on their rather vile behavior.]

I didn’t watch Tucker that often, but when I did he generally made a lot of sense. I really appreciated his release of the Jan 6th films and wouldn’t be at all surprised if that had something to do with his departure.

I do firmly believe that the Democrats in Congress, and in power will do anything, threaten anyone, and abuse their authority to make sure that the farce of the Jan 6th insurrection continues on. I believe that they will also do whatever it takes to destroy their enemies or any threat, (real or imagined).

For the record, I say again. Jan 6th was not an insurrection. At worst it was some folks in a crowd getting out of control. The only people who died that day were civilians, both women. One shot by Capital Police, and the other appears to have been beaten to death by Capital Police.

No Capital Police officers were killed on Jan 6th. That is a verifiable fact.

Not that the truth or facts matter to our government today. Truth hasn’t mattered to our government for a very long time and there is little that can be done at this point to restore the faith of the people in their government.

LIke wise our faith in the news media has been tested and many of the media outlets have failed repeatedly. The sad part of the media failures is that at one point the media called out the corruption and lies of our leaders, by doing so the media provided the public at large, insight into issues that should be questioned.

Does The Watergate Scandal ring any bells?

I’m not so sure the media serves that vital purpose anymore. Tucker Carlson and Fox at least made a go of it. Now matter how outlandish a Fox report was, at least it gave us a moment of pause and reflection.

“Is that possible? Could our government really have done that? Isn’t there supposed to be oversight? Perhaps it’s time for me to write my worthless congressman and demand some fucking answers…”

Now listening to one outlet is much like listening to any of the others. They all sound the same. Worse, there is little dissent with a dominant narrative.

It wasn’t too long ago that all the media except Fox and one paper in New York, said Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. After all, there was a letter signed by 50 intelligence people.

I reviewed alot of the laptop information that was available. I cannot verify that the data was from the exact laptop, but I can say the data I reviewed was very consistent. Even the pornographic sections appeared to be the same man. Given that there was so much information and it was so consistent I concluded that the laptop was most likely Hunter’s and was most likely not a fake.

Tucker Carlson said it might not be Russian disinformation and provided pretty credible reasons as to why that was. Now we know that Hunter Biden’s laptop was in fact not Russian disinformation but instead a narcissistic journal of drug fueled debauchery, apparent corruption, and repeated security risks committed by the son of the Vice President of the United States.

What we don’t know for sure is how much of this leads back to the now sitting President of the United States.

Another thing we don’t know is why, with this preponderance of verifiable evidence the President hasn’t been impeached. All the previous President had to do was send a “Mean Tweet,” or make an appropriate phone call asking about a foreign legal investigation(s) into an American Citizen, and he was impeached over it.

We also know that the former President was in fact impeached on far less substantial evidence.

Now with Carlson gone from Fox, AOC crowing about her victory over that mean hateful racist Tucker Carlson, and God only knows what machinations going on behind the scenes at Fox. I wonder if this was supposed to be a message sent not only to Tucker Carlson, and popular conservative voices, but to the American People in general.

There was a time when the very last thing I would have thought was that the United States Government might be trying to silence someone. I guess I’m more suspicious in my old age.

McCarthyism was long dead when I was old enough to understand what it was. But the memory of it lingered on. When I was sitting in my American History classes in High School it was generally accepted that censorship or persecution due to political belief or simple affiliation was wrong. Full damn stop!

We were supposed to defend anyone’s right to speak even if we disagreed with what they said. Back then, the teachers called it our duty. They said that if we demanded someone be silenced, then it wouldn’t be long before we were silenced ourselves.

And yet here we are. 40+ years later and our politicians fearlessly and thoughtlessly demand that reporters be silenced.

There was a time when a politician demanding someone be silenced would have in turn lost their next election, if not their political position immediately. Them losing would not be due to censorship or cancellation, but because by its very nature, demanding censorship is un-American.

Any politician that didn’t know that, clearly didn’t know enough to be in a position of political power.

I know Don Lemon apparently lost his job today too. That’s sad, but Don Lemon has been on the down slide for a while. He was effectively demoted to a morning time slot that was very unfavorable. Don, if he’d had any brains at all should have been looking for a new position. We all knew it was only a matter of time before he was out the door. So Don Lemon being dismissed from CNN today is not a valid comparison to Tucker Carlson leaving Fox.

Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking this. One need only look at Fox stock price today after the announcement.

This leads me to further believe that Tucker Carlson leaving Fox was not due to ratings, malfeasance, or anything other than politics.

I think that Fox caved to the whims of a “Woke” group of extremists and that Fox itself might not be any more reliable as a news source than any of the other outlets. It may never have been reliable but at least it was an alternative viewpoint.

I’m sorry to see that alternative viewpoint being eroded.

Carlson will end up just fine. I’m sure that he’s put away money for a rainy day, and that he’s got a couple of options. I’ll be curious to see where he lands and what he says about Fox when / if he decides to talk about it.