So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Hercule]

Ever since the daily newspapers have no longer been a part of my life, I’ve found a new appreciation for junk mail. What else for lighting the charcoal chimney and the fire pit?

Our problem is not having anything to put down for drips when painting a project or having something to crumple up for padding in a box. Once upon a time we kept a stack of news papers waiting to be recycled just for such purposes. Now the closest we come is the weekly grocery store flyer.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We get the local weekly paper at the theatre and I have a huge bin of old copies in my office at any given time. Whenever one of the kids needs to move, they know who to call for help in wrapping up their breakables.

My recent economic crisis has cost me the ability to afford a daily paper for myself, and that's a loss that cuts very deep. I've never been much for recreation, but one of the few things I really looked forward to was settling down in a chair after work to read the paper front to back. As soon as I'm able to afford such extravagant luxuries again, I'm heading straight to the nearest newspaper rack.

As for junk mail, word must get around fast. I haven't gotten a credit-card offer since January.

 

[Trenchfriend]

One thing, I find astonishing.

I sometimes wear skinny jeans myself. Not at home.
But on Youtube or in TV documentaries of these days (for example Arte, gardenwork, homework, etc.), you can see again and again even 50+ women, wearing skinny jeans at home and garden!
So I always think, if these middle-agers bought their blue skinny jeans by mistake or is it masochism, wearing them at home?? And I can't imagine, that such down-to-earth people, with uncoloured hair, give a shit on fashion.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Skinny jeans?

To see yourself as others see you.

Among the loveliest of sights is a shapely woman’s bottom squeezed into a pair of boy’s jeans. And, seeing how she doesn’t have eyes on the back of her head ...

And then you got those of each and every gender who just ain’t got the goods. Count most of us among that number.

 

[Trenchfriend]

^^^^^
Skinny jeans?

To see yourself as others see you.

Among the loveliest of sights is a shapely woman’s bottom squeezed into a pair of boy’s jeans. And, seeing how she doesn’t have eyes on the back of her head ...

And then you got those of each and every gender who just ain’t got the goods. Count most of us among that number.

Ok, but the question is, why some people and seemingly often women wear them at home and garden, where no one sees you.

The only thing, I could imagine, that it maybe has something to do with the smombie phone in the back pocket.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Hmm. It is not just me. My wife frequently says “she is trying way too hard”, in regards to women in too tight jeans, low cut tops, etc. But I have learned that it is best that I have no opinion.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Other than a suit of old denim overalls I wear to do dirty jobs around the theatre, I haven't worn pants in fifteen years. They don't fit me right, and I'm not about to make me fit them.

 

[Harp]

Last Saturday, while at a local FedEx I tried to kill two birds with one stone and lay down a few bets
on the Apple Blossom and Oak Lawn Handicap stakes; sucker punched by the State of Illinois since online
gambling requires in person casino register. With Covid all the rage I had assumed Rosemont had been closed,
but it's all dealer's choice or the politicos need a touch to sign up for the draft.

 

[tonyb]

Returning to junk mail ...

Today’s mail brings another solicitation from a “wealth management” outfit offering a pair of VIP (it’s nice to be not just important, but very important) passes to a complimentary dinner at a fancy-pants steak house where post-dessert I can sit through a presentation on managing my wealth (hah!).

I don’t object to this outfit wasting their money on sending this mailer to me, and the thousands of others who will relegate it to the recycling bin, but for those who sign up for their services, well, congratulations — you’re paying for it.

 

[Zombie_61]

Ok, but the question is, why some people and seemingly often women wear them at home and garden, where no one sees you.

The only thing, I could imagine, that it maybe has something to do with the smombie phone in the back pocket.

Who cares? If people want to wear skinny jeans, or plaid Bermuda shorts, or clown shoes, or whatever makes them happy, let 'em. Life is too short to be concerned about such things.

Hmm. It is not just me. My wife frequently says “she is trying way too hard”, in regards to women in too tight jeans, low cut tops, etc. But I have learned that it is best that I have no opinion.

I suppose I'm lucky that my wife has always wanted to hear my honest opinions, even if the subject is another woman's appearance. She also appreciates it when I accompany her on a shopping trip for clothes because I'm not shy about which clothes I think look bad on her, which look good, and which look really good.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The phrase "wealth management" has always made my skin crawl, remembering as I do when that particular field of activity was known more simply and baldly as "money management." No doubt the old phrase was deemed by The Boys as being insufficiently evocative of flaky-knuckled old white men in seersucker pants and gently-faded navy-blue blazers sitting in leather armchairs sipping old-fashioneds out of glasses decorated with pictures of sailboats. Even though such gentlemen as I have known would never have used a phrase so non-U as "wealth management."

 

[Zombie_61]

The phrase "wealth management" has always made my skin crawl, remembering as I do when that particular field of activity was known more simply and baldly as "money management." No doubt the old phrase was deemed by The Boys as being insufficiently evocative of flaky-knuckled old white men in seersucker pants and gently-faded navy-blue blazers sitting in leather armchairs sipping old-fashioneds out of glasses decorated with pictures of sailboats...

Not just that, but the change in terminology also affects how the mind interprets such phrases. Say "money" and most people visualize bills and coins of various denominations. Say "wealth" and most people still visualize cash, but in larger amounts stored in a vault with stocks and bonds and every other document that's directly associated with cash. In that regard, surely The Boys realized they were literally selling themselves short by not including every type of wealth.

 

[Harp]

Money management is layin lettuce down to cover the improbable win hoss and all others,
then includin a killer exacta lance corporalcy for good measure nail.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wish I knew enough to play the hosses. My grandfather loved Harness Racing, but when he died I found several hundred losing tickets in a box in the bottom of his closet. There was a lesson there, and I guess I learned it.

Meanwhile, speaking of ticked off, I mentioned in another thread that I was a bit peeved by my electric bill, and it bears further griping here. My bill from CMP -- it stands for "Central Maine Power," but locally we say it stands for "Crooked Mother Ph....," oh, never mind what we say it stands for. Let it be understood that we the ratepayers do not hold this enterprise in high esteem for good and solid reasons. To wit:

My bill for March-April is $101.74. "Whoa," you might say, "you sure burn a lot of juice. Better invest in Energy Star appliances and change over to LED bulbs, etc." Whoa indeed, I respond. Because during that month I used a mere 543 kilowatt-hours of electricty with my antique refrigerator and my vacuum tube radio and my twenty-year-old computer and my crappy Home Depot water heater. That's a little over half the amount of power consumed by the "Average American Single-Family Home." And, indeed, when I look at the itemized fee I see that I only used $35.02 worth of electricity for the month. The rest of it? $66.72 in "delivery charges" and other administrative fees. Not "government" fees, not taxes. Fees levied by the privately-run power company itself, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avangrid Corporation, itself a subsidiary of the Spanish energy conglomerate Iberdrola. And even if you take advantage of the Competitive Electricity Marketplace enshrined in Maine law thru the good graces of the power industry lobby, you still pay those same delivery charges and fees, because CMP, gawdluv'm, owns the lines and the poles.

And people say cable TV is a dirty racket.

 

[Harp]

I wish I knew enough to play the hosses. My grandfather loved Harness Racing, but when he died I found several hundred losing tickets in a box in the bottom of his closet. There was a lesson there, and I guess I learned it.

Meanwhile, speaking of ticked off, I mentioned in another thread that I was a bit peeved by my electric bill, and it bears further griping here. My bill from CMP -- it stands for "Central Maine Power," but locally we say it stands for "Crooked Mother Ph....," oh, never mind what we say it stands for. Let it be understood that we the ratepayers do not hold this enterprise in high esteem for good and solid reasons. To wit:

My bill for March-April is $101.74. "Whoa," you might say, "you sure burn a lot of juice. Better invest in Energy Star appliances and change over to LED bulbs, etc." Whoa indeed, I respond. Because during that month I used a mere 543 kilowatt-hours of electricty with my antique refrigerator and my vacuum tube radio and my twenty-year-old computer and my crappy Home Depot water heater. That's a little over half the amount of power consumed by the "Average American Single-Family Home." And, indeed, when I look at the itemized fee I see that I only used $35.02 worth of electricity for the month. The rest of it? $66.72 in "delivery charges" and other administrative fees. Not "government" fees, not taxes. Fees levied by the privately-run power company itself, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avangrid Corporation, itself a subsidiary of the Spanish energy conglomerate Iberdrola. And even if you take advantage of the Competitive Electricity Marketplace enshrined in Maine law thru the good graces of the power industry lobby, you still pay those same delivery charges and fees, because CMP, gawdluv'm, owns the lines and the poles.

And people say cable TV is a dirty racket.

Coincidentally when I arrived home last nite, I found a lone envelope inside my mail box: Commonwealth Edison,
or more common lingo: "ComEd;" kinda like Ma Bell, but politically juiced by the corruption in Springfield,
which has recently seen the all powerful Mike Madigan step down over ComEd shennanigans that will see him
indicted because the Feds are after his ass, and they got him with ComEd. But I digress....My delivery charge
I believe exceeded my wattage use-the bill was $27.00 or so and deliv costs totaled $14.00 samoans.
A bit of larceny but it is the going freight rate.

Capitalism is without doubt tops, political corruption, etc, etc, it is a proven product; and to be kind,
whether you like it or not or feel aggrieved over it, and the monopolies will advantage the public, so the
watchdogs are necessary.

Speaking of the hosses, and corruption. Last Saturday time caught me, and I tried to cut a few corners
by some on line wagering but this state of Illinois requires in person casino register---hell, you cannot even
sit down at the hood Starbucks cause of the Vid, but I guess casinos are still open, been too busy chained to
a desk and a stack of cases to notice this...anyway, I had a winning hand, couldn't get in to the track,
and lost a chance to score the Apple Blossom. Ahhh, I shoulda known that registering for the draft here
would be complicated, even the electric bill has some payoff, so why shouldn't the online roll of the dice?
Anyway, I got caught by time and the process, so I lost a few bucks.
But the Kentucky Oaks on April 30th, I will be at the track, takin the day off, and since I analyze the
ponies like a military operation down to the last night minute's second, I usually am more right than wrong
but horses do not always run to form, so its a bit like stud poker. I love it.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you've actually done the most wrong thing--by contacting them you've informed them that the name and street/mailing address they had on file are valid and correct, and now you'll most likely get bombarded with similar mail regardless of what they've promised you because they're going to sell your information to every advertiser who will pay for it. Oh, you can send them your objection under Art. 21 DS-GVO, and they won't even respond to it because they have a list of legal loopholes that still allows them to do whatever they want with your information. The best thing to do is to throw that junk mail in the trash and get on with your day.

That was surprisingly quick!
The more important objection is already done and my adress is locked, plus the objection is additionally noted in the "central locking data bank" of Deutsche Post AG. So I can no more get advertising from the Post itself, too.

 

[Hercule]

WE HATE BLUE JAYS!!! They can be such jerks.

A while back we went to take down the Christmas wreath outside our front door but found that a bird had started a nest in it. We didn't have the heart to deny them their hard work building it so we put it back on the wall and watched. Turns out it was a red house finch nest. Before long the nest was finished and just last week the female (wife named her Rosie) started sitting on the nest. When I got the mail the other day I stuck my phone up there and got a picture. Sure enough 4 eggs. Well today Fedex chased her off the nest and a Blue Jay swooped in. So I chased it away a few times and Rosie returned after a while. But the Jay kept returning. I snapped another picture and could see that the Jay broke one of the eggs, but there was also a fifth egg in the nest. From what I can tell its Blue Jay egg. Rosie quickly flew the broken egg away and came back to the nest. And the jay keeps returning. We know that's nature, but still, it touches the heart to see the struggle. So that's what we're watching unfold on this snowy (4+ inches) April morning.

 

[Hercule]

WE HATE BLUE JAYS!!! They can be such jerks.
...

Update: By dinner time the nest was devoid of Finch eggs and only the Blue Jay egg remained. The birds were nowhere around. I took the wreath with the nest and egg down and threw it away. We simply can't have a Blue Jay defending a nest just outside our front door, and it's barely above eye level too. I think Marlin Perkins would understand.

 

[ChrisB]

WE HATE BLUE JAYS!!! They can be such jerks.

We have plenty of blue jays which like to perch in the branches above my car after feasting on mulberries. The result is reminiscent of the works of Jackson Pollock.

 

[Harp]

We have plenty of blue jays which like to perch in the branches above my car after feasting on mulberries. The result is reminiscent of the works of Jackson Pollock.

Pollock's art is definitely blue jay mulberry jam. Whether the Art Institute of Chicago realizes it or not.