Next: Technology Replaces People

A few days ago over on String Too Short to Tie I was on a rant about the video review of referee calls in NCAA basketball.

Now it is major league baseball.  And today, opening day 2014, the first on-the-field ruling has been overturned on video review.  Said review being made in a suite in New York City, hundreds of miles from the scene of the action.

It is wrong for the same reasons I cited in the basketball screed.  But, oh, well.  It is baseball.  So what if there is a two-minute, or seven-minute, or forty-minute delay, for that matter.  Baseball is brief seconds of intense excitement separated from the next such burst by aeons of inaction, anyway.

Reckon the "reviewers" check the line with Las Vegas before conveying the ruling back to the field? Nah, never happen.

Hard Sell. No, Thanks.

Value City Furniture has restyled itself VCF.  I see no problem with this.  They are reshaping their business model, aiming at a new demographic, very possibly.  Like the shark, keep moving or suffocate.  What I do have a problem with is the loudmouth huckster they have put on the toob to promote them.  I snap the set OFF when he comes on.  No kidding.  It makes me want to throw the saltcellar through the screen.  But I settle for turning the set off.  

People hire folks to burnish their image, then shoot themselves in the foot. 

 I not only don’t wish VCF well, I wish them  ill.  And I hate myself when I get that way.

More on Aging

"There is another thing that happens when one gets old. He muddles in nostalgia and wonders what might have been. Or even what was".  -- vanilla, 4/24/12

Qardho

Everyone has a wild guess.  That's mine.

If A and B, then A and B

No longer do thieves merely skulk at night, but now, they openly rob in broad daylight.

What am I implying?  Nothing.  The statement is simply a fact of life.  The picture is a pretty snapshot I made this morning on the way home from town.

Tuesday Ramblings

Well, I suppose after all the fussing and back-biting there will one day be a vote, and the President will get his ten dollar and ten cent "minimum wage."

Then the people at the entry level, or at the bottom of the totem pole will get a boost of something over 33 percent in their wages.  Don't require me to do the math, that is close enough for this diatribe.

Then the people at the next level up will need to get a one-third increase in their wages, I mean we can't work for what the newbies get, we've been here and worked our way up.

Then the people at the next level.  Well, you see where this is going.

Then the manufacturers and merchants will have to raise their prices for reasons too obvious for us to go into.

I am no economist, but I think this is termed "inflation."  Everybody is no better off.

Oh, the government's coffers will swell.

Isn't that swell?

Then where do I get my 33% increase in income?  Oh, my social security check may increase one or two percent.  It usually does.  This year it went up almost enough to cover the increase in the Medicare premium.

'Snoo in Perfect?

"Good King Wenceslaus
looked out on his feets uneven.
There the snoo lay round about
all kerchoo achievin'."

"What's snoo?"*

Another coat of white applied to the mountains
of snow that surround us.  Everything is pristine,
white and cold.

*Walt Kelly for the Perloo Society

This Page

This sort of thing doesn't literally drive me crazy.  But it reminds me that I am dealing with people whose competence is suspect.

Whee!

February 13-- At 2:24 P.M. today, the heat pump kicked on!  The heat pump does not operate unless the ambient air temperature is 32^o or above.  This is the first time it has run since February 1.

Fortunately the gas company has supplied us with the wherewithal to keep warm.

Icicles form on the eaves as the snow on the roof melts.

High tomorrow: 22^o.

Next Year

I’ve no record book or almanac in front of me, but how many times have we heard all the ballyhoo and bushwa about the “superbowl” only to observe on the first Sunday of February that one or the other of the teams fails to show up?