Festivus

Today is Festivus, a holiday for the rest of us. As a blog is a written communication medium, we can’t share the feast, nor the feats of strength. We can air grievances. Yes, though it may surprise you, I can be one grievance-airing motherfucker.

1. You’re in a long supermarket line. The person in front of you has 127 items in the cart. The cashier rings everything up, packs everything, sets it in the cart, and has to tell this person how much the total is. Again. Now the person in front of you starts digging in her purse looking for her wallet as though surprised this stranger in a smock is asking for money. (Sorry ladies, but we all know the odds are 95 – 5 this will be a woman.) Bonus grievance points for those who pay in cash and spend five minutes counting out the exact change, even if they have to root around in the aforementioned purse for the last seven pennies. True, such people are always old, but so am I. In the words of the Nighthawks, I’m not long for this old world, so please get out of my way.

2. You’re driving down the expressway at 65 mph and see a car merging onto the road like Meat Loaf* to get in front of you. (* - Bat out of hell.) You ease off to let them in and they immediately slow down to 55. I realize this is the DC area and traffic is not only bad, it’s aggressive, but if you planned to be a religious fanatic about observing the speed limit, would it have broken your balls to wait your turn?

3. How college football determines a national champion. ‘Nuff said.

4. You can’t turn off Amazon 1-click for Kindle purchases. I like to use reward points for books, especially books by authors I’m test driving, and I can’t do it.

5. Google Maps makes me enter my home address every time I want directions. Google knows what size penis warmer I wear, and it can’t assume that when I want directions I want them from my house? Even worse, why do I have to get at least seven characters in before it figures, “Oh, shit! He’s at home and wants to know how to get somewhere, so suggesting 8248 Veterans Highway Millersville MD as a starting point doesn’t help him much?”

6. Metal detectors at Major League Baseball games. There has never been a terrorist act at a baseball game. (What the Pirates’ front office does only manifests itself on the field; it doesn’t take place there.) Every security expert I’ve read says a gathering of people milling about—say standing in a line waiting to go through a metal detector—is a far greater risk.

7. Gary Bettman. That rat-faced fuck can’t be gone soon enough.

8. (For The Beloved Spouse) Misleading headlines that pick up on one small element of the story when something else is the true point. The headline is the abstract of the article; it’s what helps you decide whether to read more. If the information featured in the headline isn’t present in the first paragraph of the story, either the writer buried the lede or the headline writer is a douche. (This need not be an either/or proposition.)

9. People who bitch all summer about Daylight Saving Time. If having hours of sunlight during normal sleeping hours is that big a deal to you, I hear land is cheap in Alaska.

10. I saw a poster the other day advertising a July concert in Nats Park by “James Taylor and his All-Star Band. Special Guest: Bonnie Raitt (and her band).” I’ve been around long enough to know “special guest” in this context means “warm-up act.” Bonnie Raitt warming up for James Taylor, the man who’s put more people to sleep than heroin? This makes it appear the terrorists aren’t just winning, they’re so far ahead they feel they can run out the clock.

11. People who bitch about how cold winter is. It’s winter, people. Get over it or move to Florida or Arizona or Texas. What’s that? You don’t want to move there because the summers are too hot? See below.

12. People who bitch all summer about how hot it is. It’s summer, folks. Get over it or move to Minnesota or Vermont or Montana. What’s that? You don’t want to move there because the winters are too cold? See above.

13. People who bitch about 11 and 12 above. (And you’re often the same people.) This gets old after a while. Summer is hot. Winter is cold. Deal with it. Try bitching about how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west every fucking day and how monotonous it is. Why can’t people on the East Coast have beautiful sunsets over the ocean? Or the West Coast have similar sunrises? Waaaaa.

14. Tower of Power is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What’s that? They’re not a rock band? Tell that to James Brown, Tupac, and Joan Baez. Yet another Cleveland “Mistake by the Lake.”

15. To get a jump on next year’s grievances, here’s one for anyone who voted for Trump and doesn’t like how the next twelvemonth goes: Fuck you. Suffer. And be advised, the lubricant shipment isn’t expected any time soon, either.

Festivus

Today is Festivus, the holiday for the restofus. As we’re separated by great distances, I’ll leave the feast and Feats of Strength to you to handle individually. The Airing of Grievances commences anon.

Facebook claims to advertisers it knows more about each of us than does the NSA. If their algorithms are so accurate, why have the past couple of weeks brought me suggestions that I might like Justin Bieber, the Winchester Brothers, and my own author page? (There were a couple of even more egregious examples, but I forgot to write them down. Those people were so little known to me I have no hope if recovering the memory.) Who’s next? Kanye West? Miley Cyrus? That black guy with the pick in his hair from the Miller Lite commercials? All I know is, if the Philadelphia Flyers show up as a suggested like, I’m out of there.

I read Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress last week. (Loved it and will have more to say in the monthly wrap-up.) A lot of paperback books place excerpts from another of the author’s works at the end of a book; Simon and Schuster saw fit to put an excerpt at the beginning this time, and didn’t make what I’d consider to be a fuss that what came first was not Devil in a Blue Dress. I noticed it and skipped the excerpt—which I always do—but I would have been pissed to have read forty pages—that’s right, four-zero pages—of a book I hadn’t bought before finding out A) this isn’t the book I wanted to read, and 2) I have to buy another book to see what comes next. I also shouldn’t have to hunt for the beginning of the story I paid for, and would guarantee I won’t buy the book they tried to trick me into getting interested in.

I had to add “Festivus” to my spell-check dictionary. Next I’ll find out “Lebowski” isn’t included, either. (Goddamnit, it’s not!!)

The Sole Heir returned from a medical school interview in Colorado at 2:25 am Sunday. The scheduled arrival was 12:55, but still. If airlines are going to schedule flights to come in that late, would it bust their balls to have a few more chairs where people can wait for the arriving passengers in the event of a delay?

I had to sit through a motivational speech the other day, about how at 211 degrees water is just hot, but at 212 it’s steam; with that extra degree, you can accomplish anything. I don’t mean to discourage people, and everyone should have their dreams, but talent and luck are at least as important as hard work. No one ever wanted to be a trumpet player more than I, or worked harder at it; I lack the talent. Facing facts is not defeatism. Tony Roberts and his ilk are full of shit. (Don’t even get me started on the effort required to get to 211, and how much might be left in the tank. Then there’s Celsius, where that extra degree is 80% more difficult to achieve.)

Why is that Duck Dynasty douche nozzle allowed to say whatever heinous shit he wants and hide behind the First Amendment, and I’ll get blasted if I call him out as the inbred redneck sister fucker he (probably) is? Don’t I have a First Amendment right to be offensive, too? (I added “probably” in case someone reads this to him and he decides to sue for libel. Of course, since truth is a valid defense against libel, if he doesn’t sue, I must be right, right?)

Why is there only one Festivus a year? I can live without the pole and Feast and FOS, but I’m just getting warmed up on this grievance business. Lend a hand in the comments. Indulge yourself.