Fri. May 19, 2023 – It’s a cruel, crazy, beautiful world… {it’s your world so live in it}

Cool, maybe raining.   Hope not, because it’s D1’s school beach day…   I hope it’s like yesterday, which got hot and sunny, before finally cooling off with some big fat rain drops after dark.  I guess we’ll see.

Did my errands yesterday, interrupted and bracketed by school events.   6th grade honors in the morning, 8th grade in the evening.  Oh, and an eye exam for D2 in the afternoon.  Some days, the more I have to do, the more I get done, some days it’s the opposite.

I did a bit of social study during the school stuff.   What did the teachers value for their teacher’s choice awards?  (quiet, tries hard, uses all the resources available, kind, helpful)   Why were girls featured at about a 3:1 or more ratio in all the pix and video?  (they might actually outnumber the boys)  Why if so?  (no sports might mean boys self select to not attend this school)  30% of 8th graders were taking dance classes.  Only one was male.  Salud and valedictorians were all girls.  3rd year for one of the girls.   Couple kids had three years of straight As, 95% or better As at that.  Pretty much everyone in the school would have been on the honor roll in a regular district school, so they made the honor roll harder, and made another level above that too.   Interesting stuff.

Saw a couple of parents I haven’t seen in a while, since we didn’t do swim team with them last year.  Our pool’s team was a great crossroads for several neighborhood groups.  In theory, we’re doing swim team this year, but D2 isn’t going to enough practices, so I don’t think it will happen.  I miss seeing some of the other dads at practices and meets.  It would be nice to see them again.

Today I’m trying to head to my client’s place.  At least do some work.   No kid stuff with afternoon appointments on the calendar.  I usually spend the afternoon there, and into the evening when my client comes home and we meet.  He’s out of town though, so I should be able to ‘down tools’ and head home at a decent time.  We’ll see.  Hope to get some stuff done.

And maybe stack some greenbacks.   They are as much a prep as anything, and I’ve been using stacks to buy some needful things lately.  Need to replenish what got used.

Stack some resources.  They always come in handy.

n

 

31 Comments and discussion on "Fri. May 19, 2023 – It’s a cruel, crazy, beautiful world… {it’s your world so live in it}"

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    Looks like it’s going to be a nice day for the beach.   Sunny, sky is clearing.  Shirtsleeves out now but will get hotter if the sun stays out.

    Time to wake the sleeping beauties.   

    n

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    Ah the name calling…

    Elon Musk doubles down on criticism of George Soros despite being branded anti-Semitic, as he slams billionaire for funding DAs ‘soft on violent crime’ 

     

    Elon Musk on Thursday doubled down on his criticism of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, saying Soros ‘has funded so many politicians & DAs who are soft even on violent crime.’

    – the left, which only sees groups and not the people that make them up, only cares about anti- semitism when they can use it as a stick to beat someone.

    Hello mental midgets, it’s possible to be critical of the person, and not  the group.  

    Is anyone surprised that the left defends their sugar daddy?

    n

  3. MrAtoz says:

    I may have missed it yesterday, but Disney is reported to be closing it’s Star Wars hotel. What did they expect with stays running in the thousands. I’d just got to the Atlantis hotel for a week at that rate.

    Posting from a Chrome browser. Some of the work I’m doing requires some extensions Safari doesn’t support. I’ve also changed to Chrome on my other devices. Interesting, Google takes a piece of my life.

  4. SteveF says:

    If you don’t have customers, you don’t have a business.

    That’s what stimulus packages, government-corporate partnerships, subsidies, preferred vendor status, and bailouts are for. Only for selected companies, of course, tho$e who$e $upport i$ nece$$ary to the $tatu$ of our $ociety.

  5. lynn says:

    It is 58 F or 44 F up here in Craig, Montana, depending on the microclimates in the canyons.  Staying in a AirBnB house out here in the sticks.  Smoky as all get out from the Canadian wildfires.  We spent five hours in two planes getting up here from Houston via Salt Lake City.  The plane said it was -73 F outside at 38,000 feet.  

    My brother is frying some bacon up. It smells real good. But the 1940 house is freaking cold. We had to drive down a dirt road five miles to get here, across a mountain and under a Freeway bridge.

  6. Nick Flandrey says:

    @Lynn, enjoy the fishing, and the company!

    n

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    Yeah the hotel thing, either has to be borderline secret and crazy expensive (like Club 33) or has to be aspirational but reachable and available.    

    How many super fans are there with the money?  Especially after all the destruction of the fanbase woke disney has been doing?   Triggleypuff might WANT to do the hotel thing, but it doesn’t have the money.

    n

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    @greg, if you don’t have customers, you better have a patron, and then you dance to the patron’s tune.   Seems to have happened that way for far too many formerly well run companies.

    n

  9. Greg Norton says:

    I may have missed it yesterday, but Disney is reported to be closing it’s Star Wars hotel. What did they expect with stays running in the thousands. I’d just got to the Atlantis hotel for a week at that rate.

    Disney is out of time and money. Among other pending expenses, Comcast may force The Mouse to buy out the rest of Hulu, and that number could be as much as $30 billion.

  10. Nick Flandrey says:

    Probably more my generation than most of y’alls

    The Smiths bassist Andy Rourke dies aged 59 after battle with pancreatic cancer – as bandmate pay tribute to ‘supremely gifted musician’ 

     

    The Smiths bassist Andy Rourke has died aged 59 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

    – they sure did some iconic songs of the era.

    n

  11. Greg Norton says:

    @greg, if you don’t have customers, you better have a patron, and then you dance to the patron’s tune.   Seems to have happened that way for far too many formerly well run companies.

    Someone is defending Disney’s stock price in a huge way, and I think Nissan put up the cash for “The Marvels” to stay on the 2023 schedule since Brie Larson is such a huge part of the car company’s “empowerment” ad agenda as of late.

  12. Greg Norton says:

    Yeah the hotel thing, either has to be borderline secret and crazy expensive (like Club 33) or has to be aspirational but reachable and available.    

    How many super fans are there with the money?  Especially after all the destruction of the fanbase woke disney has been doing?   Triggleypuff might WANT to do the hotel thing, but it doesn’t have the money.

    The big problem with the Galactic Starcruiser was that it offered an authentic “Star Trek” experience.

    That point was driven home this Spring with Mike and Denise Okuda pulled out of retirement for the big ticket set built for the finale of “Picard”, perfect down to the faux neon backlighting of the controls and painted wood grain of the “arch” which dominates the design.

    The Starcruiser theming had the obvious influence of the Okudas. The only element missing from the bar was Whoopi in a funny hat serving drinks.

    The Starcruiser didn’t looked “lived in” like most of pre-Disney “Star Wars”, and if you’re going to do “clean” to the level of what people traditionally expect from The Mouse along with a low Bob Cheapek budget, you’ll end up with a mix of “The Orville” — which Disney now owns BTW — and Stage 8/9 “Star Trek”.

    Not that the parks are that clean any more. Like I said, DeSantis knows where they are weak when the inspections start.

  13. drwilliams says:

    Big Head Todd and the Monsters

    Beautiful World, live 2010

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L4bnS7nFXZg

  14. Greg Norton says:

    The Starcruiser didn’t looked “lived in” like most of pre-Disney “Star Wars”, and if you’re going to do “clean” to the level of what people traditionally expect from The Mouse along with a low Bob Cheapek budget, you’ll end up with a mix of “The Orville” — which Disney now owns BTW — and Stage 8/9 “Star Trek”.

    Disney could still make a few bucks off of the Galactic Starcruiser by retheming to “The Orville” on the cheap and cutting the price.

    Skip the concentration camp box car -er- truck- -er- “shuttle” to Galaxy’s Edge.

  15. Greg Norton says:

    Well, isn’t that special. How woke.

    Google and The (formerly St. Petersburg) Times.

    Never forget that Politifact is a corporate sibling of The Times, under the umbrella of ownership by the Poynter Institute. Both “news” organizations have an agenda.

    https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/2023/05/18/google-doodle-florida-st-petersburg-muslim/

    I wonder how the fundraiser is going at The Times.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/tampa-bay-times-launches-fundraiser-to-raise-money-for-local-news/ar-AA1badur

  16. EdH says:

    For good or for evil, ”roll your own” chatGPT style AI:

    https://erichartford.com/uncensored-models

  17. Nick Flandrey says:

    She has chosen to give computers to the school and the GED program at her mosque, the Islamic Society of St. Petersburg.

    – so not exactly “home schooling”.

    n

  18. Nick Flandrey says:

    She’s got a point… several in fact, and they may result in her walking on the charges.  THAT would be a miscarriage of justice as by law and custom, the responsibility rests with her.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12102937/Rust-armorer-Hannah-Gutierrez-Reed-asks-judge-dismiss-involuntary-manslaughter-charges.html

    Gutierrez-Reed’s motion to dismiss her involuntary manslaughter charges  claims that the prosecution was ‘tainted by improper political motives’ and says that Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and the initial special prosecutor she appointed, Andrea Reeb, ‘both used the tragic film set accident that resulted in the death of Halyna Hutchins as an opportunity to advance their personal interests.’

    The defense lawyers also contend that the permanent damage done to the gun by FBI testing before the defense could examine it amounted to destruction of evidence and a violation of the court’s rules of discovery.

    ‘They directed a sloppy investigation in which key evidence was destroyed,’ the motion says, and ‘made overly aggressive charging decisions.’

    n

  19. Greg Norton says:

    Tyler Durden cowardice protecting another mainstream reporter not wanting to be the bearer of bad news.

    Foot Locker is what used to be the Woolworth/Woolco chain before management closed the last mainstream department stores to focus on sneakers.

    In other words, the people there know something about retail in the US.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wrong-foot-foot-locker-shares-crater-consumers-pull-back

  20. Nick Flandrey says:

    Footlocker chose to cater to an “urban” crowd.   People that were not “urban” stayed away in droves.

    n

  21. Greg Norton says:

    She has chosen to give computers to the school and the GED program at her mosque, the Islamic Society of St. Petersburg.

    – so not exactly “home schooling”.

    Typical Times. They only tell half of the story. It isn’t even about selling papers like The Mail. The entire organization is agenda driven.

    The mosque is in what is (or used to be) a cr*phole neighborhood, but a quick search of property records shows a house in the father’s name in Northwest, near “Lealman” – not great living, but definitely not a cr*phole like St. Petersburg south of Central Avenue.

  22. drwilliams says:

    San Francisco Office Values Collapse 75%

    Office values in San Francisco have plunged 75% on a per-square foot basis compared to sales from just before the pandemic, the Hoover Institution said. …

    The report’s finding noted the former Union Bank building, located in the center of San Francisco financial district, was auctioned off last week for $65 million — 75% less on a per-square-foot basis than comparable building sales just prior to the pandemic.

    Ohanian called it “devastating news” for the city since the auction price provides a new market rate benchmark for setting the price for other downtown commercial buildings.

    The report noted San Francisco’s downtown vacancy rate has jumped from about 4% in 2019 to almost 30% now, as companies abandon the city for friendly taxe locales.

    [The pandemic was always going to have a negative impact on commercial real estate in urban centers, but this is something much worse. This is capital flight from the city, which is going to fuel a collapse of the local economy and the demolition of city services. It’s a death spiral, and it is a direct result of the city’s refusal to keep order and safety on its streets and in its businesses. — Ed]

    I linked to the HotAir  stub with the quote from Ed Morrissey because he makes the point more explicitly than Newsmax, which includes:

    The report noted San Francisco’s downtown vacancy rate has jumped from about 4% in 2019 to almost 30% now, as companies abandon the city for friendly taxe locales.

    “The continuing losses of San Francisco’s economic base are a symptom of a city that has become politically dysfunctional and is perceived by people and businesses to be dangerous and unworkable,” the report said.

    “And these losses will continue until those who govern San Francisco make different choices regarding the related issues of drug abuse, homelessness, and crime.”

    The SF valuation board is going to be working overtime, and moving too slowly will land them in court. You can bet that other properties will be sold quickly, with some doing so as part of a real estate/retail business effort to drive the point home as their bottom lines are already bleeding. Another sale at 25% of the valuation is going to bypass the death spiral and put things right into free fall. Hard to see an outcome other than “splatt!!” With Cali’s state budget destroyed by Newsome he has no prospect of providing assistance–which he will desperately want to do because the fall will ruin his own aspirations to be president: Even Kamala is smart enough to look at him and say “When I left for Washington the state had a surplus and everything was fine. Maybe you should have paid more attention.”

    Pity the poor voters in SF. They are going to get exactly what they voted for… good and hard…

    No, don’t pity them. The Dems are either going to try to bail them out with blue state money ahead of a pivotal election, or bite the bullet and let them crash.  Pass the popcorn.

  23. Greg Norton says:

    No, don’t pity them. The Dems are either going to try to bail them out with blue state money ahead of a pivotal election, or bite the bullet and let them crash.  Pass the popcorn.

    CA, IL, and NY were all bailed out in 2021. The earliest CA could get another big handout is January 2025.

    House leadership along with Gaetz and The Witch aren’t going to give CA anything right now,, and that’s enough.

    The Congressional session will effectively end at the Thanksgiving break if not sooner, when everyone starts the fundraising cycle for next year.

  24. Alan says:

    >> The report’s finding noted the former Union Bank building, located in the center of San Francisco financial district, was auctioned off last week for $65 million — 75% less on a per-square-foot basis than comparable building sales just prior to the pandemic.

    Yeah, bought at a huge discount… but for what use? New homeless shelters? Who’s gonna pay for that? 

  25. Nick Flandrey says:

    Soon the drip will turn into a flood.

    An illegal alien, released by Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the United States at the southern border, has been charged with the brutal rape of a teenage girl in Alabama. The shocking case has sparked outrage and raised concerns about public safety and the enforcement of immigration laws.

    Last week, a 29-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras, Grevi Geovani Rivera Zavala, was arrested and charged with first-degree rape of a teen, WSFA reported.

    The incident happened on a Saturday evening at a restaurant on Cobbs Ford Road, according to a deposition. The girl informed police that Rivera Zavala dragged her into a women’s bathroom stall, held her down, and raped her.

    n

  26. Nick Flandrey says:

    Canadian banker, 27, is shot dead while on vacation with his girlfriend ‘after getting into an argument over his bar tab’ at a popular beach resort 

     

    Canadian national , Victor Masson, was found shot dead inside a car in Oaxaca, Mexico, on Monday. No arrests have been made as of Friday.

    –why are people still vacationing in Mexico?

    n

  27. drwilliams says:

    An illegal alien, released by Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the United States at the southern border, has been charged with the brutal rape of a teenage girl in Alabama.

    –why are people still vacationing in Mexico?

    Because FJB is working hard to make it look safe?

  28. EdH says:

    –why are people still vacationing in Mexico?
     

    Safer than US metropolitan cities?

  29. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’ve got an extra child for the night, same one as before.   Hope stuff improves at her house soon.

    And I’m pulling a bidden and calling it a night.

    I’m beat.   I’ll see you on the weekend.

    n

  30. lpdbw says:

    Queries:

    1.  Someone recently mentioned getting reading glasses in multi-packs from Big River.   Can you tell me which ones?  Would you buy again?
    2. Two of you recently had foundation work done.  Could you please give me a ballpark what it cost?  At this point, I’m looking for order of magnitude, not real numbers.

    Thanks.

  31. drwilliams says:

    Professor of Rock:

    “If you’re called the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame then, you know, act like it.”

    “How can anyone narrow down the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame snubs to just five?”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzBiHJEgdRA

    Reading the comments, there are a lot of good suggestions, including Blue Oyster Cult and Steppenwolf.

    Here’s a fan snub list from 2017:

    https://www.culturesonar.com/fans-top-ten-rock-roll-hall-fame-snubs/

    Which finally gets to Three Dog Night:

    “In the years 1969 through 1974, no other group achieved more top 10 hits, moved more records or sold more concert tickets than THREE DOG NIGHT”

    https://www.threedognight.com/bio

    It’s a shame that Chuck couldn’t keep the monkey off his back. But when they kicked him out of the band, Cory took over most of his lead vocals and didn’t just cover them, he nailed them. Danny was (and is) no slacker, either.

    It’s a very typical monkey mentality: Those that cannot do strive to be the gatekeepers, the petty dictators, the plain petty dicks, and the silly….

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