Once Halloween was hijacked by the “hot moms” it was ruined for good. Dress-up is for children. Halloween is for children. It used to be a cute little Holiday where you’d march the kiddies around the neighborhood and they’d gather candy, and it was always a joy to see them sit in the family room afterward with a bucket full of treats.
Then one day some egomaniacal slightly attractive young mom craving attention decided to dress up as a “hot nurse” and the ruination of a kid’s Holiday was on. Every self-absorbed thirty-something mom, or even single female, had to get into the act dressing provocatively and focusing all the attention of the event on themselves.
I loathe adults who have to crave attention, and who are so self-centered, they simply cannot leave Halloween as a simple candy-gathering event for the tykes, but who have to spend hours on costumes and make-up for themselves so people ignore the kiddies and pay attention to them.
If you want proof we’ve become a self-absorbed nation, look no further than social media sites and the thousands of “selfies” of young females preening and primping in their “spectacular”, or should I say “spooktacular” outfit.
Grow up people.
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I was in the grocery store yesterday, Halloween, and had to do a double-take. They were putting out the Thanksgiving displays. Stuffing, gravy, cans of cranberry sauce. We weren’t even yet finished with Halloween yet, and Thanksgiving is “here”.
No wonder the Holiday Season now feels as if we are on a rocket sled on a rail.
They breeze us through it all with marketing and commercials from now until January 1ST and we all wish life away waiting on the next big day.
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There are two areas in American life where we need a sea change in attitude.
First is this immediate and knee-jerk reaction to hearing “5 Star General”. Ever since the movie “Patton” every American over 50 somehow hears the word “General” and thinks of hard driving war hero “Patton”, who drove our troops through Italy, and into Germany with a fervor and gusto that made him a legend.
If you rose to the rank of “General” in today’s modern army you are no “Patton”. The Generals today are the ones who eagerly and enthusiastically promoted allowing and accepting Gays in the military. The “Generals” today are the ones who promoted DEI in all things military, and who worked hard to promote all things “Woke”, and if that had to include training the white military population to have a concern for their “privilege”, well, the current crop of “Generals” made sure those white soldiers felt a shame for their color. These “Generals” today are the mealy-mouthed who pandered to Obama to promote his full agenda in the military to get ahead. The tough guys who fought all the “Woke” bullshit got weeded out and never considered for promotion.
So please, when you hear the media say “Trump denigrated General Milley today in a scathing rebuke” don’t have the knee-jerk reaction that Trump needs to have more respect for our “Patton” like generals. None of them are Patton, they couldn’t shine his boots. Every one in charge now is one who went along with everything that ruined the military. Have you seen the “selfies” of trans-military personnel in make-up and uniform? Have you seen them? Good Holy God.
Stop thinking “Patton” when you hear “General”.
And second, we need to stop the knee-jerk reaction of adoration for the well-educated and highly credentialed in degrees.
Higher education has been warped to worthless for forty years plus. There are courses in “Britney Spears” for Christ’s sake. There are courses in the affect on society of popular television series. People are graduating with degrees and zero actual knowledge. And DEI and “Woke” metrics have rendered actual learned education non-existent. You are more apt today to get your doctorate by parroting liberal gibberish in your dissertation, than you are doing a serious “deep dive” analysis into the unintended ill consequences resulting from a current social program. Everyone in the system is serving the narrative.
Which makes the well educated “experts” nothing more than dumb ass parrots subservient to the liberal narrative. They haven’t done rigorous research, they haven’t done ground-breaking analysis, all they’ve done is repackage bad ideas and regurgitate them for circular consumption amongst a liberal cabal for rubber stamped approval.
Problem is, the mainstream media trots out these “experts”, think Ibram X. Kendi, whose ideas are absolute shit, and sells them as gospel to be followed to the letter of their intent. And then they point out how “credentialed” these “experts” are, and how we need to listen to them at all costs.
Right up until the “cost” is seventy-five million missing from a Boston area college, that invested those dollars in the “expert” Ibram X. Kendi, and who never questions where the money went after it has all disappeared.
Start to question the “experts”, you’ll find they are expert at all, just people who knew enough to game the system parroting the narrative du jour.
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I fell off a ladder years, and years ago trying to paint house shutters to impress the wife. No good deed goes unpunished. I screwed my back up something awful. I go through periods of absolute agony and stabbing pains in the lower back. So I go to a masseuse on occasion, and have her concentrate on just the back.
This masseuse happens to be vegan. And somehow on my Twitter feed I’m starting to see animal videos where pigs, cows, and other farm animals display a measure of emotion. They greet the owner with happiness, or enjoy being pet and nuzzled.
As a life long anti-vegan this has become disturbing to me. I’ve always said that God gave us incisors for ripping flesh and meat. We are meant to eat steak.
But seeing a pig squeal with delight over being pet and nurtured, or watching a cow actually lay down almost on top of their handler to be nuzzled, well, it gives you second thoughts about that bacon purchase, or extended stay in the beef aisle.
I’m starting to worry that my exposure to vegans is making me soft. On the way home from the latest massage I had to stop and buy a London Broil to confirm my Alpha status.
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The other day I discussed that my lack of enthusiasm for all things Puerto Rico began way back when I first saw “West Side Story”, and being introduced to Rita Moreno. I just never saw the talent there that everyone else claimed she had.
And yesterday I saw where JLo was out speaking about all her Puerto Rican pride.
Frankly all that did was bolster my position against all things Puerto Rican. JLo is a cancer on US pop culture. A half-naked auto-tuned no talent Jezebel Hell bent on ruining Ben Afflecks life completely. I can’t wait for the P Diddy tapes to reveal her participation.
On Twitter John Leguizamo decided to trumpet his Puerto Rican pride. I wonder if he ever noticed that they ask him to play a criminal in every movie he is ever cast. Has he stopped to notice that the only roles they ever give to the Puerto Rican is drug dealer, knife fighter, or random low life criminal?
Hey, forget me, that appears to be Hollywood’s idea of a Puerto Rican.
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I publish regularly, perhaps more than most. Have I been more caustic of late? I’ve been feeling under the weather the last month. Rain here in South Florida hasn’t helped. Since we’ve been back there has been only two types of weather here. Either rain, or no rain but extreme wind. The one, or two days of light breeze and warmth have been not only few and far between, but have fallen on those days when we’ve had to actually work for a living, and couldn’t get to the beach. And the nagging cough and general ache isn’t helping the attitude either.
Beach time puts me in a better mood, returns me to the Mr. Congeniality that lives within. Maybe this weekend will contribute to a kindler and gentler writer.
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We live in a neighborhood of mostly older owners, with few young families. And therefore we get very few Trick Or Treaters. The past few years we buy candy, put the candy in a large Holiday decorated bowl, sit the bowl on the arm of an Adirondack chair on the front porch, turn on the porch light, and allow the kiddies to take what they want, and think they deserve.
This year we apparently got two groups of Trick Or Treaters. Both older kids in large groups. I only know because of the Ring camera. Both ravaged the candy bowl and emptied it out completely in one fell swoop. One nice young man yelling out “you put out a bowl of candy, you deserve what you get”, as he exited the porch having grabbed up half the bowl for himself. The rest of the group, all about fourteen, maybe fifteen years old, just plundering every last candy bar.
What a wonderful generation we are raising now.
The wife was out for the evening enjoying Halloween with our grandchildren in their neighborhood. When she returned I showed her the videos of the “children” just plundering the candy and told her “this is it, the last Halloween. Next year we aren’t putting out a bowl, we are leaving the light off, and there will be no Halloween in this home any longer”.
I’d love to post the ring camera videos here. Show you what wonderful little darlings had to ruin the evening. But that would just lead to charges of racism, so I will just leave it at “no more Halloween here”. Ever again.
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Just days from perhaps the most important election of our lifetime Nate Silver is out with a rant about polling in the NYPost. Saying the other pollsters are rigging the numbers to show a close race. His own polling shows Trump with a huge lead.
Silver claims they are playing with the numbers to try to sell the idea that the race is one percent either way. His numbers are in the 55-45 Trump advantage range.
I pray to God that his numbers are correct.
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I just fail to see where this groundswell of support exists for Kamala Harris. She couldn’t get 1% of her own Party to support her in a primary. How the Hell does she have 1/2 the country in favor of her now?
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Pro football is becoming a mess that you just cannot watch. It is all referee flags and inept performances. Maybe once a game there is a spectacular catch, or incredible play, but in between you are forced to witness a slop-fest.
A game can’t be played absent some big game-altering play being reviewed and reviewed.
And the Thursday night streaming game robs the ability to channel surf. At least three times the other evening I found myself clicking away from commercials or awful play to try to see what else was on, only to realize that the game being on “Prime” meant that I couldn’t just click over to our Youtube TV to check out a college football game, or pro hockey game.
It’s much better when games are on network TV, or standard cable channels. You can surf, and surf, and return with easy clicks. But when they put the game on a streaming channel that is stand-alone, you can’t get back easily with the channel changer to your regular stations. That sucks ass.
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The wife shocked me to the core the other evening. You see, I love Las Vegas, Nevada and she hates the place. She doesn’t enjoy gambling, she hates the fake facade, she doesn’t enjoy crowds, and she thinks Las Vegas is just a plastic phony mess.
Me? I love to gamble, it is one of my favorite past-times. I love all the restaurants in Las Vegas. I love the giant pools, and tiki bars at the pool. I enjoy the shows. Saw Brad Garrett there last trip at his Comedy Club, laughed the entire time.
If I knew I had six hours left to live I’d want to spend at least two of them throwing craps in Las Vegas. Nothing is more fun than that. Nothing.
So we are sitting in the living room watching television, the wife is on her phone, when she turns to me and says “we are going to see the Eagles at the Sphere”.
Whaaa?
I get a return to Mecca? I get to go back to the land I love? Can this be true?
We aren’t even big Eagles fans. I was more Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Poco, Firefall, and Dan Fogelberg than Eagles. Even though everyone I named was somehow associated with the Eagles. I’ve never owned an Eagles album.
But hey, if seeing this Sphere as a bucket list item for the wife gets me a return trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, I’m all in. Where is the money coming from for all this? I have no earthly idea. Commissions are down, the public isn’t spending like they did during Covid. Oh well, too late, she booked it.
Last time there we took a Copter into the Grand Canyon for a picnic lunch. That was a great day.
People who don’t enjoy Las Vegas should go with me. Friends tell me I “Snoopy Dance” everywhere I go in Las Vegas.
Shallow? Perhaps. But you eat a huge steak in a fine dining restaurant there with me, and add a lobster tail as well. With a nice glass of red.
How can anyone be unhappy doing that?
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On the subject of travel, if you read regularly, you know I just love the Florida Keys. A few days in Key West is always fun. I prefer Islamorada, or Marathon, but Key West has its charm.
So I’m online watching videos, and Key West is well known for a week where things go off the rails, and debauchery reigns supreme. I forget what they call that week, but people paint their bodies and wander naked through the streets, they dress up in drag, they let it all hang out. Thank God we’ve manage to avoid scheduling our trips when Key West becomes a full blown San Francisco Pride Parade, but I mention this because on Twitter I saw a video of a husband-wife team in Key West and the man was wearing a pink Tutu and bra, had his wife on a leash, and in this briefly filmed interview was espousing the benefits of “being free to be me” in Key West during this “freak week”, or whatever they call it.
Now all I could think of was what the people back home would think, seeing their neighbor and co-worker, with his wife on a dog leash, in a pink bra and Tutu, out in broad daylight on Duval Street, claiming how great he feels being able to express his true self.
Sorry, but if he was a co-worker of mine, I’d have a difficult time every seeing him in the same light as prior to witnessing this short clip video. In every business meeting I’d picture him in a frilly Tutu with the wife leashed.
I’m telling you, as a people, we’ve lost our collective minds.
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I’m a failed man, faithful readers. I saw Dunkin Donuts coffee on sale at Publix and in a moment of weakness I belied my principles, gave way to the boycott, and bought it.
Weeks on end of tasting coffee too strong, too weak, and just awful forced me to go against the boycott of Dunkin and give in.
Don’t hate me, I hate myself enough for all of us.
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I’m a huge Ravens fan but this version isn’t getting past KC this season. Ever.
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Woke up this morning and wandered into the kitchen to press the button on the coffee pot, take the daily pills. Anyone of age understands that routine. But two things struck me as I swallowed an Eloquis. First, I noticed a red solo cup drying on the towel with the silverware from last night’s dinner. Wait a minute. I know things are tough economically, but we aren’t re-using disposable cups. Who rinses solo cups? Has the wife lost her mind?
And second, there were at least three oversized metal cups with lids, straws. And as I gulped back some bottled water to get the pill down I realized we’ve got an entire drawer of these travel cups in the kitchen. An entire drawer. Way back when I turned forty no one needed a metal cup with a lid to use as a water bottle companion all day, or a coffee cup for the drive to work.
When did this happen, this explosion of metal coffee cups and water containers?
I can show you in my kitchen, a pull-out drawer with nothing but these permanent containers. Most with logos as give-aways from companies from friends who own them. What a ridiculous development. No one needs to drink that much bottled water to stay hydrated throughout the day. It wasn’t even a thing way back when no one had air conditioning. People didn’t walk everywhere in leggings toting an oversized metal water container. Or drive to work with a sip cup for coffee.
This is all as ridiculous as washing a red solo cup for re-use.
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