Bag of Randomness for Friday, April 24, 2020

Last week I watched all of HBO’s Catherine The Great starring Helen Mirren. It was good, but not great. She’s one of those subjects I was aware of but couldn’t really tell you anything about. WifeGeeding and I both started Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Mavel and have really enjoyed it. I’m a suck for stand up comedians’ lives behind the scenes and all the lumps they took on the way to the top. It’s one reason I really enjoy Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

I almost fell for the CraigsList cashier’s check scam.

These scams work because everybody believes that cashier’s checks are safe. If the bank lets you take cash, the check must be good, right? Unfortunately, your bank assumes that the check will be good, but the responsibility for the deposit is ultimately yours.

Parks and Recreation is returning next week for a half-hour charity special on NBC

Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Rob Lowe, Jim O’Heir, and Retta are all set to appear as their original characters, and “several guest stars from the Pawnee universe may pop in,” says NBC. The special will be “all shot from our homes,” Poehler said in a promotional video.

Yes, this is the third day in a row I’m going to reference a head of state and tree planting. Here’s the footage of the president and the first lady planting a tree with the vice-president and his wife, I think. The president made it awkward asking the vice-president to shovel the dirt with him using the same shovel, then Pence awkwardly grabs the shovel not knowing exactly how to help, but I can’t blame the guy for being put on the spot. I think I heard the president call the first lady “honey”, which I thought was cute. I like finding out little things like that, stuff that humanizes those in power. I thought he’d be more of a “babe” or “sweetie” kinda guy.

I’ve never understood LiberallyLean’s criticism of Mark Cuban for not increasing his wealth. For some billionaires, increasing wealth is important as well as creating some sort of legacy. For others, they know they are set for life and just want to try new things or stuff that amuses them.

How A Tweak To A Military Plane’s Windshield Wipers Could Save Millions Of Dollars

The Air Force has discovered a simple engineering change to the venerable KC-135 Stratotanker could save it up to $7 million a year. Using computer modeling, the Air Force realized it could increase the aerodynamic efficiency of the converted jetliner by one percent by changing the orientation of the windshield wipers. The increased efficiency translates into greater fuel savings.

Tom Brady appears to be having a hard time adjusting to life in Tampa. First the park citation and now this.

Tom Brady walks into wrong house looking for Byron Leftwich – The new Bucs quarterback doesn’t knock, mixes up his offensive coordinator’s crib with a neighbor’s.

How your body will try to save you from Covid-19 – Covid-19 immunity — antibodies, serological tests, reinfection, and immunological memory — explained.

You can tell that Christina Applegate has high regard for her television father. But then again, how can you not love the man who scored four touchdowns in a single game as a Polk High School Panther in the 1966 city championship game against Andrew Johnson High School, including the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds against nemesis “Spare Tire” Dixon.

What Brought Beyoncé, U2, and BTS to Amish Country? – You’ve never heard of Rock Lititz. But before the pandemic put the industry on hold, the biggest names in music were joining its waitlist.

For a major band planning a major tour, the companies that constitute Rock Lititz aim to be a one-stop shop: They build the stage, they design the lighting, they do the sound, and after a couple days or a week or a month of rehearsals, they send you off to tour the world.

Sneak attack.

Dedicated bird.

 

 

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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, April 23, 2020

The NLF Draft is tonight and I bet the ratings will be through the roof with this sports deprived nation. And, I’m willing to bet the NFL is going to milk every opportunity it can to extol healthcare workers or anyone working in an essential business to pull at the country’s heartstrings.

The offset spatula is one of the most under-rated kitchen utensils and I never used mine for icing a cake.

The Mortuary Science Professor Who Came ‘Out Of Nowhere’ To Help New York City

“This is not just moving remains — this is handling people’s loved ones,” Professor Penepent said. “And you have to do it with care and compassion, respect and dignity.”

Since early April, Professor Penepent, 57, and his students have been transporting decedents from overwhelmed funeral homes around New York City to crematories in places as far as Pennsylvania and Vermont, helping grieving families and taking some of the pressure off a system strained by the epidemic.

He calls the operation “Hands with A Heart.”

My grandmother died 33-years ago today. If she were still alive, she’d be 118. Her remains were flown in from California but the flight was delayed, and thus, she was literally late for her own funeral. Sadly, she was the first woman I ever saw naked. I remember walking in on her dressing, and she just stood there and talked to me as if nothing were out of the ordinary and all I wanted to do was make a break for it but felt it would have been rude to leave so quickly.

Julie Dobbs of The TICKET (a Cumulus station) has been told by management to stay home and not to bother doing any work for a while.

Yesterday I made a reference about world leaders planting trees and then this happened.

Missouri sues China for ‘not doing enough’ to stop coronavirus spread – The state’s Republican attorney general says Beijing ‘lied to the world’ about the danger and is suing for suffering and economic losses

A bit of spontaneous artistic photography.

It appears Congress is adding to the coronavirus relief aid. I’m surprised we aren’t hearing pushback from the likes of Senator Rand Paul who likes to offset costs if we are adding to our debt. He probably is and I’m not paying attention. It’s hard to believe, but then again, it’s Congress, that the first package’s stipulation that a small business was no more than 500 people at one location gets passed. That’s why places like Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steak House were able to qualify, they were filing not as one organization but per location. I’m not so much upset at them, they were simply playing by the rules, though it is disingenuine.

The oil and gas folks always want the market to play out and not be interfered with until it affects their well being. I bet, uh, a lot of folks would feel more comfortable if Rick Perry was still the Secretary of Energy leading their cause.

Warm alpaca breath hitting cold morning air through the sunlight.

Guy Uses Physics and Computer Simulations to Design a Never-Miss Basketball Hoop

Our friend’s stag do (bachelor party) got cancelled because of the COVID-19 lockdown. We decided to get together remotely and spend our isolation time building him a real-life RPG game, so he could get his own back on Covid…

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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, April 22, 2022

Whenever possible, I try to go to bed at the same time as my first spouse. She tends to fall asleep quickly and I say up reading or watching television for a while.

National Geographic – The pandemic is giving people vivid, unusual dreams. Here’s why. – Researchers explain why withdrawal from our usual environments—due to social distancing—has left dreamers with a dearth of “inspiration.”

Anna Fifield is an expert when it comes to North Korea, below is an excerpt from a book she published last year. It’s interesting to see what analysts can observe regarding Kim Jung Un’s health when it comes to something as humdrum as shoveling a few small piles of dirt at a tree-planting ceremony with his southern counterpart. I guess I never really thought that someone would be actually be counting the number of breaths a world leader would take and how that itself can be an overall indicator of health and help connect the dots of over reported health concerns. I’m now interested in what an analyst or medical expert can devise from observing our head of state.

The first airplane to fly in England had over 200 wings.

 

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Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Any cookie with M&M’s is an over-rated cookie.

I love how Better Call Saul is a slow burn. It’s a great way to wind down a Monday.

My place of employment is having a Bring Your Child to Work Day via Zoom this Wednesday. They will be making a craft and will be asked to provide their name, age, hobbies they enjoy, and describe what your parent’s job. Gulp.

The staff at a doctor’s office will often annoy me as I feel a lot are condescending and cathartically enjoy the power trip. I have an appointment tomorrow and was asked to bring in a 16-month-old MRI scan which is on a DVD, but that isn’t possible since the appointment changed from being on location to the phone. The office worker, in a matter of fact kinda tone, told me to fax it.

Are doctor office staff members also considered to be heroes? Should they be included in my thoughts when I see a white ribbon tied to a tree?

We compared top Google searches during the same weeks in 2019 and 2020 to see what has and hasn’t changed.

Most common Google searches beginning with “how to” from April 5 to 11.

Yesterday I wrote about the challenge it must be to unseat an incumbent. I find it funny I didn’t even consider the presidential election when it came to mind. I was thinking like Senate, House, and statewide office elections. Compare MJ Hegar to Beto’s run against Cruz two years ago. Beto was able to travel county to country and meet and greet a lot of Texans – selfies, rallies, door-to-door, etc. At this point in his campaign he was well known to many Texans. Compare it to Hegar, and I doubt many Texans can tell you the name of Cornyn’s opponent. The challenge of getting coverage over anything COVID-19 is tremendous.

George Packer, Staff writer for The Atlantic – We Are Living in a Failed State – The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.

Note not sure why, but this one sentence, which isn’t profound, stopped me down and had me pondering for a while, “This is the third major crisis of the short 21st century.”

In Peter King’s Monday column, he linked to a Boston Globe article which is behind a paywall.  It’s about what the future of arena and stadium crowds will look like.

Decontamination of stands will have to become a staple of stadium operations. Hand sanitizer will become omnipresent in concourses. Cleaning staffs would have to be vigilant about the “high-touch” areas of facilities — including railings (both in stands and on escalators) and elevator buttons. Might there be a requirement for spectators to wear masks? If so, masks with team logos might replace caps or jerseys as the most frequently seen form of team apparel. With diminished crowds, it’s possible some of the standard issues at sporting events of overcrowded restrooms would be resolved. Still, teams might restrict the number of people in a restroom at any given time.

It’s a quintessential part of the stadium experience: A hot dog passed from vendor to fan to fan to fan, with cash flowing back in the other direction. In all likelihood, that familiar ritual will be gone. “They’ll have to have no stadium vendors,” said [Smith College economics professor Andrew] Zimbalist. “They’re not going to have people passing hot dogs down or passing anything down. That has to stop.”

Enormous bottlenecks form after games as people try to rush home, which could create considerable stresses on the public health infrastructure — not only for the sports venue, but also for surrounding neighborhoods and public transportation systems. It’s possible those bottlenecks would be resolved by a diminished number of fans attending events, as well as by self-policing habits. Facilities might also need to control the pace of departures from each zone of the park.

Florida police enforcing social distancing rules find Pennsylvania murder suspect sitting on beach

Tom Brady was thrown out of park by a Tampa recreation worker – Mayor Jane Castor says the Bucs quarterback was working out in a closed park.

Netflix adds a ‘screen lock’ feature to prevent accidental pauses – It can be frustrating to accidentally tap a button and mess up playback when watching Netflix on your phone. Thankfully, Netflix is rolling out a new feature for Android devices that tries to prevent that.

Back, and to the left… back, and to the left… back, and to the left.

A Woman’s Breast Implants Saved Her Life From a Gunshot, Doctors Say – Doctors say a woman’s silicone breast implants deflected what could have been a fatal bullet, stopping it from reaching her heart. Amazingly, this is not the first time such a thing has been reported in the medical literature.

Wow. I’m what you call a little slow. Not until now have I put together that Wayne Knight, “Newman” in Seinfeld, was in JFK. I watched the movie before watching the “Second Spitter” episode, never watching it again, and never put together he was in Oliver Stone’s JFK. Now, I see why it’s iconically funny.

Stunt school students do a little homework.

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