BagOfNothing.com

WifeGeeding brought in the mail and showed me what she thought was some Trump campaign material. She said, “I’m just going to rip this in half and toss in the recycle bin.” But I told her to hold off as I was slightly interested in what it might say. She opened it to find a $50 check, it was from the CraigsList guy I mentioned last week who was interested in our fireplace mantle. He decided against buying the mantle because it was too large but wanted to give me a check for my trouble and asked that I donate the mantle to Goodwill or a veteran. When I replied back to his message not to worry about it and to keep his cash, he said the check was already in the mail.

I’m not going to cash the check, I’m going to make it out to a charity. What I think would be a funny to do, though I’m not enough of a jerk to do it, would be to make the check out to the DNC or to the construction of the Obama library. I’ll end up making it out to something non-partisan, most like the North Texas Food Bank.

Hawaii is about as isolated as you can get, so I was curious to know how they were dealing with COVID-19. It appears they have about 500 cases and nine deaths.

Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You and Jolene on the same day.

MensHealth.com – Watch What Happened When This Guy Did 500 Pushups Every Day for a Month

By the end of the month-long challenge, Lewis has noticed more visible definition in his chest and triceps, but ultimately concludes that it isn’t a particularly effective or sustainable way of building muscle. He advises against anyone else trying it, saying it’s “not feasible” and creates a lot of “wear and tear” in your shoulders and triceps.

Some guy created an AI clone to sit in on his Zoom meetings. I give him an “A” for effort, but it’s choppy and wouldn’t food anyone.

This is the son he had with his housekeeper.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son Joseph Baena recreated his dad’s famous pose

Pollsters find unexpected boon: Americans stuck at home willing to talk

Lonely Americans trapped in their homes because of the coronavirus outbreak are answering their phones to talk to political pollsters in big numbers, a reversal of fortunes for an industry that has recently struggled to connect with people.

Another Break From The Past: Government Will Help Churches Pay Pastor Salaries

In a development that could challenge the Constitution’s prohibition of any law “respecting an establishment of religion,” the federal government will soon provide money directly to U.S. churches to help them pay pastor salaries and utility bills.

A key part of the $2 trillion economic relief legislation enacted last month includes about $350 billion for the Small Business Administration to extend loans to small businesses facing financial difficulties as a result of the coronavirus shutdown orders. Churches and other faith-based organizations, classified as “businesses,” qualify for aid under the program, even if they have an exclusively religious orientation.

“Faith-based organizations are eligible to receive SBA loans regardless of whether they provide secular social services,” the SBA said in a statement. “No otherwise eligible organization will be disqualified from receiving a loan because of the religious nature, religious identity, or religious speech of the organization.”

Yesterday, I could smell something burning from inside my upstairs home office, so I yelled, “Is somebody burning something?”

DaughterGeeding replies with, “Ummmm, not anymore.”

I’ve been done this road before with WifeGeeding, but perhaps because of COVID-19 things will be different. She’s floated the idea of dying her hair in an unusual color, something like pink or blue, and then use my hair clippers to shave her head. I’m all for it if she can muster up the courage.

We’re remodeling our fireplace so I’ve put the old fireplace mantel on Craig’s List. It’s been out there for about three weeks and I’ve only had a few nibbles. Really, I’m just wanting to get rid of it, I’m not looking to make big bucks off this thing. This week, one gentleman said he wanted to buy it for his wife and would come and pick it up the next day using his grandson’s pickup. Later, he had to cancel the pick-up time and asked if he could come by the next day as his grandson will be out fishing. The next morning, I received an email from him stating his wife thinks the mantle is too big and he’s mailed me a check for $50 and asked me to donate it to a veteran or a place like Goodwill. Immediately, I replied back stating he didn’t need to do such a thing but he replied the check was in the mail and politely do what he asked.

I’ve noticed CBS11 placing their sports reporters outside of the Dallas Cowboys’ headquarters in Frisco for the late-night broadcast. I’m not sure why, it’s a waste of time and money, especially if no there are no sports to report on. Their broadcasts got me thinking about that huge jumbotron of a screen over their shoulder at The Star. It does nothing but play Cowboys highlights without a shred of advertising. That seems like a waste of electricity on the Cowboys part. I’m highly curious how much it costs to power something like that nonstop, and how well off a person or organization must be to not even worry about it.

I recall something similar to this happening during Y2K.

Wanted urgently: People who know a half century-old computer language so states can process unemployment claims

In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy has put out a call for volunteers who know how to code the decades-old computer programming language called COBOL because many of the state’s systems still run on older mainframes.

In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly said the state’s Departments of Labor was in the process of modernizing from COBOL but then the virus interfered. “So they’re operating on really old stuff,” she said.

Connecticut has also admitted that it’s struggling to process the large volume of unemployment claims with its “40-year-old system comprised of a COBOL mainframe and four other separate systems.”

Liberty University police issue arrest warrants for NYT, ProPublica reporters

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. on Wednesday said that arrest warrants had been issued for reporters from The New York Times and ProPublica after both publications wrote stories criticizing his decision last month to partially reopen his Virginia-based college.

Saturday Night Live is returning this weekend with remote sketches

This week’s show will feature sketches from cast members and a version of “Weekend Update,” which is hosted by head co-writers Colin Jost and Michael Che. It’s unclear how much of the show will be live or if everything will be prerecorded from cast members’ homes, according to NBC News.

Op-Ed – I spent six days on a ventilator with covid-19. It saved me, but my life is not the same.

For me, my lungs must rebuild their capacity. I experience breathlessness from even mild exertion. I used to run marathons; now I can’t walk across a room or up a flight of stairs without getting winded. I can’t go around the block for fresh air unless my husband pushes me in a wheelchair. When I shower, I can’t stand the entire time; I take breaks from standing to sit down on a plastic stool I have placed inside my bathtub.

When targeted ads feel a little too targeted – How do you outrun something that’s designed to follow you everywhere?

It wasn’t long after her mom died of cancer in March 2014 that targeted advertisements turned Lindsay Robertson’s version of the internet into a virtual graveyard. “It was just gravestones everywhere,” she says. “It was crazy. It was every type of gray, typical headstone covering all the available space.”

Robertson, the oldest of four, became in charge of certain end-of-life arrangements. She didn’t know how much headstones cost — so she googled it. This simple search likely triggered certain trackers that knew Robertson was looking for headstones, and then used that information to send targeted advertisements to her that then followed her around the internet.

Visualizing Whether Or Not Your Hospital Is At Risk Of Being Overwhelmed By COVID-19 Patients

This drone footage captures NYC workers burying bodies in a mass grave on Hart Island, just off the coast of the Bronx. For over a century, the island has served as a potter’s field for deceased with no known next of kin or families unable to pay for funerals. pic.twitter.com/wBVIGlX6aK

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 9, 2020

Modern Family’s finale felt a lot like the series finale of the CBS sitcom Alice. Something remarkably happy happened to all the characters which cause them to move. Being the macabre person I am, I would have had Jay died of a massive heart attack right before he’s able to tell her he’s been learning Spanish as a way to express his love.  Or, I’d have Jay have a massive heart attack right when Gloria confronts him with his last words, in Spanish, be, “Heart . . . attack”

One of the coaches of my hometown Mineral Wells Rams is that kicker Mike Leach invited to join his Red Raiders after watching him make a 30-yard field goal to win a promotional contest for six months of free rent.

I’d like to see Dolly Parton on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. It would be fun listening to her gabble as she talks through an answer.

I’m always amazed at the stuff I find while looking for other stuff.

I Lived With Tiger King’s Doc Antle For 8 Years. Here’s The Truth.– Former tiger caretaker Barbara Fisher is featured in Netflix’s hit true-crime docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. Below, she opens up to ELLE.com about what it was really like working for big cat owner Bhagavan “Doc” Antle at his controversial Myrtle Beach zoo.

Another Way to See the Recession: Power Usage Is Way Down – When the economy is moving too fast for the usual indicators, the electricity grid offers a valuable clue.

New data on electricity use in the past three weeks suggest a sharp decline in U.S. economic activity on par with that of the Great Recession. It may already be the deepest downturn since the Great Depression; it is certainly the fastest.

These numbers are important because our official statistics can’t keep pace with the abrupt economic changes the coronavirus shutdown has caused. All those closed stores, silenced factories and darkened office buildings are yet to be counted in the government’s official economic numbers, which take months to collect, process and report.

But evidence of the sharp economic shift shows up in a large and rapid decline in electricity usage over recent weeks.

‘What Am I Going to Do?’: Inside SportsCenter on the Day We Lost Sports

You Don’t Actually Want to ‘Boost’ Your Immune System

So if your immune system can be weakened, can’t it also be strengthened? Not exactly. If your immune system were stronger than normal, if it attacked more things more often, that would be a problem. “Immune overactivity is as dangerous as immune underactivity,” the British Society for Immunology explains. Allergies are an example of this. So are autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis.

How Much World Governments Are Spending On Coronavirus Economic Relief, Visualized

Personal finance site HowMuch took a look at data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other sources and mapped out how much other nations in the G20 were spending on their economic relief plans. Click here for a full-sized image.

A Natural Coronavirus Experiment Is Playing Out In Kentucky And Tennessee – The politically opposite neighboring states have had two different approaches to tackling the spread of COVID-19, and, some residents fear, two drastically different outcomes.

YouTube – Meet The Worlds Most Advanced Camera Stabilizer

Containership vs. Port Crane

Wimbledon reportedly paid $2 million a year for pandemic insurance for the last 17 years

(Total: $34 Million)

For this year's cancellation as a result of the Coronavirus, Wimbledon will reportedly receive $141 million from the policy.

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 8, 2020

Trump asked about pardoning ‘Tiger King’ Joe Exotic during coronavirus conference

“One of the biggest rating hits of the coronavirus, aside from these briefings, has been a show on Netflix called ‘Tiger King. The man who’s the star of this is a former zoo owner who is serving a 22-year prison sentence. He’s asking you for a pardon, saying he was unfairly convicted.”

Nelson also brought up that Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., “jokingly said he was going to advocate” for the pardon. “I was wondering if you’ve seen the show and if you have any thoughts on pardoning Joe Exotic,” Nelson continued.

The president cracked a smile. “Which son? Must be Don,” Trump said. “I had a feeling it was Don. Is that what he said? I don’t know. I know nothing about it. He has 22 years for what? What did he do?”

(Most of) the original Full House cast did a quarantine TikTok pic.twitter.com/EjewRLeHHJ

— Dr. Dave (@davejorgenson) April 8, 2020

I was forced to interact with my family yesterday. The power, cable, and internet went out two separate times.

The character (not actress, just the character) I’ve fallen for the most remains Dana Scully. But Kim Wexler comes in second place.

I drove by a clinic the other day and saw a yard sign which spelled “HEROS WORK HERE” with individual letters. The way it was set up, it looked like something corporate leadership told them to do. It didn’t appear as if members of the neighborhood placed it outside for them.

How to Escape From a Sunken Submarine – First of all, you can’t just open the hatch when you’re trapped at the bottom of the ocean. But there is a way out—it requires physics and some audacity.

An Illinois mayor ordered police to crack down on social gatherings. They found his wife at a bar

Acting secretary of the Navy resigns after calling ousted aircraft carrier captain ‘stupid’

It’s one thing for the secretary to call the captain stupid behind closed doors, but it’s really stupid to address the entire crew and refer to the captain as such. Did he not see how the crew honored the captain as he left the ship?

New Zealand PM adds 2 crucial figures to list of essential workers: The Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny

Landlord changes locks on California church after pastor said he’d continue to hold services

Members of a central California church found themselves locked out of the building after the pastor originally kept his doors open, saying the shelter-in-place orders violated his freedom to assemble.

But within the past week, the landlord of the Cross Culture Christian Center in Lodi, Calif. changed the locks, so congregants couldn’t enter the building for Palm Sunday services. The landlord is Bethel Open Bible Church.

Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word

Although President Trump has directed states and hospitals to secure what supplies they can, the federal government is quietly seizing orders, leaving medical providers across the country in the dark about where the material is going and how they can get what they need to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

Wisconsin House Speaker wears protective gear while telling voters they are ‘incredibly safe to go out’

History’s deadliest pandemics, from ancient Rome to modern America

The novel coronavirus has taken just a few months to sweep the globe. How many will die, how societies will change — those questions are impossible to fathom as the disease rages. But history shows that past pandemics have reshaped societies in profound ways. Hundreds of millions of people have died. Empires have fallen. Governments have cracked. Generations have been annihilated. Here is a look at how pandemics have remade the world.

D Magazine – The Highland Park Drug Ring – How did a mother of 10 and a Plano cop wind up pushing pills in the Park Cities?

Trump’s Coronavirus ‘Experts’: A Field Guide – Here are the brave men who aren’t letting a lack of relevant training stop them from weighing in on how to solve the crisis.

Trump defends his mail-in ballot after calling vote-by-mail ‘corrupt’