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I saw the Geico lumberyard commercial for the first time yesterday and I bellied laughed even though it’s not that funny. It looks like it’s been out for over a month but it’s new to me.

While I like magic tricks I’ve never been much for card tricks. I have such a short attention span that I can’t focus and lose my mind trying to remember what rank and suit of each card.

John Bolton Likes Tweet Saying Trump Should ‘Fire the Moron Who Hired John Bolton’

Female Firefighter Fired Over Instagram Posts

Many of the firefighters at Kalispell, Montana’s Evergreen Fire Rescue have personal Instagram accounts where they share photos related to their work. The men are sometimes shirtless, posing proudly in their turndowns (the heavy gear traditionally associated with firefighting) and in front of firetrucks, trumpeting their pride at their profession in between posts relating to their hobbies, friends, and families. Presley Pritchard, a 27-year-old firefighter paramedic, was no different, including photos of herself in uniform mixed in among posts about fitness and workouts she created as a personal trainer.

Pritchard’s content was (and is), for the most part, the straightforward stuff fitness influencer accounts are made of, with a gentle Great Plains twist. Her personal posts were mixed in with published sponsored posts in partnership with wellness brands, but the latter never overlapped with her work as a firefighter. In most of the photos and videos she shares with her 87,000 followers (as of January 2020), she wears tank tops, sports bras, and leggings, usually while at the gym, and a pair of wireless, rose gold Beats headphones. In a few posts, she totes a gun or poses in snowboarding gear. In her captions, she espouses perseverance, positivity, and the power of Jesus.

Scientists tried to recreate a mummy’s voice with an electronic larynx

Robots learn to sweat to stop overheating

Hollow, pressurized reservoirs inside the fingers are filled with water and connected to the surface via ducts made of heat-reactive plastic. When the plastic hits a certain temperature, the pores open and water is pushed to the surface. There, it evaporates with a cooling effect more than twice as effective as those of the sweatiest beasts in the animal kingdom.

But why sweat? Aren’t there easier ways to cool robots? Well, that depends.

Most robots are made from metal, which is an excellent conductor and therefore good at dispersing heat by itself. But soft robots, which are designed for delicate tasks like medical procedures and packing fruit, are made from rubber, a good insulator. If and when soft robots become commonplace, they’ll need their own ways to stay cool.

There are other advantages to sweating, too. By building sweat glands into a machine, you can cool it below the temperature of its surroundings, something you can’t achieve with environmental cooling like fans.

Belk, one of the anchor stores at the Dallas Galleria mall will be closing, but the mall is about to get a major makeover. I think in the next ten years there will basically only be two Dallas malls, the Galleria and Northpark. Of course, some of the burbs will still exist, I can’t picture Stonebriar in Frisco closing any time soon. But good gracious, please put Music City Mall (formally Vista Ridge) out of its misery.

News Corp Unveils Its News Aggregator Knewz, And Oh Man Is It Ugly

Knewz is a website of aggregated news with no verticals, no images, no editorializing, no filtering — in other words, no governing principles of organization or curation. It is, if nothing else, a very confusing visual experience.

Tennessee Rep. Van Huss files bill to recognize CNN, Washington Post as ‘fake news’

“The older I get, the better I used to be.” – Lee Trevino

DaughterGeeding decided to start a newspaper for her classroom. The first edition has articles about current school events, the former headmaster visiting the campus, and comics. She had WifeGeeding print enough copies for everyone in her class.

I miss Andy Rooney complaining about random things.

I bought these at the grocery store yesterday and now I’m diabetic. I didn’t even take a bite, it happened by osmosis.

I have Kobe fatigue and his and his daughter’s funeral haven’t been planned yet.

West Virginia governor urges unhappy Virginia counties to secede and join his state

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) encouraged Virginia counties unhappy with the Democratic-controlled government in Richmond to secede from the state and join his.

“If you’re not happy where you’re at, come on down,” Justice said reportedly said at a Tuesday press conference with Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. “If you’re not truly happy where you are, we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia or anywhere you may be. We stand strongly behind the Second Amendment, and we stand strongly for the unborn.”

I had no idea BYU has its own creamery or that it was famous.

Romney busted for bringing ‘contraband’ BYU chocolate milk bottle to impeachment trial

(KUTV) — There are two beverages senators are allowed to bring onto the Senate floor — water and milk.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was busted by a colleague for bringing his own bottle of chocolate milk. Bottles are not allowed.

That chocolate milk comes from Brigham Young University’s Creamery, which is famous for its ice cream and milk products. BYU is Romney’s alma mater.

Romney left to the Republican cloakroom and returned with the chocolate milk in a glass, the Wall Street Journal reported.

She says, we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot for love
We’ll give it a shot

DOJ Assistant AG Apologizes to Judge After Illegally Practicing Law for a Couple of Months

Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey B. Clark stopped paying his dues to remain in good standing with the federal bar in October of last year—an oversight he discovered on December 9, 2019, according to a two-page letter submitted with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

US colleges are trying to install location tracking apps on students’ phones – Supposedly an easier way to track attendance

Barely over a year ago, we pointed out how dystopian it seemed when Chinese schools added “smart uniforms” to track their students’ attendance. But US colleges are already testing out a similar tactic with a location tracking app, which students are now apparently expected to install on their phones.

I say “apparently” because there’s some confusion over whether the schools are actually forcing this on their students. The Kansas City Star reported that at the University of Missouri, new students “won’t be given a choice” of whether to install the SpotterEDU app, which uses Apple’s iBeacons to broadcast a Bluetooth signal that can help the phone figure out whether a student is actually in a room.

I think Tim Tebow would make a good coach on The Biggest Loser.

I regret to inform you that Mike Bloomberg attempted to shake a dog’s mouth. pic.twitter.com/hKsagJ4xAf

— Christopher J. Hale (@chrisjollyhale) January 28, 2020

We Owe Food Regulation to a 19th-Century Chemist Who Poisoned His Colleagues –
The Poison Squad, as they became known, was a group of men who willingly consumed dangerous substances to force the government into consumer protections

Impeachment came up frequently when talking to Texas voters. Most were fatigued by it all, but those paying close attention defied party stereotypes. For our Three Meals series, Major Garrett traveled across the Lone Star state to speak with voters about the president and the 2020 election.

There’s going to be a generation of folks who will grow up thinking the ABC News show 20/20 has something to do with this calendar year.

I’ve seen a lot of folks on social media mention the coronavirus is nothing to worry about and the coverage is overblown. But the one thing which makes me think it must be a big deal is that China is so concerned about it that they decided to build a 1,000-bed hospital in a mere 10 days. Ten days! Popular Mechanics states they are doing it in just six days.

If you’re wondering just how this is possible, Chinese officials have taken on such projects before, like when they built a similar temporary facility in Beijing during the 2003 SARS outbreak. Officials completed that hospital, which also held 1,000 beds, in just a week, by a workforce of over 7,000. Over the course of two months, the hospital staff treated nearly 15 percent of SARS patients there, according to the Post.

Not that I’m complaining, but I’m really surprised that Sarah Palin isn’t working for the Trump administration in some capacity. The same goes for Michele Bachmann and to a lesser extent, Rick Santorum. If Palin were president, I think she’d be more incompetent than the current president but in much less legal trouble.

Frank Sinatra’s Italian marble and gold-seated Las Vegas toilets are up for auction. Rumor has it the golden toilet seats were made out of Sammy Davis Jr.’s jewelry he lost in a bet to the Chairman of the Board. Yes, I totally fabricated that story.

This Russian missile looks like something straight out of an action flick. – YouTube

She’s 75, And a Step Ahead of Her Competition – A Texas stair climber trains with a high school track team to prep for a race up the Eiffel Tower

An Irish Castle in Texas Full of Llamas

The castle, appropriately dubbed ShangriLlama, is a replica of Waterford Castle, situated near the south coast of Ireland.

The ShangriLlama replica is located about 40 minutes outside Dallas and is an ideal interactive experience for anyone who likes the South American animals or Irish castles.

• Last I checked, the Abilene area wasn’t considered North Texas.
• A hundred-and-fifty pounds didn’t sound like much to me, but actually seeing a picture of it frightens me.

Mountain lion weighing in at 150 pounds shot in North Texas

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile pulled over in Waukesha County

The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department pulled over the Wienermobile for not following the Move Over Law. The driver of the Weinermobile was given a verbal warning.

Snake bath

I binge-watched the highly acclaimed Fleabag and thoroughly enjoyed it, I enjoyed her unrestrained smutty humor. Phoebe Waller-Bridge charms me like a Syren with her bewitching smirk.

SNL sure did take some major shots at Jeffrey Epstein in their opening skit.

I also watched The Irishman which I thought was very good but not great. However, it was great seeing Joe Pesci back in action. The technology which makes the actors younger threw me off a bit, there’s just something slightly off about it which makes it unnatural and distracting. De Niro is an “old” man and has a particular walk, and I thought it showed in his younger scenes. Samuel L. Jackson had the same problem with some action scenes in Captain Marvel.

I so want to see a new Jack Nicholson film. There were talks of him returning to the screen alongside Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig, but he’s no longer attached to the film.

Huey Lewis and the News was featured on CBS Sunday Morning because of an upcoming new album with only seven songs. It’s only seven songs because Lewis has suffered from hearing loss, which he said he first noticed before going on stage in Dallas. Dang it, first our city is stigmatized with the killing of a president and it will forever be linked to Lewis’ loss of hearing. I got a kick out of the title of the upcoming album though I didn’t initially catch on.

So, where did the title “Weather” come from?

Lewis explained, “Do you get it? Huey Lewis and the News, ‘Sports,’ then ‘Weather.’ And it’s kind of appropriate, ’cause we’ve had some weather.”

Somehow during lunch with the family yesterday, DaughterGeeding brought up the subject of the STAAR test she took last year and one of the reading comprehension stories. In great detail, she described Big Tex’s fiery demise. It gave me a good laugh for two reasons. One, it painted us Texans in a that all too familiar stereotype, it was like something you’d see in a King of the Hill episode. Second, it reminded me of a comment I read on some website when it first happened, “You people don’t understand, this is our 9/11.” Sure, in the grand schemes of things that’s insensitive, but it still gave me a good laugh.

In 2019, more Americans went to the library than to the movies. Yes, really.

Yes, according to a recent Gallup poll (the first such survey since 2001), visiting the local library remains by far the most common cultural activity Americans engage in. As reported earlier today by Justin McCarthy:

“Visiting the library remains the most common cultural activity Americans engage in, by far. The average 10.5 trips to the library U.S. adults report taking in 2019 exceeds their participation in eight other common leisure activities. Americans attend live music or theatrical events and visit national or historic parks roughly four times a year on average and visit museums and gambling casinos 2.5 times annually. Trips to amusement or theme parks (1.5) and zoos (.9) are the least common activities among this list.”

I watched an old episode of Breaking Bad yesterday, I guess AMC was having a marathon. For the first time, I think I was able to make out that Walter White, while he was on chemotherapy, didn’t have any hair on his arms. That sort of detail wouldn’t surprise me with how great that show and Bryan Cranston is. It’s my understanding that even arm hair will fall out during chemotherapy.

Wheels stolen off Corvette Stingray test vehicle in Detroit

While on a recent conference call at work, someone was requesting a particular feature on a product and I genuinely didn’t understand how it was feasible and more importantly if the security team would give it their blessing. I thought I was being very diplomatic and politely inquisitive and was in a good mood. In a way, I was proud of myself for taking ownership and trying to please the person requesting the feature. But one person I report to send me an instant message, which is common and something no one else would be able to detect during the call. To my surprise, he said I was being “argumentative” and sounding like I was “arguing for the sake of arguing.” That really, really surprised me, and bothered me through the weekend. There have been times I’ve argued for the sake of arguing, but it’s never been with anything related to work. It certainly wasn’t my intention to come across like that, and this person I report to has complicated me in the past on my demeanor when others seem to be emotional. It was one of those instances in which I felt like I couldn’t retort, otherwise I’d be labeled not being able to accept criticism or feedback. That has happened to me before at a previous job. So, I just tried to be a good soldier and take my medicine, thank him for the feedback and appreciate his willingness to have a coachable moment with me. Yup, I resorted to “company speak” you’d hear on Office Space. I certainly didn’t want to, but I’m playing the long game, which isn’t always easy to do. I guess what bothered me the most was that I was doing my best to do one thing and the person in charge interpreted it as the complete opposite.

Wrong salute.

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Army’s liberation of Auschwitz.