Your Bag of Nothing for Tuesday, August 20, 2024

  • I like how the NFL allows players to be creative with their cleats one Sunday a year, and I like that MLB allows them to be creative with their bats. It was fun to see home runs hit with them. Here are more of the bats if you are interested.
  • Hey, I know that place! My 49th birthday is in ten days. Thirty-three years ago, on that day, my dad drove me from Mineral Wells to Weatherford just so I could take my driver’s test as soon as possible on my 16th birthday. I think at the time, the DPS office in Mineral Wells only offered the driving test twice a week, and I would have to wait an extra day or two. In those days, a DPS officer rode in the passenger seat and told you where and how to drive and that was part of the test. It certainly was intimidating. My dad didn’t have to do that. I certainly could have waited a few days to take the test in Mineral Wells, but it really wouldn’t have changed anything significant in my life. But that’s part of a father’s love, and I miss.
  • Man, so much for the DNC giving President Biden a warm thank-you and send-off. What an embarrassment for all the speeches to go long and knock the president off primetime coverage. But for this liberal, it was still worth staying up for. It also caught BoyGeeding’s attention and he asked if he could stay up to watch it. I live for moments like these, so despite it being a school night, I let him stay up a bit longer. He had all sorts of questions and comments, and I didn’t get to pay a lot of attention to the speech, but that was just fine.
  • English ain’t easy, it be confusing.

  • I thought I’ve seen every footage and knew every story related to September 11, 2001 and the World Trade Center. But yesterday was the first I ever saw any of this.

  • The passage of time sure is interesting.

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Your Bag of Nothing for Monday, August 19, 2024

  • Unsurprisingly, Bono can pull off wearing a bib. Speaking of one of my favorite persons, yesterday’s Sunday school material started with a quote from Bono. I have never really looked at Psalms very intently, other than hearing Bono say that the Blues are the modern-day equivalent. I knew it was songs and poems, primarily written by David, but I didn’t understand the Psalms’ art, depth, and style. Today’s lesson was about how some of the books use the stair-step structure called a chiasm. And after studying how it was used in Pslams, we were encouraged to write and share ours. And it was beautiful hearing other people’s versions because it let me see a more intimate side of how they see our creator.
  • With the Cowboys making Trey Lance the backup quarterback, the writing is on the wall for Dak. This will be his last year as a Cowboy. Jerry had all these years to sign him for a much lower price than what the market is demanding, and Jerry isn’t going to pay Dak market price for the lack of playoff wins on his resume. He’s hoping Lance will improve and end up taking over for Dak at the start of next year. But there is no arguing about what a nice guy Dak is and continues to be.
  • There’s a COVID uptick and everyone’s allergies have been killing lately.
  • I continue to stand by the statement that I think less of a person if they take part in Greek organizations in college – Missouri student unable to see, walk or speak after ‘worst frat hazing injury ever in US’
    • I’d like to know how many of these “brothers” have visited and helped take care of him since the incident.
  • Is anyone else surprised that Greyhound is still around?
  • He stormed the Capitol and a senator’s office. Then he became a cop in a small NC town.
  • Couple sues Atlanta hospital for allegedly losing part of patient’s skull following brain surgery
  • I ran across a new article written about the ill-fated Titan submersible last week. Apparently, it’s certain they knew death was coming.
    • Crew of Titan sub knew they were going to die before implosion, according to more than $50M lawsuit – According to the lawsuit, the Titan “dropped weights” about 90 minutes into its dive, indicating the team had aborted or attempted to abort the dive. “While the exact cause of failure may never be determined, experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have realized exactly what was happening,” the lawsuit states. “Common sense dictates that the crew were well aware they were going to die, before dying.” The lawsuit goes on to say: “The crew may well have heard the carbon fiber’s crackling noise grow more intense as the weight of the water pressed on Titan’s hull.
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Your Bag of Nothing for Friday, August 16, 2024

  • NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Bad decision! –Nicolas Cage to Play NFL Icon John Madden in David O. Russell’s Biopic

    Amazon MGM is backing “Madden,” which will be written, directed and produced by Russell. The filmmaker was reportedly considering Will Ferrell and Hugh Jackman to star in the film before Cage was cast.

  • My late mother turned 76 yesterday. For her birthday, I would normally ask my readers to read something as my mother enjoyed reading.
  • I started this blog on one of her birthdays. That’s right, believe it or not, but this blog turned 19 yesterday.
  • The Harris Walz campaign are rolling out videos of the two getting to know each other. I watched one video in which they discuss music. It wasn’t surprising to hear Walz talk about Springsteen and Bob Seger and Harris about Prince. But I was surprised Harris’ husband is a big Depeche Mode fan.
  • It’s nice to see President Biden is lightening up; he had a pretty good one-liner speaking to a bunch of visiting influences earlier this week:
    • “You break through in ways that I think are going to change the entire dynamic of the way in which we communicate, and that’s why I invited you to the White House, because I’m looking for a job. You think—when I retire, where do you think I’m going? I got contacts, man, you all think I’m kidding.”
    • Of course, at his age, no one expects him to be building houses like Jimmy Carter, who, surprisingly, just won’t die. he’s been in hospice forever. But Biden is right, presidents have contacts, some you can’t even imagine. I wonder what he’ll do or what he has in mind. I’m guessing something small, like a retired POTUS podcast. Hey, that’s an idea. What if all the former living presidents got together on Zoom or some other medium and talked about their lives or current events once a month? You could get a presidential historian like Jon Meacham to host and keep the conversation flowing. Being such a people person, I could see him teaching and really enjoying it.
  • A 22-year-old NewsNation reporter in Chicago was killed last month after she was struck by an oncoming commuter train. You’d probably think it happened because she wasn’t attention because she was looking at her phone or couldn’t hear the train because she had earbuds on, but both were in her purse. The article mentions the parents following her commute home using the Life360 app and slowly realizing what happened in real-time, which is gutwrenching to read as a parent.
    • Then after five or so minutes, Bentkowski noticed her location started going backward toward the city instead of Northwest Indiana. He thought someone stole her phone, then the GPS dot started going 70 to 80 miles per hour toward the University of Chicago Medical Center. “I got a bad feeling she was the one who was hit, as soon as I saw she ended up at University of Chicago I hopped in the car and drove down there,”
    • Something that also must have been gutwrenching for them was watching a video of the accident with sound.
      • Family viewed video of the incident and told WGN News no horn was blown by the conductor and the train accelerated quickly. “No noise, no nothing. From the video all you hear is a thud,” Bentkowski said. “Then the engineer blows a horn.”
  • Yesterday the Musers talked about Texas high school stadiums. I thought it was interesting and smart of the folks in Denton to put the video board directly across the field behind the visitor stands so the home crowd doesn’t have to turn their heads. The visitors also have a scoreboard, but it’s off to the side. I almost want to go on a rant about how all high school stadiums, including the one in Mineral Wells, all have to have a video board. It seems they are standard now, even for small towns.

    This one is also interesting. It doesn’t look like that right now as it’s being repaired from storm damage.
  • Staying on the topic of athletic venues, the LA Clippers’ new home, the Intuit Dome, opened this week, and it’s caught my attention. Every seat will have a USB charging port. There’s a HUGE screen out front for fans who can’t get inside to watch the game outside with a basketball court in front of it, which is designed to be used by the community, and can be rented out for various special events. One concourse features a display of high school basketball jerseys from every single school in the state of California. Here are a few pics and videos.


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Your Bag of Nothing for Thursday, August 15, 2024

  • I thought I had a decent poker face, but now I humbly admit I do not. I was on a date yesterday evening and was having a good time. My date was telling me a story and stopped out of concern, asking me what was wrong because my face changed, almost like I’d seen a ghost. That surprised me because I did all I could do to keep a straight face and stay engaged as my ex-wife walked by. I thought this stuff only happens in the movies. I think it’s all in my eyes because I really tried hard to act like nothing happened. At first, I was mad at myself, thinking it wasn’t her and I was letting her live rent-free in my head, again. But then I noticed a certain mannerism she always does when she gets stressed, and then I knew for sure it was her. It all worked out. I think it broke the ice, and she asked for my number after I escorted her to her car.
  • I ran across an article about Pamela Anderson’s son, which said, “Pamela Anderson’s 28-year-old son, Brandon Thomas Lee, was removed from the swanky country club he’s a member of after an altercation on the golf course.” I wonder why fathers, especially ones who are celebrities in their own right, aren’t included as a parent.
  • In retrospect, should they have used the Top Gun anthem during Tom Cruise’s entrance into the closing ceremony? I’m not complaining about the music; in fact, I’ve been scouring the web for the song H.E.R. played as he descended, but it seemed like a missed opportunity. For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about the moment, which I knew was coming because of press leaks. I really got a kick out of how he gazed into the camera just before he jumped as if it were nothing.
  • I like Simone Biles’ husband, Chicago Bear Jonathan Owens. The latest Hard Knocks focused on him a bit as he left training camp to support his wife. He’s obviously not as well known as her, but I liked the way he answered a question about how marrying her is a true prize, which it is. But he said he thinks of it as her winning the prize. He said in a non-selfish manner, which caught my attention. I wish I thought about myself as positively as he thinks about himself. Something else that caught my attention was how perceptive he was and his professional athletic mindset. He was commenting on a rope climbing contest he lost to his wife. He pointed out her form and how she didn’t waste any energy. That tells me he studies technique. And if I were a coach or fan of the Bears, I’d be happy that he’s our starting safety, who has to read defenses and constantly acts on his perceptions. It’s just a part of his personality and who he is. I wish I could identify something like that in me and be in a profession that takes advantage of it.
  • This isn’t all that surprising – Celebrities do have an impact on elections, Harvard study finds
  • LiberallyLean mentioned Willie Horton yesterday.
    • Curious, I searched to see if he was still alive and in prison. Yes, and yes, and he’s 73.
    • I also discovered that Dukakus is still alive and 90 years old.
    • That led me to read about the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater and a 2015 article on the Marshall Project’s website. This part stood out:

      • “My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood,” Atwater wrote in Life magazine just weeks before his death, at age 40, of a brain tumor. “In 1988,” he continued, “fighting Dukakis, I said that I ‘would strip the bark off the little bastard’ and ‘make Willie Horton his running mate.’ I am sorry for both statements: the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes me sound racist, which I am not.” There were rumors that Atwater sent Horton a personal letter of apology. Horton says he doesn’t remember that, but concedes he received so much mail during that time, it could have easily gotten lost or thrown away.

      • One cool feature of the Marshall’s Project website, at least that article, is how they embedded audio clips. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I liked it. The clips complimented the article and were nonintrusive. You simply click on the clip, and it plays and transcribes what was said with a countdown timer. I guess I’m too used to how most articles link to another page or pop-up video player and force you to watch an ad before hearing what you want.
  • A University of Kentucky student pleads guilty after singing the N-word 200 times at black staffer in 10-minute rant
    • You can watch a clip of the unfortunate event here. Those two black women were very composed.
  • It warms my heart when I hear random stories about Robin Williams’ kindness – Sally Field Recalls How Robin Williams Changed Mrs. Doubtfire Filming Schedule After Her Dad’s Sudden Death
    • There’s a push to put a statue of him as his Good Will Hunting character in Boston, and Matt Damon had some cool things to say about it, after hearing, I like the idea behind it,
      • “I don’t know if it will happen, but I really hope it does. Someone proposed to us an artist to do a bronze statue of Robin and permanently put it there, and the idea being that if you feel alone you can go sit next to him, which I think is the coolest idea.“
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