BagOfNothing.com

Somebody named Keith forgot to publish this post this morning, sorry for the delay . . .

• I’m not sure how many people still have landline at home and only use their mobile phones, but I still have one because I work from home and stuck on conference calls all the live long day, and Ooma makes it super convenient and affordable. With Ooma, you get free VoIP, you just need to buy the box, and I think I got a refurbished model a decade ago for fifty bucks. On my office desk is  a cordless phone and a base unit with a speakerphone. Sometimes I take cordless phone around the house and will use the speakerphone option, but recently the speakerphone speaker broke. For the heck of it, I took apart the phone and found a tear in the speaker. The speaker itself is a little of an inch in diameter, and the cheapest replacement I could find was eight bucks. However, I had a pair of old headphones I never used and broke it apart and found the speaker was almost perfect. I did the switcheroo and a small bit of soldering and it was as good as new. Heck, it’s even louder and clearer than the old speaker. And I believe yesterday was the first time I ever soldered something.
• In Peter King’s MMQB, Brett Musburger shared a great story about Vince Lombardi and how times have changed regarding game day:
  • On Saturdays before Green Bay home games in the sixties, Red Smith and some of the New York columnists, and some of the rest of us coming in for the game from out of town, we would all go to Lombardi’s house for cocktails and hors d’ouevres. And he’d be there with a drink, as jovial and engaging and as wonderful a personality as you could imagine. Vince Lombardi! Entertaining the media the day before the game! Somebody would ask him about his preparation, and he’d say, ‘Hay’s in the barn, young man. Nothing I can do.’
• For some reason yesterday, I got really interested in the baseball attendance records for U.S. presidents.
• It’s “silly” presidential tidbits like this that I enjoy – Trump sticks with tradition for presidential pen choice
  • When he signs executive orders, Trump is using a Century II black lacquer and gold roller ball pen, made by manufacturer A. T. Cross. The Trump White House put in an initial order for 150 of the pens.
  • Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also used the Cross Townsend pen, although Obama later switched to the Century II. Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were also known to use Cross pens, however, the official Cross-White House program began under Clinton.
  • Trump, Obama and Bush use the medium felt tip refills — Bush in blue, Obama and Trump in black.
  • The Century II in black lacquer is available for purchase for the general public with an MSRP of $110 for the rollerball pen, plus the $6.50 felt tip refill.
    Cross sells the pen to the White House through a distributor in the Washington area, the spokesperson said. The distributor gets a discount, paying less than $50 per pen, although it was not immediately clear how much they charge the White House.
• This is an impressive young man – Va. student appointed to all 4 main US military academies
  • Being appointed to the United States Coast Guard Academy, the United States Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy and the United States Military Academy is a rare achievement. The Trinity Christian High School student told us that the accomplishment is “almost surreal.” But it is something this 18-year-old has been working toward since he was very young. “I would say when I was about 8 years old, there was a documentary on the History Channel talking about these four service academies and I thought to myself that day, I want to do that,” he recalled.
• I’ve been looking at some virtual reality apps on the Google Play store, but some of them are quite expensive. I recently discovered, and I guess iTunes has something similar, but if you don’t like the game, you can get a refund within 48-hours.
  • You may request a refund within 48 hours of the transaction if something you bought isn’t working, isn’t what you expected, was bought by accident, or you changed your mind about the purchase.
• Eleanor Roosevelt would have been a force on Twitter.

Eleanor Roosevelt raps JFK on knuckles after he complains about her public criticism, yesterday 1959: pic.twitter.com/ytinWG6Oec

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 30, 2017

• We ate at Hutchin’s BBQ in Frisco and decided to walk it off by visiting the Cowboys’ new headquarters. We didn’t take the tour, just roamed around a bit. You see a lot of kids playing football on the field, and BoyGeeding thought he’d try to rush the passer a few times. When we first arrived, we saw a missing top floor window along with a firetruck and ambulance with paramedics wheeling a gurney inside. I thought I may have had some sort of scoop on something, but nothing came of it. And I’m sure there’s some sort of joke you can come up with that picture and the playoff loss two weeks ago.
• I’ve got a bad habit of answering phone calls from unknown numbers, but I don’t plan on doing it anymore because of this latest scam. Basically, they record you saying “yes” and can use the recording to bill you for products. At first, I thought the article was satire but it seems well sourced, although telling you to call 911 is a bit drastic.
• However, last week my phone rang and the caller ID showed it was from the Bahamas, which raised an eyebrow. I answered and a man speaking with a South Asian accent claimed to be from the IRS. He referred to me as “sir” but I told him I was a woman, but in a very low voice. He apologized but said I  must send him money or go to jail. I then pretended I thought he was Donald Trump and excited to hear from the new president and would be happy to contribute to his re-election. For the next few minutes he frustratedly tried to convince me he wasn’t Donald Trump but I kept telling him that I knew for certain it was him and saw him on TV. Eventually, he started to call me some very vulgar names and told me I couldn’t be a woman. I told him it hurt my feelings he didn’t think I was a lady because the surgery cost me my retirement and then I placed the phone next to the radio so he could hear Norm on The TICKET.
• Back in 2010, Donald Trump lobbied for Mike Leach to get the University of Miami head football coach job. I would have liked to see how that would have turned out. I also thought the possibility of Leach coaching at Miami was more probably than a Trump presidency.
• It seems like VP Pence shadows the president a lot, more so than what I recall seeing from other VPs, and we are just a little more than a week in with this new administration.
• I’d feel like President Trump’s heart would be in the right place if his executive order also included countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which had direct connections with the 9/11 hijackers – 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia, and the others were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon.
• I never heard of the Alfalfa dinner until yesterday, but it’s basically a more select and high profile version of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Presidents usually attend as the guest of honor, at least in their first term, so it was news that Trump didn’t attend, but V.P. Pence was there in his honor. I like it when the “powerful” have to drop their guard and roast each other, here are two things I thought was funny:
  • This line was thrown at Pence, “As a special treat, sir, we have arranged for the cast of ‘Hamilton’ to perform for you.”
  • The vice president said the administration planned to build a wall between the White House and the press — and that the New York Times was going to pay for it.
• Liberals may have found someone to despise even more than Dick Cheney
  • Trump puts Bannon on security council, dropping joint chiefs
    • President Donald Trump is reshuffling the US National Security Council (NSC), downgrading the military chiefs of staff and giving a regular seat to his chief strategist Steve Bannon. Mr. Bannon, formerly the head of the populist right-wing, Breitbart News website, will join high-level discussions about national security.
• I’ve seen presidents 43 and 44 put their feet up on the Resolute desk, but President Trump is the first I’ve seen to not use a coaster. But then again, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any sort of drink on the desk.
  
• I’ve also noticed that President Trump tends to keep a messy desk. Well, maybe not so much a messy desk, but I’ve often seen a large stack of papers and folders.
• It’s not apples to apples, but this reminded me of the time President George W. Bush held hands with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
  • Donald Trump holding Theresa May’s hand was ‘chivalrous gesture’, Downing Street says – Prime Minister’s spokeswoman says the US President ‘offered his hand, which she took as they stepped down the ramp’
• The Press Secretary retweeted an article from The Onion about himself, and he obviously didn’t thoroughly read it.
• Pittsburgher Starts Petition To Rename Airport After Mr. Rogers
• Dallas Morning News – National reaction: Baylor deserves death penalty; no defending Art Briles after new lawsuit
  • A new lawsuit filed against Baylor and obtained by The Dallas Morning News on Friday alleges that there were at least 52 “acts of rape” by 31 Baylor football players from 2011 to 2014. This included five gang rapes, at least two of which were committed by 10 or more players at one time, according to the lawsuit. These numbers are significantly higher than previously disclosed by Baylor’s regents.
• In local Lewisville news, a massive pajama party got out of hand – 39 police officers shut down fraternity pajama party in Lewisville
  • Every available officer from Lewisville as well as officers from Carrollton, Flower Mound, Coppell, DPS and Denton County were called in to control the crowds. In all, there were 18 officers from Lewisville, and 21 officers from other agencies due to the size of the crowd.
• Creepy GIF of the Day – Python climbing a tree, at least I think it’s a python.
• Adorable GIF of the Day – Chubby weenie dogs “attacking” a lion
• Interesting GIF of the Day – Frozen pike eating bass
• I’m loving the music on HBO’s ‘The Young Pope’, here’s a GQ article on it –
  How The Young Pope Got Its Batshit Soundtrack
• I had no idea actor Timothy Olyphant is the great-great-great-great grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt..