Welcome to the Jumble!

 

Good afternoon! Hope your Friday is treating you well. In light of all the unrest being generated by the social media viral idiocy, a co-worker suggested I take aim at some of the nonsense being propagated (i.e. racist cereal promotions that are obviously not racist but the people interpreting them as so might be, etc.) but I say nay. Don’t get me wrong, I have an opinion on all the craziness running amok but who has the kind of energy needed to run down each and every ninny turning over metaphorical rocks to find mythical monsters that don’t really reside there? Hmmm?

 Instead, I thought I would go in a little more whimsical direction and post some of the GIF’s and memes I circulated today to friends and social media outlets. Hope you enjoy them and it provides a delightful distraction to all the visible cracks in the framework of society!

  

P.S. I want to go see JIGSAW the movie! Who wants to go with?

 Peace.

<<10-27-2017>>

 

Friday – October 27, 2017 – Billy Martin for starters

Happy Friday y’all!

Yes I said y’all, deal with it.

My mind is a bit scattered today. For some reason I got the Yankees situation shoved down my throat this morning by local talk radio personality Bernie Miklasz. For those readers who are not really baseball fans, the Yankees play in New York and their manager was Joe Girardi. They almost made it to the World Series which is a pretty big deal. Joe was at the end of his contract and the powers that be (Brian Cashman) advised the ownership that he should not be retained…so he wasn’t.

What’s Your Interpretation?

 Good morning and welcome to your own Thursday. Let me pose a question that is both rhetorical and yet begging an internal answer. Do you think most people are good people?

Softball is not Dead!

 Some of you may be confused by the title of this post. If any of you around the globe listened to my podcast interview with Mark Balven, former NSA Director, you might remember him stating that he thought softball was dying. While the sheer numbers in the sport may not be what they once were, judging by the turn out at multiple events over this past weekend in Missouri and Illinois, the sport is still doing alright. Go about your business, nothing to see here.

Annoyances

$#%^@#^^%@$#$%@!!

Um, I mean good afternoon of course!

 Sorry for the crankiness right out of the gate but it’s just been one of those days. What kind of day am I referring to? Well, do you ever have one of those days where every single thing in existence seems to bother or irritate you? If not, good for you and go away. For me, there are just some days where from the first moment I crack my eyes open at 12:34am (and again at random intervals over the next five or so hours) that I just want to pull myself into an imaginary turtle shell and shut out all things. And I do mean all things.

Evil Dead – The Musical ?

Hello and welcome to my blog! If you choose to sing my words to the cadence of Baby Got Back in your mind (or out loud) that is your call! Now here’s my scandal…

It was a dark and non-stormy evening in St Louis last night. Cars and geographical landmarks whizzed by as we were late for something that started at 7:30pm or pretty close to that time. We exited the highway and soon approached the Fox Theater…then kept going per the insistence of the GPS lady’s voice. At the next block, we saw The Grandel Theater and turned left. Ah, so this was the destination! With haste, we parked and hurried inside with the time reading 7:40pm. A playbill was offered and some loose props were available to take selfies with but we were ushered inside to our seats. Luckily we had only missed a couple of minutes of the beginning of the play.

What should I write about?

Good morning. Today is Tuesday, October 17^th. That reminds me, I need to procure a light blue dress shirt so I can complete the ensemble cast for Halloween at work by embodying ‘The Professor’ from Gilligan’s Island the long ago TV show. Forewarned, I look nothing like the actor Russell David Johnson who portrayed ‘The Professor’; may he rest in peace since he passed away in early 2014. A quick trivia question: ‘The Professor’ actually was not his given name on the show. What was his character’s name?

…….

<<<Jeopardy Theme>>>

…….

I wanna be famous…

…said the seven year old boy.

 Good morning and welcome to mid-month October. Over the weekend I got to spend an extended period of time with my fiancé’s seven year old son Ayden. We normally spend evenings together during the week but from Friday night through Saturday and Sunday afternoon, it was just us dudes. He went to softball with me on Friday and supervised while I mowed the lawn and power-washed the deck on Saturday. We ate together and went to Walmart together and played some Uno and the board game Clue together. Back-tracking to the morning hours of Saturday, we went out to Hillsboro to visit my friend Matt who had been storing some of my belongings in his basement. While we were there visiting, we (me and Matt) were using the Tetris method to load my belongings into my spatially challenged car. But in the end, everything fit!

2017 Cleveland Indians – Final

I woke up this morning and the sky was a hazy gray. When I stepped outside, a fine mist greeted me. It was fitting. Depressing the remote entry button for the car, I proceeded to get into my 2015 Hyundai Sonata and situate myself. After the usual routine of locking in my seat belt, my next order of business was turning on my Zune player and pulling up my Linkin Park folder of albums. From there I selected Play All. Why was this my selection over perhaps some local radio chatter or one of the thirty CD options at my disposal? It just felt like the way to go in my gut, so I ran with it.

Where are you Jeffrey Maier??

Today is October 11, 2017. This is the month of October and coinciding with the MLB playoffs leading up to the World Series. Let’s step back in time for a moment to 1996, October 9^th to be exact. There was a baseball game that took place in New York between the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles. A 12-year old boy had the biggest influence on this baseball game played by professional athletes. The beneficiary of Jeffrey Maier’s interference was Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees franchise. On this particular day, Derek Jeter hit a deep fly ball near the top of the outfield wall. Orioles’ outfielder Tony Tarasco tracked the ball’s trajectory and settled under the spot the ball was descending towards. Mr. Tarasco reached up to secure the ball, for the catch, for an out…but uh, oh. The ball never reached his glove.

Friday and Blog Looking Back (B Vitamins)

Good day and greetings! Today is Friday, although it may not be that specific day wherever or whenever you happen upon this blog post.

As I like to do from time to time, I check out my reader stats to see who is reading my stuff and from where. A level down (from the total readers) tells me what is being read. I find it very interesting that in the first five plus days of October that the post of mine getting the most attention is a piece I wrote in June of 2015 on B vitamins. Aside from the regular readers that land on my ‘Home Page’ as it is book-marked, the next most viewed page (unknown search terms on Google) is on this piece I composed (with an image chart) detailing the effects, benefits and side effects of each class of B vitamins. Fascinating stuff – I mean the 19 separate hits on a piece 27 months old! – the post is quasi-interesting as well. Doing a quick scan of the B vitamin chart, perhaps I am in need of some B5!

If curiosity strikes you, you can always refer to my list of blog topics contained on its own page in a neat little spreadsheet. Granted some of the titles are vague or generic but there are many more with legit searchable information. I shall try to have another thought provoking post up later today as time allows.

Enjoy your Friday or other day you are currently experiencing!

Peace

<<10-06-2017>>

NFL – Week 5 Predictions (sure to fail)

– NFL Predictions as of 10-05-2017, Thursday, 12:20pm —

Thursday, Oct. 5

8:25 p.m. ET

New England Patriots (-5.5, 55.5) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers  -NEW ENGLAND 31-23

(Outcome: NE 19-14, straight up win, under predicted, failed to cover spread on pick)

Sunday, Oct. 8

1 p.m. ET

New York Jets at Cleveland Browns (-1.5, 39)  NEW YORK JETS  24-20

(Outcome: NYJ 17-14, straight up win, over/fail, pick covered spread)

Carolina Panthers at Detroit Lions (-3, 44) DETROIT LIONS 42-14

(Outcome: CAR 27-24, loss, over predicted, did not cover/fail)

San Francisco 49ers at Indianapolis Colts (-1.5, 43.5) INDIANAPOLIS COLTS 23-21

(Outcome: IND 26-23, straight up win, over predicted, Colts covered spread)

Tennessee Titans (NL) at Miami Dolphins TENNESSEE TITANS 35-10

(Outcome: MIA 16-10, loss, no spread/no total)

Buffalo Bills at Cincinnati Bengals (-3, 38) CINCINNATI BENGALS 19-17

(Outcome: CIN 20-16, straight up win, under predicted, covered spread/fail)

Los Angeles Chargers at New York Giants (-3.5, 44.5) NEW YORK GIANTS 28-24

(Outcome: LAC 27-22, loss, over predicted, point spread cover fail)

Jacksonville Jaguars at Pittsburgh Steelers (-8.5, 44) PITTSBURGH STEELERS 33-17

(Outcome: JAX 30-9, loss, under/fail, point spread cover fail)

Arizona Cardinals at Philadelphia Eagles (-6.5, 45) PHILADELPHIA EAGLES 27-9

(Outcome: PHI 34-7, straight up win, under predicted, point spread cover)

4 p.m. ET

Seattle Seahawks at Los Angeles Rams (-2.5, 47) SEATTLE SEAHAWKS 28-14

(Outcome: SEA 16-10, straight up win, under predicted, point spread covered)

Baltimore Ravens (NL) at Oakland Raiders BALTIMORE RAVENS 20-13

(Outcome: BAL 30-17, straight up win, no total or point spread)

Green Bay Packers at Dallas Cowboys (-2, 52.5) GREEN BAY PACKERS  35-28

(Outcome: GBP 35-31, straight up win, over predicted, point spread covered)

Kansas City Chiefs (NL) at Houston Texans HOUSTON TEXANS 27-20

(Outcome: KC 42-34, loss, no total or point spread)

Monday, Oct. 9

8:30 p.m. ET

Minnesota Vikings (NL) at Chicago Bears  MINNESOTA VIKINGS  24-14

Above are my predictions for the NFL based on point spreads and over/under totals. I think the last time I did these predictions I got 4-5 point spread predictions right and 4-5 over/under totals right and like 6 straight up picks correct. After the week 4 craziness I thought it would be fun to see how seriously bad I am at this and the reassure myself never to gamble.

Have a spiffy Thursday!

Peace.

Note: as of 10-09-2017 in the a.m. – here is how I fared so far:

Straight up 7-6  / Over-Under 8-2  /  Versus point spreads  5-5

Crazy Dreams

Good day readers, bipeds and people who ride those oversized tricycles!

Today is literally, Wednesday, October 4^th. It is not the morning time but somewhere in the early afternoon of the Central Time Zone from a US (United States) perspective. For those that listened to my Freak Show podcast on the Podbean app from this morning – thank you. And if you haven’t yet, please check it out!

If you did listen to me earlier, you may have caught me yawning once or twice. There was no Facebook live but just the audio from the in-car session. At that time I was recording, I had not yet switched over my car insurance but as of now I have. Hey, saving 28 bucks a month is saving 28 bucks! If you are anticipating a Segway from that to what I dreamed about, relax, I did not dream about saving a bunch of money on my car insurance. To be frank, it wasn’t simply one dream but like 6 or 7 fragmented dream sketches. I did not say Sketchers, we are not selling any shoes here.

OK I’m back. Sorry about that lag in between paragraphs. I was texting with Jeremy, whom I do the Sports Stalkers podcast with; he wants to go to the WWE Live event coming to St Louis.

Back to the dream couch for analysis: In one of the disjointed sleep episodes I was trapped on a football field with a bunch of strangers. The grass on the field was pretty dead and around the perimeter of the football field was a pretty substantial canyon or gulf. People were trying to jump to the canyon floor but many were breaking their legs or getting caught in quicksand. I tried to drive someone’s SUV down an embankment that didn’t look as severe. About halfway down, a bunch of people jumped on the vehicle and it started to go sideways and eventually tipped over. I exited the vehicle, after it stopped rolling over, through the area that was the windshield (the windshield had just fallen out). Going through the windshield was necessary because the doors would not open and the battery died so I could not roll down the windows. At this point I was pretty stressed out and it was getting dark. I couldn’t see past the top of the embankment and all the people were now gone. On the far embankment to leave the canyon, there was a knotted thick rope leading to the top. I ran to the rope and tried to pull myself up but I guess the top was not secured to anything because the rope was pulling over the edge about as fast as I could climb it. <<Break>>

At this point I started awake for whatever reason. This was about 2:30am or so. There were 3-4 other mini-dreams before this but I don’t remember the details. Eventually I fell back asleep and…

I was standing in a parking lot of some closed mall or something. There were tons of cars everywhere but the building(s) were all dark and no one was around. The only light was moonlight and it glared off many of the vehicles. For the most part the cars and trucks all appears to be new or at least recently washed. The pockets of my jeans were empty. No phone, no wallet, no keys, no money – nothing! I was wearing a blank white t-shirt which is highly unusual and someone else’s shoes with light up soles when I walked. There was a cold breeze and I was panicked because I was late for something. There was a horrible, tight feeling in my chest, like when I was a kid and got lost in a corn field. Whenever the wind would die down I kept hearing a noise. It might have been someone calling my name from very far away or an animal or something. I tried to go towards the sound but the wind would pick up or a loud sound would come from the building(s) and echo for a bit. After a while I tracked the sound to one of the buildings. The windows were tinted and it was dark so I couldn’t really see anything inside except random light blurs. I knocked on a window and the wind stopped. The sound stopped. Nothing moved and a cloud covered the moon so it was totally dark as well. Something smacked against the window hard and I retreated until I fell over a muffler that was now on the ground by me. The cloud left the moon and I could see the old, rusted muffler that I tripped over. Right next to the window I knocked on was a door and that door was wide open. In that moment, I was pretty terrified with what this might mean and I took off. I ran along the parking lot while trying to look between the cars to see if anyone or anything was there. During one of these moments I was looking between the cards, I ran into a parked ambulance. Getting up off the ground, my arm was now bleeding.  I could not hear anything and my instincts told me to climb on top of the ambulance. With only one good, arm, I awkwardly scaled the hood and made my way to the top. Something or someone rammed into the back of the ambulance and I almost fell off the side. But when I looked down the back, there was nothing there. All of a sudden, the two driver’s side tires blew out and I started to fall / slide over the edge…<<Break>>

Once again, I flopped awake and it was like 4:08 or 4:09am. My eyes were a bit itchy and blurry so I am not 100% sure. After that I laid there for a while and listened to the normal house noises, I fell back asleep. If I dreamed anything further, I do not remember.

So for all the amateur dream interpreters out there, what do you think these two dream snippets mean?

Happy Hump Day to all and to all an enjoyable remaining 27 days of October.

Peace.

October 3rd – (Unofficial) National Mean Girls Day

 Don’t know what I’m talking about with the title…Google it. And forgive me. 

In addition to paying homage to one of the greatest teen comedies of all-time (highly subjective judging here), I was cruising along the news feeds on the internet. Obviously dominating the headlines is the senseless tragedy from Las Vegas where a shooter killed nearly five dozen people and injured hundreds more. On an also somber note, the music legend Tom Petty has left the stage. 

In an effort to get away from the death and sadness, I ran across an article warning of an asteroid that will pass ‘near’ the Earth on October 12, 2017. Glad for the distraction, I clicked the link and read some NASA provided details on an asteroid set to ‘pass by’ the Earth on the 12^th. Now when I hear ‘asteroid’ and ‘near the Earth’, my mind jumps to the 1998 movie classic Armageddon featuring Bruce Willis, Ben Allfeck, Billy Bob Thornton and Liv Tyler (plus many more!). The plot of that movie was an end of the world scenario where a chuck of space rock, roughly the size of the state of Texas, is on a collision course with Mother Earth! Oh no! The end is nigh! But wait! The scrappy human race puts together a debatable ‘Dream Team’ to try to blast this rock apart and save our existence (at least on this plain). Despite the critical review of the late Roger Ebert (one star out of five rating), may he rest in peace, the film cost $140,000,000 to make but recouped that plus more in a total box office take of $553,700,000. This just goes to show, that artistically speaking (yes I’m talking about you Michael Bay of Transformers fame and considerable fortune), sometimes the people just want a cool story, special effects and a big name to entertain them for two hours even if the logical stuff falls flat.

 

Getting back to the present: Should we be concerned about this asteroid hurtling through our relative space? According to NASA, not so much. In the movie, the rock chunk was the size of Texas. The one coming in 9 days is the roughly the size of a bloated T-Rex. Also this T-Rex-sized rock mass is not supposed to be coming directly at the Earth, but about 31,100 miles to the side. So the planet, all applicable satellites and assorted space stuff alike should be good to go.

 Below is a link to a Wikipedia site that details the three dozen or so other notable asteroid incidents from 2017 so far.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth_in_2017

 Hope your Tuesday is bright, pleasant and filled with adoring pets!

 Peace.