Blog Meets and whatnot

 Wandered over to my buddy Eric's this weekend for the Annual gathering Hysterics at Eric's.  

It used to be a gathering of bloggers.  I think of those of us there, this year, there are only a couple of us trying to write anything online regularly.  If that.  And if you can call what I'm doing while I procrastinate blogging.

Incidentally, this was the 20th anniversary weekend of the first time I wandered over to Eric's house for just such a gathering.

Always a good time.

Even if people were yelling at each other over pimento cheese.

Meme Dump

 

On Good Days, and whatnot

 Had a good day yesterday.

They've not been bad, lately.  But nothing's stuck out as an overly good day for a little while.

Yesterday was a good day.

Got to get lunch and watch a little football with my buddy Jeff.  Jeff's had a year, as the kids say.  But he was in good spirits, and made me laugh yesterday.  

Watched a little football.  Not sure if I've noted here, but I'm pretty well unaffiliated when it comes to the NFL.  I washed my hands of the Titans a couple of years back when Mike Vrabel and the Front Office started spatting, and they let Vrabel return to New England.  As far as I could see yesterday, there weren't many teevees showing the Titans losing to Houston, and nor were there that many upset about it not showing.

While there, my buddy James stopped by.  Weird Al played Chattanooga last week.  I'd given thought to going, but with the purchase of new vehicles for the business, and a couple bills to pay, money was too tight to justify the expenditure.  But, he brought me a little Weird Al Swag from the show.  James got to get his picture taken with the man, which had to be a cool experience.  James was one of the people I missed when I left Food Lion.  Just one of life's good dudes.

Later, I wandered out to the second spooky screening of the month at the Athens Movie Palace.  They played The Exorcist, which was a treat to see on the big screen.  And still legitimately creepy, 53 years after its release.

And did I mention cake?  Shyam made a beauty of a cake, using a castle shaped bundt pan she got.  Her Dad's birthday was this week.  She found a recipe for Black Walnut cake, and if I can brag on her:  it was a helluva good cake.

Last, and this relates to something that's happened at my bank.  This year, they switched to computer tellers.  I don't like it, but I haven't seen any advantage to switching banks.  I'm living with it, but I don't like it.  But anyway, I went in to make a deposit the other day, and the person on the other end of the conversation was having a rough day...it was evident even through the video link.  And in the middle of our transaction, his computer started hiccuping.  He was trying to figure out if my deposit had been made, and apologized, but was going to have to drop out of our conversation to confer with a supervisor.  He did so, and came back relatively quickly.  My transaction went through, but you could see he was still flustered.  I didn't say much...I told him it was no trouble on my end, and that he did exactly what he needed to do.

I honestly hadn't thought anything else about the transaction, until I received a card.

I kinda figured the card was simply an acknowledgement of having updated a mailing address from my P.O. box to my street address (not wanting to pay 200 a year for a P.O. Box anymore).  But instead, the card was a message from that teller, thanking me for my kindess.

Honestly, it touched me a bit.

Life's been weird.  Especially the last three or four years.  And there are days that it's felt like being Tommy just isn't working.  Like I'm doing something wrong by not acting like a complete asshole to people.

But the card helped.

Anyway.  I hope you hosers have a good day.  Be good, even people don't send you a card for it.....

Death, and whatnot.

I wrote a post.  And I've deleted it.

Somebody died.  They weren't a good person, in my dealings with them.  Rather despicable in my dealings, actually.

But, the outpouring of local sentiment is that she now sits at the right hand of Jesus.

Jesus better watch that hand, is all I'm saying.

House of Wax

 I'm procrastinating.

The local theater, the Athens Movie Palace, has programmed a few classic scary flicks on Sundays leading up to Halloween.  The first of this year's slate ran Sunday, and it was the 1953 Vincent Price led flick, House of Wax.

House of Wax has always held a special place in my heart.  

See, I was scared of a lot of shit growing up.  I didn't do horror.  There was enough stuff in real life to be afraid of.  I spent a good couple of years scared of Count Chocula, and was pretty sure he lived in the main bathroom of my house.  I would run past that bathroom door so he wouldn't reach out to grab me.

Regular movie stuff scared me.  Darth Vader scared me.  King Kong _terrified_ me.  That scene in Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan where Khan puts the parasites into Chekov's and Capt. Terrell's ears?  HORRIFYING.

So I didn't do horror.

But somewhere along the line, I watched House of Wax.

And it's light horror, but it's definitely horror.

 And somehow, I've always appreciated it, because I could see the human underneath all the burn tissue and gnarled hands that Price becomes, after the fire at his wax museum.  Even at 9 or 10, I understood the motivations, at least in terms of getting even with the guy who burned your art.  (And allow me a pause to say that the fire in the wax museum was always fascinating...and I think it had to be something of an inspiration for Spielberg in the scene where the Belloq and National Socialist buddies melt and explode after opening the Ark).  

I wandered a little more into horror stuff after that.  I watched and read Something Wicked This Way Comes.  a year or two later, I'd read The Shining, which began a lifelong fandom for Stephen King.

But a lot of my horror fascination stems from watching House of Wax.

Seeing on the Big Screen was neat.  Especially seeing what was meant to be 3D back in 53. ....

In which Pneumonic Plague is a thing....

Yikes   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/lab-worker-dies-after-suspected-leak-of-deadly-pathogen/ar-AA2dAvef?ocid=socialshare

You know, sometimes I think I read too much.

Annie Jacobsen followed up her Nuclear War: a Scenario this past summer with a tome called Biological War: a Scenario.  In it, she follows the same format as Nuclear War (a harrowing book, by the way...).  What she writes is a scenario based on extensive interviews with government experts who held the positions of knowledge and experience in those positions, detailing what the procedures and response would be when, in the case of Jacobsen's scenario, a weaponized form of Pneumonic Plague is released from an experimental lab.

Now, in that tome, the plague bacteria is a chimera that produces euphoria in those who are infected, so they are more gregarious to speed up the spread of the agent.  

So, what we're dealing with here (ostensibly) is plain old plague.

But that's enough.

Scary stuff, neighborinos.....

Cubs 2026

 Eh.  Whaddaya Say?

As stated in the previous post, they've been dead in the water since Labor Day.

I can't recall going into a postseason as underwhelmed and fatalistic about their chances as I was with this one.

The fact of the matter is, they hadn't passed the eye test since Labor Day, at least, and possible longer.

No matter how much Boog and JD and the polyannas trumpeted the Cubs' Record Breaking Offense.

The truth is, that offense had a handful of games (6, maybe 8 or 9) where they piled on runs, stacked offensive numbers.  

But they really weren't all that good.  They hit .249 with runners in scoring position.  And the number is actually less than that if you take out those crazy games where they scored 13 and 17 runs.  

It's why run differential is a fool's statistic.

Losing Horton early on, and Boyd for extended time was the thing that did it.  Cabrera was a bust in his first year with the club (luckily, the red haired wonder they traded to Miami to get him exceeded my 33% strikeout rate prediction by striking out nearly 40% of the time....which might be alright if you're putting up Kyle Schwarber numbers, but not if you're putting up Owen Caissie numbers....).

But it overworked and overexposed the bullpen, which was fair at best.  By the time they got to mid-August, the bullpen was tired, and didn't have any tricks left that the league hadn't already scouted to death.

I dunno.

It's disheartening.   

But that's life, ain't it?

The postseason goes on.  The Braves won, and will proceed to face the Dodgers.  I'm rooting for them.  And I think I'm rooting for The White Sox....which might get my Cubs card revoked, but I'm not local, so fuck it.

I just like my Phoenix metaphors.

Something else to get my Cubs card revoked?  I won't be too dismayed if the Brewers win it all.

They'd deserve it.  If only for leading the league in hitting with runners in scoring position (.276 don't you know?).  I won't be actively rooting for them, but it won't bother me an iota for them to win it.

However, if we're treated to another Yankees/Dodgers World Series I'm gonna flip some tables.

I'll probably go to Eric's house to do it.