Comcast/Xfinity has moved moved yet another channel from free to some premium tier. Can’t even find which premium tier unless I call 'em.
Oh, well. We weren’t really watching MeTV anyway.
But, Svengoolie!
I’m trying to buy a car, it’s complicated and it’s taking longer than I thought it would, the registration for my old car expires this month, and I got a flat tire coming back from car shopping on Saturday. 
There was a little good news—I only need to get two new tires to pass inspection, so it’s less than $300. I can live with that. It could be so much worse.
This sounds interesting!
Having been raised with Miracle Whip, it’s more of an instant reaction to the appearance of something white and creamy-looking in a glass jar. 
Sometimes, if someone creates a digital signature in Adobe, Bluebeam, or the default Microsoft .pdf reader, the signature will not show unless it is opened in that program. You may want to get the Adobe Reader, Bluebeam Vue, or the default Microsoft reader - they are all free, and it takes seconds to switch between them to see if your digital signature will appear.
I had a wisdom tooth extracted back in January. All good until the past week when I noticed a sore spot on my gum. I thought I had poked it with a chip but it didn’t heal. Yesterday it had a sharp point sticking out. Turns out the jaw bone will occasionally do this sort of thing as it is healing. Fortunately the oral surgeon could see me this morning. So off I went to have him cut open my gum and have at it with a file. Ouch.
YouTube stars
It seems every time I start to enjoy a YouTube channel, the channel gets too popular, the host(s) get too big-headed, and then want to make it all about themselves.
I can cite many examples, but the one that annoyed me enough to rant is Ozzy Man Reviews. It used to just be an Aussie, hyper-masculine (but not toxic masculine…more making fun of that kind of person), narration over funny videos.
Then he revealed himself “Here’s me face”. Ok, fine, good to see the face behind the voice I guess.
But now it’s at the point where you barely get to see the funny clips…a 5 second clip will be followed by 5 minutes of him talking about his opinions. No jokes, just his point of view, because he must know better than us, as we’re his audience.
Back to free again. I guess their moving the channel to a four-digit number confused the system for a bit.
Less of a mini rant and more of another wtf moment. Early voting has started so I downloaded the ballot to see how bad it is. Govenor, check. Lt Govenor, check. Attorney General, check. yada yada yada, check. Coroner, wtf? Since when is coroner a political office?
That’s usually the case.
Across the U.S., coroners are usually elected laypersons who may or may not have medical training, depending on local statutes. Coroners may also be appointed, again depending on statutes, and may also have roles such as law enforcement or prosecuting attorney.
Medical Examiners are generally not elected, but appointed to their positions, and are always physicians, usually forensic pathologists, who have specialized training in death investigation.
If you are only familiar with the latter system, the former might seem strange. (Honestly, it is to me.)
I guess a better question is why it’s a political office.
Yeah, I was really surprised to find out in some places, a coroner can be basically anyone who wants the job.
It always has been, going back to medieval England.
Note that the name “coroner” is derived from “crown”, as it was a political office that served the King of England. Basically, the job was to protect the King’s property, especially from the sheriffs of the land. (Think back to Robin Hood, imagine the greedy Sheriff of Nottingham snatching everything up, the coroner would make sure King John’s stuff was safe from him.)
Over time the powers of the coroner were stripped away, until all that was left over was having the authority to begin an investigation into a death that seemed unnatural or otherwise suspicious.
In modern times, many jurisdictions think that a doctor should be making that judgement call, not a politician. And so, there are medical examiners instead of coroners. And in other places, the coroners are pathologists (the difference can get murky); so they are basically medical examiners with the title of coroner. But traditionally and still predominantly, the coroner is a person who decides a death should be looked into (in which case there is a medical and/or criminal investigation, done by medical and/or law enforcement professionals).
“Heya, Dexter! So, how did this one die…?”
Makes me wonder how successful a campaign to set into law that all coroners must be doctors, or even to make the position non-political, would be in the end. I’d like to think people would care, since TV usually presents coroners as medical professionals or conflates it with pathologist.
A small rant-it’s very hard to avoid spoilers for films when YouTube videos show them in their titles and thumbnails. I’m not really sure how they could avoid this, though, and still attract viewers.
It’s easy, just avoid YouTube.
(When you figure out how to pull that off, please let me know.)
Temporarily become Amish?
May I suggest a book called 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics. Lee basically invented the science of forensics and tried very hard to get the coroner’s position an appointment of a forensics specialist in all states. There’s a lot in the book about the state of the law wrt forensics and coroners. IIRC, the number of states where the coroner is an appointed position and is required to be a specialist in some sort of forensics is astonishingly small.
There are 26 states which have a state medical examiner’s office which provides forensic pathology services, though this may be in consultation with an (elected) coroner at the county level.
MEs typically but not always are forensic pathologists. Sometimes ME positions are held by physicians without any specialized pathology training.
The idea of being supervised/controlled by untrained politicians was one of the factors steering me away from a career in forensic pathology, the others being relatively low pay, overwork due to the limited supply of forensic pathologists and lack of affection for the idea of doing lots and lots of autopsies. Getting to testify in court sounds like fun, but probably is less attractive after you’ve done it a number of times.