Taunting usually has to be directed at someone in particular. For example, if you point at the crowd and scream, point in the air and scream, it’s fine. Point at the player that failed to tackle you and scream, taunting penalty. Or at the opposing sideline, that is often taunting.
The new kickoff rules are one of the best changes in the NFL in a while. They’ve made it safer, where people aren’t running at each other full speed from complete opposite sides of the field (which was literally paralyzing folks; it was probably the riskiest play in all of the NFL). But at the same time it’s more exciting, because there are incentives to make the ball returnable, and an incentive to run the ball back. For years a kickoff was almost always a touchback, and it was getting to the point where there were suggestions to just skip the kickoff and start the offense at the 25 yard line automatically. Now, you see return attempts more often than touchbacks, and it is glorious.
Even when they have a football person there, they often pay little-to-no attention to the game. I watch the Manningcasts after a game on YouTube, because sometimes they have funny interviews with people, but when a game is live I want to actually watch the game.
One good thing about the Kansas City Chiefs having a sucky season this year is that maybe next year we won’t have Jim Nantz and Tony Romo calling every frickin’ Chiefs game on CBS. I’d much prefer Kevin Harlan and Trent Green doing the games, which happens maybe once a season.
(Green is a former Chiefs QB and Harlan was “the voice of the Chiefs” on their radio network for many years before moving to CBS.)
I know that feeling… On radio broadcasts here, the announcers are both former Seahawks (Steve Raible and Dave Wyman). Hearing former players for a team call the game usually brings up nice anecdotes.
I Pit myself for stupid procrastination that cost me $150 (plus tax).
Months ago I ranted about being fed up with the hot water heater rental cost and was gonna do a buyout from the totally useless company that was recently spun off from the gas company. The thing had been amortized at least 5 times over, over the course of maybe 16 years, but the bastards were still charging $50 a month, whose only value was insurance in case something broke. By now the buyout cost should be zero, but the bastards still wanted $100.
Seems like a no-brainer to just buy the thing out and have them leave me the fuck alone with their constant overdue bill threats (their billing system is beyond useless). But I put it all on hold and then forgot about it. Should have cancelled everything at the time. Now the blood-sucking leeches want $150 in accumulated back fees plus another $100 for the buyout plus tax.
I’m paying it, because it’s worth it to never, ever hear from those fuckers ever again.
We’ve done two big jigsaw puzzles in the office breakroom over the last month or so. I pit whoever has stolen one piece from both of them. I’m pretty sure who did it.
Fireable offense in my opinion. Fuck people who can’t let other people have their own fun. You don’t have to like everything other people like, just be happy they’re happy!
My company kicked off a new process we’re expected to comply with without actually training us, explaining things to us, or otherwise verifying we are set up to follow through. I fucking hate this place but love the actual customer level work. The people are mostly fine too, it’s more a big-level-corporate hellscape that makes me want to quit regularly.
At least a band I like has announced a show on a Friday, on my birthday, and fuck yeah I wanna mosh. Unfortunately it’s several months away still.
A climate change rant, I’m sure. We had unseasonably high temperatures today as an extraordinary warm front moved through. Spring-like temperatures in early January. But this is not supposed to happen and Mother Nature was pissed.
I went out today to retrieve the recycling bin and the wind nearly blew me over, along with driving rain. I think I saw something in the forecast of gusts up to 90 km/h (56 mph).
But that’s not the rant. I felt fortunate that at least the power didn’t go out. And then, around 8:30 PM or so, feeling tired because I didn’t sleep much last night, I went to bed for a nap. And then all the lights went out. The timing was odd because the winds had mostly died down by then, but now I was about as pissed off as Mother Nature. I lay in a sort of comatose half-sleep for about two hours, then went downstairs with the aid of an emergency flashlight, lit two candles as if in prayer, and consumed a vat of rum because … what else was there to do? The power didn’t come back on until nearly midnight.
We often hear how dependent we are on electricity – hardly a sage observation – but for some of us (like me) it’s to the point that there’s literally nothing you can do without it. I sat there in the light of two candles drinking rum, cursing the power company, and imagining what it must be like to be imprisoned in solitary confinement. I could escape if absolutely necessary, but I’d have to pull the emergency release on the garage door, because that won’t work either without power. I suppose in a pinch I could just drive right through it!
I feel for you. What I do during blackouts is a recurring pattern of, “Oh, I should iron that blouse….oh, yeah, can’t.”
”Well, I could finally get around to dusting my book shelf….. oh, yeah, I won’t be able to see if I’ve gotten all the dust.”
”Maybe I should use the time to file all the papers that have built up in ;my in box…oh, yeah, with my lousy eyesight I have zero chance of finding the right folder for that paper, by candle light…which is silly to worry about since I won’t even be able to figure out what paper it actually is.”
Play solitaire? Nope.
Read? Nope.
Watch TV? Seriously???
And so on, over and over and over. It’s like I can’t just flip a universal “don’t even THINK about stuff that requires electricity” switch in my brain. Drives me nuts.
Back in Taiwan for a couple of days and using public transportation.
For the love of anything holy, play your fucking video games on mute! I don’t want to hear it.
That goes for the self important prick at the ski resort cafeteria who was watching a video on his phone without headphones and cranked to high volume.
The two things to do during power failures at night are sleep and sex. Back in the days when every night was a blackout they had a lot more children. QED.
It’s handy to have a Kindle when the lights go out. I can get about two weeks of charge on mine. Can’t download new books but I’ve got a million I haven’t read yet. I also have a Kindle Scribe, so I can write if I feel like it.
But most of the time when the power’s out I spend the entire time obsessing about when it’s going to come back on.
I was up here posting … reading … and posting. Someone knocked on the door, but I didn’t hear it… and I didn’t go downstairs.
My wife answered. Was it ‘Gun Toting ICE’ ? No.
It was Mikie Sherrill… Governor Mikie Sherrill… and I Missed Her…! God Dammit…!
For some of you, that would be like missing Brad Pitt or George Clooney or The Fucking Lone Ranger. At My Door…! And I didn’t go down those steps to say ‘hi’. I didn’t give her a sealed bottle of ice cold water. I didn’t even giver her a tin of home-made Xmas cookies.
Fuck this world. Fuck this internet. Fuck this timeline.
As long as it’s a Paperwhite or some other illuminated model!
Had the power outage continued much longer, my plan would have been to curl up in a nice warm bed and read on the Kindle. But when the power came back on, my first priority was to make sure the main computer was OK after the unexpected shutdown.
Learn how to play an acoustic musical instrument. Then you just need enough light to see your sheet music and keys/strings/etc. to provide your own entertainment.
That’s something I’ve never done, and I’m sure am the poorer for it. But now I never will, because … old dog, new tricks, etc. Whereas I’m highly skilled at consuming Caesars, martinis, and rum, even if the required level of skill to do these things well isn’t especially high!
Inasmuch as you live in an apartment in a high-rise, and soon I probably will, too, let me suggest a third “fun” activity to do during a power failure, and it’s one that totally gives me the creeps.
And that is the “fun” activity of being stuck in an elevator when the power goes out!
What freaks me out even more in very tall buildings is the express elevator, where there may be hundreds of feet of nothing but concrete shaft above and below.
Thousands of people were trapped in stalled elevators and subway cars during the Northeast Blackout of August 14, 2003. Fire and transit officials took hours to rescue everyone, with some individuals remaining stuck for nearly 19 hours.
