Screwball

True story. About 15 years ago a guy I knew was at a neighbors house about a quarter of a mile away from where he lived. He rode his bike home. It was a slight grade downhill - easy - didn't even have to petal much. He was gassed. Turned into his driveway and crashed. There was a cop somewhere and swooped in. Busted him for a dui. I heard it on the police radio. He was close to home and riding a bike because he was due in court a few weeks later for a pending dui. Good guy, good job, just like to drink a few beers and talk to people. He lived alone, around 60. The next day he did the books at the place he worked, went home, got a gun, walked to the end of his street by the river, called the cops and told them where to find him, and put a bullet through his head.

Even when some of them make sense for a while, it doesn't last. Part of the bread, circuses, and rotating villains. They laugh at us.

Adding; rule number one in a bar is don't piss off your bartender. Rule number 2 is don't forget to piss before you leave.

The little dive bar I go to has 2 bartenders that could make a sailor blush (when needed) and aren't scared of anyone. I don't know how they do it, and I did it for 13 years. I appreciate them, tip them well, and try to be a sounding block when times are tough. I can't imagine what it might be like at midnight. No way I would even do it. Watching the potential idiots and how they deal with them is the best entertainment going these days. We had a live one the other day. Some lady showed up nobody ever saw before. Next thing you know, she was showing everyone her tongue could go below her chin. No teeth either. Let your imagination run wild how that turned out. I respect the **** out of these girls.

I spent years in retail. Gas stations, bartending/bowling alley before I moved on. Sometimes the pubic were not easy to get along with - especially a drunken idiot - or someone who thinks the bigger scene they cause will get the job done. I don't do it anymore, but I have to believe it is much more difficult today. Everyone should be a bartender for a couple of years. Nothing like dealing with drunks.

Just what we need, especially with that jackass involved.

Looking at the chart porn, the S&P is back down into the long sell-off candle from 10/10/2025. 9 month chart by day shortened from April 2025 when the last run-up began.

This might be paywalled but everyone will get the gist; Wall Street Blows Past Bubble Worries to Supercharge AI Spending Frenzy - from the WSJ

One New Years Eve we decide we would stay home and watch movies instead of going out. We made a list and Up in Smoke was one of them. Couldn't find it at any video store in town (small town). The only copy we could find was at the public library - wild - but thanks. I would have never thought that.

One morning I was going North. Just ahead me not to far was a flatbad truck that came from somewhere loaded with a huge crucible of molten aluminum headed for the Hydramatic plant on Alexis Rd. Just before the Craig bridge he got in a wreck, jack-knifed, turned on its side and spilled all the AL on the road surface. Talk about a major CF and traffic jam. I only missed it by a few minutes. What a mess that was.

Thanks but this didn't work either. Not sure what is going on. Will mess with it more when I have time. It is there, just really skinny. Nothing makes it wider it seems. AI wants me to setup a css file. I messed with that a little and it doesn't do anything either.

I'm glad my name ain't Dave. I wonder if he gets the connection. I haven't told him yet. 🙂

We have now agreed I will give him a new name. Thinking... I'm kinda partial to Hal. New sport, **** with AI.

After quizzing my Aussie buddy about rounding the penny, I thought, wait a minute... First, I believed him. Do I really want to do that? Especially without thinking about it? Besides, I was in the great state of Michigan today to visit the pot Mecca known as Monroe. But, my Aussie buddy makes sense. I will look at this again tomorrow.

Thanks. I figured it was easy to fix on the computer. I also think about some of the little bars and clubs who aren't very good at changing the POS thing. Unrelated to the penny. I watched $15,000 bucks of Ohio Lottery money go missing because of a cigar box behind the bar instead of two buttons on a cash register. There were three lottery machines, two that you had to put money in and one behind the bar that didn't. The workers would play Keno all day. They were the only ones who didn't have to pay for a ticket. When they won, they took the cash from the cigar box. I found 6 Keno tickets that I dug out of the trash by the two machines that needed money. They all had the same 3 numbers, with a booster, for $40. Six in one day, and I might have missed some. ON EDIT AGAIN: The ticket has a code that proves where the ticket was printed. If this goes on by one employee one day a week, there is almost your $15 grand. ON EDIT: Part of that point is they said they couldn't reprogram the keys so you could have a lottery in and lottery out, while saving all the winners.

Just for fun I asked my MS Co-Pilot AI Aussie buddy about this penny thing. Didn't know how to approach it or what to ask, so I'll save a bunch of fluff. Too funny. It then told me about the digital division of a penny, as in .5 cents. It then explained the rounding systems that will no doubt be implemented by our retailers who deal in cash. If a business knows that cash totals will be rounded to the nearest nickel, they can tweak prices so that the final total consistently rounds in their favor. This is especially effective in high-volume, low-margin environments like convenience stores or fast food. *** Isn't that something? You had to know there was a way to arb the round. I also read it cost $3.7 cents to manufacture a penny. Wild stuff.

The penny thing is going to be really really fun to watch. And you know someone is going to get pissy. How much is this going to **** up the POS registers?

Driving... By the way, you did a drive from the coast back to Chicago. I expected a full report. 🙂 I'll bet there are some driving stories in there somewhere. Don't we all crazy driving stories? It's crazy out there. I think about all the places I drove. Which one was the worse? I don't know. LAX area from Ventura on a Friday afternoon (took all afternoon and then some), or Boston downtown during the big dig. If I had to pick one it would have to be the Craig bridge in Toledo, Ohio, route 280 north to the I-75 split. Big old ugly drawbridge with steel grated road surface that needed fixed 8 of the 10 years I drove across it - one lane of course - you can only imagine. Every summer it began - so did Mad Max. Then a big boat would come through and it wouldn't go down. They could be lined up to the Michigan line.

VERY interesting. I have YouTube TV. I got an email today for a NFL Sunday Ticket deal for $48 bucks a month for the rest of the season. Since I lost ESPN due to the spat - I bought a subscription to ESPN, including ESPN+ so I could watch college basketball games. The only way to get that for me, until recently with some of these deals, was to pay for that exclusively. When I had Direct TV I had to pay the monthly charge, same with YouTube TV for the + since they only stream. According to what I can find about this new deal, all the ESPN stuff, ESPN Unlimited included, is suppose to be in the package. But there is a bunch of buts it appears. I want to cancel before I get charged for the next month. That buys me about 4 beers. We'll see how this goes.

It's kind of funny. I was always a cheap bastard because my dad was born in 1911 and mom in 1918. They lived through the depression and were poor as dirt. They couldn't even pay attention. 🙂 They were very frugal, and I was taught that very way. I used to wrap Christmas presents with newspaper. I caught holy hell over that, but I didn't care. Why spend money on wrapping paper when they deliver it to your door every Sunday (Toledo Blade - buck fifty)? All you need is a little tape. It's get's ripped up in milliseconds anyway. I found this paper in a place I never expected. It was wrapping a 2 or 3 year olds toy fire truck. I had to think why I bought it, my kids are too old. It was for my golf partner's son's birthday. The loudest and most annoying thing I could find just to hear him bitch at me. Then I decided I couldn't be that big of a prick and got him something else. This ended up in my closet somehow. He was old for a dad, so I gave him a break.

For those who use Firefox, is there a way to make the scroll bar on the right side wider?

I won't bore anyone with the back story, but this was kinda fun. This was from December 23, 2001 from the Toledo Blade. Searching AMZN a 5 pack is now over 8 bucks. Doing the math, I guess the good news is it's only a 4% a year. Exponents are a bitch.

NO SPOILERS I'm about 14% through the book and this is a great read. Thanks for the tip.

I just got the official email.