--I was a teenage Notary Public.
--I wonder if Donald Trump’s hotels have bibles
in all of their rooms? If they didn’t before, they probably do now! (Check your statement CAREFULLY before you
check out.)
--You're an old-timer if you can remember
having to wait one week instead of one second to see how your
pictures turned out.
--Attention, True Crime buffs: There three more entries into this
proliferating genre: “Bail Jumpers,” “Good Cop Bad Cop” (both self-explanatory)
and “Evil Eye,” devoted to nogoodniks who owe their capture to those
all-seeing, all-knowing surveillance cameras. Look for the ID Discovery Channel
on your TV channel grid and laugh along and gasp along with the losers and the
lawmen (and lawwomen) who populate these gripping, formularized dramas.
And this just in--yet another entry! “Lethally Blonde,” which, according to the
promo, “explores the power and the perils of being a beauty in our society.”
--He said it: "Show business is not so
much a 'dog eat dog' world as it is a 'Your dog won't return my dog's
phone calls' world. "--Woody Allen
OPENING DAY BASEBALL MUSINGS:
--Some people
love to point out that even the best baseball players--those who hit about
.300--succeed only 3 times out of 10. Meaning, they always love to add,
that they fail 7 times out of 10. (As if
that makes the fandom’s failures in life more acceptable, apparently.)
--A good
thing, don't you think? YOU THINK THE GAMES ARE LONG NOW? Think how long
they'd last if they succeeded 7 times out of 10!
--(Wife:
"Jim, do you think we can go pretty soon--it's the 43rd
inning!" Jim: "Aw--let's stay just two more times through the
batting order. I wanna see if they can score 30 runs this inning. Could
be a record!")
--Speaking of baseball, I really had self-esteem problems growing up. Serious problems. I mean, I used to fantasize about striking out with the bases loaded. In the ninth inning. Of the seventh game. Of the World Series.
--Do they have Casual Friday at the U.S.
Supreme Court? Well, they eventually moved on from the powdered wigs so .
. . why not? (“Hey, Sonia, gonna wear that T-shirt and cutoffs again next
week!”)
--Maybe we should start looking at people's
names with an environmentalist's eyes, as in: "Hey, there goes Clarence.
Not many of those left, you know. Two in the U.S. and four in
England, at last count." (Not to mention Bruno, Hortense and
Mortimer. . . .)
--jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of
the Month: “Say [actual partygoer’s name here], did you know that the president
of Indonesia is a former cabinet maker named Joko Widodo? His friends
call him Jokowi." (Extremely
difficult to work into a conversation, but that’s what I’m here for!)
--Why do people tailgate only at sports
events? Why not a bratwurst and a beer
in the school parking lot before the PTA meeting? A cheeseburger after church services on
Sunday? Just might boost attendance at
both! (jimjustsaying.com: Your New Home for Outside-The-Box Thinking.)
--You're not a celebrity until you've been on
the cover of People magazine, been a clue or an answer in the New York Times
Sunday Crossword Puzzle or been mentioned in at least one edition of Popcorn.
--Doesn't it strike you as a bit odd, if not
off-putting, that people who are running for political office have to have
three days of intense "debate prep" before the so-called
"debates" (a.k.a. extended stump speeches with opponents present)?
The issues are known, the problems are known,
and the opponents’ "talking points" and criticisms are known, so
shouldn't these people be able to speak extemporaneously and knowledgeably
about all this without having to cram like frat boys who have loafed away the
semester? Downright demoralizing to this
voter.
Note to protesters and politicians:
"You cannot shake hands with a closed fist."--Indira Gandhi
(1917-1984).
--Best health-related news of the year:
Flossing doesn't do much good, if any. I’m thinking that entists
will now have to lecture us about--what?--earwax, perhaps. Nose hair? Bad
breath? (Don't worry--they'll find something.)
--I'm firmly against the death penalty . . . with
these exceptions: fraudulent users of
handicapped parking spaces, wealthy defaulters on student loans and people who
leave huge puddles of water in front of their gym lockers.
--jimjustsaying’s Fun
Fact of the Month: Winnie the Pooh was named after Winnipeg, a female
black bear cub that lived at London Zoo from 1915 until her death in
1934.
Mark my words, someday "Winnie the
Pooh" will be on Broadway. (They've done just about everything else,
from "Peter Pan" to "Spiderman.")
--Why do they call them "polo
shirts"? At the one polo match I attended (at the Chicago Avenue
Armory), no one was wearing anything of the sort.
--Another of jimjustsaying’s Media Words
(a word you see or hear only in news reports and never hear a normal person use
in real life): "Inveigle."
--Redundancy of the Week (from a Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel news story): "verbal argument." As
opposed to what? All arguments are verbal; if a disagreement gets
physical, it’s a fight, not an argument.
More Journal Sentinel, and a Newspaper
Correction for the Ages candidate (from the Jan. 19, 2016, edition of the
paper):
"A caption accompanying a photo Sunday in
Travel about reservations to make for the summer and fall incorrectly stated
the HMS Bounty ship will appear at the Tall Ships Festival in Green Bay. The
ship will not appear at the festival as it sank during Hurricane Sandy in
2012."
--Faded phrases: “Hang up the phone, “roll down
the window” and “flip through the channels.”
--Home decorator’s white palette, gleaned from
a recent piece of junk mail: Simply white, all white, pure white, Chantilly
lace, white dove and the ever-popular alabaster! (I guess off-white didn’t make the cut. Or are they all off-white?)
--I have no problem with Walmart greeters, but
they should call them what they mostly resemble: Cardboard cutouts.
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--Hundreds
of police officers have been accused of sexually abusing children. (Slap
forehead here!) We serve and protect . . . and do whatever we can get away
with?
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One disturbing case: In 2020, a New
Orleans officer took a 14-year-old girl to get a rape kit after she reported a
sexual assault. Then the officer assaulted her, too. (Slap forehead
again!)
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--jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should
of the Month: “XIIDIGITATION.” n. The practice of trying to
determine the year a movie was made by deciphering the Roman numerals at
the end of the credits.--"Sniglets," Rich Hall and Friends
--Thinking
outside the box: What if "they" ultimately discovered that
radiation is good for us! It took the so-called experts eons to
reverse course on the egg and determine that it "isn't the cholesterol
villain we once thought it was. Eat all you want." (To
name but one example of FDA flip-flopping.)
I
think the egg has been around much longer than nuclear radiation, so
there's still time.
--Along
with our crumbling roads and bridges comes another atrocity, the continuing
butchering of our language. Latest example: “asks” as a noun! (Press
secretary to reporters: “If there are no more asks, that’s it for today.”)
Good
Lord! Generation X, meet Generation S—as in Subliterate. And there is also
the jargon-esque “get” as a noun, as in, “Diane Sawyer’s interview with
Toby Twoface was a good get.” Yeech.
--Books
that didn't quite make it: "A Farewell to Weapons," "For
Whom the Bell Rings," "To Kill a Hummingbird," "The
Catcher in the Wheat” and "Nurse Zhivago."
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DRUDGING AROUND: Study: Female psychopaths
surprisingly common . . . Women turning to robot manicurists so they don’t have
to tip . . . Shock report: EVs release
more toxic emissions than gas cars . . . Cops:
Women propped up dead man in car, withdrew his money at drive-through
teller . . . Let them eat snake: Python
farmers could offer one of the most sustainable sources of meat . . . Experts
claim leprosy NOT ancient history as cases surge in USA (especially Florida) .
. . Sophisticated “burglary tourists” fly from South America to rob wealthy, LA
police say . . . They came to Florida for sun and sand. They got soaring costs and culture war . . . “Yoga
burglar” seen stretching before break-in. (Thanks, as always, to Matt Drudge
and his merry band of aggregators.)
Vinpocetine, oscillococcinum and bladderswack
leaves. Three nutritional (?) supplements I didn't know existed until I opened
a Swanson Health Products catalog. (Kind of hard to work into a
conversation, but there you have it.)
--I had a dream that the Family Dollar company
started a budget burger franchise: One Guy!
--jimjustsaying's Snack
Food Find of the Month: Buffalo wing-flavored sunflower seeds. Who
knew?
--Three things I've never done: Put
something in mothballs, put all my eggs in one basket, put on the dog.
--Redundancy Patrol: "Close
proximity," "join together," "serious crisis."
--A true friend is one who likes you despite
your accomplishments.—Novelist Arnold Bennett
Today’s Latin Lesson: Pila ludere. (“Play ball!”)
Special thanks to Ann Arbor, this month’s Popcorn intern.
