Of Politics, Sports and Stuff

Note to self: Instead of trying to get ourselves to stop buying things we don't need, Cheryl and I should start wearing high heels when we shop. TUESDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The higher your heels, the smarter the shopper you will be. That's according to new research that found having to focus on physical balance tends to lead to more balanced buying decisions. "If you're someone who tends to overspend, or you're kind of an extreme person, then maybe you ought to consider shopping in high heels," study author Jeffrey Larson, a marketing professor at Brigham Young University, said in a university news release. His team found that when consumers' minds are focused on staying balanced, they are more likely to consider all of their buying options and choose a mid-range product, as opposed to something high-end or of low quality. Yo, Jeff, did you also consider the possibility that when you're wearing heels, your feet hurt so dam

Among the many things to remind us of how the world has changed since the 60’s when I was growing up, here’s one more. The Phillies signed pitchers last week from these 3 teams: -       The Normal Corn Belters -       The Washington Wild Things -       The Canberra Calvary   Possibly also worth noting...Two of the signed guys’ most recent ERA’s were 13.50 and 5.93. Phillies add two new right-handers to GCL roster The Phillies have needed some pitching help lately at the lower levels and have reached into the ranks of independent baseball and the Australian Baseball League for help. In the past week, they’ve signed three young pitchers, with the latest two joining the GCL Phillies. Last week it was left-hander Ryan Demmin , who was signed by the Phillies after his contract was purchased from the Normal Corn Belters of the independent Frontier League. Demmin made a start for Lakewood last Friday, going eight innings and allowing just two unearned runs,

Call me Old School but I don't use hashtags. I use the pound sign.

There was another one of "those" studies that came out recently that "found that employees who have sex frequently have significantly higher salaries than those who don't." http://www.philly.com/philly/jobs/People_who_have_sex_often_make_more_money_study_finds.html?nlid=6179591 This raises a number of questions for me: 1 - When employers start to wonder if employee productivity has started to wane, should they encourage their employees to hook up with each other...maybe even re-purpose a little-used conference room? People people! I need your attention. I'm passing around a sign-up sheet for the Conubial Room for everyone so we can perk things up around here! Please remember to check off whether you would rather be paired up with your same gender, the other one, or for a solo session." 2 - Does it count just as much if one is uh, self-enjoying? Or could one do better by visiting some ladies of the evening? (Maybe that too should be in the emplo

News item: Reading Fightin Phils – Double A The Reading Fightin Phils split a doubleheader with the Altoona Curve at Peoples Natural Gas Field in Altoona, Pa. I’m not sure I’d want to go to a game at a stadium honoring Peoples Natural Gas.

It struck me today that as much as we on the left like to make fun of our right-wing friends for all the mistakes they've made in predicting the results of the Obama Presidency (still waiting for the economic collapse, the double digit inflation and stock market crash), we were just as wrong about the GW Bush Presidency. Obama has been so, so much better than the Rs predicted, to their great dismay, and GWB was so, so much worse than we predicted...to our great dismay.

It sometimes bugs me how many Republicans are constantly booked on the Sunday morning political talk shows - the most obvious, quantitative measure of how the main stream media skews to the right - all statistics show there are consistently more men, more Republicans, more white folks booked on those shows than Dems, women or minorities. But after yesterday, I'm starting to think it's not such a bad thing, as explained by this article in Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/11/donald-trump-louie-gohmert-steve-king_n_3740081.html As the author wrote: "Here is a message to the Republican Party, from me: Guys, I don't know if you've noticed this, but you are getting rooked pretty badly by the Sunday shows. Did y'all wake up today thinking that the best thing for your message was to have it carried by guys like Trump and Louis Gohmert and Steve King? I am guessing that's not the case. But that's who got booked, because nothing is be

Interesting how according to the metrics/analytics of this blog, some of which only I can see and some of which can be seen down the right hand side of this blog, all the most viewed posts on this blog are of things having to do with sex or have pictures of sexy women (I should gratuitously add one here just to get more hits), but generally the only posts that get comments are on politics and are from the usual kinds of blog trolls, most of whom, from reading their writing, seemed to have dropped out of school in about 5th grade, which only seems to reinforce the stereotype of the standard uneducated Republican voter. And oddly, the more stupidity I see in the comments only embolden me to write more about politics so said trolls have a chance to see a point of view they don't generally see from the overwhelmingly right-wing, conservative mainstream media that they feed on. It's also remarkable how rarely the comments address anything I actually wrote in the post. More ofte

Yesterday was my son, Trevor's 13th birthday. I don't want to write about that in the usual context of how old it makes me feels, since it doesn't and because that's not what's important here. And it would be easy to write the ole Where has the time gone?! But that isn't fair either, though it has an element of truth. Instead I'll say the same thing I said in this  Facebook page, which is that the last 12, though actually, it's 13, years of my life have been by far the best, though I could also frame it as the last 15, when Cheryl, Ev and Liss came permanently into my life, or the last 9+ since Emma was born. But even more in terms of the Trevman, what I'd like to say is just how incredibly proud I am of him and the person he's become. I have never ever met anyone so relentlessly happy and upbeat. He never lets anyone get him down. Oh, his little sister knows how to push his buttons fer sure, but other than a quick flash of exasperation, Tre

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything. I've had a number of thoughts of things I'd like to post, but I often wonder if I've already written it here somewhere since they are often things I've thought about a lot over the years. That leaves me with 3 options: 1 - Go through the whole blog to see if I've already written it. 2 - Don't take the time to look it up but write it anyway. 3 - Don't do either 1 or 2 above, taking the chance it'll never get written for fear of writing it more than once. I think I'll go with #2 above based on the idea that if I don't remember if I wrote it, the readers probably won't either. So please excuse the possible early signs of Alzheimer's if you see the same topic written about twice. (I am SO tempted to copy this entire post and then re-post it a second time, wondering if I'd already written about this. Oh, the hilarity.)