Black Friday

As it is every year, black friday is just a crock of sh*t.  None of the stuff that is actually any good or that I actually want is ever for sale.  I bought a new iPod Touch for my music collection - with a "massive" saving of $10.  The only silver lining was that I ordered it from somewhere that I didn't have to pay sales tax.  And I got a new ping pong paddle at a 10% discount.  Though I have contrived to do my back in again, so I don't know when I'll be able to next play (hopefully my back will be better in a few weeks' time, because I'm not sure a long flight is going to do it any favors).  I also want to get a new Chromebook, but none of the ones that I wanted were for sale.  I'll check again on Cyber Monday, but I strongly suspect that it will be same story.  The only ones that I see for sale are older models, ones not highly rated, or the wrong size.  What a swizz.   

Invasion of Privacy

A couple of guys showed up at my door today to ask about buying the property.  Or my neighbor's property, I wasn't really sure.  Either way, I feigned ignorance/stupidity and they went on their way.  But on reflection, I should have told them to piss off.  They actually drove up my driveway to knock on my door.  That is some cheek, and a massive invasion of privacy.  Nosy f*ckers.  It is one thing to walk up to somebody's front door, but quite another to drive up to it.  The more I think about it, the more I get angry about it.  I should have told them, plainly, that nothing was for sale here and to sling their hook.  They were probably just a couple of chancers after a quick flip.  They didn't look as though they were casing my joint, which would be the other reason for going up my driveway.  I actually get mail on an almost weekly basis asking about buying this property - I don't know whether these are the same people sending that, but that looked to be just some junk mail that went out to everyone.  Perhaps not.  Worse, these people might have been looking to buy some land to build something new, and the last thing I want is more construction noise in my vicinity.  There is already some construction going on a little way down the hill from where I am, and the noise carries.  And it's ruined the neighborhood near where I work.

Election Ad

We're still just about a year away from the US presidential election, and we don't yet know who will be the Democratic presidential challenger.  Yet today, whilst spending my Thanksgiving Day binge-watching a load of telly, I encountered my first election ad - and it was maybe for someone you might not expect.  It wasn't for Trump.  It wasn't even for one of the Democrats who has appeared in a debate yet.  It was for someone who entered the race late.  And the ad wasn't so much about the candidate as it was against Trump.  The ad was for Mike Bloomberg.  The guy isn't exactly short of money, so not much of a surprise that he can afford to start airing ads so early.  But I'm not really sure who this ad is for - all I know is that I am already suffering from election fatigue and we still have an awful long way to go.   

Storms

I forgot to mention, it snowed earlier this week.  My location was right in the weather convergence zone that affects our region – so 5 miles north or 5 miles south of my home, the weather was absolutely fine.  Where I was, we had hail, thunder and some snow overnight.  Not enough to settle on the roads – but still, ominous sign for the winter ahead.  Currently, things are a bit more interesting further south on the West Coast:

That storm is going to slam into the Oregon/California border and cause havoc over Thanksgiving (100 mph winds - yikes).  On top of all the bad weather across the rest of the US, unfortunate timing for the busiest travel days of the year.  It is just going to be a cold Thanksgiving for me.

Daemons

Just watching His Dark Materials, and I was wondering what form my daemon would take.  The external manifestation of a person's inner-self - in the form of an animal.  The irony of it, given my current war with them, is that it is probably a mole.  A boring and solitary animal - it seems to fit the bill.

Sofas

My living room set got delivered today.

The good news - they look good, they feel comfortable.

The bad news - I think I bought too many pieces (a 3-seat reclining sofa, a 2-seat reclining loveseat, and a 1-seat rocking recliner) because they were bigger than I thought and don't all easily fit into my room as I hoped.  So I am going to have to give some serious thought as to how to arrange everything.  Also, one of the recliners on the end of my sofa had a bit of a problem and was catching on the frame.  I didn't want to go through the time and effort of getting the sofa replaced, so came up with a nice fix - I bought a metal file today and filed a notch into my sofa frame so that the reclining bit no longer catches.  Ingenious (at least until my sofa frame breaks, but hopefully that won't happen anytime soon!) 

Podcast Recommendation

It's been a long time since I found a podcast that makes me actually laugh out load - but I found one this week.  Gossipmongers.  And it's British.  I find it the audio equivalent of peak Viz humour.  Highly recommended, though caution should be exercised if you're listening to it at work as I did and struggled to contain my laughter in an open work environment - a serious faux pas.

Lights

Now that the days are short, I'm reminded of how much I dislike driving in the dark.  And a lot of is due to the glare from car headlights.  It seems that every day, there is at least one idiot driving on the freeway with full beams on.  But it's not just that - because I have a small car, I am regularly blinded by dipped headlights from cars bigger than mine.  And then there are the advances in "headlight technology" which makes the lights on modern cars extremely bright and extremely blinding.  The advent of self-driving cars can't come soon enough for this time of year.

A List

10 People I hate (non-politicians):


Elon Musk

Stephen A Smith

Dean Spanos

Lea Michele

BJ Novak

Tyler Perry

Jenny McCarthy

Tim Allen

Sean “Sticks” Larkin

Jimmy Fallon


Didn’t want to stick to the obvious, and maybe some people not familiar to a UK audience, though some of these are fairly universally disliked – but as I came up with this list, absolutely positive that I’ve missed out a load more people that I really truly hate (and I had to drop some others just to cut this down to 10).  I need to keep track for a future blog...

The Old Hood

Recently I happened to drive through the neighborhood – Greenwood – where I used to live.  Kind of interesting to see how much it has changed, and how much it hasn’t changed.  It always had a big turnover of businesses – particularly bars/restaurants – and that still seems to be the case.  A couple of ones are still there from when I lived there (5/6 years ago?!), and a lot more new/closed down/renamed places.  I miss the burrito place I used to go to all the time – I need to go back there at some point.  Glad to see the worst supermarket I’ve ever been to that was extremely convenient but extremely rundown has closed.  However, the late night bar/restaurant that was immediately opposite where I lived and gave me fits with the noise emanating from there at closing time, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays, is still there – though under a different name.  A quick internet search shows that this place is now open 24 hours at weekend – noise all night long, yikes glad I don’t live there now.  Was kind of curious to see whether the price of the apartment I rented there had exponentially increased – but  pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn’t as high as I thought it would be, about the same as what I’m paying where I am now.  Though I’d much rather be where I am now than where I was.  But as Seattle grows, this is definitely a neighborhood that has, and will continue to, become increasingly gentrified – as indicated by several newer (and certainly more expensive) apartment buildings that have opened since I lived there.

Forgive me for stating the obvious on another matter, but Mourinho in place of Pochettino is a serious step down – I don’t know what Tottenham are thinking.

Busy Day

I got a new toilet installed at home today.  And I gave my first presentation at work for what seems like an incredibly long time, if ever - just a small audience, but it seemed to go well.  That's all (just got very busy at work, as I knew I would, in the lead up to Thanksgiving - so the quality of my blogs will invariably drop off).

Malice at the Palace

Today is the 15 year anniversary of the “The Malice at the Palace”.  I was living in the US when this happened, and I remember it quite vividly – I don’t imagine I was watching the game live because I was no fan of basketball then, but I must have seen the “highlights” afterwards on ESPN or whatever.  And I’ve definitely seen several documentaries about it since.  It was crazy.  But I don’t imagine that many people from the UK have even heard of it – so I definitely recommend doing an internet search and checking the video out.  It is the American equivalent of when Eric Cantona kung fu-kicked that Palace fan.  Shocking, but iconic.

Talking about brawls, I see that the first UK election debate occurred today.  I bet that was scintillating stuff.  I read a BBC article which included the insightful conclusion that left "most Labour voters thinking Jeremy Corbyn won, most Conservative voters thinking Boris Johnson won".  Well done - great journalism.  I do think it is an absolute disgrace that other parties were not included in the debate – why should the British public have to choose between these 2 fools.

Ping Pong Update

I liken my current ping pong form to the England national squad.  Ease through the qualifying stage against mediocre opposition, but things are a lot different when it comes to the knockout stages and the big boys.  I qualified easily for the quarter-finals of my work ping pong tournament (Advanced bracket) today, with dominant victories over a couple of folks.  Playing well – I think I’ve got a very good shot of going all the way if I can maintain this form.  However, that was lunchtime and I played again in the late afternoon in a friendly against some superior opposition (and potential future tournament match-up) and I absolutely sucked.  Inconsistency continues to be my Achilles heel.  I still don’t know when the finals are going to be held – I strongly suspect it will be once I’m back in the UK, so all of this will be for nothing.  Which would be typical for my luck.

Around the World

Reminiscing.

Impeachment

I’m not going to comment about the impeachment inquiry, now it’s in it’s public phase – I think most people are already tired and bored of it now, and it seems that the news will quickly move on.  I think it’s beyond clear that Trump abused his presidential powers to get a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political rival.  I don’t need to watch all the testimonies to know this.  Is it an impeachable offence though?  Personally I think it is, others disagree.  I think Trump will just bluster his way through it as “fake news” and a “witch hunt”, and it really won’t make much difference on whether people like him or hate him.  I don’t think he will ever be impeached – he will never get enough Senate votes for that – so this is really a rather pointless spectacle.  Which is the last thing the Democrats need on top of their ridiculous presidential primary – which seems to have a bunch of new people joining the race even now, which only makes them look weaker.  For sure, if Bernie Saunders or Elizabeth Warren win the primary, then it is almost certain that Trump will win a second term.  The Democrat Party is leaning too left, which might satisfy their core base but will not win them those oh so important swing states.

Self-eval

The self-evaluation for our annual performance review was due today, and I decided to talk myself up this year.  Our performance is rated on a 5-point scale – Below Expectations, Improvement Needed, Achieved, Exceeded and Exceptional.  I normally give myself an Exceeded rating, which then gets rounded down to Achieved when combined with my manager review and standardized across the department.  This time, I gave myself Exceptional.  I don’t know in my heart of hearts whether I would honestly rank myself that highly (“performance of this caliber is unique”, “clearly and consistently demonstrated exceptional accomplishments in all major areas of responsibility”, “recognized as a role model and a positive example for others”, “a level of performance that is seldom equaled by others”), but I think this has been my best year in this job (certainly since I rejoined) and at the least I want an overall Exceeded rating when it inevitably gets rounded down.  I believe a better rating does mean a better bonus – so that’s something as well.

A Lunchtime Walk

I haven't posted any photos for a while, so here are a few from a lunchtime walk to Portage Bay near work.

"News"

A message to news websites:


 I DON”T CARE IF SOME C-LIST “CELEBRITY” I’VE NEVER HEARD OF HAS GOT ANOTHER GODDAMNED TATTOO.

DON’T PAY SO MUCH ATTENTION TO POLLS.  People do not respond to a public poll in the same way that they act in private.  Polls do not accurately reflect the entire populace.  There is too much statistical uncertainty in polls.  Do not trust them.     


Thank you for your time.

Competition

Well, I might not get a better chance.  We have another ping pong tournament coming up before the end of the year – and I found out today that my nemesis, the guy who beat me in my last singles final and who I’ve never beaten in tournament play, is injured and has had to withdraw.  Suddenly the tournament is wide open.  And although my form is spotty at best, there are probably 3 of us who can win and I think I might be the favorite by a hair.  My greatest fear – I don’t know when the games are being played, and I really hope that the finals don’t take place in the week that I’m back in the UK.  That would be a cruel and ironic twist.

 I didn’t watch much of the Seahawks game last night – but I knew who won, because fireworks started going off (even though they are illegal).  Yes, feel free to celebrate a Seahawks overtime win in a crazy back-and-forth game – but fireworks, really?  This was a regular season game, and there are still many more important games ahead – and the Seahawks are still behind the 49ers.  Get a grip.

Poppy Etiquette

Questions.  Which side are you supposed to wear your poppy on?  And what position should the poppy leaf be in?  Totally by coincidence, or good intuition, I seemed to have followed the internet consensus.  That is, wearing my poppy over my heart and with the leaf in a 11 o'clock position.  Though, as the British Legion quite rightly say, the best way to wear one is with pride.  And since no one in the US wears a poppy, I am proud to wear mine.

Football

A big weekend of football:

- Seattle Sounders won the MLS Title for the 2nd time in 4 years.  I caught a bit of the game, but couldn't watch it for long because the quality of football is risible.  I don't think they even play to the level of the Championship in England .

- Is the Premier League a one-horse race now?  No, I still think Liverpool have a collapse in them.  I think they were very lucky against Man City, who should have had a penalty before Liverpool's first goal.

- It's going to be interesting to see if Leicester and Chelsea can keep up their form as well.  Leicester actually look better than they did when they shocked the world and won the whole thing a few seasons ago.  And Chelsea have kind of crept up under the radar - actually quite surprised that Frank Lampard seems to have done a good job so far with such a young squad.

- As for Palace, I'll be glad when this string of tough fixtures is finally over with - Man City, Arsenal, Leicester, Chelsea, and Liverpool coming up.  I think our season is going to rest on how we do in December and January.

- And let's not forget about "American" football, where the Seattle Seahawks have a huge Monday night game against division rivals and unbeaten San Francisco 49ers.  Because the Monday night game starts early evening West Coast time, that should mean a lot of people working from home tomorrow and a much more pleasant commute.

Strike Two

Comcast is up to it's old tricks again.  After dropping Cinemax from my package earlier this year, now it looks like it's dropping Starz at the end of the year.  This is Comcast's second strike.  A third strike, and I am definitely cutting the cord.  And then I'll just satisfy my viewing needs exclusively through internet streaming services.  When I get a new telly, I might cut the cord anyway.  We shall see.  For sure, I need to go to one of the Comcast stores (better that than a phone call) and threaten them with cord-cutting and watch them suddenly offer discounts to significantly reduce my bill (at the least I should change my package - since, ridiculously, it currently includes a phone line that I don't use, and I don't even have a phone plugged in).

Expenses

Looks like it’s going to be an expensive Black Friday for me this year.  I’ve got a long list of things I want to get, including: a new table tennis paddle, a new Chromebook, a new iPod Touch, a shorter pool cue (a drawback of moving my pool table upstairs is that I have less space around the table now).  That’s not even including all the living room upgrades I need to get – new sofa set, new dining room table and chairs, new television, new lights, new desk, etc.  I’ve actually ordered a new sofa set yesterday – although I might have saved some money if I waited a bit for the proper sales, I couldn’t be sure and I wanted to get it delivered before I came back to the UK for Christmas.  Let’s hope it does.  And what an ordeal it was deciding what to go for.  I got overwhelmed by indecision as I looked at thousands of sofas online.  My general philosophy is if I want to buy something like this then I just plump for the first one I find that I like and not give it a second thought.  I made the mistake this time of looking at lots of different ones on different websites, all of which had their pros and cons and left me paralyzed with indecision at having to choose between them.  In the end, stuck to one website and finally settled on a set (sofa, loveseat, chair – all reclining, a feature I really wanted.  I did come across a set named “Hertfordshire”, which seemed apt since that is my birth county, but it wasn’t reclining so I had to say no).  The set I chose will probably be nothing like I imagine from the photos and description on the website and I might come to regret my decision, but I’m committed now so I can’t worry about it.  As long as it’s comfortable then I don’t really care too much about how it looks and I’m good.  But I won’t get rid of my old and battered current sofa just yet.

Spoiler

I keep on seeing trailers for this film Last Christmas that is coming out tomorrow - and I already hate it.  Like really, REALLY hate it.  Clearly going for the Four Weddings and a Funeral, Richard Curtis vibe - it looks awful, and there is literally zero chance I will watch this.  So let me spoil the film for you - I know the "twist".  And it is as ridiculous as you would imagine.  So, this is a major spoiler alert to stop reading if you don't want to know the twist.  You have been warned.  Here goes.  The male romantic lead is a ghost.  For the love of god, you can't make this sh*t up.   

Election Day

It was election day yesterday, and although not the big one there were still plenty of initiatives and local/state elections being held.  The most newsworthy one that came out of our region was that an initiative to cut most car tabs in our state to $30 looks like it is going to pass.  This is huge – this is where the money comes from to pay for road paving and these huge transportation and infrastructure projects.  It doesn’t surprise me that this initiative passed – I’ve got to renew my car tabs this month and the bill is outrageous, nearly $300.  I think the state overreached in tacking on such a huge “regional transit authority tax” (nearly 2/3 of my bill) to the amount we have to pay, and so people rebelled by backing this measure.  I think we all still want well maintained roads and good public transport options, and I think we are prepared to pay more on our car tabs to achieve that – but not at the amount they are currently adding.  What is interesting is that they clearly spent a lot of money on ads to oppose this initiative – I saw plenty of them on tv – but it still wasn’t enough to make voters change their mind.  So now we can expect some kind of transportation crisis in our state – let’s hope we don’t a have bad winter that reduces our roads to a pot-holed disaster. 

Drill

As I arrived at the work garage this morning, the fire alarm was going off.  Which made things awkward.  As I was driving into the garage, everybody else was exiting the building for a fire drill.  That will teach me for arriving late – but that is no surprise for a Tuesday, which is increasingly becoming the worst commute day of the week.  But I couldn’t exactly park on the street or anywhere else, because there simply aren’t any free spaces at that time.  I’m sure if it wasn’t a drill, the parking garage gate wouldn’t have opened for me.  But I knew it was a drill because I could see the fire marshals with their colored bibs and clipboards.  Seems a rather pointless exercise when people routinely work from home now, but whatever.  I guess it is prudent since our building does have lab space on the ground floor, and so there might be some rather explosive materials stored there.

Making Plans for Nigel

I know we’re still several weeks away from the General Election, but I’m already struck – even all the way over here – by how much press Nigel Farage seems to be getting.  This guy is a pompous ass, his party is something of an irrelevance in an election like this, and he is not worthy of any coverage whatsoever.  Yet I’ve seen his ugly mug on the UK news websites plenty recently – whether it’s trying to form a pact with Boris, or proclaiming he will destroy Labour.  He might filter some votes away from the Tories, but not enough to make any difference and so his extremist views should just be ignored and certainly not publicized.  Sadly, I have read that he supports Crystal Palace – he seems more like a Millwall type.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Let's have a quick look at my scheduled DVR recordings for the week ahead, and pick out a few highlights:

Sunday: quite a lot of recordings, but probably the big one is Watchmen.  I like it so far, can't say I love it yet, but the potential is there.

Monday: ooh, I see I've already set up to record the first episode of His Dark Materials.  This has had a lot of hype, so has me intrigued.  I think this is a co-production between BBC and HBO, so it might already have aired in the UK.

Tuesday: only 1 recording, and it is for Treadstone - an action thriller set in the same universe as the Bourne films.  Maybe not as good as it sounds.

Wednesday: one of the better new network shows airs on Wednesday, Stumptown.  And its set in the Pacific NW (but Portland rather than Seattle).

Thursday: a rare Australian import, Mr Inbetween, is airing on Thursdays  Very dark comedy, very "Australian", and I'm surprised it's on here but glad it is because I enjoy it.

Friday and Saturday: nothing.  If a show isn't doing well, networks often burn off their episodes on Friday or Saturday - such is the low regard those days are held in.  Ironically, all the streaming services debut their shows on Friday.  There's a couple of Amazon shows - Jack Ryan and Goliath - that I need to catch up on.

 

Progress

I'm not going to mention the Rugby World Cup final, other than saying that I'm glad I didn't stay up until 4 am to watch that.  I'm not going to mention the moles, which seem to have engaged in an all out blitz on not just me but all my neighbors - I'm seeing molehills in all my immediate neighbors' yards as well as mine.  Instead, I'm going to mention that Operation Improve Living Space is proceeding nicely - the pool table is now upstairs in my 3rd bedroom, so I can finally look into buying a new living room set.  Which is long overdue.  Now the question is do I take a gamble and order a set online, sight unseen, rather than going to a store where I can see what I'm buying and test it out?  Tough choice, but I did it successfully with my mattress so I don't see why I can't do it with a sofa.   

Nationals

So the Washington Nationals won the baseball “World” Series this week, their first ever.  I was fairly indifferent about who won between the Nationals or the Houston Astros, but a couple of things swung my support to the Nationals.  Nothing to do with the team, but all to do with the fans.  The first being when Donald Trump attended a game in Washington, the Nationals fans booed and jeered him loudly and chanted Lock Him Up when he was announced on the public address system.  Hilarious.  The second being in the same game, a couple of models sitting behind home plate flashed their breasts at one of the opposition pitchers.  That got them banned indefinitely from all baseball stadiums – but a nice stunt.  So how do the Nationals team reward their fans?  It was announced today that the team is going to visit the White House next week.  This, despite other championship winning teams (notably in basketball) refusing to go.  Considering some of the National’s biggest stars are minorities, and considering how vocal their own fans were against Trump in Game 5, it makes that decision very questionable.  I hope that most of them excuse themselves from attending – sending a clear message that it is no longer an honor to be feted at the White House by this presidency.