Cherry Blossoms

Local cherry blossoms reached peak bloom this weekend - and the most "famous" place to see them round here is on the University of Washington campus (the cherry blossoms even have their own twitter feed, plus a live cam!).  So I went for long lunchtime walk from work on Friday to see them (about a 45 minute walk away) - jeez was it busy.  Even with it being a weekday and during the spring break, so many people - kind of ruined the experience, which is a shame because the many blooming trees in the same quad was definitely very pretty.  With the nice weather over the weekend, I bet the crowds were absolutely horrendous.  I did take some photos, but not convinced they are particularly good and I haven't had a chance to go through them yet - I'll aim to add some to this entry sometime later in the week. 

15 Days

Jon Snow?  Nope.  Daenerys?  Nope.  Cersei?  Nope.  Tyrion?  Nope.  Jamie?  Nope.  Sansa?  Nope.  Arya?  Nope.  Bran?  Nope.  Euron?  Nope.  Davos?  Nope.  Gendry?  Nope.  The Night King?  Nope.  There is only one true pretender to the throne:

"May"hem

I can’t decide which word best describes the UK as it careens inexorably to a hard and messy exit from Europe: farcical, shambolic, muddling, embarrassing.  I don’t even know or care about all these stupid and inconsequential things that the MPs have been voting on this week – Theresa May has to step down now, period.  Bottom line – you have to admire Putin for just how effective and how much lasting damage Russian meddling has done in the US and the UK with Trump and Brexit.  Bravo.

Russian "Hoax"

Trump claims that the Russian hoax is dead and that he is totally vindicated - if that is indeed true, THEN RELEASE THE MUELLER REPORT IN ITS ENTIRETY.  If you have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, then what have you got to lose.  Or maybe you have?  Even if the report didn't find him guilty of conspiracy or obstruction, it did not exonerate him.  Let's see the details.  After all, with the way the news cycle works with Trump this will be old news soon.   

Golf

US golf coverage:

Tiger Woods blah blah blah Tiger Woods blah blah blah Tiger Woods blah blah blah

The American sportswriter and sports broadcaster obsession with Tiger Woods is repugnant.  And relentless.  All golf coverage starts and ends with him – no matter how well or not he is doing, and definitely no matter how unpleasant a guy he is.  Which he is.  I hope he never wins another Major (particularly since I have a $500 bet with a friend that he won't).

Tax Break Broken

As someone who shops quite frequently on Amazon and eBay, I’ve noticed a big difference this year.  I’ve started having to pay sales tax on everything.  Traditionally, I only had to pay sales tax when I bought something direct from Amazon.  Which meant that I could save a lot of money by buying from either eBay or from the Amazon Marketplace.  No more – and I think this only changed this calendar year.  I always thought that if the company or individual selling the product didn’t have a store or physical address in Washington state, then I wasn’t liable to pay sales tax (since it was a “state” tax).  Apparently that is no longer the case (a quick google search suggests it might be due to a US Supreme Court ruling last year – so I can blame Trump).  And when we’re talking about a sales tax of about 10%, this is adding up to quite a big additional outlay.  What a swizz – I had no idea this was coming, and I’m really surprised it isn’t a bigger deal and people aren’t kicking up more of a fuss about it.  I honestly thought my PayPal account had been compromised when I first saw these extra charges appearing.  I need to move to the Oregon-Washington border – where I can work in Washington (no income tax) and buy things in Oregon (no sales tax)

True Detective Season 3

I finished binge watching the 3rd season of True Detective over the weekend.  This is a series that I have considered recapping on this blog - but not after the extremely disappointing 2nd season.  But this 3rd season was a definite step back in the right direction - maybe not to the level of the 1st season, but close.  And it definitely shared a similar feel to the 1st season - a good build up leading to an underwhelming payoff.  But it is the first TV show that I've watched in a while that as soon as I finished watching an episode, I had to go on the internet to read episode recaps to check if I missed anything and to see what kind of outlandish theories are being put forward.  Welcome to the internet age of telly... I'll be doing exactly the same thing when Game of Thrones starts it's last season.  Not long now!