Random Notes from a Crank

I've been an avid viewer of Saturday Night Live since I was a kid. 

The sketch about Zelensky's visit to trap in the White House was spot on. And the new agency DOUCHE is strikingly accurate. That's what they're setting out to do: Department of Unmaking Child Healthcare and Education. 

Mike Myers had to have a lot of fun imitating Musk's strange mannerisms. 

I recently watched the Netflix movies about the start of SNL, Saturday Night. If the depiction is true, I never knew Chevy Chase and John Belushi disliked each other so much. 

It's now once again what I call the dead season of sports. I neither watch the NBA nor the NHL. And March Madness hasn't started. Since I quit playing fantasy baseball, I don't watch much MLB. And because Hulu doesn't have the Marquee Network, I don't watch the Cubs. 

Democrats are inviting federal workers who were fired because of the draconian efforts of DOGE to Moscow Don's Congressional address on Tuesday. Many of them are veterans. 

I like this move because it shows how Trump, Musk, and their goons are just indiscriminately firing people. And I like how pissed-off constituents are showing up at town halls. 

Of course, craven Republicans will just stop having town halls if I had to guess. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Good news for renewable energy. The Washington Post reports that "Huge Wind Farms Use Much Less Land Than You Might Think." 

The article relates something that I've seen here in the Midwest: wind farms and agriculture work together just fine. So I'm a bit perplexed how the article is that ground breaking unless you live on the East coast. 

The article does talk about how turbines could work with existing structures such as roads and other non-agricultural land. 

And they're also reporting that "A Small EV Tax Credit Change Makes Going Electric More Enticing." Where was this up-front $7,500 discount when I was shopping for a new car last year? 

Watching The X-Files reminds me of the lousy designs of sedans that Ford and GM put out in the 90s. Ugly vehicles.

One of the great skits on SNL was Celebrity Jeopardy.

Turd Ferguson...

Random Notes from a Crank

This past week's Kristen Wiig episode of Saturday Night Live was one of the best overall episodes in recent history. The opening skit was hilarious. 

Here's a great part of that episode's "Weekend Update."

"Weekend Update" has always been my favorite part of most SNL episodes. That feature was a template for The Daily Show. 

In good news on the environmental-issues front, the EPA passed a rule that chemical plants will have to curb the toxic chemicals they emit. The chemicals that are being more heavily regulated are carcinogenic and known for the area of the country called "Cancer Alley." Check out "Environmental Protection Agency Limits Pollution from Chemical Plants" in the New York Times. 

The opinion piece, "I'm Jewish, and I've Covered Wars. I Know War Crimes when I See Them," is a must read for what is happening in Gaza. To criticize what Israel is doing is not being antisemitic. It's being a human. 

Random Notes from a Crank

It seems I've gotten to a point in my life that most of the time I don't know who the musical guest is on SNL, and about half of the time I don't know who the hell the guest host is. 

I've gotten back into watching Jeopardy on a regular basis. And I've downloaded the app on my phone. So I'm getting all trivia happy. 

I recently finished Elizabeth Kolbert's Under A White Sky: The Nature of the Future. Scientists of various specialities are working hard toward trying to fashion methods for us to alter climate change. As she says in the final chapter, "But, as a rule, this enthusiasm [for their work] was tempered by doubt. The electric fish barriers, the concrete crevasse, the fake cavern, the synthetic clouds--these were presented to me less in a spirit of techno-optimism than what might be called techno-fatalism. They weren't improvements on the originals; they were the best that anyone could come up with, given the circumstances." 

After reading the book, I'm confident the people working on solar geoengineering are going to be serious players in the various sets of solutions we have to use to fight against the consequences of climate change. If policy makers let them. 

Perhaps halting donations and investments will get the attention of people who sponsor these stupid voting bills in state legislatures: "Companies Are Considering Withholding Donations and Investments Over Controversial Voting Bills in States." 

Random Notes from a Crank

 Saturday Night Live did a good skit on the stupidity of the holiday ads that have some significant other giving the other a car for Xmas. I've never gotten those commercials, especially that GM one that has a dude giving his wife and himself two new vehicles. 

Only rich white people would think that buying a car for Xmas is an attainable goal. 

If Coach Monken (Army) or Coach Niumatalolo (Navy) don't get one of these coaching jobs out there, ADs have no guts. Think of how excellent athletes at big time D1 program could do the triple option (think Nebraska of old) and update it with some passing wrinkles.

In the era of more dual-threat QBs, it just makes sense. They could take those offenses, adopt a more balanced approach of running and passing with really good athletes, and give some teams some serious problems.

Maybe the Vanderbilt AD has the guts and brains to hire either Niumatalolo or Monken.

I was surprised Gus Malzahn got canned by Auburn. However, his 21 million dollar buyout will be him comfortable.

Illinois finally got around to firing Lovie Smith. It's kind of hard to retain a coach who has never had a winning season.

The U of Illinois is a shambles of a Big 10 program. I read in The Athletic today that in their last signing class only three of their commits were in-state recruits.

Music Friday: David S. Pumpkins

 This isn't necessarily a song, but the video uses an instrumental song. 

In honor of a socially distanced Halloween, I give you David S. Pumpkins.

Random Notes from a Crank

One of the highlights of Stormy Daniels' appearance on SNL was her jab at Moscow Don's idiotic denial of climate change: "Stormy Daniels Calls Out Trump..."

As someone who cares about the written word/grammar, the amount of apostrophe abuse out in the good old U.S.A. continues to astound me. People use apostrophes to signify pluralization and often use them when they are not needed (such as the 80's when 80s makes much more sense). This is something that's addressed in grade school, people. Wake up. 

As another example, the other day I received an email addressed to "Coach's" when what it should have been obviously is "Coaches." 

There's a defunct blog that used to chronicle such instances: Apostrophe Abuse.

And there's another defunct blog that was also good: The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks.

As a grammatical snooty person (Yes, I will silently judge you.), I may have to take up the charge left by these blogs and chronicle such grammatical gaffes. 

In other news, it appears China seems to be girding its loins to quit importing soybeans from the US: "China Cutting US Soybean Purchases." As the AP article relates, "Roughly 60 percent of U.S. soybeans are shipped to China." The three states of Iowa, Indiana, and Nebraska (three of the top five soybean producers) voted for Moscow Don. We'll see if that changes if China's spurning of US soybeans becomes a political reality. 

Random Notes from a Crank

As you would probably figure if you know me or if you have been reading this blog for any length of time, I didn't watch the GOP debate this week. The first reason is because I dislike clowns. The second reason is that I wouldn't vote for any of those people. 

I did partake in the not-so-shocking factcheck reports. If you're interested, here you go:

• "Factchecking the CNN Republican Debate" by FactCheck.org
• "We Fact-Checked What the Republicans Said about Climate Change During the Debate" by Mother Jones/Climate Desk

I'm glad Rubio set me straight on understanding that America is not a planet. 

I'm interested to see how the Democratic candidates fare with the fact-checkers when they debate. But when are they going to debate? Seriously. 

Ah, not till October...

While I'm not Catholic, I like this new Pope, and I'm interested in what he has to say when he addresses Congress. 

I really enjoy this meme.

I'd like to get an old card catalog and have it in my house or in my office. That would be sweet. 

What is "The Love Ballad of Turd Ferguson"? 

Stay Positive: James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party

Earlier this week I watched the HBO documentary Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown. It's quite a good one if you're interested in music documentaries. 

But since I grew up watching SNL, anything about James Brown reminds me of Eddie Murphy's great skit, James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party. It's below for your viewing pleasure. 


James brown celebrity hottub by codordog

Stay Positive: Flip Phones

Last week I went to my daughter's 5th grade orientation session. 

During the teacher's presentation, I noticed the dude next to me had a huge smart phone. It was a monster. Some of the smart phones nowadays are getting so big people might as well get one the size of an iPad and put it up to their faces when they talk on them, that is if anyone ever used a phone like the technological gods intended it: for calling people. 

As you might have guessed, I'm a proud owner of a flip phone, and I don't have any plans to change that fact. 

I do have some changes that should be implemented, however: 

• Quit assuming I text. I don't. 
• Look at me when I'm talking to you instead of staring at your goddamned phone.
• Instead of playing on your phones, go exercise or watch nature or have a conversation or take a nap or daydream every once in a while.
• Don't tell me that I need to get a smart phone. I don't need to do anything.

I get that they are fun devices. I really do. I have an iPad, so I understand the allure of apps and whatnot. I watched a TED talk through its app this afternoon, in fact. 

I just worry about hyperconnectivity. 

I just went on a tangent. My original intent of this post was to make fun of the increasing size of smart phones and put in some good words for flip phones, which are much smaller and don't take up a lot of room in your pocket. 

With so many people with smart phones nowadays, the joke/image below might not even make sense. 

And that's sad because the SNL "Jeffrey's Store" sketch is a funny one. 

Check it out by mashing ----->HERE. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Today marks 100 days until the start of college football season.

For the past couple of days, I've been binging on watching the first season of Game of Thrones. I recently started watching episodes of the second season on Sunday nights. After being frustrated and having a fit of cursing at HBO's website because of their overly complicated process of being able to watch past episodes online, I finally started watching the first season via my laptop last night. I'm really enjoying the show, which is a surprise because I'm not really much of fantasy/otherly-world fiction kind of guy. In fact, the last time I think I read a fantasy novel was when I was back in junior high school -- that was Tolkien's Return of the King, the final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. To give you an idea of the episode-watching binge I've been on, today is Tuesday. Like I said, I started watching the first season last night. This afternoon I finished episode 7. And now I've gone and ordered the first book because, as far as I can tell so far from the HBO series and what I quickly learned about the books on the Web, the story doesn't sound like it has any of goofy pathos and bathos of fantasy fiction.

I do have a complaint about the Game of Thrones series and other films of the fantasy variety though. Why do the characters in these films almost always have British accents? Why? What up with that?

As much as I agree with argument made in May's "Science Agenda" editorial in Scientific American, I'm not optimistic about smart, substantive changes to the farm bill. I hope I'm wrong.

Although it's not a humorous article, reading "The Science of Health" piece in the same issue reminded me of the sound advice my Uncle Raymond told me before I went to college: "Avoid the clap."