Nickle and Diming: Streaming Services

 We already pay a fee for internet at home and for television.  We also have a subscription to Netflix and a couple of other streaming services.  Here's what I don't understand.  It seems no matter what we want to watch, there is a "supplemental fee" or yet another subscription needed.  

It seems no matter what your internet entertainment package is, it will never be enough.  You will always be bombarded with, "This will cost you an extra $2.99 per episode despite the fact that you are already a paying subscriber."

I'm sick of being nicked and dimed to death.  Nope.  I won't do it.  There are plenty of classic movies and whatnot that are still part of the basic internet package that are obnoxiously priced that I'm already paying for.  

We do have alternatives, folks.  We are not captive to screen pirates who hold us hostage and demand we need to pay over and over  again and again.  For God's sake, books from the library are still free.  AND....I may learn a thing or two.  In fact, there are movies available for streaming from your public library....and music.  

Did I just save you a few bucks?  I hope so.  You're welcome. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 I hope you all had a ball on Thanksgiving.  It's my favorite holiday.  How were things here in Sonoma County you ask?  Things were as nutty as always.  

More Do As I Say And Not As I Do: Newsom

 I found it ironic in the Sunday paper when Newsom, as Governor of California, has not released funding to cities for homelessness.  His catch?  He says that we (meaning local cities) all need to do better at the local level.  

Well, how exactly does that happen?  Newsom, you were Mayor of San Francisco and you could not help the homeless problem.  Now you are governor and you're demanding localities to solve a problem that you yourself could not solve....and now holding funding over heads for compliance.   

Wow.  What a chicken s*** way out.  Blame those lower on the ladder rung for an impossible task and control funding in the process.  

Sorry, I have no respect for somebody who demands an outcome they could not produce themselves.  

August 14, 1983

 I did not remember August 14, 1983 until a few days ago.  Out of the blue, my cousin in North Dakota sent me the inside of a wooden drawer I wrote all over.  The pencil writing is faded and difficult to read.  I had to employ a magnifying glass and bright light to decipher it.  

There it was.  My own writing.  1983.  I was writing to cousin Karey, who was the sister of the cousin who sent me the wooden drawer, about anything and everything that came to my then teenage mind.  I wrote about missing 4-H camp that year, but did not miss the rats and insects.  I wrote about her boyfriend, my boyfriend, parties we went to and the ones we were planning on going to.  The verbiage was peppered with early 1980's Valley Girl slang.  

What struck me the most was that I wrote how Karey drove like a maniac and called her out on it.  I was then struck by the date I wrote it - August 14, 1983.  It then dawned on my that was the last time I saw Karey alive as she died less than two months later in a single car accident in rural North Dakota. 

Trump 2024

 Really?  He's running again in 2024?  Does he not realize his show has been cancelled?  Well, when your ego is bigger than your brain that is what tends to happen.  

I understand why he was president.  I understand that people felt he was the only option other than corrupt, self-serving, career politicians ingrained in "the system."  

It's time to step aside, Orange Cheeto.  

Twitter

 My son had a saying for Twitter years ago.  He said, "Twitter is for on the shitter."

So true.  It's toilet reading at best.  I don't have a twitter account and I've never been a user.  The current upheaval at the company impacts my life....zero.  All of social media could disappear and my life would be impacted.....zero.  

I have an observation on the whole Twitter drama du jour.  I could be wrong, and I often am.  

Elon Musk was forced to purchase a company he did not want.  It's in his best interest to gut it and have it tank.  He will then claim the loss on his taxes, which benefits Musk.  Musk wins.  The sad thing is that it's a round-about subsidy to Musk at taxpayer expense. 

Expert Witness

I've added another title to my job description:  Expert Witness.

I've been at my job for almost 35 years.  That's unheard of in this day and age.  With that being stated, I've come to know many of the people I work with very well along with their families.  

Here's the backstory.  One of the guys I worked with owned his own company.  He and his wife left the business to their son, who had worked for the company all his life (don't get me started on child labor laws).  These wishes were stated in a trust that was prepared by an attorney.  

The dad died about 13 years ago.  The son has been operating the business per the directive of the trust.  Sister is stewing over the trust arrangement that son gets the business.  The mother gets dementia.  Sister gets mother to change the trust.  Son is suddenly out.  

It's an ugly legal battle and the son is trying to establish what he would have accumulated in his pension account had he gone to work for somebody else in a similar position in a similar company.  

I'm the person they want to retain as an expert witness.  I am NOT an actuary, nor a professional money manager/retirement planner and I was very up front about that.  Still, they want to retain me as a witness.  I'm very comfortable giving very approximate estimates that anybody with a 9th grade education could figure out......and they want to pay me for that?  I guess I have credibility.  Thank God, cuz I don't have much else. 

Veggie Chili and Corn Bread

 What is that falling from the sky?  Could it be rain?  After months of warm sunshine we are experiencing our first taste of winter.  Lord knows we need the rain.  People are walking around outside looking up to the sky in disbelief like geese getting their faces and nostrils wet.  Let us hope that people are smarter than geese and will come in out of the rain should the rain get into their nostrils and drown.  

Somehow, I don't think humanity is that smart.

It's soup and chili season.  Today I'm making my famous veggie chili and cornbread.  The vegetables are all from the garden, which makes it extra gooooooooood.  The cornbread is baked in the same 150 year old cast iron skillet that made the prairie trip west.  

Food is such a great distraction from the political vitriol that is rampant this election season.  I can't bear to watch the news nor read the newspaper any more as the media only fans the flames of the us vs. them mentality.  Truth = Both sides are corrupt AF.  The media is denouncing violence against politicians.  They don't see their hand in perpetuating it.  They love the ratings when people tune into the latest shocking event, but hate the impact of same event perpetuating even more shocking events.  Sorry, media, you can't have it both ways.  

Yes, we are experiencing a flash point in our nation's history.  However, tell me of a revolution that was borne without violence.