The trusty RAM 1500 is going back into the body shop first thing Monday morning to take care of a loose antenna mount, something they had forgotten to tighten when they replaced the front fenders a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to complete the task which is a good thing as the trusty RAM 1500 will be going back to my mechanic’s later the same day to have its annual undercoating performed. (That will be done first thing Tuesday morning as they will keep the pickup inside overnight to make sure it’s warm which helps the undercoating spread to cover everything being sprayed.)
One thing that has put a small crimp in life is that I haven’t been able to receive any mail for over a week now. New mailboxes were installed to replace the 40+ year old mailboxes that were starting to fall apart. The new mailboxes were installed about a week and a half ago…and they couldn’t find the key for our mailbox. We have no key for our mailbox, so we can’t open it. We keep getting vague responses to our queries about when (or if) we will finally get our keys from our property management company. If it comes to down to it I will inform the USPS about the situation when I go to the main post office to retrieve my mail and ask for a lock change. That will cost $50 to have performed and somehow, I think I’ll be stuck paying for it.
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This is something we’ve been watching develop over the past couple of decades, “this” being the increasing decay of so-called Blue Zones – basically blue cities and some blue states. What’s worse is that this decay is deliberate. “There’s a lot ruin in a blue zone. People in neighborhoods work at the preservation of order while they vote for disorder.”
We see that in cities like San Francisco and Portland and Seattle and Chicago and New York. We see that in states like California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and New York. Policies, laws, and regulations that may sound good on the surface but are seriously flawed are implemented and everything goes just the opposite of what was promised. Increasingly, the Law of Unintended Consequences comes into play and then the folks that pushed the original policies, laws, and regulations double down which makes things even worse. And then they double down again.
And they’ll blame everyone else for the collapse except the person in the mirror. It always seems that way. I doubt it will be any different this time around.
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The subject of Netflix buying Warner Brothers keeps popping up and one of the refrains I keep hearing is that it will lead to end of moviegoing, or so says John Podhoretz. I hate to say it, but the number of people actually going to movie theaters to watch movies has been declining for years. Part of the cause is that movies have been awful lately with only a few hit movies scattered here and there. Another reason is the cost, between the ticket prices and price of refreshments. It’s cheaper to stream a movie even if you pay a small amount above your streaming subscription to do so, refreshments are cheap, and you can pause the movie if you need to visit the bathroom. There’s no travel involved. No worries about parking or other movie patrons causing problems while trying to watch the movie, and so on.
It is true that you don’t get the ‘shared’ experience of watching a movie with hundreds of others which can add to the experience, particularly if you are watching a great movie. I’ve experienced that again and again during my almost 70 years on this planet. Watching the original Star Wars back in 1977 was an incredible experience, one that cannot be replicated watching it for the first time on your 75” OLED 4K UHD television in your living room. It’s not the same.
I’m not saying the moviegoing experience can’t be revived, but it’s going to take some work. Otherwise more theaters will close. (A couple of movie theaters I used to frequent have closed, something that saddens me.)
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Is it just me or does this year’s Christmas season seem more subdued than in the past?
Watching the ads on TV, the holiday specials, decorations, sales flyers, community celebrations, and so on, Christmas doesn’t seem to be as festive as I remember them being. I don’t see or feel nearly the amount of wonder of the season whether we’re talking about the religious or secular holiday. It’s like the volume has been turned down and the brightness has been dialed back a bit.
This isn’t cynicism on my part as I love Christmas and always have. But something seems off about it this year, something I can’t quite put my finger on.
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I found this to be highly amusing.
It turns out the “Epstein” photo released by Democrats turns out to be Trump with Miss Universe contestants in 1996.
I have to guess the Democrats thought they finally had something on Trump with the photo showing him with a bevy of beautiful women, trying to twist it so it was ‘proof’ he’d been a customer of Epstein. What’s even more telling – Donald Trump owned the Miss Universe pageant back then.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the photo.
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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where more snow had fallen, the lake is freezing up, and where I don’t care if Monday is returning because I’m on vacation!