Starting Five
Burn, Baby, Burn
Because we watched the final episode of this season’s Curb Your Enthusiasm this week, along with the most recent episode of Better Call Saul, we spotted a little theme. Businesses going up in flame. Set on fire by someone who works there. Both businesses, by the way, are side businesses.
Hasta la vista, Los Pollos Hermanos. Shalom, Latte Larry’s.
The final scene of the season from Curb, by the way? How brilliant was that. They built an entire season around that payoff. Spite House!
Cold Comfort
A story in The New York Times details how the USNS Comfort, which sailed to New York City under the auspices of relieving the toll on hospitals overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, only has 20 patients. Twenty! The ship has 1,000 beds.
Apparently, the ship not only will not take coronavirus patients, but it lists 49 other conditions that, if a patient checks one of those boxes, would render a potential patient unqualified. If only it were that easy to be refused by the military during a draft.
How does this happen?
Doctors, Nurses And The Wedding Singer
A tune from Adam Sandler on the pandemic heroes…
REM-ember A Classic
Early REM is the best REM. This is from the spring of ’84, when the airwaves were being bombarded by Def Leppard and Madonna. Prince, Bruce and Night Ranger would own the summer. It would be another year before I began to discover the foursome from Athens.
Revisiting The Astros Scandal
Listen, it was already a crappy year before coronavirus happened. Kobe died. The Astros cheated (for three consecutive seasons, most likely). A Korean movie won all the Oscars (it’s been the year of Parasite and a pathogen, both from Asia).
But we could get one thing right. Rob Manfred could strip the Astros of their 2017 World Series championship. Remember, only about seven weeks ago as we were hearing Important People say that you can’t rewrite history? No, you can’t, but you can still punish people. And you can deal with unexpected hurdles when they arise.
There may not be a 2020 World Series champion and you know what? The Earth will continue spinning. So why not allow that there’s no 2017 World Series champion, either.
Then again, I just thought about this: the coronavirus has saved a lot of current Astros from being beaned in the past month, hasn’t it.
So, yesterday felt a bit like “winning the lottery” – I went down to the bathroom in my basement (which I’ve not used for over 10 years & had been used as storage) to take a look in the sink vanity & found THREE ROLLS OF TOILET PAPER! Not “mega-rolls” let alone “Super-Mega” rolls but still. I burst into tears. I then did my best Scarlet O-Hara, waved a roll in the air & vowed to “NEVER BE WITHOUT TP AGAIN!” 😉
(I can laugh NOW but this is all true).
Meanwhile, it seems to be getting worse ‘out there’ every day. I watch & listen to how things are in NYC & am aghast & bereft. And my anger towards the Sociopath & his fellow NAZIS continues to grow. He & his vile administration need to be replaced NOW. As bad as things are, they will continue to get worse unless REAL leaders take over.
My company is involved in helping in the crisis in a couple different ways. I just learned this morning that our Clinical Trials dept is recruiting for/setting up & coordinating up to 23 COVID clinical trial sites around the country. I’ve worked for my company 37 years this month & never been more proud. And happy that we can be of assistance during this national & worldwide crisis in any way. Compared to the “front lines” (i.e. all the tens of thousands of dedicated & heroic health care workers around the country), our contributions may be small, but hopefully can help combat this killer.
Are you working another job? If you must & the job entails leaving your house, please, please wear a mask & use disposable gloves. (I don’t know where one can purchase these items at the moment but as a longtime New Yorker, hopefully “you know a guy”. 🙂 )
Finally, hope you were NOT ‘unlucky’ enough to be an investor in Luckin Coffee. Ooof! Dropped more than 75% yesterday due to revelations of FRAUD by at least the COO. It was a fairly recent pick of one of the two Motley Fool services I subscribe to but I wasn’t interested. I currently own a few Chinese stocks but my biggest loss was in a Chinese stock & have been extremely wary since.
Hm, I did put in my name above but for some reason, it does not show up. Weird!
My comment disappeared! Are you trying to tell me something? “It’s you not me”. 😉
Nothing I did or tried to do.
The comment count says “3” but only 2 are appearing. When I 1st posted, it only showed “s” instead of “susie b” for the name, which was odd & also it stated my comment was “awaiting moderation”.
Isn’t there a song called “Lost in Moderation”? Well, play it again, jdubs!
🙁 🙁
Ah, there I am!
Just read that there are almost 2800 cases in my state & HALF are under the age of 50. My county has the highest number of cases in the state & while we are one of the 5 most populous counties, we are not the biggest so don’t understand why we have quite so many. Of course, hardly compares to big urban centers such as NYC, but worrisome. Since all but “essential businesses” have been physically closed for 15 days, I wonder if the new cases are all from those workers? It seems imperative that ALL workers outside the home wear protective gear, to protect themselves & us. AND the FEDERAL GOVT should pay for the gear & get it to these businesses. No, I haven’t been drinking. What’s your opinion?