It was the best of mornings and the worst of mornings...

and let's give credit where credit is due, to Dickens, for providing the turn of phrase that I paraphrased this morning.

Best of mornings because the air was crisp and clean, and the temperature even cooler than other recent mornings.  Worse of mornings because that hamstring continued to bother me, and kept me from going as far as I wanted.  Although it is worthy of note that I did go further than yesterday.

I noticed a sign I hadn't seen before.  It involves those two foot massage spas that are located on opposite sides of some other business.  I'd always seen the one's "$19.99 for one hour foot massage" sign, but the other's is up a bit and I don't normally look up, but keep my eyes ahead or to the sides.  So when I saw the "$14.99 for one hour foot massage" sign, I immediately wondered how the other store survived, when its direct competition is undercutting them by 25%, two doors down.

The bakery door that's always open as I pass was closed and the lights were off this morning.  For a moment I wondered what was wrong, but then I realized I was passing by ten to 15 minutes earlier than usual.  When I passed by on my return trip, the door was open, the light on, and the baker working away inside, oblivious to my moment of concern over his welfare.

I thought about last night and what Peter Tilden had been talking about on talk radio.  One issue involved Facebook, employment and freedom of speech.  A sheriff back East had been running for reelection and six of the people who worked in the Sheriff's Department "liked" the FB page of his opponent.  He won reelection and immediately fired those who had liked his opponent.  One of them sued to get his job back and lost.  The judge ruled that a "like" is not protected speech, because it is not speech.  Hopefully that travesty will be overturned on appeal.

Another thing he discussed was that 41% of the budget at the federal level goes to entitlements.  That's what the candidates should be discussing, not "they gonna put y'all back in chains", "I know he put something else on his car's roof in the past", and the dumb random bullshit coming from the other side that wasn't as prominent in the discussion.  G-d forbid they talk about real issues that impact the lives of Americans.

In the wake of the Kristin Steward/Rupert Sanders affair, I thought about a woman I dated a long time ago.  A good looking, smart woman who happened to be the assistant to her brother-in-law, who also worked in film.  So did her sister who was married to the guy.  She told me both were engaged in extra-marital affairs that the other didn't know about, and that she more or less facilitated both affairs.  Then she had the nerve to insist there was nothing wrong with her wanting to sleep with me, while she was still sleeping with a married man.  How dare I refuse to make her happy on the nights her married lover wasn't available to do it himself?  You can guess how much longer that lasted after that discussion.

I just found out I'm going to have to miss a night of trivia next week to attend a screening.  I'd prefer to do both, but when that's not possible, life becomes a matter of choices.  Trivia is every Tuesday in one place or another, while advance screenings of films are still a rarity. 

I want something I can't have.  Nothing new there.  In this case, it's a ticket for the upcoming Powerball drawing, with a jackpot of over $300 million.  It would be a wasted dollar.  Especially if I had to get to the Arizona/CA state line to spend it.