It was not a good morning all around, but I still...

got in 20+ minutes of walking.  That in spite of the fact my hamstring ached worse than it has yet on any of these mornings.  Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, and Saturday will be like today, active rest or more complete rest, in an effort to let this heal.  I will be doing some walking during my day on Saturday and I don't want to be limping or constrained in doing that.

The dry cleaners I pass each morning has a sign in its window I hadn't noticed until this morning.  It is some kind of payment clearing center.  Years ago, before I set up auto-deduction of my Southern California Edison monthly bill, there were a few months where I pushed the payment deadline to the very last day (usually during tax season when I was among the schedule challenged).  How well I remember having to go to a particular drug store, or a check cashing store (about equidistant from my apartment) to pay the bill, as SCE had closed its own storefront payment centers.

Sounds like something more businesses should do.  My favorite donut shop in El Segundo sells donuts, ice cream, sandwiches, lottery, long-distance phone cards to a variety of other countries, and goodness knows what else.  If they'd had the space, I suspect that they'd have bought out a local video store owner's inventory and started renting videos and DVDs, but there just wasn't enough storage space to house the inventory and the daily inventory of donuts.  Oh, but for a little more space in the backroom.

Time for a quiz.  Two simple questions.  How many letters in the word "jobs"?  What century are we in, in the year 2012?  The answers are four letters, and the 21st Century.  Unless your name is Joe Biden and you're the Vice-President of the United States.  Then the answers are three letters and 20th Century.  He made both of these idiotic statements yesterday.  It has led me to paraphrase a famous Latin adage.  In teleprompter interruptus, veritas.  So in the absence of a teleprompter, rather than in the presence of wine, there is truth. 

Saying you've visited 57 states is a gaffe from being tired and confused.  Saying that your uncle was there when Auschwitz was liberated, when the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz and your uncle may or may not have been there when Buchenwald was liberated is a simple confusion of facts.  But saying you won't employ former lobbyists in your administration and then employing them within a week of taking office is something else.  Telling the American people they will have five days to give comments on any and every bill that hits your desk before you sign it, and then signing the very first bill to hit that desk less than 2 days later...well, that's an out and out lie in my book.

Not that either side has a monopoly on gaffes, or lies.  But these are things that should be considered and not just ignored as "business as usual".  It was business as usual that got us into this mess.  I've yet to hear anyone give me a satisfactory explanation of how outsourcing American jobs to countries where they can be done more cheaply is actually beneficial to the U.S. economy. 

I did something dumb last night.  I jammed some cash into my pocket, rather than into my fanny pack (yes, I still use that, it might be the same one you last saw me wearing, this one is at least seven years old).  Now about $40 is missing and I've looked everywhere.  New rule.  All cash goes in the fanny pack.  Oh well, 25% of it will be replaced when I cash in last night's lottery ticket.  I won $10 on my ticket.  Life giveth and life taketh away.

I'm soliciting opinions on this next question.  I play trivia, several nights a week on a good week.  Last night's game was frustrating. At this location we always get a "music" round where the host plays music and you try to guess the artist.  This round is never easy because the accoustics in the room are bad to begin with and when you add in the fact that not all of the patrons are playing the game, there is talking going on while the music plays.  It's hard to hear.  Then magnify the difficulty by the host having digitally altered the sound of the 7 songs so that we were to guess who the female singer was, whose song sounded decidedly male.  We bombed big time and it went from being a fun game, even if we couldn't get most or all of a round's answers right, to a frustrating experience.  Especially when he insisted on playing the songs over 5 times, because they were so difficult to interpret. 

On the way home, I came to the conclusion that guessing the artist of a song being played when the song is unaltered may be "trivia".  Guessing the artist or title of a song from a written or spoken lyric might be trivia.  Guessing the artist or title of a song from digitally altered music is NOT trivia.  Your input on this issue on my FB page (I can't figure out how to turn the comment feature for this on) would be very welcome.

PETA is upset with Lady Gaga.  I remember a run-in with PETA I witnessed.  I was at a candidates forum in West Las Vegas (a primarily African-American community at that time) and for some reason two PETA people were there harrassing one candidate for his position on something that appeared to have nothing to do with animals or animal rights.  They had to be removed by security when they went around disrupting the reporters trying to ask questions of the candidates after the events.  I have a friend who calls the group People who Eat Tasty Animals.  Hey, I'm a big fan of animal rights.  Don't leave dogs in hot cars, or chained up outside in hot weather.  Feed and care for your animals.  Don't put them in danger in movie making.  But I have no position on the ethics of fur coats.