Posts in Category: Uncategorized
Just Joshin’
Behold the Liberty nickel. They’re really not gold colored, but in 1883 a clever deaf/mute named Josh Tatum came up with a novel get rich scheme.
He realized that the coin was similar in size to a five dollar gold piece and the “V” on the back lacked any mention of “cents”. He also guessed correctly that a sales clerk handed a gold plated version of the nickel would assume it was really the five dollar gold piece.
The brilliant part of his plan? When he was finally caught he successfully used the defense that, because he was deaf and dumb, he was unable to correct the clerks mistake in giving him back to much change.
How well did Mr. Tatum’s plan succeed? When someone figures out they’ve been conned with a line of BS, we still use the defense, “It’s ok, I was only joshing you!”
Just How Dysfunctional are the Caps?
Two weeks after the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup, their coach, Barry Trotz is out of a job.
Toronto’s Mike Babcock makes the most at $6.25 million on an eight-year deal after coaching Detroit for 10 seasons, Chicago’s Joel Quenneville is next at $6 million entering his ninth full season with the Blackhawks and Montreal’s Claude Julien brings in $5 million after coaching Boston for nine-plus seasons. All three have won the Cup like Trotz, including Quenneville three times.
The Caps apparently wanted to pay the coach who brought them two President’s Trophies and their first Cup two million bucks and wouldn’t commit to a five year deal. Trotz rightfully told them to “Take this job and shove it.”
I guess they want to go another 43 years before winning another cup.
It’s been about 17 years since the death of musician and riverboat pilot John Hartford. If you’re old enough to remember The Glenn Campbell show, John was the audience member that stood up with a banjo to start the theme song each show and would often do a “>musical number. He also was the resident banjo player “>on The Smothers Brothers show.
He was a virtuoso on the banjo and fiddle, witty and humorous, and almost as knowledgable of Mississippi river lore as Mark Twain.
Washington Capitals 2018 Cup Champs
Congratulations to Alex Ovechkin and his Washington Capitals. It took 14 seasons for him to erase the 43 season goose egg, but you can no longer say he and they have never won a Stanley Cup. That all ended last night with the Cap’s come from behind, 4-3 win, over the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
Ovie definitely earned the Conn Smythe trophy for playoff MVP with his 15 playoff goals this season.
But it was your job to know.
Former Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simons continued with her defense strategy of “pass the buck” during her testimony before a Michigan congressional hearing.
“in hindsight … there were clearly things that might have been warning signs.” However, Simon added, she believed that investigators at the time “did their best.”
The vast number of Nasser’s victims attests to the fact that “did their best” was woefully inadequate.
“There are warning signs here that should have been heeded earlier at the very top of Michigan State University,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking Democratic member of the Senate subcommittee that held the hearing. “Apologies aren’t enough. We have to honor those survivors with real action.”
Senator Blumenthal is absolutely correct in his assessment. MSU needs to stop circling the wagons and trying to defend their indefensible inaction. Instead of trying to assert that Nassar somehow skirted the system and they’re blameless, they should be owning up to the idea that implementing such a flawed system to begin with was crucial to allowing Nassar to devastate so many people’s lives.
“If I had known about Nassar sooner, I would have fired him”
But you did know, and he was allowed to continue unabated for two more years. It was your job to know these things as President of MSU and you failed. Until you can admit you failed, there can’t be an honest dialog about how to prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/06/05/former-msu-president-simon-nassar-congress-hearing/674103002/
Shiny!
Wow, hard to believe it’s been15 years since Firefly blazed across my television. Even harder to believe that in 15 years not a single streaming service picked this show to revive. This was truly a show that ended way before i’ts time.
It was essentially a western set in space with a bit of Robin Hood mixed in. The crew of the Firefly loved adventure, loved each other, and loved their plucky little spaceship the Serenity. In one short season they also made a whole lot of fans fall in love with their universe.
So put on your browncoat, fire up a Firefly marathon, and keep it shiny!
Ovie and the Caps, One Win Away
After leading the Washington Capitals to three President’s Trophies, Alex Ovechkin may finally be ready to lead them to their first ever hoisting of Lord Stanley’s Cup.
With their bonafide 6-2 blowout of the Vegas Golden Knights in game 4 on Monday night, the Capitals are one game away from winning it all. The game was effectively over after Washington went up 3-0 in the first period.
The swarming offense and fusillade of shots that marked the offensive onslaught Vegas rode in to the finals seems to have met its match in Washington’s great goaltending, solid defense, and favorable goal posts.
The Capitals can win it all on Thursday.
Infinity and Beyond
Finally saw Avengers: Infinity War this past weekend. It’s definitely a blockbuster, and over all I enjoyed it…
But…
I almost thought it was too big. For the most part it’s just one, long, continuous fight scene while almost every hero gets a cameo. I recognize that these movies started out to appeal to hard core comic book geeks, but this mega-movie seems to demand that everyone needs to know the Marvel Universe to that degree. You really need to know what’s happened in just about all previous 18 movies to fully get what’s being referenced in the brief interludes between the constant barrage of action. At times it kind of felt like I was watching the season finale of a television that I’d missed key episodes of along the way.
I was actually kind of glad for the ending. Now I don’t have to keep track of every single character in the Marvel Universe. While I can appreciate what they’re trying to do by having all the movies tied in with each other, they should realize we’ve not only got our favorite characters, we’ve got ones we don’t give a rat’s behind for as well.
They Call Them the Streak…..
The Detroit Tigers are most definitely in rebuilding mode. With their 6-2 win yesterday afternoon over the Los Angeles Angel’s their record over the last 10 games is 6-4. That seems to be the way this season is going to play out for the Tigers. A ten game stretch where they play pretty good baseball followed by a ten game stretch where they remind us all the good major league players got traded away last year.
So far this season, the hot and cold streaks have balanced out and kept the Tigers near the .500 mark despite a rash of injuries during May. As we move in to the heart of summer it’ll be interesting to see if we keep going back and forth, or if one side, not or cold, starts winning out.
Here’s hoping the hot streaks win out, and speaking of streaks….
Fake Bread and a Tasty Dessert
I have been really watching my carbohydrate consumption since my doctor gave me the news I have type 2 diabetes. I’ve done the Atkins diet before with pretty good success, so I went back to it again. I have stuck mostly with the initial induction phase for maximum weight loss but I’ve started adding in phase 2 foods like nuts and berries.
One of the first things I gave up was any kind of bread. That, along with no sweets, was the hardest part about getting started. With yesterday’s dinner I decided to try this recipe:
INGREDIENTS
- 4 tbsps Flaxseed (Spectrum) Organic Ground
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder (Straight Phosphate, Double Acting)
- 1/2 individual packet Sucralose Based Sweetener (Sugar Substitute)
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 large Egg (Whole)
- 1 tsp Unsalted Butter Stick
Put all the dry ingredients in a microwavable mug, then add the egg, and I used a tsp of olive oil instead of butter because I didn’t have enough soft butter available. Mix it all up and pop it in the microwave for about a minute. Viola! Something to fool you into thinking you’re getting bread. It tastes like a bran muffin with a hint of cinnamon and comes in with 4 grams of net carbs.