Writing Wrongs

Watched as much of the ESPN coverage of the NFL draft as I could FF through. After weeks of hype, none of the local TV stations covered any of it. They all had claimed to have several pairs of reporters each at strategic locations, but none of them did. And ESPN showed almost nothing of the vast entertainment offered around the city as part of the draft. Toward the end, ESPN lost it, the picks came in one on top of another, and they didn't even try to keep up.
FAIL

Next on Tivo was the white house correspondents dinner on CSPAN. Coverage started at 5 Pacific, there was a caption which said speakers would start at 5:30 but that was a lie. They played several past roasters, each at least a half hour. Then they spent time honoring long dead black women journalists, and there was an in memorium of the journalists, filmmakers and local support people killed in the Ukraine war.

Biden finally spoke, IMHO his was the best, most fun, most inspiring speech.

Trevor Noah somehow got the roaster role, and he was meh. I don't like him. Mostly because IMHO a South African has no business taking over Jon Stewart's role on Comedy Central. He just does not have the feel for American politics.

But it was great to see them have one again.

Finally, after a break to read more sci-fi, I turned on the USFL game. Turned it off in disgust 7 minutes before halftime. These players are not ready for prime time.

Ran a load of laundry, baked up some apple turnovers, played with Spook.

Tomorrow:
change her litterbox
Bulk garbage to the curb

Spent most of 4/28 watching local channels 3, 5, 8 and 13, all of which claimed to be NFL Draft central. I was looking forward to the draftees walking the magenta carpet on the Bellagio lake, with the fountains behind, but that never happened for 2 reasons:
1. At 5 pm all the local coverage was shut down because ESPN owned the rights
2. With 45 MPH gusts, NFL abandoned the Bellagio site and all the action was at the band shell by the High Roller.

#2 turned out to be the most intelligent decision, fans packed in and the crowd estimate was half a million. IRL closer to 100k.

---

As usual the call to my PCP went unanswered.

Expected Amazon delivery was delivered.

Waffles for breakfast
Berries for lunch
Cheese-its for dinner (Spook made me share)

---

Read trashy scifi in bed from about 8:30 till midnight. Felt dehydrated so went back to the livingroom, watched the rest of the draft on Tivo, drank 2 glasses of chocolate milk.

Ran out of CO2 in the bubbler, changed cartridges and bubbled up some diet ginger ale and diet cranberry-raspberry plus made sure all three plain soda bottles were charged.

Back to bed, more reading then sleep.

Reading It Ain't Over..

Called a plumber which seems to specialize in toilets**. Someone will be here tomorrow between 10 and noon.
** most of the yelp plumbers are all about HVAC.

---

Finished watching 90 Day The Single Life. Big Ed has lucked out. Nice woman, she sees him for the mensch he is. Chat with mom was great - in Spanish.

TMZ, PTI were good as usual.

Below Deck Sailing Ship saw the emo stew leave. I hope she gets the therapy she needs, and returns some day. Meanwhile all the women on board want to do it with Gary. The only thing he has going for him is he gets drunk and blacks out.

The Equalizer gave the spotlight to Aunt Vi. played by Lorraine Toussaint. She did well, it was a long jury trial.

MSNBC is ragging about Kevin McCarthy's lies. And the lack of DOJ action. CNN has some of that but mostly is Ukraine news.

Tomorrow:
Plumber
Nails?

The desert is not kind to flying swarming insects, so it was surprising to see a flock of swallows cavorting in front of the house for a couple of hours this afternoon. In my 2 years here, have only seen this twice.

1.75 avocados consumed for breakfast, sprayed with half a lime's juice.

Shrimp for lunch, berries for dessert. Mixed up some pomegranate-cranberry soda. Drank some chocolate milk with and without soda water.

Watched some of the GOP airhead's "I can't recall" testimony. I expect the judge will keep her on the ballot and let her idiot voters decide.

Not watching any more American Idol. I've seen each contestant too many times already. None of them deserve the title, except maybe that short fat Italian dish washer from Long Island. IMHO country music is not the Idol demographic.

Watched most of the USFL game, NOLA vs. Tampa Bay. NOLA has a couple of NFL-able players. TB does not. They play in what looks like a high school stadium in the Deep South. The same venue for every game. Very amateur. Once in a while a coach comes up with a creative play, but the QB rarely executes well.

Took a short nap about 4. Spook was splayed across the closet floor, then found a T-shirt to curl up on. She also spent a lot of time almost on my lap back in the livingroom.

The two storm chasers were on their way home, one to Colorado the other to Nebraska, where he can't get into his home because an apartment in his complex burned.

Ran a load of laundry and the dishwasher.

Tomorrow:
Call a plumber about the rusty toilet
Pacemaker check in the afternoon

Missed Richard's call this morning (somehow slept till 9:30). Called them back and he explained that from the photos and description by his estimator, there is nothing which needs to be fixed under the house. The carpet is bunched up from walking the same path for 2+ years. If I want I can have a carpet installer stretch it and trim the ends, but maybe professional cleaning will suffice. My house is low to the ground and massive pieces of siding would need to be removed to get under it, which would cost about $1700 and six guys' time all day. Not worth it when the problem is not under the house.

---

Today's culinary experiment was to take the bag of frozen KFC wings, put them in a pot on the stove and slowly bring them to a boil. Drain, refill, repeat. Add some cream of celery soup mix to cut the taste.
FAIL
The wings were totally infused with cayenne pepper. Too spicy for me even after processing. KFC is not Popeye's, they are supposed to be 11 herbs and spices, not one large dose of pepper. Tried to east some for lunch, ended up bagging them and putting them in the garbage.

With that as a catalyst, I also emptied the time capsule known as the freezer, discovered two edible slices of pizza, an unopened bag of shrimp won tons, and a half eaten bag of avocado chunks. Threw out a lot of old corned beef slices, KFC wings from a year ago, unrecognizable bread pudding and banana nut bread. Kept the slices of angel food cake.

Not much of TV. Twitch had two storm chasers who took forever to find a storm. It's two vehicles, the lead truck says RAM on the tailgate, so far the following truck has not followed that command.

Stumbled on the Marjorie Taylor Green hearing on CSPAN. It was all historian talk, which the defense was not happy with and the judge allowed because he can always strike it later.

Rice pudding with cinnamon for dinner, and berry cup with whipped cream.

Delivered:
Cube tissue boxes, consigned awkwardly to the bathroom closet
Smaller slippers which were in an Amazon box 6x too big
Soda Stream diet ginger ale, caffeine free diet cola and diet raspberry-cranberry syrups.

I mixed some regular diet cola with diet orange for the fridge.

It's been very windy, lots of rain clouds, but the rain evaporated before it got to the ground. Virga.

Happy Earth Day!

On FB I posted a long list of prescription drugs advertised on TV the past week, and my sometimes vegan sister commented about plant-based meds. Ironically today is 4/20, the ultimate pant-based medication.

No cat overnight. I slept late, still no cat.

2 avocados for breakfast. The two bags of 5 are ripening. Need to cut them up & freeze the pieces tomorrow.

To-done:
Talked with Allstate's not very articulate admin, who called in response to my email saying I was not renewing my auto insurance. She said she could not accept the email, but it turned out that all I needed to do was re-send it with my policy number and the date to cancel.

Another call from the local State Farm agent, who got me more coverage for less, she will call a week before the Allstate ends, and finalize it.

Ad a call from Richard, or Richard's Mobile Home Repair, he will come by tomorrow between 9 and 10 am and look at my raised carpet ridge. The Web says leveling will probably set me back $1k. More if they have to replace boards. I will also ask about smaller carport steps and renovating the back of the porch, maybe also new carpet there.

As soon as I sat down to the PC I saw a roadrunner on the street, but he bolted before I could grab a camera.

Streamed the hummer feeder. There were finches and other small birds as well as hummers.

One storm chaser on Twitch, he was following radar in OK, but by the time he got to the three locations the storms had dissipated. Watched a former Vegas guy who streams from his long haul truck, but nobody was on chat.

Not much on Tivo - will watch MAFS later.

Lots of wind, but not as much as yesterday.

Food was junk and rice pudding. Found my stash of ground cinnamon.

Tomorrow:
wake up with the alarm
Make the bed
Get dressed by 9.
Richard's

Up with the alarm, collected all the garbage bags and took them out to the bin, dumped the recycles into the bin. Pulled the car out of the carport and parked on the street so I could sweep the rocks away which the wind storms blew under the car.

This also made it easier to roll the bins out to the curb, over the carport instead of the gravel.

On to the mailbox, threw out a lot of junk, kept the Humana prescription.

Post office, put the CO2 cartridges in the big bulk rolling receptacle. SodaSense makes a lovely sturdy mailer for a pair of cartridges, prepaid postage. As soon as the PO scans it, they start the return order.

Albertson's, a gallon of chocolate milk, some berry grab boxes, sourdough English muffins, and a very large bottle of Carolan's Irish Cream. And dark chocolate sugar free pudding, plus two tubs of rice pudding.

Home, streamed the hummer feeder.

Watched American Idol. They kept the two worst men and sent home my favorite woman. Why do they love falsetto men's voices so much? And the field is too heavily Country.

Took a nap at 3, Spook joined me. When I got up and dressed she led me back to the livingroom. I put out new cat grass for her.

Thought I had 4 eggs left, but there were 6. I should have fried up 3, but did 4 and put each one on a half of an English muffin. I finished the eggs but left over a muffin.

All the Jesus messages on Facebook annoy the hell out of me -- How can people be so stupid?

Ukraine needs more help than NATO is willing to give. :-(

BASFA zoom meeting was interesting as usual.

Meatish Swedeballs for dinner.

Finished the last of the old Carolan's bottle.

Tomorrow:
Call about the house - releveling?

Woke up at 6, knew my hgl was low, was planning on a Klondike and PTI but the One Touch meter said I was way high - 300+. Tried another test strip and it was 100. I've been getting the strips from Amazon, and they are well within the use-by date but have been erratic for s while.

I puled out the Humana-provided Acucheck meter and strips, and they are more accurate and easier to use. Canceled my Amazon subscription for One Touch.

After spending too much $$ on Ocean Spray and coconut water, I switched to SodaSense CO2 cartridges in my SodaStream bubbler and SodaStream syrups. I have diet ginger ale, diet orange and diet cola. One each of those has been open and on the counter since January, so those were poured down the drain and fresh ginger ale opened.

One of the bottles had some ginger melted and rotting in the bottom, so that bottle is history.

But I have plenty of bottles, and 2 full CO2 cartridges.

The ginger ale tastes great.