2 posts from 2009

Do you have the same problem I do after watching that Cymbalta commercial? It’s the music…it’s so damn depressing. It makes you feel like you need to see your doctor right away and tell him, I’m depressed Doc!

Don’t worry. After a few minutes into whatever show is following the commercial, you’ll be right as rain again.

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Can’t our government do anything right? Now we hear that they’re running out of money to provide coupons for people who need a converter box to continue watching their TVs.

Now there’s talk about postponing the switch to digital until they can come up with more money to keep providing the $40 coupons.

That makes sense to me.

We got two coupons and bought digital converters and gave them to our daughter and son-in-law, Renee and Scott. I hope they know that if anything goes wrong with our cable, we get to go out and watch their TV and I get the remote control.

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Whatever happened to chrome on cars? I remember that 1958 Buick Specials and those 1950s Cadillacs had a ton of chrome and looked like a million dollars. Especially those with black paint jobs. My 1965 Grand Prix even had chrome on the inside of the car.

I still dream about that car.

Part of the reason for not using chrome as much anymore is safety. It reduces the glare inside of automobiles and what other drivers see (glare) coming at them on the road. Another reason may be that chroming involves dangerous chemicals.

Federal-Mogul used to chrome tooling subject to wear and galling. They eventually found another way to solve the problem and got rid of the chroming room.

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This year’s two week Tip-Up-Town at Houghton Lake takes place January 16-18 and the following weekend, January 23-25.

My first Tip-Up-Town was six years after it first became a winter festival. It was just a one weekend event back then.

Tipup

As you can see by this picture, I didn’t have a very good camera back then.

I tried to rectify that problem since then.

They had a simple parade with simple floats. Mort Neff came up and tried to give everybody’s secret fishing hole away. My Aunt never liked that guy even though she appeared on his show one time which was filmed during Tip-Up-Town.

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I teased my newest son-in-law, Ross, about breaking the shower knob in the bathroom during the Christmas holidays. In reality it just broke from years of use. Call it fatigue if you will. As my granddad used to say, we used it well -- only he was talking about a guy.

What does a computer guy do to remedy the situation? He gets on the internet which is exactly what I did. Within a week’s time I had a new knob for our shower faucet.

An attempt to buy it locally proved fruitless even though they had plenty of other knobs. Just not the right one. In Gill-Roys’ defense they are the most valuable store in town.

At least to me.

Now what am I going to do to prevent this from ever happening again? I’m going to order backups for the knob and the valve (they’re on their way.) It beats the hell out of paying over three-hundred dollars to have the faucet replaced. The problem is they’d either have to go through a recent shower renovation (without a new faucet — my fault) or they’d have to cut an access door through the wall in the hallway.

Hopefully, I’ve avoided all of this.

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The American tax payers just got a slap in the face from General Motors after we backed the loans to keep GM afloat. What did these intelligent people do? They announced they’re having one of their newest models built in Mexico.

Mexico reported that their car production increased last year while ours went down — way down. Doesn’t GM owe this country something instead of giving business to Mexico? Any new vehicles produced in Mexico, or anywhere else after the bailout should be labeled, "It’s illegal to sell this vehicle in the United States of America."

Let the Mexicans buy them.

Until the next time . . .

I like to watch some musicians on TV, but I’m confused by one thing. Why do they wear what are either ear phones or ear plugs? With a backup band they don’t need music in their ears, but maybe they’re piping the words of the song in (not unheard of) or they’re trying to keep themselves from going deaf. If that’s true shouldn’t, we be wearing earplugs when we listen to their music?

Just wondering.

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What seemed to be an impossible season could only happen to our Detroit Lions. 0-16. I still can’t believe it. These guys went 4-0 in the exhibition season which led some of us dummies (fans) to believe there was a good season ahead of us.

What do you want to bet that Santa left everyone of those ball players and coaches a lump of coal in their stocking?

Most of us fans were looking for a total house cleaning after the season, except for the owner of course. Instead they promoted two guys from within. These guys were part of the system when things went wrong, so what makes William Clay Ford think it’s going to be any different next season?

There are three guys eliminated from our list of candidates for the head coaching job: Marty Mornhinweg, Steve Mariucci, and Rod Marinelli. They are our last failures as head coach. Is Wayne Fontes available?

At least that means I’m still in the running.

I wonder why all these great coaches who have been successful elsewhere absolutely refuse to come to Detroit e.g. Mike Holmgren, Mike Shanahan, Jimmy Johnson, and Bill Cowher.

It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya! There, having said that I feel better now.

The Detroit Lions are going to have to create a winning head coach. Somebody who’s out there that nobody knows about; otherwise they’d hire him. Once he’s a proven commodity at Detroit we’ll have a hell of a time holding on to him.

Why not? He would have to be a hell of a coach to turn the Lions around.

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I just love globalization — don’t you? Every time Israel and the rest of that bunch in the Middle East get a bad case of gas (I had to clean that up a bit), our cost of living goes up. This mess has been going on for hundreds of years, and we’re not going to change it in our lifetime.

We’re just going to get stuck with the bill. Good ol’ U.S.A.

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What’s with all this moaning and groaning coming out of my mouth when I get out of my La-Z-Boy chair? Do any of you guys experience that? It didn’t used to be that way. I remember a time when I could leap over a tall doll house in a couple of bounds, but not anymore. I guess that’s part of getting older.

Oh well. If all I have to fear from old age is my body complaining to me once in a while, I’m luckier than most.

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I had a song stick in my head the other day. It was playing at the end of the movie, Fred Claus. I let it wander around in my brain for a while hoping it wouldn’t get lost and came up with a name (I’m not as fast as I used to be.) My Back Pages performed by the Byrds; and yes, I have the 45rpm record. The song was written by Bob Dylan.

Roger McGuinn does a guitar piece in the middle of the song using what I think they called, "Over-dubbing," which is great! I can still hear it.

If only I could play guitar like that. My guitar play squawked at me, but that piece and today’s guitar play talks to us. I know that Ross and Cameron do a whole lot better than I ever did.

"Ah but I was so much older then . . . I’m younger than that now."

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I like to watch Book TV on C-SPAN2 and listen to the authors of numerous books. One guy came on the other day to describe his book, and I have no idea what he said.

Maybe I won’t buy and try to read his book. That would be mission impossible.

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Why is a pyramid scheme all of a sudden called a Ponzi scheme? Is somebody messing with my English again? Come on — knock it off.

Either way somebody has been duped out of their hard earned money; but it will forever be a pyramid scheme in my mind.

Call me stubborn.

Until the next time . . .