captainsblog | ♫Still at WICU in Cincinnati....♫

Damar Hamlin, that is. The Bills defensive back remains under intense observation, but signs are of his gradual improvement. Millions have been raised for his charity, and his signature uni number has become a sign of hope even for the other team in town, even when they were out of town:

3 is the number to which thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be 3 ❤️

That tribute was what I woke up to yesterday, a massive improvement over the news of the morning before. Plans are still up in the air about how the Bills season will finish out, but that all pales in comparison to the kindness and empathy shown for the man who literally left it all on the field Monday night.

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Yesterday morning was also an improvement because my car started right up. I'd spent the entire workday Tuesday at my desk except for a quick jog through the rain to the place across the street for lunch. When I brought something out to my car around 3, the trunk wouldn't open. Dumbass had left the lights on all day:P In fairness, I'm out of practice turning them off because Eleanor's car has an AUTO function that turns them on and off depending on lighting conditions; and the DUMBASS YOU LEFT THEM ON warning bell is virtually silent. (The SEATBELT and DOOR AJAR warnings on mine, on the other hand, are loud enough to be heard a mile away.) I grunted, called Roadside Assistance and was back on my way more or less when I'd planned to leave anyway.

Yesterday morning's actual start was more important, because I had to be downtown for an actual court hearing by 10:15. I made it well before 10, which is when I'd told the client to meet me there. No client. No response to texts to client. Finally, unanswered call to client- until he finally called back just as Scheduled Hearing Time arrived: He, too, had a dead battery and had to wait for a jump.

Dr. Fauci, can we get a vaccine for this? It seems to be spreading.

He got jumped and arrived in plenty of time, and had a successful outcome once he did. While I waited, in the traffic court hallways of Buffalo City Hall, I got to spend time in the company of the fabulous interiors of this landmark Art Deco tower. For most of the wait, I was right under this:

If you look carefully at the photo, you can see somebody retrofitted an extra breastplace onto the Goddess. I'm guessing it was too tittie-lating for Mayor Jimmy Griffin back in the 80s; he had a thing about art he considered p0rn.

Down the hall from that was Education's counterpart:

Given our fair city's long history in this field, I'm surprised the mayor didn't retrofit big riggers and Mafia enforcers onto it.

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I then left a little early for our first couple's date at the chiropractor of 2023- we have exercises now!- and then came home for an evening of film and schadenfruede. The movie we finished from the previous night is called Ruby Sparks, starring a real-life couple and directed by another, about a young writer who literally creates the girl of his dreams. It reminded me of a similar Twilight Zone story, which I found the IMDB entry for very easily because the newer film's IMDB trivia namechecked it.

We saved the popcorn for the real-life things going on, though.

Kevin McCarthy's second day of public fail was just coming to an end; it remains to be seen if he'll ever dig out or if he'll yield to an even crazier Republican. Nobody's considering the alternative of a Speaker acceptable to a bigger majority of the entire House, as just happened in Pennsylvania which has a similarly gridlocked Lej. After 30 years of casting Democrats as The Enemy, any Republican voting for one, or even a "Problem Solver" of their own party, would essentially be signing their own death warrant from the crazy wing of the party. Commentator Jeff Greenfield described Our Kevin as "increasingly coming to resemble Charlie Brown on the pitcher’s mound." I replied, right pitcher, but wrong pitch:

The other popcorn moment concerned a guy I'd blessedly never heard of until a week or so ago; a professional fighter, influencer and asshole named Andrew Tate. Dude got himself into a Twitter fight with teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. She spotted a pizza box in a photo of his which confirmed his presence in Romania, and he is now under arrest there in a human trafficking case. (Accounts vary on whether Greta's observation was the smoking gun that caught him, but it certainly didn't hurt the prosecution.) After numerous memes surfaced about it over the past week, last night I hit the motherlode: this Facebook post, a writing prompt inviting the introduction of famed fictional detectives into solving the crime.

First up, Columbo:

You can scroll through the others, but just about all the Usual Suspect-catchers are there. Holmes. Monk. Poirot. Scooby-Doo. Then, descents into side genres, from Discworld to Star Trek to even Batman '66.

I had to join in, with this homage to another great investigator:

Drebin- What do you hear on the street about the human trafficking, Johnny?”

Johnny- “I hear a lot of things.”

Drebin-
::slips Johnny 500 leu::

Johnny (whispering)-
“My brother Jerry. Runs a pizza place at Drucker and 4th. Tate orders from there all the time. Here’s the address.”

Drebin- “Thanks, Johnny.”

Johnny- “And avoid the mushrooms, Frank. They’re canned, leftovers from the Ceaușescu regime.”

Hopefully he'll now get to have plenty of laughs at the Romanian Stateville Prison!