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This will cover a few days of territory. Starting with the tail end of Halloween, where the event is over but the memes keep coming.
As do the memes with horrible puns.
“Boo” also applies to Covid. I was not able to get to a workout on the final day of Hell Week, because (a) I'd gotten my shirt, (b) was still pretty exhausted, and (c) only have two classes left on my account for the next two weeks. I thought about stopping in, though, just to see what costume a friend of mine might come in with. She did an Elizabethan get up last year that was positively stunning. Alas, Christine had to beg out of the whole holiday because she and her whole family came down with the damn thing. But she did just post an amazing video that their kid did for a class animation project at Savannah College of Arts and Design (may be a little horrory but not too bad):
Meanwhile, I wound up not meeting with clients yesterday, who I had until today to explain a simple yet tricky question I need to get a answer from them on. They begged out because, what else, they just came down with the damn Covid, too. I’m going to try to do it by phone today, but I fully expect that’s not going to go well because of hearing problems.
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Wednesday was my only travel day of the week, and I traveled more of on feet than I usually do. Twice my usual number of recorded steps in two different downtowns.
In Buffalo, it took me to three different offices, the last two close enough to park and walk between. I then saw that our downtown ice cream parlor "Jerks" didn't survive the pandemic. Maybe they would've if I'd been there more than once, but they did serve the perfect egg cream complete with the right chocolate syrup. Then I headed back to my car and passed our horrible 1970s-era convention center. One of the finest examples of Brutalist architecture you will find anywhere, there have been calls to replace it for decades- with something bigger and not blocking the Ellicott-designed radial downtown street plan. That's never happened, but they are at least finally taking a crack at making the exterior look a little bit more inviting.
My friend from Clarke High School seemed surprised that Buffalo even had a convention center. I answered, “Of course hell has a convention center. The room keys in the adjacent hotel never open the doors, and the hookers are all 70 year old skanks reeking of cigarette smoke.”
In fairness, though, it's not all hell around here: a friend got some great pictures, unfiltered, on her way to work the other morning:
Then to Rochester for an actual in-courtroom hearing. On that trip, I passed one of their downtown's much more majestic buildings. Here's a stock shot of the front I passed along to some friends a few weeks earlier:
It's from an era where Eastman (of the eventual Kodak), Wilson (of the later named Xerox) and both Bausch and Lomb put their leftover industrial billyuns into philanthropy rather than financing book burners. Locals all refer to this as the "Rundel Library" even though it is technically the Rundel BUILDING of the CENTRAL Rochester Library- now reinforced by a second building of the branch having been built (and funded by the Bausch & Lomb company before they moved out of town themselves) across South Avenue from it. Yesterday, I got photos of the four corners of the building, which show the thought processes of the philanthropists of a century ago:
Meanwhile, our modern-day billionaires just buy social media sewers and turn them into even stinkier sewers.
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More boos to pass on:
* Boo to Election Season Stupidity.
Signs of trouble all the way around. I continue to see Bills cheering signs on the same lawns as the guy running for Guv who wants to kill the deal to keep them here for a generation:
Go Bills- to Austin or St. Louis or Toronto?!?
Walking the dog yesterday, I came upon this- somebody who's still partying like it's 2019:
At least that's only from the last decade. Dude also has a vintage 1970s gas guzzler in his garage with a Bush-Quayle bumper sticker on it. Even that's only 30-odd years ago; Republicans are tying to kick us back in time more than twice that:P
Five days away, and the violence, suppression and conspiracy theories are reaching fever pitch. At least Oprah finally came around and rejected the Franken-Oz monster she helped build, endorsing his opponent:
YOU get a Fetterman! And YOU get a Fetterman! And YOU get a Fetterman! EVERYBODY gets a Fetterman!
(Fun fact: my sister worked in medical records in Binghamton area hospitals and medical practices for years. She met him probably 30 years ago when he was just a regular doctor guy at Robert Packer Hospital just over the border in Sayre PA. His asshole was apparently normal sized back then.)
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* Boo to Tecknikul Diffikultees.
Bless me, Technology Gods, for I have sinned against you. I must've, because why else would you be smiting me? In the past few days alone, I've:
- discovered I downloaded the wrong McAfee antivirus product, then failed at reinstalling the correct one on both of our laptops;
- couldn't get Word to print envelopes, did a quick Office repair (no good), a full Office repair (failed and broke the program) and a complete 365 reinstall (still failed to print envelopes) before discovering it was a corruption in a single file and envelopes print just fine;
- then, before my downtown outings day, couldn't get ANYTHING to print in the office, yet the following morning everything printed perfectly;
- had another lawyer send me an oversized file five different ways (by his count), only one of which reached me and, being a fucking Microsoft product (Sharepoint), gave me their corporate motto in reply:
(I wound up stopping at the guy's office to put it on a flash drive, the first of my many steps and stops from Wednesday:P);
- had a half dozen urgent client emails sent to junkmail without me ever seeing them, but thank Technology Gods for THAT, because otherwise I would never have seen this email: "I am the winner of Powerball among the largest lottery jackpot in United States history Ђ115Milliom in 2019 And due to Padamic situation the world is currently going through, we have decided to donate a palliatives/ relief funds of $5million US Dollars each to 5 individuals worldwide...; and
- finalized the work for that client, who asked if I could file without the client paying the filing fee. I answered "I cannot advance that." Siri answered for me "I cannot a downspout."
* Boo on the Phillies. I was starting to try to root for them. Really I was. Despite them being a hated Mets rival and carrying two starting pitchers who abandoned us for more money. Anything's better than the Astros, right? But then they took a 2-1 Series lead into Game Four,.... and gave a former player of theirs the ceremonial first pitch. Chase Utley is perhaps the most hated Mets opposing player of all time, infamous for breaking the leg of one of our infielders in a dick move during the 2015 playoffs. So it came as delicious karma to see the Phillies not only losing that game, but being no-hit in it. Then, last night, they sent one of those former Mets pitchers out to give them a lead going back to Houston. Noah Syndegaard, aka Thor, did not have a good Thursday, and they now have to win the final two games on the road to recover. Heh heh heh.
* And finally, Boo!, as in Scary Snape!
Alan Rickman's posthumously released memoir came to us at the end of the day yesterday:
I've read some excerpts of it, which despite the title have focused on his Pottering. Much as I am conflicted about the authorship issue with that series, here's a chance to remember the characters and actors who grew up and into those dozens of roles without putting money in a transphobe's overflowing chequing account. I'm not sure if he'll recount any of his Hitchhiker work which was basically voice-acting, but if not, I guess I'll just stand here in the corner and rust....
Tomorrow: more election fun and tales of poin ted sticks