Fruit Flies Like a Banana

I've played racquetball several times a week since 2011, and once every few years I get absolutely drilled in the face with a ball. Of all the possible trajectories of all the balls hit during that time, it's bound to happen, and it just happened again last night. It was like a shotgun blast, and I ended up flat on the ground. If I were Daffy Duck, it would have knocked my bill backwards. 

One out of nineteen racquetball players who don't wear goggles get a serious eye injury during their lifetime, and that injury is usually blindness. I wear goggles, and luckily the ball hit them, leaving a pretty good mark where they smashed into my face. If I wasn't wearing them, I would have been one of the nineteen.

After I get hit, and after I fall, and after I let my opponent know I'm okay, as I'm laying there on the ground with little birds tweeting as they fly around my head like a halo, I take just a moment for myself, to reflect on how thankfully I am that I can still see, and how thankful I am to even be here to begin with. Those are some of the best times of my life!

July 25, 2024

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Bob Einstein:

A man comes home with a duck under his arm. His wife says, "Where the hell have you been?" 

The man says, "This is the pig I've been screwing." 

The wife says, "That's not a pig, that's a duck." 

The man says, "I wasn't talking to you."

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Joe Biden- "My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. In this sacred space, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt inspired us to reject fear."

He said it all without even saying it.

July 25, 2024

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It really does sound like Trump thinks the stealth fighter is invisible, haha!

https://youtu.be/htyNQ8MK3xU

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Samantha Bee unveiled the Democratic party's new slogan: "Someone should do something, but let's wait to see if it's okay, wait, too late: ah shit."

July 25, 2019

Postscript- I used to watch that show religiously but then it got caught up in some hyper-woke nonsense and I got sick of it. They just canceled it today after seven seasons.

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Did you hear that Clinton brought aboard disgraced DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz as an honorary campaign chair? I have an obvious suggestion for Debbie Wasserman Schultz's first point of action- fire Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

July 25, 2016

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I got a big bowl of Kreider's organic peaches off our tree out back. They might look like crap, but...they taste like crap too. 

July 25, 2015

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Every once in a while I find myself compelled to remind you what Amy Hempel once taught me- "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

July 25, 2013

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I ate a hamburger grilled with curry sauce on it. Sorry Hindus, but it was sacrilicious!

July 25, 2010

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In a strange regression to my penny-pinching ways, I somehow bought a Mrs. Smith's Blueberry Pie at Sharp Shopper for $1.49. Not so good pie-wise, but it'll make nice compost.

July 25, 2009

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George Bernard Shaw- “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”

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Jack London embarked on a sailing trip to take part in the Klondike's gold rush on this day in 1897. It became the inspiration for his first successful stories.

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On this day in 1965, Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival, apparently turning Pete Seeger into an ax-wielding maniac.

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Nixon declared his doctrine of "Vietnamization" on this day in 1969, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. Vietnamization huh? He couldn't send that to a marketer?

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Viking 1 took the famous Face on Mars photo on this day in 1976. What does it mean? Don't mean shit.

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Japanese philosopher Masaharu Anesaki was born on this day in 1878.

"All instruction is but as a finger pointing to the moon; and he whose gaze is fixed upon the pointer will never see beyond."

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Tennis player Maria Sakkari was born on this day in 1995.

Interviewer: Maria, what do you have to say to all the haters?

Maria: I don't give a fuck. Fuck them all.

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Other notable birthdays- Walter Brennan (1894), Woody Strode (1914), Anne Applebaum (1964), Brad Renfro (1982)

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Onion headline- Winchester Unveils New 9MM Stray Bullet Guaranteed To Hit Innocent Bystanders

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I love what Bob Dylan says about this Carter Family song... that the lyrics are weird and hard to make sense out of:

I'll twine 'mid the ringlets

Of my raven black hair,

The lilies so pale

And the roses so fair,

The myrtle so bright

With an emerald hue,

And the pale aronatus

With eyes of bright blue.

He adds, " but somehow you know what they mean." My favorite song.

https://youtu.be/uH4Qv6--l4Y

July 25, 2015

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Obsessed with loyalty toward him, not so much the other way around. From the article:

So when Trump paused at “loyal”—when he interjected, “we could use some more loyalty”—I was stunned. This is the president who told James Comey, “I expect loyalty.” Over the weekend, he’d inveighed against Republicans who “do very little to protect their President.” And there he was, looking out at a sea of Scouts, telling them that “Boy Scout values are American values,” apparently unaware that his own definition of loyalty—something that he himself is owed—is precisely the opposite of the definition those Scouts are taught to embrace—something that we owe to others.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/trumps-mistake-at-the-boy-scout-jamboree/534774/

July 25, 2017

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10 Short Rules For a Better Life, From the Stoics

8. Don't suffer imagined troubles. Make a little progress each day. Study the lives of the greats. Define what success means to you. Always- courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom.

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Mark Twain, from his autobiography- "If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times."

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Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye- "I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars."

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Milan Kundera, Farewell Waltz- "...people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Can you tell me what kind of day can follow a beginning of such violence? What happens to people whose alarm clock daily gives them a small electric shock? Each day they become more used to violence and less used to pleasure."

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