Comfortable With Themselves...Or are they?

Some leaders need a Big Table to show that they are In Charge...

Putin Table

Other leaders are naturally confident and trust the people around them...

Zelensky Table 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

Fella Asked a Canadian Freedom Convoy Protestor this Question, “What Were Your Crimes & What Were Your Penalties?”

Well, Fella, I might as well take the time to answer the above Subject Question because I have nothing else to do but sit in this hotel room since I can’t check out of this hotel room because I can’t pay my hotel room bill.

As you know I was a Protestor in the Canadian Freedom Convoy. We Freedom Lovers have been accused of every Penalty Deserving Transgression you can imagine except Invading Ukraine. I hear tell that the Prime Minister is working on throwing that one in for good measure (whatever that means).

Last I heard these are our Crimes (in Bullet Point Format)...

Ø One of our leaders faces a Counseling to Commit the Offense of Mischief Charge.

Ø Our other leader has been charged with Counseling to Commit the Offense of Mischief, Counseling to Commit the Offense of Disobeying a Court Order and Counseling to Commit the Offense of Obstructing Police.

Ø Some of us have been charged with Having Smoke Grenades in Our Possession.

Ø Some of us have been charged with Fireworks in Our Possession.

Ø Some of us have been charged with Wearing Body Armor.

Ø Some of us have been charged with Causing the Police to Spend Money because they were trying to Control Our Protest.

Ø Some of us have been charged with Causing the Police to Spend Money because they were required to Watch Our Protest.

Ø Some of us have been charged with Causing Supply Chain Disruptions.

Ø  Some of us have been charged with causing a Police Officer to overreact and seriously injure a 49 year-old woman by running over her with his horse

Ø All of us will likely be Charged with Blocking Traffic.

Last I heard these are our Penalties (in Bullet Point Format)...

Ø The funds in our Checking Accounts have been confiscated.

Ø Our Credit Cards have been Canceled.

Ø We have had our Vehicle Insurance Canceled.

Ø We have had our Trucker Licenses Canceled.

Ø There are ongoing discussions about selling our trucks to reimburse the government for their expenses related to our protest.

Now do you see why I can’t (in Bullet Point Format)...

Ø Feed my children?

Ø Pay my mortgage?

Ø Make a living?

Ø Pay my hotel bill?

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Here is an excerpt (without the Snidely Whiplash picture) from a February 21, 2022 CNN Internet News Article...

Canadian authorities on Sunday froze the finances associated with certain individuals and companies believed to be involved in the ongoing protests in Ottawa, according to Mike Duheme, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) deputy commissioner of federal policing.

The RCMP froze 206 financial products, including bank and corporate accounts; disclosed the information of 56 entities associated with vehicles, individuals and companies; shared 253 bitcoin addresses with virtual currency exchangers; and froze a payment processing account valued at $3.8 million, Duheme said at a news conference.

************

Something to think about from Fella's Think About This Department...

If you are Convicted of Murder, when you ever get out of jail, you can write a check to pay for your Got Out Of Jail Celebration because your Checking Account was not Confiscated because of your Murder Conviction.

Did you just say you don’t believe this is true? ... Google It!

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe:

As a Canadian Citizen, you have the Right to Protest Government Policy and the Canadian Government has a Right to take away your Livelihood because you exercised your Right to Protest.

Dudley Do-Right Is Ashamed of His Royal Canadian Mounted Police

My Potted Plant Outfit & I Have Been & Are Going to Be Very Busy

I was half awake watching TV and the Talking Head (who also seemed to be half awake) said that the Federal Government was spending a lot of money it did not have.

That did not jolt me awake because I thought to myself, “That’s not news. We do that every day”. Then I found myself Mind Wandering past this attempted kick start and I said to myself, “Self, if the Federal Government can spend money they do not have, people who do have money must really be riding high!”

That’s all it took for me to get out my Potted Plant Outfit and go looking for things that people with money were spending their money on...

Disney World

Before I knew it I was standing at the Ticket Counter at Disney World in Florida. It was just a matter of minutes before I saw a typical American Family of 4 come walking up to the Ticket Counter.

The Typical Father of the Typical Family inquired as to what it would cost for him and his Typical Family to go on in and spend a week in Mr. Disney’s Land.

The kid in the Ticket Booth with the Big Ears replied that it would be only $7,000. The Typical Father immediately removed his Typical Family of Four Credit Card and snapped it down and said, “You got a deal!”

Normally I don’t have good hearing but with my Potted Plan Outfit on my hearing definitely improves. I hear Typical Father say to Typical Mother as they twirled through the turnstiles, “Wow! That’s a steal! I was afraid it was going to be expensive!”

A moment later I heard Typical Son say to Typical Daughter, “Don’t worry. Typical Father promised me that we would not have to leave the hotel room and we could stay in there all day and play video games.”

This is a far cry from my own experience in 1962 when I and a fellow ROTC Cadet traveled from ROTC Summer Camp in Oklahoma to California (even though we were in mourning because Marilyn Monroe had just died) and I spent all my savings from my $1.12 an hour job at Avis Rent-a-Car.

We decided to go to Disneyland but we were shocked at the $6.75 Entrance Fee and we actually stood there staring at the sign that told us about the Exorbitant Entrance Fee for 10 minutes before we decided to bite the bullet and go on in.

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Duke Basketball... Jon Scheyer  is going to be Duke’s Basketball Coach next year. Unless he wins every game there will be cries to have him fired as soon as the Duke Fans take note that he is not Mike Krzyzewski .

I have followed Duke Basketball for many years. To be more exact, I have followed the career of the Duke Basketball Coach, Mike Krzyzewski, for many years. He is a Great Coach, an Impeccable Human Being and he is now coaching the last few games of a coaching career that has seen him amass more coaching wins than any other College Basketball Coach.

I shudder to think of how many low life sports reporters are burning the midnight oils trying to find some dirt that they can hit him with to soil his Great Guy Image as he goes into retirement and give the Dirt Finder 15 Minutes of Fame.

I’ll will now step down from my Soap Box and move on to why I brought up Duke Basketball in the first place.

I, inside Potted Plant Outfit, had stationed myself right next to the Ticket Counter at Cameron Indoor Stadium for the second to last game Coach Krzyzewski was to coach on his home court (the game was played last Saturday). The 2 extremes of the ticket prices were:

Ø Cheapest Ticket $900!

Ø Most Expensive Ticket $2,000!!

No, I did not buy either ticket.

My Suit and I will be back beside the Ticket Counter the week before Coach K will coach his last game on Cameron Indoor Stadium on March 5^th. The 2 extremes of the ticket prices at present are:

Ø Cheapest Ticket $2,950!!!

Ø Most Expensive Ticket $80,000!!!!

No, I will not buy either ticket.

Legend has it that it was on the cover of a book of matches that Eddie Cameron and Wallace Wade first sketched out the plan for Duke's Indoor Stadium in 1935. If I were Wallace Wade I would be wondering, “What am I Chopped Liver?”

I have often wondered if even Coach Krzyzewski can spell “Krzyzewski”. They have named Duke’s Home Court after him. It is supposed to be “Coach Krzyzewski Court” but the guy who was assigned the task of painting the court could not spell “Krzyzewski”, so the court is labeled “Coach K Court”.

************

Virgin Galactic Space Flights...Virgin Galactic is going Commercial! 

There will not be a Ticket Counter for this one but, if you want to go along for the ride, simply go to virgingalactic.com and complete the application process.

My Suit and I will be there for the first flight. We will be cuddled up with the other bushes on a nearby hillside to watch the take off. The bulleted details are...

Ø 90 minute flight

Ø 50 miles up into space

Ø 4 to 5 minutes of weightlessness

Ø $150,000 Deposit

Ø Cost of the Ticket $450,000

They expect to have signed up 1,000 brave souls by the start of commercial service. Virgin has been gathering reservations over much of the decade, and had sold some 700 of the 1,000 by the end of November ‘21. 

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Some might say the Bottom Line of this Blog Posting is...

The Only Thing Money Can’t Buy Is Poverty

Would I kid u?

Smartfella 

The Truth?! The Truth?! You Can’t Handle The Truth!!!

 

I had what I thought was a better Subject for this Blog Posting than Jack Nicholson’s famous movie quote but Jack happened to be visiting with me as I as I started writing this Blog Posting and he told me, “You will be sorry if you don’t use my famous movie quote!”

He never said why I would be sorry but anytime Jack threatens me I pay heed to his words. His words make me shiver but it’s the way he looks at me when he says his words that really makes me feel ill at ease.

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Have you ever heard of the word “Clickbait”? Until recently I had not heard of it but I have been annoyed by Clickbait for a long time. I just did not know there was a word for it.

Wikipedia has heard of Clickbait and they do a very good job of explaining what it means...

Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. A "teaser" aims to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make readers of news websites curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content. Click-bait headlines add an element of dishonesty, using enticements that do not accurately reflect the content being delivered.

Wikipedia's description says to me that there is a lot to not like about Clickbait...Deceptive, Sensationalized, Misleading, Teaser, Exploit, Dishonesty, Enticements and Do Not Accurately Reflect the Content Being Delivered.

Bait is put on a fish hook to entice a fish to swallow the hook inside the bait. Clickbait is like fish bait on a Curiosity Hook. Once we take in the Clickbait Hook it is hard to spit it out. We usually end up saying to our collective selves, “Boy was that a waste of time!” By then it is too late.

Here is an example of what actually happened to Fella a few days ago...

Ø I saw this Clickbait Link about Sean Hannity...

Ø I had yet to run across the word “Clickbait” and I did not believe that Sean Hannity was actually married to a man but I was curious as to how they (whoever “they” are) were going to spin their lie.

Ø What I did not know was how long they were going to toy with me before they finalized the story.

Ø I will not try and guess how long they played it out, but I will tell you this, I got to the point where I thought it was never going to end.

Ø I clicked through a humongous number of pictures of married couples, living together couples that I recognized and living together couples I had not ever heard about. Actually I did not care about any of them, even the ones I recognized.

Ø At the end they did not even lie about it by putting Hannity with another man but presented me with this...

I was expecting something like...

>A picture of Football Nut Hannity in a very loud bar during a football game leaning close to a another Male Football Nut Friend and having to shout into his male friend’s nutty ear because a touchdown had just been scored and all the other Male and Female Football Nut Fans were going nuts screaming about the touchdown.
>There would be a caption below the picture that read, “Cozy! Sean sure is close-up and personal with his Male Friend! Looks like the rumors are true!”

The Bottom Line was they did not even try to make up some kind of lie about their claim that Hannity was married to a man. They just published a picture of Sean and his Girlfriend and made no reference to the Clickbait (Sean Hannity is Married To This Man!) that got you to waste so much of you time.

I know some of us are confused today about gender but it does not look to me as if Ainsley is in the least bit confused about her gender.

In the end I thought to myself, “This ain’t fair!” That was a wasted thought. How Silly of me. No one ever said Clickbait was fair.

The Fish that is lucky enough to have spit out the fish bait ought to feel lucky. I had not been lucky enough (smart enough?) to spit out the Clickbait. I had stayed to the bitter end. I had wasted all that time slithering through all those people I did not care about knowing about.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

 

How Come No One Told Me It Was Up There?

 

It has been up there hardly making any news for more than 21 years. It’s been doing the unbelievable every day for more than 21 years.

Down here we have been busy with Miniscule News Happenings by comparison to what’s been going on up there. Writing this Blog Posting will not change much of anything about our interest in the International Space Station. We are still going to be mesmerized by the Insignificant, the Tawdry, the Violent and the Silly which is going on all around us Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow...

Ø Super Bowl plays like that one almost at the very end of this year’s Super Bowl where on 3^rd and goal to go #55 Did Not Pass Interfere with that receiver and made that great defensive play only to be called for Pass Interference giving the about to be winning team a 1^st and goal to go inside the 3 yard line.

Ø What some celebrity did with some other celebrity in broad daylight.

Ø Carjacking's.

Ø Murders.

Ø Political high jinks.

Ø Hot dog eating contests.

Ø Ground Hog “predictions”.

Ø Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera.

While we have been concerned with such as the 8 Bullet Points above, removing gravity from the equation has made a huge difference for scientists researching everything from combustion engines to air purification systems to cancer treatments. In its more than 21 years of human occupancy, the space station has hosted more than 3,000 experiments by more than 4,000 researchers from more than 100 countries.

Oh well, let’s just be thankful that there are still the likes of the more than 4,000 researchers doing what they are doing whether we are paying attention to their more than 3,000 experiments or not.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

A Bureaucracy Is a Very Hard Thing to Fix, Modify or Even Tinker With

 

The content of today’s Blog Posting is simply a 5 Minute and 3 Second Video produced by PragerU along with a couple of comments (bold below) from Fella.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is populated by 9,000 Entrenched Bureaucrats. What do you think are the chances of changing 9,000 Entrenched Bureaucrat's Minds?

Another reason why the Bureau resists change is because the 9,000 are too busy to listen to change recommendations because they have $3 Billion to spend each year. (That’s 3 Thousand Million Dollars.) They are under a lot of pressure to spend it all each year because by spending it all each year they can “justify” getting more than $3 Billion next year.

The Video: https://www.prageru.com/video/american-indians-are-still-getting-a-raw-deal

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

If More Is Better, Why Is Not Even More Even Better?

Here is a PragerU 5 minute & 18 second video about the dangers of a $15 Minimum Wage: https://www.prageru.com/video/who-does-a-dollar15-minimum-wage-help

After Fella watched the video he searched on “$20 minimum Wage” and got a lot of links come back to him. Below are just 2 Links:

Ø Andom Ghebreghiorgis ran for Congress in N.Y. A major thrust of his campaign was a $20 Minimum Wage: https://www.andomforny.com/twenty-dollar-minimum-wage

Ø Andom Ghebreghiorgis suspended his campaign June 1, 2020: https://www.andomforny.com/campaign-suspended

Does this not make perfect sense?... If a $20 Minimum Wage is logical thinking why not go to $100 Minimum Wage?

Here is a quote from an interviewed man on the street, “I was elated when I got my first paycheck where I was paid $20/hour. After my 5^th paycheck my employer closed his business. That was a shame because I really had plans for that 6^th paycheck. I told my former employer he should have gone straight to $25/hour! That would have fixed everything!”

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

That Chef Is Really Smart!

There are people from around the world reading this Blog Posting. Google Analytics says that my 2^nd and 3^rd Most-Clicks Countries are Russia at 7,383 and Italy at 38,639 (Good Ole USofA is first). 

I say to all of you Silly Seekers from around the world, if you are ever in Peachtree Corners, GA, a good place to eat lunch is Firebirds Peachtree Corners. I’m not saying it is the greatest place that you will ever eat in but it is a really good substitute for First Watch (especially if First Watch is covered up with waiting people and you don’t want to be a waiting people for as long as you would have to be waiting at First Watch).

Yes the food was good but, since I am a Smartfella, I always like to eat in a restaurant where I know the Chef is a Smart Fella and Firebirds’  Chef is indeed Smart.

This Chef is not only smart but he is also helpful. He has taken upon himself to go to all the trouble of recommending the Salad Dressing for each of his salad offerings...

Ø For the Spinach Salad he recommends Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing.

Ø For the Mixed Greens Salad he recommends Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette Dressing.

Ø For the BLT Salad he recommends Roasted Garlic Ranch Dressing.

Ø For the Caesar Salad he recommends Caesar Dressing.

He Recommends Caesar Dressing for the Caesar Salad! What a Smart Guy! What a Helpful Guy! This Chef is One of a Kind!

OK, I admit that this is not one of my more Earth Shaking Blog Postings. Actually I am not sure if I have ever had a truly Earth Shaking Blog Posting. I must say I enjoyed it. As usual, I hope you did too.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella 

I Was So Frustrated I Lashed Out

 

We Just Bought a New Whirlpool Clothes Washer...

I had reason to contact Whirlpool about Product Registration. I called them. I could not get them to answer their Your Call Is Important To Us phone. I spent hours trying to make contact.

Here’s how I got into this predicament...

I went online to register my washer. After I completed the registration, I got a message with a Click Box in it. The Click Box said, “Please Wait”. I waited 1.5 hours and the “Please Wait” box never went away.

Since I was not sure if my registration was really activated, I decided to let them have a piece of my mind (since I am so important to them). At my age I am very careful about giving away even small pieces of my mind but I was in a frenzy or a tizzy or some such thing. I stumbled across their You Are Important To Us Contact Form and I filled it out and sent it to them.

My Comments: ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to get through to Whirlpool! Held online for 57 Minutes and 29 Seconds! I have a simple question but I can't get through all your harassment hoops! If anyone cares, call me at xxx xxx xxxx. (I don't expect I will ever hear from you!) What am I supposed to do if I ever really need help like a malfunctioning clothes washer!?

************

Low and behold Whirlpool’s Correspondence Team sent me an email response! I was elated. I thought to myself, This Is Great!...Or was it?

The Key Sentence in Their Email...

You have reached the correspondence team and we are unable to call you. 

I have been known to be Picky but I don’t think I am being Too Picky by reacting to this sentence in their email...

Ø Who made contact with me?
>Whirlpool’s Correspondence Team.

Ø What is the main function of a Correspondence Team?
>It is to Correspond, is it not?

Ø What does the Correspondence Team tell me in this sentence?
>It tells me that they cannot Correspond with me because they can’t call me.

Ø Why can’t they call me?
>Is not calling me a form of Correspondence?

Ø Maybe they do not have telephones?
>Maybe I held on the phone for 57 Minutes and 29 Seconds because they did not have a phone to pick up and talk to me on.

Ø Maybe they have phones but do not have my phone number.
>That’s not true because I gave them my phone number in my frustrated message to them (and it was not a bunch of X’s).

The only answer must be they never read my message. They (or their computer) must have automatically sent me a This Oughta Confuse the Heck Out Of Him automatic response.

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Crazy People

Maybe they did not pick up the phone they do not have because they knew I had held on for 57 Minutes and 29 Seconds and anyone who would hold on for 57 Minutes and 29 Seconds must be crazy and their Company Policy is not to talk to Crazy People.

I think I should mention that during my 57 Minutes and 29 Seconds hold time I was listening to music as bad as the Social Security Administration persecutes callers with (I had always thought theirs was the worst music I would ever hear) and I also had to listen to the same Recorded Messages every 20 Seconds over and over.

Actually I have decided not to mention what I mentioned in the above paragraph so please go back and not read what you just read in the above paragraph.

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Catch 22...

We are all familiar with the term Catch 22 but do you know exactly what it means? It means...

Ø If you are told you must do something to get something you want but, if you do what you are told to do, you will not get the something you want.

Ø In the book Catch 22 in order to be removed from Flying Duty (WW2 bombers)...

>You must ask to be relieved of Flying Duty.

&

>You must be crazy.

Ø However, if you ask to be relieved from Flying Duty, you must be sane because only a crazy person would want to stay on Flying Duty.

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Whirlpool Just Catch 22’ed Me

Since they could not call me, they told me to call them on a different number they gave me in the email.

The Catch 22...If I want to talk to them I must call them but if I call them you can’t talk to them.

I did as instructed. I called them and they did not pick up the phone.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella