Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off is a request for you (yes, you); I want to hear from you (no, I will not use or abuse your email address in any way, shape, or form [and for those old enough to remember, nor will I bend, fold, staple, or mutilate it either]). Last week, I opened with a similar request, and the responses were, well, underwhelming to say the least. If you are a regular reader and pretty much like what you see, please let me know; that will be all I need to continue what I have been doing here. If the response this time is what came in last time, I will feel free to do whatever. That said, I write/compile another totally different Berman’s Bits column in a print paper that comes out every two weeks. The column there is more personal and local, but much of the content can still be seen as more universal. As an experiment, I will use that last column from the paper as this week’s column. Please let me know if what’s come before is preferable or this is okay as well. I will let you know next time. In advance, thank you!
I hate it when food labels look the same except for one key word (decaf, mango, etc.) which isn’t obvious with a quick glance. Imagine my surprise when I found I had purchased pineapple salsa! Apparently sometime someone somewhere thought that pineapple in salsa would be a good idea. They were wrong. IMHO, some things do not belong together. (Yes, I ate it all… but without relish! So far, I have managed to avoid getting the mango.)
The other day, I was looking for some “easy” recipes (I am not sure why; that’s about all I can handle and no matter what, the end result still tastes like cardboard). I have a friend who can take shredded cardboard, toss in some seasonings, move it around in the pan and have it taste phenomenally great! Me? I take anything, cook it, and it tastes like cardboard. That said, the first recipe I came across was a shrimp, leek, and spinach pasta. You know, maybe cardboard doesn’t sound so bad….
It starts young (or little turds without intervention become big turds): a 12-year-old Florida boy was arrested. His rap sheet listed “more than 20” arrests since age 9. He, on a bicycle, had told an 89-year-old driver at a gas station that the man’s tire was low, and when the man got out to check the tire, the boy hopped in the car and took off. [Weird News]
If you are not an adult (18 or older), please skip this Bit. Have you ever really looked at an avocado? According to Dictionary.com, the word comes from the Spanish word aquacate, which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl meaning ‘testicle,’ which ostensibly refers to the shape and appearance of the fruit. I am guessing that may be accurate. While I have never actually seen one outside of its protective covering, I never knew a testicle was green and kind of rough skinned. (That is a hidden benefit of being a regular reader; where else would you hear that? [Of course, if you stumbled across this be accident, you probably won’t be seeking my column out again]).
A friend recently posted on Facebook “I have had a lot of people tell me lately ‘I would never vote for Donald Trump.’ Really, what if it’s between him and the ‘Hildbeast?’” Personally, I wouldn’t vote for either one. I don’t care for extremists on either end of the political spectrum. Speaking of extremists, I have also concluded that in the minds of many people, Obama can never, ever, ever say or do anything right… ever! And to others, Trump can never, ever, ever say or do anything wrong… ever! As I believe there are some good points made by candidates on both sides (IMHO), almost any candidate closest to the middle who can talk across the aisle and make compromise will get my closer look and maybe vote.
A few lighter comments are called for here – BIC, Zippo, Ronson, Scripto…. Actually: (1) I didn’t like my beard at first, but then it grew on me. (2) When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say? (3) Why in a country of free speech, are there phone bills? (4) Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car not called a racist? (5) I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I can’t put it down. Budda-boom!
The Lamar, Texas, school system’s junior-high dress code bans “symbols oriented toward violence.” Apparently that includes depictions of soldiers with weapons… even fictional soldiers, of a fictional empire, with fictional weapons. Colson Southern’s T-shirt he wore to school was from Star Wars, and showed a Stormtrooper. Authorities ordered the seventh-grader to cover it with his coat. “There’s not a violent bone in his body,” said Joe Southern, who thinks his son’s First Amendment rights were violated. “He’s just an excited kid for the movie.” [KTRK] Agree?
Back to the serious stuff: I really am getting old! Political correctness vs. basic public politeness. I was browsing FB (nothing new there) when I came across a particularly sexually explicit description of certain intimate behaviors. My first thought was “Do you have any idea what ‘class’ is?” Obviously not, because what you posted belongs behind closed doors not out there for anyone and everyone (including me) to see. Then I was thinking, “What kind of decent person would want to spend time with someone like this… for more than a than a ‘good time’?” Did this person have the right to post what they did? Of course they did because of the First Amendment. Did the person have the understanding that just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should? Would the person have posted it knowing I was going to be seeing it? Probably, because I doubt this person cares who sees what – no respect for anyone or anything other than themselves! No sense of decorum… or class.
Finally, gotta end on a high note. Here it goes: ! (Actually, it was so high, only dogs could hear it. Sorry.)
Later.