January 31, 2017

Two gift cards arrived just in time for the Super Bowl.

January 30, 2017

Uncle Joe Kindzmarauli.



By order of Joseph Stalin, this wine was included into the Soviet Navy submarine crews' food ration.

January 29, 2017

Google sent me Birthday wishes.



Pepsi too, also the blood center.



Bloody Mary time.



I am very tired of the "Snow Date" Mercedes Benz TV ad but I was captured by the music playing in the background:“Make You Feel My Love” by Sleeping At Last.



Here's the full song, Adele also does a fine version. Written by Bob Dylan.



Had Strozzapreti ( "priest-choker" or "priest-strangler") at Baita last night. Wiki explains:

There are several legends to explain the name.

One is that gluttonous priests were so enthralled by the savory pasta that they ate too quickly and choked themselves, sometimes to death. Another explanation involves the "azdora" ("housewife" in the Romagna's dialect), who "chokes" the dough strips to make the strozzapreti: "... in that particular moment you would presume that the azdora would express such a rage (perhaps triggered by the misery and difficulties of her life) to be able to strangle a priest!" Another legend goes that wives would customarily make the pasta for churchmen as partial payment for land rents (In Romagna, the Catholic Church had extensive land properties rented to farmers), and their husbands would be angered enough by the venal priests eating their wives' food to wish the priests would choke as they stuffed their mouths with it. The name surely reflects the diffuse anticlericalism of the people of Romagna and Tuscany.

Another possible explanation is that the pasta resembles a clerical collar, commonly referred to as a "Priest Choker".



Gift cards from above, will have to hit the internet.



1984 DVDs from Amazon. In the 1956 version the character O'Brien( Played by Michael Redgrave) is re-named O'Connor, possibly to avoid confusion with Edmund O'Brien.

January 28, 2017

Happy Chinese New Year !



I always like getting free stuff.



Perfect score !


(Howard Simmons/New York Daily News)

He hits a big one. Hope he doesn't get traded but I understand that this flawed team is not going anywhere.

January 27, 2017

This being my Birthday month, automatic gifts come from places where I am registered. Panera and Boston Market give me free deserts;Starbucks gives me free coffee.My local assembly-person sent me a birthday card. All impersonal and database driven but I'll take it.



Google sent me this about Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia.

January 24, 2017

AP

Boy, we needed that win. Carmelo puts in two big shots at the end.



Starting to think again about retirement. Hope to keep working to at least next year. I am thinking more about time and how that is the the most important commodity. My friends who are mostly retired seem to like the life. I keep thinking I will get bored. I also am cleaning up my finances . Just eliminated another Credit Card bill.

January 22, 2017

Boy, that last shot went in and then spun out.



Fans had a lot of fun with posts like this last night.



Chase has some interesting ATM windows.

January 20, 2017

How many ways can the Knicks not close out a game, let me count the ways. How about an opposing coach on the floor during a key moment ? And., John Wall Double Dribbles on the winning dunk.



Old pictures: Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu.



Shakespeare loved using Sexual imagery and jokes. This one from Measure for Measure is a wild one.

January 18, 2017

Perfect score !



Basketball theme in today's NYT, best answer was Rebound Guy.

January 17, 2017

Perfect score !



Fences was good, I liked all the actors. I thought Stephen Henderson and Mykelti Williamson did remarkable jobs.

January 16, 2017

MLK Day. Going to see Fences.



About right.



An old picture.



I've noticed this sonnet before. It's a good one, especially since I'm getting older.

SONNET 138

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.



The return of Moriarty, in a flashback, blasting Queen's I Want To Break Free was the best part of Sherlock last night.



Coupon and an additional 20% off got me this one. Read about it first in the New Yorker.

January 15, 2017

Perfect score by one second. Carbon was the hold-up.



Hidden Figures was pretty good. The audience clapped at the end.



Tonight is the finale, so far it has been a rollicking season.

January 14, 2017

I remember Hunter S. Thompson and Nixon, just ordered this one by Matt Taibbi. Rolling Stone was a must read in the Seventies. Haven't read it since. I do remember Taibbi's attack on Goldman Sachs: "The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

Taibbi's book review of Freidman's latest is hilarious.



Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates was my Best Buy $10 off purchase.



Going to check out Hidden Figures tonight.

January 13, 2017

Paraskevidekatriaphobia in the air.

January 11, 2017

Perfect score !

January 8, 2017

The Solemnity of the Epiphany is celebrated either on January 6 or, according to the decision of the episcopal conference, on the Sunday between January 2 and January 8.



Snow wasn't that bad, car was moveable. Only got about 5" in my section. 7" at JFK and 6" at LaGuardia.



My Darth Vader ski hat.