Short takes.

It's Saturday! What do we got? Memes, candy, food, folks, and fun. Let's wade in. 

1) Cutest Halloween candy

After the holiday I was given this by a friend:

It's the tiniest box of Tic Tacs I've ever seen! Held exactly eight of the little candies. They call it Tic Tac Travels, which makes sense, because it really doesn't work as Halloween candy. Kids like Tic Tacs all right, but they're not the chocolate/sugar bomb kids crave on the day. Mints are for grandmas. 

However, the back of the box also has a cute mascot, so there's that.

2) 

3) Saw this in the freezer department:

Didn't buy them, because I want to stay married. But damn -- little pizza-roll-type snacks stuffed with the amazing taste of White Castle hamburgers? Are you kidding me? If I was having a bunch of guys over to watch football in the man cave, I'd get two bags. And open the windows. Just as well I have no man cave, I guess, and am still off the wokefest NFL. 

4) 

5) Last but never least, always happy to see someone take a shot at overrated stuffed shirt Bill Nye. And DST. 

End DST! Set the sun free! 

Stay out of jail with Fredcoin!

As CEO of the world's finest crytocurrency, Fredcoin, I get a lot of questions from customers and prospective customers. (Everyone falls into one of those two camps, when you think about it.) They say, "Fred, how can you and your company be so awesome every single day?" And I just smile and pat them on the shoulder. 

Or not, since no one's asked me that. 

YET.

A more likely question is, "Fred, now that Sam Bankman-Fried is looking at a jail sentence longer than the expected life of the sun, doesn't that make you a little nervous?"

Well, first I chuckle and mansplain that the sun is going to last longer than the 110 years he might get. Then they remind me that unless some really hot anti-agathics come along, 110 years and five billion years are effectively the same to a thirty-one-year-old like him. 

I guess Sam still has some fans.

But don't worry about me. I've taken important -- dare I say Key -- steps to make certain I won't wind up in jail. The first is I don't have a wacky girlfriend who will turn state's evidence on me. That's crucial. For another, I don't do drugs and crunch the keyboard for days at a time. Anyone doing that is going to make a big mistake eventually, whether he's honest or not. Third, I haven't tacked on fake companies and charities to steal from. And fourth, I haven't bothered trying to buy any politicians. It's a bad investment. They break down, they violate their own warranties, they throw you under the bus at the first smell of trouble. It's a waste of money. And fifth -- 

There was a fifth reason -- can't recall offhand. Maybe not important.

Oh, wait! That's right! I've done nothing illegal! Ha ha! Totally forgot! No illegality here! No sir! Just honest Fred!

I also haven't set up any weird offshore locations. I wanted to, but other countries looked at my company and said, Meh, why don't you just stay over there and out of here. 

So you needn't worry at all about ol' Fred and his ol' Fredcoin. Just send me money, and I'll invest it in Fredcoin, and you can watch your crypto value stay the same while the US government does its best to ruin its own currency. 

And if the government does come for me -- no doubt out of jealousy -- I have an insider within the court system to help me look good. 

Turkey lights to keep them warm.

Well, the Halloween stuff has gone, and the Thanksgiving lights are coming out. 

But Fred, you say, didn't you complain once that there are no Thanksgiving lights?

Yes, yes I did, way back in 2014. Since then things have changed a bit. I see more inflatable decorations dedicated to America's first holiday now -- like our old friend Quisling the Cannibal Turkey, back again this year.

A friend of mine on the wealthy side of the mighty Hudson put out two inflatable decorations -- a non-cannibal turkey (Pilgrim hat but no silverware) and a cornucopia. Very nice. She said that, including her two inflatable decorations, that made a total of two on the block. Her neighbors do not seem to be showing the proper Thanksgiving spirit. I recommended she keep putting out more and more things until they felt compelled to either join in or call the cops. Why, she could go in for the 7.5-foot inflatable Pilgrims. This really brings Thanksgiving close to a person. 

One of the things I kvetched about nine years ago was the difficulty of Thanksgiving's seasonal colors, or rather color: "Thanksgiving is restricted to the colors of late fall, and by the end of November there are virtually no colors left. The leaves have fallen, been raked up, mulched, gone. Bare trees remain, and pinecones. Thanksgiving is brown. Who does brown lights?"

Well, maybe these people! Or close enough.

I noticed that early in the morning while walking Izzy. This family puts out quite a decorative spread for Halloween and Christmas, but with Halloween gone they'd changed out their front door lights for what look like dark orange lights. Perfect! I hope they'll follow through with some more Thanksgiving-themed stuff. 

As for me, I really never put up much outside. A door hanging and a few little scarecrows in the window. I'm too tired from Halloween and already preemptively tired from Christmas. It all takes a toll on a guy after a while. 

Old mailroom Joe.

Guys in the mailroom are my pals. At one time I worked for a not-for-profit organization that had a dull official holiday party, but down in the cellar, the guys in the mailroom had a Christmas party that absolutely kicked. Later in my fabulous career I had a desk job in a tiny office, and every morning Mike (I'll call him) made his mail rounds, and he would stop in to talk sports. I liked him and all, but sometimes I had to literally tell him to leave so I could get some work done and not get in Dutch with the boss. Mike later got canned for, well, using the executive can, although he denied it.  

But before either of those jobs I was a mailroom man myself, starting as a part-timer. They hired two of us to deliver the mail throughout an organization that had several buildings, so that meant shoving the mail cart through burning sun and pouring rain, through ice and snow. 

It looked like this one. Note that the
wheels are not made for ice and snow.

I, young whippersnapper, did the mornings, and old Joe got the afternoons. Our shifts were expected to overlap. But we spent the first couple of days together, learning the route and meeting everyone, and that's how I got to know old Joe.

Like Mike, old Joe liked to talk, but not about sports. He talked about his former career; he talked about his son (who seemed to be on the outs with him somehow, if I recall correctly). He talked about the kind of work he had done, but the details did not impress on my mind. What did was one thing he said on that second day of training, while we were sitting around waiting for the boss. It went something like this: 

"I think as we work together, you'll find that I have a lot of life experience. And you will begin to see that you can learn a lot from an older guy like me. In time you may come to think of me as a father figure."

And I nodded and thought What is the matter with this man?

It was like he had already scripted our relationship past the pilot episode, deep into the first season. I had just met him the day before!

Maybe he had. Maybe he spent too much time alone, thinking of how things ought to go. I'm pretty sure he was not married anymore, but I don't know if he was a widower. He may have watched too much TV. I don't recall a single bit of wisdom from him. I don't remember him ever asking me or anyone else about ourselves. 

Not that I had a long time to see him in action -- they fired him after the first week and put me on full-time. I never knew why, but were I to guess, I'd say he spent way too much time bugging people who were trying to work and way too little time doing his job. 

That was many years ago, and I'm sure old mailroom Joe has gone to his reward. I think about him sometimes. I think he was very lonely, but in his loneliness, he developed odd habits of selfishness that pushed others away, cementing him deeper in his solitude. There's lesson he taught me -- albeit as a cautionary tale. 

I hope he and his son restored their relationship. I hope he found someone who liked him and could spend time with him. I hope he didn't need the chump change from that mail job, because it did not pay well. And -- why not? -- I hope he found someone who did respect him like a father, even if it had to be his own kid.  

Just Hoffa top of my head...

Friends of mine, fans of the Jets and the Giants, have been joking (I think) that they want Zombie Jimmy Hoffa to rise from his burial ground under the old Giants Stadium to play QB for their respective teams this year. In fact, they're willing to get into a bidding war over him. They think his almost-fifty-year-old corpse will show more life and resilience than they've seen from the live players.

But some cold-case hobbyists think they have a better fix on the location of Jimmy's remains. The one-time Teamster boss, who disappeared in 1975, is now said to have been planted by his Mafioso pals under third base in the old Milwaukee County Stadium. 

Best seat in the house?

The Giants Stadium myth was the claim of gangster Donald Frankos, who said in 1989 that Hoffa had been buried under Section 107 during construction. The story was so widespread in the 90's in the NY/NJ metro area that one could hear game promotions like: "In 1975, the mob buried Jimmy Hoffa in Giants Stadium. This Sunday, the Giants will bury the Eagles there." A 2004 episode of MythBusters was given over in part to disproving the story, with Jamie and Adam at the stadium, helped by then-Giants head coach Jim Fassel. 

But the new theory makes more sense on one level, or at least more sense than the Giants Stadium story -- Hoffa disappeared in a parking lot in Detroit, which is 225 miles closer to Milwaukee than it is to the Meadowlands. The mob doesn't get away with its hits by playing Weekend at Bernie's with the corpses; they dump them fast. Closer is faster.

But Giants Stadium was under construction when Hoffa vanished, and Milwaukee County Stadium opened in 1953. So why go to all that trouble to plant Hoffa in an extant structure? Plus, Hoffa vanished on July 30, right in the middle of baseball season. I can't think of a worse way to get rid of a body than bury it in a stadium that's always going to have someone on duty at the time. Furthermore, the Brewers were playing a long homestand from July 26 to August 5 that year. "Gee, third base seems a little -- elevated tonight, doesn't it?" is something infielder Jack Heidemann did not say.

To be fair, the cold-case group thinks that Hoffa was not buried there during the 1975 season, but for some reason was moved there in 1995. Which doesn't really make it any less crazy. Why move a body that had been tucked away safely for twenty years? Because the site had become risky? What could be riskier than the middle of a major league ballpark? 

But Richard III was found buried in a parking lot, wasn't he? Is it so crazy?

Yes. It is. For one thing, Richard's plot was not a busy car park in 1485. 

If by chance Hoffa turns out to have been entombed under what is now a parking lot, the Brewers might want to take an option on Zombie Hoffa. Sure, they had a good season, going 92-70 and finishing first in the NL Central, but they got swept by Arizona in the first round of the playoffs. 

If Zombie Hoffa's got a decent changeup, he might put the Brewers over the top. After all, he's kept more people guessing in death than he even did in life.

November 1: Merry Christmas!

Happy November! Here is the roundup of Christmas catalogs so far. 

I've held on to all of them since the start of October. It's not a lot -- fourteen assorted catalogs. Some of them can be forgiven for arriving before the first trick-or-treater showed up at the door. You see Herrschner's in the lower left; that's a crafters' catalog, and crafters have been receiving Christmas-themed mailings since April. Some of those handmade Christmas presents take a looooong time. You think Ralphie's aunt threw together his pink nightmare bunny suit overnight?

Also, we have a couple of Catholic catalogs, and they feature items that the faithful may want for Advent. Advent begins on December 3 this year -- actually later than usual -- and if you want an Advent wreath or Advent calendar, you'll want it soon after Thanksgiving. 

The others are just piling on, trying to get top-of-mind when the season starts in earnest. 

November 1 seems pretty early for Christmas, but you know what? All together these catalogs are smaller than the famous Sears Wish Book, which used to arrive right after Labor Day. So there's that.

Stafford's Last Book.

Stafford’s Last Book

 By Frederick Key

Gerry wasn’t overly fond of neckties, but he wanted to select just the right one to make the proper impression. Everyone wore them—all the men at the university, the club, the computational society—and Jack had said that this would be an important occasion, although not formal.

He never liked the feel of things around his neck, though, and felt like a man choosing the noose for his hanging. Ultimately Gerry selected his gold bow tie, one that would go nicely with his pale blue checked suit on a summer afternoon. If in fact it turned out to be less formal an occasion, more like one of his and Jack’s Science Fiction League meetings, he could always remove the tie and slip it into his pocket.

Before he left his apartment, Gerry gave another flip through the manuscript sitting on his desk. He had been quite honored that Jack had asked him to read it, being that Jack was a successful literary agent and Gerry just an amateur, not even in the publishing field -- although his League newsletter, The Rocket, was complimented in fan groups across the country. Still, he was under a vow of secrecy about the manuscript. It was the last book by Stafford L. Grimes, his final novel before his death, and Jack had wanted Gerry’s opinion.

“When you come to the party,” Jack told him over lunch, “you may meet some people from the publishing house. I’m not sure why, but they have some concerns about this book. They’ll want your opinion.”

“I’m surprised,” said Gerry. “Grimes was a meticulous writer, not one to dash things off. I can’t imagine it is sloppy. Is it controversial?”