Memory full.

No matter how advanced computers get, we still find ways to fill them up with so much running crap that they wind up lagging and lollygagging. Then we have to get new computers that can run that crap properly, until we fill them up again. 

Unfortunately this is not an option with my brain, which resists all upgrades. 

During the stressful period in which I am slogging, I have found my dreams to be unreasonably detailed. Not clever or smart, but loaded with data. I might be traveling down a quiet road and find myself without warning in a rural neighborhood; the neighborhood is fully populated with people and their dogs, and I'm invited to have a look at someone's vast library (of course I can read none of the titles but the books are in all kinds of colors and conditions). Or I am trying to ride the subway along with enough people to make up the cast of Ghandi, and every grotty detail is visible but not the stations or where we're going. 

All this leaves me as tired when I wake up as when I went to sleep. I'm running new software on my old hardware, you see, and something has to slow down somewhere. 

Why do we go through all these mental gymnastics anyway, when all we want is rest? These days most scientists from which I've heard think that the purpose of dreaming has to do with learning and memory, a way of sorting out the data. It's possible, but my dreams seldom deal with anything in my life at present. I dream about commuting more that you'd think possible, and I haven't had to do that in years. Still, who really knows? 

Compounding the riddle of dreaming is that we smarty-pants humans are not the only ones who do it. We know for certain that dogs dream, always running with li'l paws or boofing out barks in their sleep. It's really cute. Less cute is that, according to a piece in the Smithsonian, lots of animals are dreaming: 

Young jumping spiders dangle by a thread through the night, in a box, in a lab. Every so often, their legs curl and their spinnerets twitch—and the retinas of their eyes, visible through their translucent exoskeletons, shift back and forth.

“What these spiders are doing seems to be resembling—very closely—REM sleep,” says Daniela Rößler, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Konstanz in Germany. 

I feel worse for knowing that spiders dream. ABOUT WHAT? 

The article does note that we still don't know dreaming is about, whether we're man, dog, bug, or eucalyptus plant. (NB: Nothing about dreaming vegetables in that article.) It's mysterious, and it wears me out.  

I'm with the late great Mitch Hedberg on this topic: 

Dreaming is work, you know - there I am in a comfortable bed, the next thing you know I have to build a go-kart with my ex-landlord. I want a dream of me watching myself sleep.

Right on, sleepy brother. 

Don’t bother to wake me up.

 

I'd hoped to have a fantastic blog entry for you on Monday, but you know what they say: Wife Happens. In this case my wife forbade me from getting on the computer on Sunday. Why? Because I normally do at least some work seven days a week, and I don't sleep well at night, and she thinks there's a connection. 

Besides, on Saturday (November 30th!) I had expressed my frustration with having no time to get any Christmas decorations up -- it seems like all my neighbors had theirs done by 12:01 on Thanksgiving afternoon -- and she suggested that rather than complaining I start doing. And stop judging the neighbors' outsides against my insides! 

(Feh. Like there's any other way I can judge them.)  

So, that's what happened to Sunday. 

We all know there are two types of insomniacs: those who can't get to sleep and those who can't stay asleep. I have become #1 of the #2 types, and I'm not referring to my bathroom breaks. I have zero trouble getting to sleep, but I am a champ at waking up at three and lying there like a lump, unable to return to sleep. Reading, prayer, meditation, nothing works. I'll give up around five, because if I get up the dog gets up, and he'll have to go out, and I imagine five is the earliest you can be out walking about the neighborhood and not look like a suspicious character. 

Can I use the extra time productively at least? Of course not, because by the time I get the dog back inside I am finally ready to sleep again, and so hit the sofa until eight... or nine... or... 

OTC sleeping aids don't help. Diphenhydramine and doxylamine can make me go to sleep even faster than I already do, but they're out of my system by three a.m. and HELLO I AM AWAKE AGAIN.

I'm not sure what's happening, but it's been going for a while. I'm going for a checkup in January so I will load it on the doctor's shoulders. I've tried everything, doc; now it's your turn. 

Have any of you out in Blog Land had experience with some of the new prescription sleep drugs? I neither drink nor take any Fun Drugs anymore, so I am not interested in anything that could be sold on a street corner. Do the prescription sleep aids really help you get to sleep and stay that way for the expected eight hours, without feeling like an extra on Dawn of the Dead?

My luck, I'll get a perfect solution to the problem, and then the dog will become insomniac, dragging me out in the dead of night. Maybe it would be my just desserts. 

Bleary in the morning.

Been kind of wiped out this week, and for good reason.

For days I've been covering for someone who's on vacation, minding the desk from my perch at home. Which is good, in that it means billable hours for me, but the other clients I have still need tending. Fortunately, there have not been many explosions and freakouts. Some, but not many. 

This has also coincided with some hot and humid weather, though, and while we are blessed to have air conditioning, the dog still needs to be outside a good bit. That's the way of his people. However, then he gets overheated, comes inside, and drinks a gallon of water, which sets off the Circle of Pee, and we have to go out again. 

I'm glad he's staying hydrated -- his uncle, the late Nipper, was not good about it, and once had to have a Quasimodo-esque lump of water injected into his back. Strangest thing. Can you imagine humans being treated like that for dehydration? 

"What's that big lump, Maggie? Third breast implant?"

"Nah, just neglected my Gatorade."

The big downside is that Izzy, America's Sweetheart (currently America's Sweatheart), has to go out a couple of times in the night. It's made the week more difficult to navigate, let's put it that way. 

In my career I've been paid salaries and hourlies, and anyone who needs to learn the value of a dollar needs to work for hourly wages. That's a cold fact. Every kid should do it. When you get paid by the hour, whenever an expense comes up -- say, you have to part with $700 for a car repair, I did this month -- your mind immediately goes to the most annoying, frustrating, diabolical project that you had recently, and you factor that into the money spent. I worked hour after hour cleaning the sewer backup into that guy's basement, and it didn't even pay half of what it cost me for the car repair, an expense I didn't expect. I didn't get a dime's worth of fun out of the money. 

I always think of the most crappy job I had to do to get the dough. I don't think I'm unusual in this. 

I'd say I've been doing the editorial equivalent of cleaning sewage, but there is no equivalent of cleaning sewage. I will say it's been very little fun, and the money isn't going toward anything fun either, and I'm exhausted. 

Added to all this is worry's little side hustle, the sleeplessness. This worrying is exhausting! Fortunately, it's also keeping me awake at night! So when the dog wakes me up, I'm up for hours. 

Next week may be better, but it certainly won't be well. Life is tough. I'm tired. I sometimes wonder how any of us get by. 

Meme machine!

Yes, we had dueling deadlines here at the ranch Friday, plus a toner trip, so we're doing another meme Saturday at your daily dose! Trade them, sell them, NFT them for all I care! 

 

And finally, in the Wish I’d Done That Department…

Meme streets.

Have to get out of the house early today, so I spring-loaded these memes to pop out at you when you opened the page. Enjoy your Saturday! 

The one was making the rounds thanks to Elon Musk--story of my career

Wake-up juice.

Scandinavians and other northern types love their coffee. Charts of the top coffee-consuming nations vary from year to year, but among the top coffee drinkers you will always find Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, and Canada. Why? Because A) it's cold and they want to drink something hot and B) there's no sun for six months out of the year and they need caffeine to stay awake. 

 

A long time ago I visited Norway, one of the nations in my ancestral mishmash, and I remember that people sucked down coffee like they would die without it, and also that the coffee was really good. My wife, having heard such tales, and being a coffee hound herself, got me a couple of bags of Norway's finest coffee for Christmas. Here's one: 

 

Kjeldsberg is a coffee roaster in Trondheim, Norway, and I don't think there's any more Norwegian-sounding city than Trondheim. You could say it all day. Trondheim Trondheim Trondheim. Anyway, Rasmus Kjeldsberg started the company in 1856, correctly predicting that coffee was going to be a big business. That makes Kjeldsberg older than venerable American brands like Maxwell House (1892), Chock Full o' Nuts (1926), Martinson's (1898), Chase & Sanborn (1874), and Hills Bros. (1900), but not quite Folgers (1854). However, most U.S. brands have been bought and sold by big companies over the years*, and the quality of the coffee has not stayed top-notch, dare I say. Kjeldsberg is, I believe, still its own business, and business is good.

I don't consider myself a coffee snob, but I have to say that the Kjeldsberg kids know what they're doing. The two varieties I tried were delicious--full-bodied without being acidic and nasty, rich without tasting burned. Honest injun, it was better than any major American brand I know. It even surprised my wife, who expected some kind of thick Eurotrash goop that could only be forced down with cigarettes and baguettes. Well done, my Norske friends!

Many moons ago, when the idea of quality coffee was sweeping the nation (and we could always use some more sweeping), the head of a small company at which I was employed came back from the Frankfurt Book Fair. We were in the business of importing foreign books and Americanizing them for the US trade. While in Germany she had been in a discussion with some of the shifty foreigners about coffee, and they were comparing the coffee found in Italy, Germany, and other nations. 

"What do you think of American coffee?" she asked. 

After a moment, one of the fellows said, "It, too, is a beverage."

She thought that was hilarious. I admire the remark as well -- it so perfectly combines the desire to appear polite with the desire to look down upon others that perhaps no other continent can do as the Europeans do. 

Oh, well. I'll give them credit for the joe. We'll take everything else on a case-by-case basis.

⛾⛾⛾⛾⛾

* For example, Chock Full o' Nuts, Chase and Sanborn, and Hills Bros. are currently owned by Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA, the American branch of Italian giant Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group; Maxwell House is owned by conglomerate Kraft Heinz; and Folgers is owned by J.M. Smucker Company, having broken free from America-hating Procter & Gamble in 2008, where it had been since 1963.

End of the year.

It's nice to shut the door on a year that didn't bring us what we'd hoped, or worse, brought us many things that we would have hoped not to get. Of course we know it's all arbitrary -- tonight 2022 ends, but the Jewish year 5783 started in September and the Chinese new year (it's a rabbit year) doesn't start until January 22. But I guess it's always nice to mark the end of an era and take a moment to assess our experiences and anticipate what's to come. 

I actually finished all my work assignments right at the end of the day Friday, so I have nothing new looking me in the face this weekend. My goals for the weekend: Get to church and sleep. Depending on the pastor, they may be combined. (Rim shot.) I will certainly feel obliged to stay up to midnight, which will mean an overtired puppy tonight and then an overtired both of us Sunday morning. But time and pee wait for no man or beast. On the upside, TCM has apparently listened to its viewers and has reinstated its marathon of Thin Man movies starting at eight tonight.

The past year did not have any personal highlights, and the lowlights were nothing worth mentioning, so I guess that's good. I have grievances, of course -- annoyances that I may compile in list form. Like a lot of folks I often dwell on the little things to avoid thinking about the big things. People will say "Don't sweat the small stuff!" but they will also say "Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." Culture is contradictory to the point of insanity. 

So what are your hopes for the new year? Maybe regrets from the old year? Let's hear about them in comments. See you there, if I'm not too sleepy to read them.  

The sloth day of Christmas.

I tried to get motivated to work; I really did.

I have a job due, but not until next week -- but the sooner it's done, the sooner I'll be ready to take on something else. It's an editing job, and I already know enough to loathe the book and be offended by it in every way. However, I'm not going to be like those crybabies who refuse to work on books by authors with whom they disagree. That's anti-American and a dereliction of duty. 

However, getting motivated to work on such a thing on a day that was technically a federal holiday (since Christmas fell on Sunday) was more than I could handle. 

I also have a book of my own to work on, but I'm trying to work out the structure for a chapter. Chapter two, that is. So you see, I'm not deep into that one either. Easy to let it slide for a day.

Oh, sure, I could blame the six bandages on my fingers from burns and cuts acquired during cooking and the recent cold snap. Makes it hard to write, literally. And I could protest that I was not entirely inert all day Monday. I took Izzy out for a long walk in the morning. I got the dishes all done from Sunday. I got my wife's car tires inflated, because when the temperature drops like a stone, so does the tire pressure, and her car is not shy about complaining. I showered, and was responsible for preparation of meals (leftovers, however).

My most ambitious idea of the day was to load Izzy into the car and take him to a gathering at church. Not in the church itself; this is a group in a meeting room, a meeting I was not expected at, but I thought it would be fun to drop in and say hello at. And it was. Izzy was a perfect gentleman and enjoyed attention and love. However, he got antsy after a little while and wanted to eat someone's Lorna Doones, and I knew it was time to go. He isn't service dog material. Plus, I figured he had to pee, and I didn't want him to desecrate the churchyard.

Um, I should mention that Izzy is a dog, if you're just joining us.

Then it was back to the sofa for a nap, and now I'm writing this for Tuesday.

And now I'm worn out from all this blogging, so back to the sofa! Wake me up in time to post this in the morning. 

😴😴😴😴😴😴

Slumber cola.

I reviewed Starlight Coke back in April, and now it appears Coca-Cola is going to spring a bizarre, inscrutable soda on us at least once a season. Thus the Dreamworld Limited Edition that I picked up this week. 

What's it supposed to taste like, we wonder. Cherry Coke tastes like cherry, Vanilla Coke tastes like vanilla, and Starlight Coke tasted like exploding hydrogen. (Not really.) So what does Dreamworld Coke taste like? Making an important speech in your birthday suit? Falling? Handing your mom a cigar while Dr. Freud takes notes? 

According to Coke's site, "Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Dreamworld makes the most fascinating parts of our imagination real. This limited edition sparkling beverage from Coca-Cola Creations explores the realms of the surreal, the imaginary, and the otherworldly. Experience the familiar Coca-Cola Zero Sugar taste now with a surprising and unexpected flavor from a dream world." 

Okee doke! Here we go! And…

Tastes like Coke mixed with fruit. It's not too far off that Diet Coke Twisted Mango they were selling a few years ago, which I liked and no one else seemed to. Maybe with some guava and papaya as well. Maybe if you chewed some Mike & Ike Tropical Typhoon candies while drinking a Coke Zero you'd get the same flavor. It's not bad, but it doesn't say Dreamworld to me, unless your dream is a cheap Caribbean vacation in a country where they have to fence off the resort. 

I admire Coke for shooting the moon when it comes to naming these things. Starlight and Dreamworld both evoke a sort of floaty, ethereal, peaceful feeling, although the first is more glorious and the second more weird. 

If someone were to tailor a beverage to my personal dreamworld, it would have to taste like hotel continental breakfasts, business vending machines, and whatever could be gleaned from a train station stand, because my dreams are always about work, city streets, commuting, and hotels. I have no idea why. Once in a while in a dream I will decide I am going to drive somewhere distant, like northern Canada, and only after going along a highway for a while do I realize I will not be able to get home by bedtime as planned. Try stuffing all that into a bottle, Coke. 

Blurry.

I had bad night of sleep, lots of work, and a long drive out and back, and I was ready for a nap. Once I knew the dogs would nap for a while too, I silenced my phone and crashed on the couch, face to the bolsters. I didn't move for almost two hours. 

When I got up, the vision in my right eye was blurry. Like, really blurry. Like, twelve martinis blurry. 

It wasn't hard to guess that I had smushed (to use a medical term) my eyeball by falling into a coma on it. I even had a red pillow mark like an angry villain scar running from my forehead diagonally over the eye. It persisted, however, making it difficult to do the editorial work that helps pay the bills. Could it be just smushing that caused this?

To the Internet! Which, of course, was a mistake.

In no time I found out that waking up with blurry vision in one eye meant that I had suffered:

👀 Glaucoma 

👀 Eye tumor

👀 Stroke

👀 Cataract

👀 Migraine

👀 Eye infection

👀 Tear-duct trauma

👀 Concussion

👀 Diabetes

👀 Macular degeneration (wet or dry)

But I didn't see anything about eyeball smushing. Of course, I didn't see anything clearly with my right eye at all. 

Well, it was a good excuse to knock off for the day, which I did. And I'm glad to report that this morning all is normal. I guess my eyeball reasserted its usual shape, or else I got over my glaucoma, tumor, stroke, etc. 

Remember the kid in Kindergarten Cop who immediately diagnosed Arnold with a brain tumor?

I'm convinced that kid grew up to create WebMD.  

New from FredCo!

 

What harm could it do?

 

“Dual-use technologies always turn into weapons.” --Austin Vernon

The Pickleball Menace.

I'm not old enough, and perhaps young enough either, to play pickleball, but the intrepid New York Post makes me wary of the sport. "Pickleball Mania Leading to an Epidemic of Injuries Among Baby Boomers," reports the newspaper. Just looking at this ferocious action shot exposes the menace.

The Post reports, "Pickleball has been billed as a more accessible and a less intense tennis alternative, but experts say the popular pastime is still leading to a rash of injuries amongst the senior set. 'Obsessed' retirees are playing several hours per day, leading to overuse injuries. The older demo is also more likely to have weak bones, putting them at a greater risk for fractures."

The people profiled are not very old; we're not talking nonagenarians here. More like early sixties. Yet somehow, despite being able-bodied, they spend hours playing pickleball instead of working honest jobs. And they don't stretch enough, or take a break when they're hurt. It's just pickleball, morning, night, and noon.

It makes me wonder what other activities are causing overuse injuries in these crazy retirement villages. Is shuffleboard elbow a serious problem? Maybe mall-walking tendonitis? Croquet knee? Horseshoes carpal tunnel? Quoits wrist? I don't even want to ask what problems cornhole might be causing. 

I know a lot of doctors may be harrumphing at me; I can almost hear them through the computer. "Harrumph," they say, "a little overuse injury is nothing compared to the diseases of overweight and inactivity. Do you know that 80 percent of Americans don't get enough exercise, Fred? Well, do you, punk?" 

Well, I counter, do you doctors know that fully a third of Americans don't get enough sleep? Which problem is easier to fix? Mightn't a well-rested person be more likely to engage in exercise, and do it properly, with good stretching and other injury-prevention measures?

What I'm saying is -- avoid the pickleball menace and take a nap. That's what I intend to do, anyway. Maybe right now. 

😴

How windy was it?

It was so windy yesterday...

How windy was it?

It was so windy, Gladys Knight's Pips blew away. (/carson)

Thursday had been unusually clement for New York in February, temperatures as high as sixty and all the snow and ice melted. It felt like spring, even though it didn't have that springy smell. Well, we had to be punished for that beautiful day, and between eight p.m. and noon on Friday the temperatures were aiming to drop forty degrees. In other places, that could have meant tornadoes, but here it was just wind, and lots of wind. It roared hard enough to knock over half the garbage cans on the block. It was a constant whistle all night long, like we were flying with George Reeves's Superman.

You're hearing it right now, aren't you?

Of course you know that meant dog insanity. Large economy size dog Tralfaz is scared of the wind, especially at night. But he doesn't cower under the bed, no no (not that he could fit); he must go out multiple times to confront his enemy. And pee. Baby dog Izzy isn't scared of the wind, but whenever Fazzy goes out, he must follow. It's the way of his people.

I stayed downstairs with them so at least my wife could sleep. And yes, I had to go out multiple times in freezing cold with blasting windchill. I expected to see huge limbs and roof shingles falling like autumn leaves out there. Anyway, the power stayed on, but it was a crummy night of sleep.

Well, I'm glad I work from home, but I had a big deadline Friday on the huge and boring law book I was proofing. Thank God for coffee, and lots of it. At this point the wind is over and we're just back to freezing again, temperature about 20 Fahrenheit as I write. 

 

But I don't care. It's Saturday! Naptime! See you Sunday. Maybe.

Bright & surly.

 

Oversleeping was not a problem anymore, not after Darryl got the RoboChimp 3000 Alarm Clock.

The best part of waking up.

Some interesting news over the transom the other day: Nine out of ten people don't know what a "transom" is! 

No, that's not it. The news comes from Barchart, which notes that "Arabica Closes At A 10-1/4 Year High As Global Coffee Supplies Plunge". 

Arabica is valued as the best quality coffee bean (as opposed to lesser ones like Robusta, Excelsa, and Liberica, often grown in places like Vietnam), and it is certainly the most popular. The idea of a shortage driving up the price of coffee, and possibly resulting in worse beans getting into the mix, is fascinating. I look at it this way:

Despite the fact that I consider myself a morning person, I have a strong desire for morning coffee. My wife simply cannot function without it, and suffers withdrawal symptoms including headaches. This house will cease to function if this coffee shortage turns serious. 

So what has led to this threat? Labor shortage? Revolution? Coffee bean blight?

I've done some serious study of the commodities market, having seen Trading Places several times, and I think we know that there can be reasons other than these for wrecking a market. However, returning to the Barchart story, we see that 

Arabica coffee prices are seeing support from expectations of lower global supplies due to unfavorable weather and supply chain disruptions.  Drought and recent frost events have devastated Brazil's coffee crop this year and have curbed the growth potential for the country's coffee crop for the next two years.

The good news is that better weather in the forecast may be leading to better crops going forward. I certainly hope so, because otherwise we are hosed. The only U.S. state that has the climate to grow coffee is Hawaii, and while the coffee they grow there is awesome, they can't possibly feed the machine that is the U.S. economy. America may run on Dunkin', as the chain claims, but what does Dunkin' run on? Coffee. We didn't get to be the biggest economic engine in the history of the world on doggone tea, people!

For some of us the situation is even more desperate. People fighting against chronic fatigue syndrome, for example, or relying on medications like diphenhydramine in allergy season that can cause sleepiness. Or me, still taking duloxetine for spinal neuropathy. Flat-out fatigue cannot be totally mitigated with caffeine, but most of the time it will get us through in a pinch. And what about the binge-watchers, the one-more-episoders who never get enough sleep? What will become of them?

Yes, we could resort to Red Bull or other gruesome beverages, which are made with synthetically produced caffeine. If it gets that bad, I guess I would. Of course, that would lead to the price of energy drinks skyrocketing, and then we'd be in another vicious, sleepy circle. 

Come on, Brazil! Get it together! We need you!

Deep thoughts.

From the deep thoughts factory at FredCo.

🧠 According to the Cleveland Clinic, your brain processes 70,000 thoughts per day. This means that by the time you turn 50, you've had approximately 1,278,340,000 thoughts. That seems like a lot, especially if, like me, the bulk of your thoughts are devoted to Is there anything to eat? and I'm tired. But if you had one thought for every dollar spent by the federal government's $1.9 trillion budget this year, you would be more than 74. And that's just the budget, which doesn't include mandatory spending, or entitlements, which was $4.6 trillion in 2020. Think THAT many thoughts and you'll be almost 180.

🐕 Buridan's Ass is the philosophic example of the donkey that starves to death, being unable to choose between two identical and equidistant bales of hay. It is tough to be caught in a dilemma like that, as with a smart or athletic student who can't decide between two great colleges that offer a full ride. Most of us are more familiar in real life with the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't type dilemma, where two or more choices all suck in roughly equal proportion. In real life, the donkey would probably just wander over to one bale and eat. If you tried it with a Golden Retriever, he would eat both meals and go running off to find something to play with or pee on. 

🐶 Speaking of dogs, one of the advantages of having them around is that they make you feel productive even when you aren't. Adult dogs sleep up to 14 hours a day. I only want to sleep that long. 

😴 Speaking of sleep, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the reason you don't usually punch and kick people while dreaming is that "Your arm and leg muscles become temporarily paralyzed, which prevents you from acting out your dreams." Isn't that helpful? Last night I dreamed I was with James Bond as one of a bunch of his sidekicks, planning to kidnap a foreign agent by getting him drunk. It devolved into a hunt for the hodag along a city street, all previous plot elements forgotten. If I'd been running and punching and leaping in bed as well as in sleep, someone could have gotten hurt. Or it might have made a video for the 'gram. 

💤🛌 Which brings us to what I was doing between bouts of sleep, which was taking out the dogs. Large dog Tralfaz got it in his head that he had to go out 700 times last night, and of course Izzy (a.k.a. Me2!Me2!) wanted to go as well. I tried to be patient because it could be chemo-related, but I am a tired puppy myself right now. The Harvard Health Letter reports that deep sleep may be when the brain clears toxic waste created in the normal course of cell life. And my brain feels pretty toxic this morning. So that's enough thoughts for now. 

What, no crayons?

I know it's my age creeping up on me, but I'm tired of being treated like a child. If marketers don't stop, I'll hold my breath till I turn blue. (Do kids even do that anymore?)

One of the things that bugs me in this increasingly irritating world are the cute little bonuses that sellers throw in to make someone feel like they've just been accepted into the bestest kindergarten ever. For example, I bought a set of expensive sheets as a Christmas present for a family member who I knew would enjoy them. I wanted to get sheets made from Outlast fabric; this type of fiber claims to reduce temperature on sleeping surfaces, and the person I'm referring to likes to have the room cold enough -- in the words of Tony Kornheiser -- "that I can hang veal in the closet." I bought a set through Slumber Cloud; it arrived intact and on time, but it also included a little "welcome!" kit, as if I had just taken a job with them. The kit included stickers! 

Let me state so there's no confusion: I had purchased pricy adult sheets for a queen-size bed. The sheets did not feature any Disney characters, nor Minions, nor any figures from Nickelodeon. Why would I want stickers? 

The same thing happened on my birthday last year. New dog Izzy had chewed up three pairs of my shoes, and my wife thought I would like a pair of Vessis. Vessi shoes, she'd heard, look like normal casual shoes but are waterproof, and since I'm always outside with the dogs in all weather, she thought I would like them. And they weren't cheap.

Yes, I do like them, and yes, they came with an orientation kit that included stickers. 

I miss the days of buying and selling; I do not want to engage in a relationship with the seller. It bothers me because I suppose that's exactly what the seller expects to happen, and must be targeting those younger than me who grew up getting stickers everywhere. (We had to buy our own Wacky Packages, thank you very much.) Does this make the youths of America feel like they're being treated especially well? Is that a reason to max out your credit cards at an age where Payless is your real best shoe friend?

The whole thing feels very smarmy to me, a means of getting past the natural skepticism one should have in any financial transaction, and I dislike it. Companies don't give things away for free; it's all included in the price. Is it worth it to get a brochure on the product you already bought and a page of colorful stickers? 

Please tell me if I'm being too grumpy. I would rather spend less and make fewer "pals" among the sellers. Either I'm getting crazier or the world is, and I'm about as crazy as ever. 

It's a living.

 

Sprang ahead.

Pardon me, but I'm writing as if I'm under the influence of some substance. It is all about lack of sleep, though. 

Friday night we had wind gusts of up to 50 mph. Large dog Tralfaz is not afraid of thunder or fireworks, but strong winds freak him out. I stayed downstairs with him overnight to comfort him. That worked brilliantly. I slept about four and a half hours, not in a row. He was whimpering, whining, and wanted to go out a number of times. 

What made it worse was I had a meeting to attend Saturday morning at eight, and three projects for work in the afternoon. And on top of it all, I lost an hour of sleep Saturday night due to Springing Ahead for daylight savings time. I hate springing ahead.

When I was a young man about town, I could go on low sleep for a few days in a row with no major problems. Of course, some of the symptoms of sleep deprivation, like memory issues and trouble with thinking and concentration, were me as I was in college anyway, so the difference would have been hard to notice. Now it actually matters. 

So forgive me for being brief today, but I'm trying to avoid using my laptop as a pillow. 

When will we end the daylight savings time menace? I can't do anything about the wind, and I can't use narcotics on the dog, but there's no reason we should still be dealing with this spring ahead/fall behind nonsense. It's a relic from an earlier time, and I say it's spinach and the hell with it.