Before the era of trying to ban Thanksgiving, a staple around the holidays was the Peanuts Thanksgiving cartoon. I used to love the Peanuts comic strip – it’s still a favorite of mine.
I always thought the Peppermint Patty character stole the show with her pigheadedness. She was expecting some sort of gourmet meal thinking her kiddie buddies knew how to cook. In the end, the kids get to have a meal at one of their parents houses, saving honor and making misunderstandings a moot point.
I always wondered – who the heck left the kids alone to their own devices to begin with? I know, I know. The story wasn’t made to make total sense.
Did you ever get the sense in your life that dealing with someone was going to be a futile effort? That was me that day. They hired me once and nearly hired me again, but I got bounced out each time due to answering honestly the daily tests on their app.
Of course, the first thing they tell me is that I was too honest. Then they tell me I shouldn’t have taken the tests – even though I was instructed to do so. I instantly got the sense this was a waste of time and I was being gaslighted.
I guess Walmart, who at least in Pinellas Park is having trouble finding employees, wants employees who aren’t honest. I’ll just leave it at that.
A few days before 2020 mercifully ends, we’ll all know the new host of Jeopardy – the game show that it’s former host, Alex Trebek, had hosted from 1984 until last week. Trebek lost a brave struggle with pancreatic cancer on November 8th at the age of 80.
I learned how to do math watching the game shows of the 1970’s, probably how to read, too. Game shows took up a lot of airtime on the then three networks of the era: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Trebek gravitated to a lot of the shows I wound up watching prior to his legendary run at Jeopardy – and I always felt down deep that he was somebody that everyone could relate to.
Jeopardy was easily his magnum opus – and the show took off right away. It was daily viewing growing up. We had a dog named Holly who didn’t like certain noises in music or commercials – and we always had to mute the theme they used in the Final Jeopardy round.
Another example of how Jeopardy took off and was the soundtrack of my youth: in 1988, I had to spend a couple od days in the hospital to get a Polidonial cyst removed from where the back ends and the buttocks form. There’s a slightly younger kid in the other bed with me in the hospital room, and we passed time watching the game shows of the era. One of the local stations ran old Jeopardy repeats in the morning, and we’d each take stabs at getting the questions to the shown answers.
It’ll be interesting to see who Jeopardy chooses to replace Trebek, although much like Drew Carey couldn’t fill the shows of Bob Barker – I wonder if anyone can fill in adequately for him.
(EDIT, 11/24/2020: Ken Jennings was announced as the interim replacement to Alex Trebek on November 23rd.)
Well, never let it be said that we don’t live in interesting times. In the opinion of numerous media outlets, Joe Biden is about to become President in a couple of months. President Trump is not in agreement with this declaration, which may have been premature.
There have been accusations of foul play of various types. People voting in this election may have died long before they voted. Software programs tallying votes that registered the score incorrectly. Mysterious batches of ballots arriving in the dead of night, all for one candidate, and not the other.
Not many elections in history have been overturned, but I can’t help but notice when it has happened, it had to do with the tally registered incorrectly. That being said, this is not a done deal in my book. When the current President concedes, I will sing a different tune.
Actually, I voted weeks ago. If you’re an avid reader of this blog, it probably comes to no surprise I voted to retain Mr. Trump as President.
Today, it was about getting my Mom to the local polls. It was the chilliest day in Florida in several months with a shot of cool air hitting us.
We left about 8:30 this morning to a jam packed polling station, easily the most crowded I’ve ever seen it to be in the decade and change I’ve lived here. I waited outside while my mother voted, in case I was called upon to assist.
Usually, that doesn’t happen. Today was a different story. Mom couldn’t make it through the two pages of ballots without frustration. Seeing that she had voted in the major races, we called it a morning.
So now, we wait for a winner, hoping the verdict is the right one and rendered relatively quickly.
A Slice Of Big Pauly 