I've Changed My Mind... Again... Maybe.

 As I go through this life, I often find myself thinking of the past. The things I used to do, some of the things I still do, and some of the things that I have done a 180 on how I feel about them. On occasion there are also things that I will stop doing or even thinking about and then decades later revisit them. For now I am just thinking about things that I enjoyed doing but for some reason or two no longer do.

As a Teen I enjoyed playing all sorts of role playing games and war games. Games like Dungeons & Dragons, first the original version then The "Advanced D&D", Diplomacy, Risk and a bunch of other things with the group of friends I hung out with. So yeah "geeks" or "nerds" yeah I was one. Most of my fellow nerdy friends were the top students in the class. Me I was "Mr. Average". Senior Year of high school when the class rankings came out I was in the middle of the list. I don't recall if the total number of students were odd, which would make me the exact middle, or if it was an even number making me either the tail end of the top of the class or the beginning of the bottom of the class. I like to think it was an odd number because I always recall being in the exact middle of the class.

After high school I lost contact with those friends One I have since reconnected with on Facebook, and he seems to be the same. He appears to still be into playing strategy and war games. In the typical life fashion we drifted apart. College life took over our lives and we moved on. Soon I stopped playing those games mostly because I didn't have any new friends that were into that stuff and I didn't really pursue them anymore. There was a short period of time in College when my group of friends dabbled with D&D but it didn't last, and frankly it didn't feel the same way that my Junior High and Senior High School years felt when it came to those games. It was a different energy and I guess attitude. 

I still enjoy the Sward & Sorcery Fantasy fiction genre or "Swords & Sandals" as some call it for books and films And I like the newer steampunk genre of things. My interests in those genres come and go. I tend to stick with Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) more anyway. Especially space travel and time travel.

In music there have been songs that when they first were released I couldn't stand them or their genre, then many years later and often decades later I kind of like them. I can tolerate them at least. Then there are some songs or groups that I can NEVER like or appreciate, and I try to appreciate everything.

I think that will do for now. If I felt like it I could probably go on about this sort of thing for quite a while.

Maybe I'll Title This Later

 Not sure what I want to post about this time.

I don't like to get into politics, However I will be so glad when a certain leader will no longer be in power because then hopefully all the controversy and hate, especially the hate will be gone. It is not because I hate the leader, I can take or leave him, but it is all the hatred that is unleashed toward him. In many ways the hatred for him is worse than what he is actually doing or what people are saying he is doing, or will do. Much of what people are saying is just that people saying. Every Joe Schmo on Facebook is an expert politician or health official these days. They have no idea what he thinks they are just saying things they think he might do or could try to do. Most of the time he isn't doing what they are saying. He likes to stir up the pot and keep it simmering, then he lets everything boil over. Well That is that for that at this time.

I guess this will be a catch-all stream of consciousness sort of. So when does the ship sail?

I seem to have gotten a second blogging wind back for my trading card blog. I am updating a few drafts over there and am starting drafts for a few other ideas I have. Sadly I'm not sure what I want to do over here. <sigh>

Random Ramblings Maybe Even A Rant

 

MMMKAY I got to thinking of things I could blog about and one of my thoughts was about recent changes to my life due to decluttering and several months of a change in how I approach the various things that I collect. When someone collects stuff they do it for many reasons. When it gets out of hand it turns into hoarding or the maintenance of a hoard if the accumulation has stopped. Rarely does the accumlation stop.

Many people get attached emotionally to the collection or some of the idividual items which makes it that much harder to declutter the mess. That was me yep. Also emotions of how the stuff was acquired can contribute. For me it has been a lot of emotional attachment combined with a lifetime of collecting the stuff. Sometimes with the intent of "sometime selling it because it is worth a lot". The problem is you never give up on the stuff and keep it anyway. You procrastinate on finding a selling venue, or place too high a value on it. 

I saw the collections more as "libraries" for whatever media they were. I still see my music collection and videos in that way a library. There is so much I could never listen to, watch or read each and every item in the collection, thus the library label. You have a bunch of stuff you like and would like to experience sometime, even if you never end up experienceing most of it. It is there for you whenever you want. Many people have switched to streaming services and the cloud to store stuff, but the streaming services periodically get rid of stuff or make upgrades to the latest version of something so you can't access the original or in some cases what you want at all becuase they dumped it.

During my decluttering, which I am still in process, I don't think I will ever be totally clutter free, one of the emotional attachment things I cut loose was 90% of my comicbook collection. It went along with a large dinning room table that was much too large for my apartment, 4 chairs, lots of electronic equipment, and a small entertainment center on wheels, boxes and boxes of VHS tapes mostly home recorded off the air tapes, but some pre-recorded commerical product tapes, boxes of magazines, a pole lamp that was shorting out a couple of verticle cubbie organizers storage units, a very nice footlocker the size of a small steamer trunk. No room for the stuff. I used one of those junk hauling companies that will attempt to donate or recycle stuff before they go to the dump. So I feel a little relief about that. I hated having to "dump" a lot of stuff, and still did a lot of dumping before the junk hauling company came. I was in a panic mode to prep for an inspection that if I had failed they could have kicked me to the curb (due to the clutter). I wasn't sure if I could get the "junk" hauled away before the inspection, but I was able to. My cluttering was never any nasty moldy food, or animal feces (or human), just lots of clutter in boxes with very little organization at all. There were "areas" of stuff where I knew mostly what was there but not much specifically.

My attitude of "stuff" in the last couple of years has been "It is 'just' stuff". No reason to be attached to it. It doesn't make it much easier though there is still the emoitional attachment thing, and the logic games of why to keep stuff. You can't take it with you. Mortality is also a factor for all of this. I'm single no kids. The youngest of 4 siblings (1 deceased) . I do have 2 nephews now in their 30s, one by blood the other by marriage. Neither one seems to be interested in the stuff I have been into, so they would probably just trash the stuff anyway. Right now though I don't have a will so living in Maryland all my stuff would be in the hands of the state and they usually dump stuff anyway.

 

Life Interupts Blogging.

 So yeah. I had somethings to do from around Thanksgiving until forever. It didn't leave me with time to work on my blogs. Basically my personal montly quota of 1 post per month suffered a huge set back. In the past I have thought about hanging things up completely. I don't think I'll do that, but my not so frequent blogging will continue to be not so frequent. It might have long periods of non-activity from now on. Blogging definitely doesn't mean as much to me as it once did and hasn't for many months maybe even a few years. As with many other facits of life things that meant a whole heck of a lot to me just a few years or even in some cases a few months ago, now I can shrug my shoulders at and say "Ehh Whatever".

EEK soon it will be time for my yearly "year in review" and such.

Blogging Rant And Work Moves Around

 Of my 3 blogs this one is sometimes the most difficult to come up with posts for as it is the most personal and I don't want some stuff made public. The draft posts that I do have in the draft queue for this blog still require more effort than I am willing to do, or rather take more time to complete than I usually allow myself. A good portion of them are reviews that I still need to actually start the writing of the review. Several of them will require re-watching, or rereading, or re-listening to whatever it was I wanted to review. Sometimes I wonder why I bother even writing a rant about my inaction. Well in some ways it gives me something that I can post about. So there is that.

Meanwhile at work our office is in the process of vacating one of the floors of the building we are in. We are currently on 3 floors, 2 of which we occupy the entire floor and 1 (the one I am on) our offices are maybe 1/4 of the floor. One of the full floors we are exiting from with most of the people moved. We have til the end of the year to exit completely when the lease runs. After that we will be only on 2 floors one the full floor and the other one at about the 1/4.

Twitter Talk

 WARNING: This post talks about the current status of Twitter, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Readers may disagree with some statements I make or my general right of center conservative view point.

It seems that many people are all a twitter about Twitter and its new owner Elon Musk. He is all bent on trying to make Twitter a free haven for free speech. Reinvent it by steering it away from its old far left leaning Liberal ways. Musk reinstated Donald Trump's account and some others that he felt were wrongly banned, making many people angry. Elon is daily posting mean and taunting Tweets. Honestly it is more annoying than mean. Many people are afraid of more angry Tweets from Trump. Trump has disappointed them by not returning, yet. When he was expelled from Twitter he was so angry at them for wrongly evicting him from the platform, he said he wouldn't come back if they reinstated him. So far he has kept away. He has Truth Social now which is supposedly where he rants and raves now shouting mean Truths? Personally I have not ventured out to Truth Social. I barely followed Twitter, However recently I have checked it for the reactions all this has gotten. Lots of people complaining about lots of tweets that upset and anger them, simply because they disagree with them.

Many say that these changes, Musk has made, are making Twitter more evil and violent. Several liberal celebrities have made their goodbyes to Twitter and still others threaten they too will leave. Of course some of those folks said they would move out of the United States if Trump were to be elected President, well he was and they didn't.

I usually try to stay in neutral territory politically and for the most part do, but much of this left winged craziness leans me farther to the right. I have noticed in recent years that it seems the only things Democrats have been talking about (when they weren't trying to impeach or convict Trump on anything that would stick) are all the mean and evil things those damn conservative Republicans are "planning" to do and the mean things they say. They also chant daily to convict Trump for some crime or another. Isn't it interesting how both parties keep warning their followers about the evils that the other party is "planning on doing" and what we need to do to save democracy from them? 

Subject Unknown and some Reflections?

 So yeah I don't know what this post is going to be yet. It is that time of month again. I don't have any Ebay updates, I don't have any reviews ready yet. I haven't been reading much. In fact I haven't been doing much of anything exciting. Just going through the same old boring routine. Oh sure I read some interesting things on my Facebook feed which is about the extent of my social media. I also checked out pictures and posts on Instagram but that is just mindless internet surfing. I guess the most exciting stuff this month has been some of the odd YoutTube videos and the ancient alien conspiracy videos rabbit hole.

My lack of excitement lately had me briefly thinking about blogging in general and if it is time to hang it up or not. I go through this from time to time. The perfectionist in me refuses to allow me to NOT Blog my minimal 1 post per month. I can't stand seeing those gaps in my posting archives calendar. It has been I don't know how many months or years since I had one of those no posting gaps. I don't intend to start that, and don't want it to become my go-to habit.

Then that leads me to think about some of the things I think or do that I never mention here, either because they are way to private or are family related and I don't want to have too much of my dirty laundry spread over the Cyberverse that isn't already there. Of course there already is a ton of it out there. As soon as you log onto the internet for the very first time personal data gets sent to thousands of data storage lockers.

A good thing is several of my go-to television shows have started their new fall seasons and the reboot continuation of "Quantum Leap" started. I am hooked just as I was with the original. Season 2 of CSI: Las Vegas might take a nosedive as Grissim & Sarah maybe leaving again. OH well whatever.

Some Stuff This That The Other Maybe

 As usual I'm not sure what this post will be about yet. Might just be a mishmash of stuff.

I did have an Ebay sale. A football relic card one of those "Rookie Letterman" cards of an autographed manufactured letter "A". I originally had it listed for much more but had lowered the price a few times. It was at $7 I got a couple of watchers on it and sent out an offer of I think 25% so around $5. The buyer counter offered with $3 and I accepted the counter-offer, so that is the price it sold at plus $4 shipping. It sold on Tue 3 May and was shipped out Wed 4 May (I had the day off for a doctor's appointment). An odd message exchange occurred long story short apparently the buyer had a problem with another seller that was being extremely rude, but they messaged and went off on me instead. They apologized for the mishap. After the card was marked as being delivered on Saturday 7 May I got a positive "Perfect" feedback from the buyer.

I've been on Ebay a long time and for the most part I like it but there are some decisions they have made over the years I don't agree with or don't like. I haven't liked any of their TV commercials much. For the most part because in their ads they give a false impression that everything is brand new and that all the sellers are professional. Anyway moving on.

I don't do music streaming. I will occasionally listen to music on YouTube and watch the accompanying video images if they have any, but I don't stream via sites like Spotify. Apparently I had signed up for Spotify via my Facebook account and was charged $10 for their premium service on one of my credit cards. Well I put a stop to that by asking for my forgotten password to create a new password and then close the account. So maybe I'll get charged again next month if any time passed from the billing date to my cancelling the account. I don't know if I fat fingered something on my Droid, or my tablet when it was functional. At any rate any signing up was not intentional.

That seems to be it for now at least for what I want to disclose at this time.

Ranting and Blogging Or Just Ranting?

 

The original title for this post was: "Stop Blogging Time...  Can't Post This" OK OK so that post title could be a little misleading. I am NOT going to stop blogging and I don't plan on this post having material or ideas that can not be posted online. At this moment I am unsure of what this post will truly be about. I had a passing thought of the M.C. Hammer "Can't Touch This" song but changing the words to "Stop! Blogging Time" then thought of the "Can't Post This". Long story even longer, I once again thought about what can I post about this month. I also wondered why do I blog anymore? Mostly because in some ways I still like doing it. My blogging has never attracted a huge gathering mostly because I have never been one of those posting monster bloggers that crank out a minimum of 1 post per day. Some bloggers post close to half a dozen posts per day almost every day. Yikes. I  have always tried to have quality over quantity. I don't do enough blogging to have my blog monetized, and I don't have a consistent subject I blog about that I could spam advertise on my blog. I also don't always go with the crowd or the flow. For this regular personal blog sometimes it is very difficult to come up with a subject to blog about. I don't like to post too much personal info, yet sometimes I do seek a little bit of attention. 

Blogging just for yourself is a bit odd. When you think about it if that is why you are "blogging" you should just keep a diary on you computer without posting it online. That or do the traditional diary writing with pen or pencil on plain paper or in a diary type book.

Then there are times when I seriously think about giving up blogging completely all of my blogs. It would save me the hassle of having to come up with something to post every 30 days.

Well I guess this post will go nowhere. There isn't anything spectacular happening that I want to yack about.

Oh and to the 2 or 3 people who do read this blog as well as my two trading card blogs a big THANK YOU.

Ebay: More Selling Stuff and Ideas

CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post

So here is another post about Ebay and selling there and just some related stuff I want to talk about.

In my earlier post about getting back into the swing of Ebay selling I probably should have made a brief mention that in my earlier height of Ebay selling at one time I had reached the milestone of having 100 items Up On Ebay in my store. Then a few days after that I think the highest I had was 110 or 115. I only kept track of the fact that I had broken the 100 item milestone and for the briefest of moments whatever my real max had been. I forget how long I was at that height before the sales knocked it back down below 100, but I haven't been there since and I want to make having 100 items in my store inventory my standard lowest inventory point. My goal for March is to have the total of 100 items listed in the store. From there I want to keep that the basement limit. Currently as of this posts publishing my store item count is 26 items. So  74 items more to list.

In general when selling on Ebay you have to list new items regularly to get your items noticed and viewed as the newer listings get priority in the searches. It takes somewhere between a dozen and 2 dozen items to start picking up views and making a sale or two. The more your list the more that your items get seen and more importantly the more sales you make. You don't have to list things that are huge ticket items, but if you only list a few things here and there that are only about a dollar you won't make much or will have to list a ton of items to start making good money.

To stress this point for many years my Ebay Store has been sitting with only 6 stale items in it. 1 item only is a multiple "copies" of that item. A collectible button, pinback or as the say in The UK a "badge" I think patches are also usually called badges so that is a little confusing just as using the term "button" here in the US is. Is that a shirt button, or one of those collectible things that has a funny saying on it? Every few months one of those buttons will sell. I mentioned in the previous post that I had gotten the particular design from a huge lot of buttons (100 count at least but less than 200) I had gotten from an Ebay auction, back in the days when Ebay was mostly auctions. I don't recall how much I paid for the batch or how many of each button there actually were. I do recall this specific button I had at least 50 of it maybe as many as 60. It is now down to a 10 count. Even though the other designs from that particular lot I sold long ago, I still have a boat load of buttons that I will eventually list and try to sell, including a bunch of buttons from my personal collection. I used to be pretty big in collecting buttons but not any more.  But I digress.

So long story shortish During the month of February I actively started listing more starting with listing 2 items one day, skipping the next day adding 2 more items and so on. I started with the 6 stale listings (I updated most of the photos/scans) dropped the price of the button from $1.50 to 99¢, then added those first 2 listings making the item count 8, then 10, then 16 items then jumped to 20, then 24 and then jumping up to 30 items total. When I was at about 14 or 15 items one of the earlier items I had listed sold. It was a listing of multiples and about half the multiples sold in one sale. It was a pack of football trading cards. So I continued to add listings. I got up to 30 listed items and for February made 5 sales. I can't stress enough how that simple act of regular listing of items increases both the views of your listed items but also increases the sales. Going many months without making any new listings I would sell maybe one or two items a year (mostly that same button). Making 24 new listings over about 3 weeks I made 5 sales. So far in March I have made one sale (one of the packs of football cards selling it out) but I haven't added any new listings  The number of items Up On Ebay is only 26 right now. I have some things set aside to list but I need to scan them. Yes right now I have been scanning the items mostly because I don't want to do the whole camera phone uploading thing. My other items are still being viewed but views have slowed down without any new listings.

So some might be wondering what Sold?
February 2020:

1. 5 card pack of 2016 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x5)
2. 5 card pack of 2018 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x5)
3. 1984 copy of Dune by Frank Herbert Berkley Books: $5.50
4. 5 card pack of 2018 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x6)
5. Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg 1971 paperback: $4.99 plus shipping

March 2020:

1. 5 card pack of 2016 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 

You can check out my series of "Up On Ebay" YouTube videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02 I know the quality of my cheap old webcam sucks. It also is a bit dark. Most everything I currently have listed has been mentioned and shown in those videos. I also mention what has sold. At the time I made the videos I think there were only a couple of sales. Video 2 might have been made before I got the second sale.

I think I mentioned that for many months I've been planning to get back into actively listing stuff on Ebay. Part of my motivation was from watching a bunch of YouTube Resellers such as Lonnie of Garage Flips/Shed Flips, Kevin the Commonwealth Picker/Flipper (with his wife Heather The Blue Ridge Mama), Matt "Part-Time Pickers", Jon Cincinnati Picker, and also Bobby TheCapGuy. There are a few others I've seen and followed but some of them are more recent discoveries and to be honest I found after my motivation was already in motion.

Eventually I would love to have the number of sales those people have. They tend to average 10 sales a day most days during the week. They also have a ton of stuff listed I think 500 items is the lowest number I've seen for some of these people, maybe one of them has between 300-500 but for the most part they have no less than 500 items and upwards of 2,000 items. Most seem to have over 1,000 items (and 2 or 3 Ebay Stores). My goal as I have said is to get to a minimum of 100 items and keep on building from there.

Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02

The Jury Experience 2019 Edition

On Monday 04 November 2019 I did my civic duty by serving Jury Duty. It was not my first round in the law abiding citizen rodeo and might not be my last. As with my previous experiences there were some differences.

Now if I recall correctly I had been called about 5 times previously. The first time I was called was when I was still away at College so I had to explain I was away at school That was when I was 18 or 19. Then round 2 came a few years later sometime in my early 20s? I actually got picked to be on a jury. I think it was 3 days spent. I don't recall exact details but it was a civil case that involved a traffic accident and the plaintiffs were seeking damages for some personal injuries. I seem to recall we the jury decided that the injuries were not directly caused by the accident, or were not as severe as claimed so no compensation was given. My 3rd round was shortly after the time I served and was within the grace period at the time. I think back then around late 1980s? The grace period allowing to be excused due to recent previous service, was within 7 years and it had only been 3 or 4 years from when I had served. Currently I thought it is down to 3 years or if our orientation dude was correct only down to one year now. Then time 4 my jury selection call number was higher than the jury numbers they were calling to report that particular day. My last call number 5, prior to this recently passed one, I reported and we waited and waited in the juror's lounge and waited for an hour and a half to two or three hours. They gave us a briefing that there were 3 trials awaiting juries and they were in the negotiation stage and getting close to the time for jury selection. Then about an hour or two later they came back and reported that all 3 trials had come to some kind of agreement/plea bargain and a jury was not required. We were released to go home and that was around lunch time or shortly after.

Now on to 04 NOV 19:
First before I reported I was going to do a dry run to the court house as it had been several years since I had last been there. We know how cities can change around in very short periods of time. I had a vague idea where to go but not exact. For several reasons I didn't do my dry run. On Sunday the night before my day to report I checked the directions using Map Quest and got more familiar with the exact details. Good thing I did that, because I was going to use my old portable GPS (my 2016 Ford Fusion non-hybrid version unfortunately doesn't have built in GPS) but the battery charge was very low and it wasn't staying on. It would start to power up then just power down and off. Fortunately the bulk of my route was one road, that changes names near the courthouse. I also knew the street names where the juror's parking area was and of course my summons had the courthouse address. One of the final turns I missed but was aware that I should have taken it so I made the next turn and got back on track. Also on Sunday night as required I called in the check-in number my summons instructed to call to see if my assigned juror's number was being called the next day. The recording for that had a very long instructions for how to get to the courthouse and more details of some generalities before it actually mentioned which numbers were being called in to report.

The smallish juror's parking lot was pretty much the way I had remembered it from years ago, except everything around it seemed to be different. There was also a parking garage across the street for alternate overflow parking. My call time was 8:30 AM I reached the parking lot at about a quarter of 8:00. When I checked in at the courthouse it was about 9 or 10 minutes of 8. To pass the time, I had brought with me a book (George Orwell's "1984" which I have been currently reading for a couple of months now. I read some here and there a few pages at at time) a word search book and pen to work it, a bottle of water and a single 2 piece pack of Pop-Tarts (the Orchard Apple Cinnamon flavor I blogged about last month, from a new second box) OH and some cough drops. It seems that coughing in the juror's lounge is a bit contagious Hehehe. Also the juror's lounge had been remodeled/renovated since my last term of service. The seats were in rows lengthwise down the room where previously it had been across the width of the room. Along the 'back" length wall was a series of about a dozen desktop computers that were wifi compatible, last time there were about 6 desktops during the early days of the internet so back then they were basically just for checking email. Now they can surf the internet heavy duty. Also previously they were in a sort of mini-room alcove now they line part of a wall.

The waiting began for the opening remarks/orientation. At about 8:40 we got an orientation introduction and were shown a video about the jury experience. That all took about 10 minutes maybe, then the real waiting began. The time of waiting around for your juror's number to be called to report to a courtroom for the selection process. So we waited and waited and waited. I switched back and forth from reading a few pages of my book to working a couple of word searches. The occasional sip of water, I couldn't eat the Pop-Tarts yet because you weren't allowed to eat in the Juror's Lounge, you could drink water, but you are not supposed to eat anything. They have a small break room off of one corner that has snack machines and a drink machine that seemed to only take quarters or credit card. I don't think it even gave change. So we wait and wait. By about 10:30 or so I was starting to think that they would tell us that all the cases had made non-jury deals and we would be dismissed early. No such luck. At about 11:20 or so they informed us that they were late with some of the morning breaks and were about to begin. It was around this time that they called us by number to receive our financial compensation ($15 Yippee). There was an option when we checked in (and at this time when they were calling us) to donate to a Juror's fund of some kind which basically meant instead of getting paid for the day, you donated what you would have gotten paid to this support fund thing. I opted for the cash out.

Ten minutes or so later sometime around 11:30 or 11:40 they started calling us for selections to the cases on that morning's docket. They started with a very large pool. They mentioned they were going to call a large number of us 125 (out of about 400 some called for the day) for a criminal case. About halfway through that calling my number was called. So I was in the lottery to sit for a criminal case. What fun (/sarcasm) My previous Jury serving was a civil case as I had mentioned way way up above somewhere. First thing they did when we got to the courtroom was to do a roll call to make sure no potential jurors were lost between the juror's lounge floor and the court room floor which was one floor up for this particular trial. The Judge introduced the cast members (Himself, the lawyers, court clerk, the bailiff and I think even the other two police officers that were in the room. Oh and also the defendant). The Judge then started talking about how the process was going to be handled and mentioned it was going to be a long day due to the vast number of potential juror's to sort through. I think it was shortly after this that we had a brief break.

When we returned we were then given some of the general details of the case. As I said it was a criminal case, an attempted murder with a firearm. There were 3 or 4 charges total If I recall. Then the judge asked some general questions we had to respond to by raising our hands and when recognized (which was sometimes hard to tell when it was you or someone behind you) give our juror number of course. These were some of the same general questions the summons survey had on it, which was supposed to help narrow down the bigger scope of things like English as a second language, if there is any physical disability that might make you ineligible to serve like poor hearing or very restricted mobility. Then around 12:25 it was lunch time and break time til 1:00 pm.

Then there were some more detailed questions and philosophical type questions and questions like if you had a personal connection to anyone in the case or potential witnesses and law officials who were mentioned as being connected to the case. For the more detailed questions the judge had to bring each individual potential juror up to the bench to ask why they had answered the question and if it would effect their ability to serve on the jury. During this process they used a sound blocking/white noise producing device that allows private conversations at the bench to be conducted without the entire courtroom hearing through the sound system. I forget the name they gave it but in short it is a white noise making device.

After that Q&A was done they got down to the nitty gritty of calling jurors up to the jury box and allowing the lawyers to see everyone. The process is fairly simple but with such a large number of potential jurors the process takes a lot of time. More so than a civil trial selection does, partly due to more detailed questioning. So they would call a few jurors up to start filling the jury box and the lawyers would then have to decide to either keep the juror or to excuse them. NO reason is needed for dismissal. Either they would say something like "keep the juror", "seat and swear in the juror", or "thank and excuse the juror" or similar sayings. Each side was usually consistent with their phrasing of the two "commands".

After a few minutes of excusing some of the jurors that were brought into the jury box and the defense dismissing quite a few of them a jury of 12 jurors plus 2 alternate jurors were picked. I was not called to the box. The final jury was mostly women I think there might have been one or two men on the jury I think the alternates were women. Of the women most were non-white. Even though middle-aged white males were usually excused immediately there was a guy who looked like Jerry Garcia who I think made the final jury as the one or two males on the jury.

They released those of us who were not picked and it was somewhere between 5 to 10 before 5:00 pm. I then made my way to the juror's parking lot where I had been parked all day. The juror's lot is free the garage across the street is paid parking, but juror's could get a validation pass if they had to park there. Anyway I sat in my car for a good 10 to 15 minutes before I even turned on my car to wait from the traffic from the parking lot to disperse so I wouldn't waste time sitting idol with the engine running and not moving at all.

The Return of Apple Pop-Tarts?

"When I was younger just a bad little kid..."

Original Frosted Pop-Tarts Flavors

OK forget those "Little Shop of Horrors" lyrics. I'm reaching back to when I was a kid and a favorite snack food. Not really a "junk food" snack but one of those sort of good for you things. I'm talking about Kellogg's Pop-Tarts. When I was little just about all the flavors they made had two versions the plain "good for you" unfrosted version and then the frosted version of that same flavor. 

Original box design for Frosted Dutch Apple Flavor (1968-1970something?)

Many of the same flavors available today were around back then; Strawberry, Cherry, Blueberry, Brown Sugar Cinnamon, Chocolate Fudge, and a few others. My favorite of all time was one that is discontinued for whatever reason I don't know the Frosted Dutch Apple.

Newer box design for Frosted Dutch Apple Flavor (1970something to 1980something?)

I recall it had a deep rich flavor with plenty of cinnamon flavor. Also back then when they said FROSTED they meant FROSTED. Good tasty frosting as well. Now the frosting is just a light glaze sometimes not even that and has barely any taste to it. Of course any sweet food stuff made before the mid 1980s was sugar ladened with real sugar not some chemical substitute. The newer sugar substitutes and lower fat sugars have ruined the sweetness flavor of many things. The pastry part of modern Pop Tarts sometimes is a bit dry, or too floured flavored, or possibly unsalted?

I don't recall when they pulled the Dutch Apple flavor (early 1980s?). I didn't notice it right away it may have been at least a year or two before I realized it was gone. Isn't that the way it always goes? Then for many years there was no such thing as Apple flavored Pop-Tarts or for that matter much of  anything apple flavored. Maybe there was an Apple Flavor scare like in the late 70s Red Dye #3 or 6 or whatever red dye was supposedly bad for you.

Recently while doing a Target Run I noticed an Apple flavored Pop-Tart box, it was a true Kellogg's Pop-Tarts not some off brand or the Target house brand. The flavor "Orchard Apple Cinnamon", um OK not DUTCH APPLE but hey it was frosted so I had to get a box and give it a try.

NEW Orchard Apple Cinnamon Pop-Tarts

IT is OK, not great, and I was a bit bummed when I saw the green apples on the box design. This flavor is a bit tart, thus the green apples instead of red ones I guess. I hope someday they do bring back the Dutch Apple flavor as close to the same recipe as possible.

Note: All images except for the new Orchard Apple Cinnamon image were found from a Google search for "Kellogg's pop tarts frosted dutch apple". Orchard Apple Cinnamon image scanned from my test box.

Twizzling Dr Pepper Licorice

OK so I had seen this some time ago at my local dollar store (Dollar Tree) and wondered about it. Dr. Pepper flavored Licorice. Dr. Pepper Twizzlers? What The? Eventually I decided to get a package and try it.

Not bad. Not great either.

It does sort of have the flavor of Dr. Pepper upon the first bite or two, then it just becomes a jaw battle against a stick of licorice. I'm not sure if the DP flavor is mixed in with the licorice while it's being made or whether it is in the glossy and sticky sugar glaze on the sticks. I suspect the latter.

Overall it is a nice little piece of just edible nostalgia for a 120-some year old soda/pop/cola/soft drink.

I scanned the package a few weeks after opening and eating most of the contents so that is why in the front image the bag isn't full.

Random Thoughts And Stuff

Here I go the end of another month and I have to scramble to find something to rant, chat, talk or ramble on about. Not sure where this will take me. Maybe I will delete this before posting it because I found something else to yak about. So yeah I didn't have anything planned. Well that isn't entirely true I do have a few posts planned. A couple have been gathering so much dust they are now buried under several feet of peat moss.

I can't help but wonder if I have used the same post title before. Have I? Don't know. Maybe. It is sort of generic and does mention its randomness.

I guess I can post about this idea that I was going to post on Facebook at one time but decided not to. I live in a pretty typical suburban neighborhood that has it's share of crime but is far from a high risk high crime area. I live in a garden style apartment. You know the kind that has a handful of apartments per floor and the stairwell is exposed to the outside elements. The front "porch" landing area has our building's bank of mailboxes and then the stairs leading up to the units and some stairs leading to the first floor/ground floor apartments. My apartment is along the same side as the mailboxes on the second floor which if I have a large box or package waiting at my front door can be seen from the mailboxes. I am certain that in the last 3 or 4 years I have had 4 or 5 packages or boxes stolen from the front door. When the post office or UPS tracking says your package was delivered and there is nothing by your front door, then yep some low-life scumbag stole your package. You can't blame the person who shipped your order they kept their end of the agreement by shipping the package. You can't blame the delivery service, unless there were specific orders to not leave the package unattended. The only person to blame is the low-life scum bucket that nicked the package. I hope they enjoyed the worthless books, or beat up comics, creased trading cards, or the oversized t-shirt or whatever was in the package. One of the more recent packages stolen from my front door was a book about the Collyer Brothers, Homer and Langley who were among the first recorded Hoarders in the US. I find that almost ironic someone taking a book about hoarders, but it still pissed me off since the book is a little hard to find, not very hard, but difficult to find at a decent low price. But I digress somewhat.

So my thought about my neighborhood is this. In theory I could close the front door to my apartment and leave it unlocked, leave for the day and return without anyone ever attempting to open the door. I could probably leave it unlocked for several days and nobody would ever know. However, I'm sure if I left the door slightly ajar, or completely wide open and was gone for more than a minimum half an hour the chances of someone coming by and being curious about this completely vulnerable apartment would increase and I'd come home to having many items missing. The longer I was gone the more stuff that would be missing. Of course there is also the likelihood that nobody would disturb anything (depending on the day of the week I guess)  but that is less probable. I wouldn't expect anyone to be kind and close the door. I would never test this open door theory.

I also recall a few years back that after a yearly or biannual exterminator visit, I noticed a nice pocket knife was missing from my kitchen that I usually kept in a kitchen drawer but might have left it out on the counter that day. I can't prove it was taken. I don't recall enough details of the make of it to describe it well enough except it was all silver. I don't recall what exterminator service was used during that time or which year it was. Now days my apartment management company uses a different extermination service that comes twice a year at least, and they require that all kitchen and bathroom cabinets are emptied to make spraying easier and that all counters are clear. Plus no dishes in the sink. The time the pocket knife was taken the only prerequisite was that the counters were clear, oh and the no dishes in the sink. This totally empty and clear requirement also puts your apartment in more of a disarray than it normally is. I haven't recovered from the last round of spraying. Heck I never really recovered from moving into the apartment 11 years ago.

Wow this post turned out to be a bit of a bummer. I didn't think it would go to the dark side.

The Cruk of The Name

So just when I think I've seen and heard them all... Yep another misspelling of my name pops up when I place an order at a food place that asks for your name for your order (early March of this year). Well this time I get to the crux of the problem of the Crock of... OK so this time my name was spelled:

C-R-U-K

Now what does that have to do with me?
Hey I'm a cancer research center in the UK.

Cancer Reserach UK

Cool cruk your hands together, well now we have reached a real cruk of s...

For these name posts I don't mention where I went to, or scan the receipt. I don't think that really matters. Plus some of the places I go others might not like and may think there food is worse than a cruk of crap. Sometimes I even think their food is worse than that.

Misheard Lyrics: Diana Ross Edition

On April Fools day I heard part of a song that I hadn't heard in a long time and thought the title and words were something else.

The Song: Diana Ross "I'm Coming Out"

from the album "Diana"

For years and years I thought this song was titled "I'm Coming UP". I Never really thought about it I Used to avoid the song for 15 years or more. Not because I don't like Diana Ross, but because I didn't like the song during that time.

As I said I never spent too much time actually thinking about the song. When I don't like a song I rarely think about it. (so why do many atheists spend so much time talking about God?) The song has apparently been used by many in the LGBQT Community as an anthem. What with the "coming out" and all. Again never really thought that much about. Nor do I care too much about it.

End The Month

It is the end of the month again. This month of February went by very quickly. Well "Duh" it is the shortest month of the year and this year is not a leap year so it only had 28 days. As usual I have procrastinated in my blogging and making a post for the month. I have had a bit of writer's block or rather blogger's block I guess.

I was originally going to try to finish out a draft that I started who knows when about some childhood writing of mine. That project is still on the back burners for now. As the month grew closer to the end I determined I didn't have enough time left for some of the prep work for that post. That draft will grow some more dust. A day or two ago I thought that since it was the end of a month that maybe I would tackle the topic of the end of life aka: Death. I was going to discuss the most common theories of what it is and what we will experience on the other side (if we do experience things in that state of being). Sadly though I think that will take more time to prepare than I have given myself in these last few hours of the month of February.

Another topic I could discuss could be some of the Television shows I enjoy or have watched. I am a bit surprised that I have not mentioned The Blacklist or The Orville on this blog. Shame on me I love both those shows. James Spader as Raymond "Red" Reddington the lead role of Blacklist is fantastic. The writing is superb and his delivery is exquisite. The ensemble for the most part is excellent. I am a bit disappointed with Megan Boone who plays Elizabeth Keen. I should devote some blog posts to that show. Ditto with The Orville which many say is more Star Trek like than the recent Star Trek Series Discovery. It definitely has a Next Generation vibe to it. The main thing keeping me from "discovering" Discovery is it being only available from the CBS All Access pay-per-stream or pay yearly service or whatever the heck it is. I did see the pilot episode that was on regular broadcast CBS. It is the only Star Trek show I couldn't get much into. Maybe it was they only showed the first hour of the series and it takes time to get into.

There are some shows that I occasionally watch or will binge watch some. Those have included: TNT's Wrecked, Fox's The Masked Singer, as well as bizarre type comedies BrainDead and Ghosted.

I also have some book reviews in my drafts queue. Most need either a cover scan or I need to come up with a quote from them or both.

World Peace: Some Thoughts And Ideas

For many years I have had an idea for a world peace plan. Unfortunately due to mankind's violent nature this world may never have true worldwide "peace". The plan is very simple in concept but the actual execution of it is the part that would probably never be possible to accomplish.

In a nutshell the idea is for all of the countries in the world (195?) to hold a peace conference, select a group of globetrotting ambassadors that would travel the world and meet with each and every country's political and religious leaders over a year or two year period. After the traveling ambassadors complete their trip a second peace conference would be held discussing the information the ambassadors obtained on their travels and to formulate some kind of plan to get it done.

Unfortunately with the thousands of religions in the world and some of those in direct conflict with each other on many issues there is no clear cut solution.

There is also a small faction of isolated tribes that don't want to have anything to do with the outside world. These isolated tribes in the short term would be a non-factor I guess. These primitive tribes are usually very hostile to outsiders. In many cases those unfortunate enough to encounter these tribes end up dead. In recent weeks (about a week before Thanksgiving?) a young American Missionary was killed in his attempt to "Introduce The Lord" to the Sentinelese from the isolated island North Sentinel in the Bay of Bengal off of India. The Indian government has strict laws against any contact with the tribe. These laws are intended to not only leave the tribe alone to keep their culture intact, but also to protect them from modern diseases which could kill them and to protect outsiders from the tribe. This young man ignored those laws and warnings he was given.

Would total world peace require a worldwide government, or could just a central "mother" government that oversaw the group of individual countries work? Many think it would require the full one world order/government yet several religions primarily Christianity are dead set against an overall one world government. There are also conspiracy theories about secret societies like the Illuminati planning on creating an evil One World Dictated Government by force.

THE PLAN or IDEA:
OK so here are more details on the idea. All the countries in the world would agree to hold a peace summit. Every country would participate, no exceptions. Each country sends a small delegation of 2 or 3 people to this summit, conference. The delegates do not have to be government leaders or high ranking officials. From this assembled group of delegates a small group of special ambassadors will be assembled. My original thought was to have a symbolic 12 people. The number could be as few as 5 or 6. There will also be a small group of alternates designated to fill in for the main group should there be some sort of need to do that.

This group of 12 will have the task of visiting with the political and religious leaders of each and every country within a one or two year period. Spending a few days to maybe a week in their world peace discussions. The number of special ambassadors might have to be increased and they might have to be split into smaller teams to meet the suggested 2 year time limit. I don't know how long visiting each and every country will actually take. They will discuss with the leaders (and their translators) what world peace means to those people and what they think it would take for that to be achieved.

While the special ambassadors are traveling from country to country their health and safety will be insured. If any individual country or group of countries attempt to kill or kidnap the special ambassadors, they would be met with worldwide sanctions against them. Trade with that country would cease immediately. Diplomatic relations with those countries ended. That country would be socially isolated from the rest of the world. If they then declare war on any individual country they will be met with the military force of the entire world against them.

OK so maybe a delegation of traveling ambassadors might not be needed, maybe a huge peace summit over a month or two might do the same sort of thing. The main idea is to have every country's input as well as the input from every religion. I thought that a small group meeting with the leaders would be more effective at actually getting the talks done and insuring the input from each and every nation and religion than one massive meeting. A huge summit would could also have too many potential arguments that would delay discussions.

The cooperation of every country would be needed for this idea or a similar idea to even be attempted or have a chance at being successful. As I said a big problem is religious beliefs. Some religions would have to reconsider their "traditions" as they relate to how they treat others and if they even give them the courtesy of respect or of recognition of being an equal human being.

Maybe just an overwhelming majority of countries would be needed for this to happen, and then hopefully the reluctant countries would eventually join in.

These a just my ideas on how world peace could be achieved. Maybe this sort of idea could work, but it probably wouldn't. Just as I said near the beginning of this post total world peace might never be possible on this world.

I welcome comments on this idea, but any hate filled comments or nonsense comments that just say it is a stupid idea will be deleted.

*World Peace Button Image from https://www.zazzle.com

To Blog Or Not To Blog: Not Quite Throwin in the Towel Just Yet

"To Blog or Not to Blog, that is the question, Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the migraines of creativity or just say 'Screw this crap'..."

Yep I'm doing it again. Doing that dangerous 'thinking' thing.

This is me from the last time I did some serious thinking.

Anyway where whuz I? Oh yeah thinkin' and drinkin' er thunken and dunken er frickin and frackin. These last few months I have been doing very little blogging almost as if it didn't mean anything to me anymore. Sometimes it is a struggle just to make my pretty lax one post a month quota for each of my three blogs. Sometimes this blog can be the most difficult because it is more personal. There are many things in life I don't want to broadcast to the world, and I also don't want to junk my blog up with gimmicks, then again there are times when I really don't know what the hell I want to post about. At least with my trading card blogs they have a specific subject to concentrate on, trading cards and the one specifically Washington Baseball. This blog free ranges over the entire blogiverse and it's unlimited subjects. Except for rude and crude content that isn't allowed on family friendly Internet sites. I don't want to make my blog ugly and be forced to change my settings to not allowing any comments on any post because it attracts all the sickos, scammers and hackers.

So the thought of "thowin' in the old towel" o blogging did pass my wacky brain. Only due to the commitment it requires. I think I like blogging too much to ever really stop doing it. I considered putting it on hold for a while, but the damn OCD part of my psyche? of me that loves my personal self-regulated posting quota would not allow me to do that. I like seeing at least one post for each month in my post archives.

It was like when I collected comics I would prefer to collect the entire run of a series. The blocks of missing issues stuck out like a sore thumb and bothered me. If the missing issue was the finale of some huge storyline well that would take the cake. Of course if you got into a comic that had been around for years then a full run is very unlikely as back issues tend to get difficult to find after a few years. The Internet has made it easier, but can get very expensive depending on the title and hot issues. I have many comics that part of me wants to sell for top dollar, the nostalgic part of me wants to keep it for such-and-such a reason. The sensible part of me says go ahead and get rid of them any way ya can, it saves space and is one less mess for your family to sort through after you have left this mortal coil. The PFC in me (Procrastinator First Class) of course has won out and for many things I have stalled or just haven't done anything with. Big le Sigh.

The point of this post? To get my personal "at least one post a month" quota accomplished. To rant and rave like a lunatic and to stick it to da Man. Or maybe just blab and jabber jaw and yadda yadda and of course Yadda.

Rant Or Misheard Lyrics?

When I first thought of what I was going to blog about this month I had a couple of ideas that I kept forgetting what it was I was going to write. So I thought about doing a mid-year update on my self appointed posting quota. That would be depressing because as usual I've been procrastinating and will most likely yet again barely crank out the bare minimum of one a month possibly a little more. I don't mind too much since I am making the low minimum. Sort of like when you are only making minimum wage and still living at home with Mum and Dad.

I also thought about doing a rant about some current political event or personality, but I don't like controversy on my blog. I also don't want to have to delete all the comments it would attract, or the spam I'd have to report and then delete.

Then I remembered some more lyrics I had misheard over the years. So:

I recalled that for one of my previous "Misheard Lyrics" posts, I had forgotten to include one of the lines I used to mishear.

Once again it was from The Bangles "Walk Like An Egyptian".

What I thought the line was:

The phone waitresses take their trays,

They spin around and they cross the floor.

The real line is:
The blond waitresses take their trays,
They spin around and they cross the floor.

Another song that I had misheard some lyrics to, has recently been getting more radio airplay due to a recent cover of it. Well the cover has been getting a lot of airplay, and also the original. The Song is "Africa" originally written and recorded by the band TOTO from their Toto IV album.

Toto IV 1982

This year Africa was covered by the band Weezer and is a very faithful cover.

The part of the song that I had misheard for many years was part of the chorus.

What I thought it said:
I Guess it rains down in Africa

The Real Lyrics:
I Bless the rains down in Africa

So um Yeah. That is it for now.