Author Archives: bluedepth

The Dark Side of USPS Informed Delivery

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Early this morning I got my daily alert from the USPS Informed Delivery site. Pictures of incoming mail.

This mornings haul included a letter from Hettinger & Hettinger Law Firm. Seeing this created instant dread. What could it be? It wasn’t a summons or a subpoena, it wasn’t even certified or return receipt requested. But what could it be?

Oh the dread. My mind worked overtime on this. Sure that someone who had a gauzy level of butthurt decided to take me to task for some unknown transgression and hired a lawyer firm to strongarm me into some sort of seedy compliance with some imagined transgression that was best executed in the most passive aggressive way possible. Because why else would lawyers be sending me mail?

What have I done! I couldn’t think of anything but I’m sure there are enemies galore just beyond the extent of the street lamp, angling for their pound of flesh. Something to make this Retrograde in Pisces really hurt. Something from TPTMNBN, I was almost certain of it. Come back from the darkness with one gnarly tentacle shooting out of the inky blackness of their malevolence.

Turns out it was simply an advertisement of the legal services they offer. That’s it.

Why! What do you know! How did you get my address! So, an entire day of worry and panic, expecting every Sherrif’s cruiser to stop, turn on its lights and pursue me. Because Retrograde is built from fuckery and shenanigans.

I can’t take these scares. Law firms sending me mail! It shaves years off my life expectancy just in stress hormones alone!

So the letter sits on my cutting board in the kitchen. I had to walk away from it. I’ve had a whole day to create exciting vistas of suffering and now all of that must be purged. This is going to take a while.

Wax Wings Microbrewery

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We stopped in to Wax Wings on this rainy and dreary Saturday evening. The entire bar area is rustic. The classics play on the speakers, they have games available and Farmers benches to sit at if not at the bar itself.

Today they had just “Up In The Early” which is a 10% ABV Stout. It’s chocolate sweetness is a powerful brew in a snifter glass. The barkeeper was really friendly and suggested that as a microbrewery sometimes their supplies and their demand are hard to synchronize. I get that. I love these sorts of places and since Gonzo’s got absorbed by Saugatuck Brewing Company, this may be my destination pub, along with One Well.

Of course, Arcadia is under a murky cloud of mystery with the tax issues they’ve had. I think they are still open, but I don’t know that for sure. I haven’t been back there since their imminent collapse was reported by mLive, our trashy news service in town. They often times overreact and get wrong as much as they get right.

I’m looking forward to going back to Wax Wings when they have more to serve. So far, bravo ladies and gentlemen. You’re doing something right when you have stock contention. At least beer is being used up instead of dumped.

Corned Beef

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The search for our St. Patrick’s Day corned beef has run into a snag, then an epiphany, and now, a hairpin loop back to Walmart of all places. A long while ago we loved Sy Ginsburg’s Corned Beef. Can’t find it. Meijers isn’t carrying it. But we did notice Grobbel’s Corned Beef at Walmart. Didn’t realize that E.W. Grobbel bought out Sy two years ago.

So, back to Walmart we go.

Good Omens

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https://www.reddit.com/comments/axv3go/only_this_unlikely_duo_can_stop_doomsday_good/

Here is a link to a trailer for a Good Omens. It’s one of my all time favorite books by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. If you haven’t read it, YOU REALLY SHOULD. I can’t wait for this series to come out! It’s on Amazon Prime, so thankfully I can watch it on a borrowed Prime account.

David Tennant as Crowley. I love it!

AT&T Is A Pox

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AT&T Sales Associates are a ripe bunch. They reach out at random and contact people who have nothing at all to do with telecom around here. I tell them that we aren’t interested and they keep on going. Keep on flogging their products to people who don’t understand what they do nor can they approve anything about it. So I told them all to just stop it. To take all their sales pitches and go to our Telecom MSP.

To which, their response was remarkably shady! Shocker!

If you no longer wish to receive email information from AT&T, please click here https://www.e-access.att.com/abgmas_n/imail/dispatcher?action=sm.unsub&ct_id=########### Or send notice to: AT&T Business, 55 Corporate Drive, Room 24C27, Bridgewater, NJ 08807.If you are an existing AT&T customer, you may still receive transactional e-mail messages concerning your current products or services.

My last message to them was:

Hello,

And this right here is why we only do business with AT&T through our Telecommunications Managed Service Provider.

No reply needed.

Goodbye.

No love lost. It was a rather surprising turn, you’d think that salespeople would treat the primary decision-maker with something less than shade. Perhaps something more like “Sorry for the trouble, we will update our records!”

Ah well, it’s AT&T. The lesson here is, the statement “it’s AT&T” pretty much explains all you need to know.

And with every waking breath I wish that Alexander Graham Bell continues to burn in hell for what he did, strapped right up there with Thomas Edison, jammed as clear up Satan’s anus as both can fit.

Variety

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Ever since I decided to start growing a beard, which is still coming along delightfully well, it has opened up new options for knick-knacky stuff that surrounds this new pursuit.

Everyone strongly suggested to me that regularly applying beard balm is an important step especially if I want to keep what I have from being damaged, developing split ends, or growing in kinky and rough. I’m after smooth and relaxed, soft and pleasurable to see and even to touch, from the right sort of person, that is.

So I have written in the past about some of the things that I’ve been using. The first thing I bought for this was Reuzel Beard Balm. This balm is very dense, almost waxy. My barber showed me exactly how much to apply, which is the amount that would end up on my thumbnail. Scrape some of it out of the tin, warm it with your fingers, and then work it in carefully throughout the beard. Afterwards, use the brush to spread all the goodness around and make sure that a little bit of the balm gets everywhere it needs to be. It doesn’t hurt that the Reuzel scent is the first thing I appreciated about this product and it is very appealing to me personally.

After the Reuzel, then I got a little container of Beard Oil, which is a different formulation of the same sort of thing as the Reuzel. It’s a liquid, three to five droplets in my hand and then work that in. Each of these efforts adds a different constellation of oils and antioxidants. Not only does it speak to variety, but it also mixes up all the possible combinations so I can maximize the benefit of what I’m trying to accomplish with all of this.

Next up was the Honest Amish, which was the next addition to my little collection. That has the warm scent of honey and pumpkin spice. It is very different from the Reuzel or the Beard Oil even, so not only do I like the scent, but it provides a great new diversity of oils and other ingredients as well.

I’ve since been fussing, as is my usual way with organizing all of these options so that I don’t have to wonder what tomorrow’s plan is, or that I have accidentally mobbed one option over the others. I find planning and structure appealing. I don’t have to waste mental energy in the morning, I just follow the plan. This is similar to the good advice attributed to Einstein, that you can save mental energy by laying out the weeks clothes on Sunday evening. You don’t have to fret over what to wear, just grab the next item in line and put it on.

I’ve just ordered some more balms, not because I have any sort of low-supply concern, but to speak to the diversity interest and the variety of scents that I can now play with. Coming in the mail will be:

  • Rocky Mountain Barber Cedarwood Scent Balm
  • Viking Revolution Beard Balm in Sandalwood Scent
  • Viking Revolution Beard Balm in Citrus Scent
  • Another tin of Reuzel for actual extra supply because I use it the most, still.

I’m excited to see what they all smell like, and discover if one works significantly better than any of the others. I don’t really expect there to be any wild discoveries made, they all have very similar ingredient lists. Mostly I am indulging in the variety because each of these is cheap, so why not have some fun while I grow a beautiful beard?

Captain Marvel

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We went to the fan special release tonight of Captain Marvel. We thought it was standard, but Scott and his eagle eyes caught that it was Real3D. The movie is quite good, standard comic book fare. Fury and Marvel had great chemistry. Annette Benning did a marvelous job in her part, and Goose the Cat damn near stole the show. This one was a four out of five, for me. It was evenly paced and not a lot of shocks or surprises really. Mostly a bunch of “Ah” and “okay…”

Bluto’s Lament

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Today has been uniquely stenchy in Kalamazoo. At first I was afraid a woodland creature got into the CX-5, somehow, and started to decompose. Nope. The CX-5 is perfectly fine, it’s the air in this town. It smells disgusting and repugnant.

As I was walking to our AMC my only thought was “Buffalo had it this bad, sometimes. At least in Buffalo if the wind shifted, suddenly, Cheerios.”

It’s not the same stench as Solvay, New York. It’s not that strong, but it is organic rot that froze. If I were a betting man, I’d peg the filthy poisoned dead Kalamazoo River. The entire stream should be a brownfield superfund site.

Why would anyone live here? Oh yeah, that’s right, the streets are paved with gold. I forget sometimes.

Treadmill

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Here I am blogging from the treadmill at my local health club. This was a mindless exercise in futility until I remembered that my Feedly contains years of content. My pocket list is up to probably a hundred years. So, I can read and curate and read later and then maybe, get around to it, years from now. Like a foolish time capsule that huffs and puffs. Almost to 30 minutes and I honestly haven’t noticed because I’ve been mentally occupied.

Which explains why I was never engaged in any sports. It’s not for thinking people. My mind is wholly unconcerned with this meatbag I tune through. The hardware is rubbish. Hah.