Monday, November 06, 2017

This Blog Is Old (Random Ramblings)

When you write over 2,800 blog posts in nearly 13 years, you tend to have some overlapping topics. Therefore, some of this post expands on previous posts though I have some thoughts/notes on fatherhood, Pittsburgh sports media, and Ithaca College too.

1. Young children completely ignore daylight savings. (I wrote about abolishing daylight savings here.) You know who else has no interest in this outdated and silly ritual? Pets. Your dog and cat aren't setting their clocks forward or back an hour.

2. The tooth fairy certainly has an added degree of difficulty when her work involves retrieving a tooth from the top bunk of a bunk bed. Even The Rock didn't have to deal with this!


3. Last week, eight people were killed in New York City when a terrorist drove a truck through a bike path. Immediately after the incident, there were calls to more thoroughly vet immigrants and New York added barriers to prevent cars from accessing the bike path. Meanwhile, there was another major shooting spree in America on Sunday where 26 people were killed at a Sutherland Springs, Texas church. Yet, all you see from our political leaders in power are thoughts and prayers and no action. President Trump in Japan said "I think that mental health is your problem here. Based on preliminary reports, a very deranged individual, a lot of problems for a long period of time." He also added that "this isn’t a guns situation." If this isn't a "guns situation," I expect that the President and Congress will introduce immediate legislation to ensure that more resources go towards mental health, right? Please let me know when that happens. And yes, I wrote about gun legislation and frustration that there won't be any gun legislation last month.

4. Luigi makes squeaking sounds sometimes when he's in a state between being awake and asleep and even sometimes when he is awake. He sounds like he could be from the Upside Down of Stranger Things!

5. While I didn't attend my 20th year college reunion this weekend, a friend took a picture of the building where I lived for two years. The room was so small, but I loved it for those two years.


6. Finally, I was an early subscriber to DK Pittsburgh Sports since I enjoyed Dejan Kovacevic's work, particularly on the Pittsburgh Pirates beat with the Post-Gazette. I re-upped to the "Lunatic Level" because of his work and the addition of really good writers like Josh Yohe and Matt Gajtka. With that written, there's something not right there. I get that Josh Yohe and Mark Kaboly left for more money at The Athletic. However, the site has gone through so many writers/staff (Neal Coolong, Alan Saunders, Dustin Dopirak, Tim Benz, etc.) in its short history* that there are certainly some red flags, particularly regarding the allegations by Alan earlier this year of the site accessing his Twitter direct messages. (I'm Team Alan in this case as I don't see any reason for him to make this up and he has always been straightforward with me in any correspondence.) Over the weekend, Sara Civian and DK apparently parted ways as her profile has been scrubbed from the website after only a few months there. I'm still a subscriber and I feel like I get my money's worth (and for a whole lot less than if I subscribed to the P-G online), but again something is not right there.


* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat writer position in particular is like the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor position in the Harry Potter books. There's a new one every year!

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