What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

SOCK IT TO ME BABY!!!

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

The stuff you don't get elsewhere

ITEM 1:  Just the facts. Sir

I was looking in my MWN worthy story pile just now (the cupboard being basically bare), and found a pair of lists.  One is the most dangerous place to live list- the US cities over 25,000 where the odds of being victim of a violent crime are best.  Not surprisingly, most of the top ten were in either New Jersey or next to it (#1 Camden, #2 Chester PA, #8 Atlantic City, and # 9 Wilmington DE), or in Michigan (#3 Detroit, #4 Saginaw, and #7 Flint).  The home of my favorite baseball team, Oakland CA, copped the next highest spot at #5; the remaining hellholes were #6 Bessemer AL and #10 Memphis.

On the bright side, the other list I had were the BEST places to live by state.  This was based on a variety of criteria such as price per square foot (Where Indiana , Ohio, and Mississippi were lowest, and Hawaii at some five times Indiana was most), percentage of appreciation from 2013-4 (which Nevada was best), foreclosures per 1,000 (Nevada, not surprisingly high here as well- but not as high as Florida, whose total was over twenty times that of the Dakotas or Wyoming), and burglary rate (I know you're expecting Jersey or Michigan here, but it was actually Arkansas, followed by New Mexico and North Carolina).  The winners were Wyoming, North and South Dakota.  (Which when you consider that they have 6, 10, and 11 people per square mile, tells you all you need to know on the current American take on having neighbors.

ITEM 2:  What the stuck...


So last night I stick myself for the glucose meter.   156!!! I thought, that can't be right; perhaps that's what I get for not changing the needle.  Try again- 45????? All right, there is some nonsense going on.  Clean needle, clean finger, try again- 108.  I gave up.

This morning after the "night fast", 130.  Fairly normal for what I've been getting thus far.

Today, after work and a short walk- NINETY ONE.

Needless to say, I recorded the last night's 108 and opened a Pepsi to celebrate.  Chris gets a "cookie"!!!


ITEM 3: The Untold Story




The other day, I forgot a very important part of the story of a walk Scrappy and I took.  You see, one of his favorite places to sniff ground hog dens is near where the windstorm this summer took down the six trees.  As per usual, Scrappy was off to one side sniffing God only knows when a ground hog springs up and takes off running right in front of me, less than ten feet away.

Why didn't I take a picture?  Laughing too hard.  For in his effort to flee, the little fatty ran directly into a small tree just after he took off.  And then, just to make it look better, he "tried" to climb the tree.  The charade ended when he found he couldn't move his fat gluteus off the ground; then he swerved to one side and continued fleeing.  By the time I could say, "Scrappy! Get him!"  he was gone, although Scrappy followed his trail as if he'd been paying attention.

I know you're supposed to read this as disappointed spring seekers berating Punxsutawney Phil, but just for this, read it as a disappointed ground hog hater berating a dumb beagle...


ITEM 4:  Winner, celebration having least to do with event being celebrated


Event- Yesterday was the 107th anniversary of Bulgaria's independence.  How does one celebrate that?



Answer, anchor waterproof copies of The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa to a Black Sea reef and have an exhibition.

That's it for tonight, be safe and be fun!

12 comments:

  1. Florida's stats don't surprise me at all with it being the "waiting room for heaven". Once they are gone, many family members just let the house go. That, and it is EXTREMELY transient... the average "stay" is 5 years or less.

    Love the groundhog story.

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    1. Yeah, five years of rain every afternoon would do me, too.

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  2. Camden and Chester. All within an hour of where I live. I am so proud.
    And, incidentally, that list is right on the money. Those two places suuuuucccccckkkkkkkkk.
    Atlantic City? Two hours away. My joy knows no bounds.

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    1. So, are you saying that YOU'RE behind all this?

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  3. Chris:
    --That list of WORST places does not surprise me, nut what is interesting is the question: "What do all of these places have in common from a demographic standpoint?
    --The good list seems logical fr the SAME reasons - the FEWER (and more normal) neighbors you have...the better everything becomes.
    --Those damn glucose meters - what do THEY know, anyway?
    --Maybe that groundhog just took his OWN glucose reading???
    (would explain some behavioral things)
    --The Last Supper, Bulgaria, and underwater reefs...now THERE's 3 things I would have NEVER thought had ANYTHING in common...lol.

    Good post.

    Stay safe up there, brother.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. "--The Last Supper, Bulgaria, and underwater reefs...now THERE's 3 things I would have NEVER thought had ANYTHING in common...lol."

      Exactly where I was on it. Can't even sing "One of these things is not like the other" on this one...

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  4. I've lived in north Florida (like now) and south Florida (as a kid) and Georgia. I'd say summers in GA feel as bad as summers in SFL. However, I really love north Florida. All that said, I wish we'd based our home decision not on where my mom wanted to go to church (which put us in Jacksonville), but gone back to Yulee. I miss the small town atmosphere. So much crime in the city. And traffic. OMG. The traffic.

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    1. My time in Florida was many many years ago. The traffic, mostly half blind old folks, was scary.

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  5. Here in Florida, we have a 150 year old man who lives up the street. He rides a 3 wheel bike while wearing his coke bottle thick eyeglasses. We don't have sidewalks. He has rearview mirrors on that bike and he still manages to pull right in front of cars. Thankfully it's not a motorized vehicle!!

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    1. That ain't the guy from Martin World News who got busted riding around the complex parking lot naked, is it, lol?

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  6. I grew up in the western Philly suburbs (near Chester) and lived in the town next to Camden for five years.

    Both are pretty rough neighborhoods..

    Good examples of what happens when industry leaves people out of work.

    I know! Let's outsource more jobs to India! It's a global economy after all.

    Larry

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