Summer Plans...Tentatively

 Hello again everyone. Summer is indeed here if you haven't noticed from the sweltering humidity and afternoon thundershowers if you live in or are visiting the Sunshine State. For many of us, that includes taking vacations to here, there, and everywhere, which is much welcome after last summer dealing with COVID. But now that people are vaccinated (more on that later), we're finally starting to see life get somewhat back to normal. No, this pandemic is not yet over by any means, but at least we're no longer cooped up in our homes like last spring and summer.

Included with life getting back to where it was in 2019, comes the announcement that fireworks will be returning to Orlando's Lake Eola for Independence Day I have been to this event twice before, in 1998 (which was delayed because of wildfires) and in 2016, and found both occasions to be enjoyable. So, in my mind, I began to make tentative plans to go to Orlando for the 4th. However, that might be problematic.

For starters, I have to rely on public transportation to get around. That means to get to Orlando to begin with, I'd have to take a Greyhound Bus, and from Spring Hill, I would have to take this route:

That's right, I would have to travel to Atlanta to get to Orlando. So, I'd be better off taking the bus to Tampa, then go to Orlando from there. In a later blog post, I'll go more into the shortcomings of our so-called regional transit system. 

Then there's the matter of getting to DTO from the Greyhound station, which is as usual not in the best part of town. I could take the bus to the downtown Lynx (Orlando's regional transit system) terminal and hoof it to Lake Eola from there, but then there's the matter of getting back to begin with. 

THEN I have to face my BIGGEST obstacle as far as going anywhere, and that's my own family. For those who don't know yet, I live with two of my three sisters (the other one is in NC), they are both boomers, and are staunch conservatives; i.e. they more likely than not believe in "the Big Lie" than not. That being said, neither of them believe in the COVID vaccine, and refuse to take it. On top of that, they believe that the COVID vaccine has a weakened strain of the COVID virus, so much so that they refuse to allow me to get vaccinated. You read that right, they are so damned paranoid that they won't let me get vaccinated. 😒

There is a lot to say about my relationship with my sisters, the oldest one especially. When I wanted to take a trip to St. Louis two years ago to visit a friend, she came up with excuse after excuse to not want me to go, until finally permitting me to do so five months after the fact, and even then she wanted to chaperone me.  A forty-seven year old man, even a stroke survivor, does not need to have his meddling older sister around him all the flipping time. But, I should save that for yet another blog post later on.

So in conclusion, I guess any and all plans I have for this summer are indeed temporary at best.

UPDATE:

In my last entry I pondered the question what happened to Mary Armantrout, the former anchor at WESH TV in Orlando who I think was the first host of their "Midday" program in the early 1980s. Turns out that I couldn't find out more about her, so I guess she left whatever role she had in front of the camera and was strictly in a production or she left the industry altogether. Who knows?

CT

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I Fell Down The Rabbit Hole...

I was struggling to fall asleep the other night as is usual with me, so I decided to see what was up on twitter. The usual crap-fest of lame jokes and hashtag games were there, as was the usual random political ranting, but then I came across an account that piqued my interest; an account called 80s News Screens, ad as you might expect, it's screenshots of various news feeds from local TV stations from the decade of the 1980s. 

As I was scrolling, I happened to come across this picture that immediately set off bells and whistles in my brain. It was from WESH-TV in Orlando from sometime in the VERY early part of the decade.

At first look, I couldn't recognize anyone from the photo, so I decided to dig further down the rabbit hole. The only people I could remember at first from that far back that worked at channel 2 were Dave Marsh, the chief meteorologist, Buddy Pittman, and Don Gould. Both of them worked in the sports department, and as memory recalls, I think Gould would go onto WNBC in New York around the time I moved from Orlando to Podunkville, NC in 1983, but I digress. 

After sleeping on it for a little bit, the named Kendrick suddenly popped into my brain. I remembered there was a guy named Kendrick that worked there, but I couldn't quite remember his first name. So, I googled it and the name Ron Kendrick appeared. I thought it was the guy pictured on the right was him; it wasn't. It turned out it was Wayne Bennett, who should have remembered from those days because as a six/seven year old, I thought he was married to, or related to the second grade teacher (Mrs. Bennett) from the school I attended at the time, Orlando Christian School. Side note: Mrs. Bennett would be replaced over the summer of 1981 at that school.

Even more astonishing was that after searching on YouTube, I found the actual clip that the above picture came from. So, that mystery was solved...

Now if I can find out what happened with Mary Armantrout...

CT

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Why I'm Not A YouTuber

Hello everyone. You might be wondering for some unknown reason why it is that I infrequently post long-form thought on this blog instead of making a thread on my twitter feed. Well, part of the reason is FOMO; I don't want to go on a roll posting something on there while something else probably more important is going on that site. The other reason...

Finish your big fade without pausing. Try YouTube Premium on us, and style, uninterrupted.

...is that every time you click on YouTube anymore, you get an advertisement about them pitching their premium subscription service. Remember about a decade ago when that site was totally free, and you didn't have these nonstop commercials...

There is NOTHING in the world MORE RELAXING...than playing come Candy Crush Sagaaaaa...

...interrupting your viewing pleasure. Nowadays, before you can even begin the video, there's an adversement for something that could be completely unrelated to the video you want to watch. Honestly, it's getting out of control.

Go anywhere in the world first, but check with Chad last,\and you'll save like nobody else, at Love Honda. Come and see what Love can do for you.

Excuse me while I check in with my spirit animal, I think it has something to say:

See? Even the sloths think all these interruptions are a buzz kill. Sorry for the unnecessary paus...

Injured? Call Morgan & Morgan, for the people.

oh COME ON!!!

CT

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Playoff stats...

 

Hello again everyone.

Plenty of things on my mind tonight, but I wanted to speak briefly on something I looked up today. I was wondering when the last time every NFL team had not only a playoff game, but their last home playoff game and win, as well as their last road playoff game and win, not counting Super Bowls. Here is what I found.

Every team now has made the playoffs at least once since 2015, in fact the Cincinnati Bengals (not surprisingly) and the Denver Broncos have the longest playoff drought in the league, both last reaching in 2015. As far as the longest victory drought in the playoffs, that of course belongs to the Cincinnati Bengals, who haven't won a playoff game since 1990; when I was a sophomore in high school in Hoke County, NC. Remarkably, six teams have failed to win a playoff game in the last decade; Chicago and the Jets, which last won in 2010, Washington in 2005, the Raiders in 2002, the Dolphins in 2000, and the Detroit Lions, who haven't won a playoff game since 1991, when they played in the Silverdome.

As for road victory droughts, the Lions' streak is even more remarkable; dating back to 1957, a conference playoff win at San Francisco. Other long road playoff droughts include both Dallas and Buffalo, who haven't won away from home in the playoff since 1992, Chicago (1994), Miami (1999), Washington and Carolina (2005), and the Jets in 2010. Interestingly the Jets haven't hosted a playoff  game since 2002

Some other tidbits I took out from this "research": Cincinnati and Houston have never won a road playoff game. On the other hand, the Cardinals (believe it or not) are the ONLY franchise to have never LOST a home playoff game. One caveat to that last sentence, while the St. Louis Cardinals never had a home game, the St. Louis Rams did in fact lose a home playoff game; that 2003 2OT thriller against Carolina in what would be the last playoff game for the Rams before moving to back to Los Angeles.

If you want to check out what I did, click on the Playoff Spreadsheet linked here.

Have a safe weekend

Bony

Some Late Night Thoughts...

Greetings once again from the Banana Republic, where our B.A.G. thinks that a race-baiting, homophobic, right-wing talking head who just recently died is apparently worthy of a state-wide

honor. Pfft, whatever. Anyway, Tampa is still basking in the afterglow of the Buccaneers' recent victory in Super Bowl LV (thank you, Tom Brady), and yes, we're going for two in a row.

Some serious third-world sh*t

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, then you undoubtedly have heard about Mother Nature giving the central part of the US the cold shoulder, literally. Temperatures in most of the country plummeting to Arctic-like lows. We're talking near zero temperatures as far south as Texas. Speaking of which, you surely know about the disaster that has unfolded there this week. Millions there are STILL without power, and even more have a boil water order.

This type of stuff doesn't even happen in some third-world countries, let alone the most powerful one on Earth* (editorial comment: it was until Trump was elected). Texas wants to do things their own way because they don't want government regulations, and therein lies the problem; their power grid runs independently, which means they don't have to require their power lines to be winterized, much like in the midwest and northeast. My guess is because of global warming, they figured they didn't need to be; bad decision.

I knew it got cold in Texas from watching the Thanksgiving 1993 NFL game between the Cowboys and Dolphins. If you're a fan of either team, you know which one. If you don't follow sports, a freak winter storm hit greater Dallas that day and caused the turf at old Texas Stadium to be covered in sleet. The rest, for Cowboys fans, is misery.

Oh, before I head off to the next topic, don't get me started on Ted Cruz...

Speaking of old school football

One side project I've done is to try and recreate certain memories of my childhood (I know, I'm a dork for that). One such memory is graphics packages on NFL telecasts of the early 1980s, in particular how the helmets appeared on both CBS and NBC. But Bony, it's just a copy of the helmets they wore; not quite. 

As you can see above, this is my recreation of the helmets on NBCs NFL telecasts from 1981-1983. Back then, their graphics were such that the network only could use two colors at a time. Notice that the Bucco Bruce helmet has no red. Also, the faceguards in the photo aren't quite right. I'll get around to fixing them sometime. Anyway, some of those telecasts are on YouTube, so it's a matter of me finding them there (I can't find the Eagles helmet from back then though...)

Shooting my shot...again

Well another Valentine's Day has come and gone, and for me it was the status quo; me stuck being single. Of course this never-ending pandemic has thrown a wrench into everyone's plans. No travel, no personal contact, no nothing (that I know of). In the meantime, there are several I'm kinda interested in. From different parts of the country no less, including Tampa. There are several things hindering me from doing so, most notably members of my own family. My disability checks are going to my sister (which in retrospect was a bad mistake), and I only see little of that. Money I could use to take care of my business not her's. Long story short, I think this is her way of making sure I stay put, because if it were totally up to me, I'd have left Tampa in 2019...

anyway, it's getting late, so I'll finish up. See you on Twitter.

Destiny Awaits...

Today, The Tampa Bay Buccaneers can reach their second ever Super Bowl with a victory over the Green Bay Packers in snowy Lambeau Field. A victory would be noteworthy in the fact that the Bucs will become the first team to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium. San Francisco played SB XIX in nearby Palo Alto, CA and the Rams played SB XIV in Pasadena; de facto home games but not quite their home stadium.

Also, with a win the Tampa Bay metro area will reach some elite company. It will become the first metro area since Boston in 2018-19 to play for three successive Major League (NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL) championships (Red Sox won the World Series, Patriots won the Super Bowl, Bruins lost the Stanley Cup Final), and the first since Philadelphia in 1980-81 to have three or more Major League teams in said market to have all their respective teams reach the championship game/round for that respective sport. The Lightning are the defending Stanley Cup Champions and the Rays are the defending American League Champions.

Krewe, destiny awaits...

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CT

A Little Bit Of Hodgepodge

Hello again from America's most dysfunctional metropolitan area. Thought I would briefly touch base on some things I wanted to write about over the past few weeks, but didn't get to do so for one reason or another. So, here we go...


You're The Man Now Dog

Remember a couple of weeks ago on my Twitter page I had some songs that were rather quite eclectic to say the least, and I asked what those songs all had in common? Well, it is now a defunct website, but YTMND.com up until the advent of twitter, Vine, TikTok, etc., was a somewhat popular site to post memes and the like, such as this one, or this one. Anyway, they have a wiki devoted to it that lists some of the popular memes, and in it, there even is a soundtrack to most of the background music for their memes, which is where I made a playlist and posted said songs on Twitter. So it was a bit of an enjoyable time capsule to about a decade ago...

I Just Took A DNA Test...

Sunday night marks the beginning of the latest Top 40 chart week, and it looked as if Lizzo's "Truth Hurts" may have dethroned "Senorita" and the top of the chart, but the behemoth of a song from Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello continues to gain in airplay, so it looks like it will hold on for a third week. Look for Post Malone to debut with "Circles" this week. He even has his own Funko Pop now, so maybe if a four-year old scribbled on my face, I might become famous (no I won't). All kidding aside, he has a hot debut album that dropped today (as well as the aforementioned Cabello) and I should give it a listen sometime tonight.

Stop Annoying Me With Your Toxic Positivity!

I don't know what peeves me more, the fact that everyone cocks up the geography of this region (TAMPA BAY is NOT a city people!), or that a baseball team that practically nobody gives a shit about, except for about a maybe 10,000 people (including those that have multiple twitter accounts), are doing so well and will likely make the wild card, only to get swept by the teams everyone DOES root for around here, the Evil Empire. Seriously, you tried to give away tickets Tuesday to people who were displaced from Hurricane Dorian and only sold 6,844. And even less on Thursday. If a tree fell on Scrub Boy (those of you who follow me closely on twitter know who I'm talking about), and nobody is around to cover it, does it actually happen? America's ballpark my ass; team of the people my ass...enough about an otherwise irrelevant team.

College Saturday...

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, I would take five games without any knowledge or research and pick the winners. I picked two games on opening week, and lost them both. After a week off, I'll try and do better.

Missouri over West Virginia . I don't like WVU, their coach has a stupid hairdo, plus it's Missouri, who I owe a lot of gratitude for saving a special someone's life

Georgia Tech over USF. UCF>>>>>>>>>>USF; forever.

Texas A&M over Clemson. Picking the upset here, A&M almost had Clemson beat last year, this year they finish the job

Illinois over UConn. Why is Connecticut even in the Bowl Subdivision? I hear they're leaving for the Big East again, so why not downgrade their already struggling football program?

Alabama over NM State. Too easy, plus seriously, have you seen New Mexico State's logo? Hello? Gun control? I'm surprised someone hasn't been triggered (pardon the pun) by it.


Well, that's my little bit of hodgepodge for today. Enjoy the rest of your Friday



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CT