Sunday Stealing Archives - Page 2 of 39

Sunday Stealing: Meme Schmeme – Part 2

friends

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Cheri is a blogger from the beautiful state of Georgia who didn’t often participate in memes but stole this one because “for whatever crazy reason” it appealed to her. We did Part 1 back in October. Now let’s do Part 2.

Meme Schmeme – Part 2

Complete the thought:

I LOVE TO have enough time in a day to do a little of this, a little of that. It is usually tied to playing CDs. I’ll write a blog post for one album, then wash the dishes and straighten up for another, then work on library stuff and bill paying for another. I might take a nap, or watch recorded television. As my late buddy Dustbury used to say, we are magpies, attracted to the next shiny thing.

Some recent albums played: Wildflowers – Tom Petty (Honey Bee); Robbie Robertson, eponymous (Somewhere Down The Crazy River); Guero – Beck (E-Pro); Surf’s Up – Beach Boys (Feel Flows)

I SOMETIMES will read three or four newspapers in a row because I get behind. There are usually stories, especially local ones, that I had missed online. And I like to read the funnies; yes, I could read them online, but that’s less fun.

I FEAR the loss of balance of power at the federal level of the United States. Congress took steps to push back against the executive branch’s unfettered war powers, then folded. “The high court’s decision to strip Haitians and Syrians of their protections from deportation had immediate ripple effects for immigrants and their employers.” And know that the Haitian aspect is racist – “they’re eating their cats.”

So far away

I MISS having friends around to talk with regularly. My besties are in Austin, Boston, and the Mid-Hudson. Or deceased. There is the telephone, I suppose.

I CRAVE a Porterhouse steak. It’s been years. Decades?

I CHERISH quality time with the kid, who’s all grown up. Every once in a while, she’ll let on that I didn’t totally wreck her growing up, including when we went out to dinner this past Wednesday.

I AM IMPATIENT WHEN I muck up something. I made an appointment to meet someone from a national library at my local library at 10 a.m. But because of my ongoing allergies/cold/flu, I went back to bed after breakfast and didn’t wake up again until 10:45. I am really annoyed with myself.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Sunday Stealing Goes to the Mall

This week’s meme is inspired by Melanie at This Ain’t New York. We’re indulging in a little retail therapy. Tell us what you would pick up at each stop. Sunday Stealing Goes to the Mall.

Shopping Day. What’s on your shopping list from …

First, let it be known that I HATE most shopping. I remember one winter that my wife was going to buy me a coat. We went to J.C. Penney, and I tried on two coats. The second one fit and looked fine. “I’m ready.” She wondered, “Don’t you want to keep looking?” “NO!” Did I mention that I hate most shopping?

1. Target or Walmart, or other superstore?

My disdain for Walmart is well-documented here from 2013; it’s too big, as I was reminded the last time I went there. It is the largest supercenter in the United States. Target has been subject to a boycott, described here. A Costco is coming to the area on August 6, and it will have a massive footprint.

2. Dollar Tree or Dollar General, or poundstretcher/99p store?

Dollar stores tend to creep me out, with a bunch of stuff that I don’t really need. If I really need to shop, I’ll go to Lodge’s, a downtown Albany store that’s been around for nearly 160 years! I wrote about it here in 2018. The last time I went there, I bought socks, shirts, and sunglasses.

NOW we’re talkin’!

3. Best Buy or any other electronics/appliance store?

I have gone to Best Buy for electronics and, more pressingly, to get stuff fixed. The last thing I bought there was a boombox with a two-year warranty; it works better than some cheaper ones.

4. Book/music store?

I used to LOVE to go to record stores in Albany. Blue Note, Strawberry’s, World’s Records, et al. Last Vestige is the only one left, as far as I know, because I ain’t going to Walmart et al.

I went to several bookstores as well, but my favorite has long been The Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza. Oh, I was reminded that my good friend Norm Nissen, who worked there and provided great book selections, died ten years ago this very month; I miss him a lot.

Bonus question! Where do you want to stop for lunch?

There’s a stretch of places less than two blocks from my house: Junior’s (especially between 11 am and 2 pm), Cafe Madison, and others. Also, across from the Washington Avenue library, the Iron Gate Cafe.

Sunday Stealing – Doing It for Ourselves

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

This week we aren’t stealing, we’re contributing! These are questions suggested by our “usual suspects.” They were entertaining, which isn’t a surprise because our participants are bright and fun. Thanks to everyone who took part.

DIY Meme – Doing It for Ourselves

The obvious song.

1. Would you rather have every traffic light turn green or always get the best parking spot? (Kwizgiver)

As a person who takes the bus a lot and doesn’t have to worry about parking as often as most, clearly the latter. And of course, I’ll always choose green anyway.

2. What’s the most difficult thing you have ever done? (Gold in the Clouds)

Physically, it might have been crawling/hobbling down a mountain in Utah in 1994 with what turned out to be a torn meniscus.

My contribution

3. What information do you know that you are proud of/happy about, but others say, “Who cares?” (Roger)

There are so many! It’s faded somewhat, but I could tell you a state by its telephone area code, which remains a geographic identifier to this day. I wrote about it here, and someone I knew well said, “You must have too much time on your hands.”

But the big one is knowing all of the U.S. Presidential terms by year, even those who died in office. So I know there were three Presidents in both 1841 and 1881. This is useful when examining the history of wars, recessions, land acquisitions, and similar events.

4. What mystery do you wish you knew the answer to? (Myra/Mevely)

There’s even a well-regarded book about it: When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And I think even more about the converse, about seemingly good things happening to arguably bad people.

5. What small, ordinary thing brings you disproportionate joy? (Country Dew)

Rainbows, fer sure. As I’ve noted here, we have a rainbow-creating front door, and even little rainbows cause me indescribable giddiness.

6. What time do you go to sleep/wake up? (Annie)

Oh, geez, going to bed sometime between 10:30 pm and 2 am, depending on how much is running through my head. Up at 5 am to 7:30 am.

7. What is your favorite sleeping position? (Lisa)

On the side. I need at least two pillows.

8. Describe your personal Utopia. (Pandora)

No more wars, no more hunger, a clean environment and we can teleport.

9. Imagine that you have a machine that can create any new invention for you based on your description. What do you ask the machine to create, and why? (Plastic Mancunian)

A miocroplastics/PCB vacuum cleaner that would suck up large bodies of water to separate the bad stuff from the good. You could have them at water treatment plants. The why is that too much of our water is potentially or actually dangerous to us.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Sunday Stealing Knows It’s Not Friday

not a conspiracy?

God — **The star in the center, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, is known as V1331 Cyg and is located in the dark cloud LDN 981.**

Once upon a time, there was a blogger named Janet who posted a fill-in-the-blank meme every Friday. Let’s give it a try.

Stealing The Friday Fill-in, though Sunday Stealing Knows It’s Not Friday

1. Being wrong is not the end of the world. One of the things I’m pretty sure I mentioned on this blog once upon a time was that my goal was to know everything I wanted to know. Some things I’m pretty good at include the order of American Presidents and their years. But misremembering stuff is a function, not just of aging, but, increasingly, of something else more important to me has taken its place.

2. Pie tastes so good! It should be a fruit pie, such as an apple, cherry, or blueberry pie, either room temperature or slightly warm, but definitely not right out of the refrigerator. It should be accompanied by a good vanilla ice cream. Alternatively, pizza, but no ice cream.

3. Sometimes, putting others first is misguided. I am reminded of what flight attendants tell us: take care of our own air masks before tending to the children in our care. In general, saying NO is both difficult for me and utterly necessary.

The usual

4. A whole lot of music is breathtaking, really. Some of it is structural, but a lot of it is memory, the way that a song can recreate a sensation.

When the family buried my father, Taps shook me, much to my surprise. And it was a live rendition, not a mechanical one. CBS News Radio News has gone off the air, and hearing the theme, especially the one from the 1980s and 1990s, made me a bit melancholy. Julie Andrews singing octaves at the very end of “Do-Re-Me” is glorious. The inverse pedal point is possibly my favorite thing in all of music.

5. Well, maybe there are coincidences. From THR: “Have you ever seen a final trailer for a major studio’s event movie that’s narrated by its director? That’s the case for the new trailer for Disclosure Day [Stephen Spielberg], which has enjoyed one of the weirdest and most freakishly fortuitous marketing campaigns in Hollywood history, as the real-life disclosure movement involving government officials claiming a UFO cover-up coincides with Universal’s promotional push for their movie about the same thing. Universal has used a muddy blend of traditional marketing, clips highlighting the director’s own belief that aliens have likely visited our planet, and footage in the latest trailer that looks nearly identical to videos the Pentagon just declassified just last week.” So, maybe, not everything is a conspiracy.

6. This week, my plans include at least one trip to a large metropolitan city. As is usually the case, I won’t say when, where, or why until after the fact. It’s like I didn’t announce that my daughter and I went to Charlotte, NC, to see my baby sister and her daughter until we came back.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Sunday Stealing Makes You Choose

tea and geography

This week, our inspiration is Life of a Fool. This blogger maintains that this meme has “been seen everywhere.” The questions only require a simple, definitive answer, but if you’d like to elaborate, we’d like to hear what you have to say.

Which one? Sunday Stealing Makes You Choose

1. Pepsi or Coke?

Diet Cherry Pepsi. That full-sugar glass bottle of Coke that one used to only get near Mexico

2. Cappuccino or coffee?

I don’t drink coffee, and never did. There is something vaguely uncivilized about not drinking it; some people have tried to make me feel that. Someone makes a pot of coffee, and you don’t share. I probably mentioned my absolute refusal to make it. It was an office task; I made it once, it sucked, and I was off the hook.

Here’s a useless piece of information about cappuccino: “The name comes from the Capuchin friars, referring to the color of their habits, and in this context, referring to the color of the beverage when milk is added in a small portion to dark, brewed coffee (today mostly espresso).

Ice cream?

3. Chocolate or vanilla?

I’m assuming the question refers to ice cream, though it isn’t explicitly stated. I find that vanilla ice cream, as an accompaniment, is about perfect. It goes with chocolate cake, fruit pies, hot chocolate, and much more. A good chocolate ice cream needs to stand on its own, and some do.

I shared this before – it’s about racism and vanilla ice cream.

4. Hot tea or iced tea?

One of the first things I learned when I visited my parents and baby sister after they moved to the Southeast US was that there is tea and hot tea. Whereas, in the North, there’s iced tea and tea. What was the question again? Either one; it’s weather-dependent.

5. Dinner for two or a party?

It must be dinner for two, because I do it far more often. I like other people’s parties, though; I only throw one per year because it’s work.

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