Taking Note of a Few Things: The Going Postal Edition

Does anyone know whether the Post Office charges a customer the price of a stamp when they mail them their online order of forever stamps or do they charge the taxpayers?

My local Post Office insists I live at a different address while at the same time continuing to deliver to me arrest warrants to my actual address for the woman who lived in my apartment before me.

I have yet to talk to anyone who works for the Post Office who seems stressed. I have also never seen a female postal carrier who did not have gorgeous legs.

It’s been a long while since I have heard of a person shooting up a post office. Going postal was a common thing in the 70’s and 80’s. Now we just shoot up schools. What on earth happened to cause us to replace shooting up Post Offices by disgruntled workers with shooting up schools by deranged kids and parents?*

I used to enjoy writing letters. I’d still love to write them if my hand could grip a pen or pencil well enough to do so. Then again, an email is free and I am retired.

Whenever I write my kids an email, I have to text them to tell them to check their email. Maybe they would enjoy a letter from their old man filled with emojis from craft stamps.

When an employee of the Post Office retires, I wonder if they ever suffer from Postal Traumatic Stress Disorder.

There is a very good chance if anyone were to steal my mail, they would end up without any of mine.  There is also a very good chance it would come from the Ventura County Courts.

Recently, my auto insurance was canceled because they could not reach me by mail. As a result, the state pulled my car registration. To get my car reregistered cost me 14 bucks. However, because I now live in Ventura County, my insurance company said I had four dollars in credit coming my way. Of course, the notice of that $4 credit arrived the same day they sent me a bill for $1.76. Where do the two trains meet?

Stamp collecting was once a big deal. They had stamps for just about anybody with an interest in anything. Today, the only thing I collect is dust and divorces.

In the National Basketball Association, there is a move called the Euro Step, first made popular in the European leagues and now commonly seen in the NBA. I have another term for it that seems better suited for the rules of the game — traveling.

For years now, I have suffered from bouts of fatigue that this year have just gotten out of control. I have lost count of the number of blood tests I have had by doctors who admit to being puzzled by it. I recently had some more blood work ordered as part of my physical. I suggested to my doctor she add a few specific tests. Turns out, one came back positive for Epstein Barr Virus.

Although I was never diagnosed with mononucleosis as a youth, it turns out that 95% of the world’s population contract it in their pre-adult years, usually as babies. It then lies dormant in the body and can return later in life when we are dealing with extreme stress, autoimmune issues, and other factors . There is no doubt this year has been insanely stressful for me.

Maybe now I can tell people they can kiss my ass but not my lips and actually be providing a public service message.

It’s good to see that flag football has been added to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The ancient Greeks are credited with inventing the game of football and were known to love to run the West Coast Offense. The first expert in picking teams to win games was the great gladiator himself, Jimmy “The Greek” Onassis. Of course, instead of tossing the old pigskin around, Greek football teams used footballs covered with the skin from the faces pulled off of dead enemies which is how the phrase, “Keep their eyes on the ball,” originated.

I feel I should educate those, including myself, after my poorly written words on the war in Gaza in my previous article. Palestinians are not the same as Hamas. When Israel says it wants to remove Hamas from the earth, they are talking about an organization that is terrorist based rather than religious based. Hamas has one goal, death to the entire region that makes up the land of Israel and Palestine. Hamas does not care if they blow up a hospital and kill scores of innocent Palestinians because they know there are those who will claim it was the work of Israel.

The Israelis have not been saints when it comes to the Gaza Strip. It has often been referred to as the world’s largest open-air prison and was a major factor in the rise to rule by Hamas. Palestinians have been used by both sides and left to live in poverty with little hope for a better life. That said, this time around it was Hamas who chose to slaughter innocent Israelis in a surprise attack and Hamas that uses the people of Gaza as their personal human shields.

Hamas cannot win a conventional war with Israel, but if they can stir the pot in the region enough, they can create a much larger war on multiple fronts with the idea it will lead to the end of Israel as a nation. It won’t happen primarily because the United States will make sure it doesn’t. However, it could easily lead to a much larger war in the Middle East, costing many American and innocent civilian lives, and set back decades of delicate diplomacy.

Hamas uses Islam much like the far right uses Christianity to further their cause. Neither is a true representation of the actual religions and relies more on a fanatical base that does not care about the rule of law, respect for women or LGBTQ+ rights, or the history of the people they want to rule. So, when you hear people trying to connect Hamas to Islam, remember, they are in no way a true reflection of the 1.9 billion or more Muslims in the world any more than the Far Right is a reflection of true Christians.

The rules of war are not respected by the likes of Hamas or any other terrorist group (and I include American terrorist groups). To them, the end justifies the means. It is also because we have these rules of war that we end up in long drawn-out affairs with enemies who do not fight by the same rules.

The few Palestinians I know are no different than everyone else I know. They are peaceful people who desire a better life for their people and just want to be left to live and enjoy their lives. The two million Palestinians in Gaza must be taken care of now and after this blood fest ends. It is the humane thing to do.

There is a presidential candidate who is not the friend of Israel and who has no problem leaving the nation dangling in the wind and his last name rhymes with DUMP. He’s also supported by the fanatical “Christian” Far Right. His views toward the rule of women and the LGBTQ+ community are more in line with Hamas than they are with the American majority. These are facts based on his spoken words and actions and not my opinion.

The GOP has morphed into a sitcom. What a freaking joke.

Each day that passes when they can’t agree on a House Speaker is another day that passes where they can’t try and pass laws that will set this nation back decades on many fronts. The sad thing is 90% of these asshats will get reelected next year.**

If you count up all the votes GOP congressional candidates receive next fall, you will have a good estimate of the number of adults who do not know how to read and blindly rely on FOX News for information. You will also have a good idea of how many Americans never learned how to tie their shoelaces, eat with utensils, or understand that mullets are no longer fashionable.

Am I the only person who sees the name Taylor Swift and just keeps on scrolling past the headline? I know nothing about any of her music, but I can spot an attention whore from a mile away. She needs to give it a rest.

Speaking of attention whores, I can think of several others. One would think I would place Trump on my list, but not anymore. He has so many legal issues in the news that even he has trouble getting attention for anything else. Aaron Rogers is no doubt an attention whore struggling to find ways to remain relevant while he is injured. Deion Sanders is and makes sure everyone knows he is by videotaping his every word and movement.

On the political front, anyone running for POTUS besides Biden and Trump are desiring to be attention whores but can’t find a way to connect with the public. However, we do have clowns like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Matt Gaetz. That trifecta of stooges takes stupid to a new level.

Finally, LeBron James is an attention whore. Like Aaron Rogers, he doesn’t know what to do when he is not receiving media coverage. He’ll change his number, speak out on the poor job of Lakers management, comment on teammates as well as opponents, and even weigh in on politics.

I wonder what sort of week we all might have if just my list of attention whores were boycotted by the media.

What stuns me about my own list is I have not added a Kardashian to it.

I also want to dispel the fitness information that is constantly circulating online. There are no shortcuts to fitness. The stories about only needing six minutes of exercise, one exercise for chiseled abs, or four moves for total body strength are all BS. Americans have become so lazy and exercise phobic that they want to believe the perfect body can be attained without having to break a sweat.

The perfect body cannot be attained. Certainly not in a healthy manner because what we see in the photos are fitness models who are,1. Paid to workout constantly; 2. Expected to starve themselves for weeks before a photo shoot; and 3. Love airbrushing and photoshopping. A week rarely passes without a fitness influencer dropping dead.

An hour a day of moderate to hard exercise six days a week with a day off is the best thing you can do for yourself physically. You should incorporate a combination of strength and aerobic work and use down time to do things like stretching while watching television or talking on the phone. You will feel better, sleep better, and drop some weight while toning up.

Entering a timed food eating competition is not considered exercise. If you look at who the top competitors are in food eating competitions like Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, you will see the winners are physically fit people who love to workout. That huge obese dude is less likely to win because of all the pressure his fat places on his stomach and intestine.

My kitchen knives are duller than a mouth breather’s blank gaze.

It’s not that they need sharpening. Most have never been used. They’re just cheap pieces of steel with plastic handles. I am assuming when it comes to cutlery, you get what you pay for and given mine were on sale at Big Lots, I did not get much.

Finally, here is a nice way to find out another person’s political beliefs without coming right out and asking for them. Show them the map of Florida and ask what it reminds them of. If they say it reminds them of a gun, they are a Republican. However, if they are a Democrat, they will say it looks like a flaccid penis.

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Editor’s Notes:

*As this was being prepared there was another mass murder taking place in Lewiston, Maine. There were at least 18 killed and more than 20 injured. The suspect is still at large.

**On Wednesday. October 25, 2023 the Republicans in the House of Representatives finally, after three weeks, elected a new Speaker of the House,“MAGA” Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Johnson was a chief architect of the attempted coup d’état plan to illegally replace legitimate electors from battle ground states with illegal, Trump supporting electors, on January 6, 2021 when the combined Congress certified the 2020 Electoral College presidential election. In essence, the House GOP chose the top insurrectionist to be their congressional leader. About two dozen GOP representatives did not vote at all so Johnson had a unanimous vote from the GOP caucus.

Johnson’s extreme views against abortion and same-sex marriages,, plus other extreme positions make him the most right wing extremist Speaker of the House in history.

When ABC reporter Rachel Scott asked Johnson if he still believed Trump won the election Johnson supporters shouted Scott down, telling her to “shut up!” and “Go away.”