My Checklist

My “Black Friday” checklist:Wednesday before Thanksgiving:

  1. Make sure I’ve got groceries and essentials sufficient to get through ’til Monday. Check.
  2. Anticipate the places I need to go for the next three days, and map out routes avoiding major malls, Targets, Walmarts and commercial districts. Check.
  3. Switch on NPR and start counting all the “celebrities” and “newscasters” referring to this next four weeks as the most miserable, dysfunctional time of the year, full of family one hates because of their politics and the onerous nature of having to engage in forced civility while celebrating gratitude and humility while apparently feeling neither. Make sure I have a fresh set of legal pads, since it gets worse every year. Check.
  4. Silently ponder, for yet another year, converting to Russian Orthodox Christianity, at least in part to put Christmas off til January 6 and get some awesome savings on presents in the week between Christmas and New Years. Check.

OK. I’m good to go.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving, everyone!

16 thoughts on “My Checklist

  1. As per item 4), Jon Gabriel did actually convert to Greek Orthodox church recently (my understanding, ignorant tho’ it is, is that there is little if any difference between the Greek and Russian variants of the same Orthodox church). He wrote about at Ricochet. It was pretty darn interesting. Good luck.

  2. Putin has more influence in the Russian Orthodox Church than the Greek Orthodox Church.
    But all paths lead to same place if you are a believing Christian, tho I can understand the desire to gather & work socially with people that aren’t against your political beliefs.
    There’s an old joke about a guy discovered after being marooned on a desert island for years. His rescuer sees that he has build two beautiful scale models of churches out of sand, coral, and sea shells.
    “What’s that?” says the rescuer, pointing to one of the church models.
    “That? That’s my church!” sez the marooned man.
    “Then what is that?” the rescuer asks, pointing to the second model church.
    “That,” the marooned man says scornfully, “is the church I used to go to.”

  3. Not to accuse you of being peevish but is there a post in which you don’t feel compelled to take a shot at someone which isn’t a history post?

    NPR, far more likely, will refer to the next 4 weeks as being miserable not for the fiction you’ve created but rather instead for the ravages Covid-19 are reeking upon this country. Reeking because of the conspiracy-theory (masks have bad health impacts), machismo (only weak people need masks), mocking (Trump to Laura Ingram – “Is that a mask?… Are you wearing a MASK (tee hee)?, attitudes of the far right which they took up like lemmings when Trump poo-poohed the need and more importantly failed to lead by example (which is by the way THE ONLY effective way to lead.”

    So, forgive me for “thread-jacking” but if you want to attack NPR for bemoaning miserable things, like how hard it is to get together with family and avoid touchy subjects, please allow me to point out the things which will make things MUCH more miserable than family flash-points – and further please allow me to point out that it is you who so often complains about people complaining – making your complaint a little ironic, don’t ya’ think? I suspect NPR will be more focused (by far) on the impact of this pandemic than on family arguments, and clearly, more focused than you – for you didn’t even mention it in your list, and how this year is far different.

  4. On my way to a park this morning I made a point to drive past a Target and a Best Buy. The parking lots had cars, but also plenty of open spaces. Neither looked crazy busy. Each store had a squad car parked in front.

  5. NPR is worth listening to occasionally as it hones ones arguments against reprobates that are bold enough to put their mummery up for honest debate (rare birds, indeed).

    That’s because NPR’s perfidy consists largely within the lie of omission, rather than outright falsehoods. Their reports are biased, of course, but subtly so.

    Seldom will one fond themselves saying “thats complete bullshit”. More often the thoughtful listener will find himself saying “sure, but explain “x”. With x being an obvious and effective counter to the narrative being aired.

    It’s why we so seldom see NPR personalities as guests on other media. They are smart enough to know the limits of their method of propaganda, and respect those boundries.

  6. Vis-a-vis padded cell boi’s hilarious display of illiteracy.

    Bat flu is only wreaking havoc within the borders of states, counties and cities run by leftist reprobates. But his malaprop “Reek”, puts the character in “Game of Thrones” of the same name in good use to comparing with PCB and his ilk.

    Completely emasculated, boot licking wretches, who cravenly do the bidding of their masters describes today’s Democrats very well, PCB in particular.

    I think PCB may have made a Freudian slip.

  7. Illinois, run by dhimmis, is far out ahead of the field in numbers and percentages. With a smaller population than Florida it has more cases than Florida and a higher % of deaths.

    Guess which state the Democrap party media is covering?

  8. Who refuses to wear a mask because it is cowardly or unmanly?
    I do not like to wear a mask because it makes it hard to breathe, fogs up my glasses, and no one has yet come up with convincing science that says that wearing a mask — actually a “face covering” — does anything but make it hard to breathe and fog up my glasses. Pete Strunk reminded us last week that the people who make & sell masks make no claim about any health benefits they might have, esp. regarding covid-19.
    Anyways, no one has a right to ask the medical condition that makes it burdensome for you to wear a mask, any more than they have a right to interrogate someone about their wheel chair use. So a hearty “fuck you” is what people get if they say anything about it to me.
    If I am in a shop, telling the mask-cops there “I have a medical condition” is sufficient.
    Is that what PB is mistaking for machismo?
    We know that the whole mask wearing & social distancing thing is crap anyhow, because of the blue city response to mass protests back in June. The jig is way, way up.

  9. Think outside the box.
    If you are in a black friday sale run, don’t wait for hours in line.
    Instead, get in line & start hacking, coughing, and sneezing. Better than tear gas for clearing a crowd these days.

  10. MO.

    Alternatively, if you’re feeling brave, you can try to shorten the line like a friend of mine once did. I was standing in a line with him and watched it actually work. He made a comment to me about all of the cars being towed out of the parking lot. My reply was: “I don’t know, but there sure are a lot of tow trucks out there.” Enough people in front of us left the line to go make sure that their cars weren’t the ones being towed, that we were able to check out and be gone before any of them got back to the line.

  11. Pad,

    NPR, far more likely, will refer to the next 4 weeks as being miserable not for the fiction you’ve created but rather instead for the ravages Covid-19….

    I, among many others, were noting this tendency back when “Covid 19” was a replacement headlight bezel from the MOPAR performance catalog.

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