More Memes About Israel

 

Offbeat Cat Video

Photo credit: The Wife

 

Heavy Duty Box Cutter Needed

With all the boxes coming in from shopping online I needed to up my box-cutting game.

I'm now ready for the foreseeable future.

What I'm Thinking About

I am definitely NOT on the Highway to Hell. I’m on a moderate path where I will respect the regulatory signs and others who wish to advise me on my velocity. I will attempt to eat healthy, allowing myself certain indulgences when I see fit. I will exercise in a manner to show gratitude to the natural environment. 

Hope this settles it.

 

Food Apps

The various food delivery/pickup apps have changed the way our teenager eats (me as well, but less so).

No longer is the menu just pizza and a few other items engineered for takeout or delivery. Fancy food, such as sushi or bistro meals, can be sourced through these apps.

This isn’t necessarily a win for restaurants, who sometimes have to let the apps take as much as 30% of the tab, not leaving much margin.

The other night I booted up the Google food app “Postmates” and found what I thought was a fast-food restaurant selling spicy chicken sandwiches. When I arrived to pick up the food, I realized the venue was a food cart in an unused parking lot.

The sandwich was as good as one could expect, and the price was reasonable. I was happy the app introduced me to a new business near my house but wondered if the food cart had diverted me from spending money at an establishment restaurant which might have been more deserving.

Will the food app craze last? Will pandemic last until 2023? Who am I, really?

Time to just eat my food and move on.

The Pacific Northwest

 

It's All About the Tomatillos

 When I post about tomatillos it means I'm making chile verde. 

Exhaustion is Not a Virtue

The exception: As a soldier I was always tired and didn't feel particularly virtuous.

Starting when I was a teenager, I began believing that exhaustion equaled virtue.

I feel both indebted to this philosophy as well as cursed by it.

On the positive side, I used this thinking to push myself into endurance sports. When I would get really tired, I would reflect that the time was well-spent and I was exceptional.

More problematic was when intellectual challenges would confront me, I might stay up all night, thinking such discomfort an advantage in cognition – it most certainly was not! The mistake was believing that extreme fatigue equaled extreme effort. Such could happen, but usually did not.

Now that recovery from exhaustion takes so long because I’m old, I’m starting to reassess some of my assumptions. Namely that maybe its better to do things in moderation because you enjoy them in a fundamental way, rather than only feel good about your activities if your body is so sore the next day you need a walker to eat breakfast.

I still like long bike rides and hikes that take up the entire day. The notion that I’ll endure an unnecessary suffer-fest because such will give me “bragging rights” or make me feel more virtuous has gone the way of my mullet and jean jacket.

I understand many will take this as some random concession to aging but I see it as another element of knowledge of self.  

Israel/Palestine Cat

 

I made this video because I have a computer, an interest in Israel/Palestine, and a cat. 

Therapy Cat: The Journey Continues

Last night during our pre-sleep, relax-in-bed time, the therapy cat climbed between the top sheet and the comforter.

At first, we thought he was playing and moved our toes tentatively. Soon we realized by hearing his contented purring that he had found a comfortable place.

After a while we worried he was going to asphyxiate, or had lost his bearings – none of which proved to be accurate. The guy apparently had found a good place to hang out and wasn’t going anywhere.

After a while he slipped out the bottom of the bed and left the room.

This got my wife to thinking that perhaps we had been underestimating the intelligence of the therapy cat and should launch the bold experiment of granting him access to our sleep chamber throughout the night.

Our usual protocol is that the cat is banished from the room until my alarm goes off at 6:00 am. The cat then hears the alarm and starts meowing to be let in. I get up and open the door, so the cat may enter and pester my wife for food. I want my wife to have the enjoyable experience of being woken by a friendly, albeit hungry, therapy cat.

I agreed to allow the cat all-night access to the bedroom to see if he would wait until after NPR sounded on the clock-radio before pestering us for food.

The result: The cat entered the room at 5:30 am, walked over us a few times, before settling in at the foot of the bed until a bit after 6:00 am. We all listened to two or three news stories of a political nature before the cat began to poke my wife in earnest.

Not sure what this bodes for the future but once again the therapy cat is using his unique skills to tweak our lives.  

 

 

My Most Popular YouTube Videos

 

Recently I checked on YouTube what were my most popular videos. The viewers found my content through YouTube, not Portdaddia, even though I embed YouTube videos in blog posts. 

The platform Blogger, which I use, is also owned by Google. One might expect a view through the Portdaddia site would count as a view on YouTube. Nope. 

I have a list of most popular blog posts, many with videos, that is completely different from this YouTube list of top five videos.

Here are the top five Portdaddia videos of all time. I'm always amused/concerned/baffled how these things go. Enjoy!

I knew what was coming. Still, it feels good to vent.

 I awoke today in snow-bound pandemic post-impeachment disappointment. I'm hoping that various other litigation will impede any return to power.

 

How We Got Here

 The notion that we would deny the cat anything is ludicrous. Still, I need to banish him from the kitchen while I cook. For cleanup, he has full access.

COVID Cases In Oregon Continue to Decline

Multnomah County is experiencing the lowest COVID rates this year, with 12 cases per 100K of population, reported the NYT.

I understand this may be because of the seasonality of the virus and not because people are taking precautions or that a significant percent of the population has been immunized. We are a ways out from the holidays which were spreader events.

For daily map-watchers, Multnomah county is almost in the lightest map shade, indicating few COVID cases. This is superficial but energizing just the same.

I write this in a rare snowfall in Portland. For the record, I am ready for something else other than cold, dark pandemic. Airy, light, warm Spring pandemic is more like it!

I will hold the fort as long as it takes. Can't fault a guy for hoping for better days.

Trump's Impeachment Trial Underwhelms

There's this feeling in watching the proceedings that Trump's lawyers don't have to say anything and the Republican senators will vote to acquit.

As a result, Bruce Castor's opening remarks were a rambling 40-minute spiel not having much to do with anything substantial. The Republican argument is about the process of trying a president who is out of office rather than his guilt or innocence.

 

 

Don’t let right-wing US Jews define anti-Semitism

The man in the image above is the Toronto rapper Drake, one of the most successful artists of the decade.

Through the magic of the internet, I see countless memes with his now iconic yes/no pictures. He’s become the everyman of the acceptance/rejection dynamic.

The point I was trying to emphasize was that if you support a right-wing Israel, US Jewish community can overlook plenty of problematic, anti-Semitic views. 

I am experimenting with meme production and I accept the advice that I need to find more than one set of pictures to work with. The kid in the house says Drake is an antiquated meme anyway.   

Yes No Israel

 

Cat Backpack GCV 005

 

Celebrating

 

Are Cats Evil?

Winter Pandemic Photo Essay

Need to get out of the house once a day no matter the weather.

 

Even a pandemic cannot stifle the need for doughnuts. 

This is what segments of the household survive on.

Therapy cat