Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Tweets / threads that should have been blog posts. Rick “I Believe the Polls” Tyler edition

Posted: September 17, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

One of the problems with Twitter for a blogger is that you tend to write what would be a good blog post on twitter thus giving a platform that hates you free content. I will now occasionally post on some of these tweets and exchanges. Today it stars Rick “I’m really a Conservative unlike Trump” Tyler.

He retweeted a poll of Wisconsin and NC whose results I found….interesting

Here’s the exchange as an image

and of course there were others who decided it was a joke that anyone would question such polls I made them the same offer

here’s the full exchange as an image

I then went to work. 10 hours later I checked my twitter feed and surprise surprise, neither Mr. Tyler, Mr Crystalballops nor any of the others who saw my offer seemed to think that it was worth $100 of their money to affirm those polls that they insisted I was some kind of loon for doubting:

Bottom line the battle cry of the #nevertrump Biden left on polls is this:

I’ll stand behind the accuracy of these polls against you ignorant Trump supporting poll deniers with my life…but not my money

Personally if I was the big money left I’d risk the $100 to shut me up, i’d think it’s short money compared to the price of online trolls unless they are outsourcing said trolls on the cheap

Report from Louisiana: Phase 3

Posted: September 14, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Governor John Bel Edwards moved Louisiana into Phase 3 last week, but not everyone is happy about that, and with good reason.

In some ways, Phase 3 is stricter than Phase 2. For example, in Phase 2, bars are closed to on-site consumption, unless they are also serving food.  Restaurants were able to open and serve alcohol at 50% capacity.

Under Phase 3, the capacity for restaurants moves up to 75%, however now all alcohol must be served only at tables; so, if you’re a restaurant with a bar area where people eat at the bar, nope. You have to sit at a table.

And under Phase 3, bars can now open to 25% capacity or 50 people, whichever is smaller, but no alcohol can be sold in either bars or restaurants after 10 p.m., and all establishments must be clear of patrons by 11 p.m.

Live music and dancing are forbidden.

Now, local mayors can go back to a previous phase if it is stricter than the one currently in place, so perhaps local mayors should consider going back to Phase 2 where bars and restaurants could serve alcohol after ten.

High Schools are going ahead with football games beginning in a couple of weeks with “social distancing encouraged” in the stands. In New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell is keeping her city in Phase 2, and has disallowed all alcohol consumption in bars. There will also be no prep football in New Orleans in Phase 2.

New Orleans is keeping the status quo of Phase 2 which means “bars will continue to be shuttered throughout the city and that restaurants, stores, gyms and other businesses are limited to 50% of their pre-coronavirus capacity.”

The rules in NOLA have been tougher than the rest of the state because their numbers were so high compared to other places.

At any rate, here in Shreveport anyway, bar owners are frustrated by the continued restraints on their business, and now those seem even tougher.

In Bossier Parish, where I teach, we are going back to 100% face to face instruction next week. No more A/B hybrid days. This has me concerned because this means my small classroom will again be filled to capacity with students. There are pros and cons to this: from an educational standpoint, of course it’s better because face it, the virtual model is not working well for many kids. But from a health standpoint, I’m nervous again.

There will be literally nothing I can do in my classroom as far as social distancing goes. We won’t be able to spread even three feet apart.

I don’t have the answers, but I don’t think anyone does. It’s like at this point, with restrictions easing on one end and tightening up on another, we are nowhere close to being on the same page with this virus. All I can do will be the best I can, and try to protect myself.

Life has never felt more dystopian.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Biden Ball Games

Posted: September 14, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Congratulations NFL you’ve positioned yourself in such a way that your league is on the side of people ambushing Deputies and cheering for them to die.

Congratulations NFL you have reached a point where on the opening weekend of what was the most popular sport in the nation nobody is talking about the games themselves.

Congratulations NBA In a year when you have a captive audience at home you’ve managed to see your rating drop and provided a visual of your players kneeling during the national anthem on the Anniversary of Sept 11th.

Congratulation MLB in a sport with an aging but loyal demographic you managed to push fans away directly against the advice of your own surveys.

Congratulations NHL You managed to insert yourself into a situation that you could have pretty much avoided and allowed yourself a share in the backlash.

The bottom line: As of last week Major sports have gone from a net +20 positive rating among the public to a -10 rating in just one year. As Ed Morrissey noted:

the decline is as broad as it gets. The sports industry’s positive rating fell in every demo, and by double digits in all except Democrats (-5). The rating among non-white Americans might be higher than among white Americans, but it also fell farther among non-white Americans (-35, as opposed to -26 among whites). The collapse is almost total, in other words, and even in the few demos that remain positive, enthusiasm has almost entirely evaporated.

Congratulations major sports you played Biden Ball and managed to cancel yourselves.

Good News Found the part for my 1999 LeSabre! Bad News $423 with Tax!

Posted: September 12, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized
Jon Sable Freelance by Mike Grell, Issue 8 page 12 1984

Well my quest to find a pulse board for a 1999 Buick LeSabre ended today.

I had done a lot of searching online to no avail and then put out feelers on twitter and here on the blog, even asked other bloggers to put out the word for me as neither my mechanic nor NAPA nor anyone else seemed to be able to find a Pulse board for a 1999 Buick LeSabre.

One reader apparently had found the part on Doorman site. They make all sort of replacement parts but alas their Part # 906-121 which runs about $60 while listed as comparable with the 1999 LeSabre on some sites that resell Doorman parts is specifically listed as not fitting my LeSabre on their own site.

I also checked with Cardone which does the same, they had the motor (Everyone seems to have the motor) but when I check in their chat system alas said motor did not come with a pulse board.

I thought I might have a winner at the rockauto.com site but again their AC delco re manufactured motor didn’t say if it came with a pulse board and nobody was available at the AC Delco site to answer that question concerning this part.

Finally I did one more ebay search and lo and behold:

$399!

That’s literally 6 to 7 times the price of the motor offered everywhere else, however unlike everywhere else it EXPLICITLY stated it was compatible with my 1999 Buick LeSabre.

You can’t imagine how nice that result looked given the number of times I had filled out a similar form over the last week or two and gotten a different result.

As you might guess once I had the part number from said piece I started looking for it elsewhere to see if I could find it cheaper, no luck. I tried the part number at the AC Delco site, not listed.

So it came down to this. My car’s inspection sticker runs out on Halloween I could hold out in the hopes that I could save a couple of hundred or do and hope some other person didn’t need a pulse board before then or do I bite the bullet and buy this final part figuring that ending the search with a month to spare was worth it?

That’s when I remember the Jon Sable quote above and decided to buy the part now.

In the end $400 or $500 is a lot less than $4000 or $5000 for another car and when it comes down to it if I can keep the body intact that Glorious Buick motor will keep going for years to come. And the time I would have spend over the last month worrying and scrounging has to be worth something

If I hadn’t just dropped $200 on tires for the car I might have decided that the time had come to enter the 21st century but if the Buick goes that dough was out the window. And and perhaps if DaWife hadn’t just depleted her projects fund on a new Reed’s ferry shed and a new fence that’s going in next month it wouldn’t have been so bad to lose the LeSabre rather than drop $400 on an $80 part.

Even better I don’t have to do a new used car bleg. It’s one thing to shake the tip jar for the work I do, that’s a return for services rendered it’s another to have to ask to defray the cost of an unexpected bill.

And hey at least I got a blog post out of it.

Older Entries
Newer Entries