Posts Tagged ‘have fedora will travel’

The Case for Trump Allowing Independent Journalists in the White House Briefing Room in Two Videos:

Posted: November 26, 2024 by datechguy in dablog, elections, media, politics
Tags: , , ,

One of the reasons why this blog is going to end as a business at the end of this year has been the various reverses and collapses that took place after things started to get big around here, plus I’m now kinda old to be chasing around the country in the hope that someone will fund it and maybe slip a few extra buck to keep the lights on at home.

But I had my share of big moments, reporting from the middle of an Antifa riots in Denver, My 2010 road trip with Stacy McCain. Multiple CPACS including my final one with my sons when I first reported on Trump making gains with the black community, Scott Brown’s victory party of course, credentialed press at the Romney “victory” party but likely the biggest one in terms of relevance was covering Donald Trump’s first NH rally and it’s the one that makes the point concerning letting alternative media into the press room at the White House.

https://twitter.com/PU28453638/status/1861242898429235617

Let me tell you my story.

When I got to that event in Derry I noticed right away that these weren’t the normal activists turning up or being bussed in that I had seen over and over when covering events in NH. These were regular people. I did a bunch of interviews talking to anyone willing to talk to me to find out why they came and was quickly convinced those regular people showing up WAS the story (Stacy McCain will tell you about my call to him on that matter). As you may or may not know I carried three cameras with me at the time because I didn’t have a ton of extra batteries. I was on my 2nd camera when Trump had his press conference where I was standing in the back. Here is my recording of same.

You might notice two things when watching.

  1. I repeatedly attempted to get my question in and failed
  2. The media questions were all basicially
    • Why does the GOP suck?
    • Why do you, your campaign & your ideas suck?
    • What are you going to do about the fact that you, your campaign, your ideas and the GOP suck?

My recording stopped 18 min in because at that point camera 2’s battery gave out and I have to resort to camera #3 which due to a problem did not allow me to zoom in so I had a wide shot when finally I got to ask Donald Trump my question:

Two things you might notice about my question:

  1. Notice the surprise from Trump getting an actual relevant question.
  2. Notice the media looking back to find out: “Hey, whose not with the program?”

It wasn’t a question of trying to give Trump an easy question. I had decided that those regular folks WERE the story and the question I asked was consistent with what I thought the most important thing was.

Any one of those media people there could have done those interview or asked that question but nobody bothered because they weren’t there to cover a story in the hopes of making a buck, they were there to advance an agenda because that’s how they made their bucks. And that simple act of asking that question in Derry is why he recognized me and called on me in Worcester months later again on what I considered the real story, the lack of protestors when people had been calling for them in the 2nd biggest city in New England which has 10 Colleges in it.

Although in fairness wearing a 12 ft long Dr. Who scarf and a fedora likely helped a bit for him remember me.

I suspect that if you open things up to bloggers like myself or influencers or the alternative media you will get a better set of questions and actually inform the public.

And why would you want to reward a press corps that hates you anyways?

So Donald Trump JR. I strongly suggest you go ahead and let guys like me in, even though by the time you do so I won’t be doing it anymore.

Closing thought: However I would love to get a 20 min on camera interview with the president election before the end of the year and post that as the final act of DaBlog as a business. Might as well go out in style.

If you’re willing let me know.

Update: I mentioned my call to Stacy McCain in this post completely unaware that he mentioned the same in a post today:

 After going all-in on the 2012 campaign (“Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption”), I’d decided to avoid the 2016 campaign and was more or less neutral about the GOP primary. But then in September 2015, I got a call from Pete Da Tech Guy, who was covering a Trump rally in New Hampshire. “Stacy, this Trump thing is for real,” Pete told me. “You wouldn’t believe the size of this crowd.”

There was a real grassroots surge of support for Trump, and so the attitude of the Professional Conservative Pundit crowd turned from ridicule to hatred. Whereas they had originally treated Trump as a joke, now he was seen as threat.

DaTechGuy at the National Shrine of Divine Mercy in Stockbridge Ma. Fr. Bob, Fr Alex and the Best Insurance Policy You Can Buy

Posted: October 9, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions, DaTechGuy on DaRadio
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Last Saturday was the feast day of the Apostle of Mercy St. Faustina who was a Polish nun who died at the age of 38 just before the start of World War Two. In her famous diary (you can read it here) she recorded her prayer life and her encounters with Christ, the Blessed Mother and occasionally the enemy and his minions.

There are five shrines to Divine Mercy in the US one in Lombard Illinois, one in Baltimore, One in Chicago, one in Kansas City Missouri, but the National Shrine of Divine Mercy is in Stockbridge Massachusetts near the NY border.

WQPH 89.3 FM Shirley / Fitchburg which hosts my weekly radio show Your Prayer Intentions hosted a bus trip to that shrine on St. Faustina’s feast day last Saturday I attended.

While there I took advantage of the best insurance a person can get for a person or family, perpetual masses.

In addition to a bus load of pilgrims from several parishes in the state and from WQPH we had two priests with us. One Fr. Bob Doughty I interviewed as we were preparing to get on the bus to return. He was in the process of anointing those who wished it and dozens came to him from all the various buses there.

And Father Alex who is from Nigeria who I sat down and spoke with upon our return.

Due to some bus issues it was a short day at the shrine but a fine one. It is very likely that there will be another such trip next year on Oct 4th. If you have an interest in going comment on this post and when things start getting rolling in April I’ll give you a heads up

A quick trip to the Tycoon Arcade

Posted: May 20, 2024 by datechguy in fun, pinball
Tags: , , ,

On Saturday my sons and I stopped by the Tycoon Arcade that I mentioned a few days ago.

Here is a quick video review of the place:

One thing I failed to mention in the video is that when you buy a batch of tokens they donate a game to toys for Tots, one game for a $19 purchase and an extra game for every $20 worth more up to five games if you drop $99 on 130 tokens.

You can find more information about them here. You can also order board games form them at the same site.

Pintastic NE 2024 The Final Day Success!

Posted: April 16, 2024 by datechguy in fun, pinball
Tags: , , , ,

On the final day of Pintastic I woke around 7 (My son woke at five, went downstairs to play and then came back to snooze for an hour). The plan was to go downstairs, play a bit in the extra ball lounge, grab a bite of breakfast, pack and check out by 9:30 and then play we didn’t want to or couldn’t play anymore.

When I got to the Extra Ball lounge a few games such as Elton John were busy but the excellent Lord of the Rings was not so I took advantage of it.

There was a time when it would have been impossible to find this game empty as it’s, in my opinion one of the greatest games of all time, but then again two years ago you would never see a Willie Wonka empty either

Yet I saw it empty frequently.

Bottom line there were a lot and I mean a LOT of high quality new games there and as always the newest games get the most attention.

Traditionally the final tournament of Pintastic is the ladies tournament and that was no exception this year. I popped in to see it in full swing and spoke to the organizer, she was entered into the tourney as well so I filmed a bit as she played her ball then spoke to her at length when it was done.

Here are the trophies she referenced:

Longtime readers might wonder why I didn’t bring up a subject that I’m not shy about discussing or giving my opinion on, that’s rather simple, it’s pinball plus it’s a not my club, tourney or ox being gored.

Heading back to the Freeplay room I passed the vendor area where the Pinball machines were wrapped and packed and ready to go to the next show or back to the various showrooms. One of the things I noticed was I didn’t see the rental companies here. It could have been the economy or personal matters. After all Quigley’s cakes had to cancel for such reasons.

In the free play room the number of machines were slowly decreasing as the people who brought them packed up. I spotted game designer Steve Ritchie there signing a bunch of Elton John Pinball publicity shots.

He was packed and ready to leave but gave me a few minutes for a closing interview

I don’t know how many if any were sold at the show (I know Gabe bought one as it was in the Extra Ball Lounge) but either way it was a fun game to play and I thought I’d get some gameplay in before the end.

I had managed the 3rd high score the day before by the time I played that morning I had dropped to 4th.

Daniel dominated the high scores on that game holding 5 of the top 8 plus most of the mode championships but the #1 spot eluded him. Well there’s always next year.

By 2 pm they started shutting off machines. Last year I couldn’t find Gabe for the traditional closing interview, this year I found him but he was flat out however Michael was there as the 30+ EMP games were coming out of the club area one at a time to be packed and wrapped so we closed with him.

It’s a big difference between doing it all yourself and having a team so when you compare this video to closing videos with Michael from five years ago it’s a huge difference.

As we got up to leave the Rush games which had been there when we arrived were still being played. It was a tad odd to not be staying till the very last game was shut off as we had in prior years, but we had to be home in time for the 6 PM mass and the number and availability of Pinball machines all around the area had grown exponentially since the first time we attended a Pintastic.

It’s true you didn’t see too many pizza places with pinballs anymore but between barcades and arcades offering unlimited play for a flat fee and even some like Tycoon in Manchester that still work on the token based system there is plenty of pinball available within a 20-40 minute drive for us to enjoy with the prospect of a local club and barcade still in the cards.

That more than anything else is a solid sign that while Pintastic New England 2024 was clearly a success, Pintastic NE as a whole series of events to promote the hobby has been a bigger and resounding one.

UPDATE: By an odd coincidence this appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Pinball, and Stern in particular but the killer quote comes from Jersey Jack himself:

As digital as the guts of this thing may be, the experience is far from virtual.

You can see why, as wildly unpredictable as the industry has been, it requires a factory. “It’s such a handcrafted product,” said Jack Guarnieri, owner of Jersey Jack Pinball. “People forget, yet anyone who makes these things can tell you: build 10 machines in a row with the same parts and, depending how tightly a rubber is fixed to a post, or how a lever gets adjusted, that’s an assembly line full of small tweaks. It’s not a video game.

“And yet that’s also the best part — the randomness.”

Older Entries