RuPaul and Snoop Dog in a cage fight. Bing made the pairing

Cookie is not a lover of Google. I don't hate it, I just don't love it. 

The irony of this is that I use Blogger, which is their product.  I used to love Blogger, but since they revamped the interface I still love blogger, though I hate their interface.

Anyway, back to Google - I don't like how Google places emphasis on the number of link backs to determine how reliable sites are.   If I want sites based on the 1961 Chevrolet Bel Air Interiors, I don't need, want, or even desire to get all loaded up on subpar sites that promise to sell me one. 

So I have been using Microsoft Bing - it tends to get the search right without the advertising garbage your face like Google. 

Microsoft has been "tweaking" Bing, which is no longer "Bing" but now MICROSOFT Bing with the windows logo.   But they have been adding in all manner of nonsense to their sidebar results.  One of the most annoying is telling how tall different notable people are. 

For example, let's pick someone who was popular, but isn't: Brittney Spears. Search for her and Bing returns its results AND insists on telling you that she is 5'4".

If no one cares about "Brit'ney" they sure as hell don't give a tinkers damn about how tall she is. 

But Bing takes this trivial pursuit one step beyond.  NOW they tell you who else is 5'4", as in "as tall as" for comparison sake. 

So now, we don't give a damn about Britney Spears, we sure as hell don't care who she is, but... It's who they pick that Cookie finds absurdly funny, to a point.

And who does bing tell us is a tall as Britney? Alecia Beth Moore, aka PINK. 

This is only useful if you imagine that they are in what I have come to call BING CAGE MATCH, an imaginary "what if" the game in which you get to pick the winner of an all-out locked cage match, brawl to the end battle.

And BING CAGE MATCH, Pink pins Britney. Pink has that bitchin' body. 

Joe Manganiello?   He's 6'4" of beautiful muscle and perfection.  And he is as tall as Pablo Schreiber.  In BING CAGE MATCH, Joe Manganiello pins Pablo Schreiber.  On looks alone, but Joe is simply the winner given his build and good looks. Yes, I know its subjective, but that's part of the fun.  But you see that this can be a momentary parlor game, right?

David Letterman v. Bill O'Reilly?  Letterman. See. The only thing is that it has to be a modern celebrity.  Evidently, Bing didn't feel the need to tell us how tall Marie Curie was, or Marie Antoinette - with her head attached of course.

Earlier in September, Jeopardy announced that it was bringing Ken onboard its production team.  Husband asked me if Jennings was going to replace Alex Trebek given Trebek's health situation.  So I looked it on Bing and Bing gives me results and in the sidebar feels the need to tell me that Ken Jennings is 5'10".  

That's well and fine; 5'10" is one of the average heights in the United States.  So I decided to Play Bing Cage Match with Ken Jennings...

...and it compared serial Jeopardy winner Ken to...

...serial killer Ted Bundy.

And in a Cage Match, we know who is going win, and it is not going to be done with "Alex, I'll take Personal Defense for $500."

I mean seriously Bing, what the hey.  Out of ALL the celebrities that are 5'10" your system chooses Ted Bundy? 

I spoke with a cousin who's spouse works for Microsoft about this match-up and her reaction was simply "Oh, my god."  She called Kyle, and Kyle's reaction was, and I quote "No, oh, no, no, no."  Within 5 minutes that pairing on the screen caption above was gone.  

Now Ken Jennings is incomparable in the height contest. 

So then I wondered what other unlikely BING CAGE MATCH matches were being made.

• At 5'2" each, Charles Mansion, v. Yoko Ono.
• At 5'8" is Kanye West v. Eminem.
• At 6'4" is RuPaul v. Snoop Dog.
• At 5'2" is Amy Winehouse v. Nelly Furtado - AND - 
• At 5'10" Rodney Dangerfield v. Sally Kellerman.

I am NOT telling Mindy about the Yoko/Manson match, but I have captured this in an image just to have a record of it.  I am not posting it because I do not want people I am a fan of his.   

But try it yourself.  Or try it with someone else's famous name and see what you get. What really gets me is that if weren't in this COVID mess, it would make for a great game to play with friends while having a drink on a fall night. 

Wishing everyone a meaningful and fulfilling Yom Kippur

 

Cookie has done his time in retail and I have seen pretty much, it all.  A gun pointed at me during a robbery, shoplifters, the "raid" by the woman who called herself "The Worthington League For Decency" where she sent her six-foot-tall son into our retail book store to pick up a copy of Playboy two inches off the top rack so she could charge us with peddling smut - I have seen it all.  

I even had to deal with a best selling diet doctor - Dr. Stuart Berger - from the 1980s who was at the top of his game, in town for a signing.  He insisted and insisted that I come by his hotel, do a couple lines, and have unsafe sex. His hands were like tentacles, everywhere, but I got him through the signing, gave him someone else's phone number, and told him to call me.  (No, I never would, and I never did.  The man was vile.  He died in the 90s from an overdose and morbid obesity.)

But what topped all others was my stint working in Pikesville, an area of Baltimore with a high Jewish population.  The problem was always around Yom Kippur, and it was gentiles who meant well, coming into our store where I worked asking for "Happy Yom Kippur" stuff.  

Happy Yom Kippur cards, party invitations, cookbooks, and stuffed animals for gifts. 

In my mind, it was always "Yeah, it doesn't work like that lady," but in practice, it was my cue to be helpful, help them - gently - see Yom Kippur for what it is - a time of reflection, atonement, forgiveness, and to ask G-d to write your name in the book of life for the coming year.  People can learn if you are kind. 

"Well, it's not a Hallmark holiday.  It's a serious day of introspection.  One looks at how they have lived in the past year and if necessary - and it always it - extend apologies and accept them.  And there is fasting, a symbolic act of yearning, and to understand how others feel their hunger."

Everything gentle. 

Now, every now and then we'd get some bellicose ass in who wasn't taking no for an answer.   But for the most part, people wanted to show support for their friends and neighbors. 

My store manager, an older woman said at a staff meeting the first year that we should suggest gift cards as presents.  

"No, this isn't a holiday for that.  The only thing you give is of yourself, and humble acts."

"Not even a card?"

No. Just stop it.  "It's about you, not merchandise.  Jews have enough days to give merchandise.  This isn't one of them."

The second-year I was there, I jumped in front of that bus before she could utter the words. "You weren't going to let me, will you."  No, I was not. 

Corporate wanted us to sell merchandise, and we did.  But not for Yom Kippur.  For Passover, buy that stuffed lion for the little girl next door.  But for Yom Kippur, the greatest gift that non-Jews can give Jews is respect for the day, some breathing space, and if you borrowed a hammer from the neighbor, return it and ask for forgiveness.  We'll be happy for the hammer and the bonus of saying that they can let you off the hook. 

So, for the next 24 hours or so is about looking inward, becoming better people, seeking forgiveness, and giving it.   Give it a try.  It might lift a burden or two from your shoulders.

No, you really aren't the nicest person you know.

 

One thing that a young child I was blessed with was self-consciousness, and too much of it at that.  Growing up I felt awkward, uncoordinated, and ugly.  I had no use for sport because my biggest competition was myself, and we both hated losing.  And contrary to every camp counselor and gym teacher, "Athletics" did not imbue me with confidence.  It made me a target, and I held the honor of last chosen for every school year I was at Mercer of Byron Junior High.  Moreover, whether a twist of fate or not, I was always chosen for the skins team, which made the public humiliation all the more painful. 

My desire to be liked and accepted was always ground out like a cigarette butt by junior high gym teachers who were better suited to a U.S. Marines Training Center than an upper-income Junior High.  

Bullies picked up on that, and to show everyone what a waste of human flesh. I was shoved downstairs, had my locker trashed, and was I was put down, not only by some of the other boys but some of the better-looking boys.  As the years went by they were in my mind as I spent my first years in the gay dating world. In my eyes, I was good enough to use for sex, but nothing more. 

One of my worst tormentors however was a girl.  A short, mean one named "Bertha".  Imbued with a shock of hair that looked more like a broom, Bertha's master art wasn't physical abuse, it was verbal abuse.  And she worked with it like Vermeer worked in oils.  I endured it for two years. A pint-sized harridan, Bertha's words cut like a hot knife through my cold lonely soul.  The only time she was nice was when she wanted something - like to be the star of a photography project or help on a history test. 

We left Shaker for a more sane life when I was 14, mostly because my mother was certain that if another year happened like eighth grade, I was certain to kill myself, and most likely I would have.  In our new town, a new school system, I found friends.  Out of the 400+ high school students, subtract out about 20, and we all got along.  I was never manhandled, bullied, or abused.  High school was pure bliss. 

At the last Shaker reunion, I went to, a long time friend said that I should forgive Bertha for all the anger I held towards her.  "She's grown."  So said friend maneuvered me into Bertha's orbit, and Bertha instead of hello, treated me with a "Cookie? What are you doing here?"

In talking with Bertha, before I could forgive her, I mentioned that it was would nice to get along and start over.  Bette who was headed toward a table of her friends from school - Deb, Debbie, D'bora, Deebs, Dee, Deedee, and Angela - stopped, and looked at me and said the following:

"It was your fault we didn't get along.  If you thought I was the problem, well, you need help. Why I'm the nicest person I know."

And with that, she walked to her table. 

The table filled with her friends that she just threw under the bus.  

The same friends that she just claimed she was better than. That's what you are saying when one says "I am the nicest person I know."  It says that they are better than everyone else, and it says they don't give a damn about anything but them.

What I learned very fast is that you can't forgive a bully unless the bully asks for it.  And unless they ask for it, that's who they are - accept that move on. 

But I walked away having great admiration for Bertha's friends.  She uses them and they are there for her, oblivious to the fact that she uses them. I mean, it takes a whole lot of ignorance or patience to be friends with the Bertha's of the world, because, after all, she is the nicest person anyone, including her friends - who are something far below Bertha's wonderfulness, will ever meet.  

Of course, one day, Bertha just might wake up and realize it.  

But my sense she won't.  

Said another friend from school who had been burned by Bertha one too many times in high school, "Self-awareness was never her strong suit." 

In this Time of COVID: The ultimate in "Staycations"

Careful, time these days just loops and loops and loops some more. 

I had a call from my longest-running friend from Shaker Heights the other night.  She called to tell me that Lake View Cemetery - where Cleveland's best go to be buried - is running a sale on plots, vaults, and, grave markers.  The most enticing the brochure is that they are advertising their cemetery as the final destination trip you'll ever take.

"They are calling it the ultimate place for your end of life staycation," she remarked.  I almost feel some days that would be more exciting than this endless loop we're in now. 

Right now, the husband is on vacation and our staycation is blurring the lines of the days - they are all the same.  

And we seem to have lost all concept of what day of the week it is.  

Because we can't travel - my lungs and asthma, and his essential worker status - we are stuck here in Baja Towson, doing things around the house.  And they are the things that no one wants to do. 

Saturday, we pushed a couple buttons and the oven in the range went on automatic cleaning mode for four hours. The temperature was low enough that we could open windows, but by God, it was stinky and smokey.  Still, after four hours the oven was pristine after a wipe with some damp paper towels, and you could see in the window. 

Last Friday it was a new hot water tank. We said farewell to Bradford White - whose age the old people who sold us the house lied about.  Bradford was not five years old as they stated.  Bradford was 12 years old.  At 17 he crapped out.   Bradford's position was filled by A.O. Smith, and the money in the bank replaced by a giant void of nothingness.  Mr. Plumber on the other hand made enough to make two payments on his Mercedes Van. 

Yesterday, I worked on a project for a client (all these Slavic names and strange punctuation marks!) that I have to deliver this week, while the husband weeded the gardens.  

Today the BIG news was that multiple things happened!  

First up, the husband gathered all his paperwork up to get his real ID driver's license renewed.  Per Maryland's Vehicle Administration, he lugged in his certified this, that and a current bill moved to the address.  The MVA is where humorous control hungry people go to work and you never know if you are going to get a human being or Morbo who commands you to "Sit there and remain SILENT puny human!  I will ask the questions!" while tentacles of bureaucracy move about in slimy squishy sounds.  In this case - and SUPRISE! -he got a human being who looked at the reams of paperwork he brought to the only appointment he could get since last May, who gave a brief look and said "We good."   He was amazed - ten minutes!

Secondly, the Husband decided it would be a swell time to core aerate the sylvan grounds of Staten Cookie.  I only exist to help remove the rented beast from our truck and put it back.  What I hate about this process is that for the next month our sylvan grounds are littered with dirt plug that looks like a convention of Canadian geese was held here.  We can do it for $65. TruGreen wanted us to pay them $200.  Anyway, it will take a month for these things to either be dissolved by rains or chewed up by the landscapers. 

Neigh Katty is crossing the street as I type to come to get about $100 dollars word of iris plants that the Husband had to divide two weeks ago. 

Tomorrow, it's the exterminators for ants, followed by the arborist's (Trees by Felize) to look at the birch trees.   The cable guys show up on Friday to replace the dying cable modem. 

And in NONE of these instances to I get to send you a postcard with the words "Wish You Were Here" because I know that isn't what you would find fun.  

Alas, in this time of COVID, the days seem to blend together and together and together.  No fun at all.

No, the doctor did not declare him deceased

When Cookie was a journalism student, the first rule of writing news was get the facts, and then verify those facts.  Without verifiable facts, your story is hearsay, worthless, gossip.  The second rule of thumb was if you doubted those verifiable facts, double down and verify them again. 

Do you the reader see a pattern?  FACTS matter, and what matters better be based on facts.   

Since the rise of the internet where anyone can call themselves a news site, and the rise of "entertainment" masquerading for news, we see to have a crisis of confidence.  Too many people prefer to hear what makes them feel validated, and they love to mock people who put a value on truth.  And not enough people who want the truth don't stand up for standards. 

Add to this the culture of everybody getting a certificate for showing up and you get what I came across today, and why I needed someone like my friend to back me up with the AP style manual. In this case that I am railing about is that of declaring someone legally dead. Now there are several types of death, aside from the good old fashioned "when you are dead, you're dead" school of thought. 

There is such a state as Civil Death.  And there is such a thing Social Death.  

But today, we're talking about DEAD - as in no longer showing signs of life, lung, heart, and/or brain function dead.

This raised itself up because Cookie was reading a news blurb by a radio station.  Apparently, a car ran a stop sign, hit a motorcyclist, and the injured man was transported to the hospital where the ER doctors declared the victim dead, as in declared dead.   Not Dead on Arrival (DOA) but in this case, the victim showed signs of life but died in the ER. 

Get it?  Got it? Good.

The problem is that the news outlet stated that "where the doctors declared him deceased."

Hello? 

"The deceased...", sure.  "The decedent..." alright. 

But declared deceased?  Huh?

So I contacted said news outlet and said "this is incorrect. One is declared dead by a doctor, not deceased."  

I didn't do it because I needed to be right, but because it was a violent accident and a terrible way to go for that young man.  

The answer, that I got back simply stunned me:

"Hello, I am the station's wordsmith..."

Stop right there.  

Writers, reporters, editors, columnists, feature reporters, traffic eye in the sky, yes.  Wordsmith?  No.  Oh, no, no, no.  The Wordsmith continued:

"...as you'll agree, 'dead' and 'deceased' are practically the same words..."

Sweet Smoking Jesus!  NO!  First, do not paint me into that corner with getting me to agree that words mean the same when it is the legal action - the declaration of death - at the heart of this matter.  And yes, a duckpin bowling ball and a tennis ball are both round balls, but neither can be substituted to do what the other was designed to do.

One is not declared deceased in hard news. One is declared DEAD. Declaring one "deceased" sounds cliche, and as the AP Style manual will tell you, avoid cliche and euphemisms.  

But the Wordsmith promised to get back with me and the Wordsmith did:

"There is a certain truthiness to being declared deceased...and English is a constantly evolving language... "

Reader, if I had a brick wall, I would be banging my head against it. 

Another thing, the "man is pronounced dead" by the doctor.  Why?  Because to say say that the man "pronounced deceased" sounds really bad.  Try saying that allowed, or show an English teacher.  It is affected.

To me, "deceased" is for feature articles, for obituaries, for (and now I am dating myself) the late Harold Denzer, clasping his hands while asking my grandmother what the music the "deceased" would have preferred ("Perhaps "Whispering Hope, and other songs of hope and eternal life?") 

Even us Jews (when I wear that yarmulke) know, when you are dead, you are dead. You are going into that Light of G_d because that's what we believe. There is no everlasting life for Jews. You leave life's stage and you go into the light of God and you are dead, as in not coming back, dead. People who use "truthiness" as their fulcrum to try and cleave an argument from where there is none to split off.  This kind of logic is what we get when someone builds a society of "certificates" for just showing up.  

So I did some searching.  One newspapers(dot)com, one of the largest databases of searchable newspapers, "Declared Dead" - 321,662 occurrences. "Declared Deceased" - 2,665 matches. 

The problem with truth is that Wordsmiths only care about what sounds poetic, soft, winsome.  Whereas old news people like Cookie want facts.  I want news that is meaty, lean and something I can chew on and ponder. People like the Wordsmith only care about pablum, that goes down easy. 

And that ain't me.

Goodbye and good riddance summer, and here comes fall

 

Well, that was one Hell of a summer vacation season.  Here comes fall 2020 and like summer, I am predicting it'll be pretty - and unfortunately - Hellish. 

Hold onto your seats, its going to be a bumpy flight...