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Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Ol’ Robbo is hugely enjoying his last evening before Lent with a large glass of wine and watching his beloved Nats in a spring training game against the Astros.
I will be giving up the grape for Lent, but not baseball.
Pity tonight’s broadcast is a rerun of this afternoon and I already know how it ends, but ST is more about studying the talent, right? Just damned good to be back. (I used to get the same feeling in spring training when I coached the Gels in softball.)
BTW, not to invoke the wrath of the Baseball Gods, but Ol’ Robbo’s got a goooooood feeling about his beloved Nats this year.
You read it here first.
GO, NATS!!!!
Stomping my own new post below, but I just wanted to say good for Betsy DeVos for advising college conservatives this week, “Don’t shut up.”
I sent the article to Eldest Gel (sorry, don’t know how to link on my iPhone) and she really appreciated it. Currently, she’s locked in battle with her Econ prof: the prof sets up a political/economic question based in certain given (and slanted) assumptions, and the Gel immediately starts challenging said assumptions. Rancor ensues.
The other thing that irritates the hell out of her is the expectation that she conform to certain beliefs and attitudes based on her sex. Apparently she was arguing about this with someone the other day and said, “I’m a woman. So, what? I think for myself, thank you.” Much fainting ensued.
That’s my Gel!
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Ol’ Robbo finds himself on the back porch of Port Swiller Manor this morning, drinking a cup o’ Joe and continuing to enjoy the ridiculously lovely weather we’ve been having in these parts of late. Alas, it’s all supposed to end later today, with showers/storms this afternoon and plunging temperatures tonight.
Heigh, ho. At least one advantage is that a more seasonal late winter will help Ol’ Robbo get his head straight for Lent, which starts Wednesday. Awfully hard to get into the spirit of the season when it’s so damn nice out.
Anyhoo, last weekend I spent some time hauling sticks and branches and generally cleaning up the yard. In the process, I seem to have pulled something in my back, and it’s still bugging me. Have I really reached the point where I’m going to have to so stretches and put on a protective brace before doing yard work?
That’s sobering prospect.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Ol’ Robbo has mentioned here before the fact that he watches very little teevee apart from Nats baseball and old movies. One exception to this is NatGeo’s “Air Disasters”, which graphically recreates various plane crashes and the subsequent investigations into their causes. I suppose I watch it out of a kind of morbid fascination based on my own irrational fear of flying. Go figure.
Anyhoo, I bring this up because I happened to be watching the show last evening when an ad came on for an upcoming NatGeo program about our newly ex-President. Apparently – at least according to the ad- he was just the bestest, dreamiest, most wonderfulest prez’nit evah, you guys!
Ol’ Robbo would advise the folks at NatGeo to get a room.
Alas, I won’t be able to watch the show myself: I’ve got some navel lint that really needs to be dealt with that evening.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Yes, when the Eldest Gel, on her drive back to college, calls Port Swiller Manor an hour or so before she’s due to arrive at school but doesn’t leave a message when Ol’ Robbo can’t make it to the phone in time, I get somewhat agitated and am a wee bit snappish when I finally DO make contact with her and learn that there was never actually a problem.
Is this wrong of me?
Back in the day when I protested the Mothe’s seeming over protectiveness, she’d put on her best Jewish matron voice and say, “Just wait! Someday you’ll have children of your own!”
Yep.
Greeting, my fellow port swillers!
Ol’ Robbo finds himself watching a program on the Military History channel this evening about “odd” and “bizarre” weapons ideas over the years.
The overall tone of the show is pretty snarky, as in some cases is fairly justified. But one of the topics covered was the Japanese balloon bombs of WWII that were launched against the American west coast. The show laughs them off as being random and ineffective, but ignores an incident that I recall from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest where a parson and his family stumbled across one while on a picnic. If I remember correctly without looking it up, the thing went off and killed most of them.
Ha, jolly, ha.
On the other hand, the show feels compelled to issue content warnings before sections dealing with weapons systems involving pigeons and bats.
What a stupid, stupid time in which we live.
Yeah, think I’ll go read a book.
BTW, I’m reminded again of a story that Churchill became interested in a project to train seagulls to poop on German U-boat periscope lenses. Dunno if that was true, but if not, it should have been.
Update: Looked it up but can’t link here because I’m on my phone: the incident occurred May 5, 1945, in Oregon. Church outing. Five kids and the pastor’s pregnant wife were killed. Not a good story line for a flippant show about “weird” killing machines. Feh.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Never mind all the hearts and flowers and other commercially-driven humbug of the day, because there’s something far more important going on: Pitchers and catchers report today! Woo Hoo!
Oh, and GO NATS!!
Update: Forgot to mention that I watched “Major League” the other evening just to get in the mood. I always fast-forward through the love-interest plot line these days. I also have “Bull Durham” coming from Netflix. I really dislike Costner, Robbins, and especially Sarandon, but it’s such a good BB movie that I really don’t mind them here.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
I can’t link it here because I’m on my phone, but I see via Drudge that the Grammies are tonight and that some of the “stars” plan to “get political”.
Bless their hearts.
Friends of the decanter will already know that Ol’ Robbo has never had any truck with celebrity worship, nor given a wet slap about what some entertainer may think about things. But it seems to me that more and more people are beginning to come round to this same way of thinking, especially now that the totalitarian left has abandoned any pretense that it isn’t fighting a flat-out civil war against Middle America.
I could be mistaken, of course, but if my income depended on ticket or CD sales, I’d probably want to think carefully about who I’m alienating with my virtue-signaling.
BTW, watched “Hail, Caesar” last evening. Meh. The Coen Brothers have definitely done some good films, but they’ve served up some stinkers, too.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Ol’ Robbo is enjoying a much-appreciated Friday off today. My sole achievement so far has been to refill the bird feeders off the porch, and even then I didn’t bother to change out of my robe and jammers. Hey, I like to watch the birds with my morning coffee. Got a problem with that?
On the whole home computer thing, I’m beginning to lean towards a Laptop of Robbo’s Own. (Everyone else at home has one, so why not?) Any suggestions? I really only would use it for on-line shopping/research and blogging, so I don’t need anything fancy-shmancy (or pricey). Mrs. R wants me to take the desktop into the Apple store to see if they can fix it, but it strikes me that would probably wind up costing just as much.
Eldest Gel is home for the weekend. She asked me last evening what I thought of Bitch McConnell telling Liawatha to sit down and shut up in the Senate. I replied that he also should have told her to go make him a sammich. The Gel laughed heartily. That’s my gel!
Well, I suppose I should shift myself soon, as my non-paying job never ends: tax docs to prepare, lightbulbs to replace, and a run to the Bost Office today. But first? Maybe one more cup o’ Joe.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Well, the big nor’easter pounding the East Coast today brought exactly nothing to Your Nation’s Capital.
Not that we aren’t knee-deep in snowflakes here this winter, but they’re of the political rayther than the meteorological variety. Ha, ha, ha.
As a matter if fact, it’s been a relatively benign winter so far this year, and I even noticed yesterday that the forsythia is already starting to bloom. Must be all that glow bull enwarmening that ManBearPig is spreading about. AlGore promises that he’s on the case. Super serial, you guys!
For all that, I can’t remember a year when I so yearned for the return of the warmth as I do this year. Must be getting older or something.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
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