Monthly Archives: May 2021

Costco is bringing back free samples in a week or two.

I have actually been buying from Costco more than ever since The Pandemic began and it's become so much a part of my life that the pace will probably continue. But apart from one in-person expedition, it's all been delivery.

Once a week — on a day my cleaning lady comes — I have them deliver two of their rotisserie chickens…one for me, one for her. She cuts up the one for me and it feeds me for two or three days, then the leftovers are chopped fine for Lydia the Cat. I eat well. Lydia eats well.

Two chickens runs me $12.42. Then I also have them bring me a two-pack of Rao's Marinara Sauce since I use about two jars of it a week. That's presently $13.42 so that gets me to $25.84. I then need less than ten bucks worth of purchases to get me over the $35 mark to qualify for free delivery and it's real easy to scale that hurdle. Sometimes, I overshoot it by a lot.

So I've figured out how to make Costco work for me in stay-at-home mode. I just haven't figured out how to make the delivery include some of those free samples.

About a month ago, a friend suggested and I installed an app called Citizen on my iPhone. In case you haven't heard of it, here's what it does. It monitors things like police calls and 911 calls and it shows you where there are things like fires or "police activity" or reports of cars being stolen or home break-ins within an X-mile radius of your location. Right now, for instance, it's alerting me to "Report of Man With Gun" 3.3 miles from my home.

Many of the reports aren't from scanners. Anyone with the Citizen app on their phone can report an incident and even take photos or video of it that will appear on the little on-screen map of all who have that location within their radius. One such Citizen-using citizen is shooting live video of an overturned car 3.2 miles away in another direction. And one of the many things I've learned from Citizen is how many traffic accidents result in overturned cars. It shows me a lot of fender-benders or worse…but it seems like at least once a day, there's an overturned car within a few miles of me.

Like I said, I've had it about a month and I don't know how I feel about it. To some extent, it's like the way you can't avoid looking when you drive past a car collision or a fire. But if you have it on your phone, it keeps showing you these things whether you want to know about them or not. I turned off the array of weird sound effects it emits — like helicopter sounds when there's a helicopter anywhere in that radius — and that's helped make it less of a distraction.

But it's still a distraction just being there. Also, it's one thing to be aware that there is crime in your area. It's another to be alerted to every report of robbery or violence or someone armed with something and to be told exactly how close it was to you.

I am aware that many such reports turn out to be exaggerations — or just plain nothing — but Citizen never tells you when that's the case. A well-meaning neighbor once reported a suspicious-looking person entering my house and when the police arrived, I had to prove it was me. That "Man With Gun" 3.3 miles from me might be a false alarm and "Police Activity in Your Area" might be a bunch of cops converging on McDonald's for their new Crispy Chicken Sandwich…but Citizen ain't gonna tell me that.

Then again, sometimes Citizen gives me useful information. I was five minutes from leaving my house the other day when I got a report that a major traffic accident had closed off the boulevard I intended to drive on. Good to know. And if you live in a city, there are probably times when you see a copter hovering nearby and you'd like to know what the hell is going on there. Citizen often tells you.

Then again, it sometimes doesn't. Last week, a homeless encampment about six blocks from me went up in flames. I could see the smoke in the distance. I could turn on my TV and see live video from helicopters overhead from local stations. But for some reason, Citizen had nothing about the fire or the choppers. (I think they only report police helicopters.)

And it just told me that a lost dog was found on W. 118th Street, which is 9.8 miles from me. I don't think I needed to know that, especially since I never knew that particular dog was missing.

I keep deciding to take Citizen off my phone, then I keep deciding to leave it on my phone. Usually, when I decide I'm better off without it, a report will suddenly come in that seems useful…so I don't know. If you decide because of this piece to give it a try, I accept no responsibility if you find yourself in the same quandary.

I've never had much interest in gymnastics but I love watching Simone Biles keep setting record after record. And I think I like her even more after watching this video of her latest competition. It helps to remember that even people who are incredibly good at what they do can still miss once in a while…

If you or someone you know has questions about the vaccines for COVID-19, those answers might just be found on this page.

Wanna see the worst play you may ever see in a Major League Baseball game? It's right here.

I used to have this ridiculous problem of spam calls from contractors who wanted to give me free estimates on home repairs. Obviously, my contact info was on some lists that contractors or telemarketers were purchasing and I was sometimes getting ten or more of these a day. These were not robocalls where I answered and found a computer voice on the line. There were human beings there.

Sometimes, they were actual contractors looking for work. Sometimes, they were outta-work people who had no contact with that field until they answered an ad somewhere — some of them, probably on Craig's List — to allegedly make loads of money. They were supplied a list of prospects to cold-call. The way they would supposedly make those huge sums was to get someone like, say, me to say, "Yes, I'd love a free estimate" and then if that led to me spending money with the contractor they represented from afar, they'd get a commission.

A couple of times, I asked the caller if he or she really was a contractor or was directly employed by one…or if they just answered an ad to make this kind of call. A few gave me what seemed to be honest answers and it was usually the latter. I asked one of those folks, "How close have you come to making the kind of dough the ad promised?" and he said, "Well, the ad said I could make $1200 and up a week and so far, I must have made over a thousand calls and I haven't made Dime One." That sounds about right to me.

Those calls abated to be replaced by an endless series of recorded robocall pitches to get a solar installation or to extend my car warranty. And lately I get a lot of calls from people who say they're with a health care company who's "working with Medicare" and one of my doctors — they somehow can't say which one — wants them to send me medical equipment for which they will bill Medicare, not Yours Truly.

And then today, I got my first contractor call in quite a while. A gent who oughta be auditioning the next time they make Popeye cartoons phoned, identified himself as with a home remodeling firm and the exchange went like this…

HIM: I'm calling to see if you're ready for your free home estimate on all the repairs and remodeling you have planned or if you want me to call back in a few weeks.

ME: Can you give me a little more time than that?

HIM: Sure. How much do you need?

ME: Call me around the turn of the century. How about late December, 2099?

And so help me, he sounded like he was writing it down and then he said, "Fine. Expect our call then." I figure by that time, I may need something done around here. Maybe a paint job…

One or two (or twenty or thirty) of you are sick of me posting links to renditions of "Meet the Flintstones" theme. So you'll be happy to know this is the last one for a while. If I come across other wonderful interpretations, I will share.

As with several early Hanna-Barbera TV shows, the original version of the song was performed by The Randy Van Horne Singers, a group formed in the late fifties. In addition to cartoon programs, it was also heard on many commercials and record albums and other places.

The composition of the group changed from time to time — at one point, Marni Nixon was in its ranks — and it disbanded in the early seventies. If Wikipedia is correct — and when, apart from much of the time, is it not? — Mr. Van Horne resurrected it after 2000, died in 2007 and as of 2018, it was led by Alan Wilson, who may be the gent on the far right in the maroon shirt.

This video, which was uploaded to YouTube in 2015, purports to be The Randy Van Horne Singers singing "Meet the Flintstones." I have no idea how many of these singers might have been on the original recording to the tune — perhaps none. Some look barely old enough to have watched the show…

I'm not liking CNN's The Story of Late Night for several reasons, one being that it's on CNN. CNN's programming template — cutting away from programming every few minutes for more than a few minutes of commercials — is probably okay for news coverage. A large chunk of those who watch the network are sitting in airports or bars or restaurants, kind of half-watching and waiting for a story that matters to them. But trying to follow an hour-long narrative can be maddening.

I just watched the most recent episode — titled "Leno Vs. Letterman" but as much about other hosts — and it felt like I spent more time fast-forwarding than watching The Story of Late Night. I kept thinking about all the parts of that topic's history they skipped entirely in order to plug next week's installment what seemed like twenty times. No mention of Jay's first bandleader. Scant mention of the troubles with Jay's manager serving as his first exec producer. No mention of Letterman hiring Mike Ovitz to, basically, try to get Leno fired. No mention of Letterman firing his longtime producer.

And they kind of truncated a pivotal moment in how the battle one might call "Leno Vs. Letterman" turned out. Too many people think it went like this: Jay is tailing Dave badly. Jay has Hugh Grant on and beats Dave that night. Jay then starts beating Dave every night.

It went more like this: Jay is slowly gaining on Dave and it's pretty obvious to anyone who looks at the numbers that he will soon pass Letterman. Then he has Hugh Grant on and he not only wins that night but enough people who (I guess) haven't watched Jay lately like what they see and come back the next night and the next night (etc.). So Jay starts beating Dave a month or two before it would have happened without Hugh Grant.

That's a key point. You don't have that big a shift in viewing patterns wholly because of one episode that's high on the curiosity scale. That's only good for one night.

Given the time constraints, The Story of Late Night rushed through that matter and it sounded like Hugh Grant was the only factor in how that big contest played out. (And I should say I don't mean to fault the folks who made this documentary. If any of us had done it with so little time to cover so much history, we'd have left out oodles of things that belonged in it. I'm faulting whoever decided that the entire story of late night television could be covered in six hours, let alone six hours so dense with commercials.)

Having a successful late night show involves two achievements: (1) Getting people to tune in when the show commences and (2) Keeping them watching for most of the hour. You might be able to do (1) real well but if you can't do (2), you probably don't win your time slot.

This is one of the main reasons — there were others — why it was such a bad idea to later install Leno at 10 PM with a semi-clone of The Tonight Show. Put a talk show on against an hour drama at 11:30 and the talk show would have a great chance. A lot of people wouldn't have wanted to start watching CSI Wherever at 11:35 PM because they don't want to commit to staying up until 12:35 AM to see whodunnit and if they got caught. If you tune in an hour talk show, you stick around until you lose interest. You aren't left dangling if you change the channel or hit the sack.

A prime time show competes with viewers changing the channel. A late night show competes with viewers changing the channel or (big "OR") deciding to go to bed — as everyone has to do at some point.

The story of Leno overtaking Letterman in late night is the story of how Jay got his viewers to stick around longer and how Dave's viewers began changing the channel or going to bed sooner. Even during the period when Dave was clobbering The Tonight Show in the ratings, the two shows were very competitive during their respective first acts. I dunno if testing/research showed this or if it was just an obvious-to-some assumption but the popular wisdom around NBC was that plenty of folks tuned in Jay to watch his monologue, then switched over to Dave.

So Jay lengthened the monologue. In fact, he lengthened all of Act One and inserted more comedy spots into that act and ramped up the energy of it all in a way that carried on through Act Two when he did a comedy bit like Headlines or Jaywalking, and into Act Three with his first guest and so on.

This is not something I figured out. A couple of folks laboring in the late night mines for both networks schooled me on it. One quoted to me numbers I no longer remember but they went something like this: Before Jay overtook Dave, X% of Dave's audience stayed almost to the end of the show, whereas the lower Y% of Jay's audience hung in there. When Jay pulled ahead, the numbers were almost exactly reversed.

It would be nice if someday, someone did a documentary series about late night that had time to delve into matters like this…and of course, it would be nice to have seen longer clips and longer chunks of interviews. You could easily do six hours just on Steve Allen or Jack Paar…or twelve on Johnny. I'll bet CNN already has a lot of the material you'd need to assemble such a thing.

It was odd to see that they interviewed so many people but that it doesn't seem they talked with Dave or Jay. Jay's usually a guy who's available for anything so I wonder if Dave said no, causing them to decide not to ask Jay. They did talk with Conan O'Brien so I wonder how (or if) they'll tell Jay's side of the Conan/Jay debacle. I'm of the opinion that both Leno and O'Brien were treated shabbily by their network in that mess but a lot of folks like to only focus on Conan's victimhood.

This is this evening's live webcast from the fine folks who bring you The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog, a fine website not affiliated, connected or associated with Comic-Con International. But they talk all about the con and give out valuable news and advice about it…and every year — tonight for the fourth time — they have me on as a guest. So this installment is me talking about the convention and telling stories and I don't know what the hell was wrong with my audio. It sounded fine when we did it…

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is played by Owen Mole and the Molestones, who are (I guess) students at the Cary School of Music…

• Waiting for Mitch McConnell to explain that there are more important matters than having a bipartisan commission investigate January 6th. We need to do at least three more partisan investigations of Benghazi.

When COVID-19 vaccines became available, we all suddenly had to make a decision about whether to get vaccinated. Mine was easy. My general physician, my gastroenterologist, my proctologist and my urologist all said, independent of one another, "Get whichever vaccine you can get and get it as soon as possible." Those are four very smart men to whom I entrust vital parts of my body.

Yes, if I'd looked at the Internet before deciding, I could have found some stranger — possibly even one who claims to be a doctor — advise against it. If you search the web enough, you can find someone who'll tell you anything you want to (or don't want to) hear. I have an acquaintance with whom I refuse to dine because no matter what I order — and if you ate with him, no matter what you order — he will look at it and say, "You're not going to put that in your body, are you?"

Last time we dined together, it was chicken noodle soup: "Do you know how they raise chickens? Do you know how they make noodles? And there's probably salt in there."

There will always be such people and if you listen to all of them, you will perish from malnutrition. I would be killed by my food allergies.

Whether to get vaccinated is now an old, albeit ongoing debate. Lately though, I cannot turn on TV news without seeing someone explain why they absolutely will not under any circumstances wear a mask in public. Maybe they did before for a time but COVID-19, they insist, is now a thing of the past. It is their right, they say, to choose to not mask-up…though some of them seem to get quite outraged when someone else exercises their right to wear one.

I almost don't mind the ones who can spout actual research and justify not wearing a mask in public but (a) I think they're wrong and (b) I don't see why it's such an inconvenience to err on the side of caution and put one on. The ones I really don't understand are the ones who say they won't wear one because it's an imposition on personal freedom and this is America where no one can force you to do anything you don't want to do. Yeah, like stopping for red lights or dumping your garbage in the street or bringing in some virus from another country.

I hear these people and I think of those signs like the one posted above — No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service — and I think the mask-decriers should be asked, "Do you object to them? Are they an attack on your personal freedom?" How about if a restaurant says it won't serve anyone not abiding by its dress code? There are folks out there who think a private business has the right to refuse service to gays or racial minorities but not to insist that everyone who shops there wear a mask.

I will admit that it's a little puzzling these days to decide where you need a mask and where you don't. I solve that puzzle by wearing one everywhere I go, the single exception being when I'm outside and not passing near others. I don't find it troubling…and I wonder how many who do simply need to find a more comfortable mask.

Meanwhile, Kevin Drum, whose statistics I tend to believe, calculates today — and yes, he shows his math — that "if you are unvaccinated, your odds of getting a case of COVID-19 serious enough to require hospitalization are 55 times higher than they are if you get the vaccination."

He sees this as proof of how effective the vaccines are and I'm sure it's mostly that. But I wonder how much of the difference has to do with human behavior. Even after I got my second shot, I really did not change my lifestyle or my mask-wearing in any significant way. I'm pretty comfy staying home, I have no desire to eat in restaurants and there are still no public events I yearn to attend. I still may not have come near anyone who could possibly transmit the disease to me.

But there are folks who, after their final shot, decided they were invulnerable and began going to parties and eating in public and going out a lot more and often not wearing masks. They're vaccinated but doesn't it seem logical that they're a bit more likely to get the disease than I am just because they're more likely to be exposed to it? I'd like to think my odds are even better than 1 in 55.

You probably watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver but just in case you don't, here's the main story from the episode that debuted last night. I think this is one of his better ones…

Another rendition of the "Meet the Flintstones" theme. This one is…well, I'm really not sure what this one is…

I'm too busy this evening to take in tonight's episode of The Story of Late Night on CNN but I'm not in a great hurry. I did break to watch John Oliver and he was excellent…better, I thought, than he's been in a while.

The CNN series is trying to cover too many topics in too little time and I don't think it's humanly possible to really explain some of these things — like why Jay got The Tonight Show or how Dave's reps tried to get him fired or that whole mess with Conan — in six hours, let alone a fragment of one hour out of six. It's safe and snug on my TiVo and I'll get around to watching it when I have the time.

But right now, I'm going to link you to a piece by my longtime pal Paul Harris, who was the first person in mainstream media to break the news that someone named Conan O'Brien would be taking over the 12:35 slot on NBC from David Letterman. The story you are about to read is true.