COF 179 - dfs-archiver/dfs-archive GitHub Wiki

Dropping the ball

Every Sunday morning I fill my pill cases, and this week I paused to marvel at how reliable they are.

They're cheap, all-plastic pill cases, one for my morning pills and one for my evening pills. Nothing but plastic, in a complicated interlocking design that looks like it should fall apart in you sneeze at it, but it never does. Never ever, not even once, have any of the compartments popped open accidentally. Drop them on the floor from a great height? They'll stay sealed.

Once in a great while if you nudge it wrong while a compartment is already open, the lid will snap off, but it's easy to pop it back in and wallah, it's as good as ever, which is pretty dang good.

Other pill cases are cuter, clumsier, more cleverly overdesigned, and lots more expensive, but if you just want a pill case that reliably will not pop open and spill the pills, this is that case.

After my complaint about the largely useless CPR class we sat through at work, Red Cross waited a week, then sent me two emails. The first was a form letter, asking me to name the company, the teacher, the date and place, etc — and while I understand the request, of course I can't provide that information without getting my ass in trouble and probably fired, so I didn't respond.

This doesn't damage my opinion of the American Red Cross, though. What's to damage? They're an overbloated bullshit charity. It's been thirty years, but still, the very first thing that comes to mind when I think of the American Red Cross is that they hired Elizabeth Dole as their president, for $200,000 p/year. With inflation since then, that's about $400,000 in present-day dollars, and that's far more than any reputable charity would pay any employee.

And what were Elizabeth Dole's qualifications? She had zero experience in either health care or charity work, but she was married to Senator Bob Dole (R-Kansas). You're hired!

Does the Red Cross do good work? Undoubtedly, but they also waste a lot of money, so whenever there's a disaster and everyone says, "Donate to the Red Cross," count me as a Big Fat Nope. If I can afford to donate at all, I'll find a more charitable and less politically-motivated alternative.

There used to be an app called AdblockRadio, which stripped commercials out of radio broadcasts and podcasts. I never even heard of the app while it was working, and under legal threat, AdblockRadio was turned off a few years ago.

A friend recommended something called TuneIn, which pretends to do much the same thing, for a price, and I'd be willing to pay a reasonable fee, cheerfully.; Among other things, I'd like to listen to MLB play-by-play without hearing several minutes of mind-numbing commercials every half-inning.

TuneIn is shit, though. It can't even pause, let alone rewind a few seconds to hear something you might have missed, and TuneIn's website only says to expect "fewer" commercials, and some of the on-line reviews say "fewer" might be an exaggeration.

There's the sitch, then: I want commercial radio without commercials, and I'm willing to pay, but there's nobody selling what I want to buy. Any suggestions, beside the obvious "deal with it, dumbshit"?

Speaking of ads during baseball, there's one ad during Mariners games that seems remarkably tone-deaf to me. It's for Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, bragging about the company's great customer service, and repeating the tagline, "Alaska Airlines never drops the ball."

When I first heard it, I almost couldn't believe it. Alaska Airlines is infamous for dropping the ball. Only a few months ago, the company made headlines for a week straight, because they canceled hundreds of flights, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Without going into boring detail, those flights were canceled because the company's dumb upper-level management made very avoidable mistakes.

They dropped the ball, about as far as it could be dropped.

When their commercial says, "Alaska Airlines never drops the ball," it's as if Boeing ran ads claiming the 737-MAX is the safest plane in the skies, or Republicans bragged about their endless adherence to the facts.

And now, the news you need, whether you know it or not…

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America's forgotten mass imprisonment of women "sexually immoral" women

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Horrifying: Google flags parents as child sex abusers after they sent their doctors requested photos

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Interview with Vince Gilligan, the man behind Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul

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California to ban the sale of new gasoline cars… in 2035

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Oklahoma teacher quits after directing kids to banned books

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World's oldest operating roller coaster

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1 million square feet of L.A. roads are being covered with solar-reflective paint

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Officials in Nevada demolish tiny homes built for homeless in Las Vegas

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Dinner in the Sky

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Fortezza Medicea restaurant

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One-word newscast, because it's the same news every time...

climateclimateclimateclimate

cops • [cops](https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/public-safety-crime/2022/08/22/correction-officer-indicted-for-murder-of-teen • cops https://archive.ph/ab4Lp) • copscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscopscops

RepublicansRepublicansRepublicansRepublicansRepublicansRepublicansRepublicans

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The End

Nicholas Evans

Chip Gatz

Zofia Posmysz

8/25/2022
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie...

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