Four!
I can supply an unimpeachable witness that I wrote this before the Florida Panthers eliminated the Leafs on Sunday. I actually wrote it after Game Five and they surprised me. Not the Leafs, Florida surprised me by coming out flat. So the Leafs won Game Six and set millions of hearts aflutter. Ya, not so much.
Gentlemen. Start your golf clubs. Once again, Leafs Nation will wring their hands, blame superstars and generally wet their diapers over our beloved hockey team, exiting the playoffs early. Toronto racked up a huge season and finished in first. They clobbered the weak teams, played .500 hockey against the medium teams and surprised a few Stanley Cup contenders from time to time. They did it with four talented guys that cost 10 million each. That works in the regular season but not in the playoffs. This time of year, you need two talented guys that cost ten million each, four 5 million dollar defensemen and a star goalie. Woll (Toronto's goalie) makes $766,000 per year. Bobrovsky (Florida's goalie) makes 10 million. Toronto has one 5 million dollar defenseman. Florida has three. They are bigger, stronger, faster. Offer Tavares a playing / coaching job for a couple of million per year. Trade Nylander. That gives you 20 million. Go get a star goalie and a couple of star defensemen. Otherwise, next year about the time my seedlings come in … game over. Again.
I always suggest that I would have been a pilot if not for losing the use of my right eye at fourteen. I have no such excuse for not being a geologist. That fascination has lasted my entire life and I still incessantly watch videos, documentaries, anything to do with earthquakes, volcanoes or plate tectonics. When I suggest that there has never been any video like this, I know of whence I speak. This is the most powerful (so far) earthquake of 2025. Had this happened under a city, I do not believe any building could have remained standing? Watch through the fence to the right of this guy's yard just as the gate swings open? Look at the power transmission tower in the background. Eighteen feet of slip in one second! Amazing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfKFK4-HNmk
My Optimum Week
Clean & Protect softener salt was on for $5 again. I used my Insiders Membership and had it delivered to my front door for free. Ten bucks to the young delivery man got it stacked in the basement beside my softener. Net was about half the price for the same service from Culligan! While I was in there creating an Express order, I added the heavy liquids that were harder to haul home in my granny cart. Milk, juices, two kinds of coffee cream. That closed a continuity offer. The Shoppers offer was easy to catch on Saturday morning. No Name butter, eggs and those Donair burgers were all on sale. Spent $32, got $10 back in points. Tip money for my salt mule.
There was nothing special in the Zehr's flyer this week. Please, please please continue to boycott U.S. products if you can? I know it is not in the news but the issue is still crucial for a Canadian win. Trump will meet with Carney, declare a win and move on. If we do not buy U.S. products, Zehr's will stop carrying them. That is what really sends a message. We must divest ourselves of doing business with this maniac at every opportunity. A great offer on T&T products straight from China. Expand your horizons? I gave you rice paper, rice vermicelli and sweet chili sauce. Just buy them and I will give you a quick refresher next week. I am going to try the Spinach Sliced Noodles, the Dim Sum platter, Vegetable Spring Rolls, and the sliced beef chuck rolls (for Pho soup). 3K in points there plus 3500 points on PC chicken wings. Continuity is back at $175 but I don't think I can get there this week. We are pretty stocked. Points on Subway gift cards (Mr. Sub is better) and on McDonalds gift cards. You know you are going to go sometime this summer so just go and get one? Here is your list:
Arrr Billy. Ya ever see a porthole up close?
Oh, I gave you the "service case" Schnieders bologna which is 25% off this week. You ever do this? Get a couple of extra thick slices, 1/4". Drop them in a frying pan with butter and some finely diced onion of the side. When the onion browns and the bologna curls up to form a bowl, scoop in the onion and break an egg inside. Add a little water and put a lid on it. The egg will poach. Serve on toast, ketchup (or salsa) on the side. Five-minute dinner for like ... two bucks a plate?
Another one? Sorry, I am running on a bit this week. Breakfast pizzas. I gave you PC English muffins? Lightly toast two of them and let them cool on the counter. Wait, walk away, they get crispy. Pace salsa (yes, I still have some from before the boycott), bacon or ham or sausage meat, onion, maybe some diced pepper, a little grated cheese over top, then broil in the toaster over. Yummo.
We Are Watching
Hightown on Prime - Strong female character with her own self-destructive behaviors finds a murdered girl on the beach. The local police force puts it down to her lifestyle choices. This does not sit well with our heroine who is a "fish cop". You know what happens next. A pretty great supporting cast makes it all work.
The Cleaner on Britbox - Nope. Stupid sort of slapstick British comedy of which I am not a fan. Watched one episode. One was enough.
Red Rock on Britbox - Again, nope. Not bad mind you, but not up the standards of a Blue Lights or Shetland. We watched a couple. Two stars.
I Am Reading
Dragon's Egg - Robert L. Forward (review coming)
Empire - Orson Scott Card
In The Ocean Of Night - Gregory Benford (got sick of Empire)
... and finally
I have always been a bit of a physics groupie and lately have been devouring old black and white videos of the famous Richard Feynman Lectures on YouTube. Most of it just goes sailing over my noggin, but it is fascinating. If only he were still alive … I have questions. My old microwave brings a cup of coffee to a perfect drinking temperature in two minutes. I push QUICK MINUTE twice, then START. If the cup is not quite full, I need to knock a bit of time off so it doesn’t boil over. Cleaning the inside of microwaves to me is like shovelling snow in April. The lord giveth, the lord can taketh the shit away. When I enter 1-1-0 SECONDS into the controls, (which is ten seconds less than two minutes for those of you keeping score at home), my microwave runs for seventy seconds. Not one hundred and ten seconds, as God and man intended. If Richard were alive, he might tell me where that forty seconds go? My theory is that aliens in a parallel universe are siphoning off that space/time energy and to run their entire four planet empire with our power! A bit of code they slipped into the first microwaves, and now millions upon millions of microwaves around our planet are feeding them green energy. For free! What? Graham Hancock got that Alien Apocalypse bullshit on Netflix? It could be true? Maddie is with me? Aren't you baby?
Mitch & Maddie