What A Maroon
I really felt like that last week about ten seconds after I hit the "publish" button on my Ghost site. They say if you want to be a writer, write ... all the time. So I do. This blog, Letters to the Editor, an outline for a book, I'm a steady contributor to "Seen / Caught In Guelph" on Facebook. So I am always creating content for some future something as ideas come to me. I keep them all in draft form and simply call them by the date they might get used. August 21, August 28, September 4, etc. Lately, SWMBO has found two spelling mistakes on these osts. (See how I did that?) It's not like I don't have two AI editors watching every move I make but, you know how it goes. Occasionally (or routinely in my case), you spell something wrong and the planets align. The word you spelled wrong is actually a proper word in its wrongness. (My AI freaked out over that sentence!) The bigger sin is when your editor underlines your stupidity and you compound the error by ignoring it. Last week, I went back and proofread my text for errors ... twice. "Not this week!", I convinced myself. And so I smashed the big old green publish button ... without giving my post the name i had planned for it. So if you were underwhelmed by my creativity last week when I called my post ... August 21, Bugs says it all for us. BTW, that post was about Jim Lovell's fourth trip into space on Apollo 13. It was supposed to be called: Fourth Time Unlucky.
The Saga Continues
This post is for IFK. Last week, Dougie Baby announced the closure of another 11 Beer Store locations. Let's chart this MJ moonwalk and make some predictions, shall we? First, some history. Once upon a time, Brewers Retail locations were owned by Ontario breweries. I would go with my dad. He would fill out a little chart from a pad with a golf pencil. 24-105 was the secret code. He would hand it to a man, in shirt and tie. He would lean down and intone in his best boxing announcer voice; Mooolson BLUE. The magical elixir would come flying out of a little door on rollers. Fast forward to 2014. Foreign interests have bought all the major Canadian breweries. Ownership of four hundred and seven Brewers Retail locations came with those acquisitions. I did not know that? Yup, Anheuser-Busch, Molson-Coors and Sapporo, mostly. They own the Beer Stores? In 2015, the Tories allowed grocery stores to sell beer. Against all dire prognostications, western civilization does not fall, but I can't think those foreign brewery owners were too happy? Congratulations. You get to collect our empties! Now, convenience stores are also selling beer, and we, the fine people of Ontario, are paying The Beer Store consortium a quarter of a billion dollars annually to keep just 300 locations open until 2031. So, do the math. 407 stores, they have agreed to keep 300 open. Over a hundred have been or soon will close. Remember when everyone applauded the removal of vehicle license stickers but no one asked where that billion in revenue would come from? This will be another bait and switch. My guess? The environmental home run we created from our beer industry recycling process will go away. They will pat us on the head and expound on the virtues of recycling.
My Optimum Week
We have a slew of new subscribers this week. Next week, I will do a bit of retro programming on my Optimum journey and the principles and processes we use to minimize our grocery spend and generate huge Optimum point totals. I say next week because this week, we need to make hay while the sun shines. You have heard me repeatedly suggest, "go easy this week, don't go crazy, the flyer/offers are pretty mundane, that sort of thing?" This is because one of our basic premises is that most of what we purchase, is not really needed at this particular moment. As a general statement, no non-perishables, no specific cuts of meat, no canned goods, no specific fruits and vegetables should be on the your "Fridge List". Your fridge list is the things you cannot live without until next week. Milk, eggs, lunch supplies, you have no toilet paper. With planning this should probably not happen, but it does. It happens to all of us. Fill your boots. What I try to suggest each Thursday is this is the week to buy (eg.) chicken legs, cantaloupe, frozen fish and butter because this is the week that Zehr's is incentivizing those items either with sale pricing or extra points. Hopefully both. So, this is the week to go wild. Spend $500, spend $700. Between a fantastic flyer, the MoreDays Event and your Offers, there is lots to love about shopping this week. The timing is perfect if you want to do some fall preserves, put in school supplies, or simply grab a huge stockpile of points for the cold winter months. Here is your gigantic list:
What I'm Reading
Jack McDevitt
James Blish
Woke Up - Everyone know that it was just a bizarre alignment of the planets that we didn't not get a populist conservative government last time around. You could almost feel sorry for Pee Pee, if he was not such a Noob. After the fudge south of the border, the Dems are determined to course correct before the mid-terms. No more woke identity politics. No more elitist drivel on issues that killed them in the last election, namely trans athletes and immigration. So the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting convened in Minnesota last week. Opening ceremonies begin with a prayer, then the most pressing first order of business. A gay trans representative from the Saginaw Ojibwe Nation delivers their land acknowledgment ceremony. She outlines how the dems recognize the Dakota people. How the land they are standing on was not claimed or traded, it’s part of a history of broken treaties and promises. How they all live within a system built to suppress indigenous peoples’ cultural and spiritual history. Sigh. Trump doesn't need to cook the books in Texas to win the mid-terms. I hope Mark is paying attention.
We Are Watching
The Morning Show (Season Two) - I said that I could watch Jennifer Aniston read the phonebook, and the show suited her comic chops as it was somewhat fluffy? Did they ever step up their game as we got into Season 2? It is a revelation. Mimi Leder might be the best director in the world right now. Margulies, Anniston, Witherspoon, Crudup, and I kid you not, Steve Carell give simply amazing acting performances. Go back and watch this show!
The Americans (Season Two) - Still cooking.
Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity on Prime - Sometimes when deep into the difficult portion of a knitting project, SWMBO likes herself some high adventure space movies. What I do (just as I head off for a nap) is hit play on this little gem and retire quickly to my reading area. I know she appreciates my thoughtfulness. I can hear her calling me from the other room. I have only watched snippets but there does seem to be some sort of anti-gravity device being used throughout.
... and finally
My friend (CO) once asked why I'd drive across town to get my tires changed instead of the nearby tire shop. Well, they screwed me over ... twice. Not the work itself, but the front-end service types. Crummy "you are lucky we are doing this for you" attitude and failed timelines ... that sort of thing. They are literally 400 steps from my front door. There is a general cleanup underway in their parking lot, which is used to store every type of junk imaginable. I believe their days are numbered. The Firestone at Eramosa and Stevenson. You heard it here first.
Mitch & Maddie