Need context? Start here: Mortified Lawyer Appears in Court as a Cat, Blames Zoom Filter.
Here’s some context, because readers might not get the reference a few years from now:
- New York Times: Gorilla Glue as Hair Spray? ‘Bad, Bad, Bad Idea’
- New York Times: ‘A Big Relief’ for Woman Finally Free of Gorilla Glue in Her Hair
- NBC News: After surgery, Louisiana woman’s hair is free of Gorilla Glue
Thankfully, with the help of some kindly doctors, she got the stuff out. Which is good, because Gorilla Glue and Gorilla Tape are my go-tos for when I want to make sure things stay stuck together.
My hunch that Trader Joe’s Tampa would be a ghost town last night during Super Bowl LV’s half-time paid off. It was the perfect time to make a quick but important grocery run, as you can see from the photo I took while at the cashier (see above).
This run was important because there are better-than-even odds that we’ll experience a COVID-19 spike, thanks to Super Bowl superspreader gatherings like the one in the picture below, taken in Ybor City on Saturday night…
This is officially the wildest I’ve ever seen Ybor. EVER. 1:40am. pic.twitter.com/7LTC9NvEfE
— Luis Santana (@LuisSantana) February 7, 2021
…and covered in the following articles:
- Washington Post — Thousands of maskless Tampa fans flooded the streets, celebrating the Super Bowl win while risking a superspreader event
- New York Times — In Tampa, Super Bowl Celebrations Bring Superspreader Concerns
- WFTS Tampa Bay — Tampa crowds, dance parties spark superspreader concerns over Super Bowl weekend
- Medscape — Superspreader Sunday: The Super Bowl With COVID Variants Afoot
My advice: Be particularly careful over the next couple of weeks, because a lot of people were careless over the past couple of days.
The former president, on the other hand, spent an unprecedented amount of time on this links, as shown on TrumpGolfCount.com:
Not only has Biden failed to schedule any tee time, but his schedule is notable for a serious lack of “executive time”, which took up to 60% of the former president’s day:
- The Guardian — ‘Executive time’: how, exactly, does Trump spend 60% of his day?
- Axios — Scoop: Insider leaks Trump’s “Executive Time”-filled private schedules
- CNN — What Trump does during his ‘executive time’
- Politico — 9 hours of ‘Executive Time’: Trump’s unstructured days define his presidency
- NBC News — Nearly 60 percent of Trump’s schedule is ‘Executive Time,’ report says
(Yes, I know that dealer can’t hit you when you get 21.)
Recommended reading
- Cracked Market — What the Reddit “millionaires” should be doing now
- Washington Post — As GameStop stock crumbles, newbie traders reckon with heavy losses
- CNBC — Reddit user who helped inspire GameStop mania says he lost $13 million on Tuesday, but is still holding
- CBS News — GameStop shares fall more than 40% as prominent booster draws inquiry
- CNBC — GameStop mania may not have been the retail trader rebellion it was perceived to be, data shows
- Motley Fool — Will the GameStop-AMC Bloodbath Continue?
It was a great morning for a bike ride in Tampa, what with temperatures of 24°C/75°F and plenty of sunshine. Here’s what I saw as I biked past the our yard and got today’s workout.
Categories
It’s Burns Night!
Tonight — the evening of January 25th — is Burns Night, a celebration of the life and works of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. While I have no traceable Scots heritage in my family (it’s Irish, thankyeverramuch), Anitra does, and I’m never going to turn down a celebration where scotch whisky is involved.
You probably know at least one of Burns’ works, whether you realize it or not. He’s behind such classics as:
- Auld Lang Syne, which was originally meant to be sung at Hogmanay, the last day of the year, and eventually became the unofficial song of New Year’s.
- (My Love is Like) A Red Red Rose, one of the standards of romantic poetry.
- Tam O’Shanter, the poem from which the cap gets it name.
- To a Mouse, an actual poem written after Burns was ploughing his field and unintentionally destroyed a mouse nest, which the mice would have needed to survive the winter. This poem contains the line “The best-laid schemes of mice and men /
Go oft awry,” which became the figure of speech we know today. - Address to a Haggis, because if a food ever deserved a poem, it’s that most ugly-delicious of Scots dishes:
Even though we’re still in the middle of a plague and can’t host a Burns Supper tonight, we’ll still celebrate: I’ve got a lamb loin roasting in the turbo broiler…
…and I have some scotch handy. As for poetry — well, I have to write some code tonight, and when done well, code is poetry: Rich, expressive, and saying so much with an economy of language.
Have a great Burns Night, everyone!