Sometimes, I just wanna . . .

When I first moved back into the home I was born in, I worked out plans to remodel and update the 1950's home of my youth. Part of that remodeling was to put in central heat & air to replace the window shakers and oil heater that were already there.

I asked the contractor who he would recommend for a quote on hvac and he directed me to a company who had been in the area for years. The house was free and clear at the time so I was going to take out a mortgage to pay for all the work. Basically a blank check. So I went with the best system the a/c guys had at the time.

I went with Trane. Got a heat pump with the highest SEER rating they had 20+ years ago. The unit chucked along without so much as a hiccup for over 20 years. It basically began to fall apart 2 years ago -- ironically, the guy who serviced it last told me if I had done routine twice yearly maintenance, it would have still been running -- lesson learned.

So I replaced the unit two years ago. Didn't get a Trane because if you talk to pretty much anyone in the business, they poo poo Trane at every chance. Oh, you're just paying for the name they tell you. For the same price, you can get a better system from another company . . . they all use the same parts anyway and so on. I wasn't as flush with cash this time around (lolz!) so I got a Rheem. Cost me about $9,000+ for the change out and since my credit isn't just peachy, it's on a really high interest loan.

yuck

Two weeks ago, I notice it's not cooling like it used to. Running all night non-stop, not bringing down the relative humidity and so on. By Sunday, it was actually making the house hotter by just blowing out room temp air. So I called the repair company, same guys that did the intall. Guess what? My two year old system needed the coil replaced. After only two years! The guy's telling me he sees this all the time! Really!?!

Long story short (I know, too late), I drop $1100 to replace the coil on a two year old system I'm still paying on!! WTF!?

20+ years without a problem from Trane vs. 2 years and a broken down system from what was presented to me as a equal/better unit for less money.

Guess that's just another lesson learned.

*sigh*

---

Elizabeth Olsen was at a premiere for the new Captain America movie coming out next month and dropped some serious underboob on the red carpet:

I don't generally think of Elizabeth (the good looking Olsen) as being busty, but she had a few moments in the last Avengers movie that me wondering where all that cleavage was coming from. Guess it wasn't from the cgi   :-)

Game of Thrones season six is under way

So season six started last Sunday. I missed the first episode's initial showing, getting confused about the start date. I guess it's Banshee that starts next month.

Oh well.

I know everyone's been all fired up about this new season, especially with all the bitching and whining over Jon Snow's death last season. But I'm still a bit miffed that Martin isn't going to finish the books and instead is planning on finishing his grand epic via the television series. Color me old fashioned, but this just feels like a middle finger to the millions of hardy fans that slogged their way through his dense novels.

But we're off now, and since we're out of the fifth novel, we're in uncharted territory. Even though we do have Arya struggling as a blind person, as in the books, I doubt we'll find that she has the warg capabilities like her siblings that were so helpful in the novel.

Jon Snow is still dead and Sir Davos is hold up in Castle Black with a couple of Snow's loyal friends with the rest of the Night's Watch waiting outside to kill them. Will the Red Witch Melisandre be of help to them? Lot's of folks have theorized that she may raise Snow from the dead, but if you remember back to when she and Stannis Baratheon came upon Beric Dondarrion a few seasons ago, she said she did not have the ability to bring the dead back to life as Dondarrion was able to do. Did he teach her? I guess we'll see. And since there are no constraints now on which direction the series goes, I wouldn't be surprised to see Snow brought back simply for the ratings.

And by the way, did we really have to see an eighty year old naked woman on television (which is what Melisandre turned into when she took off the red jewel necklace). Eesh, it was like walking in and seeing my grandmother naked or something. Totally unnecessary cheap exploitation.

Sansa Stark's escape with Theon Greyjoy reunites her with Brienne of Tarth, who turned in a surprisingly inept battle against a few of Castle Bolton's soldiers. She was able to go toe to toe with the kindom's greatest swordsman, Jaime Lannister, but now seemed awkward and slow against some lowly soldiers. Odd. Sansa is no borne leader, so I'm not sure where that thread is headed. I guess they'll head to Castle Black and find Snow dead. And then . . . ?

After murdering the king and his son, I guess we're to assume Dorne will now be run by Ellaria and her Sand Snakes. The Dornish are the perfect 21 century television fantasy country -- the women are powerful, mostly lesbians who also take husbands who themselves sleep with men too. And on and on. Lot of unconstrained sex in the seven kingdoms.

Cersei seems broken by her time in the dungeons of church. And Jaime, who has eschewed leadership and the role of the Lannisters now seems ready to wreak vengeance on Westeros for the deaths of both his and Cersei's children.

Supposedly Daenerys will be locked away in some keep to age and die with the bodies of all the former Kal's of the Dothraki. Will the dragon come to save her? She doesn't seem to be able to control it at will. And yet Drogon seems to appear when she needs him most. This is where I'm wondering about an abandoned thread in the storylines from the novels.

By the end of book five -- A Dance with Dragons, Bran is left sitting in a throne of roots underground, beneath a weirwood tree. Bran is the most powerful warg in the world, able to reach into the mind of any creature or man. In the book, he is able to make the tree itself speak, if only barely, to Sansa.

Can Bran control the dragons? If so, with him on one side, and a trained assassin/face dancer in Arya on the other, perhaps Sansa could ascend the Iron Throne. Or would there be an alliance between the Stark children and Daenerys, another pureblood child of the original Westeros families?

It's all in play now, because there is no hard template to run the storylines from. Martin is an advisor to the series, but other people are actually writing the scripts. So they could be swayed by opinion or public sentiment or prevailing mood of the viewers.

We'll just have to see.

And because I have the pics, here's a few of the series' ladies for your viewing pleasure, some of whom won't be returning as their characters have been killed off:

So now it really is Tax Day

If you were fooled, like most people were, you probably thought that April 15th was tax day. But apparently there's some sort of only in D.C.-type holiday that pushed the final date for filing your taxes to midnight tonight.

Don't feel bad. I didn't know about either until one of my customers told me. And the Post Office didn't bother to warn any of its employees about this either as my boss was hurriedly trying to staff our office for the big crush when he found out on his own about the moved date.

Anyways, if you haven't done your taxes yet (and I'm still finishing mine at this moment, so I'm not looking down my nose at you) you may want to give these guys a look if you're considering an extension:

I've use these guys in the past, but not recently, and I checked today and saw that their price for filing an extension has gone up from $9.95 in 2013 to $29.95 now, though they are offering a 20% discount online. Still a bit more than I think is reasonable, but they were a simple-to-use service in the past and I'm assuming they still are. Also, in the past, they weren't pushing to sell you tax software, so they might be a look for you.

Good luck with your taxes.

One little thing

MTV held it's ever more irrelevant Movie Awards and Pitch Perfect 2 won for best ensemble, I think. Nice that the movie got the award, but you'd think awards given out by a "music" channel might reward a movie about music with an award for the music in it.

just sayin'

But in a quick glance at some of the red carpet images that are out at this moment, I was pleased to see Kelley Jakle, who plays Jessica in the two movies, getting some red carpet time. Because she and Shelley Regner, who plays Ashley, were almost completely ignored in the movie itself. In fact, I think they only have one speaking scene, towards the end when Becca (Anna Kendrick) admits she doesn't know which of them is which. They both yell out "I'm Jessica/I'm Ashley!" simultaneously and then look at each other in confusion.

It's obviously an inside joke, perhaps Elizabeth Banks realized she had ignored them and decided to have some fun with it. Including another moment when Becca asks Ashley her plans for after college and before she can speak, Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) interrupts to tell her plans and the camera goes back to Ashley who shrugs in resignation.

Not sure why those two got the short straw in the movie -- they don't even appear in the bus coming back from one performance, but we could have gotten by with a few less moments of Rebel Wilson in the musical sequences to accommodate the other members of the "ensemble"

I said in another post that the original is a guilty pleasure of mine. I didn't find the sequel to be nearly as good. And the brushing aside of some of the characters was only part of what I didn't like.

Quadruple bogie dooms Spieth at the Masters

I mean, congrats to Danny Willett and all for winning the 2016 Masters, but what a kick in the crotch for Spieth to lose that way.

If you weren't following it, Jordan Spieth, last year's Champion, had led 7 consecutive rounds at the Masters, something completely unheard of. He was cruising with a five shot lead at the corner when his world fell apart.

Bogies at 10 and 11 narrowed cut his lead down a bit but he still had enough lead and had rebounded from bad holes previously in the four days. But he hit a wretched shot at the par 3 12th that came up way short, hit the bank and rolled into the creek in front of the green. Instead of going to the drop zone, Spieth decided to drop in the fairway in line with where his ball had crossed the hazard and replay.

The chunk he hit there reminded me of that scene in Caddyshack where the huge clump of sod goes flying after Chevy Chase's character goes to pieces. CBS had a camera guy close behind him and they got a slo-mo shot of his swing.   ugh   He hit so far behind that ball it barely carried 50 yards and plunked into the center of the creek.

His subsequent shot flew way over the green and into a bunker and that was pretty much it for the likeable 22 year old.

I felt bad watching him play that last hole, knowing he had lost what was basically a gimme tournament. You could see the life sucked out of him, and I'm pretty sure at one point he was crying a bit. None of the announcers mentioned it, but I was thinking at the time 22 years old . . . he's still only a kid, you know? You just want to put your arms around him and tell him it's gonna be okay.

brutal

I didn't watch the entire jacket scene in Butler's Cabin afterward. Spieth still looked on the verge of tears. I hope he held it together for the ceremony.

Other than that, I was happy Bryson DeChambeau got low amateur though it wasn't much of a challenge. He was in the final pairing with Spieth on Friday but had one of the ugliest tee shots ever on the 18th that knocked him out of contention.

DeChambeau, a physics major in college, is using an old trick to be more consistant with his irons. All his irons are at 6-iron shaft length, and he uses non-standard lofts and thicker grips to get the usual length off his unique clubs.

Kinda neat, I think.

He's the reigning U.S Amatuer and Collegiate Champion, something guys like Tiger and Phil were before turning pro, so the kid's no slouch. Hopefully he'll do well in the pros (he's turning pro after the Masters).

So, congrats again to Willett and I hope Spieth can shake this brutal loss off. He seems like a nice kid. And the sport needs a bunch of young turks to move it forward.

So Baseball season is finally underway

We finally got Baseball going, not sure why the off-season seems so long, it's the actual season that should seem to drag on forever. 162 games! eesh

Anyway, Boston's off to a decent start record-wise. They're 3-1 and looking leaps and bounds better than the last two years. Hitting and run production is back where us long time fans like to see it. I think they've scored 6 or more runs in every game so far. Problem is they've needed all those runs.

David Price was dominant on opening day, pitching like the ace he is and Boston hoped he would be. But from there, it's been a rollercoaster ride. Clay Buccholz nearly lost his first start after a disastrous inning in what has become too often for him -- a mixed bag start. Joe Kelly stunk the place up getting yanked after three innings in a game that Boston won because of the aforementioned run production and what looks to be a lights-out bullpen. More on that in a bit. Rick Porcello, the guy I was most worried about in the rotation actually had a decent start in yesterday's win. After a crappy spring, he looked completely different Saturday.

Knuckleballer Steven Wright is on the mound today against Toronto looking to give Boston their first sweep of the season. I hope he does well. Always have a soft spot in my heart for guys that throw the knuckler.

In the off-season, the addition of Craig Kimbrel looked to finally give Boston the reliable, dominant closer they haven't had since Papelbon left years ago. Farrell got clever and devised a line-up out of the pen that would have Junichi Tazawa pitch the seventh inning, former closer Koji Uehara in the eighth, and Kimbrel in the ninth. It looked good on paper, as these things usually do, but it remained to be seen how it would work out in actual games. Well so far, they've been, as I said above -- lights out. Assuming everyone stays healthy, always a risk in the marathon season, this bullpen could be the key to Boston's return to the playoffs after two disappointing seasons.

Still early, but hope springs eternal for us Sox fans.

---

Down here locally, the Rays have started the season 2-3. They won one game on that bogus new rule about sliding into second base that's going to cause major headaches this season for MLB in my opinion. So they're a bisquit away from a 1-4 start.

Team ace Chris Archer has had a rocky start. He's 0-2 with an ERA over 7 at the moment. Lot's of strikeouts, but he got hammered opening day before settling down and his last start saw him give up 4 home runs (I think). He's an emotional kid, but he's got to get on track because this team is counting on him big time.

Stadium issues still hang over this team for reasons that defy comprehension. And I'm not sold on mediocre former catcher Kevin Cash as a manager, but we've had our fill of crappy teams down here. I'd like to see the Rays do well, even if I not sure they'll even be here in another year or so.

The kids seem to be growing up

Ariel Winter has been banging around television and movies for over 10 years. Doing voice overs and bit parts, she's in the beginning of maybe a career but it's hard to say without any solid acting in her repertoire. What kept her in the public eye mostly was that as a baby fat teenager, an alarming amount of that baby fat went to her bosom, sending the hormonal blogger types into a frenzied 18th birthday calendar watch that has become all to frequent nowadays.

Last year, Winter underwent breast reduction surgery to reduce her bosom from what I believe they said was EE to a more manageable D. She spent most of the time afterwards staying with the modest attire she adopted as an awkward teen. Well, either her publicist gave her the nudge or she noticed after a few Twitter posts, that exploiting her new containable curves would up her Q score (if they still use that . . . I'm so old), Ariel's been seen out a lot more often in bathing suits and low cut dresses and such and thus you see her popping up on celeb blogs regularly now. I guess that qualifies as mission accomplished:

---

I first came across Hailee Steinfeld in the movie adaptation of Ender's Game. She showed some acting chops in a difficult role that required her to play an older than her chronological age child thrust into warfare role. As I said, she did a good job in that, and I was struck by her non-traditional looks -- dark, dark features with amazing eyebrows. More recently she was in the sort-of-disappointing sequel to Pitch Perfect (the original is a guilty pleasure of mine) where her character was fairly unused and I was surprised by the weakness of her voice, which I sort of remember them focusing on as a positive in the promotion for the film.

Like Ariel above, Hailee is 19 now and continuing to branch out and is probably looking for more grown up roles. I was surprised by her recent photoshoot for Interview where the look in the images has more of a naughty underage look to them. Maybe I'm misreading them. I like her dramatic looks though, and the last pic is something she put on Twitter that looks much more mature than the professional stuff put out in the magazine. She may want to push for that in future photoshoots, imho:

---

Chloe Grace Moretz is probably the elder statesman of this lot, bursting into the public's consciousness with her portrayal, at age 13, of the profane killer/superhero Hit Girl in the first Kick Ass movie. Moretz barely let things simmer down before she jumped into one movie role after another, showing a sense of fearlessness and solid acting ability in role choices rarely seen in the industry. She got a bit more attention recently by chiding Kim Kardashian for yet another nude selfie posted online saying that Kardashian might want to remember she's a mom now and could be using her celebrity for something more worthy than shameless self promotion via relentless public nudity.

Silly girl. Taking on the internet cash cow that is a Kardashian set Moretz up for plenty of snark from the gay celeb blogger circuit. And when Moretz, now 18, and starring in a sequel to Neighbors, where she plays a party-hardy college freshman, did a themed photoshoot for Complex that barely moves the needle on sexy or exploitive, those bloggers didn't hesitate to call her a hypocrite. Like Trump supporters, nuance and facts have little effect on the celeb blogger -- marketing a movie with mildly saucy imagery is apparently the same as endless nude fame-whoring in their tiny minds:

Maitland Ward and the art of subtlety

As in: I think she's eschewing it

After endless peek-a-boo teases in her Instagram and Twitter accounts, my favorite redhead seems to have let the pretenses slip away with her wardrobe and is just showing off her naughty bits on a regular basis:

No complaints here exactly, though I find the current generation's exclusive enjoyment of low resolution photography to be disappointing. If you're as old as I am, you can appreciate how far we've come in the area of photography. Seems we're slipping backward a bit. Pity.

There's something happening here

What it is ain't exactly clear.

Haven't been posting much because the schedule the last few weeks at work has been "heck" to say the least. More on that later.

I've been trying to put this post together for a while now. I believe that conservatism, and/or the Republican party could be moving towards some sort of reformation after this election cycle. I saw last night there was an article about reformation at National Review's website, but the article is more of a critique of a E.J. Dionne piece for the Times or some such.

But if you're a bit more than a casual observer of conservative politics, then I don't think you can miss what's been going on since we began this election cycle.

We've seen that our party has a significant portion, I'm trending back to my original position of 25-30%, made up of bumper-sticker mentality voters -- folks that vote Republican because that's what they do and anyone with the simplistic catchy slogan or the most promotion from conservative media will get their vote.

We've seen our media itself outed for their own shameless bias. It is sad when FOX News has to rely on a comedian and a former MTV VJ to point out their in-house bias. Front line Trump cheerleader Eric Bolling teased yet another of his Trump infomercials as fill-in host for O'Reilly Friday night, but quickly name checked the #NeverTrump crowd when he said he tried to get candidates Cruz and Kasich on as well and settled for their surrogates to rebut whatever nonsense (my word) Trump uttered in his interview.

A while back, Bernie Goldberg pointed out how some FOX News hosts were beyond deferential to Trump in their reporting, but it turns out that other outlets, like Breitbart and Drudge have been just as guilty of pro-Trump bias. And after a story broke about a former Cruz campaign member suggesting a boycott of those organizations and a number of FOX personalities, there's been some noticeable changes in these agencies.

There have been those who have quit Breitbart altogether such as Ben Shapiro, who was mentored in the new media by Andrew Breitbart himself. Also a perusal of the various Bigs shows a distinct lack of all pro-Trump, all the time stories. I myself wondered whether, after eight years of John Nolte suggesting that Jon Stewart should wear a clown nose on air and called him part of Obama's palace guard for always defending the President, Stewart would point out Nolte's own fawning submissive fealty to Trump. But I haven't seen anything like that. Pity. Opportunity missed I think.

Famed broadcaster and supposed voice of conservatism Rush Limbaugh has been shown to be the cowardly money grubber he really is. The former sportscaster turned political opiner is courageous when liberals attack him because he knows he will have every Republican and conservative behind him 100%, but stand up to the 25-30% of Trump supporters when they're going to destroy the party? Limbaugh's in full cower, defiantly defending his position not to have a position supposedly in order to protect the eventual nominee. What horsesh*t! And now, even his own radio listeners are calling him on this.

When the #NeverTrump movement began, and I'm not sure it really is a movement per se, I'm just not sure how to quantify it, most of the mainstream conservative press dismissed it as a flash in the pan. But those who believe deeply in conservative principles and have a genuine belief in saving this country and this political party haven't been dissuaded one bit. And in fact, their (our) ranks have grown. And the notion of pushing into inconsequence those who have sold out our ideology in the name of fame and instant gratification -- Palin, Christie, Coulter, various FOX anchors and politicians, isn't being dismissed as crazy talk now. And those being outed as traitors to conservatism are taking note.

Ann Coulter was on record recently pointing out that she now notices that Trump is a problematic candidate. My guess is that unless her next book is a mea culpa on how she sold out conservatism and bought into the Trump mirage (not the casino, but his fake candidacy), it won't sell at all.

Former RNC chair Michael Steele lost his job after the disastrous 2012 election where the candidates were played like fools by the media, liberal and conservative both. Steele, like former Chairman of the Joint Chief Colin Powell, turned his back on the Republican party that gave him power and position and became a mouthpiece for liberal outlets like MSNBC where he finds racism in every utterance of anyone with an R as their political affiliation. Current chair Reince Preibus is headed the same way. His mealy-mouthed handling of the Trump fiasco may doom Republicans to yet another defeat in a gimme election, and the consequences for the country are dire indeed.

Trump was in town for a meeting with Preibus last week, and I guarantee you, Reince didn't have the spine to back Trump down one bit. Trump doesn't care if he wins or loses this election, that's what gives him the power to say and do whatever he wants. A report from his former communications director that came out last week showed that he never intended to win this election. He goal was only to come in second. That way he could say that he could have been President if he actually wanted the job, but he didn't spend any money, and the system was rigged against him, yada, yada . . .

If Trump becomes the eventual nominee, Republicans will definitely lose this election to whomever the Dems put out there. Should Cruz emerge from a contested convention, win or lose the eventual election, there will be consequences within the party. The old guard will be thrown out. Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and all the old guys who continue to opine on television, promoting the status quo and reaching to defend Trump at any cost to common sense and reason, will and should be gone like Dick Morris before them. I believe there will and should be some house cleaning at FOX and various new media outlets to either shame into confession or simply remove those who have sold out their principles in the name of ratings and the dollars/fame that accompanies them.

Years ago, the Post Office took an arrogant and nearly fatal position of declaring they were the sole source for mail delivery in this country. "Go ahead, look elsewhere, who are you going to get to deliver your mail?" they declared, arms folded defiantly across their chests. Well, the country found alternative information delivery systems and the PO almost died. Conservative media is no different. New outlets for legitimate conservative thought and news can spring up overnight and with social media to promote it, current news sources can be pushed aside quickly.

The political arena is no different. People like to cite the Buckley Rule after noted conservative thinker and author William F. Buckley -- that being conservatives should pick the most electable conservative candidate available for every election. Well, I obviously didn't know Buckley personally, but I doubt he meant picking someone so diametrically opposed to conservative principles that said candidate would at the least turn their back on the party -- I'm looking at you Scott Brown (no surprise he's a Trump mouthpiece) -- and at worst destroy the party for generations to come.

#NeverTrump, strident conservative purists, libertarians . . . all are united against the direction the weak-spined party leaders are taking the Republican party and brand. There's a lot at stake in this election. And regardless of the final outcome, I don't think the Republican party will emerge the same as it went in.

And perhaps it shouldn't.

Jessica Simpson in a bikini = sadly not hi-res

Back in the day, my ex used to call her Chestica which seems more appropriate now:

Simpson's on vacation (from what?!) in Cabo and is breaking out the daisy dukes and two sizes too small bikini for the paps:

When she broke into the business, Simpson had the looks and the ability to actually sing. But she made these odd facial expressions when she sang live that were off-putting to say the least. So you had Britney who couldn't sing but looked naughty schoolgirl hot anyway, Simpson who could actually sing but no one wanted to watch her, and Christina who could really sing and dance but couldn't get out from under Britney mania. What a weird time.