Watery, itchy eyes; sinus drainage; sneezing/coughing. I either have the worst allergies of my life, or I have a cold. If I'm having bad allergies, how did they get this bad? Is it time for me to consider moving to the desert? If I have a cold, "Friend" Ken gave it to me. I told him two weeks ago when he was coughing in my car that if he got me sick I was going to be very angry at him, and I am a man of my word. Better hope it's allergies, Ken.

UPDATE: Good news! Ken has kindly apologized for any role he may have played in my illness. Better news! After adding parosmia to my list of symptoms, I gave myself an OTC COVID test, and it came out negative. So probably just run-of-the-mill sinusitis, then. Great. I feel better already.

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Look, I love Benson Boone's "Mystical Magical" as much as the next guy, but after hearing it in every commercial break since ESPN's coverage of the U.S. Open used it for intro and outro bumpers in August through this week's NFL coverage, maybe there is such a thing as overexposure.

I'm not alone in thinking that. There is, Google assure me, a pretty sizable backlash to the rapid, overt commercialization of Mr. Boone's music. Selling out is fine in America; greed, not so much. The singer and his team are aware of this, and his music video for "Mr. Electric Blue" makes a good-natured joke of it by removing any hint of the hypocrisy that pollutes the modern zeitgeist. (Yes, despite being an old fogey who doesn't really care for music, I do watch music videos on YouTube as the Internet Gods intended. The old-school media's widely reported recent death of Music Television has been greatly exaggerated; music videos are not dead, linear television is.)

It's kind of a funny thing to say that you could hear any piece of music "too much." Despite the tendency of human beings (at least American human being) to resent the familiar, there are a bunch of songs I just never get tired of hearing. Back in the day when I was a waiter at Chili's, the chain played tapes of licensed music over and over until the entire wait staff would gather around the back office cassette player and argue over which tapes management was NOT allowed to play again that day. (No tapes were ever destroyed, but some were occasionally hidden. I hope they still haven't been found.) Despite the repetition, there was one song on those tapes that I could never get sick of. I bet you'd never guess that it was "Silly Love Songs" by Wings. Live and let die, indeed.

Several Paul McCartney songs, both with and without co-writer John Lennon, are high on my list of endless listening, which probably demonstrates that I have a high tolerance for what McCartney is interested in writing: the poppiest of pop music. Fizzy, friendly, sugary pop music. Overproduced sounds that have a good beat and you can dance to, lyrics that really shouldn't be thought about too hard. That's my jam. Music crafted to please the widest possible music-illiterate crowd, "Moonbeam ice cream" sort of stuff, like Dua Lipa, Katie Perry, Madonna, Michael Jackson, or, say, Olivia Newton John.

And please crowds they do. Why else would Madison Avenue adapt catchy tunes for advertising in Apple product ads or the memorable '90s Philips campaign that used the Beatles "Getting Better" (somehow always fading out just before the "it can't get no worse" refrain) or this year's sanitized-for-Christmas "Greased Lightnin'" (with zero creaming girls) or Target's 2025 commercials of their animated Get-Ready Yeti dancing to "Mystical Magical."

Okay, fine. I'm not sick of moonbeam ice cream just yet. 'Cause once you know, once you know...

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I'm pretty sure that tonight's game matching #10 Texas against #5 Georgia was the last game I'm going to see in Sanford Stadium as a season ticket holder.

To ensure we made it this time (after the traffic fiasco that prevented us from seeing Mississippi last month), Mom and I left the house four-and-a-half hours early. For many years, we parked at Clarke Central High School, where parking fees helped fund extracurricular activities, but as the University has driven tailgating farther and farther from expensive campus lots, the high school now fills up extra early. So we parked at the dentist office across the street instead. Mom wanted to walk the old route through the student center into the stadium, which ultimately only served as a reminder that the University has built new barriers to block it. Oh well. We had plenty of time, and were still in our seats 90 minutes before kickoff, even after I was misled by some context clues (temporary stadium seats that looked like the old seat backs replaced earlier this year) and mistakenly accused someone else of being in our seats. Poor Mom. She's usually in bed by 9, but we didn't get home again until after 2AM. (Don't worry about Audrey: the dogsitter got her fed and to bed on time.)

As it happens, the guy I wrongly asked to move has been attending UGA games for decades, even after moving from Covington, GA, to Florida, but he said after a few decades, he canceled his season tickets and now instead spends that money and more buying tickets on the secondary market just for the games he wants to attend (in Athens and in other locations for other teams). It's a sound plan, one I've been contemplating a lot recently in this modern era of pay-for-play college football. Once upon a time, the university told me my donations bought books and meals. Now, my money finances base salaries, freeing big-donor money to outbid other colleges for the best kickers in the transfer portal. Somehow, I don't find that as satisfying.

Which is not to say that I don't think the players should be paid. Since they are the product, they should get the lion's share of whatever the football program takes in. But it's also fair for me to judge whether I think I'm getting my value's worth from my season tickets. Given that I only made it to two games this year (UGA closes its home schedule next week against 1-9 Charlotte at 12:45 PM, and I am definitely not going), I think the math is pretty clear.

As it happens, when I wasn't stuck in my own head thinking about the future, I did notice there was also a football game played in Athens. It was okay, but it certainly did not live up to the hype. (Though I'm probably spoiled by the two spectacular wins UGA put on Texas last season.) Georgia was pretty obviously the better team for most of this game, even if their offensive coordinator was calling predictable plays that made Texas's defensive line look amazing for about half the game. But the imprecision of the Longhorn's youthful quarterback (some kid named Arch Manning) ultimately doomed them. You'll read in the tabloids about fourth down conversions and an onside kick that blew the game open late, but Georgia had 14 points by halftime, more than enough to win what would become a 35-10 blowout. Good Dogs.

I hope that some other team will be nice and give Georgia a chance to play in the SEC title game. If that happens, I'll happily watch that game with my dogs beside me on the couch.

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FYI: My power is out. Again.

There was thunder and lightning for six continuous hours overnight Sunday and several more hours of lightning last night. I expected power outages from those, but no. Today's multi-hour outage comes in the middle of the afternoon on a comparatively calmer rainstorm, electrically speaking. That's what I get for letting my guard down.

I live in a metro Atlanta county, and the power to my neighborhood keeps going out, multiple times a year. And it feels like the outages are getting longer. This one started at about 4PM. Initial estimate was that it would be restored by 6. Update just came in that revised the target to 7:30.* That's not surprising; a few weeks ago, the original four hour estimated job ended up taking thirteen.

For the last few months, all we've heard from local government and Georgia Power is how eager they are to invite new development, especially power-hungry data centers. Why in the world should I be supportive of that when they can't even keep the lights on in well-established neighborhoods?

So what do I do now? I was planning on going to the grocery store, but there doesn't seem much point in buying ice cream sandwiches just to bring them home to melt. I guess I'll do what I always do in these increasingly common situations: I'll wait for the power to come back on. And then I'll hustle to get what I need done before it goes out again.

*At 7:45, I got word that the newly estimated time of recovery was now 10:45PM. So I have started the gasoline generator for the refrigerator and made myself a hamburger on the propane grill. I'm getting quite good at camping at home.

At 8:23PM, the power came back on. The first thing my phone tells me after the router comes back online is that another round of thundershowers is due about midnight. I think I'll leave gas in the generator; that's the best way to be sure I won't need it.

Update 05/28: Per WSB TV, "The NWS confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down in Coweta County on Tuesday afternoon." I had no idea, but as it happens, the start of that tornado track is very close to where the Georgia Power trucks spent several hours working to restore power yesterday evening. So i guess I should go easier on them; a surprise tornado is definitely harder to defend against than a thunderstorm. (That's the second tornado to hit my neighborhood since 2020. Maybe it's time to consider moving somewhere safer, like the side of a dormant volcano.)

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On April 1, the high was 77°. On April 2 and 3, the high was 84°. On April 4 and 5, the high was 85°. (Atlanta broke a 54-year record high.) They say it'll be cooler next week, but I decided I'd seen enough of my poodles lying around panting, so they got their first clipper cut of the earlier-than-expected summer season yesterday.

I love cutting on my living topiaries. It's very relaxing for me, and the boys don't complain too much. Louis mostly likes the attention, but Henry will make himself scarce if he sees me moving towards the scissors storage, so I have to be sneaky!

I always leave the whiskers a little longer around Henry's muzzle, but as you can see, I generally trim Louis completely. I think this is the last time I'll be doing that. Sure, he's cute with short hair, but when fuzzy, he looks a more like a teddy bear, which really suits his personality better.

Meanwhile, Henry's just ready for a break in the pollen and heat.

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'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet.

Shakespeare wrote those lines in 1597,^[1] by which time Greenland had been called "Greenland" for 611 years,^[2] which I mention only to give perspective to the following bill introduced this week into the United States Congress,^[3] itself founded 173 years after Shakespeare died.

---

119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1161

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 10, 2025

Mr. [Earl L. "Buddy"] Carter of Georgia introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To authorize the President to enter into negotiations to acquire Greenland and to rename Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Red, White, and Blueland Act of 2025”.

SEC. 2. Purchase or other acquisition of Greenland.

The President is authorized to enter into negotiations with the Government of Denmark to purchase or otherwise acquire Greenland.

SEC. 3. Renaming of Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(a) Renaming.—Greenland shall be known as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(b) References.—Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to Greenland shall be deemed to be a reference to “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(c) Implementation.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Chairman of the Board on Geographic Names, shall oversee the implementation of the renaming described in subsection (a) with respect to each Federal document and map.

(2) REQUIREMENT.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the head of each Federal agency shall update each document and map of the Federal agency in accordance with the renaming described in subsection (a).

---

I wish I could say that this bill is the dumbest thing we will see in 2025, but we all know better.^[4]

We are now living in a theater of the absurd. It's only a matter of time before someone actually makes their horse a senator.

Here's drink. I drink to thee.

^[1] Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, lines 38-44. (You know, the balcony scene.)

^[2] "Grœnland" is the name given by tenth century Norse colonizers, but there is no record of what the previous inhabitants called it, and the current "natives" are actually newer settlers than the Vikings. At what point does the colonizer become the native? As an American who can trace my ancestry back to the American Revolution, I can only say that I don't know.

^[3] Source: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1161/text

^[4] I mean, for one thing, a man convicted of 34 state felonies, found guilty of sexual abuse and defamation, and charged with fomenting rebellion against the federal government and stealing classified documents from the federal government has been sworn-in as president, and in just the past six weeks we've witnessed, in no particular order, the United States under his direction withdrawing from the World Health Organization; sanctioning the International Criminal Court; starting trade wars with Canada, Mexico, and Columbia; threatening Panama, Greenland, and Denmark; buying-out the contracts of an estimated 75,000 government employees without the funding to do so; ending the corruption prosecution of the mayor of New York City accused of taking bribes from Turkey; ordering the Army Corp of Engineers to fight future fires in Los Angeles by releasing water from California dams into streams that do not reach Los Angeles; blaming an airliner crash in Washington DC on handicapped people; re-renaming Mount McKinley and Fort Bragg; firing 17 Inspectors General in the Executive branch; pledging to permanently displace all Palestinians so that Gaza can be turned into "the Riviera of the Middle East"; banning Constitutionally-granted birthright citizenship; eradicating "anti-Christian bias in government" before demanding an apology from a bishop for suggesting the president show mercy to marginalized communities; ending the "weaponization of the federal government" by appointing a man with an enemies list of "conspirators" to be FBI Director, blocking all transgendered people from the military; ordering colleges to give medals to non-transgendered athletes; refusing to enforce the anti-bribery Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because its bad for business; selling meme coins; restarting Ronald Regan's Star Wars missile defense project; removing any reference to climate change from the Department of Agriculture; freezing Congress-allotted funding agencies including FEMA, USAID, EPA, CDC, NIH, CFPB, NOAA and others; axing any mention of "Diversity," "Equity," and "Inclusion" from government websites and databases (with sometimes hilarious results); ignoring election pledges to take action on inflated grocery prices; assuring Russia that Ukraine will never join NATO; replacing the board of the Kennedy Center with loyalists so that the president could be elected chair in order to stop "wokey" productions; appointing an accused statutory rapist to Attorney General, an anti-vaxxer to lead Health and Human Services, a conspiracy-theorist to lead National Intelligence, an avowed dog-killer to lead Homeland Security, an accused alcoholic to lead Defense, and the world's richest man to lead deregulation efforts in the name of "Government Efficiency"; and, of course, pardoning everyone involved in the January 6 riot. Note that I did not mention getting rid of the penny; it is well past time for the penny to go (although the president doesn't actually have the power to do that). At least he hasn't gassed any protesters again... yet. It's going to be a very long four years.

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Note to future Walter: Mom has owned a Ford Escape for six years. At the end of the first three years, the battery died, and I replaced it. It was a total pain in the ass.

In their infinite wisdom, Ford decided to hide the battery deep under the cowling for the windshield wipers, which means that the wiper assembly has to be disassembled before the battery can be removed. Because of the amount of labor involved, my local Advance Auto Parts refused to do it.

I mention all that now only because it's been three years, and the battery died again, and I was wondering how long it had been since the last time I had this particular pain in my ass. Apparently I didn't mention it here on Wriphe.com at the time. I guess I thought I'd remember. (That was awfully careless of you, past Walter!) Therefore, I post this here so that when I look back from 2028, I can see when I last had this particular pain in my ass.

For the record, Mom's beaux changed the battery this time, and he did it by removing the air cleaner assembly in front of the battery instead of trying to take the wiper assembly apart. He says it was a total pain in the ass.

Maybe in 2028, we should just have it towed to a mechanic.

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New stickers for 2024. Now I feel like they're taking this thing seriously.

Two things of note:

Thing One: Following the flurry of law changes made in effort to appease the certain percentage of the country (and candidates for president) who still feel the 2020 election was rigged, I was under the impression that Georgia mail-in absentee ballots were only available to people too old or infirm to make it to their assigned polling places. However, according to the Georgia Secretary of State's website, "Any voter registered in Georgia can vote absentee by mail." The new law is that elderly folks only have to apply once annually, and us young 'uns have to apply for a new absentee ballot before each primary, general, and runoff election. Somehow, that makes everything safer. I guess.

Thing Two: In 2008, I decried early voting (which the state officially calls "Absentee Voting in Person") because it actually took longer than voting on Election Day (which the state encourages me to capitalize). My county has finally fixed that. They moved into a new building last year that was previously a movie theater until the Pandemic closed all of those. They now have a lot of dedicated space for early voting, sorry, Absentee Voting in Person, and I was in and out today with the only delay being the time it took me to silence my phone's ringer (in honor of the building's former use). So despite what you've heard in an endless stream of political advertisements, some things in this country are moving in the right direction.

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PROLOGUE, PART THREE

Cobryn opened the throttle all the way. He'd never piloted an exploration buggy before, but the fundamental principles had to be the same as piloting a starship: faster was always better. The four-seat buggy surged forward, nearly tossing its passengers from their seats. Oops. Maybe that was too much throttle.

"Wheeee," Quig shouted gleefully over the roar of the engines and the howl of wind through the open cockpit.

Sahara was less enthused. "I thought you said you knew how to drive one of these things!"

"Obviously he does," answered Striker One. "We are already overtaking our quarry."

It was true, Cobryn noticed. The goblins were slowing their buggy down to navigate the rough-cut path — it didn't even deserve to be called a road — through the forest. They simply weren't willing to take the same risks he was. Of course, taking chances is what had gotten Cobryn into this situation in the first place.

He had taken a chance when he accepted a smuggling job for a client he didn't already know. The pay was great, but it turned out the cargo wasn't. Cobryn might be a lot of things, but he was no slave trafficker. The client hadn't liked Cobryn's change of heart. One thing had led to another, and Cobryn had lost his ship, his reputation, and his freedom. With no better options, Cobryn had taken another chance on a mysterious message. One thing had led to another, and now he was on the other side of the solar system chasing goblins with an annoyingly cheerful ysoki, a humorless android, and a lashunta woman who just might be a bigger gambler than he was.

"What are we going to do if we catch them?" Quig asked.

Cobryn scoffed, "What do you mean 'if'? I out-maneuvered that space pirate, didn't I? I think I can handle a couple of goblins in a go-cart."

"When we get close, I'm going to put this grenade in their driver's face," said Sahara.

Striker One was skeptical. "That may be unwise. Our mysterious benefactor has insisted on secrecy, but those goblins were clearly surveilling our arrival before they fled. It would be useful to know why and where they are headed."

"Whatever you're going to do, you'll need to do it quickly," said Cobryn. It certainly didn't take a pilot of his skill to catch these goblins; they could barely keep their buggy moving. Cobryn relaxed the throttle and pulled alongside them, coming eye to eye with the goblin in their passenger seat. It grinned. Only then did Cobryn notice the plasma pistol in its hand. His reflexes saved his life. (Again.) He jerked the wheel, and the pistol bolt blasted the buggy's windshield frame instead of his head.

"Decision made," said Sahara. She lobbed the grenade.

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I skipped ahead a bit last time and presented movies watched out of order to get to the Olympics documentaries. So let's step back and start catching up with movies watched in July before the sports came to town.

88. (1947.) The Heiress (1949)
Yeah... no. I didn't care for this. It's got an 8.2/10 rating on imdb, but that's really because it has a truly great ending. The rest is a very slow-moving train wreck of a painfully one-sided love story. So you have my permission: watch a few minutes to figure out where it's going (that won't take long, I promise), then start fast forwarding to the final scene.

89. (1948.) Catlow (1971)
Ok, so while I don't like The Heiress, at least I respect it. This, not so much. I mean, they put Yul Brynner, Richard Crenna, and Leonard Nimoy in a Louis L'Amour Western, and none of the parts come together at all. Brynner hams it up in every scene, which isn't even his fault, as they've given him no character to play. I don't know if it's Brynner's worst picture, but it's certainly the worst I've seen.

90. (1949.) The Front Runner (2018)
Did Gary Hart sleep with Donna Rice? This film says yes without ever actually saying "yes," which really muddies the water of its central conceit. It's hard to lambast the invasive mainstream media for ruining politicians by reporting they cheat on their wives... when those politicians really are cheating on their wives. Otherwise, it's a well acted, good looking movie. I enjoyed it.

Yes, there were more conspicuous Coke products in this movie, but the important thing is that clock!

91. (1950.) Murder on a Honeymoon (1935)
I also enjoyed this third entry in the Hildegarde Withers mystery series contains a few silly clues and a genuine twist I really didn't see coming, but that didn't change who I suspected of being the murderer or why. And I was right, though I think that has a bit more to do with my ability to recognize the patterns in the format than any skill as a detective.

92. (1951.) The Post (2017)
As a rule, I don't watch Steven Spielberg movies, but I'm a sucker for pop history, I caught this at the beginning, and, frankly, I forgot he directed it. Ol' Steven is up to all his usual emotion-jerking tricks in this one, but it's got a cracking story chock full'o righteous newspaper reporters undermining evil politicians. It's a story that would have been right at home in a '30s RKO B-movie.

Is all the political intrigue making you thirsty? Reach for the Pause that Refreshes!

More to come.

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