The Squamidian Report – Jan. 19 / 19
Issue #869
Including:
From Russ
From Lorne
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We are out of luck because the overcast and rains have moved back in
but for some of you it may be quite different and therefore better. You
see, this Sunday evening, Jan. 20, will include a nice big full moon
that will in turn be seen as an eclipse. The moon is currently quite
close to earth in its orbit and will look big and bright, and sometimes
called a ‘blood moon’ although no one really knows why. Well, sort of.
It may refer to the color of a fully eclipsed moon, or not. It may in
fact refer to when there have been 4 total eclipses in a row. Doesn’t
matter. The thing is, if you can see the sky that night, you will be
able to watch a full lunar eclipse. The eclipse will be visible from
most of the northern hemisphere. (Sorry Australia).
The timing of the beginning will be different for different locations of course. Here are some examples in local time.
Atlantic Time: 11:34pm
Eastern Time: 10:34pm
Central Time: 9:34pm
Mountain Time: 8:34pm
Pacific Time: 7:34pm
Notice a trend? Time zones are 1 hr wide and the eclipse is happening
at ONE time but is viewed from different locations. Well, basically and
sort of but close enough. One accurate hour of time zone would be 15
degrees wide and so there are obviously timing differences within said
zone. If you get to see it, enjoy.
*
On
a much different note, I will probably be changing my Email address in
the very near future. For a long time now I’ve been inundated with
spam, most of it being just irritating, like pretending to be from the
prince of some African country, or some jerk wanting me to click some
link which I would never do. Of late, the unwanted mail has been trying
to pretend that its coming from ME, showing my Email address in the
address bar. Of course, when I right click on it, the real address
shows and is always some very long, untraceable thing with a European
or Asian country tag. Assumably, someone has gotten a copy of someone’s
address book. This could have been years ago, or could be going on
regularly. No way of knowing. Now, however, the spam has turned a bit
ugly and threatening. The untraceable sender is claiming to have
infected my pc (I don’t have a pc) with spyware and malware when I
supposedly visited one of his child porn sites. I can say with total
honesty I have never visited ANY of that kind of site, ever. He goes on
to say that he has been watching me through my pc’s web cam. I don’t
have a web cam. He claims that he has recorded me doing unmentionable
things that he has captured via my web cam and is ready to show it to
the world if I don’t send some ridiculous amount of bit coin to some
web address. As well, he claims to have all my personal and financial
info, Facebook info and so on. Its all bogus of course but some what
disconcerting.
The point is, while his claims are totally untrue, many people out
there do fall for this kind of creep’s scam and the only way to deal
with it is to change my address. Law enforcement can’t touch these
creeps as they are a moving target and are in Asia or Europe or China
or wherever. So, once I’ve figured out who I must notify about a
change, like the places that I deal with such as the bank and other
businesses, I’ll change my address and notify such places. That will
also effect this letter list. Each person on this list will be notified
as well at the time. The spam should come to a stop. If however, it
starts back up again, I would be forced to change my address again and
notify the businesses that must notify me of stuff again and at that
point I think it would be prudent to end the Squamidian because if my
address keeps falling into the wrong hands, so does everyones and that
security breach must be coming from somewhere. I’ll keep you informed.
doug
****
From Russ
Shoplifting at LCBO
Hearing this news on radio piqued my interest, and I thought I’d share this with you.
THE STAR
“LCBO thefts have spiralled and now make up nearly half of all
shoplifting from Toronto’s most-hit retailers. 9000 incidents reported
to police from Jan 1, 2014 to June 26, 2019”.
Police ‘directive’ in 2018 informed LCBO management, “ Police would no
longer respond in person to liquor theft unless the perpetrators were
still inside the store”. Meaning; unless store security had apprehended
suspect(s) police would not show up.
Not every LCBO store has ‘floor-walkers’ (or hired security), and
employees are under threat of ‘termination’ if they violate the
management policy of “no touch/no chase”. Shop-floor workers are
reluctant to even report suspected thieves saying, “ We never signed-up
as security”.
But, who cares? These stores are run by our provincial government, they
haul in “huge profit” and everyone knows the government is “a
bottomless pit of money”! Yeah, but it’s OUR money!
Now, let’s have some fun with the crime of “theft”: A very simple
definition states; “Theft is the taking of the property of another,
with intent to deprive”. Have you ever been falsely accused of
shoplifting? It can be a ‘shocking assault’ on your self-respecting
character. No?
My wife and I are grocery shopping at Zehrs in Preston; there is a need
to keep one purchase separate from another, and, being winter I’m
wearing a heavy coat with large pockets, and you guessed it....I stuck
the thing into one of the large pockets. Arriving home and
unpacking/undressing, I said, ”Holy s**t, I forgot to pay for this?”
Feeling more guilty than stupid, I exclaimed, “I’m going back and pay
for this right now!”
“No way”, said my wife (who I often suspected had a little larceny in her). She went on;
“You’ll really look stupid bringing it back now”
Stupid I can handle, guilty conscience, I can’t, so I immediately
returned to the store, and entered the line containing the same
check-out lady.
“ugh...I forgot I had this in my pocket when I checked out a short
while ago”, I said as I carefully laid the object on the belt....I want
to pay for it now” I was expecting her to say something like,
“Oh, how honest you are!” or “Thank you so much for returning...not
many of our customers would”. But, no. There was not one word of
appreciation. I think I even detected a note of disdain in her furtive
glance at me, as she silently rang-in the thing. I walked out feeling
defeated.
“S**t, I should have listened to my wee wifee”.
Your old Uncle Russ.
****
From Lorne
Cooking for myself is a thankless chore. My latest attempt, beans,
chopped onion and celery and ground moose meat. That should be
pleasant tasting but its not. I keep adding stuff to give it
something. The more I add, the more stuff I have to eat. It
started innocently enough with a 1/2 pot now I have a full pot and
eating away at it since back some time in 2018. Freezing the
stuff only prolongs the agony because some time in the future I will
dig it out and think Oh! what have we have here and thaw it out only to
find the same old crap. I will concede that eventually something dose
happen to the swill, it either helps the decaying in the compost box or
fills the bellies of the many critters that chew the insulation under
the hood of my car and chew holes in the ceiling of the family
room.
Lorne
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Today is a special day for Carole and I since it’s our 46th wedding
anniversary! We were going to go to Niagara Falls and stay a couple of
nights at the Hilton and maybe play the slots at the adjoining casino
but after being at the Mohawk casino last weekend we decided we’ve had
enough of that for a while. We are just going to have dinner out at the
Golf Steak House in Bridgeport instead. Should be a nice evening
provided it’s not to overcrowded for a Saturday evening.
Last Saturday Carole, Adam and I went to the Mohawk Casino to celebrate
my 70th birthday. We found upon our arrival that they were offering an
Italian smorgasbord in their enclosed grandstand overlooking the
racetrack. We opted for that set up and thoroughly enjoyed the meal. We
hadn’t been to a racetrack to watch the races since the old Elmira
track was still open years ago. I think it was about 40 years ago that
we last attended the races in Elmira. We sat and enjoyed our meal and
of course I overate with the food being an “all you can eat” setting.
Once in a while the Doctors tell me it’s ok to do just that. So, I’m
trying to keep such an overindulgence to doing it only on my birthday!
I hope I can stick to my plan just for the “Health of it”. LOL! Anyway,
we were surprised to see that the races were being held that night even
though it was quite cold outside for the horses and drivers. While
still sitting at our table above the track, we were approached by a
woman working at the track who asked if we’d like to place a bet on the
races. We wouldn’t even have to leave our table to do so and she told
us she’d also come back to our table after the race to check our ticket
to see of we’d won anything. This is a nice feature for sure. She would
even pay out on the spot if we did have a winner. Talk about
convenience! SO, Carole suggested I place a bet on the number 7 horse
to celebrate my 7 -tieth birthday. I figured I might as well do just
that to see if I’d have any luck on my birthday. I opted to play across
the board for a grand total of $6.00 so I’d collect if my horse came in
first second or third!
We watched as the race began and my chosen horse took off in the lead!
She held the lead for about two thirds of the way around the track and
then slowly dropped back to last place out of the field of 9 horses.
What a disappointment that was! I thought for sure I had a winner but …
no such luck. Oh well, I thought maybe my luck would change as we made
our way down to the casino floor to play a few slots! We descended to
the casino and spread out in different directions to try our luck.
After I had donated $5.00 I was up to $35.00 I moved to a different
machine and spent that amount quite quickly. After walking around in
search of a better machine I settled on one I thought looked lucky. I
donated another $20.00 in that machine and then stopped for a while.
Adam and I finally found Carole again and by that time it was 9pm and
we all felt it was time to head for home. Before leaving we tried two
machines side by side and Carole won $150.00 and I won $50.00 so it was
time to leave for sure. The casino had a “give away” that evening of a
set of Pirex bowls for all “Winner’s Circle” members. They were there
by the thousands for sure. The lineup wound around and through the
casino floor the entire time we were there. It was so crowded that we
could hardly move about to find a machine that was not being used. It
was quite aggravating to say the least so our decision to leave was
prompted by the noise and the mass of bowl seekers! We made our way
home and enjoyed a nice cup of tea and settled down in front of the TV
for an hour or so and then turned in for the evening. All in all it was
a fun enough time and I enjoyed celebrating my venture into “Old Age”!
I finally caught up to Doug in years but he’s still 17 days my senior!
LOL!
I’m looking forward to celebrating again next January 11th to make it 71 years!
I think that’s enough for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
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