If you, anyone, lives in Puerto Rico, you can’t vote for the U.S. President–the President of here as well. It does get awkward for boricuas to celebrate Presidents’ Day, although not as much as U.S. Independence Day. So instead of woke musings, I rather concentrate on what Presidents’ Day does well.
Thanksgiving means turkey; July 4 means me and JPP giving two fingers; and Presidents’ Day means mattresses. There are mattresses that cool themselves, some have a built-in cooler, massager, bend every which way…
Allow me to elaborate. When I fall asleep, it takes an earthquake and maybe a Magnum ice cream truck playing The Hives full volume to wake me up before the alarm clock. I can sleep anywhere. That’s something I can brag about.
When I separated from my Ex Wife, I took our bed and mattresses, which had over 24 years of use. Alone, in my new Apt., I slept like a college student cutting class in that apparatus. I had to turn the mattress over every month because it was staring to look like a Mobius strip. Eventually, I settled into it, and complacently accepted the bed leaning more to the right. But it had to go; I got an estimate, and cleansing alone would require seven goats, according to my santero neighbor.
I’ve bought two mattresses since, both brand-new. The first one developed a deep crease in a coupla weeks, which was comforting to sleep down in, until self-respect kicked in (i.e., the warranty period was coming up). So I replaced it, and I’m set for life. Now I got my sight set on a hammock—an office hammock, if you will.
Imma evaluate other places I’ve slept, and also assess napability. But we gotta talk business first:
NFL NEWS
Folks, it’s gone. There is nothing to see here.
There are no concrete new events until the Draft, and that’s if you consider speculative projections as time entertained. It’s too abstract for me—and I’m at least a 5-seed in every brooding tournament I’ve entered. Free agency and the calendar reveal are what sustain me until July. Plus the usual arrests, holdout dramae, Ravens or Seahawks violating the CBA for the team activities thing, and perennial offseason narratives. Bookmark this post: Jalen Hurts will love the new offense.
If you’re a fan, the NFL is never gone gone, just the games. The hype is always there, but I only care about the games. Sure, I’ll pore over NFL Twitter like a forlorn long distance boyfriend over his GF’s social media feed, but never feel the anxiety of seeing her in lotsa Insta pics strolling through Hunk Gardens. It’s because I know the NFL will be back for action–I mean, games. And that makes me rest easy.
I have also rested very easily in a couch, which I prefer for naps. For me, a nap is ideally between 30 minutes and two hours (less is nodding off; more, you might be hungover). From a nap, you need to get up quickly, or at least easily. A couch lets you sit up without the “Where are you going? It’s nice here!” siren song of the pillow and mattress.
I once slept in a van, in NYC with a friend. It was the most sensible lodging alternative at the time. Pretty sure we brushed our teeth and stuff in the bathroom of the Museo del Barrio the next morning. Spoke English to mingle without notice, obviamente.
Stairwells. No comment.
Cars. Yeah, I’ve slept in them. Recent history: at the office building with my last employer [hocks, spits toward sidewalk], a couple of times I went to the car for a nap during office hours. I found a remote spot in the parking garage and clocked decent naps–in the driver’s seat, of course. I’m fucking civilzed, OK? Didn’t care if anyone at work got word of that. Hey, nobody said squat shit when I stayed all night fixing crap and stuff for the bosses, so I was achin’ to hear anything about that.
Hammock: oh God YES. It’s Slumber City.
Floors.
- Wood, a couple of times. I once spent a week without heat during a winter in Boulder, and I had a metal couch with a foldout bed. That damn thing got cold AF, so I took all the blankets and stuff and slept on the floor. MUCH better.
- Tile. It’s happened, voluntarily! During hot nights, the tile floor is cooler than the bed. I also did that when I was going through an influenza fever.
- Rug. You wake up with reptile face. Avoid.
- Concrete. Gotta get to the halfway house on time, homeys.
SPROTS TONITE
All times Atlantic, because #DIVERSITY* Here’s a totally not-condescending guide for time zones:
* I can’t trust my brain right now to make every single correct deduction.
Eastern – 1 hour less
DFO time – Minus 2
Mountain – 3 less.
DIGRESSION: Back in the Boulder, I lived in Mountain time for one academic year. Gotta say: Sunday NFL games at 11 AM, 2:30 PM, and 6:30 PM strike the best balance between (i) unhinged sloth and debauchery, and (ii) giving a fighting chance for rested and productive Mondays. “Lot of heavy lifting by ‘fighting chance’ there, guy”, snorted Atlas, while shifting the Ursa Minor onto his left shoulder.
Pacific time – Best Coasters like to sound smarter. Figure it out, beautiful peeples.
All listings by espen:
NCAA WOMENS’ BASKETBALL
UNC Greensboro @ Wofford – 8:00
UMass Lowell @ NJIT – 8:00
Bowling Green @ Kent State – 8:00
Marist @ Rider – 8:00
Monmouth @ Saint Peter’s – 8:00
(5) Indiana @ (22) Iowa – 9:00
Green Bay @ Milwaukee – 9:00
Northern Arizona @ Southern Utah – 9:00
Montana State @ Portland State – 10:00
NHL
Tirana @ Montréal – 8:00
Seattle @ Vancouver – 11:00
PRE-MADNESS MUSINGS
My God, an orgy of around 30 exhibitions. games. Listing via espen:
FÚTBOL
Colombian Top Flight (Primera A)
Bucaramanga v. Envigado – 8:40
Fact! Colombia’s top division is named the Liga BetPlay. Three words, two commands in English to part with your possessions.
Submission approved by the United Fruit Company..
Argentina
San Lorenzo v. Defensa y Justicia – 8:30 PM
That’s a match from the Copa de la Liga Profesional, Argentina’s tournament for top flight teams. After Maradona’s death on November 2020, the trophy was renamed la Copa Maradona. Then estate lawyers intervened and the trophy went back to its current generic name: Professional League Cup. This confirms why estate lawyers are atop the party poopers’ pyramid, above neighbors who call the police, parents returning home from a trip, Catholic school nuns, and unavailable condoms.
Oh man, today was an intense work day. I’m gonna have a beer. Make that a bourbon then a beer. Sleep well, rest easy, fight for mandatory PM naps.
I’ve needed NyQuil to go to sleep every night since I was eighteen years old. No idea how I still have functioning kidneys.
I love this 24/7 title. Not as good as the hardcore title, but a very close, oh-so similar, second-ish.
I’m the opposite. I need a sleeping pill and a bed and even then, there’s only a decent chance I’ll fall asleep in a timely manner. Plus, I wake up to a slightest of noise even with a sleeping pill (I sleep with a fan running to drown out the noise).
Also, with my insomnia, there are nights where I don’t feel myself going to sleep, but I can tell I got sleep the night because I’m not dead tired.
Packed on a C-130 with 60 of my closest friends farting, JP 4 in the air, over a hundred pounds of gear strapped on ya = like a baby. In Business Class = restless and sporadic. Could never figure that one out.
Your brain really internalized the whole “with your boots on” saying, perhaps?
When I was little we had a VW Bug and my sister and I would sit in the back seat and my little brother would sit in the “way back” which is just about big enough for a dog. I don’t think it even had seat belts. My dad drove us all over the place in that thing.
My wife has VW Bug horror stories. Her mom and dad both smoked, and her mom did not want her hair mussed by the breeze when they travelled (still doesn’t, and she wears her hair one step from a buzz cut). So in the summer they’d go somewhere in their bug with the windows rolled up. It’d be 100 degrees in the car, with mom and dad smoking all the way. This was above and beyond the traditional cold weather heat, or lack thereof, in a bug. To this day, if I see a bug for sale, I’ll say, “Look, a bug for sale!” “No fucking way are we getting a bug.”
Laying back there was old school, from back before there were seat belts and safety glass in windshields.
My mom always had those ginourmous station wagons, with a “way back.” There were always a million kids besides the four of us. She was the only mom who wasn’t afraid to drive up the icy mountain road to take us skiing. Her office was up there, she worked for AT&T at a microwave site.
“Is this microwave site open to the public?” – Andy Reid, holding an armful of tupperware containers
This cut-away shows the interior of a Philips Sonicare ProtectiveClean 4100 rechargeable toothbrush. Visible is Philip’s advanced sonic technology that removes up to 7x more enamel than manual toothbrushes. Use hi-octane avgas only.
Since y’all talkin sleep…
Would an edible help one sleep on a long flight?
I have never slept on a plane, and my next trip to Europe (SOON I HOPE) has me looking for solutions. Sleeping pills seem to have the opposite effect on me. But weed? Do tell.
Where to in Europe? I’m longing for another trip there. If I could, I would take 6 months and start in Ireland, and tour Western Europe
Would LOVE to do that exactly, but thinking my next trip will be like 7-10 days…either Ireland or Italy. Wouldn’t mind a South France-Barca combo platter, or Germany during Oktoberfest, or dammit I want all of it.
Mrs. Sharkbait studied abroad in Sevilla and she’s wanted to go back so that’s definitely on the short list. Italy, and Germany as well. We have friends that live in Surrey, so basically any time we’ve traveled to Europe, it’s been via greater London. We either stop in at the beginning, or the end of our trips.
Yeah, moar England plus Scotland would be great too. Just too much to see in Europe, and I’m about 49% serious about moving there when retirement hits (note: may not ever hit).
Take me with you!
Yes! 🙌
Edible before airplane flight is Rocking!!!
Test it first. For me, EVERY edible I’ve had made me very sleepy. I quit on them, and almost quit on life. There is no Truth if a budtender cannot get you high.
So Florida’s got a new law that will force schools to out gay kids to their parents (regardless of whether or not that will lead to abuse). I am hoping (and am fairly confident) that this will lead to an “I am Spartacus” movement among high school kids where they *all* declare themselves gay and gum up the system.
Gonna confuse the fuck outta Matt Gaetz.
(fwiw I don’t think he’s been creepy toward girls-only)
Nestor has left the chat
Gaetz, on his stomach “Empty, Nestor”
evergreen
Plant the suggestion in their impressionable minds, Rikki -Tikki- Tok!
This is the central core of a General Electric neural flux transmitter as equipped on select U.S. Air Force bombers in the 1960s. The borescope at left sends a beam of ions into the central core, which emits powerful rays of electromagnetic flux. Affixed to the bombers in a ventral pod, it was designed to disable anti-aircraft system on the ground. It’s effects proved disappointing, and it was discontinued after its use repeatedly caused uncontrollable diarrhea in the aircraft crews who operated it.
(photo: DOD/General Electric)
They could have solved that problem with a judicious application of fromage.
Had chili tonight for dinner.
Ruh roh.
I have an idea. Putin wants to reclaim what was once Russia. How about if he calls off WW3, we’ll give him Alaska back and throw in Wyoming and a Dakota to be named later.
With global warming, we need to keep Alaska.
Give them Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas and call it square.
Noooooo, they do not get Yellowstone! Leave Montana and a bit of northwest Wyoming alone!
That would make me a natural born commie.
Is that what you want, comrade?
If Putin wants a return to Russia as history remembers it he should build a special contraption and then get himself fucked by a horse.
Been super vintage the last week or so, having my nightmare hellscape nucular holocaust dreams again (as I had for most of my youth)
per dreammoods.com
Nuclear Bomb
To dream of a nuclear bomb suggests feelings of helplessness and loss of control. You are experiencing some strong hostility and rage, where it is nearly destructive. Important changes are about to occur. You may also be expressing a desire to wipe out some aspect of yourself. Alternatively, the nuclear bomb serves as an indication that something crucial and precious to you has ended.
Holocaust
To dream about the Holocaust indicates that you are being unjustly blamed for something. The dream may also be brought about by a movie or book related to the Holocaust. Perhaps, the disturbing events may have left a strong impression in your mind. Note that your own personal feelings about the Holocaust will overrule any other interpretation.
Destruction
To dream about mass destruction suggests that there is some chaos occurring in your life. Things may not be going the way you want it to. Perhaps the choices you are making are self-destructive.
Yeah but that’s for Cancers.
The horoscope sign you sick fucks!
Gumby had a really fun metaphorical recurring nuclear dream. The entire time he was in the Navy, and for quite a few years after. He may still occasionally have it. We call it the barn dream. No bueno, big time.
A nuclear war will reverse global warming. It’s the environmentally sensible thing to do.
This is true. The planet is overcrowded as is.
https://youtu.be/PSQWUZ8a2Ho
Found a funny;
I think it’s really special that Facebook did to our parents what they thought video games were going to do to us.
POIGNANT!
Damnit…
Is Russia/Putin really gonna goblin mode on Ukraine?
Cause that’s not rocking
“Goblin Mode? You know, I’m something of a Political Scientist myself.”
-Putin
When I heard he was taking the two “independent” regions first, I went geek and went “He’s integrating Ukraine by parts?!”
Integration by parts – Wikipedia
As an electrical engineer, I love this joke.
Yeah, World War III following a pandemic is the perfect time for chastity.
Come on now, it’s World War THEN pandemic. What is this? Amateur hour??
Right now, parties representing the Antichrist and Jesus Christ are discussing alternatives in case we destroy ourselves before Armageddon is scheduled to happen. They were close to deciding upon Monopoly, but they couldn’t agree on the House Rules.
Keeping with the theme from this morning, at least the music will be awesome! (80s all over again!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiwgOWo7mDc
You sleepers are sooo lucky. I can’t sleep on planes unless heavily medicated. Usually I wake up after 2 hours completely drugged and out of it, which then leads to me being pissed off.
I was once on buses from San Sebastian to Amsterdam (48 hrs) and Milan to Barca (36 hrs). I couldn’t sleep and felt like I was on acid by the end of it.
Flight from Glasgow to Bangkok to Sydney and I didn’t sleep a wink, just chainsmoked during my layover in Bangkok.
During that one night in Bangkok, was the world your oyster?
That must suck gigantic balls.
It does. So many long distance travel over the years and no sleep. The blue tracers after being up 36 hours are fun.
I hate flying. I need a few drinks in me to make it tolerable. So zero chance I sleep on a flight. LA to Sydney was a bitch, maybe got two hours worth on that flight.
I’m the same way. I cannot sleep on planes unless I’m completely zonked and even then, bah.
Joe Lunardi is tucked away in “The Bracket Bunker”. My eyes can’t roll that hard!
A favourite of mine: Any form of mass transportation. I can sleep on airplanes, buses, trains, or subways. A quick close of the eyes is very refreshing.
Somehow, I’m able to program myself to be awake when it’s my stop.
On a bus, yeah. Leaning against someTHING.
The oddest place I ever slept was on a log while attending a mountain bike race in college. Not sure what I was doing there (since I didn’t race myself) or where the actual race took place. I think I had been up most of the night and slept from like 7 a.m. to 10 a.m.
The least comfortable place I ever slept was on a waterbed that I bought the summer after college ended. After about a month my back would hurt every morning and I started hating the damned thing. I never even got laid on it.
The most comfortable place I ever slept (compared to everyone else that night) was on a set of cushions that I carried with me through some South African mountains on a hike with a bunch of kids from Wits. They all had these compact little blue pads and made fun of me for my big, silly, blocky cushions. I got the last laugh when the flattest ground we could find to sleep on was basically jumbo-sized gravel.
Unless involved in a gag, fuck waterbeds.
Think waterbeds usually involve ball and gag
My father was a champion napper-he put a sofa in his office for expressly that purpose. But the time he really impressed me was when we were driving back from deliveries in a beat-up old cube van.
Him: “I’m pulling over, it’s your turn to drive.”
Me: “Ah, time for a nap in the passenger’s seat huh?”
Him: [kicks away boxes and milk crates in the rear storage area, settles down for what would be a 2 hour snooze]
I say YES to hammocks! They are the best and if the boat is a bit rough I pretend it is a very windy hammock.
Ricky Martin knew shit, Maradona actually did live la vida loca. And there are crazy murals and statues and such all over Argentina that attest to that.
Also, on Buenos Aires time I am 1 hour ahead of PR
Well the call him D10s over there. Speak ill of the English, you’ll be the toast of Argentina.
Another god: Gustavo Cerati. 90% of his songs were about sex
https://youtu.be/tMA8FaM_eK4
Great video!
Zymm, when you’re down there, you should try to purchase a Brazilian hammock. Not sure if the Argentinians are the same style, but the Brazilian hammock I slept in when I was in Rio was heavenly.