Your “Oh God – did I wake up in 2018?” Sunday Evening Open Thread

Hi everyone,

Don’t worry, you haven’t fallen into the Springfield Mystery Spot. It’s your old pal, Beerguyrob, coming in off the bench to aid an exhausted don_t, who is away on an extended mission to get his name removed from the Juan Epstein files.

Having shirked most of my responsibilities around here, outside of Hate Week, due to employment-related bullshit, I just couldn’t say no when DFO’s version of Harvey Specter raised the flag of necessity.

First off, let me get down to the basic question,

It’s been a crazy few months for ol’ Beerguy. One of the schools I work at shares space with a Community Centre, and there were “incidents” involving sewage “leaking” into our computer room, forcing us to have to stay open and yet close part of the learning space. It made the last three months of the school year exciting, especially when it kept happening almost weekly in June. We’ve also been short-staffed at school, so I’ve had to work teach extra courses. It meant my teaching day was 12:30-9:30 Monday to Thursday, with a one-hour break in-between so I could drive between schools. The extra pay was nice, but also got me added to the list of highest-paid non-managerial government employees, which was less nice. Just try to guess what my inbox looked like once that spreadsheet hit the right-wing echo chambers.

Fridays were my union day, and it’s a bargaining year. My division is just 40 people total, yet the school district brought eight people – whose combined salaries were $1.35 million – to the sessions. Why weren’t those online vaccination experts screaming about that when they had no problem calling me an overpaid bum, when I’m actively helping improve their eventual Filipino nurse’s English?

On the personal front, we had to do some small home renovations that have, of course, turned into larger ones.

Believe it or not, that was the only planned part of the exercise. The chimney was falling away from the house, so we needed to take it down. What we found was decades of water ingress, so we had to replace the gas fireplace, which then started the cascade of surprises. Siding! Windows!! Air conditioning!!! Most recently (Monday), one of the contractors nicked the water line, meaning we had to dig up the yard to find the access point and replace the length from the district line to the house. We had to dig a 50 foot trench about 21 inches deep, so now my front yard looks like Vimy Ridge. The new line has double the pressure to the house, so silver lining I suppose.

I also had to go to Palm Springs & help BeerBrother with moving my mom into a care home. It was a nice two-day drive; I took the car because it was about the same price as flying but I didn’t need to rent a car once on the ground. Eleven years ago I did almost the same thing, but this was a lateral move from her old condo to her retirement apartment. The fun part was labouring in 50C / 122F heat; at that point, the AC just takes the edge off & doesn’t cool down anything or anyplace. The downsizing of her lifetime belongings and her emotional transition into her loss of independence were the worst parts, but at least I found a great brewery in which to drown my sorrows.

It’s become an expensive summer, so there went that extra teaching money I talked about earlier.

On the even more personal front, I did a good thing and turned my atrociously long hair into wigs for cancer patients.

That’s what two years avoiding the barber looks like. But having to cross the border meant doing what I needed to to avoid being denied entry. To cut down on the spousal anger, I chose to donate the hair versus simply cutting it off; it gave the whole visage the veneer of a philanthropic exercise. Long story short, as long as you have at least eight to ten inches

of hair, you can send it into a wig maker who does this as their charity write-off. As long as it’s never been treated it’s good, and they like getting all types of hair because not everyone is going for the Dolly or Cardi wig.

They loved my natural wave & curl, and I was assured it will make a fine toupee for some poor bastard. The added bonus is that my mom, WineWife, and US Customs all approved.

But I know the one question you all want answered – how are the dogs?

Riga is still beautiful, and Lambeau is still a sneaky alcoholic who will hammer your cider the second you turn your back.

And there you have it, my 2025 so far in a nutshell. Until we get to my annual Atlanta Falcons preview, this might be my last visit for awhile so I’m glad to have been of some service to a site I love unconditionally.

Tonight’s sports:

Baseball:

• MLB:
  • New York Mets vs. San Francisco Giants – 7:00 pm – ESPN, TSN2
• Little League:
  • World Series qualifiers – ESPN3 – all day

CFL:

• Tiger-Cats vs. Lions – 7:00 pm – TSN
  • Don’t forget to prep for this game by re-reading Maestro’s excellent preview of Week 8 in the CFL.

Can I just say, before I sign off, that THANK GOD NFL training camps have opened?! I mean, I love baseball, and still work at my local minor league facility in the job that bears my screenname, but a whole summer of just one major league sport is excruciating. I’ve been able to supplement it by watching early morning foreign imports like Indian cricket & European tennis, but if there isn’t a Blue Jays game on Sportsnet it’s nothing but poker tournament replays. Look at this bullshit from a random afternoon this week:

The highlight of earlier in their morning was a replay of the full game they were showing in 30 minutes on other channels. At least TSN has some variety in the same block,

and the CFL to whet my appetite. But that’s the curse of living in Canada – the variety is alive on streaming, but I’m old & refuse to cut the cord.

That’s it for me, for now. It’s been great coming back home. Now, I just gotta nip out for some cigarettes. Back in a jif. See you around, champs.