Acme!

    So I found a winner at Goodwill, sort of. It's four episodes of The Shadow on two cassettes. It's promoted as episodes never available before, and there's much mention of Orson Welles and Agnes Moorehead on the box. As it turns out, Orson and Agnes are nowhere to be heard and the shows weren't available before because they're in terrible shape. However, what I could hear of them was crazy stupid fun. Also the sponsor was Acme, makers of self-polishing wax. Wile E. Coyote take note. Also, The Shadow has the most annoying laugh up until Fran Drescher, and uses it at the least appropriate times. Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh!
    At the next Goodwill, I found an expansion pack for Sims 2. The Shadow cassettes, almost impossible to find, were 50 cents. The expansion pack for a 10+ year old game available anywhere was $3. Mind you, I can afford it. But the pricing is irritatingly arbitrary. Less so if I can play the game without a disk in the disk drive, though, but I'm not betting a lot.

Edit: two of the four Shadows did feature Orson and Agnes as it turns out. Yay!

As we barrel towards the anniversary

    As we draw closer to the anniversary of Dad's death, I think I'm OK. Could be better, but who couldn't? Facebook has a delightful feature where it shows you your past posts on this day a year or two years ago, etc. I tried switching it off because I knew we were coming up on a time when I really didn't want to see my posts from a year ago, but it kept switching itself back on. So I went to Options and gave it a range of dates not to show me posts from (a year ago up until Dad's death or funeral, I forget which). And that seems to work. I really don't need any reminders; distractions would be nice.
    I keep wanting to tell the siblings to come down, the weather is so nice, but a glance at weather sites says that the weather in the northeast is at least as nice. This isn't anything to complain about, but it sure is unusual this time of year. But I'm sure one day winter will come there but not here and I'll say, "OK come down now!" And they might.

Super duper

    When I was a lad and could grow bangs and make wee-wee in under ten minutes, I was lucky enough to go visit France. Of course we loved the museums and gardens and food and cafes and topless beaches and all. But we also experienced regular everyday French life, and were puzzled by hypermarches. (Hypermarkets. You'll just have to take my word for it that there's an accent over that E.)
    I may have mentioned this before, but I think at least I'm going somewhere slightly different this time. Hypermarkets would be about at weird as a Super Walmart to 21st century American teens, but they were pretty wild in 1979. And where I'm going with it this time is that I was passing by the Dollar General near my dad's house. When I was a kid and still in 1979, it was a Red & White supermarket. Later on my way home on Rosewood is the Dollar Tree, which used to be a Piggly Wiggly.
    Point of all this is that Walmart didn't just kill the downtowns of small towns. Smaller supermarkets bit the dust, too. Still, Walmart's hypermarket model hasn't exactly won out. For some reason, supermarkets are just bigger than they used to be, but not quite hyper. And where the smaller supermarkets were are stores that also have groceries of a kind, although I myself won't eat anything from there. Also all drugstores are bigger, and also carry groceries. I do know who's buying groceries from the dollar stores (really poor people) but I don't know who is buying groceries from drugstores. (Presumably people with more money than time, or really desperate people without cars.
    I'll admit that I don't have any point to all this; I must composed the first sentence and really liked it. Ok there's a point with no point: all the little supermarkets went away; I just don't know why. Hey, I used to buy my baseball cards at that Red & White! Come back!

Odd thing to gloat about, I know

    I stayed up to hear the miraculous (or anyway very very very lucky) ending of the Green Bay-Detroit game last night. I did not have a premonition, a sixth sense or any other feeling that something amazing might happen. It was just plain old common sense; if a team down 20-0 in the third quarter can score two touchdowns in a minute and a half, then they can probably come back at later points, too. However, if anyone wishes to impute to me fabulous psychic powers, well I'm willing to accept the laurels.
    Harry still seems subdued but by no means cowed. Meanwhile shy Amelia is getting a little bit braver regarding the big scary outdoors. She'll go out on the porch, but she comes back in if I'm out of sight. She doesn't try to come back in if I close the door on her from the inside (even though I'm out of sight then) but she comes back in if I close the door from the outside. I'm not sure I'll ever work out the cat logic behind all this, but it's pretty delightful.
    Yesterday's entry was almost impossible to post. I suspect that the new version of Avast free antivirus is even worse than the previous one. And that our little entente is soon coming to an end. Anybody out there with a better suggestion for free antivirus software is oh so welcome to offer one.

Domesticated?

    I daresay that Harry is not completely transformed by being jumped on by Amelia the other day, but he has been strangely subdued. He spent most of yesterday indoors but that was natural; it was raining. Today, though, it was just cloudy and not particularly cold and he spent most of it indoors, too, never agitating to go out. I forgot he was here to be frank, which heretofore has been pretty difficult to do.
    I think it's all just a coincidence. Maybe he just has kitty seasonal affective disorder. I don't remember clearly since things were pretty bad in my life a year ago, but I think he was pretty much equally full of beans all winter last year. Anyway any time it wasn't raining, snowing, sleeting or freezing. Anyway, somebody is coming over now most likely bringing treats, so I bet his outlook is about to improve markedly!

Could it be progress?

    Amelia jumped Harry last night. This may not sound like progress and it may not be progress but it seems encouraging to me. I don't know if I can explain why. After a year of cold war and feints and hissings, well, she finally conveyed that she is in fact bigger. In my dreams at least, this may mean that they can start getting along better, or anyway keep their distance better. Harry is unfortunately fearless. Unfortunate as he is not a large cat.
    Harry went out shortly afterwards and didn't come in at bedtime. I did wake in the night and let him in a little after 3:30. They behaved very well all night and pretty well during this rainy day. They're really sweet cats; I still hope they can get along someday.

Wanna buy a watch?

    My old watch was still running, but the light no longer worked. Or rather, I would push the button and the display would light up sort of, but the actual time would disappear. So in the sense of actually doing its job, no it wasn't working.
    This watch had been good to me, or anyway the cloth strap had. I'm not fond of metal straps and not much more fond of plastic ones. But it was time for a new one, and Kmart as it happened had a sale. And I found a neat Sharp watch at deep discount and decided to live with the plastic strap.
    I dunno, it's never worked out. I have a tiny tiny bump on my wrist which it just always seems to aggravate. I tried it on my right wrist but that's just too weird for me, and it wasn't overly comfortable there either. So finally I realized that whenever I go out, I have my phone (which features a clock) and when at home I'm often on the computer (which features a clock). The only time I need a watch is when I'm playing computer games and the clock is disabled. So I checked through my dead AA batteries and found one that was only mostly dead, stuck it in my Dad's old clock I got him for the nursing home where he couldn't wear his watch, and bingo, I'm watchless. I'm hoping the dang bump will eventually go away and I can wear my Sharp watch again. After all, you need to keep a Sharp watch.