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They got our hopes up again…

Posted on July 17, 2020 by moc

From the I’ll-take-anything-but-a-Covid-story series, there is this…

If you live ’round these parts (that would be the Washington, D.C., metro area) you have no doubt felt a crush of very hot weather recently, and someone telling you we were closing in on a record for most consecutive days over 90 degrees in the nation’s capital. As a matter of fact, as of Wednesday that number stood at 20, one shy of a record set in 1980 and tied in 1988. (Both great years for Republicans and the L.A. Lakers, by the way.)

We all had our hopes up…

And then one day, yesterday, it didn’t hit 90 degrees and we were all very, very sad and confused. Still kinda hot though because it was like 87 or 88 most of the day.

Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s cool respite. Forecasted highs the next seven days… 94, 97, 100, 100, 99, 98, 94.

And we’ll be like, remember that day when it wasn’t 90 degrees? Weird.

Washington something-or-others

Posted on July 15, 2020 by moc

If you live ’round these parts (that would be the Washington, D.C., metro area) you know one thing for certain: we talk about football regardless of season, regardless of pandemics, and regardless of whether or not anyone will ever actually be allowed to play football again.

Case in point, news this week, my local NFL team will (soon, I guess) change its nickname. This move has been decades in the making, but apparently it’s real this time.

I’ve noted before that I think most people, in D.C. and out, are way more offended by the word “Washington” than by the word “Redskins.” Washington? Ew! Nobody likes Washington. Think about changing that one too.

World, Interrupted

Posted on July 13, 2020 by moc

Oh, no, nothing actually. I just wanted to post that title somewhere with a time stamp.

That’s how we’ll refer to this era some day. Totally thought of it first.

Can we just go back on this?

Posted on July 10, 2020 by moc

It was 35 years ago this week (July 11, 1985 to be exact) a great national nightmare ended. The Coca-Cola company ended the brutal “New Coke” era with a return of the newly-branded Coca-Cola Classic.

Can someone now please bring back Pre-Covid-life classic?

The new schedules are here!

Posted on July 8, 2020 by moc

Remember that scene in The Jerk, with Steve Martin running through the street proclaiming “the new phonebooks are here!”?

Yeah, that was me over the weekend.

Sports are getting real again.

Hamilton!

Posted on July 6, 2020 by moc

I know I’m five years late on this, but I get it now.

Hamilton. Is. Great.

Can we make all other hit Broadway musicals available at home basically for free?

Today is a holiday

Posted on July 3, 2020 by moc

Love how folks are so upset that July Fourth is on a weekend (and hence getting no extra day off) that they’ve taken it upon themselves to take today off instead. Like we need to get a jump on getting to wherever we’re not going out of town this weekend.

Wait a minute… this sounds like a great idea.

That’s it for today, folks. I’m takin’ the day off.

Say it ain’t so

Posted on July 1, 2020 by moc

Baseball trivia question…

What do the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, Fredericksburg Nationals, Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, and Loudoun County Boys League E Team 6 have in common?

Unfortunately they are going undefeated this year.

Mind blown

Posted on June 29, 2020 by moc

Nineties redux continues at the O’Connell household, no trouble for my wife and me (who lived through the era), but sometimes a challenge for my son. Who was born in 2014.

Video games have brought him to the last century. My son is a ’90s video game juggernaut, and yes, I’ll take most of the credit on that. Okay, Super Mario Bros. 2 for the NES actually came out in ’88, but I started playing it in the ’90s. Actually played it through the ’90s and, well, still play it today, 30 years on.

Yesterday afternoon my son suggested I try to “jump down” at the beginning of World 3-1. Certain death, I assured him. No, no, Daddy, he said; just try it and see what happens.

Secret warp to World 5.

Mind blown.

My boy.

Nineties kid.

Rule #1 of life

Posted on June 26, 2020 by moc

AAA World, the bi-monthly publication of the American Automobile Association (that would be “Triple A”), has a section I gloss over in each issue called Public & Government Affairs. This month’s headline: “Traffic crashes and fatalities drop with stay-at-home orders.”

Yes! This is something I can work with!

The following is fantastic in more ways than one: With stay-at-home orders in effect in many regions of the country, cities and states across our club’s footprint were reporting that traffic volume had decreased by 50 to 70 percent, resulting in a reduction in car crashes in many areas.

Standard joke for many years: how to end car accidents… ban cars.

The piece continues: When traffic on roads lessened dramatically, however, some drivers took advantage of the situation to give “rush hour” a new–and dangerous–meaning. Law enforcement groups have reported that some of those still driving had begun to travel at higher speeds, sometimes well over posted speed limits.

This is rule #1 of life… people respond to incentives!

Marvelous. So marvelous.