From The Deep Recesses Of My Brain

Random Thoughts About Random Things

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  • Sedans vs. Trucks

    One of my pet peeves is that fact that American car manufacturers are no longer making sedans. Certainly there are a few left like a Mustang or a Corvette, but for the most part sedans are a thing of the past.

    Detroit tells us that their market research shows the U.S. consumers no longer want sedans, only SUV’s crossovers, and trucks. If that’s the case, why do foreign manufacturers continue to make sedans and apparently do well with them?

    I can understand having just a couple models and not going overboard, but to do away with them entirely doesn’t make sense to me.

    My first car was a 1976 Ford Pinto and I’ve had Ford’s my entire car owning life until 2021 when I went Japanese to have a sedan. I’m old enough to remember when Ford had many models to choose from; Pinto, Falcon, Fairlane, Mustang, Galaxy and LTD. Through out the years they added and subtracted many models like the Escort, Contour, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus. Ford has it’s Mercury division. With GM, we had Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Saturns, and Chevys. Some of you may remember American Motors as well.

    In “the old days” we had color!, now it’s black, white, red, gray, silver and sometimes blue or green. We even had interior color choices, white, black, blue, red among others.

    It’s a shame that with all of the trials and tribulations of the auto industry, that they have lost all of their imagination.

    That’s all for now.

    I will be back!

  • Inflation

    Today I did the weekly grocery shopping as my partner was busy. I didn’t buy much more than we usually do, as we usually buy pretty much the same thing every week (we’re in a rut)

    The total was about $60 higher than normal. We can absorb that, but many folks can’t. We already get screwed with higher prices for buying healthy and fresh food and now this. I don’t know if it’s because of tariffs, lack of migrant workers, or what. Don’t believe it when Trump, his administration, his minions or the Republican party tells you there is no inflation or rise in the cost of living. It has nothing to do with Biden or Obama. After almost ten months in to his term, Trump owns this!!

    That’s all for now

    I will be back!

  • Cutting the Cord

    We finally decided to get rid of TV packages that are getting too expensive. We had YouTube TV which was running about $85/mo. Hulu Live is almost $90/mo. Dish is about the same. Sling is good, but we still would want streaming services as well. In itself, those prices don’t seem unreasonable, but we only watch maybe 20 of the over 100 channels offered. The costs didn’t make sense to us based on our usage.

    It is important for us to have some local channels just in case there is an important local event, issue, problem or disaster. We wanted to be able to see local news. We tried a digital antenna, but because of where we live (in a valley of a hilly area), that didn’t work.

    So, we use streaming services to fill the need. Peacock comes free with our internet provider. We use a student discount for Paramount + Premium. Then we bundle Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max. It sounds like a lot, but we are saving money. The only inconvenience is any program we want to watch on network TV, airs on streaming the next day. We’re always a day behind.

    Paramount+ Premium allows us to get the local CBS affiliate for live local programing and news. CNN is on HBO Max for the live national news. Plus there is a crap ton of free stuff streaming as well.

    It took some time to get use to it and we had to search for what we want. But, we have a schedule now and it works well. Plus, no commercials!!!! I highly recommend cutting the cord.

    Thanks all for now.

    I will be back!

  • Censorship

    I am very concerned about the issue of censorship and the federal government.

    I posted on Facebook the other day about Jimmy Kimmel being suspended for his comments about Charlie Kirk. I also drew a correlation between Stephen Colbert’s cancellation and the merger involving CBS and Paramount. I got my hand slapped by one of my FB friends as the official position regarding Colbert is that his show was cancelled because it is losing money.

    While that is true, the show loses about 40 million a year, it is consistently the highest rated late night show and a recent Emmy award winner. At the time of the cancellation, CBS just lost a 16 million dollar lawsuit to Donald Trump regarding a 60 Minutes episode that he took exception to. Also, CBS and Paramount were negotiating to sell Paramount to Skydance Media (an 8 billion dollar deal). Other top rate shows that aren’t money makers continue to survive, but in this case money was needed to cover the 16 million and Trump’s government approval was needed for the the merger approval.

    With Jimmy Kimmel, his comments caused the head of the FCC to threaten to pull ABC’s license if he wasn’t taken off the air and disciplined. Most of us have heard the comments and in my opinion they were not as offensive as our friends on the right want us to believe. ABC and affiliate Telmark are involved in a 6.2 billion dollar deal to buy Tegna that needs Trump’s government approval.

    Colbert and Kimmel are both very anti-Trump (as well they should be) and there is no doubt in my mind that both circumstances were purely political.

    Now Trump is saying that broadcast licenses needed to be pulled for those who do not agree with him or who make fun of him. This is censorship. This is against everything this country was founded on. I don’t think ABC and CBS realize that by removing these two talk show hosts, nothing will change. Trump wants it his way. He’ll censor anything that goes against him or his vision of Amerika.

    This is wrong. At the risk of having my Social Security check disappear, Trump’s Amerika sucks!

    That’s all for now.

    I will be back!

  • A Little Bit About Me

    Just so you know about me….. I am a semi-retired Licensed Funeral Director being in Funeral Services for about 40 years. I’ve worked for both small family run businesses and large international corporations. So, feel free to ask questions and ask for advice. I’ll be glad to help.

    Also, I am an amateur genealogist with about 6,300 names in two family trees. I’ve spent years researching, collecting documents and photos from the internet, various national newspapers and various offices of Vital Statistics. Feel free to ask for help and I’ll do my best to assist.

    I am a liberal (oh no!) and currently live in Central Virginia, having grown up in Central New York and recently moved from Central Florida after 25 years.

    That’s all for now.

    I will be back!