Walt's Corner

The other day Wendy’s CEO announces his crazy plan to use price surging on their new menu boards. Like Ubers. Or airline fees. Intended result? Higher prices during the day’s busiest hours while lower cost during slower periods. The update would happen autonomously (I assume) and work seamlessly with the registers.

Society’s response? They lost their proverbial shit. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Wendy’s response to Society’s response? Our bad. Here is what our CEO meant to say: It’s not price surging. The system will just apply discounts to our less busy periods of the day.

Society’s response? Wait. What?

My response? Wait a minute. <does some math> Higher prices during the day’s busiest hours while lower cost during slower periods. You haven’t fooled me Wendy, you red-headed stepchild. I still respect your mad rapping skills though.

A research paper from International Journal of Biological Sciences describes growing testis in a dish with the eventual purpose of assisting with male infertility. Researches refer to these artificial testis as “organoids” and are derived from the testis of mice.I hope they’re careful not to attempt this in the state of Alabama, where they might be mistaken for actual people.

Since we won’t know when the first offspring resulting from these mice-derived artificial testicles, I’d like to be the first to recommend that they be named Mickey or Minnie.

We hear the same shit every year. New Year, New Me. I’m going to change. A new person.

Sorry dog. No, you’re not, and you’re not.

Our chances of changing ourselves are no different on January 1st than July 2nd (or July 1st for a leap year). The beginning of a new cycle around our star has no bearing on the nature of our humanity. Every moment bears the same chances for breaking habits or bettering ourselves.

In fact, one could argue that change happens now – that moment you realize something is wrong or could be better. No waiting for the next day. No waiting for the next month or year. The fact that people say tomorrow, next week, or next year I’m going to bitch-slapping you every hour on the hour, shows they don’t really want to change. They’d rather procrastinate. They’d rather enjoy bitch-slapping you for the rest of the day than stop right now.

So who benefits from all these New Year celebrations? The Market. The economy. Same as those who really benefit from all the other bullshit civic holidays. Candy companies. Card companies. Alcohol/beverage companies. Fireworks companies. Catering/hosting agencies. Gym memberships. Tourism. Just think about how much money is wasted being spent going to the big apple to celebrate. To what end? Ring in another year? It’s just another mother fuckin year, folks. We’ve had many, and if we’re lucky, we’ll have many more. Some won’t be so lucky. For some, this is going to the last one.

According to Our World in Data, 67 million people who rang in 2023 will not be ringing in 2024. It’s not all doom and gloom though. 134 billion births took place during the same period increasing our net population by .84%.

Having said all this, using a new year as an excuse to better yourself? Sure go for it. Using any potential as an opportunity for self betterment is OK in my books. Just realize it has no bearing on whether or not that change is going to take place. If you couldn’t better yourself yesterday, you ain’t gonna better yourself.

I’ll tell you what was worse than finding out Santa wasn’t real. Let’s face it, as long my gifts kept rolling in, I couldn’t care less. For some this should be the first revelation that adults don’t always tell the truth and that watching the disappointment on a child’s face can bring devious entertainment.

My biggest childhood disappointment was the Snipe. I hadn’t even heard of a Snipe until my Dad and (paternal) grandfather invited me on my Snipe hunt. I was so excited. Had to wait for dusk. Was provided a brown paper bag and flashlight. The hunt was on.

They drug it on for probably half an hour too. I was chasing that snipe that they swore was there and was hoarding it towards me. And when that mythical creature entered my bag I was ecstatic. I shut the bag up with a quickness. Held it tightly closed.

We went inside the house. 1^st red flag. Grandma would not let animals in the house, except for the vicious dog, Trix, they kept in the dark basement with the sump pump they would put me in if I misbehaved.

There I sat on the floor of the den. Shaking from excitement. I remember saying, “I’ve never caught a live animal before!”

“Shake it! Makes sure he’s still in there,” Grandpa said. I shook it. Yup. Still in there, but not moving around. 2^nd red flag. I opened the bag ever so carefully, waiting for it to come rushing out. Nothing happened. “Dump the bag,” I was told. I did. And this smooth rock comes sliding out and onto the floor. Perplexed, I stared at it for a few seconds before I realized I’d been had.

Good times! One of my favorite memories with my grandpa. Right above the time he made me think I was begin chased by a bear in the woods. But that’s a different story for another time.

We tried our hand at painting our house and love the result. Every house in our neighborhood (some would argue the city) starts off as some sort of dirty tan, brown, or beige. Appropriate for the area I suppose, and we lived with it for 14 years now since the house was built. It was time to do some repair to the stucco. Pieces ripped off by the lawn mower’s wheels. Cracks from the sun. A couple months ago, we decided we’d paint, but we also didn’t want to paint in 11oº weather. We learned and gathered our materials and waited for the right time and temperatures.

After reviewing different spray painters I decided on the Avanti Paint, Primer & Stain Sprayer from Harbor Freight and bought an additional 50-foot spray hose so I wouldn’t be moving it more than one time per side. Through some magical coupon and event timing I ended up getting the sprayer for around $140 – a substantial savings from the regular $250 regular/$199 cyclic sales. Through the years a sprayer definitely would have come in handy. I see future yearly uses with it as a stain/sealer sprayer for our cedar fence boards. You literally spend more time taping off what you don’t want painted than you do spraying paint.

We spent last weekend repairing the walls. Filled in the small cracks with caulking. Repaired the spots where small chunks of stucco fell out. Sealed new stucco. This past weekend we shot the paint. We chose Valspar Sparkling Sage (flat) for the main color and complemented it with Mother of Pearl for the pullouts and trim. Having painted our porch/patio after we added it to the house, I can tell you what a game changer using a sprayer is. It cuts off literal hours from your job. I believe our total cost was $1300 for all sprayer/parts/supplies and a weekend of labor.