Ben McClellan

Home safe.

All wound out, too, so I have no idea if I'm getting any sleep tonight. Ah well, 9:30 at work isn't THAT far off.

Less than three hours to showtime, but I made it safely to St. Louis.

I might have had an easier time in Indianapolis last Saturday...

Also not looking forward to the drive home, and not getting enough sleep before my 9:30 shift Friday morning.

The topic of teachers remembering certain students came up.

I admit that sometimes, I wonder the same thing. But at my age, sadly, a lot of my old teachers are probably deceased now, and very well may have been for many years now.

If you know, you know.

"Your last text is what will be written on your gravestone, what does it say?"

Heya. 👋

(Actually, that could work. Seriously.)

Rest well, Pierre Robert of WMMR in Philadelphia.

Observe some Pierre Standard Time in his memory, folks.

All the way down to Atlanta, too.

Reading a "worst TV show" thread on Reddit. Cop Rock keeps getting brought up.

When it debuted, I had started the eighth grade ('90), and I can vaguely remember my maternal grandfather highly recommending either that one, or Twin Peaks for me to watch.

Neither program lasted all that long, sadly.

The only explanation I would ever get from her was that we "never clicked" after six months.

She kept trying to make me someone I could never be. I needed my private time, which she refused to understand or accomodate.

And she hated my parents, who saw through her questionable leaps of logic.

Her biggest concern wasn't how badly I was hurt at her betrayal (which she kept vigorously denying), but that I was going to "go home and badmouth her" on social media.

Social media at that time was mainly LiveJournal (we both used it), MySpace (which I never signed up for), and Facebook.

Sure enough, a few days later, I get a message saying we "needed to talk", and she even hinted about another guy being in the picture. She decided we needed to "take time apart to think about what we really wanted".

She'd already slept with the guy, and was now trying to control the narrative.

"What’s a sign someone’s cheating that isn’t obvious until you’ve been through it?"

Someone who got ridiculously upset when I said that I was unable to do something for legit reasons once called off a date at the last moment because she was "called into work".

This had never happened before.

A picture for the ages here.

Two 18-inning World Series games, 2018 and 2023.
This never happened in Biden's America

The game ended before someone had to put Charlie Brown in on relief.

I have a strong suspicion that my dad is still up watching the game, and it's almost 3AM where he and Mom live.

When Ernie Banks said "let's play two", he really didn't mean it that way, guys.

My god, the Dodgers are putting Sandy Koufax in

If you’re in line to bat, STAY IN LINE. They have to let you take a swing.

At some point in my forties, I went from sneezing twice in a row most times to having to sneeze three consecutive times.

Why did that happen?

Also, don't people usually stop blessing you after the second time you sneeze?

Did you get his number? 😉

My teacher picked Matthew up (he was pretty tiny for a first grader) out of his seat, and then literally dropped him head first into the wastebasket.

We all laughed hard. Not sure if it was the shock of seeing it, or seeing Matthew's legs kicking furiously as he tried escaping the trash can.

"What's something you saw a teacher do that you still can't believe was real?"

True story from the first grade. I couldn't believe my eyes.

My teacher asked Matthew, the smallest kid in the class a sarcastic question. Matthew zinged her in return, triggering laughter.

And then...

In a poll about the most depressing albums, someone volunteered the last Replacements album, 'All Shook Down'.

Ehh...maybe two of the songs could be considered depressing, and a third is Paul Westerberg singing while sounding intoxicated to the point of helplessness, but the rest? Fairly uptempo.

I remember that one quite well.

It's not that hard to negotiate a roundabout.

Oh man, I grew up on June Lockhart. Lassie, Lost In Space, Petticoat Junction, etc. A guy associated with the word "TV's" cannot help but stand in tribute. Rest In Peace.

Showtime is 7:30 EDT.

As for my health, I've reached the "feel terrific, SOUND terrible" phase of whatever I caught this week.

Someone uploaded a nearly seven hour driving video of his trip from Chicago to Minneapolis, and apparently, the whole video is going to have generic piano music.

I'm only seven minutes in, and I already can't take it anymore.

(YES, I know I can mute videos!)

I have both a dishwasher and disposal at my house.

Up north, my folks largely stopped using their disposal, and instead throw unwanted leftover food into a plastic bag and put it in the garbage can in the garage. Apparently, food remnants were sitting at the bottom of the disposal.