I gotta buy a lottery ticket

At 4:00 this afternoon, I went out to clear my driveway. I dragged The Beast out of its cubby hole, fired it up and started down the driveway.

I managed to make two passes down the driveway when the snowblowers fuel tank suddenly decided to fall off.

I looked all around for the two bolts that hold the fuel tank onto the engine. My wife even came out and looked around. No such luck.

So there I am standing there looking a perfectly good snowblower and a perfectly good fuel tank with no way to make the two play nice.

After looking around for a few more minutes, I went into my basement and started going through my stash of fasteners. I came across two that I thought might fit but it was a wild-ass guess on my part.

I took the two bolts outside and wouldn't you know it, they were the perfect fit. Perfect length, perfect width, perfect thread pitch, perfect head size.

I'm going to buy me a lottery ticket.

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Yes, my head is still all jammed up. I've got a pretty good sinus infection going on and they put my on mega-dose of amoxicillin.

Hopefully this causes things to calm down because to be honest with you, being mostly deaf kinda sucks. I can't head anything in my left ear and my right ear has some serious tinnitus going on.

This ends my "I'm sick!" whine for the day.

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I was watching the Broncos beat up the Bills but that was until Josh I love the 4^th quarter! Allen came along. At the end of the first half, it was 20-10 Broncos. At the end of the 3^rd quarter it was 23-17 Broncos.

Right now, it is 18 minutes into the 4^th quarter and the score is 27-23 Bills.

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Here are some links:

• The Iranian people have figured out Trump.



• I did not know that he was building a top secret ballroom.



• There is nothing controversial about them.



• Her and AOC are both shady as hell.

Twenty dollars for everybody!

Verizon sent me a notice saying they are going to give everyone a $20.00 credit on their bill for the outage the other day.

My first thought was, "Cool."

My second thought was, "Hey, wait a minute! I've got four lines! How come I get the same as people who only have one line?"

My third thought was, "We weren't really impacted that badly anyways. Shut up and take your twenty dollars."

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So it turns out that The Very Stable Genius is the owner of a Nobel Peace Prize medal but not the holder of a Nobel Peace Prize.

This is like Tom Brady giving you one of his Super Bowl rings and you taking it. You are now the owner of a Super Bowl ring but you are absolutely not a Super Bowl winner.

Trump is not a winner, he's a winner-wanna-be.

I guess that means he's a loser.

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The Bruins beat the Kraken last night, winning 4-2 in regulation.

They did not, however, move up in the standings.

Their next game is tomorrow when they will be in Chicago to play the Blackhawks. Puck drops at 8:00pm

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Scotland: It's not like where we live...

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Here are a few links:

• This is actually a good take on the current NFL coaching situation.



• Gotta give the guy credit for taking the risk and coming out on top.



• Sounds like things have gone to shit in the Caribbean.



• Man, those Ukrainians are getting the job done.

Cell outage for everybody!

Yesterday, Verizon experienced a nationwide outage that affected all of us here.

If your phone had this in the upper right corner, it affected you as well.

Since everyone in my family has an iPhone, we were able to stay in touch via WiFi and iMessage. We could not make phone calls and if you were out of range of a known WiFi signal, you couldn't even use iMessage.

It started for me when my daughter, The Vet, sent me the following:

She eventually stopped being special and became SOS like the rest of us...

It seems like everything is back to normal now for us and hopefully it stays that way.

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The Bruins take on the Kraken this evening. Puck drops at 8:00pm.

The Sabres have moved into the first wild card slot but the Bruins remain in the second slot.

A win tonight will push them back into the first slot.

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Here are a few links:

• This is getting interesting.



• I've always said that the best thing to ever happen to the Patriots was Bob Kraft buying the team.



• Hey, I did this! It ran in the background of my high-end Gateway PC.

Nice win

Despite the fact I only made it through 2 periods last night, the Bruins managed to hold off the division-leading Red Wings, beating them 3-0 and moving back into a wild card slot.

Tomorrow, they take on the Kraken. Puck drops at that God-awful hour of 8:00pm so I'm hoping to see at least one period.

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I hear you say, "Steve, how's the flu thing going?"

Well let me tell you.

My ears are plugged up so everything sounds like it's happening on the other side of a window. Whenever someone talks to me, it sounds like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons.
I have three SalonPas patches on my ribcage helping to soothe whatever I damaged coughing like an elk during mating season.
Yes, I'm still coughing like an elk during mating season.
I'm only going through half a box of Puffs+ with Lotion^© a day.
I'm only taking one or two short naps a day.
I'm in the early stages of a nice little ear infection. I will try my best to minimize it but I suspect this will end with me making a trip to see a doctor.

This has been an update on my trip into the world of feeling like shit.

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I hear you say, "Steve, how's the new grandchild?"

Well let me tell you.

She is gaining weight at a normal rate.
She had her first meeting with her pediatrician and all is well.
Her mom and dad took her for her first walk outdoors this morning.
Mom is doing great.
We have not yet met her simply because I refuse to risk giving her the damned flu.

This has been a grandchild update. And let me just add, she is the cutest little thing.

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I'm going to say something that some of you won't like.

Deal with it.

For the most part, states have only themselves to blame for the influx of federal officers into their cities. The federal government has been saying all along, "Help us by holding the people you arrest so we can deport them." but states have instead been issuing edicts and guidance to police departments that basically say, "Do not help the federal government with any illegal alien stuff."

So this is what you get. You get heavily-armed federal agents roaming around your cities, knocking down doors and grabbing people off the streets. If you had just said, "Hey local police. If you arrest some guy and there is a tag on him in the system, you need to notify the feds so they can come get him."

Easy-Peazy-Lemon-Squeazy.

Let the people protest all they want, give the feds what they want and everyone, except the criminal, is happy.

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Here are some links:

• Man, they got records for everything.



• Daniel Cook looks like a bright intelligent fellow.



• Key phrase in this story "This time, the bullet won’t miss."



• Yea, because there is nothing else going on that we should be looking into.

The Texans will be coming to Foxboro

The Texans will be in Foxboro to play the Patriots this Sunday. Kickoff is at 3:00pm so I really hope I can stay awake and watch the game.

The divisionals are now set:

The Bills at the Broncos should be a pretty good game. All it takes for the Bills is to stay close and then for Allen to pull of his usual fourth quarter miracle. It is a distinct possibility that the #6 wildcard team will move on to the conference playoffs...

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Did we invade Greenland yet?

Just asking because The Very Stable Genius sure does have a bug up his ass over that island. He even assigned his two most loyal minions to it, Little Marco and James David Hamel.

English comedian Jimmy Carr did an excellent bit on this subject.

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The stock market is not happy.

I'm guessing that it is not happy with The Very Stable Genius trying to overturn 250 years of US financial stability by asserting some form of illegal and unethical influence over the Federal Reserve Bank.

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Here are some links:

• He keeps on saying, "Help is on the way!" but it never quite arrives.



• Key line in this story: "Since this started, we've been asking what the hell Hillary Clinton has to do with this..."



• Arsenal of Freedom would be a great name for a 1970s southern rock band.



• The Ukrainians continue to impress.



• Attention family and friends that are members of the LEO community: Check them twice.