Merry Independence Day.

Remember, if you live in Massachusetts or Vermont, you should never touch a sparkler or a firecracker or a bottle rocket. You are not smart neough to handle those weapons of mass destruction. Only residents of Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine are smart enough to know how to handle them.

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I probably won't be turning the AC off tonight. It is still predicted to be between 75° and 80° with high humidity.

I am not going to try and fall asleep in a puddle of sweat...

Tomorrow however, is a different story. It's predicted to be in the upper 70s / lower 80s with a light breeze and little humidity.

Hopefully it is a nice day for some lawn mowing.

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The Red Sox won last night, beating the Angels 5-2 and taking game 1 of their 3-game series.

I will admit that I saw just about 15 seconds of last nights game.

At 9:00, I turned on NESN to catch the pre-game bullshit session and prmptly fell asleep. I woke up around 10:00 or so to find the Red Sox up 4-0 in the 3rd inning. That was enough for me to turn the tv off and go to bed.

Tonights game has a 9:38 start and Grey has the start.

The hope-o-meter is faltering between middle and upper middle...

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This paragraph captures the essence of the Great American State Fair:

By early afternoon Friday in Washington, hundreds of people were roaming the grounds of the National Mall, home to The Great American State Fair. They snapped photos of the flyovers and tried to cool off inside tents that offered $9 lemonades and $23 turkey legs. Many were dressed in patriotic colors, their faces glistening with sweat.

Hundreds of people...

What an incredible waste of taxpayer funds.

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Here are some links:

• I wonder if they were invited to the celebration...



• I certainly did not expect it.



• The Tartan Army drinking Boston dry was the best World Cup story. This is the second best World Cup story.



• This is not the worst idea.

Another hot day

I forgot to check the thermometer at 2:00 this afternoon but I did check it just before 4:00 and found it was once again 99° on my back porch.

Saturday and Sunday are predicted to be slightly less hot with temps in the upper 80s which means I might actually be able to mow my lawn.

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I have been seeing several news stories about the fact the United States does not have any laws granting workers paid time off. Apparently all the Europeans that came over here for the soccer games are bragging about how much time they have off and the media noticed it.

I don't understand why there is a need for a law requiring paid time off.

I started working at the age of 14 when my cousin and I spent a summer digging holes to plant apple tree at the orchard behind my aunt's house. It was a part time job so I got no paid time off.

At 15, I got my "working papers" from the high school and I went to work nights at a restaurant bussing tables. Eventually I started working in the kitchen cooking seafood. Again, it was a part time job so I got no paid time off.

At 17 I got sick of cooking for people and I took a job at a department store. Again, it was part time so I got no paid time off but when I turned 18 and I graduated from high school, I took a full time position and got my first taste of vacation time.

Ever since then and until the end of my working days, I worked full-time jobs and I have always had the ability to take paid time off. In some cases, the paid time off was quite generous.

My point is, if you are currently working a full time job that does not give you any paid time off, you need to think about getting an different job. I'm betting that any employer who won't give you some time off also isn't handing out matching 401(k) contributions or making sure you have decent health care...

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Since I managed to get a great night's sleep last night, I might actually be able to watch an inning or two of baseball.

Here are some links:

• He must be having a shit fit over this. I keep waiting for someone to ask him about the small crowds



• This guy died on February 28 and they haven't buried him yet? I'm betting he's pretty ripe by now...



• Unless he decides to appeal, the Red Sox will need a first baseman.



• Pffftttt. We got these guys wandering around our neighborhood. They don't bother anyone and they run away when they see people.

It was hot.

My part of the world did not experience the heat that the weather dweebs predicted but it was close.

At 2:00 this morning, I was awake and listening to the ac's pumping out their cool air. I decided to see what the outside temperature was so I grabbed my phone and checked the weather:

At 2:00 this afternoon, I decided to see what the outside temperature was so I checked my thermometer:

For the record, the sensor for that thermometer is on the back wall of my porch in the shade. That means that 99° is air temp, not sunshine temp.

When it's in the upper 70s at 2:00 in the morning, you know it's going to be a hot day. Turns out it was a hot day.

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No baseball for me to watch tonight so I'll watch a little bit of the opening round of the John Deere Classic and then I guess I'll burn through some DVRs.

Then again, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night so maybe I'll just go to bed early and read until I pass out.

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Here are some links:

• The words "forcefully and violently' are a typical Trump minion lie. Sort of like when Kristi Noem called Alex Pretti a "domestic terrorist" after several ICE agents wearing masks forced him to the ground and executed him by firing 10 bullets into his back from close range.



• Give it a few days and I'm betting the Ukrainians return the favor 10 fold.



• Seems to me this was the opening scene to several sci-fi horror movies back in the 60s.



• WTF! Why would they do that?

I need an explanation

How is it that the Red Sox can win 4 of 4 games against the Yankees and then turn around and lose 2 of 3 against the Nationals?

Can any of you explain that to me?

The needle on my hope-o-meter is dipping...

They are off tomorrow while they travel to the west coast where they will play a 3-game series against the Angels.

Since the Angels are worse than the Red Sox, I really hope they win that series.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to watch any of the games because they don't start until after 9:30 at night.

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The AC has been running since 10:00 this morning.

If you don't have air conditioning, I feel really bad for you. At my house, the temp got above 96° and the humidity was above 70%.

That, my friends, sucks but it's going to be worse tomorrow. The weather dweebs keep throwing around tempartures like 102° and even higher humidity.

Oh, and they are also saying the low tonight will be somewhere around 75° so none of that "cool night air" for us! Those air conditioners will run all night long.

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Here are some links:

• Apparently Dementia Donny has decided that his "best and most important trade deal ever" is not quit so best or important anymore.



• Idiots...



• It's my guess that frustrations are running high on that team.

Five in a row

The Red Sox have won 5 games in a row! According to Fangraphs, there is now a 20.6% chance the Red Sox will make the playoffs!

My concern is that I find this all quite fantastic and I feel like I am being led along the yellow brick road.

But then again, I'm trying hard to be Mr. Optimistic so I'll go along with Fangraphs.

Tonight's game against the Nationals starts at 7:10 and Early has the start. I'm hoping for a 6^th win.

I am well above the middle on the hope-o-meter and in all honesty, it's creeping a little higher every day.

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It was hot today but not all that humid. That means no air conditioning for us. We spent the majority of the day under the ceiling fan on the porch. It was very comfortable.

Tomorrow will be a different story and you better believe there will be air conditioning. Once the humidity rears its ugly head, ceiling fans don't cut it.

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Several years ago I was heading out to Boston to pick my eldest up from college. When I went there, I always took the exit formerly known as "18" off the pike and drove down Storrow Drive.

On one particular trip, I got off of the mass pike at the Allston-Brighton exit (18) to find myself in a parking lot. Not the normal, "Boy, there is a lot of traffic but it's moving" parking lot. No sir, this was a full-on parking lot. No one was moving. And since the highway exit is a bit elevated, I could see that no one was moving further down the road.

Turns out some guy in a 11' 6" tall camper bus tried to drive down Storrow Drive.

He drove under this sign:

Which I bet a dollar made a racket when he hit it.

Did that stop him? No, it did not. He continued down Storrow until he hit this bridge:

Where his giant air conditioning unit got ripped off the top of his camper and shattered on the road, effectively closing the road.

When the state police showed up and cleared the road, they had to keep it clear so the camper could reverse all the way back to exit 18, Once there he could pull into a parking lot for a DoubleTree Hotel.

This is an event that occurs often enough that it has its own name. It's called "Storrowing" and it pisses everyone off.

I spent 2 hours in that traffic jam. Thanks to our modern cellular communication devices, I was able to call my son and tell him I would be late picking him up at school.

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Here are some links:

• I don't think I've ever heard it referred to as a "jail purse" before.



• Our society has gone to shit.



• Key line in this story: "But what’s the good in being a semi-professional time-traveller if you haven’t got a time machine?"



• I gotta be honest with you, it always bothered me that if you come here from Venezuela, you got free tuition but if you come here from Rhode Island, you get shit.



• Dementia Donny has sent all his minions out to lie about his fair.