Taking the senior bus to Atlantic City

The mandatory activity for the retiree in New Jersey is the experience of taking the senior bus to Atlantic City. Like the trip to Florida during spring break for college students, all seniors are required, by law, to do this pilgrimage at least once a year.

Apparently you have to buy the tickets in advance and on the big day show up at 8:30 at the local senior center ready for bear and the expectation of a rewarding and lucrative day in Atlantic City.

Today the big day is here. Looks like it is going to be cool and damp, no sunshine. Oh well. Got on the bus. No problem. Nice ride. Always fun to see the windmills of old Atlantic City. Back in the day you were greeted at the casino with a roll of quarters. Now it's high tech. Fortunately I was able to find an old Resorts card and it was able to take in the credit for twenty five dollars.

Resorts is nice. Cozy, a little old fashioned, I was reminded how, as a tot, I vacationed with my parents there when it was the old Chalfonte Haddon Hall. There were no televisions in the rooms. You had to go to one of the television parlors, each named for a network. In the NBC room I sang along with my parents and other guests to Sing-a-Long with Mitch.

I digress. My partner and I went to the slots machines. I played on the bus money. Every once in a while there would be fireworks and the machine would explode in sounds as it went into the bonus round. After all the excitement I realized I had won a few dollars.

Walked over to the Hard Rock Cafe. Very modern decor, had an overpriced burger. Slots again. Lost money. Had a free drink from the roving waitress. Yes I know you are supposed to tip them.

Finally we went home, a little lighter in net worth, if not in pounds.
Okay, no big deal. Last time I took the bus to AC we got donuts in the morning, bingo during the ride, and a movie on the way home. Oh well, I'll always have my memories of bus rides past.

Happy Mothers Day

Just got back from lovely Singapore. Hot and humid but fun. Especially liked the hawker centers for food. Being lazy I can't think of anything new to say for Mother's Day but here are two old favorites.

Editor's note: Selling like hotcakes but now available for the low price of $2.99 my book.

John Bercow

https://twitter.com/tagesschau/status/1085610253922828289

Those of us in America, when bored with our own political crises, like to turn to our friends in Britain and watch  theirs. Quickly becoming an American celebrity and symbol of jolly olde England is the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow.

Watching the Brexit news on Youtube, I have become fascinated with the wit and calls to order of Mr. Bercow. Apparently a Conservative, he likes scolding members of Parliament of all persuasions when they are getting too noisy. I'd like to see a debate between him and Nancy Pelosi. I'd also like to know where he gets his haircuts.

Side hustles

When I was in college I was friends with a young woman who had side hustles. When she came to college two weeks late she explained that she was hustling up her tuition. "A hustle here, a hustle there and now I have tuition". Later I figured out that selling my radio was one of her side hustles.

One of the classic side hustles is selling stuff on e bay. People do make money doing it if they have the time and inherited neat stuff. Other side hustles involve selling birthday cakes to the neighbors, helping your brother with his contracting business on weekends, or for those with literary aspirations, writing a Kindle book.

Alexandria Octavio-Cortez has stated that side hustles move up the unemployment rate, but that is factually inaccurate. Having a side hustle does, however, give you a varied and potentially lucrative second life. Side hustles are also useful if you want to get out of things. "I'm sorry I can't teach Sunday school but I  reserve Sundays for my side hustle."

Cell phones have replaced cigarettes

Back in the day, idle moments at the bar, when you didn't care for the hockey game on the television, could be filled by lighting up a cigarette. Awkward moments, waiting for the train, waiting to be called by the doctor, on long elevator rides, were filled by smoking.

Today you can't smoke at any of these places. Luckily, the cell phone has come along. It occupies your hands, let's you avoid staring into space or at the other idlers, and makes it looks like you have a life.

"See, that man must be texting his girlfriend" people will think.

"He must have important business to attend to at work. Perhaps that is his agent who wants revisions on his novel", people will think.

Little do they know that you have no new mail, and are looking at a cat video on Facebook. Modern times.

These modern technologies

In days of old when knights were bold and HDMI weren't invented
You could plug the RCA plug into the tv and connect it to your amplifier and lousy tv speaker sound prevented...
I thought I would do that when I got my Samsung smart tv but I found out that was not possible. My amplifier, bought in the early aughts had no usb not to even think of HDMI jacks. It was analog, going back to a day when toilets apparently weren't invented.

Everybody said that's easy. You have to buy a digital sound bar. That's true, but I they're expensive! I guess I inherited my cheapness genes. The past year I learned to live with the flat sounding television speakers. For cable I could plug my RCA plugs into the cable box but for Netflix and Youtube I had to learn to live with the television speakers.

Last week I finally took a chance on what was called a digital to analog converter. It was about twenty bucks on the Internet. I was expecting a usb plug. Instead it came with weird plugs I later found out were HDMI plugs. After getting out my flashlight and magnifiying glass I located a previously unseen HDMI port on the back of the tv. I plugged everthing in. Surprisingly, after some tinkering, I got the thing to work. Now my old speakers can play my Netflix and You Tube feeds. Sound isn't bad. After 60 you can't hear higher frequencies anyway.

Editor's note: Sometimes I wonder if companies really want to improve our listening experiences or they just want to sell us more stuff.

Britain and America arm in arm

For some reason America and the UK  will always be joined at the hip. Both countries are going through their first crisis of the 21st century together. Soon, Englishmen won't be able to get hands on their prescriptions, there will be traffic jams miles long in Dover and no-one will be able to fly a plane to Europe or even Ireland.

In America, no-one will be able to fly a plane at all. There will be no traffic controllers, luggage snifters, Food stamps, or national parks. In England no-one will be able to go from Belfast to Dublin.
Both countries will face the future alone.

My prediction is that once the W2 forms will have been distributed, they'll find a way for us to pay our taxes. The English will be able to travel anywhere they want, but it will be more expensive. Like the gas lines of 1975 the solution will be reached but it will cost more in the pocketbook.

Editor's note: Looks like the next government shutdown has been diverted. It's exciting now that we are living in a national emergency. Things feels so different.