A few years ago I was in a local place where the food and service were both entertainingly bad. For decades it had been a wonderful little Greek restaurant, until the couple who ran it moved to Greece for a well-deserved retirement and their son took it over. The son remodeled and reopened it as a combination Greek/sushi restaurant and sports bar, hanging five or six large screens from the ceiling. In a place slightly larger than my living room.

I was eager to try the sushi. “There’s no sushi tonight. Dennis isn’t here.” Oh, alright, when is Dennis here? “We don’t know. Maybe Wednesday. He never says.” Well alrighty then. Dennis is livin’ the dream I guess. So I ordered spanakopita, another favorite. What I received was a brown chunk resembling a giant Totino’s pizza roll, on an otherwise bare plate, where it dryly slid around all by itself. It looked and tasted like a Costco product they took out of a package and over-microwaved. The driest, crispest spanakopita I’ve ever had.

I took a chance and ordered the baklava. It tasted okay but instead of being flaky it was actually soggy - not as in dripping with butter and honey, I mean watery. The only watery baklava I’ve ever had, and also the only serving of baklava in my life that I did not finish.

A guy dining at the next table asked the waitress for the check, but said he would like a cup of coffee first. I was directly facing the clock and happened to notice it was exactly 7pm. At 7:10 she returned with their check and said, “We’re out of coffee.” Wat? They’re open for another 3 hours and they’re out of coffee LOL? And it took a full 10 minutes to return with this info. It’s a tiny place, I could see the coffee machine like 12 ft away. And there are like six customers. Seemed like a dismally bad restaurant in a sitcom, reminding me somewhat of the diner in The Dark Backward.

There were a couple other things but that’s all I can remember. Anyway, this new version of the place didn’t last long and it’s permanently closed now.

Blockading Cuba has never made sense. If communism is an inferior failed system that can’t compete with the freedom of Capitalism (cue heavenly sunbeams and angel choirs) why not leave Cuba alone and let nature take its course?

Yes, a Very Special Thanks to the morally pure angels who refused to vote for Kamala Harris because they were standing on high ground about some issue they disliked her on. Well done, fuckheads.

What devil has this guy made a deal with? No matter how stupid, obnoxious or abrasive he is, people worship him. He constantly screws himself over and then before he has to face serious consequences he trips on a rock and somehow everything’s alright again for him. At this point he literally can shoot someone on 6th Avenue and get away of it. I think Trump is solid evidence that we’re living in a simulation and somebody is fucking with us, because life just doesn’t work the way it works for him. Somebody’s thumb is on the scale.

This seems vaguely familiar but I can’t quite put my forearm on it.

Noice. Call Arnold whatever you want, he’s no MAGA ass-kisser.

I can just hear those MAGA morons smugly chuckling, “What can they do LOL they can’t even vote, fuck 'em!”

No, fuck you.

Technically this could all be true even if the universe were created 4000 years ago. As somebody says in Robert Heinlein’s novel Job: A Comedy of Justice, “Yes, the universe is billions of years old, but it was created 4000 years ago. It was created old.” (approximate quote from memory)

I absolutely agree with science, but strictly speaking we can’t know for sure the universe isn’t the creation of some superbeing operating outside of it - or it could even be a simulation.

Single-issue voters are ignorant to begin with, but failing to help stop another Trump presidency isn’t the moral high ground. If you’re in that group there’s no point polishing your halo, because you are shitting on it.

I totally believe police sincerely think they can tell based on experience, but it’s false confidence.

Story time: One night on my way home I was pulled over for a broken taillight, which I truthfully told the officer I wasn’t aware of. After taking another look she gave me a warning but said, with a little lilt in her voice, “Lotta dust in there, looks like it’s been broken for a while… surprised you haven’t noticed it.” As if she “knew” I was lying, because cops have heard it all before.

I really wanted to unload on her that I was on my way home from working at my job and then taking my shift sitting in the hospital room keeping my 10-year-old daughter company until she fell asleep. She had been undergoing cancer treatments for the last 2 months. So excuse the hell outta me but there were a lot of things I’d missed lately. Like Thanksgiving. And Christmas. And apparently a broken taillight. I’ll get to it when I get to it but I can’t make any promises.

That smirky little accusing tone of voice still sticks with me after 20 years. So fuck your smug-ass attitude, Officer I Know What I Know, because no you sure as fucking hell didn’t.