Whose that author?

HE CALLED the place Pappas and Sons Coffee Shop. His boys were only eight and six when he opened in 1964, but he was thinking that one of them would take over when he got old. Like any father who wasn't a malaka, he wanted his sons to do better than he had done. He wanted them to go to college. But what the hell, you never knew how things would go. One of them might be cut out for college, the other one might not. Or maybe they'd both go to college and decide to take over the business together. Anyway, he hedged his bet and added them to the sign. It let the customers know what kind of man he was. It said, This is a guy who is devoted to his family. John Pappas is thinking about the future of his boys.

The sign was nice: black images against a pearly gray, with "Pappas" twice as big as "and Sons," in big block letters, along with a drawing of a cup of coffee in a saucer, steam rising off its surface. The guy who'd made the sign put a fancy P on the side of the cup, in script, and John liked it so much that he had the real coffee cups for the shop made the same way. Like snappy dressers got their initials sewn on the cuffs of a nice shirt. John Pappas owned no such shirts. He had a couple of blue cotton oxfords for church, but most of his shirts were white button- downs. All were wash- and- wear, to avoid the drycleaning expense. Also, his wife, Calliope, didn't care to iron.

Five short- sleeves for spring and summer and five long- sleeves for fall and winter, hanging in rows on the clothesline he had strung in the basement of their split- level. He didn't know why he bothered with the variety. It was always warm in the store, especially standing over the grill, and even in winter he wore his sleeves rolled up above the elbow. White shirt, khaki pants, black oilskin work shoes from Montgomery Ward. An apron over the pants, a pen holder in the breast pocket of the shirt. His uniform.

When you hire orcs.....you get about what you would expect.

Fake street signs warn of ‘easily startled’ Twin Cities cops

New York Post By Chris Perez July 24, 2017 

Fake street signs have been popping up in the Twin Cities — warning people of “easily started” cops — following the fatal shooting of an Australian bride-to-be by a Minneapolis police officer.

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At least two signs were spotted over the weekend, one of which was still standing on Sunday night, according to the Star-Tribune.

To drive the point even further, they each featured an image of a cop — wildly shooting a pair of pistols in each direction.

One of the signs was photographed in St. Paul and the other was reported in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, the Star-Tribune reports.

The sign in St. Paul was later removed after pictures of it began circulating on social media.

“There’s a side of truth to the sign,” local resident Joe Morino explained after taking a picture of the one in Minneapolis.

“That tells you there is something wrong with the system.”

The signs appear to be a direct reference to the July 15 killing of Justine Damond at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor.

The cop’s partner, Matthew Harrity, told investigators that they were both “startled” by a loud sound just before the shooting occurred.

AllenS reported traveling to the Hamptons......developing!

Christie Brinkley is open to finding love with the ‘right person’

by Lindsey Kupfer July 24, 2017

Christie Brinkley is single and ready to mingle.

“I’m loving my summer and [I’m] kind of really too busy [to date],” she told “Entertainment Tonight” at Social Life’s St. Barth Hamptons Gala this weekend. “But I’d slow it down a little if the right person came along.”

At the end of last year, the 63-year-old supermodel was spotted out with David Foster, but a source later said the pair were just friends.

Whose that Author?

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony. 

His very paternity was obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of originality.

When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the lad’s rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau—as the lad had been named—and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below.

Now the speech police are going after small talk?

Via Instapundit: What’s everybody’s big problem with small talk?

There are memes about hating small talk, articles about dodging potential landmines in casual conversation and a move to end the practice altogether. With a new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on the horizon, the biggest hater of small talk, Larry David, is inspiring pieces on how to avoid it altogether.

David has said on the show that he tries “to elevate small talk to medium talk” and he’s really not a fan of the “stop and chat” with an acquaintance. He’s not alone. This month Cosmopolitan UK described people who would “rather walk up five flights of stairs than endure 45 painful seconds” in an elevator with someone they know from work. And a Wall Street Journal article from May promised tips to “Save Yourself From Tedious Small Talk.”

Small talk is filler, that’s true, but is there anything really wrong with that? How else can we get to the deeper stuff unless we start with a less intense line of questioning? Do we really want conversations to begin with “how was your relationship with your parents?” or “describe your worst heartbreak”? We also seem to keep limiting what we’re allowed to say to each other, and that’s unfortunate.

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What is your "never again" story?

Reddit top voted answers...

I worked as a tower hand for a construction company. I used to take of my lanyard and move between booms(500-600feet up.) I also would slide down the outside legs untethered because it was faster than climbing down the ladder. I cringe when I think about that there was zero chance of survival if I fell.

Timeshare presentation. I now know what hell is like. 8 hours of my life I'll never get back.
And of course the "free trip" was impossible to get. "We will call you on Monday sometime in the next two months, then you need to fly out on Tuesday and come back Wednesday."

Back in the days before soft contact lenses you were supposed to clean them with hydrogen peroxide and then use a special neutralizer tablet afterwards.
I forgot to use the neutralizer before I put my contacts in. Hydrogen peroxide in your eye HURTS!

Asking a woman when her baby is due.
Doesn't really need a story. It went as imagined.

Loaning money to a friend.
Lost the money and the friend. Not a very good deal

Rode an Amtrak train from New Orleans to Washington DC. I thought I was a prodigy by choosing coach seating over a sleeper car or flying as I was saving some money by doing so.
Jump forward to 25 hours in the same seat, dude next to me pulling a Germany VS Poland invasion of the armrest, baby screaming all night in the back of the car and I couldn't sleep. The Toilet situation had deteriorated onboarrd to the point where I would use elbows and my boots to open and close the door and flush the toilet as my fellow riders were baffled by the concept of flushing and utilizing a trash bin for paper towels.
I've been awake 25 hours by this point and it's 3:45am.
If I ever do this, it's gonna be in a sleeper car, fuck the savings.
Murder on the Orient Express had the right idea.

"FBI Seized Smashed Hard Drives From Wasserman Schultz IT Aide’s Home"

Via Instapundit:  FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to an individual who was interviewed by Bureau investigators in the case and a high level congressional source.

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, the individual told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

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"Wisconsin Company To Implant Microchips In Employees"

Via Reddit: "It's the next thing that's inevitably going to happen, and we want to be a part of it," Three Square Market Chief Executive Officer Todd Westby said.

The company designs software for break room markets that are commonly found in office complexes.

Just as people are able to purchase items at the market using phones, Westby wants to do the sam thing using a microchip implanted inside a person's hand.

"We'll come up, scan the item," he explained, while showing how the process will work at an actual break room market kiosk. "We'll hit pay with a credit card, and it's asking to swipe my proximity payment now. I'll hold my hand up, just like my cell phone, and it'll pay for my product."

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"The Secret Life of Time"

Via Twitter:  In 1917, the psychologist Edwin G. Boring and his wife, Lucy, described an experiment in which they woke people at intervals to see if they knew what time it was; the average estimate was accurate to within fifty minutes, although almost everyone thought it was later than it actually was. They found that subjects were relying on internal or external signals: their degree of sleepiness or indigestion (“The dark brown taste in your mouth is never bad when you have been asleep only a short time”), the moonlight, “bladder cues,” the sounds of cars or roosters. “When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly bodies,” Proust wrote. “Instinctively he consults them when he awakes, and in an instant reads off his own position on the earth’s surface and the time that has elapsed during his slumbers.”

It may also be a simple matter of induction: it was 4:27 A.M. when I last woke at whatever hour this is, so that’s what time it is now. The surprise is that I can be so consistent. William James wrote, “All my life I have been struck by the accuracy with which I will wake at the same exact minute night after night and morning after morning.” Most likely it’s the work of the circadian clocks, which, embedded in the DNA of my every cell, regulate my physiology over a twenty-four-hour period. At 4:27 A.M., I’m most aware of being at the service of something; there is a machine in me, or I am a ghost in it.

And, once the ghost gets thinking, there is much to think about—most of all, how little time I have in which to do all the things I’m thinking about and how behind I am. Until very recently, that included a book about, of all things, the biology and perception of time, which had preoccupied me since before my kids—twin boys, Leo and Joshua, now ten—were born. In its wake is everything else: the melting ice caps; the cost of orthodontics; the rise of demagoguery; the gutters I have to clean before winter, if winter really comes. The end of the year is nearly here, and still my schedule is scattered across four productivity apps.

As worried as I am in these waking moments, I also find them oddly calming. It’s as if in falling asleep I’d fallen into an egg and woken as the yolk, cushioned and aloft on an extended present. It won’t last, I know. In the morning, the hours and minutes will reassert themselves and this seemingly limitless breadth of time will seem unreal and unreachable—the dream of boundless time, dreamed from the confines of an egg carton. But that’s a thought for tomorrow. For now, it’s now, and the tick of the bedside clock is the muffled beat of a heart.

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What's your best non-swearing insult?

Reddit top voted comments...

You're impossible to underestimate

I envy people who haven't met you.

I dont know why you're playing hard to get when you're so hard to want.

You haven't been yourself lately. We've all noticed the improvement.

I hope the rest of your day is as pleasant as you are.

If drunk, Churchill's one is pretty good: "in the morning I shall be sober, but you will still be ugly"

A retaliatory insult:
"I've been called worse things by better people."

Your grades say marry rich, but your face says study harder.

"8 found dead in trailer at San Antonio Walmart"

Via Drudge:  "We're looking at a human-trafficking crime this evening," said San Antonio Police Chief William McManus in a video posted on the department's Facebook page. "Homeland Security is working with us."

The eight dead are believed to have died as a result of heat exposure/asphyxiation, according to an SAPD press release, but an official cause of death will be determined by the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office.

Officials said about 30 more people were found inside the truck at 8535 S. Interstate 35 and Highway 16 and transferred to area hospitals for treatment.

(Link to more about this story)

"Trump Ruined Bisexual Wedding … By Winning"

Via Instapundit:  Author Beth McDonough told readers about her idyllic life and how President Donald Trump wrecked it all. “I came out as bisexual just over two years ago when I fell in love with the woman who is now my wife. My conservative, Christian family from small town West Virginia were nothing but open, loving, and supportive.”

So far, so good. Then the most awful thing happened -- the election. Our political neophyte who had never even voted before turned into (turnt?) the family member determined to annoy everyone. “I became terrified, and I got vocal about it. I attended rallies, I sent articles to my parents, I pleaded on social media for everyone who loves and supports me to please put their taxes and guns aside and stand up for human rights.”

Election day came. The libpocalypse. “I woke up in a stupor of shock. We lost. How could we have lost? The future was supposed to be bright and fair, not dark and hate-filled.”

Then came the betrayal! “One November 9th I saw an Instagram post from my cousin of he and his wife on a plane, celebrating the victory of President Donald Trump. He wasn't just happy, he was gloating, captioning the photo with hashtags like #Killary and #Hillaryforprison, exclaiming his excitement for Trump to make America great again.” Even more, an “ultra conservative, Christian cousin” of her wife to be didn’t approve of her gay wedding. Horrors. Or as the French would say, “Zut, alors!” (Who said I’m not multi-cultural?)

Naturally, she did what any newly woke, radical, alt-lefty, bisexual would do. She attacked her family. On the internet. “I wrote about the destructive election results, how I wasn't going to stay quiet about my discontent, and the dismay and sympathy I felt over my family, who all had to sit across from one another for dinner on Thanksgiving so soon after this historical event.”

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