Moved to Jersey circa 1995 -- not because NYC had gotten too expensive

but because I'd come to realize that I'd been born to be a Jersey girl...despite having been born in the Bronx.

P.S. There is no such place as Central New Jersey: with a vertical reach of barely 175 miles, New Jersey is just too plain short to have a credible central region.



Northern New Jersey consists of the counties of Mercer, Middlesex, and the counties north of them; the rest is Southern New Jersey (including Monmouth County, because it shares a border with the Jersey Shore's Atlantic Ocean). Thank you and good night.

P.P.S. And it's pork roll -- In 1906, the government decreed that way it was made, it doesn't qualify to be defined as ham.


Rocknation

Ironically, "Is it OK to be white?" would have made a great subject for a Dilbert strip

During the Feb. 22 episode of “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” he referenced a Rasmussen Reports survey that had asked whether people agreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.” Most agreed, but Adams noted that 26% of Black respondents disagreed and others weren’t sure.

"...The firm disputed many of his theories..."

Remember those 11M additional votes Trump got in 2020 that he couldn't stop bragging about? His "theory" seemed to be based on his getting them from Democrats with "buyer's remorse." Actually, they came from the 26M voters who were either too young or too apathetic to vote in 2016: Biden got the win because he got the rest.

Add that excess of 4M non-2016 voters to Trump's 3M popular vote margin of defeat in 2016 (how likely is it that the "landslide majority" of them came down with buyer's remorse?), and you get Biden's 7M-vote margin of victory.


Rocknation

The WordPress Re-Installment That DIDN'T Happen

Went to my WordPress blog home page -- was greeted with their "white screen of death":



Never got a "site admin email."

Rounded up the usual suspects -- the plugins and the databases -- but everything "tested clean."

It looked like I'd have to do a complete re-install. But it's been years since my last one, and apparently the WordPress "famous five minute install" is now the stuff of ancient history.

I decided that the smartest route to take was via the latest edition of the WordPress installment instructions. One of their very first instructions? "PHP 7.4 or greater."

Consulted my Web host's PHP section. My account was set on PHP 7.3; my Web host's current maximum is PHP 8.1.

Two clicks later, my blog was back: WordPress complete re-install NOT accomplished!!!


Rocknation

We didn't even ATTEMPT "do-it-yourself" home hospice care

because it seemed that when it comes to babysitting terminally ill loved ones literally to death with no qualifications, no training, no job experience, and no pay -- well, what could possibly go wrong?

We said that if our mother did not yet qualify for full-time nursing home or hospice care, then either she would get full-time PROFESSIONAL home care, or we would get a lawyer. She got 24-hour home attendant care until she qualified for hospice.

My most sincere condolences for all your losses.


Rocknation

In the immortal words of Mrs. Slocombe

I am forever indebted to Lansbury for teaching me how to "run a Jessica Fletcher"

(the character she played on Murder She Wrote). She would never embarrass the professionally-trained and allegedly smarter detectives she'd work with by saying, "You didn't notice that the position of the body makes it obvious that the murderer is left-handed?" She would always say, "You noticed, OF COURSE, that the position of the body CLEARLY indicates that the murderer has to be left-handed..."

Example: Last month, I told my new landlord, "I figured that your not telling us that you'd be disconnecting the wifi was a security measure since you were installing surveillance cameras. Lucky for me I have a mobile hotspot account, which I can simply deduct from next month's rent!" Our wifi re-materialized within 48 hours...


Rocknation

Cyntoia was wrongfully sentenced, not wrongfully convicted

But I am happy for her nonetheless.

The evidence instantly gutted her claim that she saw her victim reaching around underneath his side of the bed for what she feared was a gun: he was actually sound asleep with his back to her and BOTH his hands under his pillow.

What was "wrongful" was the prosecution "making an example" of her rather than leveraging her youth via a plea deal based on manslaughter, which would have provided her with motivation to reform and had her released by now anyway.


Rocknation

Was the table down or up when her head ended up on or against it? And did the perp KNOW

that her head was on/against the tray table on the back of his seat when he reclined it? He definitely acted unruly afterwards, and the airline should punish him for that ("international incident" or not). But I suspect that they and the FBI are both dragging their feet because ultimately, the initial bumping was simply an accident that she had caused: tray tables are not headrests.


Rocknation

Will be getting booster #3 within two weeks

I refuse to live in fear of either getting Covid (particularly in view of my age) when getting vaccinated can minimize if not deflect it altogether; or of spreading it via the working, traveling, and just plain living that I have scheduled. In addition, getting the booster this soon will allow me to get my seasonal "common" flu vaccine "on schedule" in late October (in order to have the fullest-strength protection by January).

#FluVaccineByHalloween


Rocknation