Being at the mercy of a select group of channels and especially commercials is interesting.
First, you get the ones you see a million times and you start to consider just how much you hate the spokesperson. Lilly from AT&T is a very attractive woman but her level of performance in so many AT&T commercials, including the latest HBO MAX campaign, makes me want to hit her with a sharp cell phone.
HBO MAX seems like a huge waste of hard to get streaming.
From Lulu-lemon, comes the tech home exercise equipment called The Mirror, which hooks you up to the rest of the planet via a portal you purposefully hang up yourself to open your home to the World so they can watch you jog in place.
Nothing can possibly go wrong in the scenario.

Then you’ve got the heart string pullers.
Wounded Warrior project, where you can support the project for $19 per month.
Shriner love and St Jude, where they bring the kids in. One poor little guy is only five years old, born with brittle bone syndrome, has already had 13 operations, and has maybe the most astonishingly positive attitude you’ll ever see. For $19 you can support that cause as well.
Then, the annoying/sometimes intriguing take, led by Doritos.
There’s a multi-tiered campaign, one, which eschews the actual Dorito logo, depending on the mere shape of a triangle and familiar colors. Bold!

There’s also a huge Anna Kendrick Christmas party theme.
Side note: Honestly, for a woman who has no discernible, meaningful talent, she has gone FAR.
There’s yet another Hispanic themed one where a guy loves the hot limon flavor so much, he reinvents himself as “Post Limon”. Tats, Tex-mex clothes, changes his name to literally become Post Limon. Again, BOLD!

But then, one of the key bits that run throughout the entire campaign, all divisions, is that we see some nimrod or honyok just wipe their Dorito finger dust across their chests.
What kind of stupid Sleezestack just wipes their hands across their clean shirt or sweater?

Lick your fingers. Use a napkin. Or sure, next time you’re out at an event, into a Dorito bag up to your elbow, do that in front of your mother, who’ll have to wash your sweater. See how that goes for you.
The biggest question you might get asked is “Are you stupid or drunk?”
Finally, speaking of brain dead stupid, there’s this modular sectional couch commercial. It tries to highlight all the multiple variations of building it out into different configurations. They also try to illustrate how “easy” it is to strip the fabric off if you have a spill.

Here’s the thing.
The way they go about showing how the couch gets stained. Mostly due to this family being so phenomenally oblivious to physics, common sense, intelligence.
Stain/scene one. They’ve outfitted the couch white. Mom has an overflowing glass of red wine, laughing, while she gleefully allows her five year old daughter to leap onto her and spill the red wine. Oh, it’s okay, make dad strip away the fabric and clean it. More wine, tarbender!

Stain/scene two. The couch is once again outfitting white, facing an invisible tv screen, six family members are all eating various foods and are obviously “scared” enough at what they’re watching, throwing all the bowls of food in the air, because none of these miscreants have the slightest bit of motor control.

Stain/scene three. New configuration. Two idiot kids just allow a giant, wet, muddy dog to leap onto the couch and of course it shakes getting mud everywhere.
Time to clean up after your stupid family again, dad!
Considering, the couch is only one big item that got deluged in the mud splash, I wonder if dad’s still laughing?
CAN WE HAVE SOME SUPERVISION?!?!?!?!

Campaign strategies are one thing, selling stupidity is another.
Although there we go back to the average intelligence of people.
Maybe they’re just acknowledging stupid is everywhere?

There are not many candidates that I can put forth, as I usually don’t leave the house. So it’s down to visitors, either masked or no.
Two possible instances, one more likely than the other. I’ll add in the timeline as I go.
The first event was a family get together on Oct. 10.
There were 10 of us. Us, the kids, my folks, and step dad’s family.
The folks drove up, mom can no longer be left at home while Vic makes his business trips, as she falls too much. I suggested she come up, which of course meant that everyone else had to come to our place to visit as she couldn’t move well.
Conditions–So we were mostly outside, no masks, not properly socially distant anyway.

Vic was comfortable enough with the situation, saying after the fact that Thom and Zana were regularly tested in regards to their jobs. Kayt and James, no clue.
The folks left town on Oct 15. The whole trip up and whenever traveling, the folks are allegedly very good about precautions–however good you can be while traveling through six states, going out to eat and staying in various hotels.
Next instance in the timeline is five days later, Tuesday Oct. 20th, where we had Connor from UNIVERSAL WINDOWS come by the house in order to purchase some windows.

Young guy, masked, sat with us (also masked) for three solid hours as he wouldn’t leave without a deal. Right out of car dealership, he even pulled the old “I have to call my boss regarding this deal.”
After three hours, he mercifully left, having had his price chopped to 25% of the original–I’m sure part of the plan. Put down half up front.
Three days later, Friday, Oct. 23, the company sent a guy to take measurements. He was a bit looser about how to wear a mask and even though he was only there for 15 minutes, he left quite a stink in the house afterward.
Three days later, on Monday, Oct. 26, I started feeling “off”, like I was on the edge of getting a cold, but for a whole week, the other shoe didn’t drop.
When it did, I just plain felt worse and on Nov. 4th, tested positive. Four days later, felt worse, ten days after that, went to the hospital.

As for the sterling folks at UNIVERSAL WINDOWS, I made certain to keep them in the loop. The timeline, had their guys gotten tested, since they specifically go inside people’s homes?
I left a few messages regarding this. They never even responded. Once.
Oh, they were very prompt about getting ahold of me to confirm my downpayment though. I’ve since put in a dispute with my CC regarding their payment.
It’s not like I could ever allow these morons into my house again, all things considered.
So yeah, UNIVERSAL WINDOWS.
I wouldn’t.

Is it 100% that it was them? Hard to tell exactly of course, but their demeanor, behavior, timing and bad business practices and lack of communication skills raised every red flag.

And there came a time when the mysterious, ancient Kal-tu warrior priests became aware of an energy. A power unlike any seen in the west or east. When, after years of searching, they found this new life force, they were aghast at its potential. Evidently, this person could summon his living chi to light this beacon. This finger.

But the application, the application… the possibilities are actually not that impressive. Finger lights up.

But it’s something.

So….update. Full disclosure, as I have done all year long in the blog.
Granted, not a great thanksgiving. The only other bad one was when I was stuck at Eastgate drugs working the night back in the ’80’s. That was sad and pathetic.
Technically, they have better food here too.
One problem about being sequestered here, I don’t get much up and around time, so I’m physically not at my best.
Up until Thanksgiving, my main concern was my low oxygen levels, shortness of breath, with most any repositioning change–standing up, sitting down, shifting around—causing a lot of shortness of breath, panting, which usually degenerates into the wracking coughing. Which of course feeds back into more panicked breath, back and forth, vicious circle.

I think we’re making small gains/improvements on the cough front.
But it wasn’t until Thanksgiving morning that I realized just how much of a physical decline had taken place.
Remember, from Nov. 4th on, I’d mostly been in power down mode. No activity. Fast forward to Nov. 26.
Coming back from the bathroom– because Mr. Dental hygiene just HAD to brush his teeth– I hit the bed at a bad angle, kinda passing out, delayed big headrush and bang smash boom.
Thankfully, my head is at least as hard as my side table. Discombobulated everything on the table. Thank god the iPad didn’t fall. Horrors of horrors! It’s my key to posting the almighty blog!
But now, I’ve got to call them if I want to get up out of bed. Understandable, but of course I didn’t immediately go meekly into lockdown. Once I calmed myself, I got with the program.

My bed tweets. Not social media, just an annoying noise. It’s like there’s some code built in to the bed where it occasionally throws out two or three tweets for no discernible reason. Wtf?
Daytime tv is every bit as horrible as I remember.
As far as treatment, progress, it’s all down to the steroids. They’ve plainly stated that there’s absolutely nothing else they can do.
I’m way too late in the game for the Remvedisvir or whatever it’s called, as even getting the plasma didn’t help.
So, it’s the steroids, being on 24/7 oxygen, and me building up my air intake with an apparatus you might have seen on The Right Stuff, a small device which helps you build up your intake and tolerance. Been working on it, making some strides.
As far as what’s next, that gets tricky.
It will take as long as it will take for me to respond, to right the ship, and of course I hope I can right it.
I’m a unique case, as this has been stretched out over a month total, the cancer, and
I’ve acquired no antibodies either.
And at this point, I’m doing some small arm and leg exercises to keep limber, etc. maintain some strength. So far, I dropped about 25 pounds, so I’ve gotta do something.

Appetite’s kinda coming back though. The doc says that if we see some progress across the board, then they might just send me home, trending in the right direction with some oxygen.
One nurse speculated that they might test me out walking around the room with a mobile oxygen unit. The thought being to help prepare for when I go home on oxygen. I haven’t heard any corroboration of any of this though.
As of this moment, there has been corroboration, they still haven’t done it yet.
Also, we seem to have the upper hand on the cough. Huzzah!.

The other exterior factor that might not surprise you is Thanksgiving itself.
See, there have been massive amounts of people traveling, meeting up, inside, huddling together for turkey day. The idea, basically, is screw it, we’re tired of being responsible, distanced, masked, etc.
No, not that they were that smart in the first place, but yeah, Thanksgiving is officially a super spreader event.
My nurses? They’re scared. See, they’re already at capacity at this hospital.
At some point, the already skyrocketing numbers of admittances will now get exponentially worse.

I may very well have to share a room with someone who’s worse off than me in the coming weeks, don’t know. Hopefully I’ll be outta here before the shit hits the fan.
Every day, every way, I can’t help but feel more and more disheartened by the selfishness and stupidity which infests this country.
Hope everyone enjoyed their turkey.
Let’s hope everyone around that table can enjoy it next year.

I’ll be honest, I’m slightly conflicted on what I should be thankful for, here. I’m writing this from a hospital bed.

You know, let’s see how things are going around Christmas.

Gobble!