Saturday and Sunday Strip

Who Stole the Fish?

I’m starting to think my daughter’s potion one month ago to make me into a fairy has worked. Today was a weird day here in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Yes I’m back in America for a short while, which I pray and intend to actually be a short while.

When do they advertise price like that? And is that a Soylent Green reference?

Sigh

This is some basic math

My in flight movie review this time is of two older movies that I had already previously watched. Francis McDormand absolutely deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as a pregnant police chief in Fargo, which seemed to encapsulate the times we live in so well: some crook tries to scheme his way into money for his debts, destroying himself, his family, and many other people in the process. The other movie I watched again was 13 Going on 30. It’s a cute romcom that cuts to the basics of adolescent development. I loved both movies well enough to watch them again. Obviously I have good reviews.

Ka’s Buddha necklace was stolen in the recent move to the construction site. That’s along with anything else that had any value whatsoever. He’s been so worried about this that I have all important documents with me in the USA. I have my husband’s passport, the chanote title on the Isaan land, green books on the two stolen motorbikes, one of his two Thai ID cards and one of the two copies of our marriage certficate. The only Thai amulet we have left between me and him is this one on my necklace. It’s Wat Thad Phanom in Isaan land:

So I jumped to the Our World in Data charts which, suprise suprise, no longer have worldwide data on excess mortality. I was looking for the cumulative excess mortality, which I consider the gold standard and I’ll tell you why. This isn’t about how many people died overall because people die every day, hopefully 3 hours after their husband does at 106 years old or something like that. So obviously mortality data will only show a rising trend: the more time passes, the more people die. Duh.

A lot of people look at excess mortality which means more people die than are expected to die. This is a good baseline. It sometimes gets hard for me to parse after times of high death rates (like now) because a decline in the excess mortality can reflect a lot of things: a decreasing population or even statistical noise. Does a decrease from 18% to 8% excess mortality actually herald a new era of better times? No not really.

Those better times are usually hidden in the cumulative excess mortality, which is where things should be wavy and trend around zero. A lot of people dying (usually the old and sick) means less people to die off next time. So here’s what Our World in Data is showing there for America and Thailand:

I decided to add the UK to the mix. Crikes:

I had to look long and hard for an example of sorts of what cumulative excess mortality should look like. Here it is:

Yay for Tunisia! That’s totally normal looking excess culmulative mortality. In times of old anyways.

Regarding what I posted earlier today involving my investigative reporting on the sudden closure of all 99 Cents Only Stores nationwide, yes I went into the one close to our house today again. Hat tip to my niece Madison for supplying me the pictures:

There were some areas of the store on this day two which looked near empty, while other sections looked fine. What I noticed is that entire specific items were untouched while some others were wiped out. Batteries and tools of any sort were completely gone, but working gloves and a certain TV antenna were unbuyable at any price.

As it regards food items they looked pretty okay today. Then I noticed this:

Food items are only 10% off, while beverages including alcohol were 5% off. It’s not enough of a discount to draw in the real bargainers. If we have that much excess sugar they are not panicked enough.

So some of these items will never sell anywhere at any price while others will go fast and then at a medium speed. Here I bring up the goldfish.

We only have one goldfish, 4+ years old, left in our aquarium. Paul had this brillient idea to take the girls to PetSmart to buy more goldfish and have them pick them out. We each picked one, so it came out to 5 total goldfish for .40 cents each or $2 total. The girls (my younger girl and my three nieces) excitedly named their fish. Then we went to the 99 Cents Only Store in the same shopping plaza.

I kept the doors and windows on the car open intentionally because I assumed the girls would not want to wait in the long line with me (they did not). The only thing in the car was five goldfish in a clear plastic bag in water in the back seat. I remember thinking at the time exactly Who in God’s Name Would Steal Goldfish?

I am more amused than angered by the theft of the goldfish. I hope they have a good life. Really though looters and petty thieves are everywhere.

It’s a sign of the times..

Buy me a ko-fi