BillyBlog

The Five of Diamonds

2023-06-17T11:59:00.000-04:00

It has been years since I logged a new card in my game of 52-Card Pick-Up. Early last week I found this Five of Diamonds:

The following cards have been found previously:

The Seven of Diamonds (August 9, 2017)

The Jack of Clubs (August 6, 2017)

The King of Clubs (July 25, 2010)

The Ace of Hearts (March 27, 2010)

The Five of Clubs (February 20, 2010)

The Two of Spades (August 17, 2009)

The Ten of Diamonds (July 2, 2009 - found June 1, 2009)

The Five of Spades (June 18, 2009)

The Eight of Spades (January 6, 2009)

The Eight of Diamonds (December 5, 2008)

The Two of Hearts and the Queen of Spades (November 1, 2008)

The King of Spades (October 26, 2008)

The Ace of Spades (September 22, 2008)

The Jack of Diamonds (September 18, 2008)

The Six of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, and Eight of Clubs (August 10, 2008)

The Six of Clubs (July 21, 2008)

The Seven of Hearts and The King of Diamonds (April 24, 2008)

The Three of Clubs (March 29, 2008)

The King of Hearts
and the Three of Spades (February 28 and March 25, 2008)

The Ace of Diamonds (July 7, 2008)

The Jack of Hearts and Five of Hearts (July 19, 2008)

View the whole set here.

And here's the scorecard with the latest addition:

Found Hearts: 2,5,6,7,Jack, Queen, King, Ace
Needed Hearts: 3,4,8,9,10

Found Diamonds: 5, 8, 7, 10, Jack, King, Ace
Needed Diamonds: 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, Queen

Found Clubs: 3,5,6,8, Jack, King
Needed Clubs: 2,4,7,9,10,Queen, Ace

Found Spades: 2,3,5,8,Queen, King, Ace
Needed Spades: 4,6,7,9,10, Jack

Hello, Cleveland!

2023-03-20T19:35:00.000-04:00

Well, not Cleveland. No offense.

It has been five years, a month and thirteen days since I last posted on BillyBlog.

I noticed the second to last post is full of broken links. Welp.

Why am I here?

Yesterday, while on the bike - yes, I still do that - I ran over an Ace of Hearts, and it had me thinking of my 52-card pick-up game. I grabbed it. An Ace from Mount Airy Casino & Resort! Cool! But, alas, not as cool as the Pirate! card from 2010. Into the recycling it goes.

Will anyone even notice if I post here?

SEO for this page has long been in the crapper.

But, I'm still alive.

Mr. Bill And Me (Yet Another Production)

2018-02-07T16:48:00.002-05:00

5 years ago today, I was about 5 months unemployed.

A couple of opportunities presented themselves between February and June of 2013, but it was a sad lonely time of daily repetition, sending out cover letters, emails, answering the occasional call, going on the less occasional interview. When July rolled around, I was near the end of my proverbial rope.

One day in late July, I walked into my bedroom and took the following picture:

I posted it on social media and people liked it. Mr. Bill became a welcome distraction. A month later I was offered a job and started in September. I'm not saying Mr. Bill changed my life, but the timing seems fortuitous.

I've long thought about compiling the adventures of Mr. Bill into a some coherent record, aside from the scattering of photos in my google albums.

Behold: the birth of yet another Bill Cohen blog, Mr. Bill and Me.

I will be posting and dating the posts as accurately as possible.

Mr. Bill got around.

Enjoy.

Poem Suggested By Autofill (10/4/2016)

2018-02-05T07:04:00.000-05:00

The

Raging

I have been treated well

by the time of day.

I'm not going to be

my last day of work.

I'm not going to be

out of town until Sunday morning.

I'm sure that you can find

the right thing to remember.

Great!

Sorry I missed your call.

I'm not mad but hopefully I

Will be at the shop on the bridge to the Free Clinic.

I'll let you know when we get there.

I will keep you updated on

my phone and call you when I

put the brown sugar in the morning.

The Moons of Uranus the intended recipient of this information

to help you with the two missing Russian women

who have been working in the morning of the Lambs.

I'll be able to come to the Free Clinic

in the a.m. I'm not sure how to initiate the sender immediately and delete this message.

T-Shirts I Have Known: That Metal Show

2018-01-26T18:30:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite gifts from my older daughter, Jolee. Unprompted, she bought this shirt from me back when VH1 Classic was still airing episodes of That Metal Show.

The show has been "off the air" for almost three years now, but I really credit the show for my rebounding interest in metal.

I did wear this to the Iron Maiden show last summer.

This t-shirt is still in rotation in the closet.

Bookmark Graveyard, Chapter 2

2018-01-23T16:47:00.000-05:00

More bookmarks getting deleted, saved on BillyBlog for posterity:

The New York Times 2015 "The Lives They Lived" feature here.

A Tumblr called "What Would We Call Poets" here.

"Curvaciously Yours" by Olga Gonzalez Ramos here and an article about Olga from NJ.com here.

My bike a 2003 Raleigh M20, from BikePedia, described here.

Post-War Jazz, An Arbitrary Road Map, from the Village Voice, here.

Bound Fast To Thee: Interviews From Times of Transition in 'Iolani's History here.

Bookmark Graveyard, Chapter 1

2018-01-22T19:46:00.000-05:00

Wonder why you have so many pages bookmarked? I was wondering and was thinking, let me just delete this.

Then my cyberhoarder mentality kicked in. So I decided to drop these here. I don't know why. Just because, I guess.

The go-to list for Roberto Bolaño works: The Bolaño Syllabus: A Final Reckoning.

Boston Review's Top 20 Poems of 2015 here.

Rolling Stone's Top 550 Songs of All Time here.

Buzzfeeds's List of Posts about Tattoos here.

"F.A.Q.s," a story by Allegra Goodman on The New Yorker here.

50 Places Every Literary Fan Should Visit via Flavorwire here.

Good times.

Random Photo

2018-01-21T16:57:00.000-05:00

Broadway between Park Place and Barclay, November 3, 2017

Women's March, Year 2

2018-01-20T16:51:00.000-05:00

On January 20, 2018, I joined the family in New York City for the second annual women's march.

Last year I posted a bunch of photos, but this year I am posting fewer....

I had my own sign, which was fairly well-received:

My friend Teri took the following candid shot:

Snowflake

2018-01-19T16:53:00.000-05:00

Spotted on my coat back on December 9, 2017:

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Fwd: INTERESTING PICTURES TO TAKE YOUR MIND OFF OF WHATEVER!

2018-01-17T14:11:00.000-05:00

A flock of sheep pass through a gate

The heavens open. Copenhagen , Denmark

Totoro, the Owl, with his mushroom

Feeding the 'birds' in Ecuador

A water spout in Genoa , Italy

So much emotion in just one photo!

Life is good

A cycling team from Rwanda sees snow for the first time, they were in first place until they stopped, now everyone passed them up!

The photographer fell off a chair when he was taking the shot and ended up with this masterpiece of a wedding photo.

Swans swim through the street after floods, UK

A walrus becomes embarrassed when it's given a cake made of fish for its birthday, Norway

I really want to know what they're looking at...

A typical rainy day in Chicago, USA

Police dogs in line for lunch

In the African wilderness

Marilyn hasn't aged well...

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Fwd: Perfectly Timed Photography....... NEW BATCH

2018-01-16T07:21:00.000-05:00

Rainbow is my favorite. Not quite a pot of gold.

Timing Is Everything...

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Fwd: Fw: Fwd: The Owl and His Shepherd

2018-01-15T07:16:00.000-05:00

I can recall something about "The Owl and The Pussycat, but............

Owl and His Shepherd

Ingo, a Belgian shepherd, and Poldi, a one-year-old owlet, share a very special bond which is evident in the following photos.

For years, photographer Tanja Brandt has made it her mission to capture magnificent photos of animals and wildlife. Recently, the German artist found a new challenge when she photographed the unique bond between two unlikely friends: Ingo, a Belgian shepherd, and Poldi (Napoleon), a one-year-old owlet. The owlet and canine have a special “protector-protected” relationship and that their affection towards each other couldn’t be any more evident.
Ingo lovingly guards Poldi, who apparently “doesn’t know how to live free.”

The owlet hatched two days after his six brothers and sisters, therefore, has always been very vulnerable due to his small size. Comparatively, Ingo was raised to by a family of strong, and oftentimes ruthless, police dogs.

“They respect each other and they can read each other,” says the photographer.

Following are some adorable photos of the unlikely best friends:

I just love the picture below...

Funny Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Beer! Beer! Beer!

2018-01-14T07:14:00.000-05:00

"Sometimes, when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I'm ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I did not drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, it is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true, than be selfish and worry about my liver.

Babe Ruth

"If all you had to look forward to was sleeping with Lady Bird you'd stay drunk too".
Lyndon B. Johnson

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading".
Paul Horning

"24 hours in a day and 24 beers in a case.

Coincidence?

I think not".
H. L. Mencken

"When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep.

When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven.

So, let's all get drunk and go to heaven".
George Bernard Shaw

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy".
Benjamin Franklin

"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer.

Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention,

but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza".
Dave Barry

“Beer: Helping ugly people have sex since 3000 B.C.”
W. C. Fields

Remember "I" before "E," except in Budweiser.
Professor Irwin Corey

“To some it is a six-pack. To me, it is a Support Group.

Salvation in a can”.
Leo Durocher

One night at Cheers, a TV Sitcom, Cliff Clavin said to his buddy, Norm Peterson:

"Well, ya see, Norm, it's like this ... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo.

And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.

This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the

whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells.

Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells.

But, naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.

In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells,

making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers".

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: REFURBISHED VERY OLD PHOTOS - amazing examples

2018-01-12T07:11:00.000-05:00

Refurbished Old Photographs

A Washington, D. C. Filling station in 1924

Audrey Hepburn (WOW)

Mark Twain in 1900

Charlie Chaplin at 27 years old in 1916

A car crash in Washington D.C. Around 1921

Albert Einstein, 1921

Brigadier General and actor Jimmy Stewart.

Stewart flew 20 combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe,

and even flew one

Mission during Vietnam.

Love

Pablo Picasso

Elizabeth Taylor in 1956 (another WOW)

Alfred Hitchcock

Big Jay McNeely, Olympic Auditorium, 1953

I

Charles Darwin

Clint Eastwood, 1962

Hindenburg Blimp crash

British Soldiers Returning from the front in 1939

Albert Einstein on a Long Island beach in 1939

Samurai Training 1860

Winston Churchill, 1941

Country store in July 1939 Gordonton, North Carolina

.o

Unemployed Lumber Worker and His Wife 1939

W.H. Murphy testing the bulletproof vest in 1923

Marilyn Monroe (WOW again)

Ii

An RAF pilot getting a haircut while reading a book between missions

Babe Ruth's 1920 MLB debut

View from the Capitol in Nashville, 1864

Baltimore Slums, 1938

American Poet Walt Whitman, 1868

Louis Armstrong practicing backstage in 1946

Girls delivering ice, 1918

Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939. Photo taken right after his famous retirement speech.

.

He would pass away just two years later from ALS.

Times Square 1947

.

Lee Harvey Oswald, 1963, being transported to questioning before his murder

Trial for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Helen Keller meeting comedian Charlie Chaplin in 1918

Burger Flipper 1938

Madison Square Park New York City around 1900

Union Soldiers taking a break 1863

WWII soldiers at Easter

Red Hawk of the Oglala Tribe on horseback 1905

Boys selling flowers in 1908

An Oklahoman farmer during the great dust bowl in 1939

Louis Armstrong plays to his wife, Lucille, in Cairo, Egypt 1961

Brooklyn Bridge in 1904

Two Boxers after a fight

Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield (double WOW)

Brothers Robert Kennedy, Edward 'Ted' Kennedy and John F. Kennedy outside the Oval Office..

Cornell Rowing Team 1914

Henry Ford, 1919

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: 1910 Ford

2018-01-11T07:08:00.000-05:00

This definitely puts everything in perspective. Make sure you read all the statistics under the photo. Show this to your friends, children and grand-children! What a difference a century makes! This has only been 107 years ago!! Amazing!!!

1910 FORD
Here are some statistics for the year 1910:

The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
Fuel for this car was only sold in drug stores
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all Physicians had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND by the government as 'substandard.'

Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

The five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars..

The population of Las Vegas Nevada was only 30!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's or Father's Day

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and

only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. (but almost everyone had a gun!).

Cute Shit my Aunt Sends Me: EVERYDAY GOOD THINGS HAPPENING...

2018-01-11T05:30:00.000-05:00

Despite all the unrest in the world, the following is also happening every day.

There. Feel better?

Funny Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Actual Photos of Men "Shopping"

2018-01-10T06:48:00.000-05:00

Not their favorite sport....

The best of all the great pictures is the last one. That’s the one where all the women are intently shopping around the

bed..

It's that time of the year again. And, you all know how much we look forward to spending time with you!

Photos of men "shopping"...

Poetry in Motion: Remembering Summer (W.S.Merwin)

2018-01-07T12:54:00.001-05:00

Over the years, I have posted quite a few "Poetry in Motion" posters from the NYC subways (and beyond).

I was delighted last year when I noticed that bigger and larger Poetry in Motion posters went up on some newly-renovated subway stations in Brooklyn.

I have a few to share, starting with this one, which I first spotted in September 2017 at the 53rd Street Station on the R line:

Remembering Summer W.S. Merwin

Being too warm the old lady said to me
is better than being too cold I think now
in between is the best because you never
give it a thought but it goes by too fast
I remember the winter how cold it got
I could never get warm wherever I was
but I don't remember the summer heat like that
only the long days the breathing of the trees
the evenings with the hens still talking in the lane
and the light getting longer in the valley
the sound of a ball from down there somewhere
I can sit here now still listening to it.

~ ~ ~

Initially, I thought there were multiple poems at the station, but they were repeated multiple times with different colors, as seen below.

Visit the MTA Poetry in Motion page here.

You can also click on the Poetry in Motion tag at the bottom of the post to see prior BillyBlog posts about the series.

Funny Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Christmas dance - enjoy

2018-01-05T03:16:00.000-05:00

Sure Christmas is over, but we can still enjoy the festivities!

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Tight Fitting Parking Spot

2018-01-04T21:04:00.000-05:00

As they say, wait for the ending:

Another "Another Year, Another Beer" - A 2017 Recap

2018-01-01T17:16:00.001-05:00

A year ago today, I posted a bunch of words on BillyBlog.

This is what I communicated:

"BillyBlog is on life support.

You used to be able to google "BillyBlog" and this site would be up in the top five relevant hits. No longer is that the case.

But why should it be otherwise?

I posted five times last year, starting January 1 and ending on January 11.

BillyBlog was pretty much moved to irrelevance in 2007, when I created Tattoosday as a feature, which then evolved into its own entity.

Tattoosday is in its tenth year and recently went on a bit of a hiatus.

A lot has changed in ten years. My blogger editing panel is littered with the corpses of blogs that I have tried to launch as side projects over the years.

I am not resolving to do anything with these vehicles, as resolutions seem to fail me; or I seem to fail the resolutions, year after year. However, I am setting a goal in 2017, and it is an ambitious goal that I already acknowledge, is unlikely to succeed in its entirety.

I want to post something daily, whether it be here, or on Tattoosday, or on any other of my side projects. Notice, I do not say will, but want.

We shall see if this gives us better results.

Here's to the optimism of a new year!"

So, a year later, what do I have to look back on? Let's compare 2017 to 2016.

Tattoosday in 2016: 127 posts
Tattoosday in 2017: 135 posts

So, slight improvement there! Hooray for me.

What about BillyBlog?

BillyBlog in 2016: 5 posts
BillyBlog in 2017: 94 posts

Wow! Hooray for me! What's even more exciting is that, I posted 61 times from 2010 to 2016, combined. Granted, many of these posts were copied as "Crazy/Funny/Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me," but hey, a post is a post.

Also, check out Umbrellacide:

Umbrellacide in 2008: 52 posts
Umbrellacide 2009-2016: 33 posts
Umbrellacide in 2017: 74 posts

Talk about bringing it back to relevancy!

I have also been catching up on the Beer Book Blitz blog, catching up to 2016's conclusion (almost) and still have material for 2017, to be posted retroactively. (Update to follow)

I only managed one "We Lost a Poet" post. There's another still waiting in draft purgatory.

What is truly impressive (to me at least), is that I also archived my daily musings from Facebook naming silver linings to the cloud of the Trump presidency. 349 published in all of 2017. Again, many are short and pithy, but others are not. So, bully for me!

In the end, not counting silver linings, I did miss 60 days, all between August and December, on which there were no Tattoosday, Umbrellacide or BillyBlog postings. However, compared to 2016, I am way ahead of the game.

So, here's to continued success in 2018. Starting with this post. Cheers!

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Ann Arbor Artist

2017-12-16T19:17:00.000-05:00

An MSU grad having to work on the streets? These are clever. Enjoy.

David Zinn is an artist from Michigan. He runs around all day in the streets of Ann
Arbor, with street construction, cracks, etc. on the road with chalk
to create a lot of street fairy tales.

David Zinn's most famous creation was undoubtedly a little monster called Sluggo.

Sluggo has a green body and long, round eyes, and its partners have also become

a small street in Ann Arbor unique scene.

Being Watched

2017-10-08T16:08:00.000-04:00

I walked by my old apartment the other day, a place I had lived for nearly twenty years. The outside cover of our in-wall air conditioning unit was removed and I snapped a photo:

Hardly surprising to your seasoned New Yorker, this really cracked me up:

Cool Shit My Aunt Sends Me: Fwd: Fw: Fwd: Unusual Photos

2017-10-03T22:59:00.000-04:00