Tag: business

Coffee Glasses

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Years ago I read a series of pieces about the greatest inventions in human history.  While I don’t remember the author or the publication, one essay stuck out to me.  The author argued that glasses were a major invention, as they allowed the visually impaired to see normally for the first time ever.

I am highly myopic (not just in my political and social views, but physically—my eyes are shaped in such a way that I have horrendous eyesight).  Thinking about living in a time before readily-available lenses really made me think.  If I don’t wear glasses, I pretty much can’t function.  Faces look like pinkish or dark blobs with two darker blobs in the middle.  Reading is only possible if I hold the text a couple of inches from my face.  Driving would pretty much be impossible—or, at best, extremely dangerous for myself and other motorists.  I can see—I’m not blind—but life would be a struggle.

Fortunately, I pop on a pair of glasses, and boom!—everything is clear (beyond the occasional smudge) and I can see!

My life is rife with humorous incidents involving my glasses, often when they get lost or misplaced.  The best was when I was floating on an innertube down at Fripp Island.  For whatever reason, I hadn’t taken my glasses off before going into the water (optometrists everywhere are screaming at their computer screens).  As I laid there, lazily drifting on the mild sea, my older brother—ever the prankster—came up from beneath me, capsizing me.  My glasses and I fell into the murky depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

Fortunately—by what had to be a minor miracle from God—my right foot landed precisely on my glasses.  It was enough force to pin them to the ocean floor without crushing or breaking them.  My brother, realizing how awful the rest of the vacation would be if I didn’t have corrective lenses, dove down and retrieved them, as I was too afraid to lift my foot, lest they wash out to see.

Had Neptune seen fit to take my glasses that day, I’d have either a.) spent the rest of the weekend miserably running into things or b.) someone would have had to driven me back to my home to get a backup pair (another major error—I didn’t bring a backup pair with me!).  My eyesight is so terrible, I can’t just pick up a set of readers from Walmart; I have to have specially-crafted super lenses.

But I digress.  Glasses have been a net boon for untold billions (I imagine) of people.  I’m one beneficiary.

So it was with great interest that I read a piece from news aggregator Latest Soup about glasses made from one of my other favorite innovations:  coffee.

Read More »

SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktacular 2021 Review

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Last Saturday was my annual Halloween Spooktacular, marking the third Spooktacular and the second hosted from my front porch.  I hit upon the idea of doing a front porch concert around Halloween last year, when most venues were still closed to live music, or only very slowly bringing it back.  I’d heard of other musicians doing outdoor gigs, and though, “Hey, why not turn my front porch into a stage?”

That first at-home Spooktacular was wildly successful—far more so than I thought—and I followed it up with my Spring Jam in May 2021.  That event was also successful, though the turnout was slightly lower than the Spooktacular.

This year, I suspected that the success of the first two front porch concerts might be diminished somewhat, especially as the concert was on the Saturday before a Sunday Halloween, which meant most people were trick-or-treating and throwing parties that night instead of on Halloween proper.  Several of my biggest patrons, who usually drop some serious coin at these events, were unable to attend due to other plans.

Still, I was excited for the evening, and while my concerns about lower attendance were confirmed—and the event resulted in a substantial but not debilitating loss, at least in the short-run—it was a fun night, one that also carried with it some important lessons.

To read more of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Lazy Sunday CIX: Pillow Talk

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

The David Hogg Good Pillow saga—the “Hogga?”—has drawn to end, with the youngster pulling out of his ill-fated progressive pillow company.  I can’t explain my interest in this story beyond sheer Schadenfreude, and the fact that I find Hogg an extremely distasteful individual.  He combines the worst elements of youthful arrogance and self-righteous virtue-signalling into one odious package.

The demands of daily blogging being what they are, the spiteful company’s short history also made for easy blog fodder.  Now that Hogg has withdrawn from the company, it seemed like a good time to compile my three posts on the subject in one place:

  • “Hoggin’ the Pillows” – The beginning of Hogg’s misadventure in the world of business.  I expressed hope that he would come to his senses about the world as he tackled business; of course, that was naïve.
  • “More Pillow Hoggin’” – About five or six weeks after the announcement that the company was starting, Hogg and his business partner settled on a name—and neglected to register the trademark, allowing a clever troll to register it first.  D’oh!  Things were not looking good for Good Pillow.
  • “Pillows Smothered Hogg” – Now David Hogg has pulled out of Good Pillow, citing school conflicts and his desire to dedicate more time to activism.  Heaven help us; I’d rather he be wasting time working on a pillow that will never be made.

Well, that’s it for this (slightly spiteful) edition of Lazy Sunday.  Here’s hoping you all sleep comfortably on your MyPillow for your Sunday nap.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Tip The Portly Politico:  Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.

***NOTE: This link is NOT a subscription to my SubscribeStar Page; it is for a one-time donation/tip via PayPal. To subscribe to my SubscribeStar page, use this URL:   https://subscribestar.com/the-portly-politico***

God Bless Us, Every One: The Gift of the Trump Economy

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Christmas Week is always full of blessings.  Thanks to the good folks at pro-MAGA news aggregator Whatfinger News (and a helpful tip from photog of Orion’s Cold Fire on how to submit links to them), The Portly Politico has seen its best week in terms of traffic all year.  Two pieces, “Napoleonic Christmas” and “Christmas and its Symbols” made the main page, leading both to surpass my previous top post for the year, “Milo on Romantic Music.”  Apparently, people still get riled up about Napoleon.

It’s also been a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family and to overeat lots of delicious, rich foods.  If you’ve never heard of the Appalachian delicacy “chocolate butter,” do yourself a favor and look it up.  Yes, it’s even better than the name suggests.

Of course, all of that good cheer requires a solid financial foundation.  And in his three years in office, President Trump has shattered records for unemployment, wage increases, and economic growth.  Economics isn’t everything, but the Trump economy is something for which we should give thanks.

Read More »