THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

THE GOOD

Acting on an advertising supplement SWMBO received in the mail this week, we set out to explore Food City today.  This is a supermarket chain that tends to operate in and caters to areas with a large Hispanic population.  I was surprised to learn that the chain is part of the Basha's family of stores.  But SWMBO was struck by the low prices on produce.  Upon entering, it was like the supermercados we remembered from our days living in Mexico.  The produce was excellent and the prices were as low as my wife had hoped.  I was thrilled with the displays of spices in plastic bags at what I think are excellent prices.  SWMBO said the display on a rear wall of the store had everything any Mexican cook could want and there were many she had never heard of before.  So that was a great experience and one we will repeat.

THE BAD

I finally found a computer tech and he came to the house a couple of days ago and tried several fixes on my non-functioning PC.  He couldn't be sure of the problem but took the computer to his shop, promising a return this morning.  He said it appeared as if the video card needed to be replaced.  Today he was back and told me the bad news.  It's the motherboard that needs replacing.  There were a couple of swollen capacitors on it, probably because of their location next to the heat sink for the video card.  But he said fixing it would probably cost as much as buying a new computer.  Since I've had this one for 5 or 6 years or more, I asked him if he could build me one.  He said yes and that the price would be about $500.  Well that's probably cheaper than I would pay for one in a store so I told him to go ahead.  He said he'd probably have it done by Monday.  I like this guy, he appears to know what he's talking about and his shop is only a couple of blocks away so he'll be close if I have future problems.  So, actually that's kind of good and bad but I put it under the BAD heading.

THE UGLY

The weather.  It's 98 outside right now and supposed to top 100 in the next few days.  SWMBO is worried about the coming utility bills but we will survive.  I asked her this morning how she liked Phoenix so far, other than the heat.  She said she loved it and so do I.

Weather through the Midwest has been and continues to be really ugly.  Much worse than here with tornadoes occuring through many states.

And finally, just to stay with the theme of this post and I'll let you pick where you want to place it - today is the 83rd birthday of the man whose movie inspired the theme: Clint Eastwood.

Oh, no, that's how he looked way back when, even before that iconic movie.

Here's "the man with no name" from the Spaghetti-western that resurrected his career.

And here's how he looks today.

He made some good, maybe even great, movies in his day but after his performance at last year's Republican National Convention, I think maybe his day is . . . over.