How to calm your anxiety

October 4, 2025October 3, 2025 ~ SA Otey

Drink lots of booze, actually, this makes it worse because of dehydration
Drink more coffee, we’ll maybe not, caffeine puts you on edge
Yell at your family. This never helps. Just makes your family not like you.
Don’t exercise, well maybe you should. It will increase oxygen flow to your brain and burn off all that anxiety energy
Become more self-centered. Well, maybe you should serve others. The whole reason there are needles in your mind is that you’re too focused on yourself.
Don’t talk to anyone. Well, maybe, seek professional help if you feel like you will hurt yourself or someone near you. Research any pills they try to shove down your throat. Don’t have faith in Morpheus like Neo did.
Just remember, in 100 years you will be dead.

Youth Baseball Ethics: Winning vs. Learning

October 3, 2025 ~ SA Otey

I typically don’t yell at my kid’s games, but one time I had the honor of being the head coach and pitching to the 7 and 8-year-old kids but something got under my epidermis. Upon the start of the game, the opposing coach and I agreed that we would only let the kids take one base on missed plays. That was all well and good as we abide by the rules and my boys started racking up the runs on the scoreboard.

The other team kept running their kids and sneaking in a run here and there. I finally had enough when they kept doing it until they got within 2 runs on their bottom of the 6th at bat. We had 2 outs and they just ran no matter what. Did kids overthrow the ball? Take as many bases as you can. Are kids holding the ball? Keep running. Win at all costs!

It’s a frustrating part of the game for sure. Kids are learning the game, and what is the takeaway? Run and capitalize on others’ mistakes. This is all fine and dandy when the kids are 11-12 and they should be catching the ball. But kids who are more interested in playing in the dirt than knowing how to execute a force-out run down have to know you’re not teaching them the fundamentals by just running bases while kids are looking in the other direction.

As a kid I don’t remember it being this way, I had plenty of fun playing baseball and I hope my kids do the same. Jerk Parents/Coaches will always exit to ruin the game.

Pay less at the grocery store with one simple trick.

October 2, 2025October 1, 2025 ~ SA Otey

It’s subtle, but stores that offer smaller carts usually have higher prices. Warehouse stores that offer large carts serve a purpose for bulk loading. When you enter a store and see that the little cart is the only option then walk away.

Smaller carts are easier to push but you can’t put as much in them, so the store will jack up their prices so that you can’t carry too many of their items to your home. I’ve noticed these carts at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Harris Teeter, and now PetSmart.

Why not have all your groceries delivered?

Psychic Programming is the Future

October 1, 2025September 27, 2025 ~ SA Otey

Developers simply need to be able to read the minds of their users and develop software in anticipation of the unspoken needs. One of my favorite responses from an end user is when they say “Well, it’s not working the way I thought it would”. Well, maybe next time, why don’t you tell me how you want it to work and it will be much easier for both of us.

It really doesn’t matter how well you build or anticipate the needs of the end user. You can make it as bulletproof as you want but within the first few minutes of going live, there will be a catastrophic event that will bring the entire process to a screeching halt. Well, from the user’s perspective anyway.

Resist or Coexist?

September 30, 2025October 1, 2025 ~ SA Otey

Clearly, this person is having an internal conflict that has surfaced on their vehicle via bumper sticker theology. Side note, how long do you leave a political sticker on your car even though the election is over? Do you still have your Dole/Kemp bumper sticker?

Is it time to stop owning your media?

September 28, 2025September 29, 2025 ~ SA Otey

For as long as I’ve had money and ears I’ve been purchasing music. I started with cassette tapes in the 80s and moved on to CDs in the 90s followed by iTunes in the 00s. Now I have the AppleOne subscription where I can upload all my CD-rips and enjoy endless tunes connected to Apple Music.

Music (Yes)

I have a disappearing collection of CDs as they have all been put into Apple lossless format. I rarely purchase a physical CD anymore unless I sign up for a Kickstarter campaign and get the artist to sign it.

I purchase soundtracks for my favorite movies and have the physical CD and the auto-rip from Amazon. Once I subscribed to Apple One, and for only $39 a month, my family and I can listen to anything we want with our own playlists.

Books (Maybe)

I’m slowly removing all my physical books from my shelf and replacing them with their digital counterpart. I’ll keep a few on the shelf because I could never part with them. My Grandmother’s study bible and hymnal, my personal bible collection, and a few Star Wars books. But other than that I have everything on my Kindle. Let’s hope Amazon doesn’t close its virtual doors anytime soon.

Movies (No)

I still own many movies, I have VHS, DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs. I also own the original non-special edition Star Wars films on Laserdisc (and a Laserdisc player). Physical media is superior because they don’t buffer like streaming services. You get the highest quality picture and sound. They also don’t disappear from the platform every few months.

It’s a neat idea to have all your media in the cloud, it would put those time-life CD infomercials out of business because you can dig in the virtual crates and find all your favorites, all for the easy payment of $9.99 a month.

How hot is too hot?

September 27, 2025September 28, 2025 ~ SA Otey

Wall of Sauce at Heaven on 7th in Chicago

There are sauces that are hot and full of flavor and there are sauces that are so hot they are just full of hatred. I’ve tasted some mighty hot sauces in my day but there comes a point when you’ve got to put your pride aside and try to enjoy some flavor rather than just pure heat.

My latest encounter with heat was with Hattie B’s “Shut the cluck up” hot chicken. It was full of flavor but the heat was almost unbearable potentially ruining the meal. There’s a fine line between heat and taste. You want to tiptoe the line to know what causes hiccups or a vomit reflex. But you want enough heat to induce sweating and a slight watering of the eyes.

Here are my top hottest things ever that have left a scar on my memory, in no particular order.

I ate a Tabasco pepper from the bottle at Po’Folks restaurant when I was a kid, the first time ever tried anything hot. I was hooked!
Hattie B’s Chicken, it might have been a while since I ate something this hot so I must have lost some of the tolerance
Grilled Red Jalapeno at a family cookout. I can’t remember if it was a Jalapeno or Habanero, but I just picked it up and ate it. I ate the whole thing at once and it really hurt my face and body.
First taste of viscous viper hot sauce. I was eating at a restaurant in Hardy Arkansas and put too much on my food.
Braveheart Wings from Wild Wing Cafe in Charleston, SC. I ordered six of them and ate them all, and regretted it after the first bite. The next day was even worse.
Bushido’s level 10 Sushi roll. I had to sign a release form.

If we are being honest, the whole point of heating hot food is so you don’t have to share it with your family.

Spectrum internet monopoly

September 26, 2025 ~ SA Otey

The only option I have for the internet is Spectrum. To get a good deal I have to make the business and residential services compete with each other.

After getting locked into a “deal” for spectrum business class. They started offering lower rates and faster speeds. After several attempts, they offered to raise my rate to $349 a month rather than the $100 I’m paying now. Not that good of a deal in my opinion.

So I decided to sign up for residential service at a lower rate and faster speed. But now the tech for the business class came by and disconnected me on the street. They truly are separate entities because they don’t check to see if you signed up for another service, they just cut the cord. I called to see if they would come to fix their mistake and they said since I’m a residential customer they wouldn’t touch the line. I said it didn’t stop you from disconnecting my residential a few hours ago.

So now I’m at the mercy of Spectrum. The sad thing is if you are a business customer they will fix your problem within 4 hours, but now that I’m a lowly residential customer I have to wait for the first available appointment. Even though it’s their error.

Fast forward a year, and I spent about a half hour today trying to give Spectrum my money for cable TV. The deal kept getting worse. By the time my base package was quoted, it was $160 for broadcast channels (no DVR) and internet. My current promotion ended and it was now $140 for both, which was up from $110 the previous month. So I ended up dropping cable and now only paying $60 for the internet. Now guess what’s showing in my newsfeed? Ads for Sling, Dish, and DirecTV. I will probably go with Sling since it works with AppleTV. Thankfully, AT&T Fiber is coming soon.