George-Glad you had such a nice evening. I hope all went well when you cleaned out the frig & freezer. I’m having computer problems so if you mentioned it, I missed it.
Three cast albums that I have loved for some time are:
TENDERLOIN
HIGH SPIRITS
GOLDILOCKS
I enjoyed the finale of "Survivor: Cook Islands."
SPOILER!
I have been rooting for Yul since the first week, and there was a period when I thought Ozzie ought to be targeted for a very special "the tribe has spoken" moment.
BUT...in the past few weeks, I gained a great respect for Ozzie and he became my favorite player.
I'm jiggy with the outcome of the show, however. Yul rules!
Good morning!
Still another in our long list of non-December December days. High today in the low to mid 70s. This is December, I ask again?
MattH -- you are having an Arizona Christmas!
Beyond that, I shall spend the day wailing and raging that I am not at the recording sessions for The Brain.
JMK - your question of yesterday was not ignored, but apparently my answer was ignored.
And a happy haineshisway.com birthday cheer to former dear reader Dan the Man - where do these people get to?
Happy Birthday DR Penny O
Happy Birthday PennyO and Dan (the Man)!
Thanks DR ELMORE...I wish I were there, too.
Happiest of Happy Natal Days to Sagittarius DR PENNYO!
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happiest Of Birthdays To Our DR PennyO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Happy Happy Birthday, DR PennyO!!!!!!
Happy, Happy Birthday DR PennyO, when you awake!
Good Morning, All! Happy Birthday to PennyO. Many Happy Birthdyas over the last few weeks, I hope.
--
Thanks, Kerry! I'm heading out for a massage! Oh, happy day!
Why, it's a Yo-Ho Birthday for one of our Hainsie/Kimlets!
[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%]Here's a Yo-Ho Shoutout to Penny-O! Happy Birthday![/move][/b][/color]
Happy Birthday DR Penny O!!!!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PENNY O!!!!!!!!!!!
Happiest of birthdays to dear PennyO! Thanks for all your support this past summer and hope we see you soon.
[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%][size=8]Happy Birthday to DR PennyO!!![/size][/move][/color]
I wish you could be here with us too!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PENNY! It was lovely to be able to meet you. I will make sure to tell the band it is your birthday, they really thought you were wonderful.---
Well, thank you, m'dear! I thought they - and YOU - are pretty wonderful, too.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY (AND SAFE TRAVELS) TO PENNYO!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PENNYO!!!
Happiest of birthdays to DR PennyO!
Re: the missing Mt. Hood climbers. OK, this is no doubt going to raise some hackles, but I have relatively little sympathy for these people. First of all, there were extremely well-publicized winter storm warnings in effect, given to all climbers when they apply for their permit. Second and most importantly, these "experienced pro's" were too macho to spring the extra $5 (FIVE DOLLARS!!!!) to carry along a locater transponder device which would have pinpointed their location immediately.
Call me the Grinch, but I similarly had little sympathy for the ill-fated Kim family, who with two small children in the car decided to get off I-5 and take a logging road (LOGGING ROAD) with clearly marked signs saying it was IMPASSIBLE in the winter and then, even worse, got off that onto a spur road (oy!), and then got stuck for 9 days.
Use your G-d given brains, people!!!
Good save, George! I bet everyone was glad you jumped in!
TOD - Tuscaloosa's Calling Me, But I'm Not Going
Guilty Pleasure Cast Albums:
Whoop Up
Dance a Little Closer
Windy City
TOD - Tuscaloosa's Calling Me, But I'm Not Going
I saw that show and loved every minute of it. It has two of the most beautiful New York songs ever written.
I wonder if edisaurus is looking for an extremely low-paying gig editing a brand new musical comedy videotape?
The album only about a half hour long! Do you happen to remember how long the show itself was? Were there (m)any more songs or was the rest of it made up of skits?
TOD: Bat Boy
... I suspect we will be having a brown christmas.
Look at it as an opportunity to have Christmas dinner on the patio.
When the Barbican played host to the heroes of Brazil’s Tropicalia movement, the demure singer Gal Costa helped revive memories of Rio’s swinging Sixties. Proving that she is not content to live in the past, she came up with Hoje (Trama), her most assured album in a long time. Writing contributions from the underrated Lokua Kanza gave the bossa-influenced material even greater depth than usual.
Andrew Sullivan has some guest bloggers on his site for a few weeks. One of them, a Clive Davis (no, not that one) is a Brit jounalist who has his own blog, where he posted his Best Albums of the Year (http://clivedavis.blogs.com/clive/2006/12/albums_of_the_y.html) list; it included:Seems JMK is not alone in the world :)
der Brucer
I must say I am a bit concerned about Dan The Man; I've sent a couple of emails to the address I had as well as a few PMs and got no response to either. I tried looking up a phone number online and failed to find one. I hope he is all right.I've written to his work address too DR Elmore.
Federal Judge Rules California Executions Unconstitutional
Friday , December 15, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge who imposed a moratorium on executions in California ruled Friday that the state's method of lethal injection is unconstitutional because it violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
California's "implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed," U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said.
Fogel said the case raised the question of whether a three-drug cocktail administered by the San Quentin State Prison is so painful that it "offends" the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
…
Fogel's decision came on the same day that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush suspended all executions in that state after a botched execution this week.
Lethal injection is the preferred execution method in 37 states. Last month, a federal judge declared unconstitutional Missouri's injection method, which is similar to California's.
Amongst my friends this is a very busy day for birthdays, two of whom were bridesmaids in my wedding.
I do believe that teh French used it during the French Revolution over 200 years ago
I do believe that teh French used it during the French Revolution over 200 years ago
The French used it into the 20th-Century!
For those of an inquiring nature, may I recommend a most fascinating read I enjoyed immensely: GUILLOTINE: IT'S LEGEND AND LORE by Daniel Gerould, paper edition, Blast Books, $14.95. It amused me to no end when I read it about 10 years ago.
Walt Disney: man or mouse?
Those who pigeonhole him as everyman or kitschmeister are missing the big picture.
By Neal Gabler
Neal Gabler is the author, most recently, of "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination."
December 17, 2006
FRIDAY MARKED THE 40th anniversary of Walt Disney's death from lung cancer, a long time by most measures and an eternity for figures in the popular culture, who usually evaporate quickly from our memories.
To a surprising degree, however, he has managed to survive in the national consciousness, and not just as a corporate logo but as a kind of cultural barometer. Ask just about anyone how he or she feels about Disney and you are likely to get either a beaming, misty-eyed tribute from those who recall him fondly and enjoy his animations and theme parks, or a scowling, brow-furrowed denunciation from those who see him as the great Satan of modern mass culture.
Disney doesn't leave much room for anything in the middle. Even now he essentially cleaves the culture between the hoi polloi and elites, between those who willingly surrender to his wiles and those who seem hellbent on resisting them.
…
As University of Texas professor Douglas Brode has pointed out in his recent book, "From Walt to Woodstock," Disney's values, especially as evinced in his films, are much more complex and even contradictory than either his fans or his enemies admit. His values are not traditional conservative American. On the contrary, Disney's films challenged authority, disdained the acquisition of money, abhorred hypocrisy (including religious hypocrisy), promoted tolerance and community and celebrated rebelliousness. (Just see how Davy Crockett challenges Andrew Jackson in the 1950s TV programs, or how Pollyanna scolds her own minister for his intolerance.)
In his own life, Disney denounced what he called "billboard patriotism," and he looked askance at organized religion — all of which means that both sides got him wrong.
This should have been perfectly evident to anyone who wanted to see it, but most people seem to have preferred refracting Disney through their own prism. And, to be frank, Disney invited this by purveying the now-familiar image of an everyman and even indulging in some anti-intellectualism himself by insisting that he made corny films because people liked corn.
Yet it is in Disney's odd combination of libertarianism and liberalism, optimism and cynicism, nostalgia and futurism, faith and doubt that one may find not only the real man but the real America he represented.
After 40 years, Walt Disney is not either/or — the best or the worst. He is both the best and the worst — not the polarizing center of cultural warfare but a portent of the truce between high and low
Hotel Puts $110 Hamburger on Menu
JAKARTA (Dec. 18) - A hotel in Indonesia is dishing out a hamburger that costs more than twice the monthly minimum wage in some parts of the country.
The $110 hamburger offered by the Four Seasons is made of Kobe beef with foie gras, Portobello mushrooms and Korean pears -- served with french fries, of course.
What happens to a children’s public television show after it has been attacked by the secretary of education, pilloried by conservatives, then abandoned by its underwriters? In the case of “Postcards From Buster,” it manages to return, belatedly but unbowed, for a second season.
“We were proud of ‘Postcards From Buster,’ and we are proud of ‘Postcards From Buster,’ ” said Brigid Sullivan, vice president for children’s programming at WGBH, the Boston PBS station that produces the show. “It’s a children’s show dealing with diversity by showing real kids in real-life situations. That’s not being done by anyone else.”
In “Postcards From Buster” documentary footage of children from different cultures is combined with animation of Buster and his friends. This season includes only 10 episodes, which began in November and will run through February, a far cry from the 40 produced for the show’s first season.
Re: the missing Mt. Hood climbers. OK, this is no doubt going to raise some hackles, but I have relatively little sympathy for these people. First of all, there were extremely well-publicized winter storm warnings in effect, given to all climbers when they apply for their permit. Second and most importantly, these "experienced pro's" were too macho to spring the extra $5 (FIVE DOLLARS!!!!) to carry along a locater transponder device which would have pinpointed their location immediately.
Call me the Grinch, but I similarly had little sympathy for the ill-fated Kim family, who with two small children in the car decided to get off I-5 and take a logging road (LOGGING ROAD) with clearly marked signs saying it was IMPASSIBLE in the winter and then, even worse, got off that onto a spur road (oy!), and then got stuck for 9 days.
Use your G-d given brains, people!!!
Has anyone else wondered what that catchy little tune is in the Geico commercial with the caveman on the moving walkway in the airport? Well, wonder no longer: it's "Remind Me" by Norsky group Royksopp and I just got the album it's off of, "Melody A.M." If you like techno/trance pop, it's fantastic; it even has a groovy version of "Blue on Blue."
Is BK missing a prop?
(http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_photos/0e/03/20061218144109990028)
Dorothy Ferreira, who lives on Long Island in New York, got this strange present from her sister, who said she found it at nearby Fort Pond Bay in the 1950s..
der Brucer
I made myself useful this afternoon by making a pot of spaghetti sauce. It smells fantastic to me, but my mom can only smell the garlic.
Cil - Dad was a lawyer!So is mine!
A snack for Sherlock?
REUTERS (http://news.aol.com/strange/story/_a/hotel-puts-110-hamburger-on-menu/n20061218083809990001?cid=936)der Brucer
....we ate ham, green beans...
Cilla - I also really enjoy the score to TUSCALOOSA'S CALLING ME... - I even find myself humming "Everything You Hate is Right Here" when I have those NYC type experiences that can be frustrating :) , and "New York from the Air" is one of those songs I just start thinking about every now and then. I think it was an off-Broadway success in its time, even with reports of a planned move to Broadway which never materialized, but somehow never got a major revival.
I saw that show and loved every minute of it. It has two of the most beautiful New York songs ever written.
I love "Fugue For a Menage a Trois." ;)
Can anyone recommend a fine, complete recording of Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors"?
Why is this soooo expensive, the Kobi beef, imported pears and/or the oie gras?
Please send some HHW vibes for my Old man.
... the ice I can live without
The interplay between the characters was much more important in this episode than the mystery this week.
Then how do you chill your Martini?
der Brucer
Well, here comes winter. Tomorrow night late we are going to get freezing rain that will turn to rain on Wednesday then will turn to freezing rain and then to snow. Yuck! I'm not going anywhere until Sunday, so I'll just bring home a bag of work and all will be well. I love the snow, the ice I can live without
Particularly the part when they are strategizing around the conference table and the new boss says "And when my people testify..." and all most all of the team chimes in "But not Zach"!
LOS ANGELES - Joe Barbera, half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team that produced such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear and the Flintstones, died Monday, a Warner Bros. spokesman said. He was 95.der Brucer
Barbera died of natural causes at his home with his wife Sheila at his side, Warner Bros. spokesman Gary Miereanu said.
With his longtime partner, Bill Hanna, Barbera first found success creating the highly successful Tom and Jerry cartoons. The antics of the battling cat and mouse went on to win seven Academy Awards, more than any other series with the same characters.
...
(http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site204/2006/1218/20061218_050952_barbera.jpg)
Joseph Barbera, left, with his partner William Hanna, shows off some of the cartoon characters the pair created. Barbera died Monday; he was 95. Hanna died in 2001. (Douglas Pizac / Associated Press)
Oh, I thought maybe you'd like "Things Were Out" ;D
Ugh! That's one avatar that's seen better days! Was it always that green?