Friday, March 20, 2015
We had a string of beautiful days in the high 40s and low 50s, and today we got a shock. Heavy snow, big flakes, all day. Several inches out there now.
For most of this week there was a small rabbit eating what little green still showed in the front lawn. He was kind of cute because my coming out the front door and standing on the porch eight feet away didn't faze him at all, but if a car drove past on the street, he dove for cover under the van.
There was also a male robin who spent every day scouring the front lawn for munchies. I don't know what he was finding, but every so often he stabbed with his beak, picked something up, and swallowed it.
It felt like Spring.
Oh well, the forecast for tomorrow is 50 degrees.
I hope the robin can manage one day without dinner. Tomorrow should be better.
.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
4026 Forty years of regression
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Binge-watching '70s shows. There were a lot of good ones!
Mary Tyler Moore
All In the Family
M.A.S.H.
Taxi
Carol Burnett (but I could never stand Tim Conway....)
Bob Newhart
Barney Miller
Laverne and Shirley (loved Lenny and Squiggy)
Happy Days (until Fonzie took over the show -- yuck)
Rockford Files
Soap
Flip Wilson (and who didn't love Geraldine?)
... and a few others I don't remember offhand.
The days of real people writing real scripts about real stuff.
Actors with real bodies and real teeth.
That's one thing that struck me --- the teeth. These days, everyone on TV, even on the
"reality" shows, has perfectly even, perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. It's like a law. You can't be seen on TV unless your teeth are blindingly white.
Forty years ago, teeth were more natural.
It must have changed somewhere about the late '90s, because I remember an episode of Friends where Ross got his teeth whitened, and everyone made fun of him. Now everyone on TV has those ridiculous teeth.
.
Binge-watching '70s shows. There were a lot of good ones!
Mary Tyler Moore
All In the Family
M.A.S.H.
Taxi
Carol Burnett (but I could never stand Tim Conway....)
Bob Newhart
Barney Miller
Laverne and Shirley (loved Lenny and Squiggy)
Happy Days (until Fonzie took over the show -- yuck)
Rockford Files
Soap
Flip Wilson (and who didn't love Geraldine?)
... and a few others I don't remember offhand.
The days of real people writing real scripts about real stuff.
Actors with real bodies and real teeth.
That's one thing that struck me --- the teeth. These days, everyone on TV, even on the
"reality" shows, has perfectly even, perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. It's like a law. You can't be seen on TV unless your teeth are blindingly white.
Forty years ago, teeth were more natural.
It must have changed somewhere about the late '90s, because I remember an episode of Friends where Ross got his teeth whitened, and everyone made fun of him. Now everyone on TV has those ridiculous teeth.
.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
4025. Blasts
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Wind today. Strong, steady, cold, almost icy wind. After several days of balmy breezes in the 50s, it's a miserable reminder that winter isn't going to give up so easily.
The cold wind is getting into my house somehow. Even hurricane Sandy didn't accomplish that. It may be coming in through the bathroom and laundry vents, I don't know, but when there's an especially strong gust, I feel a draft.
----------------------------------------
Between January 1976 and May 1977 there was a television show, five evenings a week, a soap opera parody named "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". It was very unusual and very popular. I was not aware of it at first, watched very little TV in those days, but there is there was an aspect of the show that I can't go into here that applied strongly to my life at the time, and many people asked me, "Oh, Mary Hartman, yeah, is that why you [blah blah]? Wow. That's great!" Well, it wasn't, and I had been proud of being unique in that blah blah, but suddenly everyone was blah blahing, and it pissed me off, since I had been blah blahing since long before the show was even on, and people should have known that. Plus, in groups it was the main topic of conversation, so if you didn't watch it you were left out. I So, of course I had to watch the show.
I got hooked. It really was fun. Unfortunately, it ended shortly after I started, and in those days there was nothing like VCRs so if you missed a show, unless it went into reruns you were out of luck.
Well, all these years later, just within the past three weeks, somebody has uploaded the entire series, some 300+ episodes, onto Youtube. I wonder where they got them, and how long the copyright holder will allow them to stay.
I've been binge-watching, all the episodes I had missed, and enjoying them thoroughly, hoping I can at least get to the point where I had picked up the story in late 1976.
What's interesting is that I'm getting some references I suspect I might have missed back then.
----------------------
Anyone else out there remember Mary?
Wind today. Strong, steady, cold, almost icy wind. After several days of balmy breezes in the 50s, it's a miserable reminder that winter isn't going to give up so easily.
The cold wind is getting into my house somehow. Even hurricane Sandy didn't accomplish that. It may be coming in through the bathroom and laundry vents, I don't know, but when there's an especially strong gust, I feel a draft.
----------------------------------------
Between January 1976 and May 1977 there was a television show, five evenings a week, a soap opera parody named "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". It was very unusual and very popular. I was not aware of it at first, watched very little TV in those days, but there is there was an aspect of the show that I can't go into here that applied strongly to my life at the time, and many people asked me, "Oh, Mary Hartman, yeah, is that why you [blah blah]? Wow. That's great!" Well, it wasn't, and I had been proud of being unique in that blah blah, but suddenly everyone was blah blahing, and it pissed me off, since I had been blah blahing since long before the show was even on, and people should have known that. Plus, in groups it was the main topic of conversation, so if you didn't watch it you were left out. I So, of course I had to watch the show.
I got hooked. It really was fun. Unfortunately, it ended shortly after I started, and in those days there was nothing like VCRs so if you missed a show, unless it went into reruns you were out of luck.
Well, all these years later, just within the past three weeks, somebody has uploaded the entire series, some 300+ episodes, onto Youtube. I wonder where they got them, and how long the copyright holder will allow them to stay.
I've been binge-watching, all the episodes I had missed, and enjoying them thoroughly, hoping I can at least get to the point where I had picked up the story in late 1976.
What's interesting is that I'm getting some references I suspect I might have missed back then.
----------------------
Anyone else out there remember Mary?
Sunday, March 15, 2015
4024 Spring?
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Spring is almost here! I got so excited I wet my plants!
Birds are arriving in large flocks. They fill the trees and make a racket early in the morning. I think they're just stopping over on migration, though, since they stay for only a day or two, and then are replaced by a different bunch.
Yesterday I had a flying bug in the kitchen, one of those tiny almost microscopic black things that come through the screens. Not looking forward to that part of Spring.
.
Spring is almost here! I got so excited I wet my plants!
Birds are arriving in large flocks. They fill the trees and make a racket early in the morning. I think they're just stopping over on migration, though, since they stay for only a day or two, and then are replaced by a different bunch.
Yesterday I had a flying bug in the kitchen, one of those tiny almost microscopic black things that come through the screens. Not looking forward to that part of Spring.
.
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