Thursday, March 28, 2024

We Take This Time Out


...for what should be our national holiday.

Go Japan!

Go Dodgers! 

Dinner last night:  BLT at Art's Deli.



Wednesday, March 27, 2024

This Date in History - March 27

 

It's a slow birth date in history, which is why I'm stuck saluting idiot Quentin Tarantino.  But, wait till you see who all died on March 27, 2002!

196 BC:  PTOLEMY V ASCENDS TO THE THRONE OF EGYPT.

Did he invent ptomaine poisoning?  Seems logical.

1309:  POPE CLEMENT IMPOSES EXCOMMUNICATION, INTERDICTION, AND A GENERAL PROHIBITION OF ALL COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE AGAINST VENICE.

So, no intercourse in Venice?  Well, there goes that bloodline.

1329:  POPE JOHN XXII ISSUES HIS "IN AGRO DOMINICO" CONDEMNING SOME WRITINGS OF MEISTER ECKHART AS HERETICAL.  

Meister Eckhart?  Didn't he become commissioner of baseball later on?

1625:  CHARLES I BECOMES KING OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND AS WELL AS CLAIMING THE TITLE KING OF FRANCE.

Talk about being pushy.

1794:  THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHES A PERMANENT NAVY AND AUTHORIZES THE BUILDING OF SIX FRIGATES.

Oh, what the frigate.

1814:  DURING THE WAR OF 1812, US FORCES UNDER GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON DEFEAT THE CREEK AT THE BATTLE OF HORSESHOE BEND.

I must have missed this battle in eleventh-grade American History with Miss Castriota.

1851:  FIRST REPORTED SIGHTING OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY BY EUROPEANS.

Is this before Sarah Palin saw Russia from her backyard?

1879:  YANKEE MANAGER MILLER HUGGINS IS BORN.

No, his middle name wasn't "Light."

1881:  RIOTING TAKES PLACE IN BASINGSTOKE IN PROTEST AGAINST THE DAILY VOCIFEROUS PROMOTION OF RIGID TEMPERANCE BY THE SALVATION ARMY.

Now I'm sorry I put all those dimes in the bucket.

1884:  A MOB IN CINCINNATI, OHIO, ATTACKS MEMBERS OF A JURY WHO HAD RETURNED A VERDICT OF MANSLAUGHTER IN A CLEAR CASE OF MURDER.  THEY WOULD LATER RIOT AND DESTROY THE COURTHOUSE.

Paging Fred Goldman.

1886: APACHE WARRIOR GERONIMO SURRENDERS TO THE US ARMY.

You can stop jumping now.

1899:  ACTRESS GLORIA SWANSON IS BORN.

"I wasn't a big baby.  It's just the womb that was smaller."

1915:  TYPHOID MARY, THE FIRST HEALTHY CARRIER OF DISEASE EVER IDENTIFIED IN THE UNITED STATES, IS PUT IN QUARANTINE FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE.

So no Match.com for her.

1931:  ACTOR DAVID JANSSEN IS BORN.

Let the manhunt begin.

1945:  DURING WORLD WAR II, OPERATION STARVATION, THE AERIAL MINING OF JAPAN'S PORTS AND WATERWAYS, BEGINS.

Effectively shutting down the import of ramen noodles.

1948:  THE SECOND CONGRESS OF THE WORKERS PARTY OF NORTH KOREA IS CONVENED.

Workers Party, ha!  They're Communists.

1958:  NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV BECOMES PREMIER OF THE SOVIET UNION.

Shoebanging will commence shortly.

1963:  DIRECTOR QUENTIN TARANTINO IS BORN.

Asshole Unchained.

1968:  RUSSIAN ASTRONAUT YURI GAGARIN DIES.

He, at least, outlived a couple of those chimps.

1976:  THE FIRST 4.6 MILES OF THE WASHINGTON METRO SUBWAY SYSTEM OPENS.

As if any members of Congress would be caught dead on it.

1977:  ACTRESS DIANA HYLAND DIES.

Apparently, Forty-One is Enough.

1981:  THE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT IN POLAND STAGES A STRIKE, IN WHICH AT LEAST 12 MILLION POLES WALK OFF THEIR JOBS FOR FOUR HOURS.

The workers on top of a skyscraper walked off as well, which, of course, is your typical Polish joke.

1993:  ITALIAN FORMER MINISTER AND DEMOCRACY LEADER GIULI ANDREOTTI IS ACCUSED OF MAFIA ALLEGIANCE.

Surprised??  Anybody???

1998:  THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION APPROVES VIAGRA FOR AS A TREATMENT FOR MALE IMPOTENCE.

Up, up, and away.

2002:  COMIC MILTON BERLE DIES.

Glad Uncle Milty got to use that Viagra.  Meanwhile, here comes an amazing fatal hat trick.

2002:  ACTOR DUDLEY MOORE DIES.

Coming up short.

2002:  DIRECTOR BILLY WILDER DIES.

He lived across the street from me at the time and I do remember the hearse showing up.  Meanwhile, no jokes from me on Billy.  A genius.

2006:  TV PRODUCER DAN CURTIS DIES.

Now how dark are those shadows?

2011:  ACTOR FARLEY GRANGER DIES.

Last stop for that train, stranger.

2016:  MOTHER ANGELICA DIES.

That nutty TV nun.  The one that couldn't fly.

Dinner last night:  Leftover chicken parmagiana.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Len's Test For Air Passengers

 


I don't fly as much as I used to do, but still there are those horrible words I always dread on hearing. 

"We are 23rd in line to take off."

Of course, a jammed flight with the "public" does not help. I really think we need to emend who gets to fly---both when and how. I wish airlines would impose the following easy 10 step questionnaire to determine someone's "flyability."

1. Are you human? If yes, please continue to question #2.

2. Do you like to take your shoes off for long periods of time? If yes, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

3. Do the children traveling with you have problems sitting in their seat for more than 2 minutes at a time? If yes, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

4. Have you ever been trained in the use of a Kleenex? If no, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

5. Do you just love to stop at fast food places in the airport before boarding and buy anything that contains cheese or onions? If yes, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

6. Do you view public places as a simple extension of your living room at home? If yes, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

7. When you do a Sudoku puzzle mid-flight, do you explain out loud the logic of every number's place to the passenger next to you? If yes, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

8. Did you shower within twenty-four hours of boarding the aircraft? If no, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

9. Do you use the seat pocket in front of you as a garbage can? If yes, there is no reason to continue with this questionnaire.

10. Are you able to read? If no, then all other answers you provided above are now discarded.

If we impose these very simple regulations, air travel would be so easy. And it will probably reduce the number of Americans who qualify to about 173.


Dinner last night:  Chicken parmesan from Rao's.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Monday Morning Video Laugh - March 25, 2024

 No blog anniversary is complete without a visit from...Scarlett.

Dinner last night:  Pork spare ribs.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Spring Forward

 

Now you don't really get spring here in California.   Oh, sure, you'll get some warmer days when the temperature actually varies by about ten degrees.   It will rain less than once in every ten days.   Of course, with all the rain this past winter, things are a little greener than they have been.  And that has resulted in these huge poppy fields like pictured above.   You know how the folks back East drive around looking for leaves in October and November?  This spring, people in the Golden State are motoring all around for the requisite poppy field photo op.

I grew up on the East Coast in Mount Vernon, New York.   Now there's a place where spring really sprung.  The winter coats got moved into the back of the closet.  The Mets had started their season at Shea Stadium so WOR Channel 9 would be tuned into my television now until October 1.   My grandmother would be tinkering in the yard with her plants.  Sure, her beloved rhubarb patch was perennial, but there would be other plantings.  Perhaps some cucumbers.   Almost always a few tomato plants, the fruits of which we would enjoy for about three days at the end of August.

But there were a couple of harbingers of the season that would scare the shit out of me.   One usually began with a request from my grandmother to my father.

"Harry, don't you think it's time to take down the storm windows and put up the screens?"

Gulp.

For those of you not from cold weather states, your houses frequently came with heavy duty windows that you put in place for the winter.   Then you removed them in the warm weather and replaced them with screens that allowed you a mosquito-free environment.  Whatever, the process of making this change in October and usually April or May always spooked me out.   My father naturally needed an extra set of hands to get this done.  Those would be mine.  And I always was convinced that this would result in the mangling of my dad.

Why?   Well, the first floor...which was my grandmother's part of the house...was a piece of cake.  Naturally, the storm windows were heavy and the screens were light.   But the trading out on the front porch was a snap.  Even I could do it without screwing it up and that's saying something.

It was the front windows of our second floor that were the horror show for me. Because it required my dad to get on the roof over the front porch.  First off, he would hand me the detached storm windows through the actual window.  To do so, my father would remove and then back up on the roof in order to hand it to me.  

This was my family's annual circus act.  Because I would watch my dad walk backwards on the roof towards the edge as I grappled to get hold of the storm window inside.   Indeed, there were five different windows we needed to do this for.   I held my breath on every one of them.   I was convinced that the slightest slip from me would have my father sailing off the roof into Grandma's prickly hedges below.

Once this daredevil stunt was complete, we were not done.  And my fears would be renewed.   Because there was an acrobatic part to get the screens up there.   

My job was to get the screens out of the basement.   First I would hose them down.  Then I would move them to whatever part of the outside house where they would live till the fall.   Again, the second floor was an issue but Dad had a foolproof method to getting this solved.   

I would stand on the steps to the front porch and raise the screens enough so my dad could reach them from the roof.  Okay, again, my heart was in my throat.   I was always convinced that my father would have to reach too far and then come tumbling off the roof into a mangled mess in front of me.

It never happened but the fear was there every single spring.  That's an awful lot for a ten-year-old to handle.

Dinner last night:  Salisbury steak.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Classic Movie Trailer of the Month - March 2024

Hard to believe that this gem was playing in theaters seventy years ago.   All praise Lucy and Desi.

Dinner last night:  Had late PT session.

Friday, March 22, 2024

You Can't Spell Lent without Len

 













Dinner last night: Korean beef.