For many years our Great Leader (Dale) used current events as a springboard to fun blog entries. Unfortunately the news these days is so depressing that it’s hard for me to get excited about using it as inspiration. Until today, that is.
Merriam-Webster’s “Official Scrabble Players Dictionary” has added 300 words, including a two-letter word that people have been waiting years to use: OK.
“For a living language, the only constant is change,” said Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster. “The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary evolves to keep up with English as it is used today.”
Some of the others words include: twerk, beatdown, sriracha, bitcoin, emoji, sheeple, yowza, macaron, zomboid, frowny and puggle.
I know, I know – English only got where it is by changing over the centuries, but I still get eerie shivers down my spine when I hear words like “frowny”.
It made big news yesterday that Elon Musk has chosen tech billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, as the first moon tourist for his company, SpaceX. Maezawa is 42 and made his fortune in e-commerce, music and online fashion. He will be taking 10 other artists with him on the journey that should take 4-5 days. The SpaceX rocket won’t actually land on the moon, it’s called a slingshot trip around the Moon and is currently on track for 2023.
Maezawa seems very excited about his adventure but I say “to each his own”. Letting tons of rocket fuel go up in flame under my keester just doesn’t seem like a good idea. And, of course, I couldn’t go that far from my library!
Shot up into space
In a really small tin can?
Leave it to others.
Would you like to visit another planet (or moon)? Extra points for haiku or rhyming!
A few days ago Linda reminded me that the mute button on my tv remote is going to be my best friend for the next six weeks – until the election is over.
As a child, I was the remote control and the mute button, both in my own home and at my grandparents. Luckily, turning the sound down didn’t come up very often back then, although my grandfather did like to switch channels during commercials. Also luckily there were only 4 channels back then.
So I’d like to give a salute to Robert Adler and Eugene Polley, the recognized fathers of the remote control. Although there were a couple of earlier versions of the remote control, it was the Zenith Space Command that came out in 1956 that paved the way for future remotes. Adler and Polley won an Emmy for this work!
You all know I’m a little obsessed with all things Sherlock Holmes. I don’t usually go looking for Sherlock but occasionally Sherlock comes to me when I’m not paying attention.
Last week I was looking for something else and stumbled across Sherlock Bones and the Missing Cheese, a children’s picture book. In that same foray I discovered that there is a video out there also named Sherlock Bones with a terrier starring as the illustrious detective. I also discovered that there is a series of books pairing Sherlock with Elizabeth Bennet, another character who has lived on past her initial publication. All of this took about 5 minutes!
The Missing Cheese book was at the local library, the Sherlock Holmes and Elizabeth Bennett is in paperback for a price I’m willing to pay on Amazon. Unfortunately the video is more than I’m willing to pay. I’m working to find it on some other library. Fingers crossed.
In the meantime, the children’s book has great illustrations and the story line is fun, however, the poetry itself leaves a little to be desired. But in the category of new ways to portray Sherlock Holmes, it gets an “A”.
Tell me about a favorite character, or an author you follow loyally or a series you can’t get enough of.
As many of you know, I am fond of Sherlock Holmes stories. Not the first fictional detective, he is the most popular and has the honor (sometimes dubious) of having been written as a character more times by authors NOT his original author than any other character. Sherlock also holds the Guinness World Record as the “most portrayed movie character” – more than 70 actors in more than 200 films!
So I was intrigued when I learned that Park Square Theatre was doing The Hound of the Baskervilles this summer. From looking at the website I could see that Holmes and Watson would be played by women and it didn’t look like it was being billed as a serious production. A woman playing Sherlock didn’t bother me; if Ghostbusters and Dr. Who can be women, why not the most famous fictional detective.
Park Square is known for occasionally messing with your expectations but I was really unprepared for the audacity of the production, the sheer silliness. There were just five actors; if you’ve ever read or seen Baskerville, you know there are many more characters than that. Normally this bugs me a little when actors play multiple roles, but I quickly got over it and in fact, they used it for comic fodder. At one point towards the end, the actor playing Lestrade and Henry Baskerville did a “half and half”, turning from one side to the other – hysterical.
There was a lot of laughter; a few times so much so that I needed to wipe my eyes. Of all the different ways that I have seen or read Holmes, I have never experienced him as “camp” and I loved it.
If you have the chance, the production is playing for another week or so and I highly recommend it.. ESPECIALLY if you’re a Holmes fan.
There are lots of retro tv stations these days and they do seem to occasionally be scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill their programming slots. Yesterday afternoon I found an old movie that I had never heard of – The Wasp Woman. And now I know why. It was truly dreadful – a poor premise, scenes that didn’t connect to each other, sad special effects and outrageously bad acting. It was one of those movies that is so bad that you can’t look away.
The head of a cosmetics company finds a bizarre scientist who is using wasp royal jelly to create a fountain of youth. After testing it for just a few days on one cat, they start testing it on the company head. She also secretly injects herself with more serum late at night. Of course, the cat turns into a wasp and then the woman intermittently turns into a waspish creature, but only at night. She doesn’t remember these episodes (although you’d think she’s be tipped off by the blood that ought to be all over her clothing) and is eventually killed by being shoved off the balcony of the tall cosmetics company building.
I’m still not sure why I kept watching, perhaps a fascination with the reality that something so terrible actually made its way onto film.
If you turned into an animal/human hybrid at night, what animal would you be? Or what is the worst movie you’ve ever seen?
With humble gratitude for Meredith Wilson’s en-chant-ing opening to The Music Man.
PROGRAMMER 1:
Plastic for the orders.
Plastic for the downloads.
PROGRAMMER 2:
Visa for online.
Visa on the phone.
PROGRAMMER 1:
Credit for the software.
Credit for the hardware.
PROGRAMMER 2:
Credit for the needs, and the wants, and the bibelots.
PROGRAMMER 3:
Amazon for the hogs feet, cakes and longjohns.
Amazon for the crackers, and the pickles, and the computer paper.
PROGRAMMER 4:
Look, what do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
PROGRAMMER 5:
Where do you get it?
PROGRAMMER 4:
What do you twitter?
PROGRAMMER 2:
You can script, you can program, you can script,
You can chat. You can twitter, twitter, twitter, you can chat.
You can chat. You can chat, chat, chat, chat, twitter, twitter, twitter.
You can twitter all you wanna, but it’s different than it was.
ANALYST:
No it ain’t, no it ain’t, but you gotta know the database!
PROGRAMMER 3:
Well, it’s Jeff Bezos made the trouble,
Made the people wanna buy, wanna get, wanna get, wanna get it in a box.
7,8,9,10,12,14, 22, 23 orders to the front porch.
PROGRAMMER 1:
Yes, sir, yes, sir!
PROGRAMMER 3:
Who’s gonna patronize a big box store anymore?
PROGRAMMER 4:
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
NEWSPAPER READER 1:
Where do you get it?
ANALYST:
It’s not Amazon alone.
Take a gander at big box stores,
At the postmodern store,
At the out-of-date store
At the passe, postmodern,
Departmentalized big box store.
PROGRAMMER 4:
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
CONSULTANT:
Where do you get it?
PROGRAMMER 4:
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
What do you twitter?
CONSULTANT:
Where do you get it?
PROGRAMMER 1:
You can chat, you can twitter.
You can chat, you can twitter.
You can twitter, twitter, twitter
You can chat, chat, chat.
You can twitter all you wanna,
But it’s different than it was.
ANALYST:
No, it ain’t, but you gotta know the database.
PROGRAMMER 3:
Why, it’s I-need-it-easy thinking
Made the trouble
Need it easy, need it easy.
Put the order in a box, in a box,
What I-need-easy
In a box with a smile
Made the big box store obsolete.
ANALYST:
Obsolete, obsolete, obsolete
SALESMAN 4:
Malls out the window.
The smiling box
Takes the job of the sales clerk.
Closing all the stores.
ANALYST:
Who’s gonna patronize the big box store any more?
PROGRAMMER 3:
Gone, Gone
PROGRAMMER 1:
Gone with the mall and the outlet and the discount store.
Gone with the chain and the retail store with clothes on a rack.
ALL
Who’s gonna patronize a bog box store any more.
Big box store.
What are the long-term implications for America and the world, assuming I dare worry about the world?
I missed the “biggest shopping event ever”. Not only did I miss it, I didn’t even realize I was missing it. I’m talking about Prime Day on Amazon. Turns out that it’s a great big sale for those who are signed up for Prime. I noticed a story about it the day after it was over – the first I’d heard of it.
Turns out that 100 million products were sold with the FireTV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote leading the way as the number one seller. I don’t even know what a FireTV Stick is. The Echo Dot came in second. I don’t know what that is either. Apparently another big selling item was the Instant Pot multicooker. I DO know what that is. In fact, if I had been a Prime member and if I’d known about the sale, I might have been interested. But I don’t spend enough on Amazon in a year to justify the cost of Prime and getting a glorified pressure cooker isn’t a big enough incentive to change that.
But it makes me worry that not only did I now know that this event was happening, I also don’t even know what the top selling items were. Am I out of step with my own culture? Is the world speeding up while I’m slowing down?
Many babooners will remember in Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree from the late 1960s. One detail that always tickled me was that The Police located them after finding one of their names on an envelope at the bottom of the pile of garbage they’ve thrown over a cliff.
Well, laugh all we want: I found this recently in the Police Blotter from the Winona Post (our twice-weekly rag also called “The Shopper”):
At 6:21 p.m. deputies received a report of garbage dumped illegally on McArthur Ravine Road. Deputies located a shipping address in the trash, and made multiple attempts to reach M___ A___ of Plainview, MN, without success. M. A. was mailed a citation for illegal dumping.”
Husband and I have been reading the Police Blotter lately, mainly for comic relief from the grim and alarming news that we encounter elsewhere. Here are some gems (italics are my own reactions):
At 10:07 a.m. an adult male moved furniture from a vehicle and dumped it on his lawn… (More shades of Alice’s Restaurant)
At 3 p.m. an adult male reported that the key to the trunk of his vehicle had been stolen from his keyring inside the vehicle, parked on the 650 block of W. Sarnia St. (Remind me to not leave my keyring IN the car…)
At 8:46 a.m. officers received a report from an adult female that her car had been scratched on the hood and door while parked near County Road 12. (Must have been a slow day.)
At 7:30 p.m. deputies received a report of the theft of a goat from an adult female in Altura. The woman reported that one juvenile presented the goat to another juvenile, and when the two ended a relationship, the first juvenile requested the return of the goat, but the second party would not comply. Deputies recommended that the parties involved resolve the matter civilly. (If this solution works, maybe we can do away with courts, jails, etc.)
And my personal favorite:
At 5:03 p.m. an adult male on the 200 block of E. Garvin Heights Road reported that 40 goats with pink spots were in a field near his home. The reporting party believed the goats had been fired on with a paintball pistol. (I am speechless; for the entire story: )
Anything fun or interesting in your paper’s Police Blotter report?
Well, the news from the Supreme court is discouraging. #45 rallied yesterday in Fargo. The weeds in my garden are horrendous. On the other hand, there was a gorgeous, huge moon last night. My cats are charming, and I am a part of several communities that are supportive and comforting. To cap it all off, in 1820, on this date, the tomato was proven to be non poisonous by a Colonel Robert Gibbon, who ate a tomato on steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey.
How do you keep going in trying times? How has scientific experimentation (a la Colonel Gibbon) improved your life?
Trail Baboon 