Obesity has become a real problem in this country; we all know that. I’ve heard a lot of theories about why that is. Some of them make sense, but I have my own theory that I haven’t heard voiced elsewhere. I believe people began getting fatter in direct proportion to the length of commercial breaks on television. Think about it! We all have to do something to fill the one-third of airtime that is now devoted to advertisements. Makes sense to me.
I didn’t say anything about the passing of Robin Williams yesterday, because it was news to me when I was updating this page. I just didn’t know much. Plus, I knew there’d be a lot said by others, and I was right. There was a third reason, maybe. I didn’t want to make any comment that might be construed as negative at such a time. That comment would have been: I have always thought Robin Williams was best as a dramatic actor. Of course, that isn’t a negative thing to say, but with so many emphasizing his original and frenetic approach to comedy, I just didn’t see going into it. Also, let us remember Betty Bacall, who left us yesterday.
334 responses to “Back after This…”
Ghost: I might have posted he was nearly 70. Isn’t 66 nearly 70? 😛
We get all kinds of overdressed pharm representatives, male and female, and also reps from home nursing services and HMOs who dress similarly.
Jackie, Our casa is far from decorated looking, but The Boss Of My Life likes to look over furniture and fabrics. I may have mentioned before that The Man In My Life inherited our casa (Its name is the Casa Boris Y Natasha. Long story) from his aunt in the late 80s or early 90s . It is very big (over 3000 square feet, I am told) and has rooms in it with strange names like The Pot Room, the Media Room, the Deco Room, the Slanty Room, the Wine Closet, and the Library (where I hang out a lot, no surprise, right?) Once in a while, The Boss Of My Life gets really tired of a piece of furniture and goes out to the Dallas Decorative Center and buys a very nice replacement. The prices are very shocking to this East Texas girl, but it’s her money, right? My room stays as it is with its double bed, dresser, chest of drawers, and a cute little overstuffed chair ( I rescued it from being set by the curb when The Boss Of My Lie was redecorating the sun room) that just fits me and sits next to my bookcase and a little table to hold drinks, notebooks, and snacks.
Sounds a lot like you’ve got your own Girl Cave there, Lily.
Yeah. And I can shut the door and it’s so quiet. No TV, no radio, and my iPad in its charger.
When I was growing up in Memphis, my favorite columnist was our own Lydell Sims of the Commercial Appeal. (http://ldaley.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/remembering-my-mentor-lydel-sims/)
My current favorite Pulitzer-winning columnist is Paul Greenberg of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Jackie, Elvis, our Bobcat, (big old boy cat) is just short of twenty pounds and looks like he’s still getting longer although he’s five now. Of course he’s orange, very striped and thinks that he’s king of the jungle. We used to occasionally have our differences, but he has learned from positive reinforcement and is just occasionally cranky now. (to be continued when the lightning stops).
American regional papers have some really good columnists. I loved Leon Hale, Houston, TX first in the Houston Post, a paper I read ONLY for Leon’s column. Then he moved to Chronicle and I could read him in good conscience. Just checked to make sure he was alive, he is, but retiring after 65 years doing columns!
Wow! His books are funny and well written. I always think of his annual trip south to meet spring, going south in Texas until he met Spring which was the mesquite bushes greening out. When I see the tiny mesquite leaves I think of Leon.
I loved Jeff Millar who wrote for the Chronicle and then did Tank McNamara until his death.
Dave Barry I began reading in Miami newspaper, Chronicle carried him and Lewis Grizzard, Erma Bombeck. You can tell I have admiration and a thing about columnists.
Anyone else have favorites?
Love, Jackie
For humor, Lewis when he was living, Dave now.
I think I mentioned I once met Lewis at a business meeting in Atlanta where he was our luncheon speaker. He talked just like he wrote. Typical was one of his jokes that day: “I went into a bar and didn’t know it was a gay bar until I ordered a double and they brought me a guy who looked just like me.”
Ghost, I think you are right, Dave Barry is the best humor columnist left but there have been so many who died and I miss them. I got to thinking about this just now and thought about Mike Royko, who may have been funny but was great political writer also.
Was remembering what he said when they filmed “Continental Divide” which is loosely based on Royko. He said Woodward and Bernstein got Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman to play them in “All the President’s Men” but he got John Belushi!
Just read a bunch of his quotes and books (also Pulitzer winner) I will not quote him on eating cats because we have so many cat lovers here, me included! It was like Mike’s joke about putting my ashes in the kitty litter– Funny but awful. That was how Royko was. I miss him.
Love, Jackie
Just in case you think I only read humor, I also often read sports columnists like “Devil Ball” by Jay Busbee, who I was TOTALLY relieved to find out was not the same nor son of the Jay I once dated! I like Forbe’s Motley Fool also but upon consideration, both may be humorous at times.
Love, Jackie
Lightning was really bad but has stopped. The group has moved on and I will discuss what depression is and is not at another time. Do we have any other Science Channel fans? I have only recently discovered it and it is now one of my favorites.
Husband watches Science Channel and so I often see some by default. He loves “Through the Wormhole” with Morgan Freeman, whose voice I love, and I actually watch this one. On Science Chnannel.
Love, Jackie
A while back, I cut my cable bill in half by stepping down a tier. Naturally, that eliminated The Science Channel and National Geographic Channel, two that I watched frequently, while leaving dozens of channels available I have never watched and never will. If my no-TV experiment continues to work as well as it has, I’ll cut back to the most basic tier, local broadcast channels only, for their availability in case of an emergency.
I used to read Dave Barry when we still got a paper. I thought he had quit writing for newspapers, but what do I know. I have read one Lewis Grizzard book, called “If I ever Get Back To Georgia I’m Gonna Nail My Feet To The Floor”. It had one joke I made into a homemade birthday card for my father, “I don’t think I’m gonna get married again. I’m just gonna find a woman I hate and buy her a house.” Complete with drawings of ugly women waving signs that read things like “Power!” and a guy handing her a deed and a key! 😀
Nowdays, no columns, except I read Rush when he shows up in my Facebook feed.
UMMHH-UUH! Two favorites of husband but he is in watching AMC and some reality fiction about railroads and then American Revolution? Spies.
He fired cable company and I have an ugly satellite dish on roof of porch. His parents were t.v. addicts with one in EVERY room in house. Should have known the addictions are in the DNA. He is avid reader, so not bad, doesn’t smoke or do drugs or drink.
So boats and t.v. not too bad. His man cave is out in back, two stories and as big as some houses and cleaner than main house.
No couches but he never sits down!
Love, Jackie
Like most places, my city has granted cable monopoly to one provider. In my case it is Comcast. Can somebody explain to me why the Feds felt it necessary to break up Bell telephone but allows Comcast to swallow every competing cable service? Meanwhile service and customer service gets worse by the day and the rates climb faster than a Saturn V rocket. I am in favor of forcing cities to open the door to any provider who can serve its people properly. Competition improves things for the public while monopolies result in the poorest possible product at the highest possible price.
That was because he had gone thru several bad divorces. That’s a famous quote from Lewis too.
Tulsa World doesn’t carry Dave Barry but he is in Parade mag in paper sometimes. I was laughing at him for wanting to title his last book “You Mean He’s Still Alive?”
We only have one columnist in Tulsa World who is supposed to be humorous and have won Pulitzer but I just read his column today and that seems questionable to me? A lot of his books have been made into movies but I swear I thought he was in his 80’s and was totally shocked to see he is four years younger than me! It is Jay Conley if I spelled that right and I recognized the books and movie titles, so must have written better once?
Love, Jackie
Comcast is what I have, too, but if you are lucky enough to live in a small Southern city with a local office, they can be not too bad. When I was changing my plan, there was a very nice lady behind the counter who was very helpful. (For a little bit, I think she would have gone out with me, but that’s a SFYAD.) Later, I had a problem involving tiling on just one channel which a friendly and competent young man with telephone support solved for me in about two minutes. And, as I mentioned, if you cut back on channel tiers and dump any premium channels you have, you can trim a good bit of the fat off your bill and still have plenty of things to watch.
But yes, I believe that cable companies’ satisfaction ratings in general rank just above those of Congress…if that. And I do suspect that real competition would help.
We have all the bells and whistles on our cable, but it is a pure waste cause the TV is seldom watched except for televised sports. The Man In My Life and The Boy In My Life spend all Sunday afternoon in there. Me, I work in the yard, play with my dog, and read.
Ghost, I cut the fat off completely and the meat as well. I dumped the tv part of the service, keeping only the internet I need to work from home. I moved to the satellite service, got better programming and lower prices, and to date, no billing problems. If I had any real alternative for internet I would drop that Comcast service as well. But the only other thing I could get is UVerse and my brother has advised very strongly against that. He had it, and dumped it due to poor service.
As for the cable office, I dealt with one exceptional lady there a couple of times. The rest were just filling space, and the two good experiences were outweighed by the recurring problem and lack of interest in resolving it shown by the rest of the staff.
Okay, I am back home. The Man In My Life has put me to bed and I am fading fast. Shhhh
We have Time Warner cable here, but only TV. We still have ADSL because our local phone company still believes in “nine nines” uptime and TWC doesn’t. BTW, has anybody else ever noticed that the TWC logo looks like the Eye of Horus? I wonder if Simon Illyan had anything to do with it…
Good morning Villagers….
Thanks for the birthday wishes…..it was another day in paradise 🙂
Jean….I had that song in my head yesterday 🙂
Gal….energy!! I fake it, till I make it, your closing remark reminded me of this tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pafY6sZt0FE
Lily…you got a pot room? 🙂 (you saw that one coming, didn’t you GR 😉 )
I got a pleasant surprise last night, Andrew and his girlfriend stopped in (remember, he moved out a couple of weeks ago)…anyhoo…..I went out to the front porch because I knew it was his weekend with Brooklynne Rose….and she come flying out of the back seat, up the stairs, and jumped into my arms….with lots of hugs and kisses and I loves yous. That made my day.
Raining here….that’s going to make cleaning cages a little more stickier…arrrggghhhhh……
ya’ll have a blessed day………………..
today’s grin:
http://cheezburger.com/8288862464
really, several following this one are cuties…….
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/centgrtlakes_loop.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcpqpKJIL2w