By 2009, when this Sunday A&J first appeared, video games had advanced well beyond what Ludwig is playing, but yours truly still was stuck in Atariland. But after all, he is a cat, and I’m an old man, so cut us some slack. I actually owned an early Atari game console and enjoyed it very much. My glory days, though, coincided with the dawn of computerized arcade games, such as “Space Invaders.” I remember a buddy and I were playing Space Invaders at a two-man, sit-down game console in an establishment called “The Cherokee Inn” in Jackson, Mississippi, one evening in the early ’80s. The Cherokee Inn was, well… they would call in a “pub” in England. Someone who had gotten a head start elsewhere pulled into the parking lot and failed to stop quite in time. There was a loud “wham,” and the plywood wall next to our gaming table buckled inward. If the driver had been going much faster, you might not be reading this, but, unperturbed, we kept playing.
Playful as a Kitten
By Jimmy Johnson
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273 responses to “Playful as a Kitten”
Happy birthday, Indy Mindy!
Yes, I believe Elvis could have sung opera, if he had gotten the chance. He wanted to improve his voice and do something besides rock-and-roll and silly movies, so he took voice lessons for several years but “Colonel” Tom Parker wouldn’t let him quit a formula that worked and made money. Sad.
And his German wasn’t just phonetic for GI Blues. Elvis was stationed in Germany while in the Army, so he most likely picked up some there.
My sister played Centipede, Space Invaders, Frogger, and Pac Man on the video games in the grocery store while our mom did her shopping, and the fascination with them led to a degree in Computer Science and a career at Scientific Atlanta and several other companies throughout the years. My son plays whatever the latest and greatest video games are out there now. I can’t keep up with them. I play solitaire on my computer. 🙂
Jackie, look up Josh Groban on YouTube. Whatever song you pick, you can’t go wrong.
And speaking of ocelots, who remembers Honey West and Bruce?
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm395220480/tt0058814?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_prd_2
Jean, Elvis was one of greatest voices there was, Colonel Parker ruined his life and kept him from what he could have been, that and fame’s price he paid. I love Josh Groban but thank you for reminding me, another great voice. Right now I am listening to a great guitarist named Julian Bream from 1970’s on my Smartphone because this stupid computer has me locked out of youtube. Yes, I know, I need Spotify or even my streaming Amazon prime set up and I am an idiot at this kind of stuff. You know the joke about blondes and light switches and light bulbs.
Except some of us, like my beautiful new attorney, kicked down the doors at Harvard!
I laugh at Ghosts ads, Google cannot decide who I am, am I Michael Monies or Jackie Monies? So I get some fascinating ads and even more fascinating spam mail. They can’t decide if I am male, female, gay or transgender? I have decided to consider them additional entertainment.
Love, Jackie Monies
John in Richmond, I saw that same performance at Jones Hall. Great theater, I miss it. I went to so much they decided I must be a “patron” so I got invitations to all the fancy society balls in Houston which amused me no end. I hardly cared then and now about social position. Social position hardly equates love of music nor art.
Love, Jackie
Trapper Jean, at the first mention of Ocelots I thought of Anne Francis.
OF due 1221-1241 CDT.
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Old Bear: “There are many plants that do not rely on bees. On the other hand diet might get monotonous. Many on Earth would go hungry. On an other hand if all insects were to disappear we would have a real problem. emb: Your ideas?”
We sure would, and in some ways we don’t know of yet. Biologists of many sorts continually discover ways in which this or that sp. is dependent on one or more other sp. for its survival. Search for the “life cycle of figs”, for example, one we’ve known of for ages. OTOH, we’ve discovered only recently that a great variety of plants are dependent on fungi for effective absorption of nutrients [minerals and such] by their roots. Root hairs, which we learned about in Bot. 101, or JHS life science, are not enough, or at least much less efficient.
Many of our veg. crops are insect pollinated, but grains are mostly wind pollinated, so we might still have bread. Flowering plants, many of which are insect pollinated, first show up more than 145 MYA, in the late Jurassic/early Cretaceous. They and insects diversified greatly during the long Cret. Period [roughly 145-65 MYA, a process Paul Ehrlich [I think] called “coevolution.”
Considering the current accelerated rate of extinction, we are conducting a major [if messy, uncontrolled] experiment in just how dependent various spp. are on other spp. If surprising, unwelcome things happen, we can depend, based on current and past experience, that many will deny that humans had anything to do with those extinctions.
Peace, emb
All life is both valuable and essential, whether we may “like” it or find it inconvenient. Man may not even be the most important nor essential, we just think so. Love, Jackie
Yes, Jean dear, I certainly remember Honey West but had somehow forgotten Bruce. I wonder how that happened. 😉
Jackie, I’ll bet your ginormous deputy and/or his petite girlfriend could set all that up for you on your computer and smart phone. One just about cannot survive in law enforcement these days without being computer literate. Much of their professional communication is now via cell phone text, on-line access to data bases, and emails on in-patrol-car laptops.
One of my top three favorite NFL quarterbacks just got bumped from the list by “that guy”.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2015/05/04/seahawks-qb-russell-wilson-upgrades-soldiers-seat-to-first-class-n1994284
Yep, Paul Ehrlich and Peter Raven:
Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution Paul R. Ehrlich; Peter H. Raven Evolution, Vol. 18, No. 4. (Dec., 1964), pp. 586-608. You can read the whole article online: not sure if you can do it for free. I own 40+ years of Evolution, incl. that issue [in a storage locker].
I was 35. Some of you weren’t born yet. I can remember lots of excitement generated by the article. Among other things, articles like that are why responsible science profs have to revise their lecture notes continually. Watson and Crick published in 1953 in Nature, the British equivalent of the AAAS journal Science, but I didn’t learn about it until ’60-62, when it got into textbooks, and continuing research on DNA, RNA, and cellular metabolism kept me revising notes until I retired in ’94. Word processing made it easier, mid-’80s on.
Peace, emb
Website left out a period after Raven, thus:
Paul Ehrlich and Peter Raven: Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution Paul R. Ehrlich; Peter H. Raven. Evolution, Vol. 18, No. 4. (Dec., 1964), pp. 586-608.
emb
If I said “Honey West” or “Emma Peel” to my husband, he would get a goofy, faraway look in his eye.
OF 1657-1517 CDT. emb
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Ah, yes…the delectably mysterious Mrs. Peel.
My appreciation for Modesty Blaise in the novels didn’t reach fanboi level, and there was not a TV series as far as I know, but I did enjoy watching Monica Vitti portray her in the movie. Of course, I would probably have enjoyed watching Monica Vitti doing most anything she cared to do.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/23/97/5b/23975b7c1cf2f541dd2ee127152708d7.jpg
As I seem to recall, in my college Genetics course, that our textbook was authored by a couple of guys named Watson and Crick.
I also recall getting very tired of hooking up pairs of Drosophila melanogaster and letting them have all the fun while I had to count and classify their offspring.
Minion and I have moved on to clearing out and throwing away accumulation of “junk” in my big sun-room on back half of house. Workmen will begin installing white ceramic tile floor which I have owned for 20 (count ’em 20 years!), replace the cabinets around kitchenette area that were damaged in broken frozen pipes and flooding, install mini-fridge, plantation wood shutters, repaint it all, replace all the doors off for 20 years.
And y’all thought I was just rebuilding landscaping! I think I am going to enjoy living here for a long time yet.
Just had dinner of left overs from lunch, Chinese stir fry of sirloin chunks, brocollini or oriental broccoli, mushroom and onions, made by me a tad spicy, plus big bowl of fresh pineapple chunks and lots of water. Time for a nap!
Forgot, my Lands End order arrived, lots of sweaters and salty looking sweats purchased on deep, deep sale. I like that. Coupled with some white and other colored jeans and deck shoes from L.L. Bean and boots, very casual chic “boaty” wardrobe, all layered over wicking short and long sleeved tees. Maybe I haven’t forgotten how.
Love, Jackie
OF Now-1916 CDT
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Ghost:
They may well have thus cashed in on their fame. They got the Nobel in ’59 [+/-]. Watson publd. The Double Helix in the early ’60s, I think. Crick also did a general reader book in the ’70s or ’80s. He was several years older than Watson, and has since died. Watson should be pushing 90 about now.
Peace, emb.
Today was the last day I had to use the post-procedure eyes drops associated with my cataract surgeries (to prevent infection and/or swelling). That turned out to be the most vexing thing about the procedures…not to administer the drops, but to remember to administer them multiple times per day.
I also had my final post-op visit this afternoon with my ophthalmologist. All is well; she said the results were even better than she had hoped.
Ghost:
I presume you were under local but awake during the operation. Weirdest procedure I’ve experienced. Did you have both eyes done during one surgery appt.? Peace, emb
If you really want to spook somebody who’s going it to get their cataracts removed, remind them that they’re going to be lying on a table looking up and watching the scalpel coming down to cut into their eye. BTDT, twice; once for each eye. And later this month, I’m going to have the first of two laser capsulotomies done. Fun, fun, fun.
I had my cataracts done two weeks apart, emb; there would have been one week between them, except that I had to carry my Mom for her to have a minor procedure instead. It was with topical anesthesia drops while under “conscious sedation”, an IV cocktail of Versed and a couple of other drugs the names of which I don’t recall at the moment.
My memory is that I was perfectly aware of what was happening and carried on a lucid conversation with my physician during the entire procedure. The assisting RN was the daughter of one of my all-female staff, and what she told her mom bears that out. According to her, most patients either zone out immediately, or freak out and have to have the IV drip rate turned up until they are effectively out. But apparently I just treated it like a pleasant way to pass part of the morning.
GR6
Are lenses plastic?
Co-worker will have procedure end of the month.
Was advised against bifocal style. I know the brain can handle many things but that
would seem weird.
emb:
I was thinking specifically about wheat & corn as wind borne pollination, and grass.
So we would have bread & meat.
As Brother Dave Gardner said “Man cannot live by bread alone – he must have peanut butter”
and
“Gratitude is riches, and complaint is poverty, and the worst I ever had was wonderful!”,
“Let them that don’t want none, have memories of not gettin’ any… let that not be their punishment, but their reward,”
For those that adore old cars:
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/texas-time-capsule-five-pre-war-classics-found-in-118285976497.html
Bear: Intraocular lenses (or IOL) materials are of several types, such as silicone and acrylic, so I guess the short answer is, “Yes, plastic.” 🙂 Newer ones are folded when inserted through a smaller incision and then unfolded into place.
Bifocal as in one lens for near vision and the other for distant vision, like some contact wearers have? There is also a “toric” lens that will correct for astigmatism,
From the Department of Useless Information: Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allen Poe, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Jerry Lee Lewis all married cousins, of either the first, second or third persuasion.
I’m sure Jackie knew that about at least one of the men listed above.
Debbe 😉 May the Force be with you, hon.
My implants are toric Ghost, and got rid of my astigmatism completely. Alas, instead of being very nearsighted, I’m slightly farsighted, but reading glasses from the 99-Cent Store are enough.