One of the benefits of working at home is daytime television, like one of the benefits of being a plumber is all the free compost. Remember when it started? The compost, I mean? It was in the 90s. The king of daytime talk was Phil Donahue, whose show in the beginning could seem salacious but actually was thoughtful and measured compared with his usurpers racing to find the lowest common denominator of public taste and intelligence. (Judging by their spawn, “reality TV,” it hasn’t been found yet.) Along came Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer and Oprah Winfrey, and the mud-rasslin’ was in full swing. Of course, today it all seems tame, but mercifully we didn’t know that then. Phil tried to resist the trend but was powerless really. He eventually eased into the mud with the others, then quit. Oprah took the opposite route; she started in the mire and over time pulled herself and her show to higher ground. As for Geraldo and Jerry Springer, oh my. I honestly don’t know what they’re doing now and don’t care. Enough of a very old rant. At least I got a cartoon out of it.
That’s Entertainment!
By Jimmy Johnson
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122 responses to “That’s Entertainment!”
Clicking on refresh will get you kicked out too.
OF due 1844-1904 CST. Had the same problem getting into Comments. Glad to know[?] it’s not something in this laptop. Get here by copying the URL from above left, leaving, and going there from my server. Now, have to get the NPS URL.
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
Peace, emb
I had an awful time trying to get here through Chrome. No matter how often I refreshed I just got to sit here and watch the little circle spin. Finally I chose the kill page option and Chrome then asked if I wanted to reload. I did and here I am. I found out Jackie got her flat fixed and started moving again. Let’s hope she will update us tonight.
Mindy from Indy, glad it was not you who slid into the parking lot and played pinball with the bumpers! Maybe you do need to use ice skates to commute till the spring thaw.
If you haven’t watched it yet, listen to the song I posted at the head of the page and stick with it till the end. You’ll find out why I said it’s relevant to Jimmy’s comments.
I suspect that the man behind the curtain is actually several men and likely in geographically variant places. (Load balancing and all that.)
I think one of them has gone catatonic. It is a crap-shoot each time you try.
Major malf’s since this morning on this blog. No access via IE, Chrome or Safari. Will occasionally let me in by clinking on Recent Posts at the bottom of page (as it is now) but not always.
Debbe 😉 That was from a comment I made in response to Jackie saying she was looking forward to weighing. It seems to have disappeared now. I’ll tell you about Bad Mindy later.
I had Jackie’s FB page up and even put it on Favorites — bookmarked it — then it was gone. I wonder if she accidentally disconnected, as she is still learning what to do with the smartphone. I don’t have one and would be hopeless at figuring it out. On the plus side, Internet Explorer has given me no trouble at all, and it doesn’t have spellcheck to aggravate me (Windows Live Mail does have it but I just ignore it. It doesn’t Otto Correct so that’s a good thing.)
Excellent song selection Mark. 🙂 The only time I actively watched Springer was with my college economic class back in 1997. The professor was wretched, and crazier than the Springer “guests.” By the end of semester, the only day ANYONE showed up to class was test day. And I am not exaggerating; the last day I attended, out of our class of 100, four people were left in the classroom when my friend and I ditched for the student union for lunch. On the downstairs level, our economy class would congregate around the mammoth flat screen, eat lunch and watch Springer.
And not sure what everyone else did to anger the Internet pixies, but I’ve accessed this site directly, via Chrome on my Android-based tablet, with no issues, every time I’ve wanted to do so all afternoon and evening.
Here’s yet another person abandoning a perfectly good plane…
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=33672510&nid=711&title=man-has-seizure-while-skydiving-saved-by-instructor
It took several tries this time, but I am getting in by gong to A & J Wikipedia and clicking on the link at the bottom. Sometimes it will go right to the comments. If it doesn’t I’m sol. Like I said before, you’re either reading this later or you found your own way in.
Glad you liked the song, Mindy from Indy. I’ve got it in my Spotify playlist along with most of Knopfler’s works. When I saw Jimmy’s retro and comments I just had to post it here!
I got disconnected from TV in general in the mid ’80’s when I began working for a security company. 9 years of night shift will do that for you. By the time I got out of that line of work, I no longer knew or cared what was on. My grandmother was a soap opera addict. If the tv was on in the daytime at her house you knew what she was watching. Now my mom is caught up in the ghost programs, the Weather Channel and I don’t know what all else.
I’ve been watching CSI Miami when I catch it, since I never watched it on the first runs. Mostly I’m watching the movies on my free movie channels from satellite. Just saw Maleficent the other night, was better than I expected. And Angelina Jolie was as much born to play that part as Shelley Duval was to play Olive Oyl in the Popeye movie. They already have the physical characteristics, just needed the costumes and a good script. Jolie came out ahead in the script department.
It took several tries this time, but I am getting in by going to A & J Wikipedia and clicking on the link at the bottom. Sometimes it will go right to the comments. If it doesn’t I’m sol. Like I said before, you’re either reading this later or you found your own way in. I figured out how to edit but it will result in two posts. Let’s see.
Good Lord….look at this, and more to come….Miss Charlotte, it just doesn’t get any better than this:
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/index_loop.php
Well, tomorrow’s another day, GR 😉
I came in the same door, had to hit refresh once.
I’m going to bed…..say good night Debbe…..good night and warm dreams.
Speaking of, I had just walked by the TV, and this man was speaking to a reporter, recounting some ‘deadly’ night I suppose, that “at that time, he and his wife tried real hard to have children”…..I couldn’t help but ask myself “how hard”?
🙂
Don’t take any wooden eggs Debbe.
I had trouble getting in this afternoon just once. Now this evening I had to use Jerry’s trick on my tablet
yeah, this has happened before, where it’s just funky sometimes on some things, I just finished reading the last two days….. … this was pretty weird / cool. Friday I drove 240 miles north from here, near Houston up to Cleburne, south of Fort Worth in one day (visiting a log home manufacturer) hit snow north of Waco, became full fledged snow storm, sanding the roads, cars sliding, by the time I got there, the place was closed, no one there, (guy left a message on my work phone when obviously I would have been on the road, duh. Tromped around in shoe sinking snow looking at models, turned back home and 30 miles south all clear, just weird to go into a totally different weather area in ten hours in the comfort of your car
Despite the weather, remember to Spring Ahead before you go beddy-bye Sat. night. Means I should go there an hour earlier / adult Sun. sch. next morning.
Peace, emb
Television & reality are an oxymoron.
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public”
H. L. Mencken
Got 3 inches snow last night – and now it is all trying to blow south.
Good morning Villagers….
Still a little issue on logging in here, only had to hit refresh once though. And the guberment wants to get involved in this internet thingy…which I don’t understand.
So far it’s still just raining, and raining, but changing over to snow. Depending on who you want to believe….it’s anywhere from 2 – 4 inches and just 10 miles to the south of us, 5 – 8ish, then the cold comes back….real cold.
Took the Corp three hours to test for the salmonella….thought they would never get done.
Indy Mindy, I love the way you describe your cat, Blacklight. She sounds like she has personality, and has you wrapped around her little paw.
Did Jackie say she was driving to St. Louis to pick up her daughter? If so, she’s headed into some nasty weather I believe.
later……….
on the subject of intelligent life here in the states:
http://cheezburger.com/8455101440
Thanks for the grin this morning, Debbe – unfortunately, it’s true!
Had no trouble getting on to A’n’J – but I’ve had to change my home page as it had so much “stuff’ that it took forever to load — now on the BBC – opens up quickly.
Loved the pillows! – hubby is the pillow king around here – and he changes the linens so I don’t care.
I can only get on via my smartphone in Chrome. Weird…
About the only time that I meet new neighbors is when the power goes out or we are snowed in. We live on a short road that dead ends to the RR#, so every year I walk over to one neighbor and give him $ to pay for dust control on our gravel road. We catch up on what has happened over the year. Kinda sad, but we know each other is there if needed.
Guessing the blog is undergoing “improvements”. If so, now you know why I curse bitterly when our software vendor announces “improvements” to their product.
Trying to post is much too time consuming at present, so I’ll give it another shot tonight. Have a good day.
Ah yes, pillows! I have 12 on the bed right now, some of which I made, and some were made for me by a friend. Husband gripes about them, but I put them in place every morning when I make the bed.
In less than a week we’ve gone from ice, snow, and 20F to rain and 50F. Who knows what the weekend will be. One fun thing about living on top of a mountain-we’ve been in the clouds all morning. The view out of my kitchen window looks like something from an Outer Limits episode.
The last day or two I’ve had a bit of trouble getting the page to load. It comes up blank and I hit Reload…the banner pops up and I hit Reload…AHA!, there the comments are! I thought it was just that my computer hates me, as does most technology.
One of the few times I saw a bit of Geraldo was the day his “guests” got in a fight, someone threw a chair, and Gerry got his nose broken. I figured it couldn’t get any better than that ans have not watched daytime tv since then. 🙂