Thursday, January 29, 2009

Mr Ed only ordered pizza

So the past few nights I've been watching James Bond flicks on something called Ion Television which is free since I don't have cable and though there are ads it is the ones they have been running for a movie coming in Feb that have me wondering.It's called "The Last Templar" as if we don't have enough of these goofy modern day crusades flicks.Da Vinci Code should be a pizza order not another bad movie on a bad book about well a bunch of nonsense.So the ads for this Templar thing shows the outside of a museum and then come four horses ridden by guys in robes and armor including face trotting up the steps.For some reason these four dudes dressed as crusaders trotting up the steps doesn't even draw a second glance until they get through the doors which isn't shown in the ad and then suddenly it's Kentucky Derby day as they race across the floor of the museum scaring folks out their wits and smashing things glass while they snatch the secret thing.Then they race off like Republicans with the public monies and the smart beautiful girl enters the picture to solve the crime.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

More on A Wedding

That light brown suit I'm wearing in the picture is still in my closet.I have a fantasy that it will fit again some day.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

A Wedding

This would have been summer of 1980 and I came home from North Truro for this weekend.I'm standing second on left with yellow tie and note I have a drink in each hand.I may have been holding it for my date but I don't think so as this was a wedding with a lot of white powder and the one where I walked out the door and everyone thought I was the bride and groom coming where they threw rice at me and I dropped my drink shattering the glass and uttered a string of curse words at the crowd.I was in a wedding at the same place,the Rochester Yacht Club a few years later and was hoping my picture still wasn't up behind the bar.

A Wedding pic

Cape Cod late spring 1978

The last pic is one of a bunch my brother put up today in the Yahoo group I started for high school buddies.Our friend Tim is in pic on the left and myself on right.My brother,Tim and I had spent the night at the Cranberry Inn in Chatam.The pic is somewhere near the Chatam Light and I still can't recall why I am wearing a Yankees cap in the pic other than to hope a New Yorker visiting Chatam would think I was one of them so I could wreak havoc on his world.That's my dads wagon and I don't know why we were driving that also instead of my Vega wagon.There was a tent in back because the next two nights we stayed incognito at the North Truro Camping area since we were both banned from the summer before by our former employer.We sent Tim into register and our friend Kate loaded him down with all kinds of gifts for us from the camp store.We took Kate to dinner in Provincetown that night and had a great time.A few weeks later I flew back to the cape for season two.

Cape Cod late spring 1978 pic

Monday, January 26, 2009

Top of my Birthday wish list

I walked up to the Pharmacy today and this beauty was parked on the street top down.Near as I can tell it's a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz though the 56 and 57 are similar.The one I saw today was a cream with a hint of yellow in the paint.A big slab of American metal when it was cool to have one.

Top of my Birthday wish list pic

Friday, January 23, 2009

Wonderful Weather

So today it rained all day.It wasn't heavy but more a steady hard drizzle that came down a bit harder sometimes so maybe half an inch total.Around 7:30 I was in the kitchen when it felt like a car hit the building in front but I looked out and nothing.Just now I see it was a 3.4 quake we had around 7:30 right off Marina Del Ray so it was a twofer day.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Lousy Weather

Today was the 10th straight day of 80 or above in L.A. and frankly I'm getting tired of it.If I was down in Florida visiting friends I'd love it because they all live on or near the water and have pools but what little "winter type weather" L.A. gets we get in these few months running into March.It should be a lot cooler and rainy and hopefully we get some of that soon as the temps drop to the low 60's the next several days.If this warm weather keeps up I might just go down to Key West for a few weeks in Feb or March and enjoy it by the right ocean.

Sworn In

What a long day.I'm tired just from watching the proceedings all day.Had the TV on since 5 a.m. this morning. A few observations.I think Poppy Bush wins the fashion award with the purple and yellow golf look under the overcoat and then a bit later donning the Russian Fur trappers hat.Bill Clinton getting a kiss from George Washington(Barbara Bush)and not slipping her a little tongue. The Irony of Dick Cheney literally covering his butt by parking it in a wheelchair,Injured my ass.It was while watching the parade though that I had my Inspiration of the day.Watching the guys who follow the horses on the parade route and shovel up after them I thought there should be a law that whichever party loses the Presidential Election has to send out Senators and Congressmen to do that job.Lord knows they spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill slinging shit so let them shovel it up once every four years. P.S. Do Jimmy Carter and his wife think the other Presidents have Cooties? First there was the pic of some days ago where all the Presidents were standing together in the oval office except Jimmy who had a good amount of seperation from the other four then today when he seemed aloof at best to the rest of them.Don't you just wish Billy Carter was still around for tonights Balls.He was like Tom Arnold before there was a Tom Arnold.P.S.S. I was just waiting for a live shot of Tom Hanks dressed as Forrest Gump sliding next to one of the ex Presidents or runnning across the reflecting pool yelling like a nut.That would have gotten the Secret Service going but good.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

More Books

I will mention one of my to reads is "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot.Now I read her"Middlemarch" last year but I've been put off reading the Barnes&Noble classic edition of Deronda because the cover is Pink.I'm just picturing some gang bangers on the bus giving me grief cause I'm not readng"Middlemarch" but the Pink book by Eliot.

Montana Days and Nights

Even though my pile of to read books is around nineteen the one that came yesterday "As Big as the West" the pioneer life of Granville Stuart is my next non-fiction read.I read the intro last night and looked at the pictures and though I only know of Stuart by name the book looks like a great read.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Hall of Fame

I was happy to see Jim Rice finally get elected to the baseball hall of fame yesterday.Though I became a Sox fan summer of 72 it was 1977 when I saw my first game at Fenway.It was end of July or early August and the three of us guys from the Babes kitchen crew drove from North Truro to Fenway Park after work.The Red Sox had just come off a ten game road trip out west in which they went 10-0 and the first game back were playing Kanas City.I was driving my Vega Wagon and somewhere south of Boston we filled up with gas.Tom was riding shotgun so I made him get out and pump the gas.We pulled out and were all sipping another beer when I heard a thunk and looked in my mirror to see my gas cap go sailing off the roof rack at around 70 miles an hour myself hoping I would not see it hit a windshield.I didn't so I started giving Tom the what for and then we were at Fenway.It's all a blur now except the Sox came from behind and won like 13-10 or something and I slept a lot on the drive back to the Cape though I wasn't driving.I think Jim Manning was which brings it sort of full circle for me with the two Jims.

Up the Rhine without a Paddle

One of the somewhere outside Los Angeles Casinos is running local TV spots with different giveaways to entice you to come part with your coin.One of the giveaways is a Castle Cruise up the Rhine.What exactly is that I'm thinking to myself.Is it a cruise in a Castle up the Rhine which would be wicked cool or is it a cruise up the Rhine where you see Castles.If so do they pull the shades down all over the ship if a Castle isn't in view.I suspect a Yale man wrote the ad copy.After all a Yale man was in the White House the past eight years and we all know how that went.One would suspect that Darthmouth and Cornell grads are a bit more smug these days and they may even take a Cruise on the Rhine in which they see Castles and other things.I'd love to do that cruise some day as long as the ship wasn't named the"Lorelei"

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Parlez vous Francais

A few nights ago I put on my DVD of Lady in the Lake from the Film Noir Vol3 collection and the music to start the film plays and all and then the movie starts in French.So I'm looking at the box to see if it's a french film noir but no mention and so I start all over and click on the language heading and see it offers three and then subtitles in the middle of the screen with the same three English,Spanish and French listed below so I click the lower English and start the flick again and on comes the movie in French with english subtitles!I'm thinking what kind of sick Jerry Lewis kind of joke is this.I stop the movie agian and start over and go back to the language screen where I notice the higher tier of languages above the subtitles so I click English and this time the movie comes on in English!.I realise the top tier is language and the bottom tier subtitle language BUT I have never had a DVD not come on in English before.So last night I pop in DVD 1 of Seinfeld season 9 which I got for XMass and it's the episode that starts out with Jerry and George sitting in the coffe shop both with bushy mustaches and what comes out but they are speaking FRENCH!I look at the box and this one comes in English and French only with subtitles in both.So I have to go through a whole different display to figure out how to get Seinfeld to speak English.I recall when you just put the VCR in and pressed play and that was it.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Bus Ride Fun

It was Xmass eve day 2008 and I picked up the number 5 Santa Monica bus in Century City to head over to work.As I sat down several seats back on the left I hear the lady in the front seat talking loudly to the bus driver.She seemed to be of Central European extraction with her accent dressed way up and late 70's.She was talking a bluestreak and then gets up and gives the bus driver an orange and then turns to the rest of the bus and tells them they should eat fruit every morning.We keep going down Olympic Blvd and she keeps talking and up comes her stop and she refuses to get off saying it's not where she's getting off.Then two blocks past she says "I think that was my stop"The bus driver gives her a free transfer going the other way and she gets off heading across the street the wrong direction waving and smiling.As soon as she gets off half the front of the bus exclaims about what was she on etc. and the bus driver asks if anyone wants an Orange at which the elder gent sitting across from me points to the sign in front of the bus and says"No eating allowed on Bus" and we all laugh including the driver and I head off to work X-Mass eve day smiling at my L.A. moment.

Monday, January 5, 2009

My Cruiser

Well that pic is small but it's black with red and big black cruiser tires with black rims and red spokes.It also has a front handbrake which is great for stop and go.For four months I've looked at cruisers and all it took was for me to see this beauty today to make me buy it over the Nirve Paul Frank Helicopter which was the cool bright orange one I had my eye on.I tell you beach cruisers are so cool nowdays there are like ten I want to buy just to look at and ride on occasion.

My new Nirve Cruiser