Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Sunday, August 17, 2014

Camping cartoons

I just came back from an Order of the Arrow event.  I am tired, I just got my gear squared away and I will go sleep for a few hours before I go to sleep work.  What can I say....I am tired.  Well anyway I remembered some cartoons involving camping.
 


I also looked for a cartoon involving the Dog from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons
 Didn't find it....But found this instead....

Friday, August 15, 2014

“I say, boy, pay attention when I’m talkin’ to ya, boy”

Well I was at work and one of the desktops had this picture on it so it got me thinking about what next to blog about. 

   I always liked FogHorn Leghorn, especially the "southern-ism" that the rooster uses.  One of my favorite quotes is "“Fortunately I always keep a spare in my locker”.  I even use the same inflection as the character.     



Here is a list of quotes from various FogHorn Leghorn cartoons:
“Love that dog … love that dog”
“What’s it all about boy, elucidate!”
“That’s a joke, I say that’s a joke son”
“Go, I say go away boy, you bother me”
“His muscles are as soggy as a used tea bag”
“I made a funny son and you’re not laughin’
“That boy’s about as sharp as a bowling ball”
“I keep pitchin’ ‘em and you keep missin’ ‘em”
“That boy’s as timid as a canary at a cat show”
“Fortunately I always keep a spare in my locker”
“That woman’s as cold as a nudist on an iceberg”
“Nice mannered kid, just a little on the dumb side”
“That kid’s about as sharp as a pound of wet liver”
“You’re way off, I say you’re way off this time son!”
“Nice girl, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice”Foghorn on the Farm 300x225 Foghorn Leghorn Sayings
“Nice boy but he’s got more nerve than a bum tooth”
“I say, boy, pay attention when I’m talkin’ to ya, boy”
“Pay attention, boy, I’m cuttin’ but you ain’t bleedin’!”
“Smart boy, got a mind like a steel trap – full of mice”
“He’s so dumb he thinks a Mexican border pays rent”
“Hmmm, bare, I say bare as a cooch dancers midriff”
“Oh, that woman, got a mouth like an outboard motor”
“That dog’s like taxes, he just don’t know when to stop”
“That boy’s as strong as an ox, and just about as smart”
“Now I wonder what ol’ busy body widow hen is up to”
“Boy’s gotta mouth like a cannon, always shootin’ it off”
“This boy’s more mixed up than a feather in a whirlwind”
“That dog, I say that dog’s strictly GI – gibberin idiot that is”
“Don’t, I say don’t bother me dog, can’t ya see I’m thinkin’
“For-I say fortunately I always carry a spare set of feathers”
“That, I say that boy’s just like a tatoo, gets under your skin”
“Kid don’t quit talkin’ so much he’ll get his tongue sunburned”
“That dog, I say that dog is lower than a snake full of buckshot”
“That dog’s as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrrel of oat meal”
“Boy, you cover about as much as a flapper’s skirt in a high wind”
“Pay attention to me boy! I’m not just talkin’ to hear my head roar”
“That’s the trouble with that fool dog, always shootin’ his mouth off”
“That’s what I’ve been – I say, that’s what I’ve been telling you, boy!”
“Now what, I say now what’s that skinny old hen doin’ up on the barn”
“That, I say that dog’s busier than a centipede at a toe countin’ contest”
“Now cut that out boy, or I’ll spank you where the feathers are thinnest”




 
“Look sister is any of this filterin’ through that little blue bonnet of yours”
“I got, I say I got this boy as fidgety as a bubble dancer with a slow leak”
“Stop, I say stop it boy, you’re doin’ alot of choppin’ but no chips are flyin’
“This is going to cause more confusion than a mouse in a burlesque show”
“You know there might, I say there just might be a market for bottled duck”
“What’s, I say what’s the big idea wrappin’ a lariat around my adams apple”
“Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered, for, for just such an emergency”
“What in the, I say what in the name of Jesse James do you suppose that is”
“Gal reminds me of a highway between Forth Worth and Dallas – no curves”
“Now what, I say what’s the big idea bashin’ me in the bazooka that-a-way boy!”
“She remi – I say, she reminds me of Paul Revere’s ride, a little light in the belfry”
“Now what, I say what’s the big idea bashin’ me on the noggin’ with a rollin’ pin!”
“Now who’s, I say who’s responsible for this unwarranted attack on my person!”
“This boy’s making more noise than a couple of skeletons throwin’ a fit on a tin roof”
“The snow, I say the snow’s so deep the farmers have to jack up the cows so they can milk’em”
“What a day for trampin’ through the woods … lump dum do di do do doh, doo dah, doo dah”
“Now that, I say that’s no way for a kid to be wastin’ his time, readin’ that long-haired gobbledegook”
“It’s sure, I say it’s sure quiet around here, you could hear a caterpillar sneakin’ across a moss bed in tennis shoes”
“As senior rooster ’round here, it’s my duty, and my pleasure, to instruct junior roosters in the ancient art of roostery”
“Hey boy, what’s the idea jackin’ that pot up under me?  Jack?  Pot?  Ahuh, huh … jack pot, that’s a joke son, don’t ya get it?”


Foghorn J. Leghorn is an American character that appears in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons for Warner Bros. Pictures. He was created by Robert McKimson, and starred in 28 cartoons between 1946 and 1963 in the Golden Age of American animation. All 28 of these cartoons were directed by McKimson.


The character of Foghorn Leghorn was directly inspired by the popular character of Senator Claghorn, a blustering Southern politician played by Kenny Delmar who was a regular character on the Fred Allen radio show. The rooster adopted many of Claghorn's catch phrases, such as "That's a joke, ah say, that's a joke, son." Delmar had based the character of Claghorn upon a Texas rancher who was fond of saying this.
A leghorn is a breed of chicken, and foghorn describes the character's loud, overbearing voice.
According to Leonard Maltin the character's voice was also patterned after a hard-of-hearing West Coast-only radio character from the 1930s, known simply as The Sheriff, on a radio program called Blue Monday Jamboree. The voice has similarities to that of another Mel Blanc voice: Yosemite Sam (a strictly Friz Freleng character).

Foghorn Leghorn is a large, white adult Leghorn rooster with a stereotypically Southern accent, a "good ol' boy" speaking style, and a penchant for mischief. The first half of his name is a joke about him being loud and obnoxious, while the second half refers to a breed of chicken (a white leghorn). He first appeared in 1946 in a Henery Hawk film titled Walky Talky Hawky. All of the motion picture Foghorn Leghorn cartoons were directed by Robert McKimson, and the rooster vies with the Tasmanian Devil as the most popular character associated with the director.
Many of the gags involved Foghorn and a canine nemesis (formally known as The Barnyard Dog within Warner today, though on early model sheets his name is given as George P. Dog) engaging in one-upmanship through a series of pranks. Unlike other Looney Tunes rivalries—with the notable exception of the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner series—Foghorn is often the initial aggressor out of self-amusement and subsequently on the 'losing' end of gags. Most common among them was Leghorn's taking up a plank of wood, while ambling along humming "Camptown Races" (the only intelligible words being "DOO-Dah! DOO-Dah!"), coming to the sleeping Dog with his front half inside his doghouse, picking up his tail and rapidly spanking the dog with a plank of wood. Occasionally, Foghorn sings the song, but replaces "Camptown ladies sing this song..." with "Lump-teen-dozen and a-doo-dah day...". He does not sing any other part of the song, reverting to humming after the DOO-Dah's. Foghorn Leghorn loses his feathers very often in the episodes, usually revealing his bare skin or his boxers.
The dog would give chase, usually with his leash still attached to his collar, until the leash stretched taut and his barking was replaced by an anguished howl. At times, when the dog would continue to bark, he would also yell, "Aaaaaahhhhh, shuuutupp!!" In rare cases, it's the dog that starts the series of pranks; as such it is somewhat difficult to tell who started the feud. This gag was passed down to the Leghorns' grandson in Feather Bluster, where Foghorn was puzzled as to why the kid was behaving that way and the Dog was all too happy to remind him: "Ain't nothin' wrong with 'im, Foggy, 'cept that he takes after you."
He was joined in a few episodes by a weasel called 'Bill' who initially attempted to eat him but ended up joining forces to outwit the aforementioned canine.
Other recurring themes throughout the cartoons included the attempts of the diminutive Henery Hawk to catch and eat Foghorn, and the rooster's efforts to woo the widowed hen Miss Prissy (often by babysitting her bookish son, Egghead, Jr.).

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Lauren Bacall She has crossed beyond the Rim and became Immortal.

  I just heard that Lauren Bacall just" crossed beyond the rim".  After Robin Williams passed away due to suicide  after battling depression.  Lauren Bacall was 89 years old.  This one for some reason bothers me more than Robin Williams, Robin Williams left us too soon battling his demons and they won.  I hope God finally grants him the Peace that he has been looking for.
    Lauren Bacall was different, she represented a different time and a different era, when class oozed out of the silver stream and not the crass boorish behavior that passes for celebrity behavior.  She was from a different time where you were expected to behave according to a code of conduct that isn't seen anymore.  Lauren Bacall was a throwback to the Golden era of the cinema.  
     Here is the end of the movie "To Have and Have not" with the great Bogart.

I also remember Lauren Bacall in the Shootist, She played across from John Wayne which it was his last role, He died of Cancer shortly after.  I always though that movie was a fitting end for John Wayne, it was about an aging gun fighter that knew his time was coming to an end, due to cancer and was looking to go out "In a manner befitting a shootist." which was his profession. 


     Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She is the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a salesman and her mother as a secretary. They divorced when she was five. When she was a school girl, Lauren originally wanted to be a dancer, but later, she became enthralled with acting, so she switched gears to head into that field. She had studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York after high school, which enabled her to get her feet wet in some off-Broadway productions.

Once out of school, Lauren entered modeling and, because of her beauty, appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, one of the most popular magazines in the US. The wife of famed director Howard Hawks spotted the picture in the publication and arranged with her husband to have Lauren take a screen test. As a result, which was entirely positive, she was given the part of Marie Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944), a thriller opposite the great Humphrey Bogart, when she was just 19 years old. This not only set the tone for a fabulous career but also one of Hollywood's greatest love stories (she married Bogart in 1945). It was also the first of several Bogie-Bacall films.

After 1945's Confidential Agent (1945), Lauren received second billing in The Big Sleep (1946) with Bogart. The mystery, in the role of Vivian Sternwood Rutledge, was a resounding success. Although she was making one film a year, each production would be eagerly awaited by the public. In 1947, again with her husband, Lauren starred in the thriller Dark Passage (1947). The film kept movie patrons on the edge of their seats. The following year, she starred with Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore in Key Largo (1948). The crime drama was even more of a nail biter than her previous film. In 1950, Lauren starred in Bright Leaf (1950), a drama set in 1894. It was a film of note because she appeared without her husband - her co-star was Gary Cooper. In 1953, Lauren appeared in her first comedy as Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). The film, with co-stars Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, was a smash hit all across the theaters of America.

After filming Designing Woman (1957), which was released in 1957, Humphrey Bogart died on January 14 from throat cancer. Devastated at being a widow, Lauren returned to the silver screen with The Gift of Love (1958) in 1958 opposite Robert Stack. The production turned out to be a big disappointment. Undaunted, Lauren moved back to New York City and appeared in several Broadway plays to huge critical acclaim. She was enjoying acting before live audiences and the audiences in turn enjoyed her fine performances.

Lauren was away from the big screen for five years, but she returned in 1964 to appear in Shock Treatment (1964) and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). The latter film was a comedy starring Henry Fonda and Tony Curtis. In 1966, Lauren starred in Harper (1966) with Paul Newman and Julie Harris, which was one of former's signature films. Alternating her time between films and the stage, Lauren returned in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express (1974). The film, based on Agatha Christie's best-selling book was a huge hit. It also garnered Ingrid Bergman her third Oscar. Actually, the huge star-studded cast helped to ensure its success. Two years later, in 1976, Lauren co-starred with John Wayne in The Shootist (1976). The film was Wayne's last - he died from cancer in 1979.

In 1981, Lauren played an actress being stalked by a crazed admirer in The Fan (1981). The thriller was absolutely fascinating with Lauren in the lead role. After that production, Lauren was away from films again, this time for seven years. In the interim, she again appeared on the stages of Broadway. When she returned, it was for the filming of 1988's Mr. North (1988). After Misery (1990), in 1990, and several made for television films, Lauren appeared in 1996's My Fellow Americans (1996). It was a wonderful comedy romp with Jack Lemmon and James Garner as two ex-presidents and their escapades.

Despite her advanced age and deteriorating health, she made a small-scale comeback in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004) ("Howl's Moving Castle," based on the young-adult novel by Diana Wynne Jones) as the Witch of the Waste, but future endeavors for the beloved actress are increasingly rare.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Monday Music..."Lonely Boy" by Andrew Gold

This is my next installment of "Monday Music"...Yeah, Yeah..I know.....It is Tuesday...It happens.
   I was going to do it on the Skorpions "Winds of change" but I was driving home and this song came on and I decided to roll with this.   I remember this song was on my "Ronco" records and it was a bit sad listening to this story.  But it is a good song and has held the test of time well.



"Lonely Boy" is a song written and recorded by Andrew Gold in 1976 for his album What's Wrong with This Picture? When released as a single in 1977, the song became a top-twenty hit in both the United States (#7) and the United Kingdom (#11). While "Lonely Boy" would be Gold's biggest U.S. hit, his "Never Let Her Slip Away" achieved greater success in the U.K.
The second verse of the song features backing vocals provided by Linda Ronstadt (for whom Gold had previously worked as a producer and backing musician).
The song follows the life of a child who feels neglected by his parents after the birth of a younger sister. Many assume this song to be autobiographical, yet Gold denied the implication, despite great similarities between the lyrics and his life. Regarding the verses' first lines: "He was born on a summer day in 1951" matches Andrew's August 2, 1951 birthday, "In the summer of '53 his mother/Brought him a sister" matches his sister Martha's July 22, 1953 birthday, and "He left home on a winter day, 1969" may well match the formation of Bryndle, of which Andrew was a member, in 1969.
The strongly syncopated song was also released as an edited single, eliminating the vocal bridge and shortening the instrumental finale.
The song was featured in a number of films including Boogie Nights (1997) and The Waterboy (1998).
In February 2000, the Foo Fighters recorded a cover of the song to be used as a B-side for an upcoming single off their 1999 album There Is Nothing Left to Lose; however, it wasn't used as a B-side as planned.
In 2007, the song was covered separately by the bands Farrah and Lazlo Bane (whose song "(I'm no) Superman" is used as the main title theme of the TV series Scrubs).
In 2013, rock band The Almost covered this song for their album Fear Inside Our Bones.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Airplane shopping?




I don't know...I saw this picture somewhere and I immediately had this image of Murphy shopping for another airplane.... I remembered I did a post of the Antonev 225 almost 2 years ago.  My son still talks about that airplane.

Antonov An-225 "Mriya" is the world's largest aircraft. When it was built, it surpassed any airliner built before by 50%. It was designed for the transportation of the Russian Space Shuttle "Buran" by the Antonov Design Bureau (HQ in Kiev, Ukraine), which already had built good and large cargo aircraft such as the Antonov An-124 "Ruslan". The basic configuration of the An-225 is the same as the An-124, except the An-225 is longer, has no rear ramp/door assembly, and incorporates a 32-wheel landing gear system (two nose and fourteen main wheel bogies, seven per side, each with two wheels). 




The Antonov An-225 Mriya (Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-225 Мрія, Dream, NATO reporting name: "Cossack") is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft that was designed by the Soviet Union's Antonov Design Bureau in the 1980s. The An-225's name, Mriya (Мрiя) means "Dream" (Inspiration) in Ukrainian. It is powered by six turbofan engines and is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. It also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service. The single example built has the Ukrainian civil registration UR-82060. A

second airframe was partially built; its completion was halted because of lack of funding and interest.
The Antonov An-225, originally developed specifically to transport the Buran spaceplane, was an enlargement of the successful Antonov An-124. The first An-225 was completed in 1988 and remains in commercial operation with Antonov Airlines carrying oversized payloads The airlifter holds the absolute world records for an airlifted single item payload of 189,980 kilograms (418,834 pounds), and an airlifted total payload of 253,820 kilograms (559,577 pounds) It has also transported a payload of 247,000 kilograms (545,000 pounds) on a commercial flight.




Based on Antonov's earlier An-124, the An-225 has fuselage barrel extensions added fore and aft of the wings. The wings also received root extensions to increase span. Two more Ivchenko Progress D-18T turbofan engines were added to the new wing roots, bringing the total to six. An increased-capacity landing gear system with 32 wheels was designed, some of which are steerable, enabling the aircraft to turn within a 60 m (200 ft) wide runway. Like its An-124 predecessor, the An-225 has nosegear designed to kneel so cargo can be more easily loaded and unloaded. The An-124’s rear cargo door and ramp were removed to save weight and the empennage was changed from a single vertical stabilizer to a twin tail with an oversized horizontal stabilizer. The twin tail was essential to enable the plane to carry large, heavy external loads that would disturb the airflow around a conventional tail. Unlike the An-124, the An-225 was not intended for tactical airlifting and is no turbofan engines


Initially the An-225 had a maximum gross weight of 600 t (1,300,000 lb) but from 2000 to 2001 the aircraft underwent modifications, with a reinforced floor and increased the maximum gross weight to 640 t (1,410,000 lb) at a cost of US$20M.
Both the earlier and later takeoff weights establish the An-225 as the world's heaviest aircraft, being heavier than the double-deck Airbus A380 even though Airbus plans to surpass the An-225's maximum landing weight with 591.7 tonnes (1,304,000 lb) for the A380. The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter has a bigger cargo hold at 1,840m3 (65,000 cubic feet)



 The Hughes H-4 Hercules, known as the "Spruce Goose", had a greater wingspan and a greater overall height, but was 20% shorter, and due to the materials used in its construction, also lighter. In addition, the Spruce Goose flew only once, making the An-225 the largest aircraft in the world to fly multiple times.







Friday, August 8, 2014

Blast from the Past...Techie stuff

   I used computers when I was in the service, but to call it a computer was interesting, if I recall, it was a 100 KB disc suspended in a nitrogen filled canister, to program it, we used hexadecimals numbers on what they call a MOTTS panel which was back-lighted.  When I got out of the service, I bought a computer, it was an XT, with a 286 processor.  I paid a lot of money for it...I remember going to a electronics store on the northside of Atlanta to pickup a keyboard which used the DIN connector.  I paid if  I remembered correctly about $140 for the keyboard.  It had the "IBM" click that I like.  Well time has passed, it has been 23 years since I bought that computer and all of it has been consigned to the scrap heap of history...except that keyboard.....I still use it.

    I found a PS/2 adapter in the late 90's and used it on the ATX form factor case, I tend to upgrade computers so this computer with my reliable XP in it has my same keyboard that I used back in 1991.  I love that keyboard, it is built like a tank.

                This is a recreation of the Microsoft webpage back in 1994, in celebration of 20 years of the website's existence Microsoft made a recreation to put on its regular website.

In 1994, there was no World Series because of a strike by the Major League Baseball Players Association. Nelson Mandela made world news — and history — by becoming president of South Africa. TV shows like “Seinfeld,” “ER” and “Murder, She Wrote” peppered evening viewing fare in the U.S.
“Speed” was one of the more popular movies that year. But speed was not a reality for a very young World Wide Web in 1994, with pokey dial-up modems the norm for getting onto the Web. There were only a few thousand websites then – compared to nearly 1 billion now – and Microsoft was among them. In the 20 years since it has been on the Web, Microsoft.com has remained in the top 10 most-visited websites worldwide.
Twenty years ago, there was no Facebook, of course, no eBay, no Amazon, no Wikipedia. It was Web less-than-1.0.
In 1994, among the reasons Microsoft started a website was to put its growing Knowledge Base online. At the time, the company managed support forums for customers on CompuServe, one of the earliest major Internet dial-up service providers.
“We had started to build up a community there; people would answer questions for each other,” recalls Mark Ingalls, a Microsoft engineer in 1994 who would become Microsoft.com’s first administrator. He was also the only website employee at that time, other than his boss. But the staff doubled early on, when Steve Heaney was hired to offer vacation relief, Ingalls says.
In terms of “Web design,” the notion, much less the phrase, didn’t really exist.
“There wasn’t much for authoring tools,” Ingalls says. “There was this thing called HTML that almost nobody knew.” Information that was submitted for the new Microsoft.com website often came to Ingalls via 3-1/2-inch floppy disks.

“Steve Heaney and I put together PERL scripts that handled a lot of these daily publishing duties for us,” he says. “For a while, we ran the site like a newspaper, where we published content twice a day. And if you missed the cutoff for the publishing deadline, you didn’t get it published until the next running of the presses, or however you want to term it.”
Today, there are a number of individuals who work on Microsoft.com. Chris Balt, Microsoft.com product manager, says the home page has to “support consumer users and enterprise users, home users and developers, teachers, students … If you think about the huge range of audience that comes to our website, it’s a unique challenge.” Plus there are the “stakeholders,” the business groups within Microsoft.
“They all want their spot on the home page that gets 20 million to 30 million visits a month. But my job exists to serve the user and to serve our customers – so first and foremost, the job of the home page is telling people what Microsoft is about; it’s helping them accomplish a task. That could mean fixing a problem. That could be learning about new products. Or that could be learning about old products.”
Microsoft.com was also one of the first corporate sites in the world to be built using modern, “responsive” design, meaning its design adapts to and renders appropriately for any device, Balt says.
“Responsive means it can be accessed on a phone, it can be accessed on a tablet, you can look at it on your Xbox – and it completely adjusts to suit the unique properties of the device that you’re using.”
Trent Walton, Dave Rupert and Reagan Ray of Paravel Inc., in Austin, Texas, did the most recent redesign of Microsoft’s home page, its 17th in 20 years. It is the home page that visitors now see.
To help celebrate the 20th anniversary, Walton and Rupert re-created the 1994 page from scratch, describing it as “sort of like an archaeological dig, digging through dinosaur bones, to find out how they did this then,” says Rupert.
“It seems really simple, but we had to kind of peel back the years and go down to 1994 technology – where your browser doesn’t support images, for example,” he says. “In 1994, it was more of a triumph to have a Web page in and of itself, whether or not an image was attached.”
Walton says Microsoft.com’s responsive design is how more websites will be in the future.
“The idea is that we need to build things more simply so that they work in more places, as well as on more kinds of devices,” he says. “These days it’s not just computers and phones that can access the Internet, but things like cars, glasses, watches. Web design is about building a really solid website that be accessed by as many different types of devices as possible. No one wants to be told where and how to access the site – they want to do it on their terms. If they’re on a phone, they want to do it that way; if they’re on a desktop with a 27-inch monitor, they want to do it that way. So, it’s up to us provide the experiences they want.”
A box of about 80 floppy disks together with one USB memory stick. The stick is capable of holding over 130 times as much data as the entire box of disks put together.

The first Microsoft.com home page, in 1994: Mark Ingalls, the first administrator of Microsoft.com, says at that time, using the slow dial-up connections of the era, this page would have taken awhile to load. “For most folks at home in that day and age, you would have been able to count to three or five before that picture showed up on your screen,” he says.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

The sign of tackiness...and staying power...the PINK FLAMINGO!!!

I am sure that we in our past or recently are driving through a sub division in suburbia and all the houses are tastefully painted, yards immaculately manicured...except for one house and guess what you see in the yard......
     You got it....the symbol of tackiness...........the dreaded Pink Flamingos....

      I had seen a picture of one and it caught my eye...so I figured I would do a bit of research on the universal symbol of tackiness and humor.
    
Donald Featherstone, the Inventor of the Flamingo
First designed in 1957, the fake birds are natives not of Florida but of Leominster, Massachusetts, which bills itself as the Plastics Capital of the World. At a nearby art school, sculptor Don Featherstone was hired by the plastics company Union Products, where his second assignment was to sculpt a pink flamingo. No live models presented themselves, so he unearthed a National Geographic photo spread. It took about two weeks to model both halves of the bird, brought into the third dimension by then-revolutionary injection-mold technology.
A flamingo-friendly trend was the sameness of post-World War II construction. Units in new subdivisions sometimes looked virtually identical. “You had to mark your house somehow,” Featherstone says. “A woman could pick up a flamingo at the store and come home with a piece of tropical elegance under her arm to change her humdrum house.” Also, “people just thought it was pretty,” adds Featherstone’s wife, Nancy.
That soon changed. Twenty-somethings of the Woodstock era romanticized nature and scorned plastics (à la The Graduate). Cast in flaming pink polyethylene, the flamingo became an emblem of what Nancy delicately calls the “T-word”—tackiness. Sears eventually dropped the tchotchkes from its catalog.
But then, phoenixlike, the flamingo rose from its ashes (or rather, from its pool of molten plastic: As demonstrated at the finale of Waters’ film, flamingos don’t burn, they melt). As early as the 1960s, pop artists including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg had begun elevating the low brow and embracing mass culture. And then, of course,

By the mid-1980s, the flamingos were transitioning from a working-class accessory to an elaborate upper-class inside joke. They furnished colorful substitutes for croquet wickets and clever themes for charity galas. The bird became a sort of plastic punch line, and, at worst, a way of hinting at one’s own good taste by reveling in the bad taste of others.
     Back in the 1980 before I joined the U.S. Army, I was a driver with Domino's Pizza and those were the days of "30 minutes or free."  Well some people would not answer the door forcing the driver to leave, go to a gas station, find a pay phone...You know, One of these...This was the time before cell phones.


 and call the number on the ticket that was on the box.  The scamming bottom feeding, non tipping customer would immediately trumpet "The Pizza is Free..ain't it?"   Well I got burned the first time by this and it did piss me off, to me it was dishonorable.  Now if the pizza was late due to stuff that was beyond control, traffic, accident, weather and so on...I had no problem giving the pizza away.  We were not penalized for it.
     What I would do is before I left after I had confirmed the address, I would flip the floormat upside down and memorize something distinctive about the yard.  what kind of cars they had and so forth.  Then head to the payphone and call the customer.   After I became a trainer for the new drivers I would use this as an example when they would ask me "what do I do when the customer don't come to the door?"   I would tell what I would do with the floormat in front of the door then head to the phone at the gas station.  I would tell the driver trainee "I would call the customer, and after confirming the address, you live at 720 maple drive, Yes I know the pizza is past 30 minutes...I do have a question for you if you please...Do you have the rusty camaro on cinderblocks in your front yard surrounded by pink flamingo's?.....If you please, go to your front door, and you will see that your floormat is upside down.  The pizza was on time and the total will be $12.34 cents.  I will be there in a few minutes.."   I would use this as an example so the flamingo's were a regular feature of taciness that I use.  

    This is the picture that started this strange post...



         


Tuesday, August 5, 2014

If Todays media was around during WWII...And the same Media coverage of the current situation in Israel.



I have seen the gnashing of teeth, the wailing of liberal elitist media and the rending of sackcloth about the Israeli offensive in the Gaza strip after Hamas repeatedly fired rockets into Israel.  I even saw that some CNN talking head complained about the "Iron Dome" system that it defeated the Qassam rockets that Hamas likes to fire into Israel. That it takes away the military advantage that Hamas has.  They made some comment that Israel should have given hamas the iron dome system so the palestinians can defend themselves.   Lessee...Israel spends millions to develop the iron dome system as a defensive system whereas hamas hides rockets and munitions in schools, churches and they dig tunnels into Israel to kill civilians as an offensive option.
Here is some information on the rocket system used by the palestinian militants.
    
The Qassam rocket (Arabic: صاروخ القسامṢārūkh al-Qassām; also Kassam) is a simple, steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. Three models have been produced and used, with the first introduced in 2001.
More generally, all types of Palestinian rockets fired into southern Israel, for example the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Al Quds rockets, are called Qassams by the Israeli media, and often by foreign media. The Qassam gained notoriety as the best-known type of rocket deployed by Palestinian militants mainly against Israeli civilians, but also some military targets during the Second Intifada of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Since 2000, Palestinian rockets, which include the Qassam, alongside others such as the Grad rocket, have been used to kill 22 Israeli citizens and one Thai national (as of January 9, 2009). These rockets cannot be fired precisely to target specific military objectives in or near civilian areas. Human Rights Watch issued an analysis, stating, that "such weapons are therefore indiscriminate when used against targets in population centers. The absence of Israeli military forces in the areas where rockets hit, as well as statements by leaders of Palestinian armed groups that population centers were being targeted, indicate that the armed groups deliberately attacked Israeli civilians and civilian objects. The international community considers indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian structures that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets as illegal under international law.

Qassam rockets are named after the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of Hamas, itself named for Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a Syrian Muslim preacher whose death during a guerrilla raid against British Mandatory authorities in 1935 was one of the catalysts for the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine

The aim of the Qassam rocket design appears to be ease and speed of manufacture, using common tools and components. To this end, the rockets are propelled by a solid mixture of sugar and potassium nitrate, a widely available fertilizer. The warhead is filled with smuggled or scavenged TNT and urea nitrate, another common fertilizer. This is close to Ammonite.
The rocket consists of a steel cylinder, containing a rectangular block of the propellant. A steel plate which forms and supports the nozzles is then spot-welded to the base of the cylinder. The warhead consists of a simple metal shell surrounding the explosives, and is triggered by a fuse constructed using a simple firearm cartridge, a spring and a nail.
While early designs used a single nozzle which screwed into the base, recent rockets use a seven-nozzle design, with the nozzles drilled directly into the rocket baseplate. This change both increases the tolerance of the rocket to small nozzle design defects, and eases manufacture by allowing the use of a drill rather than a lathe during manufacture due to the smaller nozzle size. However due to the cone shape of each of the 7 nozzles, each nozzle's inside must be made with a lathe, or else the interior of the nozzle would be cylindrical rather than conical (see rocket engine nozzle). Unlike many other rockets, the nozzles are not canted, which means the rocket does not spin about its longitudinal axis during flight. While this results in a significant decrease in accuracy, it greatly simplifies rocket manufacture and the launch systems required.




The cost of the materials used for manufacturing each Qassam is up to $800 or €500 (in 2008-9) per rocket.

    Now back to my original post,  I have seen the world media shamelessly carry the water for the palestinian militants.   I have a hard time with this....first off where is their objectivity?  2nd..What does these liberals think will happen to them if an islamic caliphate is established... What do these liberals will think will happen?  I am sure the islamic militants are the tolerant ones to all that they believe to be non believers and that they will exude the goodness of islam to the so helpful djimmitude  

 Something to keep in mind....The palestinians are on the bottom of the Arab world as far as social order or hierarchy.  The other Arabs use the palestinians as a tool to stick it to Israel.  The palestinians are the bottom feeders relying on other Arabs and the United Nations for sustenance and support.  I hear all this stuff about "free palestine"  Funny thing...There was never a palestinian nation....before Israel was established in 1948, the land was a British protectorate.  the British took over from the Ottoman Turks after the Turks were on the losing side in WWI.  The Turks ancestors seized the land after the crusades. 
    The palestinians had a chance to have their own nation in 1948 but threw their lot in with the Arab armies that attacked Israel right after the formation of the state of Israel.  The palestinians hoped to see the Zionist exterminated, instead the Israeli's won the battles and the palestinians became refugees in Jordan and other places and the generation of hatred continues.



     Hamas is winning the media war against Israel, and it helps that the media is squarely on the side of the militants...you know the people that use Children as weapons.
If the same media was around during WWII we would see articles like this:


Now before anybody tells me that I am an Israili apologist....You are incorrect...I havn't forgotten the U.S.S Liberty.


       


Monday, August 4, 2014

Monday Music "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis and school starting....

Well Today is a bittersweet time, My son is now officially in Junior High, he started the 6th grade.  He has done exceeding well in Elementary School and the spousal unit and I are very proud of him.  Now he is in junior high..or as they call it "middle school".  I told him that I would do my dance of joy  also known as the "snoopy Dance" now that he is back in school.


I decided to go with the early 80's with "Chariots of fire".  The song and the movie was a smash hit.  I first heard of the song and the movie when I was a sophomore in high-school.  it really played well through the new device called the "Sony Walkman"  The metal-cased blue-and-silver Walkman TPS-L2, the world's first low-cost portable stereo, went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979. In June 1980, it was introduced in the U.S

Power consumption was low, requiring only either one AA battery or one gumstick-type rechargeable, with optional AC adaptor input. It is also equipped with an amorphous tape head capable of reproducing 20–20,000 Hz response, a gold plated headphone jack, and a 2 mm thick aluminum body. Sony made this model with only sound quality in mind at an affordable price, therefore it contains no gimmick features such as in-line remote control, music search, or LCD readout. Its only features are Dolby B/C noise reduction, Mega Bass/DBB bass boost, tape select, and two auto reverse modes.



Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical drama film. It tells the fact-based story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice.
The film was conceived and produced by David Puttnam, written by Colin Welland, and directed by Hugh Hudson. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute's list of Top 100 British films. The film is also notable for its memorable instrumental theme tune by Vangelis, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

The film's title was inspired by the line, "Bring me my chariot of fire," from the William Blake poem adapted into the popular British hymn "Jerusalem"; the hymn is heard at the end of the film. The original phrase "chariot(s) of fire" is from 2 Kings 2:11 and 6:17 in the Bible.

Although the film is a period piece, set in the 1920s, the Academy Award-winning original soundtrack composed by Vangelis uses a modern 1980s electronic sound, with a strong use of synthesizer and piano among other instruments. This was a bold and significant departure from earlier period films, which employed sweeping orchestral instrumentals. The title theme of the film has become iconic, and has been used in subsequent films and television shows during slow-motion segments.
Vangelis, a Greek-born electronic composer who moved to Paris in the late 1960s, had been living in London since 1974. Director Hugh Hudson had collaborated with him on documentaries and commercials, and was also particularly impressed with his 1979 albums Opera Sauvage and China. David Puttnam also greatly admired Vangelis's body of work, having originally selected his compositions for his previous film Midnight Express. Hudson made the choice for Vangelis and for a modern score: "I knew we needed a piece which was anachronistic to the period to give it a feel of modernity. It was a risky idea but we went with it rather than have a period symphonic score." The soundtrack had a personal significance to Vangelis: After composing the iconic theme tune he told Puttnam, "My father is a runner, and this is an anthem to him."
Hudson originally wanted Vangelis's 1977 tune "L'Enfant", from his Opera Sauvage album, to be the title theme of the film, and the beach running sequence was actually filmed with "L'Enfant" playing on loudspeakers for the runners to pace to. Vangelis finally convinced Hudson he could create a new and better piece for the film's main theme – and when he played the now-iconic "Chariots of Fire" theme for Hudson, it was agreed the new tune was unquestionably better. The "L'Enfant" melody still made it into the film: When the athletes reach Paris and enter the stadium, a brass band marches through the field, and first plays a modified, acoustic performance of the piece.Vangelis's electronic "L'Enfant" track eventually was used prominently in the 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously.
Some pieces of Vangelis's music in the film did not end up on the film's soundtrack album. One of them is the background music to the race Eric Liddell runs in the Scottish highlands. This piece is a version of "Hymn", the original version of which appears on Vangelis's 1979 album, Opéra sauvage. Various versions are also included on Vangelis's compilation albums Themes, Portraits, and Odyssey: The Definitive Collection, though none of these include the version used in the film.
Five lively Gilbert and Sullivan tunes also appear in the soundtrack, and serve as jaunty period music which nicely counterpoints Vangelis's modern electronic score. These are: "He is an Englishman" from H.M.S. Pinafore, "Three Little Maids from School Are We" from The Mikado, "With Catlike Tread" from The Pirates of Penzance, "The Soldiers of Our Queen" from Patience, and "There Lived a King" from The Gondoliers.
The film also incorporates a major traditional work: "Jerusalem", sung by a British choir at the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams. The words, written by William Blake in 1804-8, were set to music by Parry in 1916 as a celebration of England. This hymn has been described as "England's unofficial national anthem", concludes the film and inspired its title. A handful of other traditional anthems and hymns and period-appropriate instrumental ballroom-dance music round out the film's soundtrack.