Category: ice skating

February Ramblin’

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Roger Ebert’s Last Words, con’t, commenting on the Esquire article (linked) and photo of him. “Resentment is allowing someone to live rent-free in a room in your head.”

How the Somaly Mam Foundation is trying to help end human trafficking

Wayne John tells about the time when a Burger King employee threw a double cheeseburger at him. Lousy aim, too.

Gordon reveals Dymowski and DeNiro – together.

Lady Gaga or Johnny Weir? “Can you tell the difference between the pop princess’ outrageous outfits and the Olympic skating star’s flamboyant costumes without seeing their poker faces?” You Olympics watchers who see figure skating only once every four years have no idea…

Springsteen covers.

And SamuraiFrog has three recent pieces worthy of mention, about Kermit the Frog and friend,Christina Hendricks – no, I’ve never seen Mad Men, either – and a particular Super Bowl ad which also annoyed me. (Should note that, on the latter two pieces, his language is coarser than mine.)

This next section is graphic.

Western New York Legacy web site, www.wnylegacy.org, is freely available online, and contains thousands of digital images, documents, letters, maps, books, slides, and other items reflecting the rich cultural heritage of Western New York

Print & Photographs (P&P) online catalog: Some photos copyright free (and some not).

Rose DesRochers – World Outside my Window: Free Cartoons for Your Blog, two examples of which appear in this very post.



Courtesy of Past Expiry Cartoon



ROG

ROG

Sports Questions and Samhain

The World Series continues into November. In the Northeast, no less. This really bugs me. With two rounds before the Series, somethings gotta give. Maybe a 154-game season, which Major League baseball used to have until the 1960s, when it went to 162 games. And while they’re at it, couldn’t they starts some games earlier, so I kids could watch past the third inning?

I suppose this is sacrilege, but I wish the Yankees, and some minor league teams, and maybe others, would get rid of “God Bless America” during the 7th-inning stretch. It started after 9/11/2001, but now it’s become a “new tradition”. And at the last Hall of Fame game I attended, “honored America” with a scratchy and warped Kate Smith recording. And some people are now getting bent out of shape if television doesn’t cover the singing of same, even when TV doesn’t cover Take Me Out To The Ballgame, which follows.

In the NFL, I was really happy that Denver beat New England a few weeks ago, but I found it unfair that the Patriots never touched the ball offensively in overtime. There’s got to be a better way than a coin flip. In the college game, each team at least gets a chance to score, not a perfect model, but clearly fairer.

So what’s bugging you about sports? Maybe it’s the relatively new scoring system in figure skating; I happen to like it better than the 6.0 standard. I read that some are advocating for more instant reply in baseball; not sure how that would work. The example is a ball, not a home run ball, that was judged as foul by the umpire but fair in the replay. Where would the batter, and even trickier, the runners, end up? I’m not opposed out of hand, but I can’t see how it would work.


Swiped from Uthaclena: In Druid tradition, Samhain is the time of the dead, when the veil between the worlds thins and spirits walk the land of the living. It is the feast of death and rebirth, and the New Year of the Celtic calendar with the fall of the last leaves, the heart of the Autumn, the beginning of the Darkened Days, and the Quiet Time to listen to the Wisdom of the Crone. At this time we celebrate and commemorate our ancestors and elders who have passed into the Otherworld. But, fear naught, for the Sun will be born anew, and Light and Life will return to the world!

Solemn Blessings to you all; hold fast to the seed of Hope, and dream of Better days!


ROG

ROG

As Much of a Rant as I Can Muster

Ken Levine had an interesting post about ranting. He ranted about Christmas decorations in September, sports seasons that gpo on too long and the like.

SamuraiFrog links to a young woman ranting about a giveaway of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, and for good cause. (Language NSFW.) SF is also good at ranting, himself.

I suppose I’ve ranted now and then in the comments sections of other people’s blogs. I know that at least on one occasion recently, I got rather incensed that a letter writer suggested that the blogger was being racist, essentially because the blogger saw some of the reaction to Barack Obama as being racist. I felt the need to defend the blogger, though I knew the blogger didn’t need any defending from me. But I was SO incensed that I was compelled to anyway.

My little rant here, I guess, is small potatoes. My wife is a big fan of figure skating. During the fall and winter, there are six Grand Prix events that take place across the world. Apparently, though, according to this site, the only event that will be televised this season is the Skate America, and for that, only the Ladies Free Skate. No short programs, no men’s, pairs or dance. The U.S. Figure Skating Championships will be shown in January, but in the season leading up to an Olympic year, one wants more opportunities to gauge the skaters from other countries as well as the American contingent.

Meanwhile, NBC IS showing what I frankly consider junk events such as Halloween on Ice Starring Mannheim Steamroller or Musselman’s Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular. These are exhibitions, not real competitive skating. And while I don’t care personally, I think the coverage of he sport does it a disservice. It’d be like showing pre-season games and the All-Star Game without showing the regular season competition. Of course, the fact that the junk events are scheduled so often may be a reflection of the ratings, in which case I suppose the skating viewers may be to blame as well.

Oh, know what else is bugging me? The fact that when i type the words men’s, women’s, or children’s in Blogger and elsewhere, they are underlined in red as though they are misspelled. Sure I can ignore it, but why is it indicated as incorrect in the first place?

ROG

ROG

Perfect television


Friend Fred was telling me about rewatching the Dick van Dyke Show on DVD (DVD on DVD) when I came to the realization why it was the near perfect TV show. In addition to lasting five seasons (not too long, not too short, but JUST RIGHT – kinda like some fairy tale), and and a balance of home and work life, there was a balance of how many times the A story was the office and the B story was the home life, and vice versa. Because Rob Petrie was friends with his co-workers, they would sometimes come to his home. Because Laura Petrie was such a fine dancer, she’d occasionally show up in the work segment. Balance, I say. And did I mention that Richard Deacon, who played producer Mel Cooley, was from Binghamton, my hometown?

If I wasn’t so far behind on watching what I’ve recorded, I’d be coveting that DVD box set; I do have some individual episodes. As it is, Lydia’s sleeping pattern (taking FOREVER to get to bed, and then with her mother or me), and I’m so tired that the writer’s strike has had no effect on my viewing patterns yet. News programs are not affected. Aliens in America’s a repeat? GREAT! Pushing Daisies is pre-empted this week? SWELL! As it is, the DVR’s STILL hovering around 80% because I’m still recording a couple hours a day, with the news and JEOPARDY! And I’m watching about 40 minutes a day; even with the compression of the DVR, that’s about an hour’s worth of programming. (The Closer two-hour special this week is now in the queue.)

But the largest reason the DVR’s so full is that when I was packing to go to visit my mother in NC, I accidentally packed the remote control in my luggage! This means that over that nearly six day period, my wife couldn’t watch the two shows she watches that I don’t: ice skating and Dancing with the Stars. They’d get recorded, but could not be watched. I suggested that she might want to go to Time-Warner and get a new remote, but she declined. Practically the first thing I did when I got home from that trip was to check the DVR level – 97% full, zap the three shows I managed to see in Charlotte, which got it down to 92%, then whittle away at it subsequently.

So don’t tell my wife who won Dancing with the Stars; she doesn’t know yet. She picked Helio, Mel B., and Cameron in the final three, but was surprised to see Cameron leave. Now, *I* know who won; I read it in TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly, but I won’t spoil HER fun.
***
Dorian’s Rules for Nerds. And other self-appointed critics.
ROG

ROG

Skating away

I told my wife that Eddie Albert had died last week at the age of 99 of pneumonia and Alzheimer’s. She said that she figured he was already dead. I suppose that was a reasonable assumption.

When I was a kid, I admit to not only watching Green Acres, but liking it. (I also enjoyed Switch, but there was no shame in that.) Maybe it was because it was another show in the same Hooterville universe as Petticoat Junction. (Think Buffy/Angel on TV, or Marvel Comics crossovers.) Or maybe it was that it had Green in the title. I realized that Oliver Wendell Douglas (Eddie Albert), who initiated the move to the country (check out the theme lyrics) remained a fish out of water, confounded by Mr. Haney, Arnold Ziffel the pig, and their handyman Eb. Lisa Douglas (Eva Gabor), on the other hand, seemed to take it as it came in “Hootersville”. Like most supposed “airheads” on TV, she was probably smarter than her husband, the lawyer. I’m not defending it as Great Television, just not as bad as it has been portrayed.

Eddie Albert sang the title song (Eva Gabor more or less talked it). It is unusual for a star to sing the title song, I thought. Oh, there’s Dean Martin, Tom Jones, Jimmy Durante, and Happening ’68, hosted by Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders, but those were entertainment shows. And, of course, there’s Mr. Rogers. But I’m thinking scripted comedies or dramas. There was Erica Gimpel on Fame, but that was an ersatz performing arts school.
The only other ones I could think of were Drew Carey (Drew Carey Show, “Moon over Parma” -first season only) and Linda Lavin (Alice, “There’s a New Girl in Town”). Oh, and I nearly forgot the classic Carroll O’Connor/Jean Stapleton rendition of “Those Were the Days” on All in the Family, so notorious that it had to be recorded twice. (No one could understand, “Gee, our old LaSalle ran great.”)
But then I checked out some of my Television’s Greatest Hits CDs and discovered Tony Danza (“Hudson Street”) and Marla Gibbs (227, “There’s No Place Like Home”). And how did I forget Will Smith (with Jeff Townes, a/k/a DJ Jazzy Jeff) on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”? But the leader in this category, as far as I can tell is Greg Evigan from My Two Dads (“You Can Count on Me”) and the title song of “B.J. and the Bear”; this is in quantity, not necessarily quality. For my money, Green Acres told the story as well as any theme.

CBS canceled Green Acres and the Beverly Hillbillies in 1971, part of its de-ruralfication, despite its still strong ratings. Would that happen now? Maybe, with emphasis on “demographics”, the coveted 18-49 market. But these days, some cable outlet (TNN?) would have snatched them up.

But my everlasting recollection about the Green Acres theme is the routine performed by the ice dancing duo of Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto. The couple, who won a silver medal at the World Championship in Moscow in March, do a goofy, sexy exhibition featuring the Green Acres theme segued with the theme to Deliverance. (BTW, I didn’t look this up. My wife watches skating; now, I’m watching skating. I know more about the new international scoring system than I care to.)

So, as Eddie Albert skates away to a new existence, Green Acres lives on, not only in reruns, but on the ice as well.

ROG
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