Sunday, February 7, 2010

SQUEEZING THE JELLY DONUTS SINCE 1837.
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By this time I am sure that many of you have heard of Lady GAGA (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, age 23).  There was some controversy about her recently about whether she was a natural woman or a good sexual reassignment.  I went to YouTube and checked out some of her music videos and I think She is definitely a She.  I don't think any sexual reassignment surgery was ever that successful.  Also due to skin tight (and minimal) costumes and the fact that Lady GAGA seems to like to be naked in her videos, I will say she is 100% woman.  2:16 minutes into Bad Romance she has one of her nude shots and she is painfully thin, you can see her backbone.  Also I think she shaves her.... well the carpet does not match the drapes because there is no carpet.

Naked? But they show the videos on TV, how can she be naked?  Fast cuts.  I heard 20 years ago that the secret to keeping music videos exciting was fast cats.  If you look at a music video and when the scene changes, you start counting thousand one, thousand two, thousand three you will not get to four before the scene changes again.  Often you won't get to two.  Lady GAGA was totally naked in two of the videos I saw.  Less than one second of her in her all together.  Now I was watching them on a lap top and I could stop and move back to check what was happening but when I saw the video on TV the cuts were so fast that you don't know what you are seeing and I could not tell she was naked even though I knew she was.

Before we go further I should tell you that I have decided that I like Lady GAGA and I think she has the potential to be a megastar like Cher or Madonna or Jackson.  In a two year recording career she has sold 8 million albums and 35 million downloaded singles.  Her music is very good and her videos are sharp, well done and totally adult oriented (code words for 'sexy out the wazoo').  Lady GAGA is seductively good looking as are the other people in her videos.  She has huge eyes and an elfin face that can be made up to look like a wide eyed virgin or dominatrix.  That being said here is my review of her videos:

If her videos had been released in the 1950s they would be considered Porn.  The video for the song 'Bad Romance' has her being kidnapped by monsters, drugged, forced to perform in front of men who were bidding on her and then having the winning bidder engulfed in flames.  The last scene shows a burnt human body in bed with Lady GAGA, who is unmoving and smoking a (required) post coital cigarette while shooting sparks out of her bra like she is a short circuited robot.  The woman WANTS to be famous, craves it, do not get in her way.

Guys kissing guys, girls kissing girls, Lady GAGA licking woman's faces, total nudity, very suggestive poses and dancing, duet with Elton John (his earring was bigger), she appears to have few (if any) boundaries pertaining to sex.  Lady GAGA is all about sex (okay so there is also the murdered boy friend in one video).  She makes Playboy look like Lady's Home Journal.  There is no doubt that she is working hard at being interesting and she is really succeeding.  Oh yes she is not totally naked in 'Bad Romance'.... she is wearing high heeled, platform boots.

One of the tabloids is saying that Angelia Jolie is cheating on Brad Pitt with Lady GAGA.  I have no idea if that is true but I think it is completely believable.

See part of her Grammy performance at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05T6nh2AOZw

Lots of people like to send up Lady GAGA so I just thought that I would add this parody of her song 'Poker Face' done by Alvin and the Chipmunks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPbKHgCt6KU

Oh yes the Poker Face parody 'Outer Space' is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h47fNaOb-JU
It is quite good.

One last thing, if you want to date her you should be beautiful and have a lot of money.  I have never seen a picture of her wearing the same outfit in more than one place.  Also it does not matter if you are a Guy or Gal, cause I think you both have an equal shot.  If you are a guy, don't be intimidated that she also likes women, she does not find that attractive.  So if you are so disposed, go for it.
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I just spent an hour shoveling out my driveway.  It probably was a a four or five hour job but two younger neighbors came by and helped.  I offered them money and they refused it.  Heroes are are everywhere.  Since I retired I have hung out in Johnstown long enough that for the first time I actually feel that it is my home.  I was 28 when I moved to Johnstown and that was the 26th time I moved.  I never put down roots and I had more going on in Marysville than Johnstown.  Now I have met more people, talked to more people.  I know some fine up standing citizens and I know some of the crazies and a lot of people in the middle.  I live in Johnstown.  People recognize my car and me and I recognize more people in the Kroger's store.  I have never belonged anyplace and now maybe I do.  Almost 60 years to find a home.
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Every once in a while I will rail against Rap music.  I mostly dislike the lack of musical instruments and the anti-social lyrics about cop killings, bitches and hos. Not all Rap is bad and there are a number of bands that have used Rap elements in their songs to seriously good use.  Snoop Dog does a song called 'My Medicine' and it is really good, but he has music along with the lyrics.

Now there is a Hip Hop group that has some really good stuff.  The Black Eyed Peas.  They have been around since 1995 but one of their songs is getting heavy air play right now and that is "I Gotta Feeling".  It starts out with "I gotta feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night" and it parties on from their.  They are one of only 11 artists that have had the BillBoard Hot 100 spot One and Two at the same time. 'I Gotta Feeling' was one of those two songs.  The lyrics are not rocket science but they are just happy.  They have sold 31,000,000 records since 1995 so they sort of know what they are doing.  'I Gotta Feeling' has sold 4,430,000 copies and the YouTube video has over 21,000,000 hits.  Get the feeling at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19rG2CHvCQY

Oh yes if you did not know, this is where Fergie came from.

Their video 'Pump It' is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaI2IlHwmgQ
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Really ThinkGeek does not pay me, I just really like their stuff.  They have a new book that a couple of you might benefit from.  'A Girl’s Guide to Dating a Geek'.  Find it at:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/books/humor/ac84/

Also if you liked the game 'Hot Potato' you are going to love 'Shock Ball'.  It is played the same way that Hot Potato is played but instead of being hot this thing is ELECTRIC and randomly shocks some one.  2 AAA batteries charge a capacitor and every once in a while they fire.  Since the surface of the ball is covered with contacts, it is impossible to hold the ball without touching a 'danger zone'.  It is pretty hard to kill someone with 2 AAA batteries but still they warn you not to include people with pace makers in your frivolity. 
Get the BUZZ at:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/91b8/

Oh course if your little one is busy trying to steal your IPOD you can get them 'SweetPea 3'.  It is a kid proofed MP3 player with a FDA food grade rubber case and secret controls for parents to set volume.  Preloaded with a bunch of kids music and stories.  It is big enough that it can not be swallowed and can be found in the toy pile.  Rattle and Roll at:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/1-3-years/b15d/
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Now to the reasons to be happy this week
(or at least civil).
Here goes:

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monday 8 february
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Only 10 percent of anything
*** can be in the top 10 percent.
***
***  - Guy L Steele Jr.
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birthdays:
1828 – Jules Verne, French author.  He wrote 'A Journey to the Centre of the Earth' (1864), 'From the Earth to the Moon' (1865), 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea' (1869–1870), 'Around the World in Eighty Days' (1873) and 'The Mysterious Island' (1875).  Look at the dates, he was just completely looking into the future.  A submarine that could do what the Nautilus could do was not launched until the 1950s.  Oh by the way it was named the USS Nautilus and it was the first Atomic Submarine.  Future President Jimmy Carter served on her.  She could sail around the world and stay under water the entire time.  Now almost all of our subs can do that.

1882 – Thomas Selfridge.  Somebody has to be first at anything but I am sure Tom was not happy to hold this first.  It sort of required dying first.  He was the first person to die in an airplane crash.  So from 1903 until 1908 nobody died in plane crashes and then Tom had to go and spoil the record.

1906 – Chester Carlson, American physicist and inventor.  The modern world would not be possible without his invention.  He invented XEROX.  More important than the paper clip or white out this invention is the Hamburger of civilization.

1961 – Vince Neil, American singer.  Screamer is more what I would say.  This is the front man for that total rock band: Mötley Crüe.  They drank the booze, took the drugs, bedded the groupies, wrecked the cars and killed a few friends.  But they made music and Vince stood in front and sang.  "Girl don't go away mad, Girl just go away".  Oh yes did I mention that they sort of used women.  If you look hard enough you can still find the Tommy Lee/Pam Anderson sex tape, on the Internet (Tommy Lee is the Crüe's drummer).

To see one of Vince Neil's Music Videos from his short lived solo career goto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGH85edglgg
Oh by the way the song is named: 'Sister of Pain' and it is a rocker.

events:
1692 – A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony suggests that two girls in the family of the village minister may be suffering from bewitchment, leading to the Salem witch trials.

1693 – The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.

1879 – Sandford Fleming first proposes adoption of Universal Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute.

1918 – The Stars and Stripes newspaper publishes for the first time.  From 1960 to 1963 this was the only paper I saw (we were living in Germany where my father was serving in the Army).  The Stars and Stripes is an independent newspaper that is run by a group of civilians and senior NCOs.  It is targeted at our military overseas.  There are 5 editions that go out as 350,000 daily printed papers and 400,000 electronic down loads.  It is printed in tabloid style and has 40-48 pages.  There are sections, News (heavy on the military), Sports, Comics, ads and columns.  You can get the .PDF download of whatever edition you want at:
http://www.stripes.com/

1922 – President Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in the White House.

holidays:
Hold Onto Your Head Day - To keep it from spinning around? or Off?  I don't understand some of these days and this sure is one of these days.  I mean how many hands do you need to do this?  Can you put one on top and just press down?  Confusion.

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tuesday 9 february
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Some people grow with responsibility
*** others merely swell.
***
***  - Abram Sachar
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birthdays:
1865 - Mrs Patrick Campbell was a British stage actress.  Her second husband was also Lady Randolf Churchill's second husband (she was Winston's mom).  What Mrs. Campbell is probably best known or is she played Eliza in the original production of Shaw's Pygmalion.  Which (after rewrites) became the musical and Movie 'My Fair Lady'.
The cover art of the original playbill, showing a drawing of Eliza, is available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cover-play1913.jpg
Before WWI she was one of the most well know actresses in London Theater.

1874 – Amy Lowell, Definitely an American poet and probably a Lesbian.  The later probably saved her from obscurity since Women's studies and rising awareness of Lesbian issues, in the 1970s, caused women to dig through stacks of undervalued literary works and discover lost gems.  She was well known enough as was her family, her brother was the astronomer that predicted that Pluto had to be out there .  He noticed variations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.  He knew Pluto was out there before there was ever any visual evidence of its existence.  They found Pluto because they were looking where Percival Lowell told them to look.  Pluto's name was chosen (partially) because the first two letters were PL and that was a salute to the man that died 14 years before the discovery of the planet(oid) he predicted would be there.  So Amy came from a known family but books (especially poetry) that don't have a strong initial run seem to fall by the way side and then are gone, so the Woman's movement saved Amy.

An example of Amy's work follows.  It is not a happy poem but if you like poetry I think you will like it, I do:

The Captured Goddess

   Over the housetops,
   Above the rotating chimney-pots,
   I have seen a shiver of amethyst,
   And blue and cinnamon have flickered
   A moment,
   At the far end of a dusty street.

   Through sheeted rain
   Has come a lustre of crimson,
   And I have watched moonbeams
   Hushed by a film of palest green.

   It was her wings,
   Goddess!
   Who stepped over the clouds,
   And laid her rainbow feathers
   Aslant on the currents of the air.

   I followed her for long,
   With gazing eyes and stumbling feet.
   I cared not where she led me,
   My eyes were full of colours:
   Saffrons, rubies, the yellows of beryls,
   And the indigo-blue of quartz;
   Flights of rose, layers of chrysoprase,
   Points of orange, spirals of vermilion,
   The spotted gold of tiger-lily petals,
   The loud pink of bursting hydrangeas.
   I followed,
   And watched for the flashing of her wings.

   In the city I found her,
   The narrow-streeted city.
   In the market-place I came upon her,
   Bound and trembling.
   Her fluted wings were fastened to her sides with cords,
   She was naked and cold,
   For that day the wind blew
   Without sunshine.

   Men chaffered for her,
   They bargained in silver and gold,
   In copper, in wheat,
   And called their bids across the market-place.

   The Goddess wept.

   Hiding my face I fled,
   And the grey wind hissed behind me,
   Along the narrow streets.

If you are interested goto Project Gutenberg and search on her name, there are at least 4 collections of her poems there.

events:
1775 – British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.  They had a head start over the rest of the country.

1885 – The first Japanese government-approved immigrants arrive in Hawaii.  There were other Japanese immigrants but the Japanese government did not give them permission to leave Japan.  I always thought that once you got out of a country you did not have to worry a lot about what they approved or disapproved of.  By the way, Americans do not act well in many country.  We don't know or care about local customs and just barge right ahead.  This is also true for our very own country.  Hawaii has customs like anyplace else.  We mostly ignore them so many of the locals (it is rude to call anyone whose ancestors were not born on the islands, a Hawaiian) dislike mainlanders.  To find out about Hawaiian customs goto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customs_and_etiquette_in_Hawaii

1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.  I do not think that it would ever have caught on if they had not changed the name.

1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers.  I saw it.  You could hardly hear the band for all the girls screaming at the tops of their lungs.  It really did not make for a good introduction to the US.

1969 – First test flight of the Boeing 747.

holidays:
National Bagels and Lox Day - Now this is a holiday I get.  Don't forget the cream cheese.

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wednesday 10 february
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** The easiest way to change history is to
*** become a historian.
***
***  - unknown - heard at NASA
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birthdays:
1890 – Boris Pasternak, Nobel Prize Laureate.  Celebrated poet and author in his own country and recognized by the Nobel Committee as one of the world's great author.  Mostly we know him for the Movie made from his book 'Doctor Zhivago'.

1890 – Fanny Kaplan.  She shot of Vladimir Lenin.  Fired three bullets and hit him twice.  Lenin survived Fanny did not.  She was 28.

1967 – Armand Serrano, Filipino animator.  He has had a major roll in the following films:
Open Season 2 (2009)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Surf's Up (2007)
Brother Bear (2003)
Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Tarzan (1999, animated)
Mulan (1998)
Fantastic 4 (1995, TV Series)
X-Men (1995, TV Series)
Biker Mice From Mars (1994, TV Series)


events:
1763 – The 1763 Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.  I guess nobody ever got around to telling Quebec that the British won.  Almost 250 years later and they are still speaking French.

1870 – The YWCA is founded (New York City).  And there are no songs about it.  I tried substituting the initials in the song 'YMCA' but the three syllables in 'W' just trash the flow.  So here they are, 140 years old and 'unsung'.

1906 – HMS Dreadnought (1906) is launched.  She is the first of the modern Battleships and the beginning of the end for the class.  Battleships are massive, expensive to operate and they can be damaged or sunk with cheap munitions.  Bombs, mines and torpedoes have taken out more Battleships than shoot outs with other Battleships.  Additionally they can only project there power as far as their guns can fire.  I believe some of the guns have ranges of up to 20 miles.  A carrier launched bomber has a range of hundreds of miles and it is possible for a single plane to sink a Battleship.

The last battleship shootout ever was the Battle of Surigao Strait (25 October 1944).  The US fleet "crossed the T" (the attacking ships sail in a line across the line of travel of the enemy ships and they can fire broadsides while the enemy only has a few guns to respond with).  All but one of the participating US battleships had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, refloated and repaired.  The Mississippi fired the last salvo of the battle and the last salvo fired by a battleship against another heavy ship.  Except for some ground support missions the day of the Battleship was over.  No new battleships were built after WWII and most of the surviving ships were scraped in the 1940s and 50s.  By 1976 there were 4 Battleships left (all US Navy).  The US ships were mostly used as a big platform to fire cruise missiles from and in 2006, 100 years after the HMS Dreadnought was launched, the last Battleships were decommissioned.  All gone.

1970 – Sylvester Stallone's first film 'Italian Stallion' is released.  This was a softcore porn film originally called 'The Party at Kitty and Stud's'.

holidays:
National Cream Cheese Brownie Day - If you have any left over from Bagel Day (yesterday).

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thursday 11 february
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** A fool and his money get
*** a lot of attention from the headwaiter.
***
***  - Roger Price
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birthdays:
1869 - Helene Kröller-Müller was one of the first European women to put together a major art collection.  She donated her 12,000 piece collection to the Dutch people.  The government holds the and displays much of it in the Kröller-Müller Museum which opened in 1935.

1926 - Leslie William Nielsen is an actor and comedian.  He probably liked the CTV comedy called 'Corner Gas' because he was born just a few miles away from where Corner Gas was filmed, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.  Like a large number of other actors Leslie is Canadian.  We have been lucky to get these fine people to entertain us (like Kiefer Sutherland).  Kiefer's real name is:  Kiefer William Fredrick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland.

1934 – Tina Louise, American actress or as most of us Know her Ginger Grant the movie star on Gilligan's Island but only after the part was turned down by Jayne Mansfield.  She went to college at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.  Making Gilligan's Island was crudest acting she ever did and it is what she is most remembered for.  I don't think she ever made peace with her decision to appear on the show.

events:
660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.

1752 – Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, opens.  Of course with the amazing lack of knowledge about the human body, I don't see a compelling reason to us the hospital, 250 years ago.  You probably had a better chance being left under a tree than in the germ ridden hospital.

1808 – Anthracite coal is first burned, experimentally, as a residential heating fuel.  Huh?  Of course coal burns.  People knew you could burn the stuff, for hundreds of years but Anthracite requires a different kind of grate (than wood) to successfully burn.  It was the grating that was the real experiment.  It worked and there are still homes that burn coal for their winter heating.

1916 – Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.  A hundred years later and the battle still rages although birth control advocates are no longer the underdogs.  In Emma's day birth control was illegal.  That is why condoms say they are "for the prevention of disease only".  Sure it is a fine point but worked.

1938 – BBC TV produces the world's first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of part of the Karel Capek play R.U.R., which coined the term "robot".  Then BBC saved all the props and used them in the first 10 years of the 'Doctor Who' show.  I like the series but the props were cheesy.

1939 – A Lockheed XP-38 flies from California to New York in 7 hours 2 minutes.  It has not yet acquired the name Lightning, but it is working on it.


holidays:
Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day

National Inventor's Day - Yeah! invent something to keep the milk from spilling.

National Peppermint Patty Day - And celebrate with candy.... or is this Charlie Brown's girl friend?  Oh Well back to confusion.

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friday 12 february
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** When you are going down for the third time,
*** remember you may have counted wrong.
***
***  - Rolle Peterson
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birthdays:
1809 – Charles Darwin, English naturalist (and controversy starter)

1809 – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (and controversy starter).  Today is a great day for controversy starters.

1843 – John Graham Chambers, English athlete who wrote the Queensberry rules for boxing.  Have you ever wondered what  they actually were?  Well you can find out now:

1.  To be a fair stand-up boxing match in a 24-foot ring, or as near that size as practicable.
2.  No wrestling or hugging allowed.
3.  The rounds to be of three minutes duration, and one minute's time between rounds.
4.  If either man falls through weakness or otherwise, he must get up unassisted, 10 seconds to be allowed him to do so, the other man meanwhile to return to his corner, and when the fallen man is on his legs the round is to be resumed and continued until the three minutes have expired. If one man fails to come to the scratch in the 10 seconds allowed, it shall be in the power of the referee to give his award in favour of the other man.
5.  A man hanging on the ropes in a helpless state, with his toes off the ground, shall be considered down.
6.  No seconds or any other person to be allowed in the ring during the rounds.
7.  Should the contest be stopped by any unavoidable interference, the referee to name the time and place as soon as possible for finishing the contest; so that the match must be won and lost, unless the backers of both men agree to draw the stakes.
8.  The gloves to be fair-sized boxing gloves of the best quality and new.
9.  Should a glove burst, or come off, it must be replaced to the referee's satisfaction.
10. A man on one knee is considered down and if struck is entitled to the stakes.
11. That no shoes or boots with spikes or sprigs be allowed. [1]
12. The contest in all other respects to be governed by revised London Prize Ring Rules.

1939 – Ray Manzarek, American keyboardist (The Doors).  71 today.  Time passes.

1976 - Silvia Saint (born Silvie Tomčalová) is a Czech pornographic actress. Tomčalová studied management for two years, worked as a manager of a large hotel and in other companies as an accountant and marketing coordinator. She did not like the money she was making, so she started modeling.  First it was cheese cake in her undies.  She must of gotten more comfortable with the camera because she started doing nude poses, for magazines, then she made a couple of hundred porno films.  Evidently she was smart enough to keep or acquire the rights to her own films because for the last 9 years mostly she just sells her old movies on the Internet.

DO NOT OPEN THIS SITE WHILE YOU ARE AT WORK!
If you are interested goto:
http://www.silviasaint.com/

events:
1719 – The Onderlinge van 1719 u.a., the oldest existing life insurance company in the Netherlands is founded.  Betting on your own death.  Ew.

1879 – The first artificial ice rink in North America opens at Gilmore's Park in New York City.  But they did not have a Zamboni.

1914 – In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

1946 – Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 captured U-boats.  Since none of the metal they were built out of is contaminated by any radioactivity the Subs are a possible source of metal that has value for certain research purposes.  There are only two problems, We do not want the Subs touched and the Russians do not want the Subs touched.  I wonder why?  Is there something, down there, they don't want anybody to find?

To learn more or to find out anything about U-boats or the Allie's fleet that they faced, you can goto the Uboat.net and that is at:Hold Onto Your Head Day

http://www.uboat.net/index.html

holidays:
It is Friday the 12th.  You missed the bad old Friday the 13th so what more do you need to be happy?

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