Not ready for prime time

 Movie: Saturday Night. Details the moments leading up to the first episode of the now 50 year and still running sketch comedy show SNL. Before there was the phrase water cooler talk, this was the show us kids at school in 1975 asked our friends first thing Monday morning if they had seen. It was new, edgy and hysterically funny. The movie about it isn't those things, but it is insightful. The cinematography makes you feel like you were there, experiencing the nerves, worries and uncertainty that the show would ever air, much less be one that would end up so iconic and long-lasting. I didn't recognize any of the actors. They did a good job, especially with the voices. I wish the three girls had more air time. (Kudos to Curtain and Newman for bringing Radner's photograph to the 50th anniversary show on Saturday.) Recommended to any SNL fan. While there have been so many great comedians on that show, the originals stole our hearts and stay there forever. 

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

I happened to stumble upon the live stream of Punxsutawney Phil's prediction on Sunday morning just as he was being encouraged out of his hibernating hole. Not surprisingly, Pennsylvania's favorite groundhog says there will be six more weeks on winter. Well, this is not really a disappointment. We here in the north should be so lucky to have only six more weeks. And if you look at the calendar, six weeks from February 2 is March 16. The first official day of Spring this year is March 20. So, according to Phil, we will have spring 4 days early. Sounds good.

I started to wonder why on earth anyone would think a groundhog could predict spring. From Wikipedia, I learned that way back when (year not stated) in Germany, if a hedgehog saw its shadow on February 2, it meant six more weeks of cold, wintry weather. German immigrants in Pennsylvania brought their tradition or superstition with them, transferring the power of weather prediction from hedgehogs to groundhogs. The really strange part of the current festivities is not the top hats and tuxedos. It's the head of the "Inner Circle" who supposedly receives Phil's message in something called "groundhogese." So it has nothing to do with seeing a shadow. It has more to do with one guy's whims? Feel free to correct me if I've misunderstood this.

 

Third time's a charm

 Movie: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Okay, I'm going to sound like an old person here because I am one. But I find this in so many action films with special effects and CGI: it's too dark and too fast. Maybe everything that's happening on the screen finds its way into my mind but I have old and slow eyes with vision that was never good since second grade. So for me, the speed of the action is annoying because I would like to notice everything that's going on. And I want to repeat, this isn't just a dis of this movie. It's all action movies. You need to watch them about twenty times, and possibly in slow motion, to catch half of what you're shown. And maybe that's the plan. That said, this was a very entertaining sequel. Keaton picks up right where he left off, and he's even older than me! O'Hara is always charmingly off-kilter and fun. Ryder: perfect. I don't know much about Ortega, but she was there too. My favorites were DaFoe as Wolf Jackson, head of the Afterlife Crimes Unit. Spot on. He could easily have his own spin-off. And Bob, of course. Gotta love Bob.

Words about winter

This morning the temperatures are in the negatives, somewhere between minus eleven and eighteen, depending on where one resides, with wind chills subtracting another 10 degrees on top of that. When a coworker this morning said she was out at 3 a.m. running her car to make sure it would start four hours later, it made me think of the video bloggers Matt and Julia who travel around the world and end up in exotic places, one of which is Siberia. They stayed there at one point when the temps were negative 80. So how do they cope with cars, especially if they don't have garages, under such extreme weather?

• Leave the engine running all the time. Another coworker whose husband once lived in the Yukon says they did this too. Seems expensive.
  
• Some cars have special gauges to monitor the temperature. If it falls below a certain point, the engine is triggered to start and run for a little while.
• Cover the car with a blanket (see photo.)
• Take the batteries inside and charge them overnight.
• Winter grade antifreeze. And also probably a whole lot of other mechanical things that I know nothing about. Sometimes a blow torch is involved. That's a whole new level of extreme!

The more you share, the more your bowl will be plentiful.

 Which character from The Expanse are you? Apparently, I am Anderson Dawes. Ernest, practical and dependable.

You and Anderson Dawes have similar personalities because tenacity is a keyword in your life. You won't give up no matter the adversity, nor will you belittle or feel sorry for yourself. On the contrary, you will show strong resilience, break your chains, and keep moving forward.

Groove me, baby

 When you're getting on in years, like me, you realize that young people have an entire language of their own and you have no idea what they might be talking about. I wonder if it was like that in the 1960s, if the older generation was confused at the hippie speak we often used. Looking up some of the words and phrases from back then gave me this list.

 

• Ace – Cool
• Beef – Argument or disagreement.
• Bippy
• Boogie board:  short surfboard.
• Bread – Money.
• Bug out: To leave.
• Cat – A guy.
• Church key – A can opener 
• Crash: Sleep.
• Dig it: Understand
• Digs – Home.
• Far out: Awesome.
• Five finger discount: Stolen.
• Fuzz – The police.
• A gas: Having a fun time.
• Gimme some skin: To ask someone to slap or shake your hand
• Grody
• Groovy
• Hacked or hacked off – Mad.
• Heavy: A serious or intense subject.
• Hodad – A non-surfer who just hangs around the beach but is never in the water.
• Kicks: Something done for pleasure.
• Lay it on me: Tell me.
• Make tracks – To leave.
• Mop-top: Someone with a Beatle haircut.
• Old lady: Girlfriend/wife.
• Old man: Boyfriend/husband
• Outta sight
• Pad: home.
• Pedal pushers – knee high pants worn by girls.
• Pig: Police officer.
• Right on: Okay
• Slug bug: Volkswagen Beetle.
• Sock it to me: Let me have it.
• Solid: I understand.
• Split: To leave.
• Square – Not cool
• The man: Any establishment authority figure
• Threads: Clothes.
• Trippin’ – An unusual experience
• Way out

As the song & dance begins

 At the start of every year a whole new batch of material ends up in the public domain. This year we have works from 1929 including the following books: 

•     Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Lost Empire
•     William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
•     Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
•     Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own
•     Dashiell Hammett - Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon
•     John Steinbeck - Cup of Gold
•     Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front
•     Agatha Christie - Seven Dials Mystery
•     Rainer Maria Rilke - Letters to a Young Poet
•     Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery
•     Ludwig Wittgenstein - Some Remarks on Logical Form
•     Sinclair Lewis - Dodsworth

Read people, read!

 The best books I read this year, in no specific order and not all published this year : 

• My beloved monster - Caleb Carr
• Memoirs of Stockholm Sven - Nathaniel Ian Miller
• The husbands - Holly Gramazio
• Sipsworth - Simon Van Booy
• Time shelter - Georgi Gospodinov
• Becoming Mrs. Lewis - Patti Callahan

Hairdos separated at birth?

 Cindy Wilson from the B52's 

and Patsy Stone from Ab Fab.

Separated at birth?

 Kitten Academy's Brumby and Spanish artist Salvador Dali. 

Celebrity bookshelves

These days, with celebrities video chatting on talk shows, we have seen many of them in front of their personal bookshelves and squinted to see what titles they've read. So Which celebrity shares your literary tastes? This is mine and while I admit I'm not sure who he is because I'm getting old, the description of books are what I read.

You'd share a bookshelf with Jonathan Van Ness!

Self-care and lifestyle, yes please! But your shelves would also be filled with grounded, gritty realism, epics, and histories of everything remotely interesting to either of you.

A librarian named Dewey

What number are you in the Dewey Decimal System? I am a very boring :

Result: 060.4 General rules of order (Parliamentary procedure)

You’re steadfast, thorough, and dependable. Some might say “predictable,” but we prefer “awesome.” Have you considered a career in libraries?

Take New York Public Library's quiz.

Classic movies

Looking for something to watch? Who isn't? Time to catch up on any of the all-time great movies you may have missed. Check what you've seen and watch what you haven't at AFI's 100 Movies 100 Years.

I can see for miles

I am approximately 0.00104167 tall in miles.

Paradigm shift

If I could chose to be any character on the series "The Expanse," I would chose Camina Drummer. Taking an online test brings up Naomi Nagata. I'm good with that!

Naomi

You're one awesome Belta. The crew of the Roci would've died a hundred times over without your engineering talents, and you follow your heart and morals without hesitation.

And I hate and I hate and I hate

Every personality test I've taken for as long as the internet has been around gives the results that I am INFJ. I've already posted some information about this personality type. Some further insight on what it's like are in 12 things most INFJs absolutely hate.

• 1. Staying on the surface.
• 2. Manipulation and deceit.
• 3. People who take and rarely give
• 4. Arguing just to argue
• 5. Constant chaos
• 6. Not getting enough alone time
• 7. When people are inconsiderate
• 8. Having to compromise their values
• 9. Having to do lots of “sensing” work
• 10. Criticism
• 11. Conflict
• 12. Cruelty in any form

Separated at birth?

Cher's iconic character Laverne and current Jeopardy champion Lindsey Shultz.

Separated at birth?

Looks like Madonna watched Star Trek as a child.The character Odona with Kirk from the episode The Mark of Gideon.

Where in in the world (or England) is Varushka?

From one of those internet quizzes, Where in England Should You Live? My results are:

Berwick-upon-Tweed

 

Located near Lindisfarne where you can find some of the finest hand-written gospels in the world, Berwick-upon-Tweed boasts The Fudgery where you can fill your belly with some of the most sinful fudge you've ever had, just to balance things out. It has direct train lines to both of the nearest large cities: Edinburgh in Scotland and Newcastle in England, putting Berwick-upon-Tweed in the middle of everything. You can visit Northumberland national park nearby, and specifically Alnwick Castle, the home of the Duke of Northumberland, which some Harry Potter fans will recognize as Hogwarts. Located right on the border with Scotland, you will never, ever see the sun. Really.

 

 

Every little breeze

Find out how much Europe is powered by wind on a daily basis at Wind Europe. Yesterday seems to have been 22.9% with Germany leading the way in production.