Harvey Korman Has Left The Building...

The world has lost another great comedian: Harvey Korman died yesterday.  Most of us remember him from his days on The Carol Burnett Show, and he was also a mainstay for a while in Mel Brooks' movies (High Anxiety, History of the World Part I, and Blazing Saddles).  

While on The Carol Burnett Show, he was in many skits, and must have had mixed feelings every time he was paired with Tim Conway, who seemed to place high value on how fast he could get Harvey to crack up.  For exampe, watch this skit and keep your eye on Harvey, who in theory has no lines but becomes the centerpoint of the skit nonetheless:



Harvey Korman was the guy to watch on this show, usually regardless of whether he was the protagonist or not.  I'll miss seeing his reactions, and the lengths to which he went to try to keep his composure.  Rest in peace, Mr. Korman, we'll miss you but your legacy will live on...

It's The Most Wonderful Time... Of The Year!

Hey, kids! Sorry I've not posted lately, but I've been really busy, what with baseball, softball, lacrosse and Boy Scouts. It seems that every day someone needs a ride to somewhere, and none of the locations are near each other. I'm sure you've all had some of those days. Here's a run-down of last Wednesday (hope you're sitting down):

12:30 Pick up kids from school (early dismissal day)
1:00 Drop off #1 son at pizzeria for lunch w/friends
1:15 Arrive home and have lunch with #2 son and #1 daughter
2:30 Pick up #1 from pizzeria
3:00 Leave house with #1, #2, #3 to pick up friend
3:15 Arrive at school; drop off #1 and friend for chess; pick up friend #2
3:30 Drop off #2 son at friend's house
3:35 Drive to Girl Scout camp for hike
4:40 Friend picks up #1 son, (who's changed clothes after chess) and takes him to lacrosse practice
5:00 Try to leave Girl Scouts hike, to protestations of crying #1 daughter
5:05 Really leave Girl Scouts hike, crying daughter in tow
5:25 Pick up #2 son from friend's house
5:30 Stop at our house for pit stop
5:45 Leave for softball game in nearby town, with #1 daughter and #2 son
6:00 Arrive at softball game, which has already started
6:27 While pitching, receive a call from DH that he'll be late to pick up #1 son from lax
6:27:30 Leave mound to arrange for someone (anyone) to tell #1 to wait for ride
6:55 Finish quickest softball game of season; hitting fantastic, fielding excellent; Proud Coach!! I should be late more often! : )
7:10 Arrive home to empty house. Call DH to be sure he picked up #1 son. He soon arrives, only to say they've done fast food.
7:15 Leave to get fast food for us
7:25 Arrive home once again, this time with food
7:30 Eat
7:45 Collapse

I guess this is why I haven't returned to work. On days like this, when everyone has something, and it requires a spreadsheet to organize it all, I realize that after all the effort, it's worth it. When I see #1 daughter cry 'cause she has to leave a hike, then threaten to not play softball 'cause she's sad, then have her pop up at bat with a big smile on her face... that's what I live for!

Hope your seasons are all going well!

Days Spent Out in the Field...

My softball team (the Mariners) had a game last night, and at a slow point, I looked at some of our outfielders. One of them was fixing her ponytail, two of them were chatting, another was throwing rocks at the ground (or at me, her mom) and another was playing tic tac toe with her foot. Softball gets boring at times, I guess.

That reminded me of when I was on the Wrens back at St. Anselm's when I was a kid, standing out under the hot sun on one of the dusty fields behind Fort Hamilton High School, wearing my oversized polyester uniform shirt and my heavy (what-felt-like-wool) baseball hat (no visors for us in the 70's!!), being bored to tears waiting for something, anything to happen.

Which reminded me (again, I know) of a song I heard a while back, that I thought would remind you too of your days standing out in the field waiting... and waiting... and waiting...



Let me know if it brought a smile to your face too!

Woah! Mazda to Destroy 4,703 Cars. Woah!

Until the many mishaps with my Mazda van, I was a die-hard Mazda fan (I'm a die-hard fan of most things that can be called "obscure," I guess). I think my faith in them has been renewed. Apparently a shipment of new Mazda cars were being sent on a ship that developed a really (really) bad list, and was like that for several weeks before being "righted." Mazda then had to consider the integrity of the cars, which had been strapped down safely but were at that odd angle for so long. Do they sell the cars and risk the lives of the drivers? Do they let them get into anyone's hands and risk the reputation of the entire company? After some consideration, the company decided... no. They won't give 'em (or sell 'em) to anyone, they'd just methodically destroy them. Three cheers for Mazda!

Check this out:



For once common sense wins, huh?

TV Online? Yeah! Free and Easy Too!

I missed an episode of my favorite show, House, which is on Fox. Since the writers' strike they've played repeats, but not the one I wanted to see. When I checked out the Fox site, they offered a "video on demand" feature, but only the most recent new episode, and my ep wasn't the most recent. So now what? House is not always self-contained, in that some of the stories run in the background and advance from episode to episode, so if I miss one, I miss part of a storyline. What to do, what to do...

SO... I found a new site I wanna tell you about. It's called hulu, and it allows you to watch stuff from (mostly) NBC and Fox shows. And guess what? They're all free. And legal. Woo hoo!!!!!! How great is that? No more downloading "illegal" copies and fearing you'll "get caught." No more missing out on stuff everyone else remembered to see. No more feeling lost when you watch the next episode and not knowing what's going on.

I can't even remember how I first heard of hulu, but last night, when I was just finishing up some household jobs, it was nice to sit down and finally see the House ep I missed. I just called up hulu, searched on "House," chose which episode I wanted, and sat back and watched it. I was viewing it on my laptop and even made it full-screen, so it was like watching it on a regular tv, but up close and on MY schedule.

There is one proviso, though (although I found it only a minor annoyance): there are ads "supporting" your viewing of the show/movie you're seeing. On the show I watched last night the sponsor was Tylenol, and the ads were actually pretty cool: they seemed to have been developed for hulu, meaning they were subtle and they were short. There were probably about 6 all tolled, but each one couldn't have been more that 10 or 15 seconds. So they didn't really interrupt the story that much.

Wikipedia says hulu features shows that play on USA Network, Bravo, Fuel TV, FX, Sci Fi, Style, Sundance, G4, and Oxygen as well as the aforementioned NBC and Fox (and the CBS show I found). They supposedly have over 400 different tv shows and also a bunch of movies (I have yet to check those out).

So the next time you've missed "your show," or just want to catch something fun (and FREE), check out hulu.com and see what you can find. I LOVE stuff like this!

My Memories Interrupted

When I was in college, and for a bit after, I was really into music, mostly British stuff and less commercial American stuff. I liked people like Depeche Mode (first two albums only, thank you), Clash, Squeeze, Strawberry Switchblade (!), and Heaven 17. After a while I also learned to appreciate bands like Ramones, PIL (and their precursor), and a few other more seminal groups like The New York Dolls.

I bring this up 'cause I saw a video today that really cracked me up. I sometimes find it hard to believe that every member of the "Ramones," save for one, are gone (they all died within 8 years of their official breakup). Some of their music is not for me, but I love a few of the classics, like "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" and "Rockaway Beach." Speaking of which, the latter is currently the ringtone on my cell phone.

Back to the video: it's of two guys doing their own version of a Ramones song, and it's scary and funny all at once. In my book, you can't possibly keep a straight face when presented with a punk song (or almost any song) played on a ukelele (or two):



Of course, for those of you purists, or those who can't remember the original, here's a video of the Ramones doing the same song ("Blitzkrieg Bop"):



Some of that good stuff never goes out, does it?

Woo Hoo! It's Shirley Temple's 80th Birthday!!

I'm the youngest of 7 children (5 girls, 2 boys). Growing up with a lot of older siblings gave me exposure to a bunch of things I wouldn't normally have seen with my peers, and for me, I most remember the pleasure of watching Shirley Temple movies on tv. I remember watching The Little Princess and Heidi a bunch of times and being amazed at all this little girl could do (yeah, even now, in this jaded cynical time, I still look at her in awe).

In celebration of Shirley Temple's 80th birthday, I couldn't decide which of my two favorite songs to post, so I'm putting them both up. The first is "Animal Crackers in My Soup" from Curly Top:



The second is "At the Codfish Ball" from Captain January. This is especially fun 'cause you get to see her dancing with - get ready - Buddy Ebsen, who at this point in his career was only known as a dancer (and singer too, maybe). Oh, and for those of you who only know him from "The Beverly Hillbillies," get ready to see him with black hair! Check it out:



So when you're looking at your children today, and you're thinking about them and their futures, remember when the beautiful woman above was once the beautiful singing and dancing girl seen here. Wow, Shirley!! You go girl!!