How to be annoying in four easy steps

I'm not actually going to teach you the fine art of being annoying (though I pro'lly could);  You have Pee-Wee Herman and Gilbert Gottfried to do that.  What I am going to do is share three prime examples of the annoyer's art for you.  I am doing this because, IMHO, if you get amusement from their attempts to be annoying, you have put hot coals upon their empty little heads.

CASE ONE:  WHERE THE BODY LIES, THE EAGLES GATHER

This has to do with the blog a former blogging friend (and current FB friend) used to write.  Her last post was on the 6th of February 2013; she has a grand total of 8 posts in the last two years; and the post in question dates from September of 2011.  For whatever reason, Saturday the spam commenters declared a pig-pile on that post.  It started with four spam comments on Saturday; rose to 7 Sunday; topped out at 16 Monday; and as we speak, the total for Tuesday is 17, with 11 from about 20 past 4 till now (a quarter till 8 PM Tuesday night).  A grand total of 44 "comments", with links to such wonderful web pages as:

Assorted diet plans and pills: 18, from "food diet" to "Diet Food Delivery".
Review sites:  5, mainly skin care, with one for "Free Income App Reviews".
Working online/at home: 7, as detailed as "Get auto commissions from home", and as simple as, "Work from home legit" (which means, of course, it isn't).
Cash/free money: 2.
And one each from the subjects online dating (surprised this wasn't a stronger contender), web hosting, tarot readings (this was in French!), suppliments not covered in "diet pills", and last but not least, "Anti-aging eye creams".

Dudes!  No one has read this blog for over a year, or that post for almost three!  How much bang do you think you're getting for your buck?

CASE TWO:  WAIT A MINUTE?  WHAT PACKAGE?

I got this e-mail today:

My first thought was, Damnit, missed my package.  Second thought:  Why didn't they just drop it at the complex office like usual? Third thought, WTH do I need to show a shipping label for?

Fourth thought:  I'm not EXPECTING a package!

Then I looked at the e-mail address: music-matter- Sri-Lanka.  Well, that took a bit more thinking than usual.

True story: poking around the deleted file, I found I had gotten another one of these- with a German e-mail address- right when I was going through my meltdown a few weeks back.  And deleted it without even looking.  Go figure.


UPDATE TO FIRST STORY:  7:52 PM.  "Luke Bryan Today Show Concert".  At least we're starting another topic.


CASE THREE:  BE VEWWY VEWWY QUIET...I'M HUNTING TWOLLS...

If you read yesterday's Martin World News (and if not, GET ON IT!), I mentioned the commenter on WANE.com calling himself David.  Instant synopsis:  I posted on a story, he replied with a very stupid question, I went back to give him an equally stupid answer (something about needing crayons to explain, I believe).  Along the way, I saw that he had commented nonsense throughout the comment section, starting with "there's a church full of homophobic pedophiles on every corner", and swiftly drifting into "Marxism will take over the nation".  So I edited the original comment a bit, mentioning the utter stupidity of his previous comments. 

He then went on to accuse me of using "ad hominem attacks" instead of discussing his many pointless points.  That I was attacking his character.  Now, in my experience, "ad hominem" is the word used by LBGT/atheist trolls ( pay attention:  I clearly said trolls, not intelligent members of those groups) when you point out to them that their logic is stupid.  Admittedly, I saw enough in his previous comments that I felt safe in skipping the intermediate steps and got on with calling the kettle black.  My logic was proved when he went on after crying foul to call me a Tea Party Traitor and (not surprisingly, he has a fetish here) a homophobic pedophile.  He also informed me and several others of the 50 million Marxists that were going to overthrow the nation, and that capitalism is narcissistic.

Reflection: the article we were posting on was about Ft Wayne being one of the 10 most boring cities in the US of A.  So you can see what manner of intellect we are dealing with here.  But you know me, I just HAD to pull the chain one more time:


You crack me up. Run around crying about "ad hominem attacks" and then insult anything you think your opponent might stand for. I think you are about 13 years old, spouting stuff you couldn't explain with a textbook in front of you, and sit there giggling at the responses you get in between popping zits. Shame is, you have enough brains to make something of yourself if you weren't so busy acting like a spoiled little brat.

At this point he did as he had been doing- starting off with a semi-coherent response (Along the lines of, "What I have accomplished you will never achieve"), and then followed up in rapid succession with (and I quote):

You are like jesus

you are just like jesus

you remind me of jesus

ANNNNND...

You must be a homosexual pedophile like your hero jesus

(Keep in mind, I never said anything about Jesus.  I could have been a practicing Druid for all he knew.)


So, I decided to respond to the semi-coherent post with:

Yes, you have achieved being a bigger ass than I could ever hope to be.


Which brings us to...


CASE FOUR:  WANE.COM:  THE ANTI-FRIENDS OF BOBBY G SOCIETY

Recall I mentioned that the site had blocked my good friend Robert for no clear reason.  So I was less that shocked when they froze my above comment to review it.  Then they deleted it without comment.  So I posted it again, replacing "ass" with "patoot."  (Which they accepted.) Then I posted a second reply, asking how it was that I got censored for saying ass, while David had been making terrorist threats all along without anyone caring.  I knew they'd see it- I used the word "ass".  Sure enough, shortly thereafter, that post was gone... but suddenly, all the posts from "David" now said "Guest".  Had he been tossed?  IDK.  But I haven't heard back from him (or WANE) yet.


UPDATE FROM CASE ONE # II

8:19.  "Work From Home Legit Jobs".  45 and counting.

Martin World News

I feel like I should have a fanfare or something here....

ITEM:  First out of the block came a story off Wane.com with a link to a place called MovotoBlog: the lighter side of real estate.  They came up with an arcane formula to determine the most boring cities in the nation, involving per capita bars, clubs, live music, parks, fast food vs fine dining, and so on.  And guess who made the top ten?

1. Lubbock, TX
2. North Las Vegas, NV
3. Chesapeake, VA
4. Irving, TX
5. Fort Wayne, IN
6. Plano, TX
7. San Bernardino, CA
8. Stockton, CA
9. Mesa, AZ
10. Laredo, TX


That's right, my loveable home base came in as the fifth most boring city in the nation!  A feat more surprising when you note that Texas and California hogged 6 of the ten spots!

Right off the bat, we’ll give Fort Wayne its due in a few areas. This place does have a ton of festivals and some really decent minor league sports. So, yeah, good for you guys on that stuff. But once you’re sick of those, there aren’t many alternatives.
The population was decidedly older, there was not much nightlife or fine dining options per capita, and there were very few music venues scattered throughout the city. This city is rather pretty, and if you’re looking for a place to kick back and relax there are worse places to go. But if you want to be wild and crazy and you’re not there during a festival, you’re probably out of luck.


So basically, this should have been called, "The ten most boring cities for you post-teens trying to continue your childhood and act like you live in an episode of Jersey Shore".  I had to chuckle at Plano (a town I always pronounce "plain ol' ") making the list.  But the most fun came when I commented on Wane.com's story.  I basically said, "Well, we'd have more night life if the idiot gang bangers would stick their weapons up their butts and stay the hell home (for those not in the know, just because we had a record number of murders last year, this does not mean that we have a gang problem.  This PSA brought to you by the FWPD and the Mayor's Office.)"  Shortly thereafter I was notified that a person (using the term loosely, as you will see) by the "name" of David had commented on my comment.  His comment?  "Please translate idiot gang banger."

So, like a nice guy amused by someone's massive stupidity, I went back to the site to enlighten him.  Scrolling my way down, I saw he had commented on several comments, mostly extolling Marxism and how we will love it when they take over the country.  Yes, "David" was a troll.  I'm suspecting some punk kid trying to see how much of a rise he could get out of people.  So I obliged:

Well, I wondered if this was a task I would need crayons for, but having seen some of your other comments, I see it's not worth my time. Anyone who would prefer to be a murdering Marxist is a different class of idiot.


ITEM:  Before we get off the subject of WANE.com, I saved something of theirs for the show, in honor of them blocking Bobby G. off the comment section.  (Why?  I don't know.  He took a shower...)  Today, I found more evidence that there may be no intelligent life there...

 

 

Note line 4- All three were shot in the LOWER LOWER extremities.

Apparently differentiating between the upper lower extremities, which might have included the ding dong or whoo hah, and the lower lower, which might have meant a foot or a toe.


ITEM:  Question, what do you call the professional basketball league in Japan?

Answer:

The BJ League!!!!!


ITEM: A website called NameOfTheYear, "formed in 1983 on an Ivy League campus", has a yearly contest where readers select the weird names of real people, they put them in a bracket a la March Madness, and have a vote to determine the name of the year.  The winner this year is the son of an actual English League coach and former player, and given that you all know Scrappy, you'll see why I had to share his name. The winner for 2014 is....

Wow, two straight "say no more" items!


ITEM:  That North Korean news site sure is entertaining.  From this week's peek:

Korean Revolution Emerges Victorious by Dint of Ideology

Pyongyang, June 6 (KCNA) -- The Nigerian Group for the Study of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism on May 26 posted an article titled "Might of ideology is tremendous" on its internet website. The article said: The whole course of the Korean revolution which emerged victorious, going through all difficulties of history eloquently proves that the might of ideology is tremendous. Korean revolutionaries fought against the Japanese imperialists who were armed to the teeth, holding high the banner of the Juche idea and Songun idea. (Blah blah blah...) After the liberation the Korean revolutionaries successfully carried out complicated and difficult tasks in building a new society by organizing and mobilizing broad masses by dint of ideology. They shattered to smithereens the myth of the U.S. "mightiness" with the political and ideological might in the 3 year-long Fatherland Liberation War, making the U.S. imperialists fall like the setting sun. The U.S. vouched that Korea would not be able to rise up again even in 100 years' time, but Korea completed the post-war rehabilitation and construction in just three years on the ruins of war and accomplished the historic task of industrialization in a matter of 14 years. The Korean people are vigorously advancing toward the goal of a powerful nation in all fields including economy, science, technology and sports with the tremendous might of ideology.

Several points to cover here.

1.  There really is a website called "The Nigerian Group for the Study of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism ". Their HQ is right next to the one that teaches the fine art of scam e-mails for fun and profit.  Whether it has anything to do with Nigeria, who knows?

2. "Organizing by dint of ideology."  Remind you of any Presidents out there?

3.  So the US imperialists "fell like the setting sun" between 1953-6.  Okay.

4.  Who in the US "vouched" that North Korea wouldn't rise in 100 years?  Did Chris Matthews say that?

5.  I notice "feeding our people" wasn't high on the list of things done by dint of ideology.  "Yes, can I have an order of "Kimilsungism", hold the pickles, and an order of fries?

ITEM:  Hey, Michael DeGrasse Tyson!  Here's another example of "fit the evidence to the theory, not fit the theory to the evidence".  From a Science journal story quoted in the BBC, we see how to prove a theory without much evidence:

The accepted theory since the 1980s is that the Moon arose as a result of a collision between the Earth and Theia (A theoretical planet that just happened to bump into the early earth) 4.5 billion years ago.

Theia was named after a goddess in Greek mythology who was said to be the mother of Selene, goddess of the Moon. It is thought to have disintegrated on impact with the resulting debris mingling with that from the Earth and coalescing into the Moon.

It is the simplest explanation, and fits in well with computer simulations. The main drawback with the theory is that no-one had found any evidence of Theia in lunar rock samples.

Earlier analyses had shown Moon rock to have originated entirely from the Earth whereas computer simulations had shown that the Moon ought to have been mostly derived from Theia.


However, no one had found any evidence that ANY moon-rock was any different than earth rock.  Until....


"But we have now discovered small differences between the Earth and the Moon..."


Uhm, how small?

"What you are looking for is a much bigger difference, because that is what the rest of the Solar System looks like based on meteorite measurements," (Professor Alex Holliday of  Oxford) said.



Studies of meteorites from Mars and the outer solar system show that these ratios are markedly different - rather like a fingerprint. So Prof Halliday and others are puzzled by the fact that the fingerprints of Earth and Theia seem almost identical.


So, there should have been a BIG difference between earth rocks and moon rocks.  And after 50 years of looking at moon rocks, they finally found a teeny tiny, "almost identical" difference.  And that means:

"...this confirms the giant impact hypothesis."


Say what?  Oh, yeah, fudge the need for a difference down, and we've found JUST what we were looking for.


Modern science is a big, steaming pile.  That's what I found.


ITEM:  Last but not least, what's MWN without a dildo fight in Australia? Courtesy The Japan Times, where you can follow the B-J League:

SYDNEY – A shop manager was pelted with sex toys by an intruder wearing a wig and crotchless pants in an Australian erotica store stickup, local police reported Sunday.
The man forced his way into the Brisbane adult shop through the roof just before 5:30 am on Saturday, setting off the alarm.
“Upon being disturbed, the man threw a number of items he was attempting to steal out of his hands and proceeded to climb back through the roof,” police said in a statement. “Police located the man climbing down from the roof of the business.”
According to local media reports, the intruder was wearing a wig, crotchless pants and a dress. He was charged with break and enter and drug possession offenses.
“There’s definitely a funny side to it,” the manager, Fiona Coldrick, stoically told The Australian newspaper. “Obviously what he was wearing was pretty amusing. You’ve got to see the lighter side of it.”
It is the second sex store robbery in northern Australia this week. On Thursday, a man crashed through the roof of a Cairns erotica outlet during a botched burglary, making off with a “Fantasy Fetish” pack that included a saddle. He was arrested near the scene of the crime and appeared in court on Friday


And I don't think I have to add too much to that one, either!

World War I this week

This week, I start out with a story I heard on one of the WWI documentaries I've been watching to bone up for these posts.  The story was about "Operational Plan Three"- A plan the German military had worked up for attacking the US of A.  What surprised me is not only that this plan wasn't the ONLY one- and not that it came about BEFORE the Great War- but how FAR before the war the were formulated.

Apparently Willie (AKA Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany) was jealous of the riches of the American brand of capitalism, and bothered that we were increasingly becoming a fly in the ointment of his plans for colonial expansion.  Germany was already trying to spread its influence in the Pacific, and was looking into challenging the Monroe Doctrine in the Caribbean.  And in 1897, he was looking at Germany replacing Spain in the Caribbean- and knew that American was also awaiting the chance.

Which meant Willie was looking for a way to take Cuba, or Puerto Rico, or both, before we did.  He assigned Navy Lt. Eberhard von Mantey to formulate a plan. The 28 year old junior officer was under the tutelage of Admiral von Tirpitz, and what they came up with was eventually called the Tirpitz Plan.  It called for drawing out the US Navy in a major engagement, and upon defeating them, to lay waste the Naval shipyards at Norfolk, Newport News, and Hampton Roads.  Then they would blockade America into acquiescing to German acquisition of the Caribbean islands.  Unfortunately for Willie, long before they had the long range capability to make it a reality, the Spanish American War broke out.  The Caribbean for all intents became an American lake, and the only action between the two was a German flotilla in Manilla Bay that annoyed our navy just enough to make us fire some warning salvos.

In March of 1899, Willie had von Mantey re-devise.  Plan two once again stared with "a major naval battle which Germany wins", but then became a two pronged LAND invasion with 100,000 German troops landing at sites on Cape Cod  to take Boston, and (of all places) Sandy Hook, NJ to attack New York City.  Three problems came up with this plan.  By December 1900, Willie had been convinced that the German Navy could win the battle, but needed a base in, say, Cuba.  Which meant they would have to add another stop to the tour.  Second, there wasn't enough shipping under control of the German Navy to GET 100,000 troops to America.  And third, the famous General von Schleiffen told Willie that while 100,000 troops would be enough to take Boston, it was far too few to take a city of 3,000,000 like NYC- a population that only London, Paris, and Berlin approached in the Europe of 1900.


In mid 1901 a Army Captain named Charles Train issued a report on the military vulnerabilities of the Cape Cod area, and the results of which told von Schlieffen that the plans they had needed to be re-worked.  This time, von Tirpitz turned to Staff Officer Wilhelm Buchsel to work on it.  By November 1903, Buchsel came up with a naval-bombardment- heavy plan that required establishing a naval base in Puerto Rico.  But the two conditions they felt necessary to make any plan work- lack of war or threat of war in Europe, and America's unpreparedness, were fast becoming fading dreams by then.  A crisis in debt-strapped Venezuela almost led to a naval war between the US and Germany in 1903 (which I may touch on in a later episode), and taught the Germans that the US was ready to block any aggressive move in the hemisphere with iron.  As the shipping required for the plan still didn't exist (and never would), the Entente Cordiale was established in 1904, and the British launched their first dreadnaught in 1906, the whole thing was scrapped.

Back to this week, one hundred years ago, where we look at twin developments that began on the 12th.

Ferdie, you just need to use a little finesse, like I do...

The first was a visit by Willie to Austrian heir apparent Franz Ferdinand at FF's hunting lodge at Konopischt.  Austria had really kicked the Balkan hornet's nest with the Bosnian annexation of 1908, and Willie knew Austria needed an ally in the region to settle things down.  The logical candidate was Romania- but they were annoyed by Hungarian treatment of the Romanians in their half of the Dual Empire.  FF hoped Willie could help him convince Hungarian Prime Minister Count Tisza to "take a more enlightened approach" with the Romanians.  For two days FF told Willie that the Hungarians were unreasonable, and could he help; and Willie replied that the Hungarians were reasonably reasonable and he should work with them.  Willie left on Saturday the 13th, and Austrian Foreign Minister Leon Berchtold showed up on Sunday the 14th.  FF set him to the task of figuring a new paradigm, since it didn't seem like Romania and they would clear things up anytime soon.

Berchtold conferred with an under-official named Franz von Matscheko, and Matscheko reasoned that with the Romanian door shut, Bulgaria was the only other candidate.  He worked on the idea, finishing a memorandum on the 24th.  Bulgaria held a lot of advantages; but after just being burned by their Balkan allies in 1913, they were in a real "what's in it for me" mode.  The Austrians were too cash-strapped to pump enough payola to Sofia to turn their heads; it would be up to the Kaiser to "woo them with money."  The memorandum was floated to the Kaiser, and another copy was to go to FF; but it sat on his desk unread as he had already left for his fateful trip to Sarajevo by then.


The other development was the opening salvo of what would be a repeating pattern of massacres by Ottoman Turkey against her Christian population.  A Monsieur Manciet and some French buddies were on site at the Smyrna suburb of Phocea, a city of 80,000 Christians (mostly Greeks) and 400 Turks, when "bands of bandits" hit the city on a mission of looting, rape, and murder that wiped the city off the map.  The Frenchmen managed to get some people to Smyrna for transport to the Greek island of Lesbos, but many more were butchered by the Turks, who tried to cover their tracks by letting the "bandits" have their way the first day, then send in troops from Smyrna to "save the day"- which consisted of committing greater atrocities than the bandits.  I've always found it funny that German soldiers in Belgium wore "God is with us" patches while killing Belgian priests and allying themselves with a government spat from the bowels of hell.  It doesn't surprise me that the "God that was with them"  allowed them to lose any more than it surprises me that their nation would go on to commit even greater atrocities later.

By their fruits shall you know them...

Okay, okay, here's some pictures...

Last Sunday's walk.

While we rested, that little green guy got on me.

The Goose-ish Navy leaves port.

Chillin under the bridge.

Scrappy in the clover.

Laurie got these shots of Scrappy and Cooper at the bark park.  Guess they had a real bang-up time while I was making sure rich people had covers for their boats.


 

Sunday in the daisies.

Bark park with Brodie, Georgia (way in the back), and the white dog that don't like nobody.

Daddy, I got slobbed!

Yup.  Decided to pee just as I clicked.

Time Machine week 7

It's June the 6th, back in good ol' 1972.  George McGovern has just won the Democratic primary in California to virtually seal the presidential nomination- and David Bowie has just released The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.  Coincidence?  Or all part of an evil master plan...

Ziggy and George... separated at birth?

Uh, yeah, welcome back to Time Machine '72, where I have to make up for last week's side jaunt into 1968 by mashing together two weeks worth of fun and useless trivia.  And I will cap it off with not one, but two (or two attempts thereof) of Six degrees!  Welcome to the weeks when our radios first played Procol Harum's Conquistador, Alice Cooper's School's Out, Bobby Vinton's Sealed With A Kiss, Argent's Hold Your Head Up, Harry Nilsson's Coconut, and Donna Fargo's Happiest Girl In The Whole USA (at least on pop stations; it's halfway through its run at the top on the country charts!).


First up, we had a total of ten songs make there first appearance in the top 40 the last two weeks.  Last week, James Brown's There It Is (you can recognize it because it sounds like all the other JB hits), I've Been Lonely For So Long by international one-hit wonder Frederick Knight, Wayne Newton's Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast, Jimmy Castor's Troglodyte (Caveman), Elton John's Rocket Man, and America's I Need You (who pulled off the biggest jump, 21 spots to #32) came into the chart.  This week, the newbies are Nash/Crosby's Immigration Man (up 6 to #38), Cher's Living In A House Divided (up #11 to #33), along with a couple you can listen to.  The lower one doesn't qualify as a "song I first heard because of TM" because I do know it from the ending chorus, but I think you Michael Jackson fans out there won't mind:




I Wanna Be Where You Are climbs 17 to #37 this week.  Now one that I didn't know before this was another of the nicely done covers by David Cassidy, this one coming in at #35 (up 13):




How about that?  Double the videos, too!

One idea I considered was to do a spot on twins in music.  But the Martin Era of 1962-1979, on a cursory examination, yielded only four sets of twins.  I'll let you see if you can pick them off for a little bit, but I'll give you this much of a clue:  One had a #1 near the beginning of the Martin Era, one had a top dog at the end of the Martin Era, and one would have 9 number ones, all within the Martin Era!


This week's You Peaked netted us 5 peakers, all but one of them last week.  Doctor My Eyes topped off at 12, Vincent at 11; Taxi, amazingly enough, let its fare out at #20, and Run Run Run by JoJo Gunne topped off at 31.  Which reminds me of a story I forgot to tell the first time Jay Ferguson's old band got mentioned.  The story I get was that their second lp, Jumping The Gunne, had a disastrous showing mainly because of their choice of cover art.  It was a picture of the band in a bed, with a naked fat lady "jumping " over them.  Tasteful, it was not.

Yeah, I can see this as a selling point...

Returning to propriety, War's Slipping Into Darkness peaked out this week at #12.


Ready for those twins yet?  The last to chart (and technically they didn't make top forty noise until 1980, but had been around long before) are The Whispers (And The Beat Goes On, It's A Love Thing), with twins Wallace and Walter Scott. Makes you wonder what the next kid got named, don't it? The ones with the early #1 are the Shangri-Las, with identical twins Marge and Maryann Ganser, who topped the charts in 1964 with Leader Of The Pack.  The late charting act was Styx, with twins, Chuck and John Panozzo, who didn't top the charts until 1979's sell-out hit Babe. And in-between, with the nine #1s, the Bee Gees with Robin and Maurice being the far-from-identical twins.

The Shangri-Las... and I bet I don't have to tell you Maryann and Marge are in the middle.

And now, let's crash and bash out that top ten!


TEN- The first week, Back Off Boogaloo held that spot for a second week; this week, Ringo drops from 10 to 34, with the Stones' Tumbling Dice (Note:  Not dices.  Dice is already plural.) moving up one to take the spot.

NINE- Last week, Love Unlimited leapt 7 spots to land here with Walking In The Rain With The One I Love.  This week, Commander Cody loses some ground with Hot Rod Lincoln.

EIGHT- Last week, Paul Simon was with Me And Julio Down By number nine.  He drops all the way to 30 this week, and Love Unlimited moves up a notch to take his place.

SEVEN- Hot Rod Lincoln pulled in at its high water mark of 7 last week.  With it falling back, the spot was taken by another newbie, Gallery and Nice To Be With You, which came all the way from #19.

SIX- The Jackson Five moved up 3 last week with Little Bitty Pretty One.  They move on up, and the reigning top dog, I'll Take You There by the Staple Singers, falls to this spot this week.

FIVE- a song that poked around for 8 weeks before going 28 to 15 to 5 is our first six degrees victim.

That meteoric riser is Sammy Davis, Jr, with The Candy Man.  Panned by both the singer ("Too saccharine") and reviewers ("...about the closest music has ever come to being pure excrement"), it was produced by Mike Curb (of the Mike Curb Congregation), who Sammy liked about as much as the song.  Taken from the Willie Wonka movie, Sammy recorded it on his album Sammy Davis, Jr, Now- an lp so bad that the reviewer said that the only song that was even listenable was a cover of MacArthur Park (and having listened to it, all I can say is, I liked Candy Man much better.  And I liked his Hawaii 5-0 theme better.  But given a choice between Sammy Now and Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits, well....)

Wait... what are you saying?

The # 5 for this week was Little Bitty Pretty One, moving up a notch.

FOUR- The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face slid from 2 to 4 last week, and fell to #13 this week.  Which reminds me, last week's drop outs were Rockin' Robin (5 to 20) and I Gotcha (6 to 24).  The song at #4 this week, climbing 11 spots from #15, is our second six degrees.

Dr. Hook's Sylvia's Mother was a composition by the multi-talented Shel Silverstein (which is actually the second time today I've had his name mentioned, ironically).  In addition to the MANY other things this man achieved, in addition to the other Dr Hook songs he wrote (like Cover Of The Rolling Stone), in addition to writing Loretta Lynn's recent country chart topper One On The Way, he is also the writer of Johnny Cash's smash A Boy Named Sue.  Johnny, amazingly, sang that song in public the first time when he did his At San Quentin lp- in the film, you can see him checking a piece of paper for the words.  Another song that was a first timer for Johnny on the San Quentin lp was the first cut, a song called Wanted Man.  Now this song has a bit of a story, and you can read the whole thing here.  But the gist of it is- he and Bob Dylan were mutual admirers and became good friends, and, well:

Dylan and Cash were huge mutual inspirations, each covering the other's songs accordingly. The first nod came in 1965, when Cash recorded his version of “It Ain't Me, Babe” for his album Orange Blossom Special. Then, following his 1966 motorcycle accident, Dylan and The Band spent a good portion of the next year in Saugerties, NY, recording over 100 tracks for what became The Basement Tapes. Among the cover songs stuffed on the reels, Cash's presence looms large with Dylan doing “Belshazzar,” “Big River” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”


Dylan recorded most of his first all-country record, Nashville Skyline, on February 13-14, 1969 in Nashville. At the wrap-up sessions on February 17-18, Cash—who'd been recording at the studio next door—dropped in to visit, and ended up spending two days there, recording what's become known as the Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash Sessions. The 23 duets the label-mates laid down included everything from Cash's “Big River” to Dylan's “One Too Many Mornings,” along with covers of Jimmie Roger's “Blues Yodel #1,” plus “That's All Right Mama” and “You Are My Sunshine.”
Although this session was a bootlegger's wet dream, few of the songs were strong enough for an official album release. However, the crème of the session, a duet of “Girl from the North Country,” was included as the opening track to Nashville Skyline, which also featured liner notes written by Cash. During his stay in Nashville, Dylan also ended up writing “Wanted Man” for Cash—a song the Man in Black would debut live to a cafeteria full of California inmates a week later at San Quentin penitentiary.


(From "Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash: Two Songwriting Titans Make History "
By Ben Corbett)


THREE- Both weeks, same as the one before- the stalled-out Look What You've Done For Me by All Green.

TWO- Oh, Girl by the Chi-Lites climbed here from #4 last week;  Sammy and Candy Man climb here from #5 this week.


And at number ONE:

Last week, a repeat of I'll Take You There.  And this week......

...the Chi-Lites with Oh, Girl!!!!!



Whooo, we made it!  Are you seeing double yet?  I'll be if I don't get some eye rest here soon.  Catch you next week!

martin world news

Modifications to original design by Bobby G.

ITEM:  Have to start here, with a story my liberal friend (who hasn't responded to me since I tore apart his LAST meme) titled "Lucky Americans Have an Excellent President in Barack Obama."  The whole of the post itself was this:

To which I replied:

Unfortunately, unlucky Americans are also stuck with him. How're you feeling about him turning 5 hardened terrorists loose to get back a traitor and the son of a man that wants to turn ALL the terrorists loose?

Sane and compassionate:  took money from landlords who booted poor people out of tenements in mid-winter as a young lawyer.

He will change American history for the better:  Doing it already.  Can't wait till he starts paying the barbarian tribes to guard the borders in exchange for Roman American citizenship.  Oh, wait...

Only Obama's dim-witted or hate-filled opponents are unlucky:  This is what Obama's lucky sycophants think of "honest debate" and "diversity of opinions".  You agree, or you're stupid.

They are getting a political genius:  Can't argue there.  How else can you get otherwise intelligent people to both swallow and regurgitate such utter bullshit, excuse the graphic description?

Frank Schaeffer:  Here's his wiki story.  I don't believe I shall be reading his works in depth; however, I see here enough to categorize him as Peter did:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. (2 Peter 2:1)

I know I've said I'm through talking politics.  But think of this not as a political discussion, but classic MWN: an exposing of the stupidity of the world.  Moving on...

ITEM:  What happens when you are on safari, looking at gigantic African elephants, and you drop your cell phone?  Well take it from 23-y-o Scott Brierly:  the elephant comes over, picks up the phone...

...and takes a selfie!  The keepers recovered the phone later, and found this on examining it to see if his pictures were still okay.


ITEM:  Speaks for itself:


It’s no longer a crime in Minnesota to carry fruit in an illegally sized container. The state’s telegraph regulations are gone. And it’s now legal to drive a car in neutral — if you can figure out how to do it.
Those were among the 1,175 obsolete, unnecessary and incomprehensible laws that Gov. Mark Dayton and the Legislature repealed this year as part of the governor’s “unsession” initiative. His goal was to make state government work better, faster and smarter….
In addition to getting rid of outdated laws, the project made taxes simpler, cut bureaucratic red tape, speeded up business permits and required state agencies to communicate in plain language.

But can you now go through town with an ice cream cone in your back pocket?  That's what I'd like to know.


ITEM:  Winner, world's most stupid excuse for obesity, courtesy the BBC:

Sleeping in a room with too much light has been linked to an increased risk of piling on the pounds, a study shows.

A team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London found women had larger waistlines if their bedroom was "light enough to see across" at night.

However, they caution there is not enough evidence to advise people to buy thicker curtains or turn off lights.

The study of 113,000 women was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

And sponsored by Drapes-R-Us.


ITEM:  The highly-modern state of India has run into a highly primitive problem- the menfolk like to urinate on walls in public places.  And being the highly modern state they are, they thought the answer to that would be to plaster the walls with photos of their many gods, reasoning that no one would risk reincarnation as a latrine by peeing on their god.  This however, did not work out, and one Delhi resident sued to remove the pictures before the gods were further dishonored.  The judge threw out the case, but admitted that not much has or can work to stop the habit:

While disposing of a plea seeking a restraint on putting up images of deities on walls and buildings to prevent men from urinating in public, the HC threw up its hands at the problem stating that it could not insist that every man who walks out of his house is forced to put a "lock on his zip."


Gang rapes, peeing on walls- that Indian vacation is looking better and better, ain't it?  But it shouldn't be taken as an insult to the gods, because other methods haven't stopped the "flood", either:

"...The petitioner has filed photographs showing that residents of buildings and especially Group Housing Complex. The photos reveal that to shame the offender the owners of the complex have written graffiti ridiculing such men by stating that 'Look here a dog and a donkey is peeing.' In spite thereof, a man is seen peeing on the wall," HC said.

Perhaps these people would like to add a Mayan god to their pantheon: The rain god Chac was also known as Ah Hoya, which means "He who urinates".

Yeah, I'm betting they didn't sing songs like Laughter In The Rain, either.


ITEM:  This week, we look at the latest English terms to enter the French lexicon.  According to the list leaked (no relation to the last story) by the two top dictionaries in France, the following English terms are now acceptable:

methamphetamine (oh, lovely.  Now they can report on DeKalb county Indiana in Le Monde.)
hipster
selfie (which means they can get the elephant story!)
pilates
zumba
megavirus
gif
jpeg
hashtag
troll

and two with you especially in mind, Bobby:  Super-hero and comics.

ITEM: If you are tired of your local government (as we are in Ft Wayne) putting something on the budget because of "tax projections" that are wildly inaccurate, disrupted by some excuse real or imagined, or just plain made-up, you are not alone.

The French government faces a 14bn-euro black hole in its public finances after overestimating tax income for the last financial year.

French President Francois Hollande has raised income tax, VAT and corporation tax since he was elected two years ago.

The Court of Auditors said receipts from all three taxes amounted to an extra 16bn euros in 2013.

That was a little more than half the government's forecast of 30bn euros of extra tax income.

The Court of Auditors, which oversees the government's accounts, said the Elysee Palace's forecasts of tax revenue in 2013 were so wildly inaccurate that they cast doubt on its forecasts for this year.

It added the forecasts were overly optimistic and based on inaccurate projections.


Ya think?

ITEM:  More foreign language fun?  How about phrases to use when you're upset in Spain?

You wanna tell someone to "F- off?"  Tell 'em 'Vete a freir espárragos' , or "Go fry some asparagus".
Bugged by an inconsiderate waiter? Tell the Maitre d'  'tiene un morro que se lo pisa' ('he's got such a big snout he he trips over it').
Want someone to "Give me a brake"?  Tell them 'Manda huevos!' which roughly means "Send eggs!"
Based on the word for swatting flies, 'me estás mosqueando' means you’re making me mad, and 'no te mosquees' means 'don't get angry'. Or, to put it in English, "'Quit swatting me!"
It matters three cucumbers to me: Or I couldn't give a cumin! 'Me importa tres pepinos' or 'me importa un comino' are the lighter versions of 'I couldn’t give a damn' in Spanish.


ITEM:  Finally, the shithead has been discovered.  Researchers in Mammoth Cave in southern Indiana have found the PC fish:  It has its anus actually in its head.

The Hoosier Cavefish is the first new species discovered in 40 years.  Why it developed a colon it can blow with a sneeze is unknown, but it is certain that it will get the nickname of the Politician fish.

The strange story of my phone

If you have been here long enough to know the story of the ball that escaped the kitchen of no escape, or the lens from my glasses that hid until ten minutes after I was notified the new ones were ready, this story might not surprise you.  For the rest, cue Rod Serling.


Consider Christopher Martin, an ordinary man about to take a nap.  He knows he must take his phone with him (as well as his dog and two babybel cheeses), because he is expecting an important phone call.  After pretending for two years that a mattress pad was really making a difference to the springs that poked him every night, he has ordered a new mattress and box spring.  Tonight, the call for the appointment time was coming.  So up the stairs he went, setting down the cheeses on the hall table and turning into the bathroom for a quick stop... into the Twilight Zone...

His story:  He returned from the bathroom, taking the cheeses in one hand.  He closes the door behind him and his faithful canine companion.  He approaches the bed, reaches into his pocket for the phone... and it is GONE.  Back out the door, he calls to his faithful female companion, "Is my phone down there?"  The answer is negative, and he rushes downstairs.  He had it in his pocket as late as when he was seated in his car to come home from work less than an hour before.  "Laurie, call my phone."  She does... not a sound.  He runs out to the car, opens the door, finds nothing.

A million thoughts race through his brain.  Telling each in turn to STHU, he asks Laurie to call work, set them on the search in case his memory is bad and he never had it in the car.  He decides to have Laurie call the phone again, thinking to search the car and the yard.  HE GRABS THE WRONG KEYS.  Turning back in, Laurie's phone connects, and it rings. 

AND THEY HEAR HIS PHONE THIS TIME.

His phone is loud enough that downstairs it can wake him from a light sleep upstairs.  It did not make a sound the first time, but now it does.  And he follows that sound to a spot on his bedroom booktable- right where he had intended to set it all along.

How did it get there?  He might have set it there himself... but that would have involved him setting it down, forgetting about it, taking one step back and fishing in his pocket for it a second time- IN THE SPACE OF ABOUT FIVE SECONDS.

Had he never had the phone with him?  He looks at his dog's picture on the wallpaper three or four times a day.  And even if he hadn't, he never leaves it in his bedroom.  Always downstairs near the computer screen.

And what about hearing one ring and not another?  Laurie speculated that she has had minor problems with her phone lately, and it might not have rang through.  Not only would that be a string of at least three convergent coincidences, his phone shows TWO missed calls from Laurie during the search.

Did a loving and merciful God know his plight, and send an angel to set it in the exact place he wanted it?  Far fetched, perhaps.  Read the story here about how a rubber ball made an almost impossible turn, hopping just right to be able to hide behind a refrigerator that you couldn't have gotten it behind in a thousand purposeful tries... or here for the story of the missing lens that showed up two minutes after the call form the eye doctor that new glasses are ready.  This place is MADE of far-fetched.  Is it any more far fetched than 5 seconds out of a life being so completely erased that I sat it there myself and cannot recall?

You decide.  Angel, household spirit... or just a madman's brief detour... into the Twilight Zone.