The Jet Set
Hello World,
Well, as the old saying goes, everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it, and it's probably just as well. Last week, when it was about 70 degrees around here, and people were out Christmas shopping in their shorts and shirtsleeves, Bill said that we were expecting some sort of "cold blast" from Canada that would bring temperatures into the twenties, with wind chills in single digits. Naturally, I said that would be impossible, because I plugged in the bird bath heater, and it would only freeze around here if the heater was not working. Sure enough, on the first cold day, I stepped outside and rapped on the frozen surface of the erstwhile bird bath (for "bird bath," please read "skating rink" throughout) so that told me all I needed to know about the bird bath heater right there and then some. You would think after all this time, that getting the bird bath heater to work every year would not turn into a monumental undertaking of epic proportions like the invasion of Normandy or putting a man on the moon. In fact, if there are plans afoot to put another man on the moon, at the top of my short list is the man who invented the bird bath heater, and it goes without saying, on a one-way ticket.
Alert readers may be wondering whatever became of the mythical locality of Moldova from the GeoQuiz web page. Well, wonder no more, because we have our friends at www.wikipedia.org to thank for this historical tidbit about the imaginary region:
==============================
MOLDOVA
For other uses of "Moldova" and "Moldavia", see Moldova (disambiguation).
The Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova) is a small landlocked country in eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the east and south. Historically part of the Principality of Moldavia, it was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812 and reunited with other Romanian lands in Romania in 1918. After changing hands during World War II and ultimately being annexed by the Soviet Union, it was known as the Moldavian SSR between 1945 and 1991 and finally declared its independence on 27 August 1991.
The Republic of Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, WMO, UNICEF, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations.
Moldova is a parliamentary democracy with a President as its head of state and a Prime Minister as its head of government.
==============================
They also provide a wealth of other pertinent information, such as the size and population, language, capital city, anthem ("Limba Noastra" - gosh, now I'll be singing that all week!) plus pictures of their flag and coat of arms. For me, the most poignant part was the section that said simply: "Motto - none." By golly, that's waving the proverbial red flag in front of the charging bull, and don't think that I intend to take that lying down! No motto! What kind of a cockamamie whackadoo tin-plated outfit are they running here, anyway? How do they expect anyone at the WMO, CIS or BSEC to take them seriously, when they don't even have a motto to call their own? I would think that would be the first thing you would come up with, if you were going to strike out on your own, and toss off the Russian yoke (in fact, "Toss the Russkies!" wouldn't be such a bad motto, under the circumstances) and yet, here they are all lounging around on their Moldovan backsides, as if their motto is just going to drop out of the sky and fall into their laps one of these fine days.
Well, I for one will not stand for it. I say we come up with a motto for these Moldovan laggards, before they become the laughingstock of the international community and motto-loving individuals the world over. Back in the day that the dinosaurs and I were roaming the vast unformed land masses, there was a service station nearby with its slogan above the door on an outside wall in letters attached to the building. Unfortunately, time and gravity had taken their toll, so that the world passing by was left to wonder why the building seemed to be announcing to one and all --
ERVICE IS UR MOTT
As a matter of fact, it made me wonder if service really was their motto, why the first order of business wasn't getting up there on a ladder to fix their own slogan. In any event, in the absence of anything more appropriate, I nominate "Ervice Is Ur Mott" for the official motto of the Republic of Moldova, and they are welcome to it. No, don't thank me, the bright, shining faces of happy Moldovans are all the gratitude that I need.
Speaking of my old home town, I can't pass up an opportunity to let everyone know that the football team at my alma mater, the East Meadow High School Jets, recently beat the Freeport team on the field of Hofstra University to become Nassau County champions for this year. Go Jets! What I found most amazing about it was that Bill and I actually found all of this out by watching the game on cable television, where it was actually broadcast as part of MSG Network's High School Game of the Week program. I don't know about other towns (technically, East Meadow is a village) but I certainly don't expect to see my high school football team on cable TV, especially on the same network that ordinarily shows the Knicks or Rangers and other powerhouse professional franchises. So that was a really special treat for all of us alumni, and I don't mind saying, the dinosaurs were totally stoked.
Meanwhile in local religious news, once again attempting to eradicate Lessons & Carols from the holiday schedule at church, and once again bowing to the inevitable pressure from outraged parishioners, the on-again off-again service of seasonal music and scripture readings may be once again ducking the limelight on the 17th of this month. You can be sure that I'll be there in full voice, because we never know at what point, when they pull the rug out from under this service, that it's going to be for the last time. And I might be going down with it, but by golly, I'll be going down singing.
Bill would never forgive me if I didn't take the time to toss this brickbat at Home Goods, which is a new retail establishment that has recently opened its doors on the outskirts of New Rochelle, better known perhaps as the Gateway to Larchmont. It seems that a large-ish family manufacturing business along the train tracks was moving to greener pastures, and there being no practical purpose for this mis-shapen parcel, naturally the local civic leaders decided to find some developers who would turn it into stores. For months on end, the construction made a nightmare of the only street that serves the location, and the design of the parking garage entrance was so dangerous that policemen were posted there to keep the traffic accidents down to a dull roar. Rather than attracting any desirable tenants, what we ended up with instead was Home Goods, Marshall's and Annie Sez, which to my way of thinking is only a slight improvement over a family business that fabricates fasteners for industry, but there you have it. Now that it's been open for a few months, Bill and I decided to take a whack at it, and check out their seasonal offerings at this holly, jolly time of year. We discovered that Marshall's and Home Goods were in the same store, with no distinction between them, except that presumably Marshall's was selling clothing and Home Goods was selling everything else in the place. We puttered around for a bit and found it singularly unenticing (and believe me, you have to go a long way to find me a store where I won't buy something) and the mis-matched, slap-dash jumble of shopworn merchandise reminded me of nothing so much as the ordinary Salvation Army Thrift Shop. Except for the prices, that is, which were often expensive to an offensive degree, especially on the furniture, that had nothing to recommend it. So here's a big fat mercantile raspberry for our dull-witted civic leaders, the equally addle-pated developers, and the hapless management at Home Goods, for a shopping experience that falls far short of the mark. I've added your names to the top of my short list, along with the inventor of the bird bath heater, and I hope you'll all be very happy up there on the moon. I hear the skating's fine.
Well, as the old saying goes, everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it, and it's probably just as well. Last week, when it was about 70 degrees around here, and people were out Christmas shopping in their shorts and shirtsleeves, Bill said that we were expecting some sort of "cold blast" from Canada that would bring temperatures into the twenties, with wind chills in single digits. Naturally, I said that would be impossible, because I plugged in the bird bath heater, and it would only freeze around here if the heater was not working. Sure enough, on the first cold day, I stepped outside and rapped on the frozen surface of the erstwhile bird bath (for "bird bath," please read "skating rink" throughout) so that told me all I needed to know about the bird bath heater right there and then some. You would think after all this time, that getting the bird bath heater to work every year would not turn into a monumental undertaking of epic proportions like the invasion of Normandy or putting a man on the moon. In fact, if there are plans afoot to put another man on the moon, at the top of my short list is the man who invented the bird bath heater, and it goes without saying, on a one-way ticket.
Alert readers may be wondering whatever became of the mythical locality of Moldova from the GeoQuiz web page. Well, wonder no more, because we have our friends at www.wikipedia.org to thank for this historical tidbit about the imaginary region:
==============================
MOLDOVA
For other uses of "Moldova" and "Moldavia", see Moldova (disambiguation).
The Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova) is a small landlocked country in eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the east and south. Historically part of the Principality of Moldavia, it was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812 and reunited with other Romanian lands in Romania in 1918. After changing hands during World War II and ultimately being annexed by the Soviet Union, it was known as the Moldavian SSR between 1945 and 1991 and finally declared its independence on 27 August 1991.
The Republic of Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, WMO, UNICEF, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations.
Moldova is a parliamentary democracy with a President as its head of state and a Prime Minister as its head of government.
==============================
They also provide a wealth of other pertinent information, such as the size and population, language, capital city, anthem ("Limba Noastra" - gosh, now I'll be singing that all week!) plus pictures of their flag and coat of arms. For me, the most poignant part was the section that said simply: "Motto - none." By golly, that's waving the proverbial red flag in front of the charging bull, and don't think that I intend to take that lying down! No motto! What kind of a cockamamie whackadoo tin-plated outfit are they running here, anyway? How do they expect anyone at the WMO, CIS or BSEC to take them seriously, when they don't even have a motto to call their own? I would think that would be the first thing you would come up with, if you were going to strike out on your own, and toss off the Russian yoke (in fact, "Toss the Russkies!" wouldn't be such a bad motto, under the circumstances) and yet, here they are all lounging around on their Moldovan backsides, as if their motto is just going to drop out of the sky and fall into their laps one of these fine days.
Well, I for one will not stand for it. I say we come up with a motto for these Moldovan laggards, before they become the laughingstock of the international community and motto-loving individuals the world over. Back in the day that the dinosaurs and I were roaming the vast unformed land masses, there was a service station nearby with its slogan above the door on an outside wall in letters attached to the building. Unfortunately, time and gravity had taken their toll, so that the world passing by was left to wonder why the building seemed to be announcing to one and all --
ERVICE IS UR MOTT
As a matter of fact, it made me wonder if service really was their motto, why the first order of business wasn't getting up there on a ladder to fix their own slogan. In any event, in the absence of anything more appropriate, I nominate "Ervice Is Ur Mott" for the official motto of the Republic of Moldova, and they are welcome to it. No, don't thank me, the bright, shining faces of happy Moldovans are all the gratitude that I need.
Speaking of my old home town, I can't pass up an opportunity to let everyone know that the football team at my alma mater, the East Meadow High School Jets, recently beat the Freeport team on the field of Hofstra University to become Nassau County champions for this year. Go Jets! What I found most amazing about it was that Bill and I actually found all of this out by watching the game on cable television, where it was actually broadcast as part of MSG Network's High School Game of the Week program. I don't know about other towns (technically, East Meadow is a village) but I certainly don't expect to see my high school football team on cable TV, especially on the same network that ordinarily shows the Knicks or Rangers and other powerhouse professional franchises. So that was a really special treat for all of us alumni, and I don't mind saying, the dinosaurs were totally stoked.
Meanwhile in local religious news, once again attempting to eradicate Lessons & Carols from the holiday schedule at church, and once again bowing to the inevitable pressure from outraged parishioners, the on-again off-again service of seasonal music and scripture readings may be once again ducking the limelight on the 17th of this month. You can be sure that I'll be there in full voice, because we never know at what point, when they pull the rug out from under this service, that it's going to be for the last time. And I might be going down with it, but by golly, I'll be going down singing.
Bill would never forgive me if I didn't take the time to toss this brickbat at Home Goods, which is a new retail establishment that has recently opened its doors on the outskirts of New Rochelle, better known perhaps as the Gateway to Larchmont. It seems that a large-ish family manufacturing business along the train tracks was moving to greener pastures, and there being no practical purpose for this mis-shapen parcel, naturally the local civic leaders decided to find some developers who would turn it into stores. For months on end, the construction made a nightmare of the only street that serves the location, and the design of the parking garage entrance was so dangerous that policemen were posted there to keep the traffic accidents down to a dull roar. Rather than attracting any desirable tenants, what we ended up with instead was Home Goods, Marshall's and Annie Sez, which to my way of thinking is only a slight improvement over a family business that fabricates fasteners for industry, but there you have it. Now that it's been open for a few months, Bill and I decided to take a whack at it, and check out their seasonal offerings at this holly, jolly time of year. We discovered that Marshall's and Home Goods were in the same store, with no distinction between them, except that presumably Marshall's was selling clothing and Home Goods was selling everything else in the place. We puttered around for a bit and found it singularly unenticing (and believe me, you have to go a long way to find me a store where I won't buy something) and the mis-matched, slap-dash jumble of shopworn merchandise reminded me of nothing so much as the ordinary Salvation Army Thrift Shop. Except for the prices, that is, which were often expensive to an offensive degree, especially on the furniture, that had nothing to recommend it. So here's a big fat mercantile raspberry for our dull-witted civic leaders, the equally addle-pated developers, and the hapless management at Home Goods, for a shopping experience that falls far short of the mark. I've added your names to the top of my short list, along with the inventor of the bird bath heater, and I hope you'll all be very happy up there on the moon. I hear the skating's fine.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:37 PM
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