It's A Stretch
Hello World,
Not to be an alarmist or anything, but I feel it's only fair to point out that this Sunday, we'll be lighting the third candle on our Advent wreaths, and anybody could see where this was leading, and I don't know about you, but I can't say that I care for the looks of it all that much. Of course, everyone knows how I aim to be helpful, so for those of you like myself, who are woefully unprepared for the upcoming festivities on the 25th, I'd like to pass along some last-minute suggestions. Obviously, the first would be to hurry up and change your religion, and pick something else that doesn't celebrate Christmas. I'm sure the Druids would be happy to hear from you. Then there's the ever-popular Federal Witness Protection Program, where they change your identity and sock you away some place that no one could ever find you. I hear The Maldives are lovely this time of year. When all else fails, your only other option is to track down your favorite neighborhood super hero, and have him (or her, as the case may be) use their super-powers to spin the Earth in the opposite direction, to go backwards in time to a point at which you would have enough time to get ready for the holidays, let's say somewhere around July perhaps. I know that would work for me. I hope these suggestions have given you some ideas, so that you can face the holidays with cheerfulness and serenity. No, please don't thank me, the joys of the season are all the thanks I need.
We actually had even more snow this week, no thanks to the pastor of my church. I have to say that those Druids are looking pretty good to me right about now. In all the excitement, somehow Chanukah slipped right past us, coming in early this year at the beginning of December, a couple of days after the first Sunday in Advent. I'd like to send a note to whoever is in charge of these movable feasts, that if they're going to move, so we can't keep track of them, the least they could do is move them later than we expect them, rather than sooner than we expect them, so they wouldn't sneak up on us unawares. Even something as long and drawn-out as Chanukah can be half over before the rest of us even realize it's started, and that includes those of us with a crack research team at their disposal to keep on top of these things. That reminds me of a song that I was listening to recently that said, "You're just killing time, and it will kill you right back." Don't I know it.
Speaking of time, and where does it go indeed, I just found out, thanks to some alert readers, that there's more to December than meets the eye, and here I thought I had met plenty of eyes in my day. It started with this note from someone who ought to know:
================
December 7th is also the day Delaware became the first state by ratifying the Constitution in 1787.
================
Well, that certainly has enough historical significance to make any list of December dates, and I'm happy to set the record straight. (Thanks, Deb!) This next entry has its own historical significance, but in a completely different sort of way:
===========================
You can now add an additional event to Dec. 7th. The 6th annual "It's a Wonderful Life Weekend at Seneca Falls" ( http://www.therealbedfordfalls.com/ ) took place there this past weekend, and we were pleased as punch to be part of it! .. A Wonderful time was had by all, as the entire town joins in the festivities. complete with a parade, tree lighting, caroling, Christmas train ride, dinner & dancing in the gym - by the light of the silvery moon. The highlight was the attendance by ZuZu (Karolyn Grimes) at all the events, with autographs, pictures & small talk. She was really nice & very accessible.
===========================
Personally, I don't know how much more excitement one day can stand, before we'd have to call in the burly guys with their "day stretcher" to make it all fit. We can only imagine what that would do to poor Comrade Sergei and his infernal date machine, trying to keep everything straight, with this one day bent all out of shape. On the other hand, it might have been in that same song I was listening to that it said, "You've got nothing to prove and even less to lose." Or perhaps I'm thinking of, "It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry," which I'm pretty sure was Frank Capra's first choice for the title of what has become a holiday classic, and that's not just a lot of Wabash Cannonball. And then of course, there was Vivian Stanshall who asked the musical question, "Can blue men sing the whites?"
Alert readers may remember when I mentioned a TV show that we enjoyed on one of our cable stations:
========================
Bill and I like to watch a program on The History Channel called "Modern Marvels," and it usually spotlights some interesting mechanical wonder, like massive tunnel diggers, nuclear submarines or spy satellites. Often, even when it's an object that we wouldn't find interesting in and of itself, the show is so well done that we enjoy seeing it in spite of the subject. Thanks to the program grid in the TV listings of our local newspaper, there isn't enough room to identify more than the title of the show and perhaps one other word. This occasionally has the effect of creating some inadvertent comedy when, instead of listing a program about ice breakers or snow plows, it simply reads, "Modern Marvels: Ice" or "Modern Marvels: Snow" and leaving people to shake their heads and wonder. I said to Bill that there's very little that's less modern than ice and snow, and while they may well be marvels, they are practically the definition of ancient. Yesterday, the listings outdid themselves with this classic of the genre, which promised "Modern Marvels: Water." Well, apart from dirt, I don't think you can get any more elemental than water, and if that's the newspaper's idea of a modern marvel, then I can tell you that the dinosaurs and I would be very surprised indeed.
========================
And they finally got to that point last week, when the TV listings for Friday has this attention-grabbing item -- [[ Modern Marvels: Rocks. ]] Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I will say that the dinosaurs and I had a good laugh over that one. Rocks, indeed.
Meanwhile, what may be happening in the wonderful wide world of food service you may be wondering, and well may you wonder. Last month, our local newspaper provided an advertising supplement called "Experience Arthur Avenue," with elaborate descriptions of all there was to see and do (and eat!) in the Little Italy section of the Bronx. This included a full-page ad from Biancardi's, who have been "Serving the Arthur Avenue Community for 3 generations," and they assure me that they are "specializing in all types of quality meats." I hate to be the one to break it to our friends at Biancardi's, but you can't "specialize" in "all types" of anything, because that's the exact opposite of specializing. You can do whatever you like with all types of quality meats, but you can't say that you're specializing, unless you single one of them out and specialize in it, which is why they came up with that word in the first place. I would call them and complain, but I have the feeling the next ad from them would say, "We Specialize in Everything."
While we're on the subject of specialization, I happened to find myself drawn inexorably to the web site of our friends at Koenig Tower Cranes, and please feel free to check it out at http://www.koenigcranes.com/ and see for yourself. The marketing people at Koenig believe that they can convince me that their products are just what I've been looking for, by describing them as "self-erecting cranes." Gee, I certainly hope not! That actually gives me a very uneasy sense of diabolical machinery run amok, like HAL in "2001," and you would think that people would have learned something from that, for heaven's sake. I can just imagine these dastardly rogue cranes starting themselves up in the middle of the night, and then go out self-erecting themselves wherever they feel like it, probably peeking in house windows and toying with low-flying planes out in the hustings. I don't need a film critic to know that no good can come of this, and why the Koenig people consider a "self-erecting crane" to be a selling point, is a mystery to me. By golly, if I'm going to have a crane, you can be sure that I want one that will do nothing on its own, and that goes double for erecting itself. I already have enough trouble with my computer doing things by itself, much less, heavy equipment, and don't even get me started on the cats. In fact, it was just last week when I went to use the scanner, which is located handily on the computer cart below the keyboard, so that it's near at hand whenever it's needed. That is, unless you have nefarious cats like we do, in which case, when you go to use the scanner, it's been knocked down sideways onto the floor and come unplugged, so when you open the program and try to use it, it gives you a dialogue box that says, "Scanner? What scanner?" And thanks so very much not! After that, you have to crawl on the floor behind the computer cart to find all of the cords that have come detached, and figure out what goes where, and set it all back up again right from the beginning. I honestly don't know what people without cats do for entertainment, but I have the feeling that they have a lot more time on their hands than the feline-challenged among us. Say, where are those burly guys with their day stretcher anyway?
Not to be an alarmist or anything, but I feel it's only fair to point out that this Sunday, we'll be lighting the third candle on our Advent wreaths, and anybody could see where this was leading, and I don't know about you, but I can't say that I care for the looks of it all that much. Of course, everyone knows how I aim to be helpful, so for those of you like myself, who are woefully unprepared for the upcoming festivities on the 25th, I'd like to pass along some last-minute suggestions. Obviously, the first would be to hurry up and change your religion, and pick something else that doesn't celebrate Christmas. I'm sure the Druids would be happy to hear from you. Then there's the ever-popular Federal Witness Protection Program, where they change your identity and sock you away some place that no one could ever find you. I hear The Maldives are lovely this time of year. When all else fails, your only other option is to track down your favorite neighborhood super hero, and have him (or her, as the case may be) use their super-powers to spin the Earth in the opposite direction, to go backwards in time to a point at which you would have enough time to get ready for the holidays, let's say somewhere around July perhaps. I know that would work for me. I hope these suggestions have given you some ideas, so that you can face the holidays with cheerfulness and serenity. No, please don't thank me, the joys of the season are all the thanks I need.
We actually had even more snow this week, no thanks to the pastor of my church. I have to say that those Druids are looking pretty good to me right about now. In all the excitement, somehow Chanukah slipped right past us, coming in early this year at the beginning of December, a couple of days after the first Sunday in Advent. I'd like to send a note to whoever is in charge of these movable feasts, that if they're going to move, so we can't keep track of them, the least they could do is move them later than we expect them, rather than sooner than we expect them, so they wouldn't sneak up on us unawares. Even something as long and drawn-out as Chanukah can be half over before the rest of us even realize it's started, and that includes those of us with a crack research team at their disposal to keep on top of these things. That reminds me of a song that I was listening to recently that said, "You're just killing time, and it will kill you right back." Don't I know it.
Speaking of time, and where does it go indeed, I just found out, thanks to some alert readers, that there's more to December than meets the eye, and here I thought I had met plenty of eyes in my day. It started with this note from someone who ought to know:
================
December 7th is also the day Delaware became the first state by ratifying the Constitution in 1787.
================
Well, that certainly has enough historical significance to make any list of December dates, and I'm happy to set the record straight. (Thanks, Deb!) This next entry has its own historical significance, but in a completely different sort of way:
===========================
You can now add an additional event to Dec. 7th. The 6th annual "It's a Wonderful Life Weekend at Seneca Falls" ( http://www.therealbedfordfalls.com/ ) took place there this past weekend, and we were pleased as punch to be part of it! .. A Wonderful time was had by all, as the entire town joins in the festivities. complete with a parade, tree lighting, caroling, Christmas train ride, dinner & dancing in the gym - by the light of the silvery moon. The highlight was the attendance by ZuZu (Karolyn Grimes) at all the events, with autographs, pictures & small talk. She was really nice & very accessible.
===========================
Personally, I don't know how much more excitement one day can stand, before we'd have to call in the burly guys with their "day stretcher" to make it all fit. We can only imagine what that would do to poor Comrade Sergei and his infernal date machine, trying to keep everything straight, with this one day bent all out of shape. On the other hand, it might have been in that same song I was listening to that it said, "You've got nothing to prove and even less to lose." Or perhaps I'm thinking of, "It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry," which I'm pretty sure was Frank Capra's first choice for the title of what has become a holiday classic, and that's not just a lot of Wabash Cannonball. And then of course, there was Vivian Stanshall who asked the musical question, "Can blue men sing the whites?"
Alert readers may remember when I mentioned a TV show that we enjoyed on one of our cable stations:
========================
Bill and I like to watch a program on The History Channel called "Modern Marvels," and it usually spotlights some interesting mechanical wonder, like massive tunnel diggers, nuclear submarines or spy satellites. Often, even when it's an object that we wouldn't find interesting in and of itself, the show is so well done that we enjoy seeing it in spite of the subject. Thanks to the program grid in the TV listings of our local newspaper, there isn't enough room to identify more than the title of the show and perhaps one other word. This occasionally has the effect of creating some inadvertent comedy when, instead of listing a program about ice breakers or snow plows, it simply reads, "Modern Marvels: Ice" or "Modern Marvels: Snow" and leaving people to shake their heads and wonder. I said to Bill that there's very little that's less modern than ice and snow, and while they may well be marvels, they are practically the definition of ancient. Yesterday, the listings outdid themselves with this classic of the genre, which promised "Modern Marvels: Water." Well, apart from dirt, I don't think you can get any more elemental than water, and if that's the newspaper's idea of a modern marvel, then I can tell you that the dinosaurs and I would be very surprised indeed.
========================
And they finally got to that point last week, when the TV listings for Friday has this attention-grabbing item -- [[ Modern Marvels: Rocks. ]] Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I will say that the dinosaurs and I had a good laugh over that one. Rocks, indeed.
Meanwhile, what may be happening in the wonderful wide world of food service you may be wondering, and well may you wonder. Last month, our local newspaper provided an advertising supplement called "Experience Arthur Avenue," with elaborate descriptions of all there was to see and do (and eat!) in the Little Italy section of the Bronx. This included a full-page ad from Biancardi's, who have been "Serving the Arthur Avenue Community for 3 generations," and they assure me that they are "specializing in all types of quality meats." I hate to be the one to break it to our friends at Biancardi's, but you can't "specialize" in "all types" of anything, because that's the exact opposite of specializing. You can do whatever you like with all types of quality meats, but you can't say that you're specializing, unless you single one of them out and specialize in it, which is why they came up with that word in the first place. I would call them and complain, but I have the feeling the next ad from them would say, "We Specialize in Everything."
While we're on the subject of specialization, I happened to find myself drawn inexorably to the web site of our friends at Koenig Tower Cranes, and please feel free to check it out at http://www.koenigcranes.com/ and see for yourself. The marketing people at Koenig believe that they can convince me that their products are just what I've been looking for, by describing them as "self-erecting cranes." Gee, I certainly hope not! That actually gives me a very uneasy sense of diabolical machinery run amok, like HAL in "2001," and you would think that people would have learned something from that, for heaven's sake. I can just imagine these dastardly rogue cranes starting themselves up in the middle of the night, and then go out self-erecting themselves wherever they feel like it, probably peeking in house windows and toying with low-flying planes out in the hustings. I don't need a film critic to know that no good can come of this, and why the Koenig people consider a "self-erecting crane" to be a selling point, is a mystery to me. By golly, if I'm going to have a crane, you can be sure that I want one that will do nothing on its own, and that goes double for erecting itself. I already have enough trouble with my computer doing things by itself, much less, heavy equipment, and don't even get me started on the cats. In fact, it was just last week when I went to use the scanner, which is located handily on the computer cart below the keyboard, so that it's near at hand whenever it's needed. That is, unless you have nefarious cats like we do, in which case, when you go to use the scanner, it's been knocked down sideways onto the floor and come unplugged, so when you open the program and try to use it, it gives you a dialogue box that says, "Scanner? What scanner?" And thanks so very much not! After that, you have to crawl on the floor behind the computer cart to find all of the cords that have come detached, and figure out what goes where, and set it all back up again right from the beginning. I honestly don't know what people without cats do for entertainment, but I have the feeling that they have a lot more time on their hands than the feline-challenged among us. Say, where are those burly guys with their day stretcher anyway?
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:29 PM
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