Snowfall In LaPlata

A lot of the United States got hit by some brutally cold weather over the past weekend.

 

Here at the Fortress of Ineptitude in the center of North Carolina, we contented ourselves with a dusting of snow that looked pretty for a few hours then went away.   

 

Andrea and I were at lunch at Elizabeth’s Pizza on Sunday when the snow began to arrive, swirling white flakes against the grey afternoon sky.

 

“Oh look! It’s snowing” was the refrain repeated throughout the restaurant as everyone happily and excitedly greeted the arrival of snow. 

 

Me, I was grousing about the bill.  Elizabeth’s charges too much for their salads.  The pizza Andrea and I got cost less than two salads which does not seem right to me!

 

Oh, I forgot.  “Oh look! It’s snowing!” 

 

The previous evening, Andrea and I became obsessed with the progression of snowfall in LaPlata, MO.  

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my time is oft times consumed by watching train stations including the one in LaPlata, MO.  

Saturday night we watched the video feed from LaPlata as snow swirled across the prairie night sky and snow began to accumulate on the ground along the tracks.

A freight train came out of the darkness, it's front light glowing like a star as it surged out of the mist and snow not unlike the Polar Express.  Andrea and I greeted this with a great deal of excitement. 

By the next morning, the view at the rail station in LaPlata looked like this. 

The number of people watching this feed from LaPlata exceeded 1,100 people.  

So Andrea and I were not the only people in this world without lives.  

From what I understand, this winter weather is not done with us yet. So if you're getting slammed with snow and ice, remember to stay safe, stay warm and do not overpay for salads. 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: What We Do In the Shadows

When it comes to the end of a TV series that I like, I am apt to feel sad about it. 

But with the series finale of What We Do In the Shadows, while I am sorry to bid farewell to the gang at the Staten Island vampire residence, I think it is time to go.

A sentiment shared by Taika Waititi who co-wrote the film on which the series was based.

It is also one agreed upon by the documentary crew who have been recording the lives of the gang at the Staten Island vampire residence.   

Guillermo de la Cruz is kind of bummed out by the documentary crew leaving but Nadja doesn't quote see what the fuss is about.  "We'll keep doing what we also been doing.  These guys just won't be here to film it!"  

Laszlo Cravensworth and Colin Robinson are focused on their latest project involving Cravensworth's Monster, a creature assembled from dead human parts and reanimated back to life which is a totally original idea Lazlo had with no connection whatsoever to Frankenstein which Lazlo has never heard of. 

The monster is super horny so Lazlo and Colin have set out to build him a Bride but they need a head and they think the Guide's head might be a good selection but Nandor has been crushing on the Guide lately and he might object. (Not to mention the Guide who keeps getting overlooked anyway.) 

This shit is why the show needed to end. 

When recording the B-roll confession sequence about what they are up to, Colin and Lazlo seem bored (the Monster is just out of the shot wanking off) and the crew seem bored. 

It's the same with Nandor's new obsession to team up with Guillermo to fight crime by night which is a totally original thing Nandor came up with and has nothing to do with Batman & Robin which Nandor has never heard of. 

Nandor really wants to build an underground crime fighting lair accessible from his coffin. 

Guillermo thinks the idea is stupid and Nandor will lose interest eventually like he always does with these things.   

OK, so the vampires are formulaic and repetitive and doing stupid shit over and over again but Guillermo is still stressed out by the documentary crew leaving. 

Again, Nadja points out having a documentary crew is not a big deal and they've been filmed before. She produces a film reel from 1958 that features Nandor, Lazlo, Nadja, Colin (and Jerry the Vampire) doing the same shit they do now.  

If the documentary crew does have to leave, Guillermo thinks the vampire residents owe the documentary a good ending.

Nadja looks direct into the camera and directs the viewer they will now experience the best possible ending they can imagine.

SIDE NOTE: The Best Possible Ending!

When Nadja hypnotizes the viewer into imagining their own "perfect ending", three different versions are seen. Each ending serves as a spoof of Newhart, The Usual Suspects, and Rosemary's Baby. 

The episode was broadcast three times in a row, with each broadcast showing a different "perfect ending". The original broadcast version is the version seen in streaming, while the other two are seen in the extra tabs in Hulu.

After Nadja's hypnosis whammy (caution: you might be dumber by 10 IQ points), Guillermo delivers an impassioned speech about everything he learned during his time the vampires but but nobody's paying attention because the god damn Monster is fucking the taxidermied bear.

Man, he really is going to town on that bear. Hey, did Guillermo say something?

I know there was some hope in the LGBTQ+ community of Guillermo and Nandor getting together and sorry, no that doesn't happen but Nandor's relationship with Guillermo has evolved from pet/servant to more of a companion/friend. Nandor invites Guillermo to sit with him in his coffin when the vampire reveals...

He has built an underground crime fighting lair accessible from his coffin! 

Sweet! 

Look, if you want Nandor and Guillermo in bed together, check out the alternate Newhart ending. Nandor and Guillermo are in bed together and Guillermo kisses Nandor goodnight.  

William Hughes of The A.V. Club wrote about the series finale and I think he sums up things perfectly.

"You want to see story arcs get finished? Go watch “The Promotion” again. 

You need a big action climax? “Come Out And Play” is still sitting right there on Hulu. 

You need these characters to take a moment and acknowledge how, deep down, they really do love each other? Fuck you: This has never been that show, and it's sure as fuck not going to start being that show with just 32 minutes left on the clock. 

“The Finale” is funny, smart, relentless, inventive, and energetic — all those things that have made What We Do In The Shadows such a joy to watch for six years of TV — and if you need it to suddenly be something else, too, what show have we even been watching together?"

What We Do In The Shadows may have stumbled a bit in it's final season but I think the series finale stuck the landing as well as it could.  

As Mark Proksch (Colin Robinson) put it, "A hundred years from now, these idiots will still be in their house going through the exact same motions that they've been going through for 200 or 300 years. And I find that refreshing in some way."

I think I agree with Mark's assessment.  

Next week, the Tuesday TV Touchbase will reflect on the end of Star Trek Lower Decks.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.      

The Cybertruck Conundrum

So last week while we were grappling with the horror of the attack on New Year's revelers in New Orleans, we had to process this event: someone blew up a Tesla Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas. 

The molten metal heap of the exploded Cybertruck was still smoldering when Elon Musk issued a statement that the Cybertruck exploding had nothing to do with the Cybertruck. 

Well, thanks for putting us at ease about that, Elon!  

The initial speculation was someone had a mad on at Elon Musk and/or Donald Trump.  

Turns out, the answer to that speculation was "no".

The perpetrator of the explosion in Las Vegas was Matthew Livelsberger, a decorated army veteran with an exemplary record of service who was an avid Donald Trump supporter. 

Livelsberger left a message that the intent of the explosion was a "wake up" call that the country was in trouble.  

Here is some text from his note: 

“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives."  

Livelsberger added that the United States is “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”

Sounds like Livelsberger had swallowed whole the message of Donald Trump's fear mongering rhetoric.

So parking a vehicle manufactured by Trump's biggest financial backer in front of a hotel bearing the name of your beloved President elect and exploding that vehicle was a message of support for Trump's fear mongering? 

I think it's a wake up call that some Americans don't understand "symbolism" which is a poor reflection on our education system.   

I wanted to mock Livelsberger for his stupidity but I felt bad about that because apparently, the dude had been through some shit.

He confided in a nurse and friend about his constant exhaustion and pain, not being able to sleep and reliving the violence of his deployment. He had a  tattoo of two skulls pierced by bullets to mark lives he took in Afghanistan. 

He was not coping well with his time in the service and because he was not just a man but a man in the military and to complain about shit like pain and depression, well, real men don't do that. do they? 

I feel bad that Matthew Livelsberger felt so awful that he thought death was his only escape from his suffering. And I feel bad that if he felt he had to die, he wasted his one shot at death to send a poorly conceived message.  

Doctor Who Is NEW! (..ish): The Proms

Welcome to another post of Doctor Who Is NEW! 

Well, wait a minute, Dave-El! There has not been a new episode since last week's Christmas special.  

OK, you got me.  I'm playing fast and loose with the concept of "new".  

OK, this isn't quite new actually.  It's the complete 2024 Proms for Doctor Who that was performed on August 26, 2024. 

I've seen bits and pieces of this concert over the last few months but a few days ago, someone actually posted the whole damn thing on You Tube.   

So getting to see the Proms as one complete program was a new to me.

It's my blog and I can bend the rules if I want.  

Here is a link to the 2024 Doctor Who proms for as long as this groovy thing might last.  

Always fun to see Catherine Tate still doing Doctor Who stuff.

The program kicks off with  The 15th Doctor's Theme which is still has a recurring spot on my music play list.   

It was cool to see Jinx Monson back at Maestro being a total ham. And we get a live performance of I've Got a Dog? Heck yeah!  

When the 11th Doctor's theme I Am The Doctor kicks off, the audience at the Royal Albert Hall goes completely bonkers.  It's a amazing how strong a hold Matt Smith still has on the fandom.   

The somewhat muted response to the Thirteenth Doctor's Suite was disappointing but sadly not unexpected.  

Anita Dobson shows up at Mrs. Flood.

We're still no closer to knowing what the hell is her deal already.  

Her cheeky reference to her last concert was seeing Queen in 1986 was funny given that Queen's guitarist Brian May is Anita's husband.   

We reach the end with a kick ass performance of the 2024 Doctor Who theme 2024.

Well, not quite the end. Remember, there's always a twist at the end.  

It was cool seeing a Doctor Who proms in it's entirety where I can almost imagine what it would be like to be in the Royal Albert Hall in person surrounded by hundreds of Whovians and a plethora of Doctor Who aliens. 

Something a bit more new, below is a teaser for the next season of Doctor Who.    

Looks like we got a visit to Skaro on the iternerary for the next season so we're getting the return of the Daleks. 

Those evil pepperpots can be overused but I did miss 'em last season.  

Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: The Palm Beach Story

 

The first Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post of the New Year is about a movie that had a wide release on New Year's Day in 1943.  It's a fast paced mad cap screwball comedy written and directed by a master of the form, Preston Sturges. 

 

Starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée, here is The Palm Beach Story.

Fate has not been kind to inventor Tom Jeffers and his wife Gerry after five years of marriage.  Tom's got all sort of ideas for inventions but none are bringing IN any money and the couple are on the verge of being kicked OUT of their apartment. 

Until Gerry meets the Wienie King.

She meets the who now?

The Wienie King!

The Wienie King?

Yes, the Wienie King. He's a very strange old man who has made a crap ton of money from... wienies.

Anyway, the... Wienie King is sympathetic to Gerry's plight. She is quite charming and (since she's played by Claudette Colbert) very beautiful so the... Wienie King just gives her a wad of cash which is more than enough to pay up the back rent and other bills with enough left over for a new dress and a night out for a nice (no wienies) dinner.  

And Gerry announces to Tom her plan: she loves him so much,she is going to divorce him. 

Wait! Who is going to do what to who for why? 

Gerry is going to Palm Beach, Florida, get a divorce, meet and marry a wealthy man who can provide the money to help  Tom get his inventions off the ground. 

Tom is against this plan so therefore, Gerry is going anyway.   

On the train ride to Palm Beach, things look like they may be falling place for Gerry's plan when she meets John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallée), an eccentric but amiable  (and rich as hell!) fellow who falls hard for Gerry.  

Back in New York, Tom has his own encounter with the... Wienie King who is moved by Tom's tale of woe and just hands him a wad of cash, admonishing Tom to get on a plane to Palm Beach and go win back Gerry. 

(The Wienie King may look and sound weird but that's the kind of rich I wanna be, just going around solving the problems of random people with wads of cash!)  

Tom reaches Gerry but she's determined to stick to the plan and introduces Tom to John D. Hankensacker III as her brother, Captain McGlue. 

Captain... McGlue? Look, Gerry was under a lot of pressure to come up with something but...  McGlue?

Because this is a Preston Sturges comedy, things need to get more complicated so enter Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor),  John D. Hackensacker III's oft-married, man-hungry sister who (you guessed it!) falls hard for Tom.  

Yikes! 

Then things get weird.

It's not much of a spoiler to say that Tom and Gerry work things out and get back together. That's how this sort of movie is supposed to go.  

But where does that leave poor love struck Princess Centimillia and John D. Hackensacker III?

Now THIS is a spoiler so move past the blue line and on to the red line to avoid it.

___________________

...

...

...

Gerry has an identical twin sister.  Who is single.

Tom has an identical twin brother. Who is single.

What the hell? Really?!?!?

In a real twist, Princess Centimillia marries Gerry's sister and John D. Hackensacker III gets hitched with Tom's brother!

Of course not! It's 1943 and gay people have not been invented yet.  

John D. Hackensacker III marries Gerry's sister and Tom serves as best man.

Princess Centimillia marries Tom's brother with Gerry as matron of honor.

And everyone will work all this out in therapy.  

I wish I could say the affair was catered by the Wienie King but alas, no.   

____________________

So that was a thing that happened.

The original title Preston Sturges came up with was Is Marriage Necessary?

The Hays Office censors had a problem with that. Yes, marriage is very much necessary if you want to engage in legally sanctioned hetero-normative sexual intercourse.

The Hays Office has a problem with Sturges poking fun at John D. Rockefeller in the form of John D. Hackensacker III.  Me, I liked John D. Hackensacker III and did not perceive him as a vehicle of ridicule.  

Preston Sturges originally wrote that Princess Centimillia was  divorced eight times. He negotiated with the Hays Office to bring the number of divorces down to three plus two annulments.  

The Hays Office apparently had no problem with the... Wienie King.  

All in all, The Palm Beach Story is a wackadoodle screwball comedy that perhaps labors a bit under the weight of a slightly too convoluted premise and perhaps making our star (Claudette Colbert as Gerry) less than a likeable character. She's pulling a con on someone and yes, let's screw the rich but damn, John D. Hackensacker III is actually a nice guy and doesn't not deserve to be the object of such games. 

_________________________________

Tomorrow is a Doctor Who themed post and I'll be back next week with another film for another edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post.  

Your Friday Video Link: Something Funny About Jimmy Carter

While the world is in mourning for the recent death of President Jimmy Carter, Your Friday Video Link will off a look at a cordial and relaxed Jimmy Carter interacting with David Leterman and getting some laughs in the process.

And a more recent clip from 2018 where David Letterman (complete with hermit beard) has some nice things to say about Jimmy Carter. 

Jimmy Carter had a sense of humor about himself and by accounts I've read thought Dan Akroyd's take on President Carter on Saturday Night Live was funny.

Here is one my favorite sketches from that era where President Carter has a wide range of knowledge including how to talk someone down from a bad trip.

Storm Warning

 It was 7:00 PM on Tuesday. Andrea and I were going out to dinner to for New Year's Eve.  We had a 7:30 reservation. 

(Ooh! Fancy! We're going somewhere that takes reservations. Yeah, it's not that big of a deal. More on that later.)

Andrea was in the car as I was about to get in with I noticed a flicker of blue light on the house across the street.  A flicker of light that almost looked like...

But it couldn't be. It's friggin' December 31st.  

I got in the car and said, "Did you see that? That almost looked like lightning!"

Andrea replied, "Yeah because it was lightning." 

Oh get out! It can't be! It's friggin' December 31st!

Then the light flicked again.

I exclaimed "Holy shit! That's lightning!"

Nothing gets past me, folks!

NOTE: While there was lightning in Greensboro, alas there was no Batman.

That I know about.   

On our drive to the restaurant, the flashes of lightning turned into crackling bolts that shattered the sky and released torrents of rain.  

Nothing I haven't dealt with before. 

During the summer.

Not in winter! 

I wondered aloud, "I hope this not some kind of portent for the new year!" 

We arrived at our destination and under a slight ebb in the rain, we made our way inside to Mimi's Cafe just ahead of our 7:30 PM reservation.

Which we did not need. The place was half empty.  

Here's the thing with Mimi's Cafe. Any time I have gone there on a whim, there is inevitably a wait of up to an hour.  When I make plans in advance and set up a reservation, the place is half empty. 

The small ebb in the storm ended and as we sat safely ensconced at our table, the rain resumed pounding the windows as bright bolts of lightning shattered the darkness.  

Again, normal enough for a summer thunder storm.

Except it ain't summer.  

Andrea opted for her usual house salad with thousand island dressing but I chose the tomato basil soup which is really good at Mimi's but leads to my usual consternation on how to pronounce "basil" with a short or long "A". 

The name "Basil" is pronounced with a short "A".

The herb "basil" has a long "A" as in "bay-sil".    

For the entree, Andrea got the Parmesan crusted chicken and I had French Pot Roast which is like regular pot roast... but French. (There's wine in the gravy. Ooh la la!)  

For dessert, we got Mimi's fabulous bread pudding which is drenched in buttery wine soaked goodness. We got it to go as we needed to get back home for the New Year's celebrations in New York City.

The summer thunderstorm in winter over Greensboro had moved on when we left Mimi's but when we got home, it was clear the celebrants in Time Square were getting soaked by the rains over NYC.

We divided our time between Ryan Seacrest on ABC, my wife's second boyfriend (She's cheating on her first boyfriend Colin Jost) and the two Andy's on CNN (Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper) who were gay as fuck and made things gayer by inviting a CNN reporter up on stage and his husband and I was happy in the knowledge that Trump's America was losing it's collective shit if they were watching CNN.  

As we bopped between ABC and CNN with their respective line ups of musical guests and other celebrities, I spent a lot of time grousing, "I don't know who you are!" 

The two Andy's spent a lot of time talking to someone named "Diplo" who was late for his segment with the two Andy's due to a delay involving his helicopter. I have NO fucking idea who this Diplo guy is or what he does but he apparently does whatever he does well enough to rent (or who knows, maybe BUY?) a helicopter.  

Diplo did flummox Anderson Cooper by admitting he was high on acid at that moment. 

The rain over Time's Square relented by the time of the ball drop.   

Everything went well enough in Time's Square with all the various festivities.

Meanwhile (and why we can't have a nice evening for just one goddam fucking minute), shit was going down in New Orleans.  

The FBI identified 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas, as the person who drove a truck into a crowd of people, killing 15 and injuring dozens more.  The attacker had a handgun and AR-style rifle but was shot by police before he could use them on the crowd.  

The next day social media was rife with right wing nut cases looking to assign blame (Democrats and their love of open borders was one immediate target) and plunging into conspiracy theories and shit.

So 2025 is off and running. 

Maybe that storm was a warning...