Tuesday TV Touchbase: Lucy Worsley

Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase is not about a specific TV show but about a specific person on, a woman who has captured my attention and perhaps even my heart.

The Tuesday TV Touchbase turns it's focus on Lucy Worsley.  

Doctor Lucy Worsley, that is, OBE*. 

Dr, Worsley is a British historian, author and curator.   And she has become famous for going on BBC Television to talk about all that stuff.  

*OBE = Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire 

Dr. Worsley has hosted several TV shows that feature the secrets, mysteries and scandals around the British monarchy and government.  She presents stories told with a sense of humor when absurdities abound and with a genuine heartfelt compassion when those stories take a turn for the tragic. 

Worsley can barely suppress her outrage over the abuse and torture women were subjected to during time of Great Britain's Witch Hunts, all for the sole purpose of burnishing King James' grasp on political power at the expense of women who dared to be intelligent and independent.   

Worsley's examination of the Madness of King George not only explores the struggle the King had with his mental health but the harsh and barbaric treatments that were practiced on people afflicted with "madness". She also lays bare the class divisions in British society, the difference in treatment of King George for his madness and the impoverished woman who tried to assassinate him and was consigned to Bedlam for the rest of her life.  King George got better; she spent her days in solitude in a stone cell with a straw stuff cot to sleep on. 

Lucy is not afraid to expose the truth behind legends. Queen Elizabeth's great victory over the Spanish Armanda owed much to the Spanish crew being devastated by the flu and glaring incompetence on how to pilot their ships.   

Dr. Lucy Worsley loves to expose hypocrisy and unfounded arrogance with a sly smile and a twinkle in her eye and man, I think I'm in love with her.  

Dr. Lucy Worsley is also known for her fashion flair, scanning ancient books and tapestries while wearing distinctive outfits. She thinks her legs are her best feature and scenes of her entering castles, cathedrals and museums usually start with a shot of her calves and whatever fashion forward footwear she has on display. 

OK, physical attributes aside, I love catching Dr. Lucy Worsley in her various specials and documentaries as she brings history alive with wry humor and compassion. Her stories may be of people and events from centuries long gone but she conveys them with a sense of immediacy that makes them feel relevant.

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week,  it's the season finale Celebrity Jeopardy and The Sandman.  

And just a heads up: Andrea and I have started finally watching Wednesday. By the time this posts, we'll be 4 episodes in. More on that later.   

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.  

An “Unrecognizable” State

Recently my wife Andrea shared we some random news item she saw about an asteroid that came really close to Earth but just missed us, narrowly avoiding obliterating us into oblivion. 

Andrea greeted this as good news. 

Me, I'm not so sure.

If it's not one damn thing, then it's another. 

There's still so much gun violence going on including four mass shootings in California this month alone.  

There was the story of the child who brought a gun to his elementary school and shot his teacher. A child! 

And we don't need guns for violence. Did you hear about the young Asian student stabbed in the head by an old white woman who thought she was doing the country a favor by removing one more Chinese communist spy? 

And then there's this.  

In Memphis on January 7th, Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was pulled over earlier this month and arrested for alleged reckless driving. The punishment for this most heinous offense was for police officers to beat the unholy crap out of this unarmed person as revealed in recently released body cam footage.  

His severe injuries from the assault put Tyre Nichols in a hospital where after three days, he died due to cardiac arrest and kidney failure.  

The brutality of the beating left Nichols in what was described as an “unrecognizable” state.

What is sadly NOT unrecognizable is where we are right now. 

Another unarmed black man beatened and murdered by the police? Yeah, we've been here before. We recognize this place. 

This repeated cycle of brutal violence by the police against citizens is disheartening. 

Couple that with the overall level of violence and hate and fear we live with every damn day, well....

It's enough to make me think that damn asteroid did us no favors by missing us.  

Cinema Sunday: A Frankenstein Double Feature

 

As part of Cinema Sunday's January trek through classic sci-fi, today's post takes a look at not one but two classic from the 1930's, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.  

Now you might be thinking, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Hold up there blog boy! Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein are horror movies, not science fiction films."  

Well, aesthetically and thematically, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein do look and feel like horror movies. A mad scientist engaged in a danse macabre of grave robbing to fuel the fires of his unwavering quest to challenge God himself to create life where there was only death, the corpse construction who comes to horrible life to spread fear and bring doom to all caught in the grip of his cold deadly hands.  

Yeah, looks and feels like a horror movie. 

But consider that this horror is not unleashed by the supernatural or dark magic but by advanced science run amuck, it might be argued that Mary Shelly's novel is a work of rudimentary science fiction.  

Anyway, I happen to catch this pair of films on TCM a month or so back and wanted to write about them here.   

Frankenstein begins with a LOT of exposition. Henry Frankenstein is up to sketchy shit and we know this because we're told so by Henry's fiancée Elizabeth, his friend Victor and Henry's former teacher Dr. Waldman. Henry's all holed up in a  Bavarian castle doing something.... Strange? Weird? Peculiar? Well, they talk and talk and talk about this until finally Elizabeth's all "fuck this" and sets out on road trip with Victor and Dr. Waldman in tow.

Henry Frankenstein is NOT happy to see them! He has so much shit to do! There's a stitched together corpse body he needs to shoot electricity into and bring it to life! Yes, LIFE!!!!!!

All he has to do is bolt the brain his henchman Fritz brought him into the creature's skull. 

Uh.... yeah, about that. Seems Fritz dropped the good brain he was supposed to get and had to settle for a (let me check my notes here) damaged brain. 

Anyway, Henry Frankenstein snatches the very lightning from the storm tossed skies and I'll be damned if the creature doesn't come to life!!! 

Henry Frankenstein: "Suckers!!!!"

Frankenstein's Monster is rather childlike in it's demeanor. 

Then Fritz shows up with a flaming torch which upsets the creature. Henry and Dr. Waldman interpret the creature's enraged and fearful response as an attack so they chain him up in the dungeon. Where Fritz keep bullying and tormenting the creature with his torch. Until the monster has had enough, breaks his chains and kills the fucker. 

Oh no! Henry Frankenstein realizes he's made a grievous error in bringing this monstrosity to life. OK, yeah maybe he should've given the whole "let's shoot electricity through corpse parts and see what happens" a think or two before doing it but c'mon! The real mistake was leaving the creature chained in a dungeon with a torch wielding psychopathic bully.  

Henry Frankenstein's new goal in life is just get married to Elizabeth and impregnate her with many, many babies. So he goes off to do that, leaving it to Dr. Waldman to get control of the creature and find it's off switch.

That's a "no go" as Frankenstein's Monster kills Dr. Waldman.

The creature also accidentally kills a little girl he was playing with. OK, the monster really did not want to hurt the girl and seems really distressed about what happens. It doesn't change that this is a particularly hard scene to watch. 

And the good folks in the village are in a hissy of a snit of an outrage over this rampaging monster of death and set out with torches and pitchforks to vowing that "we're not coming home, 'till he's dead, good and dead. Kill the beast!"  

Whoops! That's from Beauty and the Beast. 

And the villagers fan out over the darkened countryside, their torches flickering with a vengeful light as they chant, "Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!" 

Sorry. That's from "What's Opera, Doc?"  

The villagers pursue the monster to a windmill where Henry Frankenstein confronts his creation who in a moment of dawning awareness forgives his creator and gives him a big ol' hug. 

Oh hell no. The creature hurls his creator out the top of the windmill.  But the villagers put their torches to use and set fire to the windmill which shudders and crashes down on the monster on a paroxysm of hellfire and holocaust killing the creature dead, dead, deader than dead, most definitively dead.

Movie studio exec: "Hey, make us another one of them there Frankenstein picture shows."

So... maybe not so dead? 

Which brings us to Bride of Frankenstein from 1935. 

The sequel kicks off with a weird prologue. It's a dark and stormy night where Mary Shelly has been regaling her friends with a frightening tale of the creature made from corpses and brought to life by science advanced and arcane. The men listening to this tale are doubtful she can't top what she's relayed so far. 

Challenge accepted and our attention turns to the smoldering ruins of the windmill and the monster bursts forth. Killing a few lingering town folks just to kick things off, Frankenstein's Monster is once more on the loose! 

The creature befriends a blind hermit and it's here where we see the first glimmers of the intelligence the creature displays in the book.  At first he merely parrots key words said to him. Slowly, he learns to speak without repeating what he's just heard. 

By the end of the movie he's downright philosophical. 

The erstwhile Bride of Bride of Frankenstein factors very little for most of the movie. But the seeds of her beginning are planted with the arrival of Dr. Pretorius, an old mentor of Henry Frankenstein.  Henry's doing is level damnedest to sex up Elizabeth on a fairly regular schedule and put behind him this whole corpse reanimating shit he used to be into.  

Dr. Pretorious has other plans and with a combination of blackmail, coercion and threats convinces Henry it's time to fire up the old mad scientist laboratory one more time and build another creature.

This time... a woman! 

The twist is instead of putting someone's dead brain into the newly constructed body, Pretorius can grow an artificial brain. 

The Monster encounters Pretorius and shares a snack with him.

The creature has learned in his wanderings that he is feared by other people because he is ugly and thus he is alone. Pretorius is building a woman who maybe won't care he's ugly. 

A bride for the Frankenstein Monster.  Ah, so sweet! 

Er, no! 

The electricity flies and the Bride is alive! ALIVE!! ALIIIIVE!!!!

The Bride takes a good look at Frankenstein's Monster and screeches in horror. 

Oh hell! She can tell he's ugly.  And the creature is seriously bummed out, noting that  "She hate me! Like others".  With that , the monster flies into a rage, wrecking the laboratory. 

The Monster takes a moment to consider things and tells Henry and Elizabeth: "Go! You live! Go!" 

To Pretorius and the Bride, he says: "You stay. We belong dead". The Monster looks at the Bride who hisses at him, then shedding  a tear, he pulls a lever to trigger the laboratory's destruction.

It blows up real good! 

Get a load of Frankenstein's Monster getting all eloquent and emotional and dramatic.  

Elsa Lancaster as the iconic Bride of Frankenstein is in the movie twice; she also plays Mary Shelly in the prologue.  

If you think these films are just ripping off Mel Brooks, do remember these two movies came out about 40 years before Young Frankenstein.  Brooks used a lot of the same laboratory equipment built for these two original films.  

I suppose the big takeaway from Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein is the cautionary lesson about the arrogance of mankind and the perils of science unleashed without regard to the limits of our morality and our understanding of what we have set loose.  

But the thing that gets overlooked in that big magilla of a moral quandry is the price we pay for reacting with fear and hate. Consider that Henry Frankenstein's creation does not kill one person until after he's regarded with fear by his creator and treated with contempt and cruelty.  

Yes, it may be a given that Dr. Frankenstein is wrong to call down the lightning to give life to the dead. But his real sin is his failure to treat that life he created with compassion.  

Perhaps if the doctor fails his creature thusly, perhaps we can wonder how God regards his children of this world. 

Whew! Got heavy there. Sorry 'bout that.

Starting in February, Cinema Sunday will turn its focus to some movies with the intent to affect social change. 

Next week, Gregory Peck takes on anti-semitism. For the next Cinema Sunday, we take a look at Gentleman's Agreement.  

Songs For Saturday From A To Z: Pointer Sisters, Seal and Fleetwood Mac

And we're back for another edition of Songs For Saturday From A To Z as I post songs that I like in alphabetical order.

This week's edition is brought to you by the letters J, K and L.

Let's jump with the letter J.  I thought about going with "Jump" by Van Halen but decided to go in an unexpected direction with "Jump (For My Love)" by the Pointer Sisters.  

As the jewelry commercial says "Every kiss begins with Kay"

And this "K" begins with "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal from the Batman Forever soundtrack.  

Fleetwood Mac is back to take us to the letter "L" for  "Landslide".    

Next week, Songs For Saturday From A To Z will feature song titles for the letters M, N and O.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive and in alphabetical order.  

Your Friday Video Link: Eggpocalypse

Yesterday, I posted about the great egg shortage.  

Today, Your Friday Video Link provides another perspective on what it means to live through an egg shortage.

The perspective of a bird.

And not just any bird.  

Making his I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You debut is one of my favoritest beings on Tik Tok, please welcome Chad the Bird to clarify the mysteries of your existence, humans.  

Eggstraordinary Circumstances

OK, so apparently we're in the middle of an egg shortage.

Well, it's always some damn thing or another, ain't it?  

So why the hell is this thing? Why the fuck eggs?  

Bullet point time!!

• Deadly avian flu outbreak in the U.S.
• Inflation
• Legacy supply chain problems
• Holiday demand 
• Longer lead time needed to restart egg laying flocks 
• The villainy of Egghead, perhaps?   

"Holy poached egg, Batman!"

"Over easy, old chum!"  

This has led us to the eggstraordinary circumstances of  fewer eggs and the ones we have cost more.

Apparently this has been going for a few weeks but I wasn't paying attention. 

I have had a complicated relationship with eggs.

When I was a much younger Dave-El, I was really bad at cooking eggs.

Eggstremely bad, you might say. 

I was bad at preparing eggs in any form.    

Bullet point time!!

• Fried
• Hard boiled 
• Soft boiled
• Poached
• Scrambled 
• Omelet 

Preparing eggs requires an eggquisite sense of timing. You can't go too long or too short. I could never quite master the timing to not have eggs seriously underdone or burnt.  

I've only recently mastered (which I feel is not the right word to use for reaching a level of mere competency) how to make a consistently decent cheese omelet.  

Watching Julia on HBO Max was not only entertaining but educational. "Cheese omelet" in French is "omelette du fromage".  I can't credit that knowledge to Julia Child but to an episode of Dexter's Laboratory.

Between high school and college, I took 4 years of French and the only French I know is from a Cartoon Network show? Yeah, that sounds about right.  

The secret to cooking an egg appears to be as follows: 

Bullet point time!!

• When you think you should stop cooking the egg, don't.
• When you think you should let the egg cook a little longer, don't.

The egg is plotting against you. Think like the egg and then do the opposite.  

Andrea's first lie to me as my wife was around the subject of eggs. When we were first married, I would make us breakfast on weekend mornings, she wouldn't eat the eggs citing she didn't like eggs.  

Fair enough. 

Some time after we were married, we happen to be having breakfast with her grandparents and Andrea devoured her eggs and asked for more. 

She admitted she does like eggs but mine were not good. 

Well, saying my eggs were not good was not true. My eggs sucked.  

My eggs sucked eggs. 

With age, experience and some tutelage from Julia Child, I have improved my egg preparing skills but Andrea will not eat my eggs.  Out of guilt or fear, I'm not sure.  

I have become rather proficient at making an omelette du fromage in about 2 minutes which sometimes makes for a nice, quick lunch for myself.  

Although I haven't made one in a couple of months and I was getting a hankering for one. 

Then I discovered the egg crisis. 

Which means for now the answers is "non" to may I have an omelette du fromage for lunch.  

Tomorrow on Your Friday Video Link, we'll have more on the subject of the egg shortage from the eggsperience... 

...of a bird.   

A Not So Strange Loop

When Andrea and I first moved into what we now know today as the Fortress of Ineptitude, the roads around the area were a lot more different than they are today.  

Two lane roads where there are now highways.

No roads at all where there are now interstates.  

Among those thoroughfare developments is the big project around Greensboro called the Urban Loop.  

For years, the section of the Loop near our home was a long row of dirt and grass before the first layer of pavement was put down. It seemed like it took forever before that layer of pavement was adorned with any lines and another forever after that before it was put to use. 

Even then the Loop was not quite a loop, ending at Bryan Blvd  while in the miles beyond, the pathway remained rutted dirt lined by the debris of trees. 

Then another section would open. 

About two years ago, the Loop came within 4 miles of finally being a loop. 

Until Monday when a group of local and state dignitaries cut the ribbon on the last section and finally, the Urban Loop actually loops the city.  

I guess I would not otherwise remark on the completion of a road on my blog except over the last 2 decades, I watched it grow from a idea on paper to tracts of bare land to an actual functioning highway. 

It is astonishing to me how much the topography not just of this city in general but specifically in proximity of my home has changed.  

Everything used to be so different.

Now there is a loop around the city that was not there before.

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The Crown

Before we start off this week's Touchbase, there is more cancellation news about a show I watch. 

Outlander will end with it's 8th season.  

Unlike the pricks over at Warner Bros. Discovery, I'm assuming the fine folks at Starz will allow the gang at Outlander to actually writer, film and complete their 8th season AND then (this is the important part) actually show it to us.   

As much as I am a fan our beloved Sassenach, I think this is the right decision for the show. As much I as I will miss Claire and Jamie, I think Outlander is reaching a point where it's time to bring it in for a landing. 

Season 7 will be coming later this year.

If anyone comes to the Tuesday TV Touchbase looking to be on the cutting edge of the television zeitgeist, I am sorry to disappoint you.  Sandman dropped back in August and I'm only now getting around to it.

Yes, clips of Wednesday have played themselves out on Tik Tok but no I haven't written about it yet but I will. It's on my to do list. 

And there is The Crown which dropped in October and only last week did Andrea and I finally finish it.

Or as I am prone to call it,  This Damn Thing.  

The fifth season of This Damn Thing  ends with Queen Elizabeth and the monarchy at a bit of crossroads.  

Prince Charles is sent off to Hong Kong to hand over the keys of the former British colony to China.  

The Queen bids farewell to the royal yacht, the Britannia.  

The royal family is feeling lost, bewildered and more than bit irrelevant.   

Diana has won her long sought divorce from Charles but her freedom from the Prince is not the tonic she thought it would be and is still feeling blue. Perhaps the kind invitation to join Mohamed Al-Fayed in France is just what she needs to feel better about life.

Which is where the season ends.

Those who know history, those of us who lived through it are fully aware that the trip to France will not be a happy beginning.

It will be a tragic ending.

But Peter Morgan is saving that for season 6. 

Season 5 is the long torturous journey to the tragic end.

OK, let's get a few things straight. Yeah, Charles was dick towards Diana, acting cold, callous and cruel.  

"I don't love Diana! I love Camilla! Wah! Wah! Wah!"  

But Diana sometimes doesn't come off too great either. 

"Charles doesn't love me! Everyone hates me! Wah! Wah! Wah!"

Which I understand is not a popular sentiment. Diana was the woman scorned, the aggrieved party, the people's princess being consigned to a metaphorical dungeon by an uncaring royal family. 

But the portrayal here of Diana is not particularly sympathetic. As much as her retribution against the royal family may be earned and deserved, the end result is a Diana who appears petty and vindictive.  She gains no solace or reprieve for all her machinations to expose the sins and follies of Prince Charles and his dysfunctional family of enablers.  

As we move this saga closer to the present based on people who are still alive and being watched by people who actually were around when this shit was going down, I think Peter Morgan who has made a career of creating stories for film and television based on the royal family is leery of providing too jaundiced a view of said family.  

OK, so the royals had it coming from the dirt Diana was dishing out but Peter wants us to think, "Were they really THAT bad to deserve all that?"  

The fifth season of This Damn Thing begins with a fresh round of recasting. Imelda Staunton takes over as the Queen and is a bit flat compared to her predecessors, Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. But then there isn't much for Staunton's Queen to do with Elizabeth reduced to the role of a mere witness to passing history while actual drama is happening elsewhere.  

Charles is chomping at the bit to be out from under Diana and be with the woman he really loves, Camilla. And he's desperately concerned the monarchy is driving itself over a cliff into irrelevance, a state that would be much improved if he were King. 

Basically Elizabeth commits to outlive the hell out of everybody because Charles will not be getting crown one damn second sooner than is absolutely necessary. 

All of these concerns will be shattered and fractured when death comes calling when we get to season 6 of This Damn Thing...er, I mean The Crown.

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, we stick around the subject of British royalty as we look at the television work of British historian Lucy Worsley.  

Coming in later editions of the Touchbase, I'll be posting about the revival of Night Court, the end of season 1 of The Sandman and the first season of Celebrity Jeopardy and I swear I will get around to watching Wednesday.  

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.  

 

News of Little Import and the Wonder Dress

Normally on this here blog thing, I like to espouse on some news items of the day, something from the previous week that piqued my interest and that I feel is important to immortalize here on I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You.  

So what has been going on? 

Well, the rotted onion that is Congressman George Santos of New York continues to unpeel itself with more and more revelations of just how much he has lied about himself. Including if George Santos is even his real name. And his time as a Brazilian drag queen. 

Now you may not necessarily care if George Santos was a drag queen in Brazil or wherever, but Republicans have very specifically attacked drag performances as part of their anti-LGBTQ hate campaign.

Would this be the one damn thing too many to make Kevin McCarthy actually stop supporting Santos and giving him committee assignments? Probably not since the Republican majority in the House is super slim, McCarthy can't afford to lose even one supporter and Kevin McCarthy is a total whore. 

I really can't get too excited about this story. Yes, George Santos (or "George Santos") is a lying skuzzbucket with no sense of honor or shame but we've spent years of the Republican Party not expecting any moral accountability from Donald Trump or his sniveling sycophants so why should we expect any different now?  

Anything else of note?

Republicans are still in a tizzy over the splinter in Biden's eye (the small amount of classified documents he willingly turned over to the FBI) while willfully ignoring the big ol' honking tree in Trump's ocular orb (the hundreds or thousands of classified documents that Trump lied about and deliberately resisted cooperation with the FBI). Under Kevin McCarthy's "leadership", I expect the splinter will continue to take precedence over the tree. So no surprises there.  

Trump was fined a million dollars or so for being a tax defrauding asshole. Big deal! Trump will make an appeal to his knuckle dragging supporters to fork over more dough to his "campaign for President" and use that to pay the fine after he exhausts a dozen appeals.  So this story is hardly a big deal to me.  

OK, I have decided the big story from last week was this: 

Whatever the hell Vanna White was wearing on last Wednesday's Wheel of Fortune.  

After 40 years of flipping letters, Vanna's wardrobe person has run out of ideas of dresses?  Or in this case just run out of dress?

Vanna's "Wonder Dress" is my choice for the big story of last week.  

Cinema Sunday: The Green Slime

 

Last week, Cinema Sunday's January tour through classic science fiction looked at the threat of GIANT ANTS!

This week's sci-fi menace is....

SLIME! 

And not just any old SLIME! 

Beware the oozing terror that is....

THE GREEN SLIME!

From 1968,  The Green Slime was shot in Japan with a Japanese director and film crew, but with the non-Japanese starring cast of Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel and Luciana Paluzzi.

Hence the mix of American and Italian actors with Japanese model work.  

So here's the dealio: an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. 

Well, zoinks! That can't be good. 

It ain't and it's up to Commander Jack Rankin to take command of space station Gamma 3 and destroy the damn thing! If he doesn't succeed, don't bother coming back to Earth because... well, damn, everything will be dead. 

The current commander of Gamma 3 is Vince Elliot who has some tense back story with Rankin (probably over a women and yeah, it is) but Elliot's trying to be cool with Rankin coming in and taking over since you know, the fate of Earth is on the line and that is kind of a priority.  

Rankin leads a shuttle mission to the surface of the asteroid to blow it up real good! While on the asteroid, the crew discovers a strange amoeba like creature attaching to their vehicles and sucking the energy out. The science officer Dr Halversen tries to bring a sample of the green substance aboard the shuttle in a sealed container, but Rankin  is all "We ain't got time for that shit! We gotta an asteroid to blow up" as he angrily throws the container to the ground causing it to shatter and guess what attaches itself to Halversen's space suit? 

That's right! 

THE GREEN SLIME!

Anyway, the asteroid gets blowed up real good and Rankin's team returns to Gamma 3 where it's time to party to celebrate with young women in mini dresses and day glo pastel tights frugging away to a swinging beat that's really way out happening, you dig? 

Meanwhile guess what's starting to ooze and glow and throb and spread menacingly around the space station?

Of course! 

THE GREEN SLIME!

Which evolves into strange one-eyed tentacled creatures that kill people with electricity.  

Rankin and Elliott have different ideas on what to do with the strange one-eyed tentacled creatures that kill people with electricity.  Elliott thinks that maybe there is an alien intelligence at work they can communicate with. 

That doesn't work.

Rankin thinks this calls for some hard chargin', hard blastin', kick ass fightin'! 

That just makes the strange one-eyed tentacled creatures that kill people with electricity angrier. 

And guess what's making even more of the strange one-eyed tentacled creatures that kill people with electricity? 

You betcha! 

THE GREEN SLIME!

Which keeps on oozing and glowing and throbbing and spreading (I do declare, I must fan myself, it's getting so hot in here) and making more and more strange one-eyed tentacled creatures that kill people with electricity.

Which are not not only overwhelming Gamma 3 but are also sucking energy out the space station causing it fall out of orbit and towards Earth. 

And if it crashes into Earth, the whole planet will be devastated by....

You guessed it! 

THE GREEN SLIME!

Fuck, they gotta blow up Gamma 3. Well, that worked so well on the asteroid.  

Anyone who hasn't been turned into strange one-eyed tentacled creatures that kill people with electricity make their way to escape shuttles while Rankin and Elliott take turns jockeying on who is going the big damn hero and blow up the big damn station and all these strange one-eyed tentacled creatures that kill people with electricity and also...

THE GREEN SLIME!

It's Eilliott who dies even though this whole mess is Rankin's fault. 

Back on the asteroid, Rankin was all "We ain't got time for that shit!" as he angrily shattered the container that contained...

You know...

THE GREEN SLIME!

I hope the cost of Gamma 3 comes out of Rankin's pay check. 

And that was The Green Slime. 

Check out the theme song! 

Man, that's a swinging beat that's really way out happening, you groovy cats dig?

Next week's Cinema Sunday takes a look a pair of films that are usually regarded more as horror films but are arguably based on what many consider the first science fiction novel.

Next week: It's alive! It's ALIVE!! IT'S ALIVE!!!! 

Songs For Saturday From A To Z:O'Hooley & Tidow, The Bangles & Big Country

 

Songs For Saturday presents songs I like and we're in the middle of a 2 month experiment as I post a massive play list from A to Z.

This week we're up to the letters G, H and I.  

O'Hooley & Tidow starts us off with "Gentleman Jack".   

H is for "Hazy Shade of Winter", a classic Simon & Garfunkel tune covered by the Bangles. 

The band Big Country is "In a Big Country" for the letter I.  

Next week, Songs For Saturday From A To Z will feature song titles for the letters J, K and L.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive and in alphabetical order.   

Your Friday Video Link: Taylor Swift

 

I might normally have waited to post this for a Songs For Saturday but I'm in the middle of the A To Z thing and I didn't want to wait for my latest obsession.

Besides it's not just the song but... well, see for yourself.  

So this is Your Friday Video Link with Taylor Swift and "Anti-Hero".  

Wait until you get to the reading of her will.

It's Taylor Swift does Knives Out!  

Enjoy!  

Throwback Thursday: The Free McDonald's Mystery Pie

OK, I'm tired, frazzled and unable to string....

...words....

....together.  

Re-run time! Let's go back to a classic post from 

Saturday, January 24, 2015 called...

The Free McDonald's Mystery Pie

On Monday, January 19th, my daughter and I made a quick run to McDonald's to get some lunch. There was a sign on the drive thru menu that said "Free Holiday Pie with each order of a McCafe drink." I was getting my wife a McSmoothie (made with McPineapple and McMango) so what the hell, we got a free pie. 

But what KIND of pie was it? 

Well, that was kind of a mystery. Or a McMystery, if you will. 

David: Look what we got at McDonald's!
Andrea: What is it? 
Randie: It's a free pie!
Andrea: What kind of pie is it?
Randie: It's a baked pie! 
Andrea: I mean, what type of pie?
David: It's a baked pie. It's right there on the box!
Andrea: I mean, what's IN the pie?
Randie: Er, flavor?
Andrea: What kind of flavor?
David: Flavor...flavored?
Randie: Whatever it is, it's bursting with it.
David: Also baked with love. 
Andrea: But what KIND of pie is it?
Randie and David: BAKED PIE!
Andrea (sigh): I just wanted to know what's in the pie!
Randie: Flavor and love, Mom. 
Andrea: I give up.

In case you're wondering what was really inside the pie, it was custard. 

What kind of custard? 

Er, custard flavored custard? 

You all be good to one another. And may your days be filled with flavor and baked with love.

Dave-El

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You

We're back ALL NEW tomorrow with Your Friday Video Link!  

The End of Christmas 2022

Last Saturday, January 14th, Christmas came to an end here at the Fortress of Ineptitude.  

Below is a photo of our Christmas tree taken at approximately 8 AM Saturday morning.   

By approximately 5 PM, this tree shaped conglomeration of lights, baubles and tinsel was gone, consigned to storage bins and labeled boxes until Thanksgiving when we drag everything out and start the whole damn process again. 

Leaving the tree up until the 2nd week of January is pretty much par for the course around here. The longest the tree remained in place here at the Fortress was probably 2017, the year of my infamous stroke and fall that shattered my elbow and also my mom died. 

The tree was not a priority. 

I think it came down sometime in February.  

I bitch and moan about putting the damn thing up because to be blunt it's a damn hassle. If my daughter visiting for Thanksgiving didn't take point on this exercise, I may never put the fershlugginer thing up. 

But once it's up...

I kind of get accustomed to it, it's rainbow tapestry of light providing a warm glow to an otherwise dark corner of the living room.  

Anyway, the tree must come down and now it's gone. 

And that is the end of Christmas 2022.

Well, not quite. Still come credit card bills to pay from the season gone by. 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Quantum Leap and Young Sheldon

Before we get to this week's touchbase, I learned some distressing news about one of the shows I followed. 

Season 4 of Snowpiercer has been cancelled. 

No! The cast and crew will not be able to tell the tale of resolving the cliffhangers from season 3 of Snowpiercer?

Actually they will.  Actually they did! Season 4 of  Snowpiercer is done and in the can as it were and ready for delivery. 

But...  Season 4 of Snowpiercer has been cancelled? 

Yep! Once more the overseers at Warner Bros. Discovery who own TNT and TBS as well as HBO Max are pulling the plug on a project that has been bought, paid for and actually completed for delivery.  

They did it to the 2nd season of Chad.

They did it to the Batgirl movie.

And now they've done to Snowpiercer.  

It seems the corporate fuckity fucks at Warner Bros. Discovery make more money from tax write offs from NOT showing programs they paid for and are completed. 

Andrea and I continue to follow Young Sheldon which is still struggling what to do with Sheldon himself. The recent plot line with Sheldon's attempt create an ahead of it's time internet database search engine posed some interesting challenges for the show's titular genius.  This project even forced Sheldon to consider dropping out of college to focus on the database development full time.  

As momentous as it is, the whole enterprise with Sheldon feels empty compared to the more compelling family shenanigans going on with the rest of the Cooper clan. And of course laboring under the burden of being a prequel limits anything of interest that can be done with Sheldon.  

It doesn't help that the cute precocious Iain Armitage has hit puberty hard and is almost taller than Jim Parsons and has a deeper voice.   

The storyline with George Jr. and Mandy expecting a baby is kind of sputtering along after the initial revelation significantly upset the show's status quo. I expect the tension around this will escalate as we near Mandy's due date.   

George Jr's impending out of wedlock fatherhood still has Mary ostracized from her church with Mary struggling on how to fill the time. Oddly enough she winds up in a girl's night out a local bar with Brenda Sparks where the other women in the group gossip that Brenda has someone she's sweet on and he's married. 

Oh crap! Is it George Cooper Sr?  Spooked by this, the Cooper patriarch confronts Brenda who tells him it isn't George. 

The look in her eyes suggests she's lying.  

Again, the show's burden of being a prequel to Big Bang Theory pushes the show into a corner. We know that George is destined to have an affair and will die soon.  

In many ways, Young Sheldon is an inspired and nuanced look at the BBT universe but I think the premise is not very long lived and I think as this show staggers to the end of it's 6th season and towards it's contractually obligated 7th, the show may have outlived it's best days.   

Elsewhere on network television, Quantum Leap is back from it's mid-season break with Dr. Ben Song and the Project Quantum Leap still trying to cope with the revelation that Ben made the leap into the quantum accelerator to save Addison's life. Further intel from Ben is not available at this time with his memory still fractured.  

Addison, Ben's fiancée and invisible hologram observer, is still a bit back on her heels about this revelation. And she's getting no help from Janis Calavicci, the daughter of Al Calavicci from the original series. Janis has been on the outside of the project as some kind of chaos agent working towards some mysterious goal. She was finally brought in by project security but she ain't talking. All she will tell Addison is that Ben should trust no one, not even Addison.

Last week, Ben had his most complex leap yet. Normally, he leaps into someone and has to put right in someone's life what went wrong. In last week's leap, he leaps into a young female doctor where he needs to change the course of destiny for not one or two but three patients.  

Coming up next episode, we get a Trek guest star with Robert Picardo from Star Trek: Voyager. 

Ian was name checked last week but did not get an on screen appearance. Maybe Mason Alexander Park needed time off for his wicked, sinister turn as Desire on Sandman.  

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, we wrap up our time with season 5 of The Crown.

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.