I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers". For example .....
SEPARATED at BIRTH - two fictional characters: movie villain Hans Gruber (as portrayed by Alan Rickman) and Desmond Hume (as portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick) on the television show "Lost".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
ART NOTES - works by Brian Frink in an exhibition entitled Pet Portraits are at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota through September 22nd.
THIS IS A TWO YEAR-OLD STORY - but it seems a new Atlanta strip club closed after only one day ... as it would only play Grateful Dead music. The owner cited these problems: "Every girl wanted her name to be Sugaree ........ there was one girl I had whose name was Touch of Grey. I hired her to appeal to the older crowd". An anonymous city official said he was intrigued .... "but when I drove by there was this overwhelming sense of patchouli. I just couldn’t do it".
HERE IS a fascinating essay in the Washington Monthly about minority college drop-out rates.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Buddah the Cat - a Tennessee kitteh who has been losing weight via the use of an underwater treadmill .... and meows on a video, of course.
CHEERS to what may be a feature film (directed by Guy Ritchie of the Man from UNCLE - one of my favorite shows from childhood. Open Channel D, indeed!
HAIL and FAREWELL to the audio engineer Ray Dolby - who pioneered noise-reducing and surround-sound audio technologies vital to the music and film industries - who has died at the age of 80.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
SATURDAY's CHILD is Wasabi the Cat - an Alaska kitteh who survived a fall from an eleven-story building ..... and amazingly is expected to heal in six weeks.
SAD to see that in Norway - which just voted-out its Labor Party after eight years in office - that one of the coalition parties in the new government will be an anti-immigrant party - which once counted the convicted mass murderer Anders Breivik among its members (who left because it wasn't radical enough).
FOR A TIME the International Olympic Committee was threatening to drop the sport of wrestling (among the ancient games' oldest competitions). But the AP's Jim Litke felt it was a needed wake-up call for the sport, which had become quite complacent. And after making some long-overdue administrative (and scoring) changes, wrestling is now re-instated for the future.
SEPARATED at BIRTH - country musician (plus "The Voice" TV star) Blake Shelton and TV star Misha Collins (the angel Castiel on the CW's "Supernatural").
......and finally, for a song of the week ............... due to heavy rains and lightning, I was without Internet/cable service for a day and a half, so no time for a full musical profile. Instead ..... in honor of Miley Cyrus, I think that Devo should change the first word of its old song Jerkin' Back and Forth to ...... well, you-know-what.