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Blergh

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Posts posted by Blergh

    1.  

    My locale was somewhat of a washout. I mean, ALL it looked like was an extra dense overcast cloud cover. .  I had to drive to a doctor's appointment and on the way there  I saw at least one yard party with everyone sitting  on the grass in lawn chairs trying to see. ..overcast cloud cover, traffic coming to a standstill for. ..overcast cloud cover and crowds of  people cheering for . ..overcast cloud cover.

    Yep, instead of the Emperor's New Clothes, it was the Emperor's New Overcast  Cloud Cover!

    Oh, and natch within an hour of the Near Totality being being over THAT is when the clouds parted and bright sunlight shined down!

    2017 was WAY better than this!  Oh well! Glad OTHERS actually got to see an unobstructed view of actual Totality (and thanks to EVERYONE who posted pics on this thread covering the event!)

    • Like 6
  1. As per NPR and other sources, country star Morgan Wallen was arrested  and charged with three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor early Monday morning (April 8,2024) after having allegedly thrown a chair off the roof of Eric Church's new bar called Chief to the street below just a few feet from two   Metropolitan Nashville  Police officers and other pedestrians. Oh, it should be mentioned that this particular rooftop is six stories above street  level!

     For those who were oblivious to him having been caught using an  ethnic slur, it might not hurt to keep in mind that 'sticks and stones will break your bones/ while chairs thrown from six floors above could REALLY hurt you!'

     

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  2. The Chattanooga Freshwater Aquarium is worth having to book ahead to buy tickets for a pre-ordained time! Seriously, it has virtually every kind of critter connected to freshwater streams, rivers and estuaries.

    BTW, when I was there ages ago, I had to laugh at the reaction of schoolkids getting grossed out seeing ducks relieve themselves under water. How did they think ducks did their business- by waddling on land to mini outhouses? LOL

    If nothing else, it's an entertaining and educational experience (and it's close to Chattanooga's River Walk and within easy distance of the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Rail Station)!

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  3. On a different topic. .in different US locales from the NYC area. .

    OK, I don't know how many posters are going to be in tomorrow's TOTALITY path or at least near where the sun will start 'crescenting'.

     

    However, as a 2017 vet, let me offer a tip to make the most of the experience: if one's in an uncloudy area, find a spot with leafy trees and watch for the 'crescents' to form on the ground under the leaves! It's a cool (and safe) way to observe the phenom and one doesn't risk any eye damage via looking at El Sol during this time.

    Oh, if one DOES get to experience Totality,then (and only then) one may look up and see for oneself what sky looks like but be careful to look down BEFORE Totality's over because that first unfiltered ray with it coming back can cause damage!

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  4. One thing I thought was rather odd about 'Whisper Country' was that they never explained how Miss Rachel Peel had somehow intimidated not just the children who'd never known anything else but even had convinced the grown men and women of that community of her having some link to God Himself (if not demigod like powers) despite having never learned how to read.

     All I can think of is that she was the only daughter of a rather intimidating male preacher learned for herself all said  male parent's . .. techniques to manipulate to do the same to keep the family 'power' over her fellow congregants after his death instead of risking being chased out of town!

    P.S. I also don't put her above claiming to  her congregants that she'd caused the 'outsider Jezebel's blindness which happened the very next episode!

  5. 8 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

    I totally agree. I get that it is hard for creative types to put aside their own "vision" to cater to their client's tastes, but that is what you have to do when someone is paying you. It is the one thing that has always held me back from "doing what I love" for a job. 

    I love writing, do it all the time, but I know that I would love it less if I had someone telling me what to write or to change parts of my stories that I really care about. But as someone who likes having a somewhat comfortable life, I know that if I wrote for money, I'd have to "give the people what they want". 

    I think that, because I think that way, characters like JJ who just do whatever they want and expect others to love it and think they are great annoy me to know end. That's just not how life works. 

    That he was trying to get money to help his sister just makes it more annoying. I get it, being poor and having to make compromises and sacrifice's sucks, but that's life. It was also very shortsighted. 

    If JJ made a mural the bank liked, they would have kept it up, more people would have seen it, they might have asked him to do another, or recommend him to other companies. He shot himself in the food by not understanding his clients needs. Of course this is the same dude who walked around saying DYNOMIIIITE all the time so, I guess it makes sense. (He was my least favorite character on that show so I'm a bit biased against him).

    Oh, I agree with ALL the above! Yeah, it would be great if there were steady jobs out there where one could be guaranteed of being paid to 'do your own thing' while completely disregarding any expectations of patrons/bosses,etc. but that's not reality.

     Yeah, J.J. truly shot himself in the foot (and the food) via not making even the slightest effort to consider what MIGHT have been apt subject matter for a bank lobby which could have led him to be put on the 'art map' far beyond his housing project neighborhood.

    I also agree that he  was often a rather annoying character who was only tolerable when his bragging,etc. backfired on him. I also thought he often was needlessly antagonistic towards Thelma- to say nothing of often being needlessly flippant to James [not that James himself was the most levelheaded or even tempered character but still. . .].

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  6. OK, on a somewhat lighter note:

    Good Times (1974-1979) break out character J.J. (Jimmie Walker) didn't have the sharp intellect of his younger sibs Thelma or Michael but even so, it's hard to believe he could be so dense even when the family was depending on him.

    Case in point in 'The Mural' (Season Three) , in order for Thelma to obtain the $200 needed for college (scholarship included [can you BEAT that price even in the mid 70's?!], J.J. agreed to paint a mural at a bank for $250. He and the rest of the family smugly predicted that this was going to lead to future fame and glory. Now, since this was a commission that he was doing at the behest of a patron (specifically the bank president) one would think J.J. would check his ego at the door long enough to paint something apt for a bank [e.g. a mural of multicultural patrons in suits and uniforms in line at the bank to help fulfill their goals] but instead he painted a rather raucous match at a pool hall which prompted the bank president to attempt to refuse to pay him. Incredibly, not just J.J. but his entire family (Willona included) took umbrage at the mural not being adored- as though the bank president was being totally unfair, square . .etc. for not being crazy about the mural's subject matter but surely they'd all seen the inside of bank lobbies before this and on what planet would that painting have been suitable for that particular venue? If this had been  a pool hall, SURE but this was a BANK!  Finally, after James threatened physical harm to the bank president [?!], the bank president agreed to pay the monies to J.J. as he had agreed to but they all seemed rather put out that the mural was still going to be painted over.  OK, since the bank president initially HAD agreed to pay J.J. the money [and it was for a worthy cause], I get that that was fair. However, J.J. would have done well to learn the phrase 'when in Rome' [AKA  banks AREN'T  pool halls] when accepting a commission [especially when working to help his sister with her education] instead of going rogue first thing!

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  7. Of course, it needs to be mentioned that Henry VIII himself was no 'rose' himself but a 50-something gout-hobbled grossly overweight man whose leg wounds could be smelt three rooms away [in a time and place of irregular bathing,etc.] . I've often thought he was so enthralled with the idea of getting to wed this teenaged girl that he didn't check the sheets,etc. too carefully to see if she'd been chaste beforehand.

    On a tragic note, there's strong historic evidence that young Lady Catherine had experienced SA as a very young girl at the hands of male cousins and their cronies growing up in her rather detached grandmother's abode.

    IOW,considering ALL the above, the writers REALLY blew the chance to accurately depict Henry's doomed 5th union.

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  8. I saw footage of JG's Simi Valley Q&A session and a few things stood out. One is that he said that he got the part of Willie because he somehow made ML laugh a great deal instead of having going through an audition process and that he had  liked hearing ML laughing. So, no, there was nothing about ML taking up the reins as 'father-figure' for JG after Paul Gilbert's death (which MG said ML had done  for her) but it seems they got along very well.

     FWIW, he said he was 'currently' single but whether this means that he'd ever been married or had had a significant others (much less offspring) went completely unaddressed.

    BTW, he laid great praise at the late Miss MacGregor for being an 'acting genius'!

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  9. Happy 97th Birthday and Easter Sunday to William Daniels!

    I looked it up and it seems that there won't be another Easter Sunday falling March 31st until 2086 (and I'm not sure either Mr. Daniels nor myself will be around for it)!

    He's had a spectacular body of work from having done live radio shows in the 1930's to voicing KITT as recently as 2020!

    I hope he and his caregiving spouse of 72 years Bonnie Bartlett along with the rest of their loved ones are having a fun celebration today!

    • Like 20
  10. 18 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

    Jesus Christ, I don’t know who was more stupid: Charles for meddling and Harriet for deliberately picking the orphanage bully. Whether it was the “I can fix her” mentality or just the warped need to replace Nellie just to make herself feel better, this was clearly a woman that shouldn’t have kids!

    It was definitely the latter! I mean, Harriet even fessed up to Nancy first thing that she KNEW that the reason Nellie was disliked was because she [Harriet] had raised her to be spoiled and mean yet Harriet ALSO wanted to raise Nancy the SAME way despite knowing how friendless her own daughter had wound up before her marriage! As soon as they brought Nancy home Harriet put her in Nellie's frocks (and the producers went so far as to put the young performer in Alison Arngrim's own specially made wig) then eagerly rubbed everyone's face re her 'new Nellie'!  The only problem Harriet has with Nancy is when she found out that Nancy lied about her bio mom having abused her since the poor woman had died giving birth to her and so Harriet dunked Nancy in a dunk tank [Laura's idea] for having lied about her background. ..somehow that was a mortal sin. Yet Nancy had tricked another girl into  getting locked in an ice house [because she loathed others paying attention to this other girl] and only because someone checked the ice house and found her in time before she succumbed to exposure that the other girl hadn't gotten murdered!  Yet NO ONE so much as mentioned that much less attempted to punish Nancy for it- just having lied about having been abused by her mother who'd died in childbirth.

    All-in-all, they should have just gotten Harriet a mannequin dress-up doll . .

    And, just in case, even the dimmest viewers missed Harriet's (and the show's) MO, Nancy's intro episode was entitled 'The Reincarnation of Nellie'- yep, even though Nellie had just moved to NYC instead of getting her reward!

    • Like 4
  11. 13 minutes ago, debraran said:

    I thought it was more of a PC way of saying that although odd. She did change, at least on the show in how she felt.

    On a different topic with so much LHOP memorbilia being sold, some of it a  bit tchotchke, why back in the 70's, early 80's didn't they cash in on nice toys. They had large dolls that didn't look like any of the characters. What a huge profit they would have made with LHOP dollhouses. Adults and children would want them lol Lunchboxes? no, colorforms/paperdolls, "ehh" but a nice dollhouse is an heirloom like brio trains. House comes with family and you can add on barn and horses, wagon etc. I mourn an idea never realized. ;  )  Some fans own homes they did. The video below is fantastic with replicas. The store too.

    large.gallery_68_4254_26732.jpg.e2f94abe22597665801767a774688689.jpg.6ca1d8a1159dcea190ec0b49b8449e93.jpg

     

    That Little House dollhouse actually looked more spacious and comfortable for its inhabitants than the title abode and I must say whoever made it did a remarkably good job! Yeah, too bad ML didn't consider  marketing toys like that.

    BTW, The Waltons DID market a dollhouse on a somewhat smaller scale than the family  home  complete with a few but not all members of the 11 person family as dolls (and came in a box that had Kami Cotler [who played the youngest child Elizabeth] pictured playing with it)!

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  12. 8 hours ago, kav said:

    I do not think they were orphans because they went home for a while after the school burned down.

    IIRC, most if not all the students were taken in by Walnut Grove citizens (though NONE by the Ingallses)  and it seemed that the majority of them had no living parents or might have had parents who'd permanently dumped them in the blind school and never visited them [BTW, this hasn't been unknown down the ages re parents of challenged offspring].  In any case, it seemed Mary and Adam considered them their de facto offspring. ..until Adam regained his eyesight and decided his talents were being stifled teaching them instead of being a legal eagle so he and Mary dumped them elsewhere without a backwards glance!

    On an unrelated LHOTP RL note: a recent ZOOM interview with several cast members including AA got her to claim that JG himself appeared in the Schoolhouse Willie outfit when touring the reconstructed temp schoolhouse so AA got her husband to retrieve her Nellie ringlet wig from their car and THAT is when they did the recreated photos in the schoolhouse and the reconstructed temp Mercantile! Yeah, it seems that JG had either somehow preserved the Schoolhouse Willie outfit down the decades OR had had it reconstructed but I think it may have been the former since the pants appeared to have been somewhat worn.

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  13. Here's one from Little House on the Prairie:

    After Nellie permanently departs for NYC with her husband Percival Dalton/Isaac Cohen and their baby twins, Harriet Oleson gets a major depression to the point of taking to her bed for two weeks straight.

    Everyone is worried about her so what does Charles do? He gets the 'brilliant' idea to try to cheer her up by reminding her how his life was made better after he adopted Cassandra [really?] and urged her to see about adopting another child to cheer her up!

    In no time flat, Harriet and Nels are at an  orphanage interviewing 'replacement' daughters but none of the well-behaved and docile residents spark her interest.  That is until she gets wind of the orphanage bully Nancy who constantly wreaks havoc on all the other residents and even the caregivers. Harriet at once insists that THIS would be the perfect Nellie-replacement! And the die is cast!

    Considering ALL the trouble Charles, Laura and the REST of the Ingalls family had had to endure from the premarital Nellie, did Charles truly imagine that Harriet would want a well-behaved child and/or not try to seek out ANOTHER bully who'd wreak havoc on the Ingallses?

    Yeah, Charles not only shot himself in the foot sticking his nose into Harriet's business  and setting the stage for the Nancy trainwreck but also wound up hobbling virtually everyone else in Walnut Grove via that ill-fated shot! D'uh!

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  14. What was odd was that the distance from the [fictional] city of Winoka in the Dakota Territory to Walnut Grove was easily covered via covered wagon in a single day (from 6AM to early afternoon)  for the Ingallses yet it took about two or three days for the Blind School kids to walk it. Now, one must wonder if it would have taken so long if they had given had the kids ride the two wagons that Charles and Joe Kagan drove (and Harriet Oleson tagged along) or was there not enough room for everyone to sit.

    Also, it was a bit much that they had all the students (as well as Mary and Adam) sleep outside in the pouring rain overnight while Charles, Joe Kagan and Hester-Sue got to sleep inside the two covered wagons- as did the uninvited Harriet!

    Of course it was funny how Harriet was the ONLY one who complained about how tiresome the journey was while the blind kids stoically grabbed the knotted rope and did their best to keep up with the pairs of horse pulling the wagons.

  15. I think this is as good time as any to give credit to Dean Butler and many others for having organized this even and (re)built Walnut Grove's iconic landmark building from the ground up in time for this 50th Anniversary!

    Yeah, their work definitely paid off. Still, I have to wonder if he and Lucy Lee Flippen might have felt a bit overshadowed by the re-appearance of JG. I mean, they had their own tent 'Meet the Wilders' but I imagine that many attendees might not have felt as awestruck by them as they were by that re-appearance (in much the same way few folks would opt to see a dog and cat exhibit when there was a dodo one in the same venue).

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  16. 1 hour ago, debraran said:

    Don't know if this will work, but pics of Willie and Nellie at the store.

    https://www.facebook.com/reel/2595136567334807

    For someone who allegedly loathed performing, JG sure seemed to have had his fun aping his iconic role! Interesting that he was willing to wear the [altered] 19th century schoolboy costume while AA herself kept contemporary threads but just added a curly wig to her short blonde locks.

    On a shallow note, that pic with him smiling did seem to take off a few more years off his appearance so that he could have passed for 30! I wonder if ML would have been impressed or intimidated by JG's current hair length/thickness (which appears to have no grey strands).

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  17. 21 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

    That's what made the reveal so weird. 

    How tough would it have been for Ray and/or Lucy to have had a momentary reaction of 'EWWW!!!!' while shuddering upon hearing the news?

    But,none of the characters who'd known about their unquestionably dubious encounters  ever even vaguely alluded to it.

    P.S. Yes, even had they NOT been related- for a grown employee to have had sexual encounters with an underage girl( his employer's granddaughter)  was already icky- to say nothing of criminal!

    • Like 4
  18. 10 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

    I could imagine the late Fred Rogers would have made a show similar to that for the sake of those who'd been children at the time  were he still in this world.

    • Like 9
  19. It's telling that JG seems to be somewhat chummy with Mr. Busfield so I guess that means he and his adoptive sis could possibly have made their own peace. .

    Again, I stress that JG's adult life [including sib bonds] are totally his own business unless he chooses to share them with others (and it's possible that his ringless state could be due to him having once been married but no longer and/or having never worn one regardless of marital status- and it's also possible that he could be protective of any offspring's lives even more than his own offstage life).

    Still, it appears that he HAS made his peace with having been in LHOTP as well as embracing the fandom so, regardless of anything else, JG seems to have netted some positive experiences from the event.

    Interesting seeing Miss Flippen and Miss Lester together since I can't recall their characters ever having a conversation (although Hester-Sue did awkwardly get acquainted with Harvey- the one Eliza Jane had wished had been her flame).

    BTW, one of the oddest stories that Miss Lester told in her autobio was that her mother intended to name her 15th child 'Ojarva' for reasons never made clear to anyone in the family but the local registrar ruled that 'Ojarva' was an unacceptable name thus originally named Miss Lester 'Revoyda' (I don't see why anyone would have considered that an improvement). Yeah, I can't blame Miss Lester  for going with 'Ketty' as soon as she became an adult  to either of those clunkers.

     Also, Victor French, Jr. seemed to have his fun singing 'Ole Dan Tucker' in a plaid shirt . Ironically, it appears he's actually a few years older than his father's ultimate age.

    • Like 1
  20. I totally agree with your assessments of Lana @Spartan Girl  and thought it would have saved the show from wasting SO much time had Clark woken up and smelt her warpness then blown her off thereafter with 'You HAD your chance!'- then had him have other teen flirtations before meeting his true love Lois!

     However, what can one expect from someone who BRAGGED in the first episde about wearing the very meteor that had killed her own parents as a fave jewel?! Yeah, THAT grossed me out and turned me off her permanently  (and also got me to dump the show very quickly in spite of them trying to pitch her as 'all that')!

    • Applause 4
  21. So, Jonathan Gilbert DID make it to the Golden Anniversary Celebrations in Simi Valley! Great! I wonder if he did that to confront any old demons and, if so, will he decide that maybe it might be worth doing future fan events?

    On  shallow notes.Yes, the 56-year-old performer DOES amazingly resemble his childhood character's parents a great deal- although far more hirsute than the late Mr. Bull -even sporting a rather  impressive samurai bun (so that  means it's likely  at least shoulder length)!  Yeah, one wouldn't have thought he was 56 if one didn't know his age!

    I wonder if he mentioned what he's been doing  all these decades or if he ever found a spouse/significant other or even had offspring.

     All the above said, thought, it's truly no one else's business unless he chooses to share with us.

    On other notes, does anyone know if all the scheduled former cast members appeared including Miss Lester [Hester-Sue Terhune] and Miss Bartlett [Grace Snyder Edwards]? The latter two performers have even more years than Miss Grassle and Miss Stewart and Miss Bartlett is  caregiving her even older spouse William Daniels.

    Any surprises?

     

    Well, it sure seemed that they went a LOT of trouble not just corralling as many former cast members but temporarily recreating the interiors of the Little House, Oleson's Mercantile and the Walnut Grove Church/Schoolhouse! I wonder if ML would have been proud of their efforts.

     If anyone went, please feel free to share with the rest of us. Thanks!

    P.S. Happy 50th Anniversary Little House . .. (and what are MG and AA going to do after this climatic event is over)?

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