Side Note on Silas Marner - I have been gut punched in the final chapter of great novels. I have been gut punched in the middle of great novels. But I feel like this is the first case in which I was out of breath at the end of the first chapter of a novel. Jesus christ. No gentle expositional layout? Felt like I came running out on the field and got met with a bat to the head.
The Little League World Series will not be played this year because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, otherwise known as the coronavirus crisis. It marks the first time the popular event has been canceled since it first began in 1947.Enjoy my Little League pitching "career" HERE.
If @KenBurns directed #TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/8S8qBQ8e0o— Wes Blankenship (@Wes_nship) April 30, 2020
It's really a shame that the John Hughes run of Planes, Trains & Automobiles/The Great Outdoors/Uncle Buck/Christmas Vacation/Career Opportunities/Dutch being somewhat ignored since it's not the Sixteen Candles/Weird Science/Breakfast Club/Pretty in Pink/Ferris Bueller/Some Kind of Wonderful run.Nine years later, I stand by this sentiment.
Watching all-time classic sports highlights, truly great moments of surprise and miracle, is a tremendous thing to behold. I've come to love watching not only the moment itself, but the seconds just beforehand. On film you can see the athlete standing there, nonplussed, his name so far not a household name. Even if he's a great player already he may not have had a single, defining moment that will be replayed on televisions until the end of time. I love these moments; in particular the truly desperate ones. While in hindsight we see the player as a hero who simply would not give up etc etc, you know that as the play begins he has no more of an idea that his own life is about to change as you may your own. Doug Flutie's a great example. Here's a play that will be replayed as long as there are humans on Earth; it certainly won him the Heisman. Yet most people forget that earlier in that very game, he had become the first qb to ever go over 10,000 career passing yards. He had already accomplished so much, but as he walks up to the line it is the play to come that will forever define him as a football player - hell, prolly as a person. I love watching the replay and the second before the snap, wondering what's it like, to have your life changed so suddenly? When you watch the highlights, I think you tend to think the athlete knew exactly what was going to happen; of COURSE he does, you've watched it 1000 times!! Of course he knows what's about to happen, he's seen it too!! But he doesn't; up through the actual moment, he himself has no idea what is about to happen. Those plain, normal seconds leading up to immortality are fascinating to me.
For some reason, these examples jump out at me.
- Doug Flutie
- Ralph Branca/Bobby Thompson
- Bobby Plump
- Carlton Fisk
- Christian Laettner
Yes, there's many more.
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Chris and Monty engaged in conversation with a striking blonde in her early 30s who spoke with an English accent. Her name, she said, was Louise. She was there with her children and two brothers. Louise did most of the talking, but the younger of the two brothers, whose name was George, made an impression all the same. “He had a funny haircut, kind of long and stringy,” Monty recalls. “Most of the boys at that time had flattops.” George was wearing jeans, he noticed, with a hole at the knee.
Louise said George was in a band back in England, where he lived. So, later that day, Chris and Monty went to Skaggs Electric Supply Company, which sold records alongside light bulbs and extension cords, and asked the proprietor if he had anything by a band called the Beatles. The man shook his head. “Never heard of ’em,” he said.I previously mentioned George's visit HERE.
His two weeks there, starting on September 16, might have been the last carefree moments of an increasingly hectic, difficult and arguably tragic life. In America, no one knew who George was or cared. He was just Louise Caldwell’s skinny little brother, a 20-year-old with a weird haircut, who said he played the guitar and sang a little, and was gaga for American cars, especially ones with tail fins.
Like a good dad, Krasinski is here to make the best out of the worst. His dark hair and beard growing slightly longer every episode, he introduces viral tweets, photos, and videos with gusto, good spirit, and a jokey cadence that belies his earnestness. He narrates nurses doing dance numbers, a husband crooning to his wife through the window of a nursing home, a man leaving toilet paper on his porch for delivery people to take, cities around the world clapping for essential workers, and a family doing a trick golf shot off the roof of their house. He praises heroes, celebrates joy, and is sure to mention which videos made him cry hard. When he interviews the regular people and medical professionals featured in these videos, he thanks them profusely. In collecting all of this in one place, SGN isn’t just providing examples of our ability to inspire, entertain, and distract one another in these trying times. It’s trying to become another such example, sampling others’ uplifting and creative gestures into a remixed megagesture.
I know this is
adorable but how can the person filming it just stand there letting the
dog struggle? 🤔😡 https://t.co/kjPN4Fqvrf
—
XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) April
28, 2020
Downton Abbey Season 4, episode 5 Re-cap
- How the fuck creepy was Cora’s face when meeting Bates and Anna at the restaurant, cruising in as if on a railroad track with that fucking evil clown makeup painted on? It’d be one thing if it lasted a second or two but it was like “Oh look, there’s Cora, she’s coming over…here she comes…still coming over…stiiiiiiiiiiiiill floating over…back with my sandwich, she’s halfway to Bates & Anna…” Yikes.
- An open letter to Bates the Idiot: You can’t “stepping out of the shadows” of Anna’s assault and move on if you use the one drink toast at a real restaurant you’ll ever make in your stupid lives to dramatically declare here’s to stepping out of the shadows.” Wtf?
"And the lady will have the Stepping Out of the Shadows Kebab with creamed spinach, if you please."
Reminds me of this shit:
7) I don’t know about your computer, but mine has some super-active software shit that blocks pop-ups. And it’s so proud of its work that it CONSTANTLY lets me know about the pop-ups it’s blocked with…pop ups!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!! Fucking hell. This would be like me proudly announcing every day that I didn’t sexually harass you by writing “Hey, I didn’t sexually harass you!!” on my dick and showing you every 5 minutes. Thanks Norton!!!!!- Still cracks me up the new lady’s maid is called “Baxter.” “Baxter.” Ha! I can’t even explain it, it’s just funny. Like farts, or covering yourself with Country Crock and lying under the bed with the lights out crying yourself to sleep because you know you're going to die completely alone. I mean, never gets old, amirite?
-Isis the dog made an appearance? Are you kidding me – last time we saw her the ping pong table was set up in the study for the wounded soldiers during WWI. Edith had only been rejected as a lover by the local hunchbacked boy with a face full of boils 2 or 3 times; I mean, this shit was EARLY. What is this mutt, 85 years old now? (Ed. note: just got an email from Edith: “Is Isis single?”)
Sigh.
- I wish I could be surprised by Isobel “happening to find” the pen or whatever at Violet’s, but then this is Downton Abbey, where the laws of neurological biology cease to exist. Or does nobody else remember Matthew Crawley deciding to jump out of his wheelchair after about 10 minutes of being paralyzed? Isobel finding the pen so quickly reminded me of another great show written for people with barely formed brains, The Wonder Pets:
And as "wonder"-ful as these guys are, they seem to get lucky a lot. A typical scene is the one we just saw: they're in their wonder-mobile, flying over Greece to find an injured inchworm and help him. To whit:- I liked the “Room of Living Spouses” thing going on with Branson, Isobel and Mary in a room. Branson’s account of loving Sybil was touching. Isobel remembering her own dead husband from long ago was a nice insight to her past. And then Mary being jarred into remembering “oh right everyone’s looking at me, I should probably make up some shit about loving Matthew here” by spewing some crap which should’ve been retorted by Isobel or Branson with “Really? Love, snowflakes, your heart all a pitter-patter? Didn’t you reject him, then quasi-accept him until you realized your mother being pregnant could get you out of it, only finally accepting him as your ‘soulmate’ years later and marrying him years after you were becoming more and more dried up and you were tired of dragging dead bodies out of your boudoire, the entire time during which you nagged the fuck out of him because he didn’t feel right accepting money from his dead fiancée’s father just so he could bail your dad out for sending his checking account routing number to a prince in Nigeria, until your 'soulmate' finally decided he’d rather plow into another car on the road than spend another minute with you? No? Wasn’t that you? I'm PRETTY sure that was you.”
"Wow, Greece is huge! How are we EVER gonna find the worm??!!"
"There it is!"
"Great!"
Linny. Tuck. And Ming Ming too.
-Shouldn’t everyone have been less wierded out by the singer being black as the fact that whatever he was singing was gay as hell? Something about “Harry” who wants to kiss and spread his chocolate love? Wtf, really? You couldn’t change “Harry” to "Mary”? For fuck’s sake, maybe black people really AREN’T as smart as white people. Fucking hell.
- Speaking of being weirded out, anyone else NOT horny watching Isobel dance with Branson? All up close, and breathy, then saying “Any of those things in America can happen in Downton, you know.” If only Branson had answered as I did all those years ago:
2) Wedding B (summer 1996, Connecticut) - sorry ladies, this was RRTHUR's wedding. Some highlights here. Almost got into a fight with a whole band after telling one of their wives to "shut the fuck up." They were nice enough to document the night with some flattering photos of me on the floor of the hotel hallway, naked and with their balls in the general vicinitiy of my face. Nice.I refuse to acknowledge:
Of course, that wasn't even the highlight of this wedding. After, oh, 7000 beers the night before the wedding Xmastime starts recieving amorous attention from Sheena Baughn (name changed to protect the old, withered, sexless and GUILTY!!!) You should know that Mrs. Baughn was a) recently widowed b) next door neighbors to RRTHUR'S parents c) oh, I'd say about 65 years old. Did this matter to our guy Xmastime? Nah. tongues down each others' throats like the plane was going down. Hands all over each other. Hey, it was a woman - I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said "beauty is only a light switch away." Anyways, somehow I got out of actually sleeping with her, but you can imagine the horror the next morning of running into her, then explaing to RRTHUR's parents that on the eve of their son's wedding night I hooked up with their neighbor 40 years my senior. Between the fright of that PLUS spending the weekend crying and whining about my first love being there (high school gf, NOT Sheena Baughn!) that wedding day was pretty traumatic. WEDDINGS 2, XMASTIME 0
ps - fast forward 2 years. I had moved to NYC, and RRTHUR and MRS. RRTHUR (sorry ladies!) went down home to visit, and ended up at a barn dance. No, that doesn't mean I danced with a barn. So we get there and BAM! there's Sheena Baughn, dancing away. Oh, shit. I immediatly decide "This might be a good night to NOT drink 100 beers. Or one drop. Or smell booze from someone talking." Total precautions were taken - I avoided her all night, spent most of the time talking to my old jv football coach Charlie Futchko who, what with his creamy-white doughy body, 70's porn mustashe, collection of skintight coach's shorts and inability to say the letter "r" "Gwegowy!! dwop your dwawers!!" deserves his own Xmastime post. But anyways I made it through the whole night without running into her, and as we're getting ready to load up to go home I breathe a sigh of relief when...an old, withered, senior citizen hand that was pumping equals parts feral sexuality and Ben-Gay landed on my shoulder and sent ripples through my young body not seen since I almost got caught beating off as a kid (by Mr. Futchko…4 times. I mean caught BY Mr. Futchko, not that he was beating me off…where was I...oh yeah, about to hit some skins with an old lady). I turn with dread to a beaming smile “Do I get a dance?” she asked. Why not? I thought, you already took away my ability to sleep with the lights off. My brain was racing – I knew if I just ran off to the car, word would get back to RRTHUR’s parents (no ladies, he wasn’t merely sent down from angels!) that I acted like a jerk. I quickly ingested the upcoming song – it was midtempo, meaning I didn’t have to fast dance, and I didn’t have to rub up all over her wrinkled-up groins either. I mumbled okay, we hit the dance floor and I started counting down the seconds that I knew were left in the song. So we’re bopping along, “dancing”, and then she says “You’re a good dancer.” I mumble somehting like “thanks” and BAM!!!!!!! She yanks me close, pulling me right up to her and says “what else are you good at?” POOOOOINGGG!!! I was sitting in the mini-van screaming at everyone to load in and got the fuck out of there tout suite.
Footnote:
POSSIBLE ANSWERS SHE WAS LOOKING FOR FROM ME WHEN SHE ASKED “WHAT ELSE ARE YOU GOOD AT?”
a) “Cunnilingus”
b) “Sitz baths”
c) “Being a stepdaddy to people older than myself”
d) “Fuckin old ladies on hay bales”
e) “Analingus”
The Edith “say, don’t these writers just HATE me?!” situation.
Mary’s new “ooooh, they hate each other!” guy, which of course means they’re already fucking.
Sigh. Goddam I love this show.
1) As this is the season to think about these things, and my life is about to be taken over by college basketball (don’t worry ladies, my foot-long fuck pump doesn’t need to see the tv, only my eyes), I tell you what I’ve noticed through the years about tournament basketball. It’s the end of a tight game, maybe it’s tied with 3 seconds left and the coach calls a timeout and frantically waves his guys into a huddle, and then you see him whip out an eraserboard and frantically diagram a play. What the hell is this? You’ve spent the last six months of your life taking 4 hours a day to drill plays into these players brains, you’ve practiced every possible play for every conceivable situation, and now here it is, the single most crucial 3 seconds of the season and maybe your whole career, and you throw everything out the window and come up with something brand new in 20 seconds. “Fuck it! Reggie, you stand here, Luke is gonna throw you the ball here…” etc etc etc. Shouldn't you be prepared here, shouldn't your team already know what to do? Do I pay $75 to see Bruce scramble round at the last second and change the chords to “Badlands”? n-y-e-t. It’s like my grandfather always said to me – “kiss me the same way we’ve always practiced, Sugarlips.”"NO YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT - YOU ONLY GET THE HALF PRICE DEAL IF THE PIZZAS EACH HAVE TWO TOPPINGS!!"
"We were coming down, Michael Jordan was coming up," Thomas said. "And in coming up, you have certain emotions; and in coming down as champions, you have certain emotions. ... Looking back, over the years, had we had the opportunity to do it all over again, I think all of us would make a different decision."Okay, maybe I believe he's sorry, maybe not. But of course the NBA's worst cretin of all time, Bill Laimbeer, has no regrets:
"I've paid a heavy price for that decision," Thomas said. "And in paying that price -- I understand this is the sports world and everything else, but at the same time, looking back over it in terms of how we felt at that particular time, our emotional state and how we exited the floor -- we actually gave the world the opportunity to look at us in a way that we never really tried to position ourselves in or project ourselves in that way. So it's unfortunate that it happened."
Laimbeer remains unapologetic, telling Nichols that Jordan and the Bulls were "whiners."
"They whined and cried for a year and a half about how bad we were for the game, but more importantly, they said we were bad people," Laimbeer said. "We weren't bad people. We were just basketball players winning, and that really stuck with me because they didn't know who we were or what we were about as individuals and our family life.The difference between Isiah and Laimbeer, of course, if that Thomas is an elite, all-time player who has a real stake in worrying about his legacy. No matter what we think of him, the history of the league will always include him. Meanwhile, Laimbeer has neither any such legacy nor anything to lose by doubling down on being a shithead.
"But all that whining they did, I didn't want to shake their hand. They were just whiners.
Most people remember Artest’s fight at the Palace in 2004 –NBA player jumps into stands to fight, the world’s over we should all kill ourselves. Okay. But what got lost in that shuffle and what continues to both amaze me and crack me up is that earlier in the season, Artest had walked into his team’s offices and asked for a month off to promote a cd he had made for some girl group friends of his. The gumption and stupidity to walk in and ask for such a thing – Ron, my cap will always be doffed. Never forget, people!Rodman wanted a brief break to recharge his batteries in the service of helping his team; Artest wanted a month off to...promote someone else' album. So please people, a little respect for Artest!
“Hey if they call, I’ll come out and support," he said, adding that just like the rest of us, he unfortunately hasn't heard anything "except the rumors.” However, he already knows where Darryl likely is right now, predicting, "Darryl was already rising through the ranks, starting that company with Jim, so he’s probably part-owner of a team right now.”Jim for one has already said he's in.
Cash and Curry (certainly my least favorite)
It Never Rains
Diamonds are For Heather (showcased Del Boy's warm side, but no laughs)
Wanted
It’s Only Rock and Roll
As One Door Closes (rare derailing by John Sullivan in which the premise makes no sense at all)
To Hull and Back (every Only Fools fan seems to love this except me)
The Sky’s the Limit
Miami Twice (both parts)
Fatal Extraction
They built the
“Cheers” bar during quarantine for their backyard squirrel friends.
The Kobe-touch is
nice.
Humanity.🌎❤️🏀pic.twitter.com/meD3DgltYD
—
Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) April
24, 2020
On this day, 33
years ago, we witnessed one of the most emotional speeches in Only Fools
and Horses.
Grandad had just passed away and Rodney
can't understand Del Boy's behaviour.
Brilliant writing, and wonderful acting by David
Jason. pic.twitter.com/bjmIdfM7wJ
—
Derek Trotter (@DelBoy_ofah) February
28, 2018
And now, we must hold a spontaneous animal service to express our gratitude. Dawn French has confirmed that she will be reviving one of Britain’s finest sitcoms of all time, The Vicar of Dibley, for the BBC’s Big Night In coronavirus fundraiser on April 23. While the show officially ended its heavenly reign back in 2007, French and the cast have revived Dibley on three occasions since the finale, which took the form of charity shorts for Comic Relief. (The latest short had her character, Geraldine, this close to achieving bishop status and putting on a snazzy miter fashion show.) Besides French, it’s unknown if the other surviving original actors of the series — Gary Waldhorn, Trevor Peacock, and James Fleet — will also be involved, or her foxy accountant husband played by Richard Armitage. Either way, we have our chocolate bible ready."But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “isn't this probably because the show made your list of Top 10 British sitcoms ever?"
The X’s and O’s of basketball are of little concern in NBAE videos. It is a genre rooted almost entirely in emotion, its narratives driven by dramatic swings of fortune. When Jordan’s Bulls meet Magic Johnson’s Lakers in the 1991 Finals in Learning to Fly, for instance, the teams are depicted as nothing less than gods fighting on Mount Olympus as the fate of all mankind hangs in the balance. The prose is sometimes comically purple. A game is a “battle,” a playoff series is “war.” Defense and offense are “weapons.” Accurate 3-point shooting is a “devastating long-range barrage.” Victors leave their opponents “trampled in their wake.”
A question from each episode. Good luck - or as Del Boy would say, Bonnet de douche!
Del Boy and Rodney’s antics with Grandad and Uncle Albert were voted the most comforting watch in a 1,500-viewer poll.I love all those other shows too, except for One Foot in the Grave which I've never seen.
Gavin & Stacey was second with Father Ted following in third.
The Vicar of Dibley, Open All Hours, Porridge, One Foot in The Grave and The Royle Family were also favourites
Someone heard the
sound of Reddi-Wip...😂🤣😭💀💀 pic.twitter.com/RbyftqK8zz
—
Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) April
14, 2020
Former Beatle Paul McCartney loves the Rolling Stones, but says his band with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Star was better.The humble-brag happened Tuesday during a telephone interview with Howard Stern on SiriusXm. Stern offered that he thought the Beatles were better than their bad boy counterparts and McCartney, calling from his home in Sussex, England, didn’t disagree.
“You know you're going to persuade me to agree with that one,” McCartney said.
These days, pub quizzes have become more than just an opportunity to flex some knowledge and compete with friends. In an era of social distancing, where traditional gatherings have been banned, the pub quiz is an unlikely savior for those in need of something to do or someone to (virtually) hang out with. In the weeks since Britain went into lockdown, dozens of online pub quizzes have emerged to meet that need—many of them adapted by existing quizmasters across the country.I've started a regular quiz night with some of my friends, using Zoom like everybody else. It's fairly easy to do between Google, knowledge I already have, and literally thousands of quizzes already set up for people to use.
The Yankees Morality Police will be out in force because Nick Swisher had the audacity to smile on the mound tonight when he was pitching in a 10-run game. This will no doubt be a big issue on the radio tomorrow.
You know what? Get over it. It was 15-5 and they asked a guy to pitch who hadn’t pitched since his freshman year of high school.Of course, the old guard stick-in-the-mud must rear it's ugly head.
The best part was when he shook Jose Molina off, even through there were no signs. When he struck Gabe Kapler out, Swish rolled the ball into the dugout for a souvenir. Hilarious.
Derek Jeter thought it was amusing because it was Swisher. “He’s not going to stop talking about it,” the captain said.
But Jorge Posada was not amused. “Nobody was laughing,” he said. “I think today was embarrassing.” Maybe so. But Swisher is hitting .450 and has 10 RBI. Maybe everybody should have what he’s having.Of course Swish's personality became the one thing that allowed the Yankees loosen up as a team, and them winning the World Series 6 months is no coincidence to me.
All the main characters in Absolutely Fabulous were played by people whose name starts with the letter J.Today I participated in a live BBC Sitcom virtual quiz and this was a question so of course I am QUITE pleased with myself.... :)
Easily one of the
best social distancing ads I’ve seen pic.twitter.com/9WhhTHmdPc
—
𝙹𝚘𝚜𝚑 𝙶𝚛𝚞𝚋𝚋𝚜 (@JoshuaGrubbsPhD) April
9, 2020
