Some '50s Country

I got nuthin' else, so here are some classic country songs from the '50s:

Don Gibson:



Guy Mitchell:



Charlie Walker:



UPDATE: Bill reminds me of another Don Gibson classic I hadn't heard in years (and no, I haven't seen the movie - yet).

Losing my male chauvinistic pig cred...

Not sure just why I went a youtubin' for it, but I came across "Peaceful" by Helen Reddy. Of course, her most well-known song was "I Am Woman". I actually like that song a lot, because it's from the era when women were looking for equality and an equal shot at anything they might want to be.

And before the era when women (or any other fill-in-the-blank-interest-group) felt that they were entitled to any frickin' job they wanted, qualified or not.

Politics and such aside, here is a lovely song that I just love:

Reactive Targets

...and the random killings of Damn, Dirty Watermelons and Damn, Dirty Budweisers.

So a distant cousin (whom I love dearly) was doing her annual migration from Arizona to the wilds of Northern California. This is her first since her dear husband passed away recently. And she stopped by the ranch, so naturally I had to get up there to visit with her.

And also to do some turkey hunting, at which I was spectacularly unsuccessful.

Nonetheless, I managed to destroy some reactive targets while out and about, and videoed some of them for your edification. No need to thank me, it's what I do.

Random thought of the day

From someone who is a distant relation of someone who may be a distant relation to me:

A fine is a tax for doing wrong; a tax is a fine for doing well.

Goodnight, all.

Sisters

No particular reason, I just flashed on this song this evening:



And this one:

Another American Idol post

And a minor bit of embarrassment.

The Sainted Bride was in the other room watching AI. I walked through and was struck by how well the singer singing "Band of Gold" was doing it, staying true to the original by Freda Payne. And I mentioned it. Whereupon the SB said, "That IS Freda Payne,"

Two comments: (1) DAMN she still looks good more than 35 years later. (2) DAMN she still sounds good more than 35 years later (even if the SB, who would know about such things, being talented and all, thought she was flat).

OTOH, to paraphrase Paul Simon, K.C. and the Sunshine Band still suck after all these years. And unlike the lovely Freda, time has not treated K.C. well.

Hokay kids

I know how y'all ignore me because I'm so old and decrepit. But give me some credit, please.

Harkening back to this post.

If you haven't seen it, you definitely need to see the movie. The specific theme is here:



The trailer is here:



Dudes and Dudettes, see this movie, even if you have to overpay at Blockbuster. It is so totally funny.

And if you do so, be ABSOLUTELY FREAKIN' CERTAIN THAT YOU WATCH IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE FINAL CREDITS. Seriously, keep watching after all the unknown names finish scrolling.

Shameful disclosure

I mean, beyond the fact that I shotgunned a ButtWider a few days ago. It was the only alcohol available and I was severely lacking in alcohol at the moment. Unlike Paula Abdul.

So it's American Idol night. And it's disco night, which means that I am desperately trying to avoid it at all costs. Can't completely, the room with the computer is not sufficiently sound-insulated from the room with the TV. Which means I can't completely escape. And so I have a few observations, and one shameful disclosure.

Observation #1: Paula is taking either way too much or way too little crack. Putting "Chaka Khan" and "Goddess" in the same sentence is unconcionable. Hon, cold turkey or OD: pick one.

Observation #2: ibid. Paula, that rambling insanity about "guy shopping in the women's department" or whatever it was, please see last comment. Soon.

Observation #3: I really hate disco, but I am gratified at the number of people who seem to have taken the forced-on-them disco songs and made them their own (R'n'R style or whatever). The funny looking 16-year-old chick with the magenta hair, f'rinstance. Even the Elvis1956-haired guy who turned "If I Can't Have You" into a dirge.

Observation #4: Despite how s/he and Rufus make my stomach turn in the way disco does, Chaka Khan is not disco. Nor are Earth, Wind, and Fire (I'm not a fan, but they are NOT disco).

Observation #5: I actually liked the Bee Gees before disco. Not once it came on the scene. Sorry guys, but "Ah-ah-ah-ah-stayin'-alive" makes me think of some guy surviving a life-threatening bout with constipation. Go back to starting jokes, please.

All that said, I do have a shameful disclosure: There are a couple of disco songs I actually like.

I like this one, not sure why but it's just kind of fun. I have no idea if this is the gal who did the original version:



And then there's this one. Again, it's not a musical style I should like, but I do love the strident, "you can't break me", survivor attitude:



Observation #6: I actually had one but I forget what it was. Oh well...

UPDATE: Observation #7: But not about "American Idol". About "I Will Survive": I don't know who wrote the lyrics (I assume it was one of these guys listed on a lyrics website: Fekaris, Dino; Perren, Frederick J) but man, I just listened again to the whole thing. That lyricist is excellent.

So my lovely buddy Julie has a request

For anyone who may have watched the show "Castle" last night. I've never watched it so I'm useless. Anyway, her request is:

Did you happen to watch "Castle" last night? If so, what was the song Castle was singing as he pretended to drive Beckett's car? I'm pretty sure it was a TV theme song, I just can't remember which TV show it was the theme for! If you didn't watch it, would you feel comfortable asking your readers?

I would indeed, so here is her request. Anybody watch it and can identify the them in question?

Well that was kind of an irritating brainfart

Last night I left my home Outlook(trademark thing) email open. I noticed and suspected when I didn't have a SacBee update in my (remotely accessed) inbox. I confirmed by sending myself an email, which dutifully showed up in my (remotely accessed) inbox and disappeared a few minutes later because Outlook(another trademark thing I'm too lazy to generate) downloads and scrubs the comcast server every few minutes.

[sigh]

So I spent the whole day without being able to productively access my home email account. I had to content myself with work and work-related email. My life felt empty.

And felt especially bad because my lovely buddy Julie had sent me a request I didn't get until this evening. Sorry kiddo, I'll try to make it up to you.

Okay, and speaking of Goddesses...

... The Goddess Carole King reminded me of The Goddess Laura Nyro, who reminded me of the Goddess Marilyn McCoo.

Bear with me please. It will become apparent.


The Goddess Laura Nyro wrote (and recorded, BTW) my favorite 5th Dimension song of all time. But as great as the Goddess Laura Nyro is, the greatest version of this particular song is sung by the Goddess Marilyn McCoo.

Marilyn, my darling, if I weren't married with children, I'd like so totally want to have children with you. Assuming the Sainted Bride didn't kill me:



Okay, it's not just the Goddess Marilyn. It's all the other great folks in the 5th Dimension. You folks are so freakin' cool.

UPDATE: Oh man. Came across this. And I couldn't resist embedding it:



Okay, sorry for the lack of pics, but it's the freakin' 5th Dimension! Deal with it.

Yeah, okay...

... all due respect to The Goddess Carole King, but for this particular song, Ben E. King and the Drifters did the definitive version:



And another version:



Sing it, Benny.

UPDATE: Pretty sure I've linked it before, but despite the beauty of "Up On the Roof", this is the beautifulest [sic] song that the Ben E. King-ster ever did. Sing it, Benster:



[sigh] That is so cool.

All these years later...

...I'm still boggled by the fact that the principals all died so close together.

Darrin in 1992.

Darrin in 1994.

Samantha in 1995.

Yeah, I liked the Darrins a lot, but I had some total boyhood fantasies about Samantha. Gads, what a babe.

Here is the original episode. Enjoy (unfortunately, not apparently embeddable).

Singin' the Praises Again

...for the Goddess Carole King.

Y'all know that I am very reticent to bestow the term Goddess on folks. Patsy Cline is on the Goddess List. So is Marilyn McCoo. So is Gladys Knight. And Sarah Vaughn. And Laura Nyro.

But there's another who needs to be on the Goddess List. I'm only surprised I never mentioned her being on the Goddess List before. I won't embed any of the youtubes of her stuff, just go here and browse her Goddessliness:

The Goddess Carole King

Oh wait. I think I WILL embed one. The Goddess Carole King:



I embed that particular one because DNT sang it in a school talent contest many years ago.

Yet I feel the need to embed another from The Goddess Carole King. So here's one I didn't know until just now that she (and Gerry Goffin) wrote (at least, I assume the fact that she's singing it means that she wrote it):



Oh Carole! You Sweet Goddess! Sing it!

UPDATE: OH. MY. GOD. I just realized that the "Tapestry" album came out 38 years ago. That's before Dave J. was born. Hell, that's before Emily was born. And yet I remember it well.

Crap. I am so frickin' old.

Singin' the Praises

of Rolf Harris.

Until this evening I've only heard two of his songs, but they are famous and they are great. And here they are:



And this one, with an explanation of the lyrics:



Oh yeah, I'll be a-youtubin' for Rolf here later this evening, Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

I'm still looking for a different version of "Waltzin' Mathilda". It was by another group, with a more modern, jazzy feel to it. But I can't remember their names. A guy I worked with many years ago had a tape of them, and it was cool. Desperately need to fine it...

A wee 'nother bit of food blogging

So what's for dinner tonight? Cream of Artichoke Soup, followed by Hamburger Pillows. Recipe for the last may follow, maybe not, depends on whether I remember to do so.

Tomorrow? Don't know yet. Need to check the freezer. Saw some Cornich Game Hens in there earlier, may do that. Maybe not. We'll see.

Um, okay...

So with some of the recent RWDB commentary about Matt Tabibi and Anderson Cooper making"teabagging" jokes, I learned a new verb I never knew about before.

My only question is: Why?

Seriously, why? Or rather, WTF?

That does not sound like a very fun or sexually rewarding practice. Not to mention how it must make your partner feel.

Seriously, WTF?

And speaking of The Great Gun God Jeff...

Who so graciously linked to my last post (which contest is still open [operators are standing by!]; scroll down for the contest, I haven't yet figured out how hide portions of posts in extended entries in this here Blogsplat thing).

Anyway, Jeff linked to a press release by the Brewer's Association on the top 50 craft beer brewers by volume. And in the way of other bloggers who do these "bold the things you've done in this silly list" things, I thought it sounded like fun to bold the beers you've actually tried. So I did. You do the same, if you're so inclined.

Actually, I bolded the brewers whose beer I know I've tried, and italicized those I think I may have tried. Not sure on these, the names listed are the brewers' names, and I remember more the specific beer names and not all of those because many are sold in those "here's a buttload of different beers to try" packs. But anyway, sounds like fun so here goes

[NB: I don't really know how to format tables in html so I'm just doing commas]

Rank, Brewing Company, City, State
1: Boston Beer Co., Boston, MA [I think, but haven't checked, that is is the company that brews Samuel Adams]
2: Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, CA [Nectar Of The Gods]
3: New Belgium Brewing Co., Fort Collins, CO
4: Spoetzl Brewery, Shiner, TX
5: Pyramid Breweries Inc., Seattle, WA [Good stuff, though I've only tried their hefeweizen]
6: Deschutes Brewery, Bend, OR [I think I'd had at least one of their brews before but my buddy Brian introduced me to more of them]
7: Matt Brewing Co., Utica, NY
8: Boulevard Brewing Co., Kansas City, MO
9: Full Sail Brewing Co., Hood River, OR [Not marked before, Brian jogged my memory to mark this one I think I've tried]
10: Magic Hat Brewing Co., Burlington, VT
11: Alaskan Brewing Co., Juneau, AK
12: Harpoon Brewery, Boston, MA
13: Bell's Brewery, Inc., Galesburg, MI
14: Kona Brewing Co., Kailua-Kona, HI
15: Anchor Brewing Co., San Francisco, CA [Ahh, the first microbrew and still a great, and unique, one]
16: Shipyard Brewing Co., Portland, ME
17: Summit Brewing Co., Saint Paul, MN
18: Stone Brewing Co., Escondido, CA [Brewers of Arrogant Bastard Ale]
19: Abita Brewing Co., Abita Springs, LA
20: The Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn, NY
21: New Glarus Brewing Co., New Glarus, WI
22: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, DE
23: Long Trail Brewing Co., Bridgewater Corners, VT
24: Gordon Biersch Brewing Co., San Jose, CA [Great]
25: Rogue Ales/Oregon Brewing Co., Newport, OR [Also great]
26: Great Lakes Brewing Co., Cleveland, OH
27: The Lagunitas Brewing Co., Petaluma, CA
28: Firestone Walker Brewing Co., Paso Robles, CA
29: SweetWater Brewing Co., Atlanta, GA
30: Flying Dog Brewing Co., Frederick, MD
31: BJ's Restaurant & Brewery, Huntington Beach, CA
32: Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants, Louisville, CO
33: BridgePort Brewing Co., Portland, OR
34: Odell Brewing Co., Fort Collins, CO
35: Victory Brewing Co., Downingtown, PA
36: Mac and Jack's Brewery, Redmond, WA
37: Big Sky Brewing Co., Missoula, MT
38: Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurants, Chattanooga, TN
39: Karl Strauss Brewing Co., San Diego, CA
40: Breckenridge Brewery, Denver, CO
41: Lost Coast Brewery and Cafe, Eureka, CA
42: Otter Creek Brewing Co., Middlebury, VT
43: Utah Brewers Cooperative, Salt Lake City, UT
44: North Coast Brewing Co., Fort Bragg, CA
45: Blue Point Brewing Co., Patchogue, NY
46: Boulder Beer Co., Boulder, CO
47: Pete's Brewing Co., San Antonio, TX [Pete's Wicked Ale: 'nuff said]
48: McMenamins Breweries, Portland, OR
49: Anderson Valley Brewing Co., Boonville, CA
50: The Saint Louis Brewery, Inc., St Louis, MO

A contest

UPDATE: Alpheccalanche! Thanks for the link, Jeff!

No prize, just a bit of verbally creative fun.

Here’s the setup: I installed a new app on the computer and had to reboot. I got back into my email and there was an interesting (to me) headline on the news page. This was on the Comcast page so you probably can’t see the video there, but here’s the video on the Foxnews website. Here are a couple of screen caps:





The transcript onscreen missed the noises going on after the lady started talking, but I've inserted them below:

Jody Hoover: "He's got the chair in his hand! He's counting, oh my God, oh my God! He's getting ready to come in!"

[Bunch of noise and screaming]

911 Dispatcher: "Ma'am?"

Jody Hoover: "Yes!"

911 Dispatcher: "What happened?"

Jody Hoover: "He tried to come in and my husband shot him. And he's still moving!"

911 Dispatcher: "I want you to tell your husband to put the gun down."

Now, leaving aside the fact that the dispatcher's response to "still moving" should have been more along the lines of "then shoot him again", what should Ms. Hoover's response to the dispatcher's actual comment have been?

Get creative!

Oh my goodness

Okay, I like Mike Rowe on "Dirty Jobs". Lord knows, I loves me some blue-collar stuff, being from a blue collar family (not least of which includes my Dad disking, haying, cowboying, and other-ing).

And despite being mostly a city boy, who just happens to have spent some time on the farm on vacation and during deer season, I have a great appreciation for the jobs that need to be done down on the farm.

Okay, despite all that, this is such a great monologue:

Rats, I can't figure out how to steal the source code to embed it. So just click through and watch it.

I actually have witnessed (not personally done) the necessary castrations and pollings of cattle. I have actually slaughtered (yes, me personally in this case) various farm animals for food, not to mention various game animals. And I will personally bear witness to the eternal truth that the so-called "animal rights" activists are far worse for animal welfare than farmers (check).

Seriously, the cruelest people are far more humane than Mother Nature, who really doesn't give a rat's ass about anybody or anything.

More food blogging

Well, a little anyway. What's for dinner tonight?

Leftovers.

Daughter Number One and her significant other are in town, but busy with other stuff (parents are too darned fogyish for them, I guess). Daughter Number Two and her significant other are not going to be here until WAY later than dinner. And we still have quite a bit of the Pork Vindaloo and the Chicken Tikka Masala left over (the Mulligatawny Soup is long gone, though, we gorged on it).

About that: Well, the pork vindaloo didn't turn out so well. Not inedible, but I will have to work on it, either the recipe or the technique, not completely sure. The chicken tikka masala was very good but alas, it turned out too spicy for the Sainted Bride. I blame the garam masala, man it was potent.

Anyhoo, tomorrow the SB's parents and sister and her hubby are coming over for Easter, so today I'm preparing a cream of asparagus soup, to be reheated tomorrow (because it's always better the second day). I'll add the cream tomorrow of course, but for tonight, it's pretty damned good. And tomorrow we will cook the ham.

And a good time will be had by all.

Taking off my PC hat (updated)

Because I'm a bad person. Here are a couple of great parodies of the same song:





UPDATE: And as a bonus, one I had thought I'd posted sometime back but I don't see it perusing the archives. It's not EXACTLY a parody (and it has nothing to do with the song above):

No Excuse

No excuse.

NO. EXCUSE.

THERE.

IS.

NO.

FUCKING.

EXCUSE.

Skyler and Dave called it right in the comments. There is NO FUCKING EXCUSE for these fucks not having been blasted to smithereens when the captain was out of the boat. This country's first combat* after the Revolution was putting Islamic pirates in their place.

The metrosexualization pussification of America and the free world continues apace.

*I refuse to dignify the Barbary issue as a "war". That dignifies them too much.

Man Oh Man (updated)

A few more classics I just thought of searching for.

The Count:



The Duke:



The Dave:



Righteous.

UPDATE: Brian nudged me, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, my familiarity with Thelonius Monk is not great. But this is:

"Emily's Pumpkin Boogie Dance"

You KNOW you want to click through.

Your random Gamble Rogers moment of the evening

Damn. I'm singing the praises of Youtube again. What a wealth of "can't find it anywhere else" stuff.

Tell it, Gamble!

And this Marita considered herself an interpretress of the modern dance. And Lo! Whenever the dulcet and mellifluous tones of Miss Peggy Lee were heard to resonate upon the Wurlitzer, singing that grand old American standard "Fever", Marita would lose herself in an engaging series of peregrinations, pirouettes, and bumps and grinds, calculated to leave even the most diffident of observers fraught with horn.

Watch the whole thing:



Which, BTW, uses the phrases "monodigital articulation", "a great manswarm gaggle of Arcadian underachievers", and "unslaked carnality". You know you want to hear about the "unslaked carnality". Go on, you know you want to.

UPDATE: Wow. Clicking through more, I see that Florida has named a state recreation area for the Great Gamble, the Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach. Well, he was a great storyteller and guitar picker, and he died while trying to save a drowning man at that beach. Hats off, Gamble.

One of them odd stream of consciousness thingies

So I was downing beer and clicking on youtube. And the first "recommendation" that came up for "me" under "Recommended for You" was one on stupid game show answers. And boy, didn't that start the ball rolling. There are lots.

My two most (personally) memorable, as in I actually watched them in more-or-less real time, I can't actually find on youtube, but I will try to describe.

First: I don't remember the question, or even the show, it's been many years, but I do remember that it wasn't even a musical question. The answer given was "accordion". This has become an in-joke between the Sainted Bride and me.

Second: This was from "Wheel of Fortune" many years ago, before it became even dumber than it was back then (seriously, how damn many letters of the alphabet are they going to spot the contestant in the last round?) Now, after these many years, I don't specifically recall how many letters were yet uncovered on the puzzle but I don't believe it was more than two different letters (a couple of each). The puzzle looked kind of like this:

"T_E EAR__ BIRD CATC_ES T_E WORM"

Actually, it seemed even easier than that, and I don't recall specifically which letters had been left unrevealed but I, to this day, can't believe that this particular contestant actually guessed "THE EARTH BIRD CATCHES THE WORM". Tres amazing.

But enough of that. More amusing stuff, first answers here (but watch all of them), trying to get past the concept that two married adults don't know what a "decade" is:



There is a family story (actually TWO family stories, if you count family friends) along the lines of the answer given here, between 1:40 and 1:50:



But the most (in)famous answer of all time (which I had heard about for years but always suspected was an urban myth until I actually saw it on the blooper show excerpted here) was this one::



Very amusing.

Trivia Question

I've been neglecting you. I'm sorry. Work's been a bear and all that. But here'a a perhaps marginally entertaining question.

We've all been reading about the Big Three automakers recently. Well, more accurately perhaps, it's the only three nowadays. But once upon a time, many years ago (more than thirty), there was a group sometimes referred to as the Big Five. Here's the question:

Who were the other two? One's pretty easy, the other maybe not so much.

"Don't fuck with the babysitter"

And "Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues", of course.

I'm really not certain exactly how I arrived here, but I'll try to reconstruct it. I started with the Puppini Sisters. Seems they covered the song "Spooky" by the Classics IV. References to that song suggest that it was made popular by the Sainted Dusty Springfield. I've never heard her version until this evening, but fortunately it's been youtubed. I'd never heard it before, even though I'd heard the Atlanta Rhythm Section's version (full disclosure: I thought this was some other version of "Spooky" by another alumnus of the Classics IV).

Anyway, I love this Dusty Springfield song:



But somehow, the Sainted Dusty Springfield reminded me of the Sainted Crystals, and their signature tune which was used as the opening theme to one of the funniest movies of all time. And here is that theme:

Oh Wow!

While poking around the internet, I just learned that while the Sainted Maxene and the Sainted Laverne have sadly passed on, the Sainted Patty Andrews is apparently still living. 91 years old. Rock on, O Sainted Patty.



UPDATE: On a related note, I'm really enjoying learning about these gals, who did this (in addition to other stuff):



I've linked Bette Midler before. Unfortunately, I still hate the fish costumes. Thank God someont FINALLY uploaded a good vid without the fish costumes.

Wow, impressive

Talk about your Christian iconography. Check out the great pics in this video. Lots of good stuff I bombed out on in literature classes in high school and college. Most especially, check out from about 49 to 58 seconds. Even a literature dweeb like me can pick up on that kinda symbolism.



Though I suppose the word "symbolism" implies something a bit more subtle.

An anomaly

This song popped into my head tonight. Usually, I prefer the original version of a song. But this one is a bit different. No knock on the original, of course, it's great.

And in fact, here it is, the original:



And here's Ray doing again, more than 50 years later:



And here's one by the great Gram Parsons:



But the definitive version is by the great Jerry Lee Lewis. Can't find a youtube version of his studio version, nor can I find one of the duet he did with Dennis Quaid on the soundtrack album from the movie. But I did find this very creditable version from 1983:



Unfortunately, it's still not quite the bluesy, Rock 'n' Roll style he did in the duet with Quaid, but still not bad. Rock on, 73 year old Jerry. Who'd-a thought you'd live this long?

A wee bit of food blogging

What's on tap for this weekend? All Indian. Tonight is Mulligatawny Soup and Chicken Tikka Masala.

Tomorrow is more Mulligatawny Soup (because I'm making a large pot of it) and Pork Vindaloo. I haven't attempted Pork Vindaloo (or any othe vindaloo, for that matter) so this may be an experience.

Well now

Isn't this an interesting juxtaposition of song titles:



I had never thought of that particular one.

I stand corrected

So y'all remember how I went off on Hollywood types fanning revolvers in the movies a while back. As I recall, my exact words were:

NO ONE, and I repeat for the hopelessly revolver-naive, NO ONE can fan a single-action revolver and hope to shoot anywhere near accurately.

I stand corrected:





Good gravy.

Justin Wilson III

Hokay, kids. This one will probably only be gotten by rural folk/hunters/bucolic people. But I'm one of them and I loved it when I heard this story probably 30 years ago. And the embedded version is definitely not the exact version I remember from the salad days of KFAT radio. Specifically, I remember the line:

"The boy pulled out a steel ball one one inch in diameter. Both ways."

Otherwise, it's mostly how I'd have transcribed from memory, except for the immortal line "It's a sin to lie to someone older than you." But it does have the great line, "You're goin' to Hell on a bobsled." Listen to it all, it's pretty much how I remember it, but I'll transcribe the punchline here as I remember it:

"How about that. A little bitty left-handed kid..."

"Mister, I ain't left-handed."

"How come you chunk left handed? How come you don't chunk right handed?"

"My daddy won't let me"

"How come"

"I tear 'em up too damn bad"

Justin Wilson II

Ha ha ha! So I went a-youtubin' for Justin. Found this one, which uses a joke I've used before (it may have originated with Justin).



HAHA!

Justin Wilson I

Heh. JeffS sort of got the reference but isn't a fan. Emily didn't get the reference at all. So I'll tell the two Justin Wilson stories I remember from all those years ago on KFAT [bows head in memory] radio. First story is about two drunk (is there any other kind?) Irishmen down in Louisiana.

They crawl out of a bar at closing time. Crawl across the road in front of the bar. Crawl onto some railroad tracks. Then they start crawling up the RR tracks.

After a while, one says "This is the longest damn stair-step-way I ever climbed."

The other says "I don't mind the long stair-step-way, but this low handrail's gonna kill me."

Sounds cheap to me

So I called the solar heating people today to set up an appointment to get the solar heating system for the swimming pool fixed. The system is about 15 years old so it's not surprising that it has sprung a leak.

In point of fact, it had done so last year and I patched it myself with a little bit of plastic piping, a couple of rubber sleeves and a few screw-band thingies. It held for a while.

But the solar company is going to charge about $140 for the job. $11 in parts and sales tax, the rest in labor. Seriously, I'd have expected at least a few hunnert more. And while I could probably pick up some plastic piping and such for slightly less the $11 at Orchard Supply or elsewhere, it just ain't worth it.

And I'll gladly pay the roughly $130 in labor to avoid going up on the roof in the broiling sun and have someone else do it. Because I GAR-ON-TEE* that whoever does it will be up on the roof in the broiling sun for many hours less than it would take me.

*Anybody get the reference? Just curious, you know.