"Hooray for the man from Texas!"

"Some bully shot!"

Okay, yes, it was the second greatest line in movie history*, but it's one of the GREATEST exchanges in movie history. Unfortunately, that vid I posted below ended before the culmination of the scene. Which was way cool.

Here is some more of it. If you ever get a chance to see this movie in its entirety, take it.



UPDATE: I'd forgotten this exchange:

"Dammit. That Texan, when you need him he's dead."

"I ain't dead yet, you bushwhacker! Hang on."

[...]

"That Texan. Saved my neck twice. Once after he was dead."

You need to see this movie.

AND MORE:

"We can't leave him like this."

"I'm the one leaving him like this, but if we don't get you to a doctor you'll be deader than he is."

"Little Blackie can't carry us both."

"He'll have to, he's all I could catch."

MORE UPDATE: HAHAHA! Couldn't pass this one up:

"Poor child, she does not know how ill she really is."

"Well, lawyer J. Nobel Daggett, ar you a betting man?"

"On occasion."

"All of this and General Price that Baby Sis makes it back to Yell (sp?) County."

"Oh no. No sir."

Do listen to the whole clip. And to this:

"Well, come and see a fat, old man sometime!"

*Yes, this excludes the Great and Powerful Casablanca. There is too much too cool about that one. But perhaps I will embed some of its coolness sometime.

Second greatest movie line in history

"Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!"



The SINGLE GREATEST MOVIE LINE OF ALL TIME appears not to be currently available on Youtube. For now. But one can always hope. It's from THE GREATEST VOICE IN HISTORY:

"Forgive me for the men I have killed. And those I am about to."

Random observation, apropros of nothing

I really need to teach my nephew to drink decent beer. Seriously.

While I was at the ranch this past weekend, said nephew had bought some "beer". He's a poor, struggling college student and had to go the cheap route, so I shall forgive him this one time. But only this one time. Because in his defense, his Dad told him to grab some cheap stuff. Which he did. In spades.

Now, on a warm day when you're doing lots of manual labor, nothing quenches a thirst like a beer. But since the nephew happened to purchase this vile crap, I had to make do with spring water and Wild Turkey. Not your standard thirst quencher, but it had to do in a pinch until I could get to the store and buy some decent stuff.

[sigh] Life is so hard.

On the upside, for Father's Day, Little Bro the Firefighter got this from his wife and kids. And we watched it. I even stayed up until the end (which was several hours past my normal bedtime).

Very excellent, I highly recommend it.

The Iranian situation

What can we (the U.S.) do to help the opposition?

Send lawyers, guns, and money.

All that and a bag of chips!

The Swillers have been having some server issues. They seem to be up and running now, but the suave and talented Mr. B send along this item for me to post in his absence. His title and commentary, as it would appear if posted there:

How Come He’s Frito-Lay...

... but she’s not?

"A woman pleaded no contest last week to prostitution charges, accused of agreeing to be paid for services with a box of chips by a man who said he was a Frito-Lay employee.

Lahoma Sue Smith, 36, was ordered to pay a fine of $1,142 in municipal court from charges from a February arrest.

… Smith was arrested on complaints of prostitution and suspicion of driving with a suspended license. The man was not arrested.

[End of Mr. Bingley's commentary]

Me again. Oh yeah, she's all that and a bag of chips:

Notice to the FTC

I have accepted absolutely no money for any of my product endorsements.

That's mainly because the manufacturers have offered me none. Cheap bastards.

However, I am perfectly willing to whore myself out to write product endorsements for vast sums of cash. On which I will, of course, pay no taxes unless nominated to a cabinet post.

Uh oh

Hide the women and children!

Whoa, coolness

So I was sitting here drinking some beer and poking around at Ancestry.com. Unfortunately, I haven't had time (nor, honestly, inclination) to learn how to upload stuff to their new type of tree. To be quite brutal, I don't too much like them, those "public member trees". Too hard to navigate efficiently.

BUT...

They do have the advantage over the old style of allowing members to upload pictures. And this evening, for the first time, I searched through said pictures. AND HIT SOME FREAKIN' PAYDIRT!

Found some of Uncle Chum, his wife Dodie, and his daughter Melody. Very cool. Sometime I may tell the story of visiting Uncle Chum back in the day (irk - I think I put the wrong year in the message I sent to the owner of the pictures!) Chum died in 1982, and his daughter Melody moved into the old home place with her family. I visited her in 2002, shortly after Mom died. I told her who I was and she said, "Yep, you favor [my Dad] some." Well, actually, that's paraphrased from an old joke but she definitely said something to that effect. We had a nice chat before I rolled on down the highway. But that's another story for another time. BTW, if you've read my posts about Uncle Danny the Jockey, she's the one who still has Danny's silks.

Back

And relaxed, despite the work. And a wee bit way fucking pissed off.

Went to the ranch for Sunday and Monday. Repair work to do (I thought I'd blogged it before, but I can't find it so I guess not, though I know I mentioned it some years ago at 'Pints).

A few years back, shortly after Mom died, I went to the ranch for dove season. Very hot weather. I turned on the cooler. Next morning, I found the ceiling in the back room dripping. The drain from the cooler was plugged and it overflowed.

So fast forward to this year. On my recent visit in April I discovered that the spot that had been leaked on some years before had fallen. BUT - once again, Little Bro the Firefighter to the rescue. He and his two boys, plus a friend of one, trucked up there this week for to do some drywalling. And naturally, I needed to see the crew so I trucked up there too for a couple of days for to do some manual labor. I don't do drywall, but I can certainly stand there and hand tools to the guy that can (also, truth be told, embarrassing as it is for a manly, DIY guy like me, part of my job was to take Younger Nephew and his friend out hunting to keep them occupied while Little Bro and Older Nephew did the skilled work; it's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it).

As of the time I left to get home, the new sheet was up in the ceiling, most of the mudding was done, and Little Bro and the Crew are going to spend a few more days there while I head back to work, pallin' around and doing the last of the mudding and painting and stuff. Them, I mean, doing the pallin' around and stuff. I'm just working.

And a good time was had by all.

Well, except for one minor detail. There is one thing going on about which I am absolutely livid. As is the Little Bro. And other dear family members. Can't say anything about it here, for fear of blowing out the synapses of Blogspot. And for anybody who visits the FFOT, you know that even the FFOT GOD VAL has not yet blown out Blogspots synapses, nor even sent it offline. Suffice to say, I'm angry enough to make even Val blush.

'Nuff said.

Spamalot

As mentioned here.

One word review: Excellent.

Aw jeez

I got side-tracked last night in my search for Steve Goodman. So I started doing it again tonight.

And I learned that Steve died of leukemia in 1984, at the age of 36. FUCK THAT. Leukemia can FOAD.

So I was even more determined to post some Steve Goodman tonight.

One of his most famous compositions, made famous by Arlo Guthrie, this is a more recent treatment:



Another composition, popularized by David Allen Coe:



One of my all time favorites:



And another fave, this being the specific one I started this whole search thing for:



Rest easy, Steve. We love you.

That's Un-American!

Hitting him from behind while he's taking a whiz? That's Un-American!

Fortunately, Alan York is British. Also, the guy he whapped is a vile thug. So it's cool.

And yes, this is just an interim post before my next, I was listening to the audio book while running out to get some sammiches.

Tim Blair delenda est

Lousy, feckin' Aussies. Those rotten Southern Hemisphereans did this to me.

Steve Goodman popped into my head this evening, so I went a youtubin' for some. Haven't gotten there yet. That goofy search function there came up with a suggestion as I was typing and I couldn't resist clicking on it.

Lousy, feckin' Aussies. They put this gawdawfulmotherfeckin' earworm in my head.



I blame Tim Blair. Go ahead and click on it, if you dare. But don't say I didn't warn you. And then go poke Tim with a sharp stick.

Gonna take a lot of Steve Goodman to drive that little piece of nonsense out of my head.

Your laugh of the day

So yesterday, I think it was, I saw in one of my email news updates that The Prez swatted a fly during a TV interview. It was a video link so I didn't look at it, only thought "So bleepin' what?" Turns out, The Prez actually killed the fly barehanded and said "I got the sucker."

[sigh] If only he would turn that marvelous, vicious, boneexoskeleton-crushing attitude on our nation's enemies. [/sigh]

Anyway, in the Laughs Department, our goofy friends at PETA apparently have their undies in a wad about it.

PETA attack Barack Obama for fly killing

PEOPLE for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is upset with Barack Obama killing a fly during a televised interview - and are sending him a parcel to prove it.

PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

"We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals," PETA 'Tard-in-Chiefspokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday. "We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals."

What about the plants, you filthy kingdomist pig?

Well, there were lots of stories linked in Yahoo News, all had pretty mundane headlines on the actual stories like this one. But the headlines in the Yahoo search were outstanding:

PETA to Obama: Why'd You Kill That Fly?
PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly
PETA chastise Obama for murdering fly
PETA pesters Obama for murdering fly
Obama the fly-killer riles PETA

Heh. Screen cap:

And apropos of that last post...

Here is what I mean about the "throwback" mentioned. Not my favorite of his songs, but the video that best shows off the suit and tie. And the writhing chicks. Writhing chicks are always good.

But unfortunately, embedding is disabled. So you'll have to click through to see it. Damned fascist embedding-disablers.

And sadly, I just learned that he passed away a few years ago. RIP, dude.

That promised repost

This is it. For the setup, go back and look at this post. These guys are playing surfer music in the early 1960s. They are wearing ties. And matching jackets and slacks. And they look good.

Hey, I'm the first to admit that I'm not a sartorial giant. Hell, I typically wear jeans to work. It's an informal, biotech atmosphere (I have stories about wearing ties to work, but that's another post for another day). Still, I do like the idea of dressing for work. Especially if it's in an industry in which image contributes greatly to the bottom line. And so, since you have already looked back at that last post (you have, haven't you?), here is my repost. Links are left as in the original, though some of them are dead:

To expand on a theme and segue into a rant

To pick up and run with an idea expounded here by Ricki and Julie, I think it is true that Rock 'n' Roll, and popular music in general, have really lost the good voices. The rockers and crooners of the '50s and '60s did know how to sing, while the later generations, to a great extent, did not.

But another idea has bounced around my head for many years now, and to a degree it ties in with Brian's post here. That post has morphed into a fun repository of great lines from "WKRP in Cincinnati", to which you should go immediately and add your favorites. But after you finish reading this post.
-----
EXTENDED BODY:
Anyway, the way it ties in is from this exchange, which goes (as best I can recall) as follows:

Johnny: So you guys play punk rock.

Blood: No, we play hoodlum rock. It's several notches below punk rock.

Johnny: What's the difference?

Blood: Well, for one thing, punk rockers dress deplorably

Well, sad to say, it's not just punk rockers who dress deplorably.

STRANGE INTERLUDE ABOUT PUNK ROCK: Back when I was kid, I didn't understand why construction workers wanted to beat up people (hippies) simply because of how they looked. Then punk rock came around, and suddenly I understood. Too bad Sid Vicious died on his own before I could kick his ass.

Where was I? Oh yeah, rockers dressing deplorably. It's true. This post has been bouncing around my poor little synapses for a while, but I was inspired to go ahead and write it by my searching the 'net to put together this post, as well as the discussions here and here.

When I went looking for Buddy Holly material to trigger trivia questions, I was (not for the first time) struck by how well the rockers of the '50s dressed. This was true of all the greats from the '50s and early '60s, no matter how odd their onstage antics. It even held into the mid '60s.

Sadly, something was lost during the "Summer of F***ing Our Drug-addled Brains Out", and rockers and pop singers in general began dressing deplorably. Worse, their sartorial slovenliness slopped over into other areas. Where once Country/Western and Bluegrass musicians dressed well, more slovenliness has crept in and settled.

Somewhere, something was lost. I'd like to see it come back. I know, there are a few throwbacks to the nicer styles (I might know of more examples if I followed current music more closely) but by and large it seems that popular music has been sartorially castrated.

I think it's kind of a shame.

Well this sucks

Bob Bogle of rock band The Ventures dies at 75

I may have to do some youtubin' later. UPDATE: I did, indeed, do a bit of youtubin'. Per Jeff's request, here is "Hawaii Five-O" (full length, single version):



An opening credits version is here, but embedding is disabled. And here is my personal favorite from the Ventures:



Another Update: Okay, this may be a bit off topic and out of line, but I was struck by how closely the moves in the "Walk, Don't Run" video resemble these:



And it also reminds me to repost a very apropos post from 'Pints. Expect it soon, if I don't forget.

I think it's an early 60s thing.

Another reason for Bingley to hate me

Besides the Tom Lehrer thing.

So we saw Daughter Number Two off from undergraduate studies to graduate school. And a good time was had by all. Lots of pictures taken, lots of hugs and kisses, dinner at Cattlemen's, and then off to drop Daughter Number One at the airport. The dear gal passed on her own graduation from graduate studies (not yet completed, but she and her classmates in the Master's program finishing over the summer actually had their ceremony this weekend) to be with family for her little sister's graduation. Upon hearing which, DNT said, "Why did you do THAT?" What a pair of great kiddos.

Today, DNT and her significant other are off to Southern California for to visit friends and family and to go to a Dodger game tomorrow, and Disneyland with her big sis later in the week. And then trekking back north for next weekend, whereupon she and her significant other, and her insignificant parents (that would be The Sainted Bride and yours truly) will trek off to the World's Largest Outdoor Lunatic Asylum to attend a Saturday matinee of...

[drum roll, please]

This.

Envy us. And Bingley will, no doubt, hate me all the more.

Well damn

I suppose I should log into Facebook more often. I hadn't done so for a while until getting that invitation from my high school chum. Turns out that the lovely Army of Mom posted a vid on Facebook, one I've used before. But she didn't post it at Army of Mom, but on Facebook only, which is where I saw it when checking to see that my lovely friend from high school's Mom accepted (God knows why) my invitation to be a Facebook friend.

Are you following all this? Good, because it confuses even me. But no matter, here's an old favorite:

More Grammar Nazi stuff

So yes, I am on Facebook. I'm a Facebook imbecile, of course, haven't yet learned the myriad little nooks and crannies there, which is why Cullen's invitation for a drink (or something like that) has gone unanswered.

In any case, I categorically refuse to "friend" people. I will befriend them, but I will NOT use "friend" as a verb (except in one special grammatical case of which I will not speak more for now).

But I received an invitation to be friends with a lovely high school gal, which I readily accepted. And from her profile, I discovered that her lovely Mom, now in her 70s, is also on Facebook. She is a wonderful lady whom I last saw when she visited my Mom (with another daughter and a couple of grandkids in tow) shortly before Mom passed away. I have sent her an invitation to be friends also. Facebook can be cool.

That's interesting

I never heard this before:

While some applauded [Newton Minow's] "vast wasteland" assault on commercial television as a welcome criticism of excessive violence and frivolity, others criticized it as an elitist, snobbish attack on programming that many viewers enjoyed and as government interference with private enterprise. The S. S. Minnow of the 1964–1967 television show "Gilligan's Island" was sarcastically named for him to express displeasure with his assessment of the quality of television.

Live and learn.

Kudos to our buddy JeffS

He is now a proud, dues-paying member of the handloading community.

Use your new-found power wisely, Grasshopper.

Blast from the past

This requires a wee bit of setup.

As you know, we had some doors installed and are having them painted.

Well, the front door to the house (which has some lovely glasswerk* in it) was not one of the doors to be painted. Until today.

*It's German. I think. Maybe.

The Sainted Bride noticed that the new paint on the walls in the foyer, as well as on the door frames, made the front door look old and tawdry. Well, maybe not tawdry so much as worn. Well, yeah, it's been more than 15 years since we moved here and the door hasn't been painted in that time. So yeah, looking a little weathered. So she asked him to go ahead and paint it. I'm all in favor too.

Reminded me of a story from high school, though. When I was in HS, I drove my parents' 1969 Pontiac wagon. Avocado green, that being a (strangely) common color choice in 1969. Much like our refrigerator. Drove it to college too, for the first quarter before I acquired my '74 Vega. But I digress...

Pardon me while I take a Strange Interlude: Suburban, middle-class station wagon though it was, that baby could flat-ass FLY. 350 engine, major pickup, and a turning radius that could make a Cooper blush (I could parallel park that baby in any space with a foot in from and back). Majorly great car. When the Vega was down for a while, I borrowed the Pontiac again from the Sainted Parents. I'd get out on the highway, tooling along at what I thought was a reasonable speed, then look down at the speedometer and notice that I was doing > 90mph. What a speed daemon that baby was. But I digress...

Anyhoo, it reminded me of an episode from high school, back in the late, not-lamented '70s. One evening, at a school function, I parked said Pontiac in the school parking lot, next to the vehicle driven by a lovely classmate. Said classmate's vehicle was a Ford pickup truck, normal in all ways except for the railroad tie that substitued for a front bumber. Unfortunately, said lovely classmate turned the wheel just a wee-smidge too hard while backing out of said parking space. Dented the driver's side door on my Pontiac.

No problem, she and her family paid for the banging-out and repainting of the door. All cool.

Except that the repainted door made the rest of the (seven-plus-year-old-and-sunbleached-after-seven-years) car look old and weathered.

[sigh]

That's how the new doors and walls in our humble abode make the old front door look, as of today. Which is why the SB asked the painter to go ahead and repaint the front door.

No comment

Other than "Oh, Good GAWD".

Quote of the day

From our buddy Nightfly:

Don't Feed the Bureaucrats! If they lose their fear of humans we'll never be rid of them.

No Reason

Before crashing for the evening, I was checking email a did a bit of youtubin'. Found this. Enjoy:



UPDATE: More. Couldn't resist:

So I forgot to mention

We're having our new doors painted. I don't paint anymore; I refuse to put up with substandard work these days. Also, we're getting the foyer* painted. Chose colors this past weekend, with Daughter Number One arrogantly demanding lending her tasteful opinion on colors.

The painting is being done by a neighbor, a fine fellow who decided to leave the corporate rat race (and ugly commute) to do handyman/contractor work around the neighborhood. It seems to agree with him, he enjoys it and is (so I'm told, I haven't spent much time with him) much happier doing this than fighting the traffic and corporate bullshit.

Me? Unfortunately, I have no salable skills in that area, so I'll keep fighting the traffic and corporate bullshit. And gladly pay to have a knowledgeable and skillful guy to do that work for me. Because I refuse to tolerate substandard work, so I'll hire it out to the professionals.

*For anyone who cares, and you should, this is properly pronounced as it is spelled. None of this faux-French "foy-YAY" crap. And BTW, the word "valet" is properly pronounced "VALL-et" in English. If you ever listen to anything more than 20 years old, you may well hear it pronounced properly.

OTOH, "filet" is properly pronounced "fil-LAY". But I prefer the English spelling, "fillet".

I think I'm broken

Subtitle: "WTF were my parents thinking, and why do they still hold a grudge against me?"

So a song popped into my head today. No idea why. And since it did so, it's been an earworm. No, more than an earworm. An ear-I'MBORINGTHROUGHYOURHEADUNTILYOUREARSBLEED-worm. We had this song on 45 when I was a mere lad. And so I blame my parents for this. Because this is one of the dumbest popular country songs of all time.

And so I'm going to inflict it on you. Go on, click on it. You know you want to. For curiosity's sake if nothing else:

Okay, now that's funny

So Daughter Number One is home for the weekend from SoCal. Not that we'll actually see her much. She has a life.

She's here for a retirement party for one of her high school teachers. Actually, it was for several teachers and school employees, but she was here for him in particular. Algebra and physics teacher. Cool guy. Seriously manic and hyperactive. Way fun. Whose wife is retiring from the same school also. She teaches French. And is also seriously manic and hyperactive and way fun.

So DNO calls me from the airport. Not the one she flew into, the one with the sports bar/grill where the retirement party took place. Needs a ride home from the party.

Well, home is a strong word. She needed a ride to her friend's house (he picked her up at the BART station after her flight) to pick up her stuff. Well, actually, to leave her stuff there until after the next party, after which he will drop her and her stuff off at home. Because she has a life.

But she damn well better not wake me up because I intend to be asleep.

But that's not the funny part. While I was driving her over to said friend's house, we had a fun chat about the party. Lots of anecdotes told. Including how Madame F***, said French teacher, leads her French class in an invasion of the Spanish class every Cinco de Mayo*.

I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.

*If you don't know the difference between Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day, look it up. I will NOT be your own personal wikipedia.

Quote of the day

[The judge] found that their attack on "Crunchberries" should fare no better than their prior claims that "Froot Loops" did not contain real froot.

Here's your sign.

(Via Ann Althouse and Cory Doctorow)

I suspect she would get the joke

This post would be more amusing if dowdified edited judiciously:

Twitter is dominated by men.. Twitter is supposed to be about not talking too much... A conundrum!

A conundrum, indeed.

Minor note

Regarding this post.

I actually stole that joke from a hunting buddy. Some years back, for the first time in a lot of years, we were actually pelted by cold rain during deer season (late October). While waiting to hunt over Soap Butte (i.e., waiting for the sitters to make their way slowly to the top of the butte inside pickups with heaters while the rest of us were outside in the weather), we were sitting and waiting for the sitters to make their way to the top of the butte. In the rain. Heavy rain. Cold freakin' rain. Noah's Ark kind of rain.

One in our walker crew said "Weather report said chance of rain."

Another one said "Hell of a chance."

Heh. Would have been even funnier if we weren't freezing our butts off.

Catching up

So I'm on my telecommute day today, revising spreadsheets and doing a boatload of datamining. But I did take a short break to take some pictures to the post office to mail.

Regarding that: I mentioned in the previous post that I thought Thelma was mis-identified. Now I'm not so sure. Turns out that the Thelma Howard name identified in the picture really exists and may well be correct. Extensive (well, sorta) searching suggests that she is one Thelma Kuykendall and ALSO a classmate of my Grandma (the signature page of the 1923 yearbook has all three of the eminent ladies). But she still has the same smile as Thelma Boblet, so I may well have mis-identified the correct Thelma in other pictures. Or not. Perhaps Austin's son may be able to correct the confusion. I sent him a batch of pictures today, after talking on the phone briefly a couple of days ago.

It may sound strange to you normal people, but I actually seem to get as much of a kick out of learning about my family's friends as I do about family itself.

Also on a brighter note, the effort (such as it was) to print and send pictures to Austin's son prompted me to FINALLY get of my butt and remember to send some DVDs to relatives. Sent copies to my Uncle Sam and to my Cousin Bess, and also to my cousin currently living in Halfway (abbreviated, not the full set, but he's in some of the ones from the '50s). His lovely mother is doing well, a youthful 97. She's in an assisted living facility with a couple of friends from Halfway (one is 102 and going strong). Huzzah for my 97 year old Auntie! I really need to make time to get up there and visit her.

I haven't had time to copy the China DVDs yet, but maybe soon. Sent copies of the earlier ones (DVDs copied many months ago but sitting idly on a shelf since, so FTFO to me) today, and I hope to copy and send the newer ones soon (sans China).

Whoa Nelly

I was sitting here at the computer scanning some pictures and suddenly the weather opened up. LOUD.

Damn. I know the radio said "chance of showers" but damn. That's a hell of a chance.

Some success

And some new confusions.

Regarding this post, the fellow I contacted is indeed Austin's son. And I spoke to him by phone earlier this evening. Pleasant chap, we swapped some information and such, before I had to cut the conversation short to head off for a prior engagement.

He told me some of his Aunt Thelma (my Grandma's classmate). Turns out, the caption on the back of one of the pictures I have has her incorrectly identified (probably, will have to get the pics to him to confirm, but I suspect my Grandpa incorrectly remembered her surname). But Thelma's in-laws: they were Hawaiian royalty. Pretty cool.

Still trying to identify that other gal ("Smiley 2") but I'm hoping that perhaps my new contact can shed some light on her. I have some suspicions, though he didn't recognize the names I mentioned on the phone. But perhaps we shall learn more soon...