All seemed normal: my flight to Denver made it on time. My flight to OKC was on time according to the board. Then an announcement that our flight was going to contain passengers destined for Tulsa AND we were actually going to stop in Tulsa! My 1-stop trip to OKC now turned to a 2-stop trip. Grrr. The worst of it, the new stop put me in jeopardy of getting to the rental car agency before they closed at midnight. (I made it by a few seconds, btw. The lady was locking the door and was kind enough to reopen up for me.) The United crew mentioned several times how unique this was, but I have my suspicions. United says there was a “crew problem”. When we got to Tulsa, half of the passengers got off. In my estimate, United combined two planes that were 1/3 full by themselves. Maybe we were indeed the rescuers of the Tulsa passengers and I should be happy about helping others. Regardless of how I feel, I didn’t have a choice. That really chaps my hide.

Are the Who Done? What About Neil?
Damn, two of my favorites.

Was the Who’s 12-minute performance during the Super Bowl halftime show in Miami its last?

If the ringing in Pete Townshend’s ears gets any worse, it just might have been.

Townshend told Rolling Stone that he suffers from tinnitus – a painful ringing of the ears – from years of touring with the legendary rock group.
“If my hearing is going to be a problem, we’re not delaying shows, Townshend told the magazine. We’re finished.

The 64-year-old guitarist added: “I can’t really see any way around the issue.”

The Who was forced to cancel its spring tour and a pair of festival appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Coachella due to Townshend’s ear issues. One date – a charity performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall – is still scheduled.

“It’s a good test of Pete’s hearing,” Roger Daltrey said. “We won’t know until we try.”

Townshend is being treated by an audiologist used by fellow aging rocker Neil Young.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California When suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit,Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the
cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you Give me a calf?”

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, why not?”

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Singular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe photo shop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg,
Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an
MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP Laser Jet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”

“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”

“You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government”, says Bud.

“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”

“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how
much smarter than me you are; and You don’t know a thing about how working people make a living -or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep.
….

Now give me back my dog.

B.B. King’s that is…… The Beale Street Blues Boy was born in 1925 and still going strong….. Listen to some Blues today…….

We need a new one……

No, it’s not a typo – Ringo Starr now has his own personal star on the celebrity walk in Hollywood…… This makes him the third Beatle on the walk….. John Lennon and George Harrison already have stars…. I think they were awarded posthumously….. It’s the only reason I can think of that can explain why Paul McCartney doesn’t have one….. Of course, that doesn’t explain why Ringo would get his before Paul….. Not knocking Ringo any, but, Paul and John did the bulk of the Beatles writing, and, Paul’s solo career has definitely been stronger than Ringo’s…. Anyway, good for you, Ringo….. Maybe it was his acting in “Caveman”?……

How come is it that the “CSI shows” use old rock and roll tunes. Is it because the copy rights have run out or is it because someone has noticed that the surviving rock bands (The Rolling Stone, Paul McCartney, The Who, and others) fill up stadiums every time they tour. This question came to me as I just happened to catch “The Who” live in concert. It took most of “Who Are You” for me to realise that I was watching the super bowl. I just have to ask why “The Who” and not some hip hop rap crap band. Maybe it’s because “The Who” have talent and they could time the music to the fire works very nicely. The lasers where used very nicely to. I see what Sunn (comment #2 “February 3, 1959) means about guitar solos he went a little nuts but at lest he has skills to show off with. I caught all of “Who Are You” very nice and all of “Won’t get Fooled Again” also very nice. I just wish that I had caught the whole thing.

…..That the band who would become “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” set foot on American soil for the first time….. February 7, 1964, The Beatles started their first American tour, which, changed American pop music forever…… John, Paul, George, and Ringo – the Moptops who became the guru’s of music in my generation, and, I believe, will be considered rock icons by many more generations to come…..

This ties-in with my previous Post on Buddy Holly, as Paul owns the publishing rights to the Holly catalog….. He lost the rights to The Beatles catalog thanks to one “Yoko Oh-No”….. The music business is rough around the edges (it has a black hole at the center)…..

This is strange and weird – I’ve been listening to my I-Pod set on shuffle play since I haven’t got my main music system setup yet…. As I started this post, I clicked on my I-Pod….. It was on the last two seconds of silence on the song I stopped it on the last time I used it…. Here’s what came screaming though the speakers, out of 555 choices I have on the I-Pod – “That’ll be the Day”, a Buddy Holly hit, performed by The Beatles from the Anthology I album cranked up….. I’m bettin’ it’s going to be a good day….. Dig out some early Beatles and “Rock Out, Citizens of MR Land” (That is an order signed by MR, and approved by PD Bob)……

Yeah, I know February 3 was yesterday, but I thought Sunn might post this as he is our official MR Rock Cornier…… February 3, 1959 has come to be known as “the day the music died”, and, someone “drove their Chevy to the Levy” or something like that…..

It was the day Buddy Holly, Richie Vallens, and the Big Bopper died in a small plane crash in Iowa….. Holly is looked upon as one of the founding fathers of Rock and Roll…… He was from Lubbock, Texas and he had just really made the big time….. The irony of the tragic accident is that Buddy wasn’t supposed to be on the plane….. He had a cold and his bass player at that time, Waylon Jennings (someone you may have heard of) gave up his seat on the plane to Buddy….. Country music took a giant leap that day, although, it would be a few years before Waylon hit it big…. Life is strange and weird for the most part……

……So says Prairie Dog Bob, and, he did NOT see his shadow, so, it’s going to be an early Spring…… PDB says that the term “Ground Hog” is a derogatory slang term for the noble, intelligent, handsome, and strong Prairie Dog….. Don’t ever call PDB a “Terra Hog”, at least, not in his presence……

PD Bob and I watched that, as PDB called him, “stupid, dumb, and over-rated #%^&#@ Hog” in Poxi-whatever-tony, PA say that he saw his shadow meaning six more weeks of Winter….. Our local weatherman pointed out that it was impossible for him to see his shadow as it was cloudy and snowy all the way from Maine to Oklahoma….. The shadow he saw was from all the media lights….. DuuH….. No wonder he sees his shadow every year!…… PD Bob immediately started planning a mission to visit this “Rat in a Prairie Dog suit” and straighten him out horizontally……

Anyway, dig out your copy of “Ground Hog Day” (sorry, PDB, but that is the name of the movie), and give it a watch…… I’ve got PDB looking for my copy right now…… He’s doing it, but, keeping mumbling something about animal profiling, and how can anyone call a PD “Dog” a G “Hog”?…..

I know, It’s the same old bitch about the electric companies again…… We’re in an ongoing Freezing Rain/Ice/Sleet/Snow storm right now, and, the power outages are already above the 150,000 mark….. In the 2007 Ice Storm over 600,000 were without power, and, some areas did not have power restored for over 4 WEEKS!….. According to our news reporters, “there’s nothing you can do – Ice builds up on the power lines and they come down”….. BS!….. They could bury the damn lines….. I heard all the sorry reasons why this can’t be done – 1. It’s too expensive, 2. The lines are easier to work on above ground (If they were buried, this would be a rare occurrence – just like water, gas, and sewer lines, which are buried), etc, etc….. It all boils down to GREED!….. The electric companies could care less about someone freezing to death due to a power outage, or, someone smashing into a power pole that wouldn’t be there if the lines were buried, or, someone burning their house down and themselves up by the inappropriate use of gas heaters…… Nope, they are only interested in PROFIT!…. They don’t care about loss of life, injury, property damage, or any inconvenience to the customer – Just as long as you pay-up every month….. They are quite happy to sit back using the same dinosaur technology that started with the planting of the first power pole in the late 1800’s!….. It’s the Twenty-First Century, people, it’s time to force the electric companies and their political cronies into it……

What other companies do you know of that would remain in business, when, at the most critical time that you need their service, it’s not available?…… How do they get away with it?…. They’re a PUBLIC UTILITY!….. All their power poles and lines are on PUBLIC PROPERTY!…. They are regulated (yeah, right) by the same local politicians that like to put money in their pocket also!….. Sadly, it comes down to the American voter, who, for the most part, doesn’t even vote, or, just votes the same crooked politician back in office….

WAKE UP, CITIZEN, YOU ARE SCREWING YOURSELF!….. Not only do you pay for a service you can’t get when you need it most, the electric companies pass all the constant repair costs on to you by going to the Corporation Commission (the politicians I mentioned earlier) and filing for, AND, getting an across the board rate hike……

Am I the only one who sees this?….. Am I that far off base?….. Let me know what you think out there MR Community Members on this subject – Only if you have the time – It’s really not that important – Don’t make waves…… (Point Taken? – I Hope So)

Yep, the last Monday in January has been named “Bubble Wrap Day”…… Originally designed to be used as wallpaper, yes, wallpaper!….. Some of that late ’50’s futuristic look of the future due to the intense interest in space travel mixed the fear of nuclear Holocaust with the Cold War going on with Russia….. As we all know, it made a much better packing material than wallpaper, so, here we are, some 50 odd years later with a holiday for packing material….. Who would’ve thought….. Is our IQ’s going down that fast?… Anyways, it’s fun to play with…..

The Red Dwarf fans out there will remember bubble wrap as the famous “Tension Sheet” invented by a schoolmate of Arnold Rimmer’s which is now super rich…. Rimmer goes back in time with the intention of convincing his grade school self to take a piece of bubble wrap to the patent office before his school mate….. You also get to see Dave’s younger self as leader of a rock band, and, hear his famous “Um” song…. I laugh just thinking about it – Time to get out the DVD and watch it….. If you’re not a Red Dwarf fan, you should be…. The new movie is great!……

Summer 2009

Thanksgiving 2009

New Year, New Decade 2010

This summer I hung this Cheeto on the tree to fool a crow. (It did. He grabbed it in midair and came up short on the string. Never tried it again) I left it hanging. It made it through Thanksgiving and now into the new decade. The orange color turned to black and it has turned hard despite the rain. I’m hoping to set a new world record and need your support. Send money to me and send a link to this post in an email to 10 friends. Thanks.

As most of you know, I don’t follow sports that much, but, it seems to me that there was an extraordinarily huge number of firing and hiring of coaches – both college and pro – this year….. Has the “WIN or you’re outta here” philosophy kicked (field goal – 3 pts.) in or what?…… I see the Seattle Seahawks have a new coach…. Just a warning, Seattle, you keep it up and OKC might just buy them and call them “Lightning” since they bought the Sonics and renamed them “Thunder”….. God, I hope not!….

I wonder if I could get one of those Head coaching gigs?….. Even if it only lasted part of a year, that would be a lotta bucks….. PD Bob said he would be the offensive coach…. I told him he was already offensive so he’s halfway there to being hired….. Any MR community members want to throw their hat in the ring for a coaching staff position?….. I bet we could do as well as most of them that are getting the big bucks and the Fame, don’t forget the FAME!…..

Ever wonder what was behind the title of a particular album