Saturday, August 29, 2009

August 29, 2009


today is my mother-in-law's birthday. I celebrated with some fatty, vinegary barbecue pork from North Carolina.
Cliff Lee will yield more earned runs tonight than the combined total of his previous five starts as a Philadelphia Phillie, and I won't see any of it because after more than a week of frozen and scrambled pictures in my not inexpensive MLB Extra Innnings "service," I finally got through to Time Warner Cable (after a 20 minute wait through several suggestions to call back later as "call volumes" were running greater than normal (when don't they play that message?)) who ran a test that resulted in an absence of any picture at all. for the past seven days of unwatchable television, and now no service at all for last night's West Coast games and a predicted two further days of service outage, Time Warner Cable is giving me a credit of two days. gee, thanks.
more importantly, today was the burial of Senator Edward M. Kennedy as well as the fourth anniversary of America's most shameful moment since the Civil War.
no celebration there.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

happy Robert Redford's birthday


Redford, a former pitcher for the University of Colorado (he never did graduate, but then his mother died when he was 18 which likely contributed to a lack of focus), turns 73 today.

had he lived, humanitarian, Hall of Famer and former Santurce Crabber Roberto Clemente would've turned 75 today.

Alain Robbe-Grillet (who died just last year) was born on this date in 1922.

it is also the birthday of Rafer Johnson and Parker Posey, Roman Polanski and Vincent Bugliosi (strangely enough), Martin Mull and Elayne Boosler, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Rosalynn Carter, Denis Leary and Madeline Stowe, Adam Samberg and Frances Bean Cobain, and Edward Norton and Christian Slater (both in 1969).

of course, Jimi Hendrix closed the Woodstock Festival 40 years ago today (but you knew that already), and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was first published in the States on August 18, 1958.

Monday, August 17, 2009

happy Robert De Niro's birthday


also Sean Penn's (so maybe if you want to win a Best Actor Oscar you should consider being born on August 17th).

and unfortunately yesterday (unless it's today), and overshadowed by the death of Elvis, was the 60th anniversary of the death of Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell who was struck by an automobile while crossing Peachtree Street (near 13th in Atlanta) by Hugh Gravett, either a 28 or 29-year-old taxi driver, who appeared to be drunk and driving on the wrong side of the road (though several of Mrs. Mitchell's friends testified that she often crossed the street without looking) and who possessed either 23 or 24 previous traffic violations.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

happy Madonna's birthday


and, unfortunately, Elvis' death day.

Madonna's been alive for 51 years (she's in Poland today) and Elvis has been dead for 22 (most people think he's in Tennessee; others disagree).

to celebrate (I'm not sure which), Amazon's offering the MP3 download of Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon (born January 24th; died on September 7th) for just $2.99.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

no doubt (all right, let's do this thang)


first response in the comment box receives a free download link to No Doubt's ENTIRE CATALOG.
don't delay.