Monty Hall (August 25, 1921 – September 30, 2017)
Monty Hall, best known as the cheerful and friendly host of the game show ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ died Saturday morning in Los Angeles, his daughter Sharon Hall said.
Posted in Gaming, News, The Little Screen (Television)
The Flintstones is an animated American television sitcom that ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966 on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man’s life with his family and his next door neighbor and best friend. It has since been re-released on both DVD and VHS.
Critics and fans alike agree that the show was an animated imitation of The Honeymooners with rock puns thrown in. William Hanna admitted that “At that time “The Honeymooners” was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, it was the funniest show on the air. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with “The Flintstones”… “The Honeymooners” was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept.” However Joseph Barbera disavowed these claims in a separate interview, stating that “I don’t remember mentioning “The Honeymooners” when I sold the show, but if people want to compare “The Flintstones” to “The Honeymooners,” then great. It’s a total compliment. “The Honeymooners” was one of the greatest shows ever written.” Its popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern-day concerns in the Stone Age setting
Posted in Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)
The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy.
The Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, theNautilus‘ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955.
Posted in On This Day
Posted in Because I Can, Planes Trains and Automobiles
What needs to be said?
Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017)
Hefner died at his home in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California, on September 27, 2017, at the age of 91. His ashes will be buried in the crypt beside Marilyn Monroe. “Spending eternity next to Marilyn is an opportunity too sweet to pass up,” Hefner told the Los Angeles Times in 2009.
Posted in Because I Can, News
CUMBERLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine lobstermen Alex Todd has hauled in blue lobsters and even some lobsters that were half blue, or half orange. But he says those don’t compare on the scale of weirdness to the translucent crustacean that he recently pulled up in a trap.
The lobster that Todd caught on Aug. 24 is a ghostly, pale blue. It almost looks to be transparent.
Todd, from Chebeague Island, said he knew when he saw the translucent lobster in his trap alongside mottled green and brown lobsters that this was “definitely weird.”
His photos have made the rounds on social media.
As for the lobster, he tossed it back into the ocean because its tail had been notched, flagging the lobster as an egg-bearing female. Those lobsters are off-limits for conservation reasons.
Posted in Critters
Minecraft Abbey Road
Beatles Abbey Road
Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on September 26, 1969 in the United Kingdom and on October 1, 1969 in the United States. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band’s dissolution in April 1970, most of that album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began.
Posted in Because I Can, Music
Alejandro Villanueva was the only Steelers player to appear outside the tunnel during the national anthem at Soldier Field on Sunday (9/24/17).
Here, here Alejandro! I tip my figurative hat to you. You are AWESOME! Thanks for having a pair and doing the right thing!
The national anthem is not a time for a protest, of ANYTHING! You are making a mockery of one of the things that allows you knuckleheads to make stupid money for playing a game… a GAME.
Somebody b!tch-slap the idiot that started this (no names mentioned)!
Posted in Because I Can, Patriotic
On September 23, 1962, the Jetsons premiered on ABC.
The Jetsons is a prime-time animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing from 1962–63 and again from 1985–87. It was Hanna-Barbera’s Space Age counterpart to The Flintstones, a half-hour family sitcom projecting contemporary American culture and lifestyle into another time period. While the Flintstones live in a world with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons live in a futuristic utopia in the year 2062 of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.
The original incarnation of the series aired Sunday nights on ABC from September 23, 1962, to March 3, 1963. It comprised 24 episodes, and was re-run on Saturday morning for decades. At the time of its debut, it was the first program ever to be broadcast in color on ABC-TV (as The Flintstones, while always produced in color, was broadcast in black-and-white for its first two seasons). Its continuing popularity led to further episodes being produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987.
Posted in Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)
Well, this is certainly supercallifragilisticexpialidocious.
The city of Maryborough in Queensland, Australia, birthplace of Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers, have turned on some new crosswalk lights. These pedestrian lights feature the silhouettes of the magical nanny, umbrella and all: Umbrella up/green light = “Cross with care,” and Umbrella down/red light = “Do not cross.”
Posted in Because I Can, The Little Screen (Television)
The Hobbit is a novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien in the tradition of the fairy tale. It was first published on September 21, 1937. While it also stands in its own right, it is often seen as a prelude to Tolkien’s monumental fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings (published in 1954 and 1955).
The story, subtitled There and Back Again, follows the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins as he travels across the lands of Middle-earth with a band of dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf on a quest to restore a dwarven kingdom and a great treasure stolen by the dragon, Smaug.
Posted in Because I Can, Literary, On This Day
Posted in Critters
An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word of the English words emotion and icon. In web forums, instant messengers and online games, text emoticons are often automatically replaced with small corresponding images, which came to be called emoticons as well. Certain complex character combinations can only be accomplished in a double-byte language, giving rise to especially complex forms, sometimes known by their romanized Japanese name of kaomoji.
The use of emoticons can be traced back to the 19th century, and they were commonly used in casual and/or humorous writing. Digital forms of emoticons on the Internet were included in a proposal by Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a message on September 19, 1982.
Posted in Because I Can, Humor, Literary, On This Day
In the summer of 2017, rangers with the Hirola Conservation Program captured the rare and simply stunning sight of two white giraffes, perhaps a mother and baby, as they wandered through a protected preserve in North Eastern Kenya. While the reason behind their snowy coats isn’t stated, one probable explanation is leucism, a genetic condition that causes loss of pigmentation in animals. Per Caters News, the rangers had heard of these beautiful creatures but had never caught sight of them until that day.
Rumours had circulated of a white giraffe and her baby in the local area of the Ishaqbini conservation, in Garissa County, Kenya, but rangers finally got to see the real thing after a tip off in June, this year. …’While observing the magnificent long necked animal looking at us, I could not help but see the fading reticulates on their skin. It was evident that the colouration, especially on the mother giraffe, was not as conspicuous as the baby.”
Posted in Because I Can, Critters
