The Daily Dose/Wednesday, October 30, 2024
The Daily Dose/October 30, 2024
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
Leading Off will return.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow does not have coffee ready when Dr Dre shows up. Today’s Diary.
The big news was on the coffee front: we had not yet started preparing for Morning Coffee Service (MCS) specifically because Dr Dre lately has been in the habit of showing up after 0500…
The Bottom Ten/NFL Week 10 – The race for The Dan Henning trophy is the tightest in ages.
Loss to Saints this week would give Panthers season sweep and crucial B-10 tiebreaker…
With bye week already in books, Titans sure to be exhausted for B-10 stretch run…
Amazon looking to flex Thursday game to Home Shopping Network…
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On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
Editor’s Note: today’s entries previously ran in 2020.
In 1961 – The Soviet Union detonates what History refers to as the Tsar Bomba on an island in the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle. The hydrogen bomb yielded an explosion measuring 50 megatons, about 50 times more than the 0.15 megatons yielded by the Hiroshima atomic blast and remains the most powerful explosive device ever deployed on Earth. The crew of the plane that delivered the bomb survived, but the bomb was so powerful they were only given a 50/50 chance of returning safely.
In 2015 – Adalberto Mondesi of the Kansas City Royals becomes the first player to make his major league debut in the World Series in a 9-3 loss to the New York Mets in Game 3. Mondesi pinch-hit in the fifth inning and struck out, and had spent the 2015 season in the Texas League (AA). In 1885 Bug Holiday of the Chicago White Stockings – now the Cubs – made his big league debut in a postseason series against the American Association champion St Louis Browns, though these series are not considered part of the modern World Series.
In 1961 – Dion is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the second and final week with Runaround Sue. It was the second of 14 Top 40 hits for Dion as a solo act, after seven hits with the Belmonts and remains his only #1 song. The song also went to #1 in Canada and New Zealand and peaked at #11 in Great Britain and at #4 on Billboard’s soul chart, his biggest hit of six soul chart appearances. A version by Leif Garrett peaked at #13 in 1978.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
Talent must not be wasted. Those who have it…must share it.
Frank Sinatra
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
Chuck Berry’s only #1 song on the Hot 100 was My Ding-a-Ling, which spent two weeks at #1 in October 1972.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
What was Dion’s real name? – Answer next time!
The Daily Dose/Tuesday, October 29, 2024
The Daily Dose/October 29, 2024
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
QUIZ TIME: Friends, let me ask you a question:
True or false: there was a time when Donald Trump would’ve been dismissed by both America’s media and her citizens.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury: We do not think there is any doubt the answer is yes. We don’t think there’s a doubt that a media of a bygone era would’ve had Trump out of the race five minutes after he announced his candidacy, and even if they hadn’t, there was a time when Americans had too much sense to tolerate his nonsense.
Fly In The Ointment: That time has passed. America is now open to his ignorance, his lies, his hatred. It doesn’t matter that Trump is a man of zero moral or intellection substance because America is no longer a nation of any moral or intellection substance.
USA! USA! We are seven decades into TV being the focal point of American life and we are stagnating. We could not muster a proper response to COVID and we haven’t done anything great since Apollo left the moon in 1972. America right now is halfway between the eminence we once enjoyed and the oblivion that awaits us. We don’t think you can argue with that, either.
Thank You, Mary Sunshine: America is dumb now. The ascendency of Donald Trump shows that. He is ignorant and insulting and so are we. We seem happy with this, too. This is too bad because ignorance is not bliss; it is chains and slavery, and if we’re not careful, eventually the US will join, among others, the USSR and the Roman Empire on History’s scrap heap.
The Bottom Line: There will come a time when we can no longer govern ourselves and someone will come in and do it for us. The cause of death will be apathy and ignorance. We deserve better than this, but you and me – we the people – are not demanding better than this right now.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow whines about all Uber drivers getting 5-star ratings. Today’s Diary.
We have some street cred here and our opinion is 5-stars is the very best this planet can muster…An Uber ride, unless it comes in a limo and includes a sex act from a babe, almost by definition cannot be the best this planet can offer…
The Bottom Ten/NCAA Week 10 – IT’s the race for the ESPNCup – symbolic of collegiate Bottom Ten supremacy.
Entire state ironing white hoods with Confederacy occupying two-thirds of B-10 medal stand for first time since Battle of Appomattox in 1865…
With four (4) games in Eastern time zone in 2024, Cardinal players petitioning university to exchange frequent flyer miles for doctorate degrees later in career.
With team in tank and donations for stadium renovation lagging, B-10 architects on site to supervise Champions Club changeover from prestige club for donors to B-10 Loser’s Lounge in time for 2025 season…
———
Would you like 4Ever & Ever access to Gaylon’s crap?
Of course you would.
Click here. It’s only $24.99.
Click here for complimentary chapters of all of Gaylon’s books.
It’s easy reading on any device.
———
On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1929 – The Great Depression begins with the Black Tuesday crash, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) losing 11% of its value. This followed the Black Monday crash the day before, a Black Thursday crash the previous week, as well as other crashes since September. The Great Depression lasted until it petered out in World War II and the DJIA would not return to its September 3 peak until November 1954.
In 1987 – Thomas Hearns becomes the first boxer to win titles in four different weight classes, winning the WBC middleweight title with a 4th-round knockout over Juan Roldan of Argentina in Las Vegs. Earlier Hearns had won the world light heavyweight, welterweight, and light middleweight titles, and later would win the super middle weight title. It was the second of three losses in a world title fight for Roldan.
In 1955 – Chuck Berry is at #1 on Billboard’s Most Played in Juke Boxes chart – a predecessor to today’s soul chart – for the ninth of eleven consecutive weeks with Maybellene. Earlier, the song had gone to #1 on Billboard’s R&B Best Sellers in Stores chart and their Most Played by Jockeys chart and peaked at #5 on the Best Sellers pop chart. It was the first of three soul #1s for Berry.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
If God is perfect, he had no need to create a world; if he is imperfect he is not God.
Will Durant
The Story of Civilization, Vol. I: Our Oriental Heritage
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
Nikita Kruschev was premier of the Soviet Union from 1958-64.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
What was Chuck Berry’s only #1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100? – Answer next time!
The Daily Dose/Monday, October 28, 2024
The Daily Dose/October 28, 2024
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
CAPSULE BINGE TV REVIEW: From The Earth to the Moon: Regular readers of this crap know that we are big Apollo fans, so the surprise is not that we watched this but that it took us so long to get around to it because this came out in 1998. It is based on the book A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaiken, a profound and memorable book we read ages ago.
Dry, Technical Matter: We’re not the biggest Tom Hanks fans in captivity, but we have never seen anything of his that wasn’t worth the work it took to watch, and this was hardly the exception. The show follows varying people and/or aspects that attended each mission. Those with a solid working knowledge of Apollo – like us – probably nodded their heads in satisfaction at its accuracy, while those without a solid working knowledge of Apollo got a good start on one.
Fly In The Ointment: We are going to quibble about the last episode, though, which covered Apollo 17. First, it did not begin with Hanks’ usual opening, with him walking toward the camera talking about the forthcoming episode, always ending with Hanks saying a variation of “…on man’s voyage from the Earth to the moon”. Well, the last episode deprived us of hearing Hanks say “…on man’s last voyage from the Earth to the moon” which we were looking forward to. Instead, we got a documentary-style show narrated by Blythe Danner.
What The Hell’s Going On Here?: Blythe Danner? What, did she have blackmail pics of the producers, because unless she has some connection to Apollo we don’t know about, she had no credentials for this job. The whole thing, for our money, was a hot mess and we stopped watching a few minutes in.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Rating Scale Right Here: 1 – The very best; 2 – Very good; 3 – Good; 4 – OK; 5 – A steaming pile.
Final Rating: 1: Our opinion of the final episode is very subjective and you might very well like it, and Lord knows it was as technically great as every other episode. Episode four – Apollo 8 – in particular, is as good an hour as TV has produced, with the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 episodes not too far behind. Go and watch it right now, if you didn’t a quarter-century ago when it first came out.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow has a guest offer to repair the Connect 4 game. Today’s Diary.
We’ve been knocking around hotel front desks for a lot of years and this has to be a first…He said he had his tools in his room and it would be no problemo to get it repaired…
———
Would you like 4Ever & Ever access to Gaylon’s crap?
Of course you would.
Click here. It’s only $24.99.
Click here for complimentary chapters of all of Gaylon’s books.
It’s easy reading on any device.
———
On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis ends when Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev announces on Soviet radio that all nuclear missiles in Cuba were going to be removed. As part of the agreement, the US agreed to remove similar missiles in Turkey and Italy. The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 15 when US officials had identified the missiles from intelligence photographs. President Kennedy was notified the following day.
In 1973 – Elmore Smith of the Los Angeles Lakers establishes a new NBA record for most blocked shots in a game in a 111-98 win over the Portland Trailblazers. Smith had 17 blocks to break the record of 14 he had established two days earlier, and the record still stands. The second-highest total is 15, done three times, twice by Manute Bol in the 1980s and most recently by Shaquille O’Neal in November 1993.
In 2000 – Christina Aguilera is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the third of four consecutive weeks with Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You). It was the fifth of 20 Top 40 and eleven Top 10 hits for Aguilera, and her third of five #1s. The song also went to #1 in Guatemala and Venezuela, peaked at #8 in Great Britain, and was Billboard’s 38th-biggest song of the year. A Spanish version of the song spent two weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Tracks chart.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
The longest way must have its close – the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
The instrumental that spent the most weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 is Theme From a Summer Place, which spent nine weeks at #1 in 1960.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
For how long was Nikita Kruschev premier of the Soviet Union? – Answer next time!