The Daily Dose/January 14, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off: Hut, Hut, Hike
All right, it’s time for the final whining of the season about how our country determines its major division college football champion. Our every-hour-on-the-hour calls this past month for a 32- team, NCAA Division I Football Championship are falling on deaf ears, so let’s work with what we have.

Actually, taken in the context of what we are being force-fed, the recent College Football Playoff (CFP) did it’s work rather well…Plainly, Clemson and Alabama were the two best teams in the country. The way they sashayed through the CFP semifinals established that. Yes, Ohio State and Washington should have been able to show what they had in a playoff, but no one was complaining about the Clemson/Alabama title game.

Could we please end this on New Year’s Day, though? Nobody really cares about college football after either January 1st or Monday, January 2nd. It’s time to go back to work and the NFL playoffs are starting soon and pitchers and catchers report in a few weeks. It’s good to have college football in the rearview mirror.

Consider this: New Year’s Day could start off with the Sugar Bowl, followed by the Rose Bowl and then the CFP title game and the day would probably become an American classic quicker than you can say “selection committee”. The semifinals could be played on the third Saturday in December, rotating between the Cotton, Peach, Orange and Fiesta bowls.

New Year’s Eve could be a football fest, too. Hold the I-AA, Division II and Division III national championship games on January 31. The 23 people who genuinely care about the NCAA’s small school national championships will find the games.

Would this stop our annual whining? No, of course not; only a 32-team NCAA Division I football playoff that began the first Saturday in December and ended on January 1st would do that. But having the CFP title game on New Year’s Day would cover a multitude of sins.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow takes more water impurity measurements, scams some pizzza at the hotel and makes dinner for The Wife.

The Wife even let me do the dishes – a sign at how tired she was because usually she doesn’t let me clean anything because I’m no good at it – while she enjoyed a bath. 

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On This Date
In 1784 – The Congress of the Confederation ratifies the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, in Annapolis, Maryland, then the capital of the United States. The treaty had been signed the previous September and Great Britain would ratify the treaty in April and the American Revolution would officially end on May 12, when diplomats exchanged ratified copies in Paris. Of the treaty’s original ten articles, only the first one, concerning American sovereignty, is still in effect.

In 1943 – Alex Smart of the Montreal Canadiens becomes the first player to score three goals in his first NHL game. Smart had two goals in the closing seconds of the second period added another goal in the third and finished the night with four points as the Canadiens defeated the Chicago Black Hawks 5-1. Smart would finish the season and his NHL career with five goals in eight games. His record was tied several times before Auston Matthews of Toronto scored four goals in his first NHL game on October 12, 2016.

In 1978 – Johnny Paycheck is at #1 on Billboard’s country chart – then known as the Hot Country Singles chart – for the second of two consecutive weeks with Take This Job and Shove It. Though Paycheck had eleven Top 10 hits on the country chart from between 1966 and 1978, Take This Job and Shove It would be his only #1. The B side of this single, Colorado Kool-Aid, also charted, peaking at #50 on the country chart. Paycheck was born Donald Lytle in Ohio in 1938 and had his name legally changed in 1964. He died in 2003.

Quotebook
I wanted to – know.
That is it. That is all there is, to want to know.
Gore Vidal
Empire

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The Green Bay Packers were the first team to win consecutive Super Bowl titles, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I and the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II.

Today’s Stumper
Who signed the Treaty of Paris for the United States? –Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/January 13, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off: A Look in the Mirror
The longest government shutdown in American history is now in its fourth week. The results really aren’t that drastic unless, of course, you’re one of the 800,000 federal workers who are working for free until this is settled. Then it is drastic because you have food, clothing and shelter to pay for and you do not have the money you’ve earned to pay for it.

(Congress and the president are getting paid, of course, don’t you worry about that. The shutdown only affects non-essential government services and Congress and the president, of course, are essential because without them we wouldn’t have this shutdown. It should be noted that President Trump has declined his salary since Day 1.)

The usual people are saying the usual things: Republicans are blaming Democrats, Democrats are blaming Republicans while the media dutifully chronicles all this as if it were legitimate news and not the blowhard ramblings of elected officials merely looking to further increase and consolidate wealth and power.  You and me, we the people, are frustrated and angry.

But, really, is any of this a surprise? No, of course, it isn’t. Collectively you and me – we the people – are to blame for this. We took a flier on making substantive, any, changes this past November to the way we are governed: a partisan, fractured and bickering electorate reelected a partisan, fractured and bickering government. As long as we keep re-electing the status quo, as long as we reelect incumbents at 80-90 percent rates, as long as we keep tolerating and enabling this, we will continue to have a substandard, partisan and bickering government.

We deserve better, of course, but we are not going to get better until we start demanding better on Election Day.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow explains how sometimes you might find another person in your assigned hotel room, plus The Wife makes another good dinner, while also measuring the level of impurities in both their tap and filtered water.

The beef, of course, came from cows that were read bedtime stories and fed only grains that were fertilized by the waste of fasting, Tibetan monks and cost $93.37 a pound.

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On This Date
In 2012 – The Italian cruise ship Contra Costa runs aground and capsizes off the coast of Tuscany in northwest Italy. 32 people died and Contra Costa Captain Francesco Schettino was found negligent and convicted of manslaughter and is currently serving his 16-year sentence. Schettino actually fled his ship before it capsized, explaining that he slipped and just happened to fall into a lifeboat. The ship was ultimately towed to its homeport of Genoa, where it was scrapped.

In 1974 – The Miami Dolphins defeat the Minnesota Vikings 24-7 in Super Bowl VIII at Rice Stadium in Houston, becoming only second team win consecutive Super Bowl titles. It was the first Super Bowl played in a stadium that did not regularly host an NFL team and the last to be played with goal posts at the goal line. For the Vikings, it was the second of four Super Bowl losses. The game was broadcast by CBS, with Ray Scott, Pat Summerall and Bart Starr announcing, Charley Pride sang the national anthem and the University of Texas Longhorn Band entertained at halftime.

In 1973 – Carly Simon is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second of three weeks with You’re So Vain. The song also went to #1 in Australia, New Zealand and Canada and was Billboard’s ninth biggest hit of 1973. Exactly who the song is referring to remains a matter of some speculation. For her part, Simon has long said it refers to three men, one of whom is actor Warren Beatty. You’re So Vain remains Simon’s only #1 song on the Hot 100.

Quotebook
Older voters who had lived through the Depression and two world wars fretted that America had somehow lost its grit and will to sacrifice.
Evan Thomas
Ike’s Bluff

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate. Appointed in October 1922 following the death of Thomas Watson, Felton served one day in November 1922, after the Senate reconvened and was replaced the following day by Walter George, who had won the special election to fill Watson’s unexpired term.

Today’s Stumper
Which was the first team to win consecutive Super Bowl titles? –Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/January 12, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off: The End of an Era
One of the duller conversations you can eavesdrop on – or have, for that matter – concerns sports records that will never be broken. We have our own list and we are very careful about the records we’ve included because never is a pretty all-encompassing term and our theory is if something can be done once it can probably be done again, especially since us humans keep getting bigger, stronger and faster.

There are three records on our list: Wilt Chamberlain’s 55 rebounds in an NBA game, Johnny Vander Meer’s consecutive major league no-hitters and the 70-68 fifth set by John Isner and Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon a few years ago. Others will be very difficult to break, but these are the only three we feel are unbreakable, bearing in mind other records will never be broken simply because games are played differently than they were in the 1800s.

The last one, Isner/Mahut’s 70-68 fifth set, is becoming more and more difficult to break because tennis tournaments that allowed unlimited fifth set games are disappearing. The latest is the Australian Open, which begins Monday, which recently announced they will go to a fifth set tiebreaker. The US Open did this in the 1970s and Wimbledon will go to it this year. This leaves the French Open as the only tournament with all-you-can-play final sets.

Parts of us are sighing, lamenting the passing of an era, but you can understand this. One, fans don’t really want to see eleven hours of tennis, either in person or on TV. We know we don’t. Two, it completely throws off the tournament, as both singles and doubles, and perhaps mixed doubles, draws are held up. It also means the participants are more or less useless for their following matches.

So good riddance, we suppose. That 70-68 happened once is almost beyond comprehension so, perhaps, the history buffs in the audience can be content that History favored us with it once.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow points out further deficiencies in the sprouted bread The Wife is making him eat, and it is very busy at the retailer.

Something else I like to whine about concerning that sprouted bread crap The Wife has been foisting on me recently is it doesn’t hold as much stuff as real bread…Not only is it smaller, but the surface area is even more limited because her most recent loaf is pinched in in the middle…I don’t understand this at all…This is prime sandwich area for Pete’s sake and there the middle is pinched in like it is wearing a girdle…

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On This Date
In 1932 – Hattie Carraway of Arkansas becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate, winning a special election to finish the term of her husband, who had died. Carraway had been appointed to fill the seat in December, making her the second woman to serve in the United States Senate and in November became the first woman to win election to a full term.

In 1969 – The New York Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III in Miami, the first time an American Football League (AFL) team had beaten a National Football League (NFL) team in the Super Bowl. The game really wasn’t that close. The Jets led 16-0 after three quarters and intercepted four Colt passes and recovered one of their fumbles. The game was broadcast by NBC, though it was blacked out in Miami, despite being sold out. The national anthem was performed by trumpeter Lloyd Geisler and the halftime show featured the Florida A&M marching band.

In 1959 – The Chipmunk Song by the Chipmunks with David Seville is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the fourth and final week. It was Seville’s second and final #1 song, following Witch Doctor which had gone to #1 the previous May. Seville’s real name was Ross Bagdasarian and he took the stage name Seville after having served in Seville, Spain, while in the Army. The Chipmunk Song would win three Grammy Awards – Best Comedy Performance, Best Children’s Recording, Best Engineered Record (non-classical) – and remains the only Christmas song to hit #1 on the Hot 100, though other Christmas songs had reached #1 on earlier Billboard charts.

Quotebook
Ars longa, vita brevis- art is long and time is fleeting. This is the tragedy of every great soul.
Will Durant
Regards Francis Bacon

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder each have had 20 #1 songs on Billboard’s soul chart, the most of any act.

Today’s Stumper
Who was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate? –Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/January 10, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
President Donald Trump addressed America from the Oval Office Tuesday night, pressing his case for his treasured wall to keep evil Mexicans out. It really was more campaign rally than policy speech, not really deserving of the national airtime the networks gave it, though we will leave further analysis of the speech to others and to your own good sense.

The one question we kept asking ourselves while reading the usual fact-check stories that are now daily features was this:

Has any president humiliated himself by representing misstatements, half-truths and outright lies as actual policy as President Donald Trump?

No, no other president has used falsehoods as actual policy as much as President Trump does. The president does this with impunity, too. Sure, there are the usual fact-check columns exposing where he is wrong, but the mainstream media isn’t demanding better, his party isn’t demanding better and Lord knows you and me – we the people – aren’t demanding better, either. We are content to be lied to by our president and, of course, our continued approval of Government by Falsehood means we are going to get more of it. Trump will continue to lie, drawing on his only real talent: drawing attention to himself. We’re putting up with it.

Meanwhile, the government shutdown is now the second-longest ever, meaning several hundred thousand government employees are in their third week of working for free. Car payments aren’t being made and the first meals are probably now starting to be missed.

We deserve better, but election after election we decline to elect better, so we will continue to receive substandard government.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow calls tech support at the hotel, gives an update on his paper cuts and is not appointed to the town council.

Not too surprisingly, the other lady who applied at the same town council meeting I did wasn’t chosen either because recall the town council was so thrilled with us they immediately reopened the application process…I’m glad I wasn’t picked…It would have been a lot of work on things that bored me to tears…Besides, I lost interest when there were other applicants and it became plain my appointment wouldn’t be heralded with trumpets and a parade down Main Street.

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On This Date
In 1946 – Man reaches the Moon for the first time, as the US Army Signal Corps sends radar waves to the Moon and receives the reflected signals at Camp Evans in Wall Township, New Jersey. It took 2.6 seconds for the waves to make the round trip, meaning the Moon was 238,000 miles from Earth that day. Known as Project Diana, the program was merely an attempt to see if radar waves could penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. Actually having the waves bounce off the Moon was a bonus.

In 1982 – The Cincinnati Bengals defeat the San Diego Chargers 24-7 in the AFC Championship Game. With a wind-chill factor of minus-59 degrees, it is the coldest game in NFL history. The weather was such a factor the Bengals won the toss and elected to kickoff, making them one of the few teams in NFL history to kickoff to start both the first and second half.

In 1970 – The Jackson 5 is at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart – then known as the Best Selling Soul Singles chart – for the first of six times with I Want You Back. It was the first chart hit ever for the Jackson 5, spent four weeks at #1 on the soul chart and later in January spent one week at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. I Want You Back was the first of four consecutive #1 singles for the Jackson 5 on both charts, and while soul chart data was unavailable, they were the first group to have their first four singles go to #1 on the Hot 100.

Quotebook
To think without having first learned is dangerous.
Confucius

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The acts that have had the most consecutive #1 songs on the Hot 100 since Whitney Houston had seven are Mariah Carey and Katy Perry who have each had five.

Today’s Stumper
What act has the most #1 songs on Billboard’s soul chart? –Answer next time!

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