Find out in my next post, coming soon.
Archives
All posts for the month June, 2011
I’d like to thank all of my subscribers for reading my blog over the past year. If you view my blog on your phone, iPad or other portable device, at the very least, it makes great bathroom reading. Right?
Congratulations go out to Lana and Midori, who are my two lucky winners and recipients of a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate to be spent any way they want. Now you can go out and buy that high dollar item you’ve always dreamed about and just know deep down that you didn’t pay full price for it. 
Thanks and keep on reading!
The Yesteryear Remembered Blog
Here’s how it goes down. You pull your TV dinner out of the oven, turn on the television, setup a TV tray and sit down on your couch ready to watch your favorite show.
Then the unthinkable happens! Just at the moment Wile E. Coyote is about to catch the Road Runner (beep, beep!), the picture starts rolling vertically up, then down the screen. Nooooo!!! Now I’ll never find out if Wile E. Coyote caught the Road Runner!
If you’re the lazy type and the TV exhibits vertical hold problems, and it’s rolling slow enough, you can still watch what’s on the tube and not have to get up to adjust it. But, if you’re having a horizontal hold problem, chances are, the picture is so skewed that the image is unwatchable.
Unfortunately, if I had to adjust the roll and/or skewing of the picture, the vertical and horizontal hold adjustment components were on the back of the TV. On my particular set (an RCA), it was recessed inside the back panel and you had to use a straight blade screwdriver poked through a small hole to make the adjustments.
While making the adjustments, my grumblings sounded something like this: “A little more, a little more, no, too much! Oh, right there, no, back the other way! Drat it all!” And that was just me talking to myself! I had to use a mirror so I could watch the screen, while I was fiddling with the adjusters on the back.
Fortunately with todays digital televisions, this problem has gone the way of the dinosaurs. But back when I was growing up, this was a constant headache when watching TV.
This post got me thinking, with this problem a thing of the past and with the addition of remote controls, I don’t have to constantly get up from the couch, walk over to the set, then walk back to the couch and sit down, just to adjust the TV. Hmm, how am I supposed to get any exercise. Well I guess I still have to put the DVD disk in the player.
Chicago Transit Authority–no, it’s not the transportation authority for the Chicago area, but none other than the legendary musical band from the late 1960′s. In actuality, they didn’t go by the name Chicago Transit Authority until June of 1968. It wasn’t until soon after the band released it’s first album named, “The Chicago Transit Authority”, that they changed their name to what we know it as today, “Chicago”, this was because the real Chicago Transit Authority threatened legal action. The bands name prior to Chicago Transit Authority was, “The Big Thing”.
Chicago’s first album, just so happened to be my favorite album, because it contained some of their best songs of all time. “Beginnings”, Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is” and “Question 67 and 68″.
Check out this blast from the past. Chicago playing my favorite Chicago song, “Beginnings” in 1970, get a load of their hair style:
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/chicago/video/beginnings_-568346276.html
Here’s “Beginnings” more recently in 2004 at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, California:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZEfLB_L2Tg&feature=related
Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire performing 25 or 6 to 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L360BfJQ9qs
Chicago has lost a couple of their most recognizable voices, namely Peter Cetera and Terry Kath, and the band members are, at the time of this post, 43 years older, their hair is much shorter and a little grayer, but they still sound great. I’ve seen them as recently as 2010 along with another one of my favorite bands, Earth, Wind & Fire, what a great combination!
There have been many mice in my life growing up…whoa, hold on a minute, let me clarify that. There have been many cartoon mice in my life (does that sound any better? : \). The most famous of these mice was good ol’ Mickey Mouse, and we can’t forget his girlfriend Minnie, that muscle bound Mighty Mouse, Jerry from Tom & Jerry fame and one very fast mouse, Speedy Gonzales.
The above list however, doesn’t include one other mouse, he was a foreigner, Italian to be exact and he was a television personality that I remember watching on the Ed Sullivan Show and his name was Topo Gigio. Topo Gigio was a 10 inch tall, foam puppet that took 4 people to bring to life, 3 people to make the puppet move and 1 for the voice.
Before he received fame on the Ed Sullivan Show, Topo Gigio debuted on Italian television in 1959 and in the early 1960′s, was the lead character of a children’s puppet show on Italian and Spanish television.
Topo Gigio would appear on the weekly Ed Sullivan show from the 1960′s until Ed Sullivan’s last show in 1971. After Topo Gigio concluded each of his weekly skits with host Ed Sullivan, Topo Gigio would always conclude with the line, “Eddie, kiss-a-me goo’ night!” (in his Italian accent), just before he hopped into his bed.
For more details on Topo Gigio, visit wikipedia.com:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topo_Gigio
Back in 1996, my wife and I took a week long vacation to Kona, Hawaii. We were there for no other reason except to get some much needed rest & relaxation.
We decided to venture out of the resort for a bit, and we stumbled upon a running race which we soon found out was part of the Ironman Triathlon. For anyone reading this post that doesn’t know anything about the Ironman Triathlon, it is a grueling competition which consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike and a marathon run or 26.2 miles. To top it off, the majority of this is done during the heat of the day and in Hawaii, with the high humidity, it could get unbearable.
They had tables setup along the race route that acted as cooling stations for the runners. The runners would run by, grab some water to drink and/or a sponge soaked in water to squeeze over their head/body to cool themselves off.
After all of the runners had passed by, I walked to the middle of the street and picked up a souvenir from the race which was an actual sponge that one of the runners threw down on the ground after he cooled himself off. I know, it sounds gross, but I was watching and he didn’t use it to wipe his face or body, he just squeezed the water out over his head. Plus I washed it in soap and hot water, upon returning to our place.
Ironman Competition in Kona, Hawaii:
A UK article about the triathlon
For more details, check out wikipedia.com:
Wikipedia–Ironman Triathlon
