My Music Monday

I'm doing the 10 songs from 10 albums selected for a FB challenge for music from your formative years.

Blondie has five great albums and a bunch more that range from good to not so good. I'd say it is hard to pick the best one, as they can be so different in style.

That said, I did pick Autoamerican (1980). I know I've already featured two songs from the disk here: "Europa" and "Here's Looking at You".  Everyone already knows "the Tide is High" and "Rapture".

This time I'm highlighting "Go Through It".  It's got a good beat, but it comes down to the horns - Mexican in their style, they truly positively accentuate the song.  To me, this is one to crank up.

Pic a Day in May - 21

Relic

50,000 Watts

Not only is J.J. Watt hot, talented and genuinely seems like a decent guy, he's a do-gooder too.

While looking to raise $200,000 for Hurricane Harvey relief last year, he ended up raising $37,000,000 instead. And he help load the trucks, not just for a photo op.

He's doing one better for the families of victims in Santa Fe, TX.  ....if you can call this 'better'.  Watt is paying for the funerals for all the victims.

It's nice move in what should be an unnecessary gesture.

I'd say another school shooting shouldn't have happened, but here we are.....like clockwork.  Since nothing has been done since the last 429 school shootings, why would anyone think it wouldn't happen again........and again........and again.

We have the usual dipshit politicians weighing in, of course. Again, just like clockwork.  The Lt. Governor of Texas - because the actual governor can't speak up? - citing too many exits and entrances in schools.

Guns don't kill people; too much egress does.  Of course, he's missing the obvious:  When (not if) a gunman got into the school, the students / targets are trapped with no way out.  Yeah Yeah - I know he meant only having one access point in, I'm assuming.  But you have to have multiple exits, so really, where there's a will, there's a way.

The bigger political jackass of course is BLOTUS. His insistence after the Parkland, FL shooting that something had to be done.  His snubbing of those students in person and then at the NRA national meeting where he puckered up, then extended his tongue firmly and deeply up their anuses.

He will be no change-agent when it comes to gun control, but of course, he had the fucking audacity to say, "This has been going on too long in our country. Too many years. Too many decades now.”

Is he fucking serious? Is he the last to know?

Grow up folks - he's placating you. He doesn't give a shit about school shootings unless it's about arming teachers and making sure the NRA is still happy. They're just words.....not even good ones.

So now the countdown clock has been reset. The silver lining is school is almost out for the year. So I guess - watch out churches!



Song by: Rosanne Cash

Pic a Day in May - 20

Buoyant 

I Feel Loved

Saturday.  You know what that mean.

Shep and the real live version of his toy(s)

Rubeneque

Daycare Saviour Admiration. 

It's a mutual admiration society.  

Me? I'm catching flies with my open mouth. 

Conquered. 

Kooper, Frankie (my fave!), Shep and Max.  Oh...and Betsy loving on Shep. 

 Sharks. 

They may as well be at feeding time. 

Song by: Depeche Mode

Pic a Day in May - 19

Red

South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)

My g-d..........what a pussy.

But now he's a pussy who will be embraced by the alt-right. He's a pussy who will get right-wingers' business. He'll be the face of immigration concerns.  It's no longer a wall - it's SuperJew, Aaron Schlossberg who'll be the talking point going forward.......for a while.

His rant in the restaurant wasn't his only video'd encounter with someone he thought was non and un American. Oh no. Videos are surfacing. This guy is just a dick.

I do love how people found him out in about 0.003 seconds: name. work. house.  I love how reporters stalked him out......followed him, badgered him, but with a lot less tenacity and vulgarness than he has displayed.

Oh - and the website for his office infers Español is spoken.......and he's happy to take the money of those clients who speak it the language. So why so hostile, Mr. Schlossberg?

(btw......his phone number is on the website. Feel free to call the number often.....and at inconvenient hours. Tell him I sent ya!)

I like that from whomever he was leasing his office space kicked his ass the the curb. That will come back to bite them, unfortunately. Not by Schlossberg himself, but the angry angry mobs that think like him.

What I cannot believe is that someone hasn't already rooted through ancestry.com or Ellis Island to figure out when his family emigrated here, which probably goes back two generations or less.  Because if you're truly going to shame him - find out his probable wretched past. His future is probably already set.




Song by: Chris Isaak

Pic a Day in May - 18

Frogurt

Shopping with Blobby

Yet another installment in the drudgery that is everyday shopping. The camera-phone makes it a bit more fun - though I get looks whenever I take pics of products. Like I care what people think!


Granted this isn't every day shopping.  It's royal related.  Or is it Royal?  Should it be upper cased?

As you all prepare for "the" wedding this weekend, and for all of you who are hoping some day your prince will come..........just make sure he's wearing this.....

Hehehehe........Crown Jewels.

It says the condoms are fit for a prince.  Let's hope it's not Prince George size, because that would be sad.  And wrong.

Poor Harry - they don't seem to be Magnum sized. XL that is, not PI.

I think they need to work on their marketing campaign. I'm not 100% sure (actually, I am!) that doing that thing in quotes would be equal to taking a viagra.  Probably quite the opposite.  Monty Python, Harry Potter, Oasis and corgis don't really make me go full-mast.

....and let's hope these rubbers work. A friend's mother-in-law is worried that a mixed-race child will ruin the monarchy.  I'm thinking Meg(h)an is 34.........she should hope she can get pregnant at all.  I mean....tick tick tick.

The biggest upside to these Crowned Jewels?  JP can finally retire those Charles & Camilla prophylactics.

Pic a Day in May - 17

Duck Duck Ball

I Hear a Call

When in doubt: double down.

So says the White House without actually saying it.

For the record - that person who joked about McCain dying?  Not reprimanded nor apologized. The potential leaker(s)? : "traitors and cowards".

Yup, that sounds about right.

For full disclosure, I too have jabbed at McCain's illness - but not in relation to pass a nominee vote.

Some aides can say what they want about others (i.e. McCain), but if some aides say stuff about WH  to others, they're traitors.  Oh, and cowards.

Buy oy, the phone ban in the White House. Staffers must have them locked up all day, only to retrieve them upon leaving the premises.  Better yet - there are suited men, walking through the White House with devices that can detect and search out phones that people bring in by "accident".  They actually confiscate their phones.

It's like a mini-Poland circa 1939 in the West and East wing.

What I absolutely love about the flaw in this plan is just so fucking obvious:  the / a leak doesn't have to be during work hours. It probably never was.  If I'm dropping a story to Buzzfeed or WaPo, I can just as easily call  / email / text them after I'm walking home or on the Metro.  The chances of you doing it when you can be overheard by your co-workers or boss lessen the chances you're doing it right then and there.

I suppose, there is that little thing about free speech too, though the staff are probably forced to sign Non Disparaging Agreements, though I don't know it's disparaging to repeat something offensive, unethical or illegal.  Though clearly it's frowned up and repeating it is 'treasonous'.

The biggest joke of this is: had there been an apology shortly thereafter the remake became public, no one would have noticed or cared.  Now they do.

....and all because widdle BLOTUS' feelings got hurt!   What a fucking snowflake.



Song by: Emmylou Harris

Pic a Day in May - 16

Ouchy

Troublesome Waters

I can't even start with dipshit Jared, dipshit Ivanka and some dipshit evangelical preacher over in Israel who thinks all Jews are going to hell to open the new Embassy.

I do like how the media reports they're in "Jerusalem" and they barely mention the word "Israel".

But if dipshit evangelical guy really thinks these things, why would Ivanka and Jared want him there?  Why would he want to be around them? 

Anyway...........today is about another dipshit:  Michael Phelps.

I totally totally totally get his campaign for brushing teeth and saving water. Allegedly 42% of all Americans leave the faucet running while they brush their teeth - except you in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi - where we know you don't brush......or floss.....or have teeth.

If you brush for two minutes (and my motorized toothbrush says I do!), you waste 4 gallons of water - or what Phelps calls "one of the most precious resources we have (and need) on Earth".

Clearly, it's not a horrible idea to only turn on the water to rinse out your mouth and save some H20.  I think it would just come better by someone who didn't use multiple olympic sized pools, each with 660,000 gallons of it, throw in chlorine and other chemicals to lecture me on the waste of water.

Mike thinks we should all take shorter showers to 'save water'.

I get the irony that he needed to swim in a minimum of 17 olympic sized pools since 2000 to raise awareness about water conservation. That's 11,220.000 gallons of water right there.  But does he get it?

For the record, if I wasted 4 gallons of water brushing my teeth (which I don't), twice a day (which I do), I'd have to live 3,843 years to use the amount in which he has swam.



Song by: Iris DeMent

Pic a Day in May - 15

Shadow

My Music Monday

A college friend 'tagged' me in a FB thingy to name 10 albums that had an influence on your formative years.  I was happy to take that one up - though hard to limit it to 10.

And 'formative years'? Am I still not forming?

Be it as it may, for the next 10 weeks, you'll get one selection from each of the disk I choose for this FB thingy.

First up?  Marti Jones from her 1986 disk, Match Game.  I still frickin' love this album. There are no hits - radio or otherwise.  I went with "Inside These Arms", but there isn't a bad track on the disk.

Pic a Day in May - 14

Turning Japanese

12 of 12

So I'm doing my 98th 12 of 12.

Normally it is 12 pictures taken on the 12th of the month. Since I only post once per day, you get my images the following day. All pictures taken with my iPhone. Click images to enlarge, if you choose.

Created by Chad Darnell and picked up from, what I can tell, any number of random bloggers who then link back to him and vice versa. Chad is no longer doing this, nor is successor coordinating the linking of other 12 of 12'ers anymore. Now it's just Erik and myself - that I know of.....as it's the only blog post he's still doing......for now.  

I still continue to do this, because of all my consistent post topics, I actually like this one the most.

04:02.   Wake Up #1   (the clock is 9 minutes fast)

Somewhere JP just passed out. 

06:10.  Wake Up #2. 

Someone had to get up and pee.  So then I just took him out too. 

07:30.   Chicken for 2nd breakfast. 

Had to hide pills before going to the vet. 

08:30.  Vet time for a nail trim.

The anti-anxiety medicine we have to give prior to that did not work this go-round. 

08:45.  Yes, I spent 13.87 on b'fast sammiches and doughnuts.  Sue me. 

10:20.  First load of laundry complete - but not put away. 

12:05. Outdoors while Mr. Shep pees. Spring sprang. 

13:55.  ....and then the rains came. 

Maybe they're into yoga. Or perhaps menstruating. 

15:30.  a Very Late Lunch. 

We picked up Jersey Mike's on the way home from checking on my mom.  Meh. 

19:10.  Shep almost religiously eats dinner between 17:30-18:00.  But he didn't remind me - and I didn't remember until after 7p.  Bad dad!

21:50.  Coffee Addiction. 

Not mine, but 710's. I'm just an enabler. 

21:55.  Weekly Medications. 

I'm down to two per day. AARP and big pharma would be disappointed

That's it.  No Baker's Dozen. It was a cold, rainy Saturday.  I didn't get out much.

Pic a Day in May - 13

Reflections

(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear

I promised Sophie this week - and I'm delivering.  I'm sure not as much as some of you would like, but it's better than no cat, right?

Shep and his best bud (male), Kooper, seem to be having some doggie-tiff.  

They greet each other, then ignore each other. 

Touch. 

Every night since our DC trip, this has been my nightly routine with Sophie. 

Attempting to get Shep up into my mom's patio furniture. 

He was interested in the treat, but enough so. 

Speaking of my mom.......

She had surgery this week and I brought her home from the hospital, but we had to pick-up Shep before daycare closed. He loves my mom and could not figure out why she was in the car. He was apoplectic. . He ended up riding with his chin on her shoulder most of the ride.  It was sweet. 

Meeting some min-pin / chiahuahua mix. He didn't know what to think - and vice versa. 

Sophie wants me anymore.....at all times. There is no private time. 

Song by: Blondie

Pic a Day in May - 12

Incoming

Betrayal Takes Two

I don't know from the MSNBC show Deadline: White House.  I barely know from broadcast news anymore, as I avoid it like the plague....and plaque.

I do know they kind of take Mike Pence down - and so I'm good with that.  Oh - and I should mention that Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace helped bring us Sarah Palin  (you'll know them as Woody Harrleson and Sarah Paulson on Game Change).

I get that the two of them have been trying to redeem themselves ever since 2008. This is good start, but they have some atoning to do in this and the next life for Palin.   ....and McCain (oh hush, just because he has a tumor doesn't erase that campaign).

And it is worth remembering, just because BLOTUS is dickwad, don't forget that his #2 is pure evil as well - just too stupid to be conniving.





Song by: Jules Shear with Angie Hart

Pic a Day in May - 11

Screen

Say Goodbye

I dare say, I am weak.

Whilst a young lad, Fleetwood Mac was probably my favourite band (well, until I discovered Blondie a year or two later).

Nine years ago, I posted / swore I would never go back to see them.

It seems I've lied.........to myself................and more importantly.........to you.  {sob}

But since the band fired Lindsey Buckingham a month ago, and then announced they're replacing him with two folks, I was intrigued.  ....well, at least by one of the folks.

While I'm sure Mike Campbell, who was about to start collecting unemployment after losing his job in the Heartbreakers, will do a fine job as the band's lead guitarist, it is the addition of Neil Finn as the third vocalist, that actually got me to purchase tickets to their show this upcoming autumn.

Don't ask for any rationale for this - there is none. I've searched high and low for a true reason I bought what are just overpriced tickets.   I'm curious about song selection and harmonies. I'm not sure curiosity is going to be enough, but we will see.

This isn't the first time Buckingham has left the band, but no doubt the last. Technically, I don't think it was his decision this time.

I can guarantee you this will be the last time.  I mean, at 60 Finn is the youngest by a decade - so some part of me thinks part of the band won't even make it to the start of the tour, let alone the end of it.



Song by: Fleetwood Mac

Pic a Day in May - 10

Pump

Site of the Month

If you thought someone was watching you and listening into your conversations - you're not completely wrong.

I think the NSA has taught us that multiple times.  At least in a way - you can see what satellites are operating out there now - and the communication of each....and when.

Ok - it's not about surveillance, we are talking actual space craft satellites that are operational that are monitored by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab.

Like, Voyager. When I clicked on the link, I see that Madrid is monitoring Voyager's activity.  It take 1.63 days to receive its signal, which is 21.13 billion (with a B) kilometers away.


....and I'm sorry, but 1.63 days to go 21 billion (with a B) kilometers if fucking impressive. To me, it would still be impressive if it were 1.63 years.

As you can see, NASA (not NSA) monitoring is basically housed in three locations world-wide. But the site - linked here - is real time.

I get that this might just be a thing for me, but I'm a nerd.  I know - it might seem like I'm all hip and cool - but in reality, I'm a nerd.

Pic a Day in May - 9

Tunnel

Either where Harry saw some Dementors, or the site of every SVU rape.

the Rifle's Spiral

This would be a little funny if it weren't so sad.............and predictable.

Oliver North as president of the NRA. 

It's probably a dream job for him.

The man watched over an illegal gun-running operation, selling them to Iran (yes, shortly thereafter the 444 day hostage situation) and then used that money to fund terrorists in Nicaragua.

On paper, he's the perfect guy to be presiding over school shootings and making sure that each shooter that the easily, if not illegally, assault rifle that works best for them.

The upside is the man is almost 75 years old. 


......tick.....tick......tick.........



Song by: the Shins

Pic a Day in May - 8

UFO