Why Cats Make Terrible Secret Agents

 

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Happy New Year 2024!

 

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Cleaning up my office for the upcoming year, I found some old journals and Day-Runners. Odd to read my thoughts from decades back. Seems like I battled many of the same issues, overcame a few defects, and acquired fresh ones. The improvement process on John P. McCann continues.

A pleasant new year's day to all!

 

Cosmic Horror Defined

    Something invented by H.P. Lovecraft; possibly something dreamed up in the most literal sense by Howard Phillips.  That's just how he rolled.

 

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A Warner Bros. Merry Christmas v.2

 Ten years ago,  posted the below remarks. All the best today to you and your family.

 Inspired by a Facebook post from friend Josh, and plucked from the blog of Tom Ruegger, here are the Warners Brothers (and sister) as shepherds from "The Little Drummer Warners." Back in the day, we showed the episode to Steven Spielberg who joked that we now owed him a Warner Bros. tribute to a Jewish holiday. Hanukkah and Thanksgiving at the same time would have been perfect, but that kind of calender gold doesn't roll around too often. Plus Animaniacs would've needed to be airing for twenty years like Gunsmoke. So we still owe him.

Does TikTok Reward Madness?

 I would say 'yes.' It seems the emotionally unhinged are rewarded with traffic. This holiday season, try to avoid TikTok. Your family will thank you.

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Epic Gift-Wrapping Fail

 Not everything goes smoothly over the holiday season. A smple gift-wrapping can turn into a chore if approached with the wrong mindset.

John P. McCann Channel

TikTokers React to Pearl Harbor

Educated by the dim, today's youth respond to the 82th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

 

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Pomona 5k Race Report

From l. to r.: Me, Joy & Chevy Chase

Having not run a race since last year's marathon, I only had a few 2023 weeks remaining to notch one.  So I joined my wife Joy for a 5k out in Pomona. Chilly in the early morning hours. Neither of us wished to leave bed. But off we went on Saturday morning. As noted in the 5k link, I finished second in my age group out of six participants. That was enough to earn an age group medal, which is basically awarded for outliving faster runners. The course was flat asphalt, used in the warmer months for auto racing. I was stiff as a plank having not warmed up properly.

This particular 5k had a number of drawbacks including people violating course rules and running with their dogs—there are parks for that—strollers, and loose children who tend to run as fast as they can, stop, then bolt off again. I was passed a half-dozen times by the same kids.

That aside, it was a good time, with decorative Christmas cheer all about. We enjoyed ourselves, then departed for a well-earned heavy breakfast. 

I'll report in soon on my upcoming half-marathon in January. All in all, I was glad I got out of bed.

 

 

 

 

Pearl Harbor Recalled: Time and Mrs. Murphy v.2

Repost from Dec. 7, 2008

Back in the early '80s I lived in a Hollywood apartment, neighbors to cameraman Dutch Heckman. Once, our elderly landlady, Mrs. Murphy, told Dutch and I that she'd been present in Honolulu during the Pearl Harbor attack. (A great danger came from falling shrapnel, courtesy of exploding U.S. anti-aircraft shells.) Evacuated from Oahu to California, Mrs. Murphy bid farewell to her husband, Bill, a Marine major. Bill was gone for years, fighting in the Pacific. He once wrote Mrs. Murphy from Eniwetok that "nothing smells worse than a dead Jap." Bill survived the war, but, like the stench of enemy corpses, the horror of that island always lingered. 

Mrs. Murphy eventually became a manager at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. (She was present that day in 1968 when Robert Kennedy was assassinated.) Talking later, Dutch and I realized that Mrs. Murphy was a history sponge, soaking up the events spilling around her. In time, Eniwetok vaporized from hydrogen bomb tests, the Ambassador Hotel was torn down, Bill died, and Mrs. Murphy ended up a landlady, drinking double bourbons in the afternoon and sharing her memories with a constantly employed cameraman and an unemployed comedy writer. She always regretted never moving back to Hawaii after the war. (She prounced it 'Ha-vi-ee.") A few years later, Mrs. Murphy passed away. She is forever tied in my mind to December 7th. I wish her a good afterlife and hope it contains palm trees rustling in the warm trade winds.

wonderfulengineering.com

NOTE:

Dutch Heckman passed away last year. His departure leaves a great inner chasm that will never be filled. Nevertheless, onward.

Tasteless TikTok Take on Osama Bin Laden

 TikTok: Where the Abnormal Relax

Ah, TikTok, the 21st Century home for hostile odd people. In keeping with their standards, TikTokers have recently discovered a new crush: Osama Bin Ladin. Why the architect of the 911 attacks is now viewed as cool will be discussed by future historians—I hope.

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From the River to the See Ya Later, Jews

Work Makes You Free

Arbeit Macht Frei. That was the sign on the Sachsenhausen—and other—concentration camps set up by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews. The popular Palestinian slogan From the River to the Sea has the same ominous flavor since the fate of the Jews in a Palestine extending from the Jordon River to the Meditteranean Sea is left conspicuously unsaid.

John P. McCann Channel