Please Do Not Adjust Your Set

I'm just taking a little vacation from blogging for a while, for no particular reason other than a sort of delayed late-summer lethargy, I suppose.

See ya when the mood passes, guys - before too long, I hope.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Sunday Drive: Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning

This heartfelt remembrance of the events of 9/11 earned a Grammy and other top honors for Alan Jackson.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Sunday Drive: The Water Is Wide

To mark the bittersweet denouement of summer, here's an old lament exquisitely rendered by the late Eva Cassidy:

Waitin' for the Weekend

The Wonderful World of Tupperware

The first half of this promotional film, made about 1965 by my figuring, reveals the intricate factory processes that create those familiar, last-forever plastic containers we all grew up with - the second half celebrates the concept of the "Tupperware party" that was the only way you could buy the stuff - maybe still is.  Any of you shitkickers been to one lately?

I'm still using a Tupperware quart-size measuring cup and a sunshine-yellow strainer that my mom bought in 1975.




BTW, there's a famous face you'll all recognize towards the end of the show - but I won't spoil the surprise.

Sunday Drive: Shower the People

From the 1976 album In the Pocket by the inimitable James Taylor:

Waitin' for the Weekend

National Park Service Centennial

The National Park Service turns 100 today.  In 2009, 320 million people, nearly equal to the entire population of the United States, visited one or another of the 413 parks, monuments, battlefields, recreation areas, and historic sites. The annual budget for the Park Service is about $3 billion.

1916 map of the then-existing national parks and railroad routes to them, in a time when paved roads were still very few and far between.  Click to enlarge.

1938 poster for Yellowstone National Park.

Today's Toon

(Source:  gocomics.com)