Going to Beach with Melissa Today

 This morning would be the birthday of my late father and son.  Daddy would be turning 100 while Will would be 36.  Melissa and I are planning to stay overnight at a Daytona Beach Hampton Inn and then return home Monday.  After Saturday's double-lap walk through Depot Park, I got up early, around 4:30, and did ten minutes of running in place on the living room rug floor before brewing some coffee and writing this. Earlier yesterday evening I listened some more to a library audiobook about running and the first chapter of an annoying Hardy Boys adventure story...it reminded me of an old South Park episode titled "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" when the gay lads keep "getting a clue" You know,  Joe and Hardy each sound like their privileged brothers, the only missing words being their "clues"that no one ever holds them accountable for . Later this morning, Melissa and I have a reservatioto at a Daytona Beach hotel, where we hope to enjoy the ambience of our room balcony and the poolside.  It sure would be nice to recover some walking and running fitness on that sandy beach, too.  The beach looks like the perfect location to practice running softly.  

Daisy in the Frame

 

We've had our little mixed-breed puppy for a little more than four months now...Daisy was only two months old back in May when we adopted her at PetSmart off Archer Road through a pet adoption non-profit group.  Then she weighed just seven pounds...click HERE for an earlier article (and picture).  Now she's 29 pounds but still a little puppy...I took the top picture above a couple of days ago while holding her in my right arm.  Melissa came up with the name, which I quickly took to, but didn't recognize the significance in "Toon World" as Daisy is also the Bumsteads' pet dog in their comic strip Blondie.  One thing tying the two together is that both Daisy's make it a point to make sure they're "in the frame"...check out an old one featuring Dagwood shirking his chores.  I've been walking Daisy around the block each morning in order to train her to follow me and not her own agenda...mixed results so far.  She loves standing on her hind legs and looking out the front window, watching alertly from the left to the right (and back) and huffing and puffing and growling...and occasionally barking at passing cars, people, and of course dogs.  She's very much bonded to both of us but much more so with Melissa...when she leaves the room for just a little bit Daisy turns into a big crybaby.  For a few weeks recently we took her to "puppy kindergarten" where she met up with fellow pups and practiced training Melissa and me to be better humans.  Her growth seems to have slowed down a bit, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.  We love Daisy and wish her a happy, well-behaved life...

Great Old TV Episodes...from Beavis and Butt-Head

Animator Mike Judge's breakthrough into television fame was his MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head, which originally ran from 1993 to 1997.  One of my favorite episodes from it is CITIZENS ARREST,  from  '97...although it would be another ten years or so before I began to follow the series. The title characters are two boys in their early teens whose ignorant notions of what is "cool" revolve around anything sexual, violent or gross...I actually knew some kids around my neighborhood and school bus stop when I was growing up who had very similar personalities (and probably still do). When Beavis and Butt-Head was first being shown on MTV I had a problem with it as that channel seemed hell-bent on indoctrinating young viewers to the values it was promoting (like they did with their numerous, tedious reality TV series), and I've always felt that the series should have been targeted at a more mature, discerning audience...kids tend to copy what they see on the screen. After all, I never saw the Three Stooges as role models either, but rather a source of comedy both for their ridiculous behavior and beliefs and at the pretentions of society around them.  In Citizens Arrest, the boys are at work at Burger World when an armed robber comes into the store: of course Beavis and Butt-Head think it's all very cool.  When a policeman walks in on the holdup, Butt-Head's careless reactions to the robber inadvertently save the day and the cop praises the boys for making a "citizen's arrest".  The rest of the episode has them harassing customers in the name of security, including the above-pictured elderly gentleman who just pulled into the parking lot: the dialogue is side-splitting...how the two get carried away with their new "role" reminded me of the Hall Monitor episode in SpongeBob SquarePants.  Beavis and Butt-Head is a series you either love or hate...I've felt both ways at different times over the years.  The original series featured the two young losers sitting on their couch at home watching and analyzing various music videos during each episode. I thought that was hilarious, but the versions aired now (and on DVD) omit that section: too bad...

Great Old TV Episodes...from Family Guy

 

Probably much better known as "Surfin' Bird", the I DREAM OF JESUS Family Guy episode, originally airing in 2008 several years before I began watching the series, is probably my all-time favorite of its entire 19-season run (so far).  In this irreverent episode, Jesus Christ runs a used record store and is tempted through superstardom celebrity fame, but that's really the "second story" to Peter Griffin's rediscovery of his old favorite song Surfin' Bird (by the Trashmen) when a juke box operator at a local diner is about to throw it out and gives it to him.  Never one to do anything halfway, Peter then spends the next days constantly playing the record and acting out this very, very funny, silly song...until the point when talking dog Brian and devious baby Stewie hatch a plan to end their suffering.  In the above picture, Peter's just begun talking about it (once again) and is about to dive into another performance.  I think if you just cut out the later satirical nonsense about Jesus and made a repeating loop of the rest of the episode...and just played it nonstop for a couple of hours, this might be a fantastic remedy for those down in their spirits. A well, don't you know about the bird? Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word!  

Great Old TV Episodes...from SpongeBob SquarePants

 

GRAVEYARD SHIFT, from Season 2 of the enduring Nickelodeon hit cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants, is one of my all time favorites.  This series, which I took to around 2002-03, features the title character as an annoyingly expressive sponge (in yellow kitchen sponge form) living at the bottom of the sea with his best friend Patrick (silly starfish), next neighbor Squidward (cynical octopus) and boss Mr. Krabs (greedy, stingy crab).  He works with Squidward at the Krusty Krab fast food joint...in this episode Krabs discovers he can make more money if his place never closes: hence, the graveyard shift.  Squidward can't stand it, and SpongeBob thinks it's the greatest thing ever..."Wow, we never have to stop working!".   Fed up with his coworker's unbridled enthusiasm, Squidward decides to play a joke on him and dreams up a ghost story about the "Hash-Slinging Slasher", supposedly a former employee who accidentally cut off his hand, got run over by a bus, and will come back to "Get you!"  It works on SpongeBob, who shrieks repeatedly until Squidward tries to shut him up by telling him it was just a joke...then he switches to  laughing repeatedly (see above picture).  Later that night the clues that Squidward laid out about the Slasher's return start coming true, and the two are left shaking in terror as the sinister figure holding a spatula enters the restaurant...

I have worked the graveyard shift on three different jobs: a weekend shift as a clerk in a traffic management office in Miami Shores, a very brief stint at a Gainesville convenience store, and for around 18 years as a clerk at the post office.  There something just not quite right about leaving for work late in the evening and getting off when the sun has just risen in the morning...I never completely got used to working those hours, and on my off days I would sleep the late night/early morning as if I had more normal hours.  The world outside gets eerily silent in those wee hours of the morning and you can hear some pretty distant sounds...all sorts of nocturnal wildlife like to make their appearance then as well.  Nowadays with my afternoon/evening work schedule it's a major chore for me to just get up at 7 in the morning, much less work all night long.  SpongeBob's Graveyard Shift episode is loaded with laughs...unfortunately, although this series continues on to this day with new episodes, I don't think the ones after the fourth season are very funny: if you haven't seen it yet, I'd focus on those early seasons if I were you...