Casual cat watching me work. Truman prefers sleeping on tile at this time of year, it’s cooler for him.
Rain.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a little bit of a storm chaser. When we moved to Tucson from the Midwest I was concerned that I would miss out on excellent storms, but the monsoon has not disappointed.
I snapped this photo while out for a walk yesterday afternoon. I was talking to my mom on the phone at the time; I love the way the rain showers are isolated and easy to spot. A couple of hours after this photo was taken we had a spectacular lightning show that kind of hovered over the neighborhood for an hour before it got bored and dissipated.
More Retro.
As I continue to groove on this old films on YouTube, here’s “A Young Man’s Fancy”, a 1952 infomercial from the Edison Electric Company. Mr. Alexander Phipps loves his friend’s mother’s all-electric kitchen. I’ve seen this one plenty of times; the mother in this movie reminds me of Grandma Country.
I sometimes wonder if the homosexual subtext between Bob and his friend Alexander was on purpose. Of course, it can be attributed to the innocence of the early 1950s, but looking back from a 21st century point of view can make one lift an eyebrow.
And notice young Judy’s flair for language, calling her mother “sweetie”. She was ahead of her time.
Sidestep.
I found myself feeling overwhelmed at work so I stopped for a few moments, stepped away from my work computer, and watched a video on YouTube. The video is a film from 1946, and it’s an “infomercial” of the time, showing us the wonders of the brand new 1946 Westinghouse Electric Range. Be sure to look for the Wicked Witch of the West.
Borderline.
When I worked in radio in the 1990s and 2000s, I’d occasionally re-edit popular tracks to mix them up a little bit. I usually did this using four-track reel-to-reels, mixing it down to a two track reel-to-reel, and then cutting the tape with a razor blade and taping it back together. It was very rudimentary and I could only do one or two mix downs before the whole thing started sounding muddy. Then, in the late 1990s, a program called “Cool Edit” came along and made this whole process digital, and subsequently much easier to accomplish. Cool Edit is now known as Adobe Audition.
The first track I edited in Cool Edit was Madonna’s hit single from 1984, “Borderline”. I took elements from the extended 12-inch single and rearranged them to “punch up” the track into a radio edit, since the 12-inch single was too long (and actually too boring for radio consumption) to play in regular radio rotation. Madonna also occasionally had the habit of never “shutting up” during her early singles, sometimes making it tricky to beat mix in and out of her tracks during an instrumental break, because there was no instrumental break. “Into The Groove” is an example of this. Ironically, I replaced some of the 12-inch single instrumentation with more lyrics in my re-edit.
So, here’s “Borderline (DJ SuperCub Cub Sliced Re-Edit)”. I didn’t embellish the track with modern beats or instrumentation, it’s simply a re-arrangement.
A New Day For You.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was enjoying music by Basia from the late 1980s and early 1990s again. From 1987, here she is with “A New Day For You”. I noticed on Wikipedia it didn’t reach the U.S. Top 40. I remember it being more popular than that.
Edit: it turns out this was the second video clip and recorded for American audiences. While it only reached #53 on the Hot 100, the track did reach #5 on the Adult Contemporary charts.
Retro.
Yesterday we went for a ride to the area southeast of Phoenix to check out some of the towns, villages, and cities in the area. Our path took us through Arizona City, which isn’t as big as one would think, but charming in its own way, nonetheless.
My husband found us a diner in the small city. We like eating at locally owned diners when we’re traveling, so we stopped at the Flashback Diner. It was definitely a flashback. A small building with eight tables inside, it was dead quiet and everyone looked at us when we walked in. We made our way to a table for two and the friendly waitress came over with menus and we went through the typical diner experience. The food was very good.
When it was time to pay the bill, I gave her my debit card and was surprised to see what she brought back for the tip and signature.
I haven’t signed one of these forms in a very, very long time. The hacker in me was immediately concerned about my debit card number being imprinted on this form, but they didn’t do that, instead just writing the last four digits on the form so they could reference their computer records when their printer was working again.
The old school credit card slip definitely added to the flashbacks of the Flashback Diner.
Caturday.
Some days Truman just wants to stretch out in the middle of the floor for a cat nap.
His loudest purrs occur when he’s in his old cat bed.
Prime Time TV. Again?
Singer Basia released the track “Prime Time TV” back in the late 1980s. A commentary on what was fed to society on television back then, perhaps Basia should release a new version based on the Internet.
Is it a window?
Is it a mirror?
Is it just for entertainment and for pleasure?
So when it’s over we’re back to people
Just to prove that human touch can have no equal
A Proposition.
How about we do this… no elected official can hold multiple social media accounts. They use their official, recorded account or none at all.
Let’s get every spewed piece of vial on the official U.S, government record.
Make it a law.
