Requested by Susan–Long Black Train, sung by Chris Rupp and Tim Foust. You don’t want to get aboard this train.
The hymn shop is open and everybody’s welcome! If you have a favorite hymn you’d like to share, just let us know.
Year: 2022
Stairway to Doom! (But the Cats Like It)
Holy moly, look at those stairs! All I can think of is Laurel and Hardy trying to deliver a piano.
The cats like it, though–especially when some poor human has to climb all those stairs to deliver an order of cat food.
Losing Summer
I had to go pick up Patty’s medicine this morning, a journey of several miles that took me past a number of parks and playgrounds.
Where is everybody?
It’s a Sunday in the summer. The heat wave has broken, it’s nice outside. So where is everybody? Have we come in on the tail end of a doomsday movie?
Oh, the clink of horseshoes! The aroma of hamburgers sizzling on the grill. The crack of bat on ball. My father used to take advantage of daylight savings time to run out to Farrington Lake for a little fishing, after work. He always took us with him. I miss that!
But where is everybody? Why let this beautiful day go to waste?
I don’t know, On weekdays the main sign of life is traffic. That eases up on weekends and you find yourself driving around an abandoned landscape.
I think I’ll go back outside now.
The Rhino in the Vicar’s Back Yard (‘Oy, Rodney’)
“With 500 chapters under our belts, we are entering a new era of Oy, Rodney,” proclaims Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, introducing Chapter DI of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. Did I mention that it’s 500 chapters long? And still going forward!
“I can now reveal the purpose of having the American adventurer, Willis Twombley, so near to center stage throughout the exfoliation of the plot,” writes Ms. Crepuscular. Mr. Twombley thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad.
“You may remember, in Chapter 500, a rhinoceros was seen burrowing under the wading pool in the vicar’s back yard,” she says. “Most people would remember seeing that. And now that someone has… it falls on Twombley to lead a safari to hunt down the rhino and get rid of it.” It will be the first safari ever held in Scurveyshire.
But oh! I hear you gasp. (Well, all right, I don’t actually hear you. Must we split hairs?) What has become of Lord Jeremy Coldsore? Why isn’t he leading the hunt for the rhino?
Because he’s being held prisoner, a prisoner of love, by Constable Chumley’s mother, Thir Lanthelot the Lithping Knight. Really, it’s too grotesque for words.
“Padang!” exclaims Ms. Crepuscular. (“Padang?”) “It so happens that many older women in Scurveyshire succumb to the delusion that they are one of the Knights of the Round Table, waiting for King Arthur to turn them loose on the Saracens. The cure for this is indescribably painful and costs a fortune. A suit of used armor is a lot cheaper. I’m surprised none of you readers noticed it before!”
So much for the chapter.
Late! Overslept! Sorry!
Well, I told you I was tired, didn’t I? Practically fell asleep in my chair last night, watching brainless Fail Army videos.
I don’t want to bother to cover the story of the New Jersey elementary school “teacher” who wears real tight clothes to class. We didn’t used to have stuff like this going on in school. School was bad enough back then. (Shut up, Lee! You don’t want to talk about school today!)
Look, I’ll do the best I can to keep the old blog going today. (Yes, I could use an assistant!) Let’s hand off to Violet Crepuscular and see if she can score a touchdown. (That’s really weary! Resorting to a football analogy. Fie, fie!)
‘Jurassic World: Dominion’… Three Cheers!
Well, we love this movie! Really, all you have to do is provide a lot of realistic dinosaurs, and not go overboard with the human characters, and you’re home free. Dominion does all that and a bit more. I’m already looking forward to the next one! (Dinosaurs break loose, descend on Davos, gobble up the self-anointed elites right down to the last Rolex…)
Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum are back in their original roles–and I do enjoy listening to Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) philosophize. In between chase scenes, he has the best lines in the script. I admit they probably could have done with shorter or fewer chase scenes. Or else let the dinos catch up to famous liberals and eat them. Stand up and cheer: like when the T. rex devours the sleazy lawyer in the first movie.
The theme of the story is the same Jurassic Park theme that’s been up there for us all long: scientific hubris kills. This time out we have a Big Science screw-up that threatens to wipe out human life altogether. Gee… does that sound kind of familiar? The difference between the movie and real life is that in the movie it’s Big Tech that’s going to make us extinct, and in real life it’s “gain of function” research perpetrated by Big Government. Although there’s so much overlap between the two, the distinction may not be as important as I thought.
There are a great many “quotes” from other dinosaur movies; which, if you are into dinosaur movies (like I am!), you’ll have a lot of fun spotting. Movies like The Valley of Gwangi, The Land Unknown, the original Jurassic Park, King Kong–see how many you can spot.
So many dinosaur discoveries are being made today that it’s difficult to keep up. I recognized most of the dinosaurs in Dominion, but not all of then. Every now and then I had a “What the hell was that?” moment. But that’s a small criticism.
You knew I’d dig this movie, didn’t you?
‘They Keep Trying to Put Jesus Back in the Tomb’ (2018)
It was the ultimate catastrophe for the kingdom of Satan when Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, as He said He would. Ever since, it’s been perpetual damage control for Satan and his servants–including, as we see so often, Reputable Bible Scholars Inc.
Yeah, uh-huh. This “early Christianity” didn’t have any of that annoying Christian stuff in it. Nothing that would offend CNN. It was… scientific!
Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in the mind of someone who writes a book like this. But it may be wiser not to get too close.
By Request, ‘In God’s Green Pastures’
We have Christian brothers and sisters in India, and they can sing!
Requested by Phoebe, In God’s Green Pastures, sung by the Voice of Eden. (And where can I get a harmonica like the one they’re using here?)
Dogs Intrigued by Babies
It’s too bad neither the dogs nor the babies can tell us what’s going on in their minds when they meet. Some babies laugh, but some babies cry. I haven’t seen any dogs cry about it; but most of them are older and more experienced than the tiny babies in this video.
Byron’s TV Listings, Aug. 27
G’day, all! Byron the Quokka here–and we need your views! If we don’t get ’em, we’ll have to award a degree to Joe Collidge, and Quokka University will be disgraced forever: no more invitations to national Pick-up Sticks tournaments for us. Look, here’s a sample of this weekend’s TV offerings!
7:37 P.M. Ch. 91 NEWS WITH GARY THE GHOST–Stupid TV news show
It seemed like a brilliant idea: a nightly news broadcast anchored by a real, live (well, okay, he’s not alive) ghost. And it sort of works, if you can put up with the screaming, the moaning, the clashing of chains in the background, and de-materialization when you least expect it. Winner of the Willis Twombley Award for Best News Series Anchored By A Dead Person.
8 P.M. Ch. 06 BEAT THE CROCK–Game show
Can the contestants solve the rebus puzzle before the celebrity guest gets dunked in a pool of lime Kool-Ade? Host: William Howard Taft. This week’s celebrity guest: Wan Fu-Ming, from somewhere in China (emergency replacement for Chuck Connors, who came near to drowning last week).
Ch. 14 MOVIE–Intersectional Non-Binary Horse-S***
In Some Like It Sort of Tepid (Japanese-Norwegian, 1928), the strong man Machiste (Andy Devine) gets more than he bargained for when the June Taylor Dancers (all 16 of them) serve him with a writ for Breach of Promise. Featured Song: “I’ve Got a Bent Coccyx!” With Ragnar Hairy-Britches and his orchestra.
8:30 P.M. Ch. 33 BABY-TALK WITH JOEY BISHOP–Talk show
(We can’t imagine why this show got cancelled after only one episode! It sure looks like a winner to us.) Host Joey Bishop and his Hollywood celebrity guests spend the whole hour talking to each other in baby-talk! Tonight’s guest: Sir Laurence Olivier. “Nice man makey nice movie, snookums!” What’s wrong with that?
Ch. 65 HANDS UP! TRICK OR TREAT–Western
Welcome to Frogbreath, Arizona, where every day is Halloween and Sheriff Joe Popstick (Robert Trout) can’t arrest anybody because they’re all wearing masks and can’t be identified! This week: Schoolmarm Belle (Heather Locklear), costumed as Attila the Hun, says someone in an Allen Ludden costume robbed her class’s milk money. Popstick goes undercover…
Well, folks, there you have it! What edifying television! A thousand times better than being stuck in college, don’t you think?
Byron the Quokka, signing off!