Saturday Matinee – Fess Parker, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone & stuff

Here’s to Fess Parker (August 16, 1924 – March 18, 2010).

When Disney’s semi-historical series on Davy Crockett ran out (Crockett was killed at the Alamo), Fess Parker had garnered a lot of fans. What to do next? Cast him as Daniel Boone, of course.

As Daniel Boone, Fess Parker’s costar was Ed Ames, who portrayed an Indian scout. Here he is demonstrating his famous hatchet throwing skills.

Have a great weekend folks, and R.I.P. Mr Parker.

The Feasts of St. Joseph

Earlier today (19 March 2010), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi invoked a prayer to St. Joseph for help in passing the Health Care debacle.  Not being Catholic, I couldn’t remember who he was the patron saint of besides children’s aspirin, so I decided to check  Wikipuddlia.

Here’s the entry for St. Joseph:

Further down, under Sainthood, we find this:

Here’s the pertinent paragraph enlarged.

Now click on that image.  It’s on Wikipedia, so it’s got to be true… heh. My initial reaction was that some wag edited the Wiki for fun, BUT WAIT!  IT’S TRUE!

From The Washington Times:

Seeking to shore up support for her embattled health bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today announced it was the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, adding “We pray to Saint Joseph to benefit the workers of America which is what our health bill would do.”

Problem is, March 19 is indeed the feast day of Saint Joseph, foster-father of Jesus. But the actual feast of St. Joseph the Worker (same man, two ways of commemorating him) comes in six weeks. Set for May 1, it was introduced by Pope Pius XII in 1955 to counteract May Day, the high holiday for communist and socialist workers.

So, Wikipedia is right, Nancy blew it twice in one swell foop, and Joe Biden’s disease is contagious.

[Crossposted here.]

In case you missed it

WordPress was inexplicably shut down today (affecting 10.2 million blogs, including this one) but the techs brought service back in only 110 minutes. Amazing response time.

WP News here.

The Great Farm: Urban Forester Scores Job Measuring Barley Crop


Tyler Stevenson, an urban forester, measures barley that is growing in the fields at the Great Park on Friday morning.

Irvine, California  (Strutts News Services, Opinion Section) –

Continue reading “The Great Farm: Urban Forester Scores Job Measuring Barley Crop”

Fat Tuesday

I like these guys, but there’s just too damn many of them.
(Barranquilla, Colombia)

If I were younger and single, I’d hang out with her. She’s fun.
(Barranquilla, Colombia)

The Wave:  Here’s how they do it in Ovar, Portugal.

Rio de Janeiro has a large population of diminutive people, and they built a floating recliner just for Jennifer Lopez.  She’s a goddess down there.

[Hundreds of awesome photos of Carnival from around the world, starting *ahem* here.]

Happy Tet, Y’all!

How do’ folks, and Happy VietNamese New Year!

Little Saigon, in Westminster California, comprises the largest population of VietNamese ex-patriots of anywhere in the world. The community was founded by those who escaped the communist invasion that followed the fall of Saigon in 1975.

[More photos after the break.]

Continue reading “Happy Tet, Y’all!”

Awesome Town is Awesome.

Nobody lives in Awesome Town. There is no plumbing, no electricity and no air conditioning. There is no city council, no Police Department, no Fire Department, no Post Office. There is a jail where no one will be incarcerated. There is no telephone service and no weekly trash pickup.

Awesome Town has no industry, no farming, and no business.

There are no stores or restaurants in Awesome Town, but there is a 5-story hotel. Nobody has ever checked in to the hotel and no one ever will.  There are no gas stations because there are no cars, and children are not allowed in Awesome Town.

There are no newspapers in Awesome Town because there is no one to read them. There are no medical facilities or pharmacies either, and there is no hospital. There is no internet service or broadcast radio or television.

Awesome Town is located on San Clemente Island, California. It is a Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT) Training Complex.

[From this Architect’s perspective, this would have been a fun project.  Found via here. Photos from here. Detailed description from CMA below the break.] Continue reading “Awesome Town is Awesome.”

More Breaking News: Ask AXE COP!

Good God! The Nicolle Brothers have a goldmine with AXE COP, and Episode 6 is up. Ethan Nicolle reports that since 25 January they’ve been getting 30-45 THOUSAND hits a day, and now they’ve got a splinter thread called “Ask AXE COP.” [Don’t squint, click the image.]

Due to the massive volume of traffic, their site is being revamped to handle the load.

[Related post with links here.]

Breaking News: AXE COP!

AXE COP is the most awesome thing we’ve seen on the internest in years.

Imagine Calvin as the author of a comic strip, and this is what you get. Created and written by a 5 year old, his 29 year old cartoonist brother puts it into action in glorious black and white.

Ya gotta read it from the beginning, Episode 1.  (Episode 0 comes later.) Unfortunately the website is slow to load, and has some other quirks about it, but it’s worth the time.

Superhero Sockarang is my personal favorite.
He shows up in Episode 5:

“Sockarang came to a try out when Axe Cop was preparing to go on a mission to fight Bad Santa and the Evil Flying Book. Sockarang has socks for arms, and he can shoot them out and they return to him like boomerangs. In his fight with Bad Santa he got some of Bad Santa’s blood on him and he got Bad Santa powers, which he used for good.”

[Link via  the Awesome Miss Cellania.]

[Clarification: Although the image above is from the Axe Cop site, the lame-o mspaint editing/coloring  job was our doing for purposes of this post only, with apologies to the Nicolle Brothers.]

Mr. Zero

Mr. Zero.  He’s Nothing. Really Nothing.

Although he’s Nothing, he wants everyone to pay attention to him, to pay attention to Nothing.

He knows Zip, Nada, and Everything That Isn’t. No one knows him, yet too many people understand him. He says Nothing to everyone.

Mr. Zero is very intelligent, and agrees to Nothing because he can deliver it. He can give you Nothing as well.  He can make sure that you have plenty of Nothing, so much so that you can only give it away, even though nobody wants it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Zero demands a lot. He is capable of taking everything and turning it into Nothing, which is exactly what you will get back if you give him anything.

He creates Nothing, and he sells it, too, at a very high price.

The only way to stop Mr. Zero is to give him Nothing.

[Image found here.]