For your aural pleasure.

youtu.be/zZljPX5DSD8

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My Mother's sister has chided me for not posting often enough. She says she reads my blog when she wakes up in the middle of the night. She has asked for more really long posts so that her eyes will get extra tired and close themselves. Wriphe.com: Boring People to Sleep Since 2002!®

So let's see, what things have I encountered recently that can be used as soporific fodder?

• I'm already suffering from Olympics withdrawal. I love the Olympics. I watch all I can, and I'm always sad to see them go on hiatus. While I hate the corporate and political greed that always accompanies them, that's just a sideshow for the main event: athletes from all over the world competing for little blocks of electroplated precious metals. I love the bonhomie between athletes and especially their ability to take a loss — essentially the destruction of their lifelong dreams — gracefully. (Speaking as a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan, I firmly believe learning to lose is the single most important thing in any sport.) Of course, I like seeing happy winners, too. The Olympics are our biannual reminder that people are what is really important in this life. Life could be a paradise if we'd just let it.

• “Bon-hommy,” went on Eeyore gloomily. “French word meaning bonhommy,” he explained. “I’m not complaining, but There It Is.” †

• The notifications on my telephone stopped working over the weekend, so no sounds when I get texts or phone calls. Not that I get a lot of phone calls. But if you call and I don't answer, now I can say that I didn't hear it without lying. (It's a software problem, not a hardware problem. For example, I can still watch YouTube videos. My notification sound effect is the sound of a Star Trek [TOS] communicator incoming call chirp, but my ringtone is a default system sound, and neither works. I have the phone turned off for recharge and will turn it back on tomorrow in the hopes that it just needs a good nap to get things sorted out. That sometimes works for me.)

• Update: It's working again. Which means that if I don't answer your call, I'm probably ignoring you on purpose again.

• Update Update: It's not working again. Which means it's time for me to buy a new phone. (This Google Pixel 7 lasted just a year and a half. I bought it because it was cheaper than a Samsung Galaxy, and, well, you get what you pay for.)

• If you're looking to go to sleep, do not click on this YouTube link. That's the song I put in my CD player and turned up REAL LOUD while I was dressing (because I had started singing it in the shower). There's a reason that I have never used Huey Lewis and the News in my "new years" posts: their lyrics are actually good. Ok, to be perfectly honest, the song I started singing in the shower was Lindsey Buckingham's Time Bomb Town, which is the second song on the Back to the Future soundtrack album. You know the one: "There must be about a million / single ways to go down." I'm sure you recognize it as the song playing on the clock radio when Marty wakes up in bed in 1985 (the first time). Once I realized what I was singing, my brain automatically clicked over to "Please don't drive 88 / Don't wanna be late again." Which, of course, I'm sure you recognize as the song playing on the clock radio when Marty wakes up in bed in 1985 (the second time). And that's why I buy soundtrack albums: so I can wash out the earworms I pick up in the shower.

Are you asleep yet, Kelley? If not, I can start talking about my dreams. Nothing is more boring than someone else's dreams. I had one recently where I worked up the nerve to ask Natalie Portman out on a date... and she said yes! (Although I got the impression it was a pity date.) We went out for coffee.

† Milne, A. A. "Chapter VI, In Which Eeyore Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents," in Winnie-The-Pooh, pg. 72, E.P. Dutton & Company [New York], 1926

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I've decided I'm in the market for Peter and the Wolf on CD. It's been recorded many, many times, and I'm not sure which one I want to get. (I don't want to buy them all).

Obviously I grew up familiar with the 1946 Disney version narrated by Sterling Holloway, but the Oscar-winning 2006 stop-motion Polish animation is good, too. I have good childhood memories of attending an Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presentation hosted by Monica Kaufman; I'm sure that one wasn't taped. (Did I ever see it at the Center for Puppetry Arts? I vaguely feel that the answer is yes.)

The only version I have in the house is Weird Al's on cassette tape; it's out of print and prohibitively expensive on the secondhand market. Besides, I think I want something different anyway, something more traditional.

Does anyone within eyeshot have any recommendations? What's your favorite Peter and the Wolf?

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Wow, what a rough year 2023 turned out to be. Domestic political dysfunction, nonstop foreign wars, losing your starting wide receiver, starting running back, starting defensive end, and starting cornerback in a seven day span just before the playoffs in what was looking to be the most promising season since 1993... Ick. Less of all that in 2024, please.

As seductive as it can be to fall into despair, this is hardly the first time global events have seemed to be spiraling out of control. In such circumstances, it is always worthwhile to listen to voices of wisdom.

I'm reminded of one speech in particular:

There comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one. There are people dying, oh, and it's time to lend a hand to life, the greatest gift of all.

We can't go on pretending day-by-day that someone, somewhere soon make a change. We're all a part of God's great big family, and the truth, you know, love is all we need.

Honestly, it can't be said enough. We are the world. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can make the choice to start saving our own lives.

We are the ones who'll make a brighter day, so let's start giving our all and make 2024 a year to remember proudly.

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I've been going through an ELO phase lately, collecting all of their studio albums. (Judge me if you want to, but you can do a lot worse than ELO.) And that led me to this animation that used tracks from ELO's 1981 album Time as an unauthorized soundtrack.

Don't blink, or you might miss Batman and Robin!

youtu.be/-840keiiFDE?si=5m6GVCx8y04l6uQn

Believe it or not, that animation was originally created 40 years ago by university students for a 1983 Japanese science fiction convention DAICON IV. I'd say it stands up about as well as ELO's music does, which is to say "Very Well."

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I just listed to Haim's "Want You Back" on repeat for three straight hours, and I don't regret it.

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If 2020 was the Year of the Pandemic, and 2021 was the Year the Pandemic Struck Back, then 2022 was the Year that Humanity Paid the Bill.

Inflation, immigration, Ukraine, energy crises, Twitter... we certainly didn't realize how good we used to have it, and we're still in search of determining what our "New Normal" is.

Or, to put it another way,

My world was shattered, I was torn apart like someone took a knife and drove it deep in my heart.

When you walked out that door, I swore that I didn't care, but I lost everything, darling, then and there.

Too strong to tell you I was sorry, too proud to tell you I was wrong, I know that I was blind.

But, darling, if I could turn back time, if I could find a way, I'd take back those words that have have hurt you and you'd stay.

I believe that 2023 can be full of love and understanding. It's time to kick the gypsys, tramps, and thieves who've been promoting discord for their own profit that we are no longer willing to keep living in a house divided. I got you babe!

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I wouldn't have gotten through the summer of 2020 without frequent (weekly) viewings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The balm of summer 2022 is turning out to be Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia album, which I have listened to every-other day (or more often) since June.

Thanks, Britain!

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youtube.com

Looks like it's time to buy a Roku.

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We recently changed cable providers, and for the first time in a long time, we have some "premium" channels. Skinemax has gotten a lot more explicit than I remember. Back in my day, Shannon Tweed used to parade around topless and simulate a lot of foreplay. There's not a lot of "simulating" in what they air now. These days, they seem to only hire Method actors, if you know what I mean.

This is not an exaggeration. Wicked Pictures hardcore DVD Thief of Hearts is currently airing on my television as Showtime softcore Stealing Lust, fundamentally the same movie with the most revealing shots and camera angles edited out. (And before you ask, no, I did not know that either film existed off the top of my head. It took no small amount of creative Googling to uncover they were the same movie. Blogging sure can be hard work.)

I'm not complaining, exactly. If you didn't know that the modern actors were doing less acting, the biggest on-screen difference between softcore then and softcore now is mostly a matter of presentation style. (Does anyone know what a merkin is anymore?) And tattoos. So many tattoos now.

If I really miss anything about the softcore films of old, it's the music. I think I first saw The Joy of Flying in 1990. I can't tell you much of anything about the movie (other than that there was a lot of topless frolicking), but the soundtrack left a lasting impression.

https://youtu.be/cfQs5-oqSVY

All choreographed sex scenes could use a little more big band action if you ask me.

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