I Got Them #socs Blues

So it’s Friday afternoon, I’m at Starbucks, and the prompt is “blue.” Specifically, the first blue thing I see. Well, I’m wearing a blue shirt. See?

This is one of my Mary-approved shirts to go out in. Most, if not all, of those are various shades of blue. She decided I wear too much blue and bought me a couple of new shirts. One is pink, specifically to be worn on Laetare Sunday and Gaudete Sunday, the two dates in the Catholic calendar where the priest wears pink (officially “rose”) vestments. The other is like a Day-Glo green, which she’s decided she really likes, so I expect more Day-Glo colors in the future. I already have a shirt that can best be described as Department of Transportation orange, so I don’t suppose orange will be another color.

I found my “Blue” playlist. There’s another here, and I’m sure there are a few more.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about Charmin bathroom tissue. So fluffy, so squeezably soft, it’s irresistable!

Mr. Whipple is played by character actor Dick Wilson, who shows up on “Hogan’s Heroes” all the time.

Look Away, Look Aweigh, Look Awhey… #socs

I worked for a company that made breadings for chicken and fish, among other things, and one of the first things I learned was that whey powder added to the breader would make that golden brown color that makes deep-fried foods look so tasty. Later I learned that whey powder was good when added to smoothies, and that protein powder like you buy at GNC was essentially whey powder.

Is GNC even still a thing anymore? I just checked and yes, it is. As of 2:30 on Friday, its stock is up 0.04 to $2 a share.

I weigh too much. I figure I need to lose 100 lb. (45 kg) before they’ll do any surgery on my knees. Nutri-system is too expensive and formal diets (e.g. the South Beach diet) are a pain in the ass. The last few days I’ve been trying to eat half of what I usually eat. So far, it’s too early to tell, but if I can get rid of the weight that way, that might be the best solution.

Finally, The Beatles with “Blue Jay Way,” from Magical Mystery Tour.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about Sara Lee all-butter Chocolate Cake. Just because I’m me, I deserve Sara Lee!

I know, one minute I’m talking about needing to lose weight, the next I’m talking about all-butter cake…

Couch Stuff for #socs

We have two couches at home, neither of which I sit on, because it’s impossible for me to get up off of them with my disability and all. Mary likes to sit on one of them, and these days she’s joined by one or usually both of our surviving cats. Back when we had more cats, they generally chose one or the other couch.

I looked up “couch __________” in the Urban Dictionary and found a bunch of entries, including couch potato (someone who spends too much time on the couch watching TV), couch surfing (staying at friends’ houses and sleeping on their couch when one finds themselves temporarily homeless), couch browsing (sitting on the couch, simultaneously watching TV and surfing the Internet), and couch troll (what someone becomes when they overstay their welcome someplace where they’ve been couch surfing). They also mentioned “on the couch” (slang for being under a psychiatrist’s care) and “casting couch” (performing “personal services” in order to advance one’s career), and something called “The Couch”, which is just disgusting.

I never knew what made a couch a Chesterfield until I looked it up. It’s a couch like the one at the top of the page, with a tufted back and armrests that are the same height as the back. Mom smoked Chesterfields, which are not the same thing.

Normally I’d have more to say, but my arm is killing me. I tried to lift myself up off a chair and felt something pop on my shoulder a couple of days ago. More Aleve than any sane person would take has helped tremendously, but it’s still tired and sore.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about New & Improved Gaines Burgers. Taste even better than before!

This was the only thing we found that Kuala the Dog from Hell could eat that didn’t give him the runs…

Into The #socs Breach Again

From the instructions, I guess I’ve fulfilled the first requirement.

So now I can just write about whatever, right? Cool…

I was led to believe that yesterday was the 57th anniversary of the first international television broadcast using the Telstar telecommunications satellite. I was going to play this, from 1962, the Tornados, “Telstar.”

Turns out that the anniversary is July 23. Oh well. I played it anyway.

And that’s all I’ve got except to say that a preposition is a bad word to end a sentence with…

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now here’s Dick Van Dyke for the Kodak Instamatic movie camera. Kodak makes your pictures count!

“Voluntary Cooperation”… #socs

The word cooperation (and its various forms) always looks to me like it should be pronounced “coop-er-ate.” I’ve seen it spelled co-operation or coöperation so you can tell that the “coop” is actually two syllables, but I wonder how many people get confused by it. That’s the English language for you: thousands of rules, and thousands of exceptions to them. It’s kind of like Federal law.

Which brings me to the topic of emergency broadcasting, one of my favorites because the weekly Emergency Broadcast System tests used to frighten me. The older I get, the funnier I think that is, because the Emergency Broadcast System was pretty much worthless. Most radio and TV stations wouldn’t use it for severe weather conditions, I think for fear that everyone would see the Civil Defense symbol and immediately think we were about to be blown to Kingdom Come. So the only time we were even aware of the existence of the EBS was the one time a week that a station had to do their weekly test, if we happened to be watching.

If you watched the video, you’ll notice that they talk about “voluntary cooperation” with Federal, State and local authorities. As AE5D notes on his page, there was nothing “voluntary” about complying with the law. He’s got copies of all the pages of the FCC Regulations (now obsolete) that discuss the EBS, and nowhere does it state “you can run a weekly test when you feel like it.” Of course, I doubt that they had someone sitting in an office with a radio, listening to or watching a station to ensure that they were doing it. Nothing precluded a station with just writing down “yeah, we did it” on their weekly log that had to be available should an FCC representative show up and demand to see it, except for the threat of legal action if they didn’t (and there was hell to pay if the station said they had and they hadn’t).

Oh the things we do to keep the bureaucrats happy…

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about Twix candy bars. Chocolate, caramel, and a surprising cookie crunch!

I never found the cookies to be all that crunchy…