Month: October 2009

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History Humor Movies Music People Radio Television

The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

Once upon a time in the land of broadcast network prime time television there existed an abundance of good old-fashioned situation comedies with 24-minute storylines and active laugh tracks from start to finish – sometimes canned – and sometimes ‘recorded LIVE in front of a studio audience’.

The start of the 1978-1979 television season contained no less than 25 such half-hour sitcoms on the three networks at the time, and that season had 9 sitcoms occupy the TOP 10 spots in the ratings.

Sitcoms totally ruled the roost back then, but not every single one was a smash. Here’s a flop – one of the biggest of its generation. It lasted a mere 8 episodes during the Spring of 1979. It was a blatant rip-off of the box office smash “Saturday Night Fever” starring song-and-dance man David Naughton in John Travolta’s role as a disco dancer by night – and an ice cream parlor man by day. Critics trashed this show from the very start, and viewers had enough of disco music in the movies and on the radio. It just didn’t make sense to watch a disco sitcom on TV. Perhaps the most entertaining part of this show was its extended opening theme song and credits that stretched out over the course of nearly two whole minutes !  After the show was cancelled its standard-length theme song became a gold-certified TOP 5 disco smash on the radio.

Check it out – it’s the original opening theme song and credits for “Makin’ It” !

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Blogging God History Music Television Weather

Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– Let’s get spontaneous.
– Let’s be reasonable – do it my way.
– This is the 37TH weekly edition of the ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’.
– It’s my favourite weekly blog series to compile, as there is no planning for it.
– I’m glad that it was an instant out-of-the-box smash from the very start.
– It’s a Thursday night tradition since January 2009 !
– Today at work I led hard, I worked hard, and I laughed hard.
– It wasn’t that easy though, as the devil was working hard as well.
– It’s a good thing that I’ve got a stronger offensive and defensive line.
– The devil is a total idiot.
– His dirty deeds are done dirt cheap.
– Yeah I know we used to hang out a lot, but I ain’t got no time for you now.
– This Sunday morning at Life Pointe Church we’ll be partying like it’s 2009.
– Pastor Travis J. will be leading a message on beer and partying.
– If you’re near Homestead then grab your drinking buddies and join us.
– You won’t regret it pal.
– I’m getting carried away with my DVRing.
– I hit a new all-time high of right around 60 hours of recorded material.
– I’m declaring this Saturday as ‘DVR Appreciation Day’ in my living room.
– My ‘spaghetti models’ have settled down a bit.
– I believe that I’ve got a reasonable weather forecast for this upcoming weekend.
– That is if you live right here in the greater Homestead area.
– Here’s what I’m forecasting:
– The POWERFUL cold front should pass through by 6 PM on Saturday night.
– At 7 AM on Sunday morning get ready for temps. to bottom out near 64°F.
– We will remain in the 60s and 70s all day long on Sunday.
– It will feel cold on Sunday (day and night) due to gusty north winds.
– Monday morning should be even chillier with perhaps some upper-50s around !
– It will be bone dry, so you may shock yourself as you touch your car.
– This will be our coldest air felt here in nearly 6 months !
– I am so looking forward to it.
– Maybe I can turn off my A.C. on Sunday and let the fresh air in !
– Tomorrow night on the ‘Disco Party’ it’s a little deviation from the norm.
– I’ve got a television sitcom theme song to present to you from 1979.
– It’s considered to be one of the greatest flops of its generation.
– It was a ‘Disco Sitcom’.
– Be sure to check that out tomorrow night.
– On Saturday night we’re gonna go all techno on your ‘Retro’.
– Get those glow sticks ready.
– Those are my ‘Mini Thoughts’ for this week.
– Keep it real dudes !

Categories
Driving God Music Radio Travel

My Fantastic Journey: It’s In The Lyrics

Last Saturday night up in Lehigh Acres Florida I went to a rock concert featuring Jubilee, Horizons Fall, and Manic Drive. All 3 bands rocked the joint hard and heavy. Jubilee screamed to the Lord Almighty, and they sounded pretty good too. Central Florida’s own Horizons Fall belted out a bunch of cool purpose-driven tracks including their emerging radio smash hit “Broken Man”. Manic Drive headlined the night. They also headlined a very special night for me nearly 33 months ago on the 20TH of January of 2007. It was the night of my very first Christian rock concert – and the very next morning I went to church for the first time in over 30 years !

Manic Drive put on a fantastic set – although it was shortened just a bit due to the fact that the lead singer was a day or two removed from being sick in bed with the flu. You could tell that he was slowly recovering and struggling just a little bit, but he was still a class act about it all. He performed admirably through the adverse conditions, and he and his bandmates made up for the lack of song performances by talking with us in-between the songs that they did perform. Good Stuff !

Here’s one of their great hits that they did NOT perform that night because it was admittingly too ‘hardcore’ for a dude that was on NyQuil. It is perhaps my all-time favourite Manic Drive song EVER !  It’s “Memories”:

I saw piercings galore, tattoos everywhere, spraypainted hair, and some other interesting creatures of the night, but through it all I saw The Holy Spirit shining through His creations as bright as can be. When it came time to speak directly to God through prayer you could hear a pin drop in that place. It was truly miraculous – like only Jesus Christ can deliver to the masses here on Earth !

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Blogging Career Driving Holidays Life Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  THIS is the momentous 100TH edition of the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. That’s 96 editions here on WordPress over the past 23 months – and 4 editions before that on the MySpace incarnation of this here blog. This week also marks the end of the 2ND full year of ‘Grab Bag’ editions. Next week we begin Year 3. Thank You so very much for checking out this blog on a regular basis – and for helping to make the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ the flagship weekly series of this blog. It’s the blog of my Life.

MEMORIES –> Check out the very first edition of the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ from Tuesday October 16TH 2007.

2.  Well I ‘tweased‘ about this late yesterday afternoon, but now I’m not so sure about it. I’m referring to some cooler and dryer air that should be approaching us late this week into this upcoming weekend. Or will it ?  My amateur weather forecast now differs slightly from that of the National Weather Service. My ‘spaghetti models’ now struggle to pull the powerful cold front all the way through the southeast coast of Florida. If my forecast is correct then it won’t get nearly as cool and dry as it could otherwise. I do believe that Saturday and Sunday will be our coolest two days in a row since last May with Sunday morning being noticeably cooler. Expect Sunday morning temperatures in the upper-40s near Tallahassee, upper-50s near Orlando, mid-60s near Naples, and close to 70° here in Homestead.

3.  You know what was really cool about the very start of my recent holiday weekend road trip ?  On Saturday morning as I walked down to my car to kick it all off I glanced up at the sky and I saw a really nice hot air balloon up there looking down at my neighbourhood. When I saw that I just knew that the time was right to declare the start of my short little vacation. As I began driving northbound the hot air balloon drifted westbound over Redland.

4.  My 415.5-mile road trip was a smash hit – a successful dry run to a much longer road trip that I shall embark on in less than 38 days. I’ll be driving about 7 times that distance round-trip over the course of 10 days when I drive to and from the Dallas Texas area to visit my family for the Thanksgiving holiday. It will be the longest road trip of my entire Life – but not by a whole lot actually. I drove up to the Washington D.C. area a bunch of times when my family still lived up there (prior to about 13 years ago).

FACTOID –> My 415.5-mile road trip was completely toll-free courtesy of Krome Avenue, Tamiami Trail, and I-75.

5.  Please don’t misinterpret one of my comments from one of my blog posts from yesterday. While I have fallen in love with the greater Naples area, and I do plan to eventually move there sometime in the future that will not happen anytime soon. I’m thinking long-range here. I have a wonderful job over at the air base in Homestead. I’m a 25-year Federal Government employee, and although that’s a lot of years with the system I can’t retire anytime soon. Now that does not necessarily mean that I plan to wait until I can retire before I move to Naples – or even buy a home over there. I’m still many years away from such a concept, but I do believe that I will eventually become a resident of Naples or the surrounding area. I will also become a more frequent visitor of the area.