Category: History

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Animals History Music Television

Saturday Night Retro

The year was 1973, and you were there (unless of course you weren’t born yet). I was a 6-year-old kid living with my Mom and Dad in the Washington D.C. suburb of Bowie Maryland on Peach Walker Drive. In September I began attending Catholic school 5 days a week as a first-grader at Saint Matthias The Apostle in Lanham Maryland near my grandparents’ house.

I had two dogs at the time – Brandy – a German Shepherd – and Girlie – a miniature sheepdog. Brandy barked a lot and dug holes out in the backyard. I didn’t really like him very much. In fact I was scared of him. We wouldn’t have him for very long. Girlie lasted a few years longer. She was lovable and squeezeable with an adorable personality. She had a tiny bony tail.

On Saturday nights America stayed home and watched this amazing lineup of TV shows on CBS – “All in the Family” (8 PM), “M*A*S*H” (8:30 PM), “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (9 PM), “The Bob Newhart Show” (9:30 PM), and “The Carol Burnett Show” (10 PM). It may just be the greatest primetime lineup on a single night – on a single network – in television history.

A few hours before that three-hour block of Emmy-award-winning laughs on Saturday nights this hot music and dance show was breaking new ground on the tube, and I was paying attention to it – even as a 6-year-old. It was seen locally at the time on WTTG Channel 5 out of Washington D.C. It lasted for an incredible 35 years in first-run syndication nationwide, but this was clearly its hey day.

Ladies and Gentlemen – I present to you for your ‘Saturday Night Retro’ review – some LOVE, PEACE, and SOUL !  GET DOWN & BOOGIE !

Did anyone spot their young parents (or even grandparents) in that vintage clip ?

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History Life Movies Music Radio Television

Saturday Night Retro

The year was 1995 and I was 28-years-old. I moved from a house in Naranja to my current home in Homestead. I’ve been here ever since then. Homestead was still a sleepy small town back then with mostly narrow two-lane roads. It was struggling to recover from the overwhelming destruction of Hurricane Andrew just 3 years earlier. U.S. gas prices remained rather steady (between $1.10 and $1.20 per gallon). The entire nation stayed home on Thursday nights to watch Friends, Seinfeld, and ER on NBC-TV. I enjoyed listening to ‘Bobby & Footy’ in the morning on Y-100. I only saw two movies at the box office during the entire year – “The Brady Bunch Movie” and “Tommy Boy”.

This song and video was all of the rage on television, on the radio, and at the clubs. It would go on to become a runaway International sensation – and one of the most successful singles in the entire history of the modern rock era. It spent a record-shattering 14 months on the Billboard HOT 100. It’s what I was doing every few months up in Orlando’s nightclub scene:

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Animals Annoyances Blogging Driving Food God History Holidays Life Music People Television Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

The legend continues, as we enter the 8TH month of these ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’:

1. Travis sent me an ‘Untwitter’ (an ordinary cell phone text message) shortly before 2 PM from my favourite Chinese restaurant aqui en Homestead. Apparently he’s eatin’ good in the neighbourhood at the Peking House. NICE !

2.  I’m a ‘Law & Order’ type of guy – not the actual TV shows, but the simple Life concept of law and order. I wouldn’t survive in a world of anarchy and chaos.

3.  Just in time for the long Memorial Day holiday weekend – we may actually experience the effects of an extremely rare cold front here in South Florida with cool and gusty northeasterly winds coming straight off of the ocean and afternoon high temperatures struggling to get past the 80°F mark. Look for it (potentially) on Sunday and Memorial Day Monday.

4.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the last official day of the 2007-2008 television season. It will forever be remembered as the season that the 100-day writers’ strike interrupted. It also continued a trend in which prime time network television viewership hit all-new record lows.

5.  I have so many exciting ideas floating around in my brain for Life Pointe Church. Some of these ideas will never see the light of the day, but I think that most of them will in some way either sooner or later. I’m not alone. I hang out every Sunday morning with a whole bunch of my friends who serve, praise, worship, and love Him. They have some really cool ideas for their church. These are our future leaders at the LPC. We are going to spread the Kingdom of God here in South Miami-Dade !

6.  You think I’m old-fashioned ?  This morning I personally witnessed a late-50s-something guy (a co-worker of mine) rockin’ an electric typewriter like it’s 1972 !  He felt right at home on that thing !

7.  Speaking of the early-1970s I had two dogs when I was a little kid. Brandy was a German Shepherd, and Girlie was a sheep dog. Brandy was taken away from me in 1973 because she was digging holes underneath the backyard fence, crawling under it, and then running loose and terrorizing the neighbourhood. Girlie was taken away from me in 1975 because I was allegedly not taking care of her – as a 7-year-old. The real reason why she was yanked away from me is because of the impending arrival of my little brother.

8.  The people that complain the loudest about the rising gas prices are usually the people that waste the most gas with their lousy driving habits. Don’t throw stones at the oil man when you live in a glass house.

9.  I would see Neil Diamond LIVE in concert. Go ahead. Make fun of me.

10.  Florida Power & Light should have a roving team of technicians that fix street lights that don’t work properly. If you’re wondering why there are no lights on late at night or early in the morning on selected streets it’s because they may be on all day long instead. Sometimes it takes FPL several months to the greater part of a year to find out about these malfunctioning lights and then correct the problem. You can help them out by reporting these street lights via their official web site.

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Astronomy History Hoaxes Internet News

Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame

A satellite photo of North America on the night of Thursday August 14TH 2003 – the night of the largest blackout in North American history that affected an estimated 50 million people and caused an estimated 6 billion dollars in financial losses:

Thursday August 14TH 2003

IT’S NOT REAL !

Can you identify at least 5 things that are obviously wrong with the photo above ?

Try to figure it all out, and then read more about it.