Roger O Green

Dream: In hot pursuit

Using the state trooper car as a shield, the protagonist driver pulls the car into reverse, does a 180, and drives back down the road against traffic.

This is an actual dream of mine from a few months back:

Two guys are driving around when they spot something interesting in some bushes by the road. It turns out to be a couple of cameras on the side of the road, expensive equipment. They see a name on one and decide to take them to the local police station, which is in an area of open spaces, not an urban setting. But as they approach the station from the rear, they see a cop shoot a guy who has his hands in the air. They then realize they are seen as well, and drive off in their car, being pursued by the local police.

The passenger pulls out his phone to dial 9-1-1 when the driver yells, “Where do you think the call will go to? The local cops!” Not knowing whether the whole force is on whatever nefarious activity is underway, they go to the nearby highway and begin speeding. They are pulled over by a state police trooper, which was their desire if they couldn’t get to the state police barracks. The driver tells the trooper the tale of the local cops and is about to give him the cameras when the state trooper is shot by someone, which turns out to be by the local cops, who come out of their car, guns were drawn.

Using the state trooper car as a shield, the protagonist driver pulls the car into reverse, does a 180, and drives back down the road against traffic, until they can get off the main road. They figure that, in the short term, the state police will believe THEY are the shooters, rather than the local cops. They take some back roads and try to wend their way to the neighboring state border. They’re now convinced that the cameras and the shootings are somehow related.

Then I wake up about 1:45 a.m., with my heart beating very fast. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Feel free to psychoanalyze.

Breakfast post: the weather, my niece’s new Kickstarter album

My niece Rebecca Jade is doing a Kickstarter for her new album!

My friend Dan has more than once labeled Ramblin’ with Roger as a “breakfast blog.” I still don’t know what that means, precisely. But I think the following post is more in keeping with what he’s talking about.

It was weird: the death toll in the Moore, OK tornado went from 37 to 51 to 91 to…24? I was watching a live feed on the Tuesday morning after the event from the OKC NBC-TV affiliate – the magic of the Internet – and they gave the 91 number, based on info they had gotten from the medical examiner’s office. Saw a lot of comments on Facebook about how the media was ghoulishly upping the numbers. I’ve often criticized them. but I don’t think that happened here, just a lot of multiple recordings of the same decedents by someone – the M.E.’s office perhaps. Then I get to see, Thank goodness, “ONLY 24 dead;” THAT is weird to read.

It’s interesting, too, that I actually worried a bit about people I don’t even know, such as Cheri and Dustbury, who are both fine.
***
The forecast in Albany Tuesday was for severe weather. I was at Corporate (frickin’) Woods at the northwest edge of Albany and saw nothing. But people downtown were chatting about downpours and hail; we’re talking a distance of three miles away. I HAVE seen that before, where it’s dry at the Albany airport, but evidently had been pouring at my house. They had canceled my daughter’s soccer 5:30 pm practice, probably because of a severe weather watch from 1:40 pm to, I think, around 10 pm.

10 pm, practically on the dot, I heard rumbles of thunder, heavy-duty rain. The lightning and thunder at 1 a.m. woke me from a dead sleep, but happily, the Daughter can sleep through almost anything.

Wednesday, got to work late because I had my monthly allergy shot. The power was mostly out until after 11 a.m. No computer, no Internet, no phones. Nasty weather in the midday, but amazingly nice to and from work.

We are preparing our living room to be painted by my father-in-law starting on Thursday, with help from my wife on Friday, and eventually me on the weekend. The key now is moving all the stuff, a job in itself, and something I prefer to paint, which I hate because I just can’t see the difference while I’m working between, say, an off-white and a pale yellow.

My wife and her father painted the dining room three years ago. The three splotches of test colors have been on our living room wall ever since. I’ll miss them, almost.

If I had my druthers, we’d move out for four days while painting; the smell of even the newer paints bug me at night. Oh, well.
***
My niece Rebecca Jade (pictured) is doing the Kickstarter thing for her new album. You can read all about it here. If I were to tell you she was really good, I would sound biased. But she is! Check out this review of a recent live performance of hers.

The popcorn story

By demand from Island Rambles. I mean Shooting Parrots asked for it, but IR INSISTED!

When I was forced to get rid of my microwave by my lovely bride after we got married and moved in together, one of the things I most missed was making microwave popcorn. Now Carol would say, “Oh, you can make popcorn on the stove.” Well, no; maybe SHE could, and occasionally/rarely she did, but I could not, unless you considered creating a smoky and scorched pot, oddly filled with burnt popcorn AND unpopped kernels, “making popcorn.” I used the oil, even moved the pot as instructed but to no particular success, unless the goal was to make a mess without having a satisfactory culinary outcome. It’s OK to mess up a lot of pans if there’s a payoff, but without one…

I must have mentioned me missing this appliance at a gathering of her birth family, around Thanksgiving or Christmas of 1999. When we all got together for Mother’s Day the next year, they brought ME a box of microwave popcorn, which I accepted graciously. This was just the wrong response for them.

What I was SUPPOSED to do is kvetch, “But we don’t have a microwave! What am I to do with this?” At that point, they were going to then give us a brand new microwave from Unclutterer, which we could use in the new house, where we were going to move into the following week, and there would as room for it. Instead, I figured to just use the microwave popcorn at work.

Finally, the following weekend, they brought us the new microwave, as a first anniversary/housewarming present, disappointed that they did not have a little fun at my expense. Indeed, inadvertently, I had some fun at THEIR expense, and I wasn’t even trying.

AND, after very little practice, I almost NEVER burn the popcorn.

LISTEN: Buttered Popcorn by the Supremes

S is for Billy Strange

Billy Strange wrote music for Elvis Presley, arranged songs for Nancy Sinatra, and played on some Beach Boys recordings

When I was twelve or thirteen, I had a newspaper route, and thus, my own money, so I joined the Capitol Record Club. For those too young to remember, one would order on a postcard 12 albums for a penny, plus postage and handling; then I had to buy 10 or 12 more at full retail, plus P&H.

Ordering those first dozen albums, I got my first six Beatles albums, plus a Herman’s Hermit album. But what else should I select? One I picked at random was Goldfinger by Billy Strange. It turned out that it was an instrumental album featuring popular songs of the day, including the title tune [LISTEN] and a Beatles tune, I Feel Fine.

When I went to college in New Paltz (NY), I left most of my albums at my grandmother’s house back in Binghamton (NY); I had room in my dorm for only a couple dozen LPs, which were mostly my later Beatles and Beach Boys albums, the Band, Led Zeppelin, CSNY, and a few others. Then I went back to Binghamton one summer and discovered that some of my albums had been stolen. Unsurprisingly, my albums were arranged alphabetically, so I could tell at a glance that the albums were taken were artists starting with A, B, and S-Z, So I lost my early Beatles, Supremes, Temptations, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass…and Goldfinger by Billy Strange.

Listening to the Coverville podcast in the fall of 2012 about James Bond songs, I was pleased and startled to hear the last tune, The James Bond Theme, by Billy Strange. I hadn’t thought about him in decades.

As it turned out, William Everett Strange recorded a LOT of Bond music and more than a couple of Beatles covers. He wrote music for Elvis Presley, arranged songs for Nancy Sinatra, and played on some Beach Boys recordings, including the legendary Pet Sounds album. Unfortunately, Strange died on February 22, 2012, at the age of 81. In his honor, I went out and bought that Goldfinger album again; my, at 24 minutes, it is really short.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

Disney Animated Feature Challenge

The first movie you remember seeing was 101 Dalmatians in the early 1960s, at the cinema. It’s possible I saw Snow White or Sleeping Beauty on TV before that, but not sure.

SamauraiFrog did this Disney Animated Feature Challenge a couple of months ago…

1: Your favorite character
My favorite Disney character is Roger, the adult human in 101 Dalmatians, who sings Cruella de Ville. But of the more anthropomorphic, Donald Duck, who I used to do a poor imitation of.

2: Your favorite official princess
I suppose the more modern ones, like Tiana from the Princess and the Frog, or Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

3: Your favorite official prince
Excluding The Beast, they are pretty much interchangeable.

4: Your favorite heroine (that isn’t an official princess)
Dumbo’s mom, Jumbo, protecting her child.

5: Your favorite hero (not an official prince)
Tramp, from Lady and the…

6: Your favorite cast of characters
Beauty and the Beast. Always liked Mrs. Potts and her colleagues.

7: Your favorite friendship
The cubs in the Lion King.

8: Your favorite sidekick
The Genie in Aladdin.

9: Your favorite couple
Beauty and the Beast

10: Your favorite animal couple
Lady and the Tramp

11: The pet(s) you wish you had
Nemo

12: Your favorite villain
Scar in The Lion King

13: Your favorite villain song
Gaston from Beauty and the Beast; I find it hysterical.

14: The most chilling villain demise
The villain in Snow White, which I saw in the last few years.

15: A moment that makes you laugh until it hurts
The Genie in Aladdin, any number of antics.

16: A moment that makes you cry your eyes out
When the Beast “dies” in Beauty and the Beast, though I was also sad about a character dying in The Princess and the Frog because I wasn’t expecting it.

17: A moment that scares you
When I was a kid, there were countless moments. Bambi and fire, good chunks of Pinocchio.

18: A moment that makes you mad
Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp.

19: A moment that makes you happy
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Fantasia

20: Your favorite musical number
When You Wish Upon a Star

21: Your favorite romantic moment
Beast giving Belle the library, because I’m a librarian.

22: Your favorite ending
The restaurant in The Princess and the Frog

23: A line that inspires you
Hmm. not coming to me.

24: The first movie you remember seeing
101 Dalmatians in the early 1960s, at the cinema. It’s possible I saw Snow White or Sleeping Beauty on TV before that, but not sure.

25: A movie you think is under-appreciated
The Princess and the Frog, which had a lovely empowering story

26: Your favorite movie of the Golden Age (1937-1959)
Fantasia

27: Your favorite movie of the Dark Age (1960-1988)
101 Dalmatians

28: Your favorite movie of the Renaissance Age (1989-1999)
Beauty and the Beast

29: Your favorite movie of the Millennium Age (2000-present)
Finding Nemo

30: Your favorite movie
Fantasia. Didn’t see it until I was an adult, and I still appreciated it.