HOWDY, Y'ALL

Don't yet remember all the little tricks of my former trade on this site just yet, but as some of you will remember (and others my find out) a number of we older and former tv.com bloggers used to trick out and pimp up these blogs as if they were a Disney Fantasy World to be savored like a fine wine (that turned to vinegar in some cases).

I'm not sure how much energy and time I will have to devote to this site (I barely keep up with FB and my emails), but I will attempt to drop in from time-to-time and drop a hot steamer in this spot.

Good to hear from alot of you folks - it's been at least 20 months for most - and, as I think I said once beforein a blog back 4 or 5 years ago... Watch the skies cuz12-21-12 is a cummin, and even if it doesn't turn out to be much of a geo/astrophysical event, it will surely be a large, societal custerfluck...

Jon
vendbien

NEWS BREAK: Phixed the PhotoBucket Thing,
Now on to My Little SCRUBBIES

Well this is a phine mess... when did the Phucks at PhoBuck decide to ex'pho'liate we occasional visitors??? Apparently in the last several weeks, as, out I am loathe to phind. (Lest the grammar gestapo stick their wee brains into the mix as well).

Was going to wonder/wander on about the phact that one of my phaves, SCRUBS, has seen phit to launch yet a third time (coming to a TV near you, and mine on 12/1/09, ABC - check your local listings). Can't wait to see who has come back (the phour males I know and two of the cuter, 'new' phemales I can surmise).

I am phearful that this may turn out to be a 'Godphather III' situation, which would really, truly turn me ophph, as I still watch up to 10 SCRUBS reruns a week (can't help myselph). Have seen all episodes between phour times (the very most recent) and twenty (seasons II and III, anyone) times, and iph they mess too much with the basic dynamics, I am aphraid the whole body oph the work will be tainted.

But, enouph (?) railing... I am ophph to visit other bloggies and make snide remarks to all my droogies.

Later.

Jon

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I am SOOOOOOOOOOO sorry.

I have been in my Rebel-Without-A-Cause / Howard-Hughes-Hermit Mode (for the last two months) and I have been as incommunicado as I have ever been in my life.

I hate the world (but not you guys) right now, and I'm punishing this planet by withdrawing from it.

I hope you all understand (especially any of you ladies who might have been thinking that you might consider sleeping with me - I am currently/surgically unable to finish the deal, although I am more than willing to start it).

I find myself in a RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE... not because I have run into further problems (except for the finishing-the-deal thing), but because this whole ordeal has dragged out, ad infitum.

My Mom (Me Mum for you UKers) is still alive and hangin in there (she's 88 - as you might remember) and I visited her a couple of weeks ago. To talk to her on the phone, you might guess she was in her 50's.

This is the first time I have felt the urge and the competency to really communicate to the 'outside' world in a long time. I hope you will understand/appreciate that I came here first. I love you all (especially any of you ladies who might have been thinking that you might consider sleeping with me).

There is (so much) more to come. Hope you will be patient... I actually do have quite a bit more to say - like I hate this new format.

Watch the sky.

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Love, Jon

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So where have you all been this past week? I was worried about you guys.

Anyway...

Just stopped by tonight (Tues PST) to say that everything seems to be all right, but it has been a very strange 10 days or so (in an upish-downish-upish-downish kind of way).

Pretty tired at the moment, and feeling kind of dumb and dull. I hope to get a REAL blog up (and some blog-reading and comments) sometime tomorrow, and fill everyone in as best I can.

Thanks for all the PMs and comments - see you then...

o

Oh... and heard this earlier today, and for the first time in well over a year, I felt like getting up and...

DANCING

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... Jon

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Promised some updates on the past week... but this isn't gonna be as interesting as I had hoped. A lot of questions were answered this week concerning my health issues - but a number of new questions came up... so I'm still sort of in limbo.

o

In the meantime, my sisters called and said that my Mother suffered a stroke on Friday (a coupla days after the L.A. Earthquake - I talked to her that day, and she seemed in good spirits - then). My only niece (her only grand-daughter) is getting married in less than two weeks, and we think this has all been to much for Mom.

My sisters tell me that they can't see Mom getting out of the hospital anytime soon (or ever, really), so am trying to make plans to get down there in the next 10 days or so (it's the earliest I can make it and she is better now than a few days ago).

My sisters (younger) are quite overwhelmed by this sudden turn for my Mom, my current condition (I was always more than hale and hardy til now) and the upcoming wedding in San Francisco. I am trying to tell them that this is just one of those big bumps in the road that happens to all families eventually, and that we'll get through it in time. They are two very strong women, but I haven't been able to step in as the oldest and make everything right like I used to - so it's a little different this time around.

o

The surgery of May 22nd seems to have been quite a success as far as what it was supposed to achieve, but some of the complications to having been walking/limping around for the past 18 months still remain.

My lawyer is in the process of contacting all of the medical people to determine how much has been spent on all of this and how much more will be spent in the future so he can determine how much needs to be asked for.

I can see this whole thing taking up to a year to be resolved, so I'm not really jumping up and down (or bouncing up and down on my bed) with joy.

o

Still getting no response from my YouTube sites (I'm a registered user who brings them a lot of traffic)... can't even click on their HELP tab. I've had problems connecting to other sites before and I've always fixed them. In fact, I lost a number of sites back at the same time as YouTube and straightened all of those out immediately. Don't know why the Tube is beeing so obstinate, but it has taken away much of the joy of posting (as regular readers might imagine).

These truly are the dog-days of summer here.

o

I've also been informed that someone out there is not who they profess to be, and it really p*sses me off that people feel the need to do that. I'm not so bothered by it (I've been dealing with no-good, piece-of-garbage gamblers for 40 years), but there are others out there that might find this very hurtful.

Hope I can find a way to fix the YouTube thing (I've douched out my cookies and temp files, Tom) and tried to come at the site in more ways than suggested by the Kama Sutra... still no luck. It really diminishes my desire to post when I can't link some songs up.

o

WOW... what a downer blog. I'd just cancel it - but I've spent 40 minutes or so and it's one of the few constructive projects that I've managed to complete recently, so up it goes.

Later...

,,, Jon

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I'm half-way through the week (there was a little more to the first coupla days than I thought) and here's the partial report:

So far - so-so.

Remind me to write any further blogs in the evening. I have many more creative and interesting ideas in the evening - and they're still fresh in my mind. When I get up in the morning, I'm like a blank sheet of paper, these days (it's the drugs, I'm sure).

Really won't have a good idea about where all of this is heading til the end of the week (I guess - I hope).

That is all (that I can remember this morning).

(Did every paragraph contain at least one parenthetical comment... wow, my inner-monologue is on full-alert).

Jon

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o-o-o-o-o-o-o - o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Please visit LSS_Fanatic (Junk)

He's just suffered an unbelievable tragedy...
keep him and his family in your prayers.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o - o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Big, Big, BIIGGG week comin' up for me.

Two Doctor's and one Lawyer's appointment (Mon, Wed, Fri) and a number of other little tasks in the next six days, so...

"May I please be excused," from spending more than just a little time here on tv.com 'til next Saturday or Sunday. I promise I'll stop in a coupla times to read some blogs (and recomment as needed). It's awfully important.

Thanks...

o

There is an amazing, two-hour documentary that will be replayed twice this Tuesday (here in the states) on the History Channel. It's called...

How the Earth Was Made

DVD Info
(I've got it on DVR and VHS)

Other Reviews

... and it is one of the most informative, entertaining and meaningful two hours of programming you could ever hope to watch. If you are a Human Being, on this planet, this is stuff that you just have to know.

Oh, you could go to University and spend four years majoring (and/or minoring) in: Astrophysics (the formation of our Galaxy, Solar System and Planet); Geophysics (how are planet has evolved over the past 4.5 billion years); Biology (how plant and animal life has evolved over the past 3.5 billion years); Climatology (earth has gone from being molten with no water to being encased in mile-thick ice 650 million years ago); Anthropology and Archeology (how humans have evolved and how dinosaurs roamed the earth and then were wiped out in a matter of weeks 65 million years ago), and several other lesser disciplines that would help put everything into better perspective.

Or... you could watch this program (two hours) and/or get the DVD (90 minutes) and skip the 40 hours or so a week for nine months a year for four to six years it would take to get basically the same information.

I'm sure you could also read three or four (really thick) books that might give you most of the information contained in this show, as well.

But whatever you do, make sure you avail yourself of this information. You owe it to yourself as an inhabitant of the world we live in.

How much did I like it...
I wrote my first Review - or submission -
in close to three months about it.

o

Woke up early this morning and couldn't find much on TV until I surfed by Turner Cla$$ic Movies (it won't even let you type in the name of a network - sheesh) and saw where back-to-back Humphrey Bogart movies were playing.

As I was watching, first, Dark Passage (1947) and then High Sierra (1941 - Bogey was made up to look older in this one then the 1947 movie), I was kinda swept back into the 1940s as I saw all of the vintage cars as well as three locations that I have visited more than once in my lifetime (San Francisco, Arizona and the Sierra Nevadas).

Lauren Bacall was stunning in Dark Passage (as well as Key Largo and others), and it amazed me that these two fell in love, got married and from all reports were very happy together until Bogarts death (despite some 20 years difference in their age).

In High Sierra, if there was ever a 40ish, scrawny, little 5-6, 3-packs-a-day smoker who scared the hell out of you, it was Bogey. Oh, and I heard words like 'dame, soda-jerk and jitterbug' in this one.

In Dark Passage, if ever there was a stunning, 20ish 'dame/dish/skirt' to make you do whatever you had to so that you could meet in a romantic, seaside resort in Mexico at the end of the movie, it was Bacall.

Bogie and Bacall
(what a story - what a life)
Was gonna YouTube 'Key Largo'
but it won't load for me...
you should search it and listen...

See you soon...

...Jon

p.s... is anyone else having a problem with YouTube? Everytime I click on it now, it says 'program not responding' and I have to close that browser entirely.

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Let me join the ever-growing list of dot.commers who are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with what's happening on this site.

o

These past three or so days, the people who run tv.com have not kept track of new views and percentage gains towards the next level. I have heard anecdotal evidence of increased rejections by moderators (with flimsy excuses, to boot) by numerous members - as well as warnings for fonts and colors used in blogs and cases of histories disappearing (and then sometimes reappearing).

Seems like...

Good Lovin Gone Bad

I can tell you that when I awoke Sunday morning (PDT), my new views were at 162 and my percentage gain towards level 26 (I've been on level 25 for ever) was at 45%.

When I awoke today (Wednesday), those numbers had not changed. At about 10am my views readjusted to 71 new views (even though I posted a blog Sunday afternoon which would normally equate to a minimum of 300 new views for just Sunday and Monday). The 71 NVs would be what I would normally expect for Tuesday... the third day after a new post. My level % is still 45 (for the 4th consecutive day) even though I was on line and made close to 100 new posts the last four days.

Since the buyout a coupla months ago, the management of this site has gone to hell on many levels. Thank God we still have each other to rely on (several people have written Good-bye blogs in the last week because they can't take the abuse from the moderators anymore).

This has got to stop... more later.

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EDIT: Check out this...

FORUM THREAD

...to get a better idea of some of the system and/or editor problems ocurring on this site. It stars our own
SPARKLE FARKLE...

and...

Saw this last night in a rerun, and it reminded me of recent events - especially since the last guy to die had complained of numb feet (uh-oh) just before this clip started.

Cox the Murderer

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o

On a different (lighter, brighter) note, I went to my primary doctor yesterday and it looks like I am near or at the end of my three or four doctor visits per month. I have one more visit with each of my three doctors scheduled... and then it's time to sit down with the lawyers and figure up what were gonna ask the cab company for.

WOOHOO

o

As I often do, I stopped at my local watering hole on the way home and happened to sit one stool over from a regular who is there most times I drop in. I know him only as Randy (my middle name is Randall and I was called Randy until I went to high school when it changed to Jon - much to my delight).

Anyway, we became engaged in a 3-way conversation with the bartender (Mike), and I found out that Randy used to play with the Beach Boys and that Dennis Wilson (now deceased) was the best man at Randy's first wedding.

We started talking Rock 'n Roll (and Mike played several of the B-Boys songs on the juke box that he knew Randy had played on). I don't remember much (I never seem to, anymore), but we exchanged numerous anecdotes about RnR going back to the Sixties.

Here's one we talked about at great length (for some reason), and I found the only really, viable YouTube of it (it's shorter and liver and doesn't take 2 minutes to load).

In the Garden of Eden

Then I had a few more drinks... and things got a little blurry. More later (if I can remember)...

...Jon

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Well whaddya know... feelin pretty good for the second day in a row - even after running some errands and doing some chores yesterday. Maybe a sense of accomplishment is good for the soul (like everybody says).

Even made it to the store (I was foraging around through the cabinets looking for food the last few days cuz I couldn't get off me lazy arse to run up the street). While I was limping up and down the aisles, I heard a remake of an old Joni Mitchell favorite that I hadn't heard in a year or so. Then later that evening I heard another version of the same song while channel surfing (Two Weeks Notice) - and you know how I love coincidences,

Anyway... there's also a backstory to the singer of the first version that gives me one degree of separation from her. But let's hear the two renditions, first:

THEY PAVED PARADISE

...and

PUT UP A PARKING LOT

o

Turns out that the first singer, Amy Grant, is married to an almost ex-brother-in-law of mine (have I told this one before?). Long story short...

AMY GRANT, VINCE GILL and CHILD

I was going with a girl (Chris Oliver of Sweethearts of the Rodeo) when her sister, Janis, started seeing country music singer, Vince Gill (he was more of a rocker back then). Janis and Vince got serious and ended up married (Chris and I, not so much), and had what all of the Memphis/Country people thought was the ideal marriage. Yah... Right.

Towards the end, Vince started having an affair with Amy (it was quite the scandal), both of their marriages broke up and then they married each other and have had at least one child. So I'm one degree separated from Amy (if you're reading, Amy, call me).

o

BTW... this is my third try at this blog (I was 90% done both times, and, I guess, tv.com decided that maybe they just don't want me writing blogs anymore).

And it hardly bothered me at all (bites tongue, whimpers and polishes the gun he hasn't used in years).

...Jon

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EDIT: In the past 16 hours, several good friends have written about the changes to this site - especially the moderation - and how they're not gonna take it anymore. I smell a boycott in the air.
More to come on this.

ALSO: Has anyone heard from MarksVigil lately... he should have posted a G-Rated Blog 4 or 5 days ago.

UPDATE... heard he's fine, just real busy.

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