Dave's Thoughts of the Day: August 6th

Peach season is still very much alive!

You can see the signs of it winding down, but the peaches I have are still pretty good.  They're a little drier on the edges.. let juiciness to go around.   Once the peaches start to feel like sponges you can sense the peach season losing steam.  For now, do the dance!  We're not there yet but it may be coming.

Friends!  I got plans for the weekend.  I will be heading to the US Masters Summer Nationals Swim Meet.   It's going down in Mission Viejo, home of Mission Viejo's Nadadores all weekend long.   That includes Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.   I even got a little extra time off to check out Friday's events.  All of these swim events will occur during the morning, leaving the other half of the day for excitement.

In this case, "excitement" means a possible cameo at Disneyland, inspiration at Newport Beach, some seafood maybe, and a trip to the O.C. Fair.  Do the REAL dance for that one!  In between I hope to keep up to date on the PGA Championship that weekend.

Our coach, who runs the UCLA Bruin Masters Swim Club, is a former Olympian and swam alongside Janet Evans during an Olympic event.  Quite a career!   If all indications are correct, she will be swimming in this year's Summer Nationals in the first time, possibly ever.  We're all so excited to see our coach take the pool.  She's really good at swimming, and I mean REALLY good.  You can't tell when she's just hanging around giving us our sets, but man she goes out to swim and she blows away the entire heat.  I'm serious, she's got world record quality to her stroke.  We all are in such awe of her and her great attitude when coaching.  I hope she can get in some GREAT swims this weekend, and adding to that, I hope to be there to see it happen.

Not only will our coach be there, but a bunch of colleagues I know from the swim club will represent.  I wish I could represent myself, but I wasn't clear on the rules for registration.  The fact was, I would swim double the time of anyone else in my age bracket and I didn't want to drag the meet down.  Can you imagine if I went out to swim and pushed the whole meet back by five minutes?  I would have been able to swim three events no matter how fast I was, I'm told.  I'm still going to have a great time cheering on my swim buddies this weekend.

This would be a fantastic place to end, but no!  Time for quickies...

My Mom has a LOT of cookies at her house!  Cookies upon cookies upon cookies.  I went to visit my Mom and Dad and the family this weekend, and opened a cupboard to find a pack of cookies.  Then, in the pantry I found a package of Double Stuft Oreos.   No wonder I like cookies so much.

Double Stuft or regular?  I have no preference -- it just depends on my mood.

I've heard some GREAT things about "Homeland."  Must be tremendous!  Vin Scully is a HUGE fan.  I'm not making that up!  He said as much on a recent Twitter Q&A session:

@Dodgers

I've been hooked on a television show called "Homeland." They do that show so well. #AskVin

Coach started to watch the show about a week ago and he said the *exact same thing.*  He can't turn it off!  We get home and he fires up the next episode... he's up to Season Two now.


I've been big on Breaking Bad from AMC.  Next Sunday, the final half of the final season begins.  GET INTO IT!

AMC meant three things over the years...

American Movie Classics (not anymore!):  They used to run old fogey films which I *loved.*  Often without commercials and sometimes in color!  Once the movies got *too old* they tried different things.  Eventually, they started doing their own shows and now everyone is plugged into AMC.

Interesting note -- what do you think the first AMC original show was?   Mad Men?  No!!!!!!  It goes back many years to a show from the Mid-90's called "Remember WENN?"  A show about an old radio station in the 40's or something.  I don't know for sure if that was *the* first but it was definitely a pre-AMC-original-show-renaissance program.

AMC also meant these two other things...

American Motors (Corporation):  Oh I think we all know these guys... they made the infamous AMC Gremlin Car.  But here's a fun lesser known fact.   They also were the developers of the Jeep Cherokee vehicle.  Yes, the Jeep!   Would you believe it?  Chrysler eventually bought out AMC and took over Jeep production.

and

American Multi-Cinema:  The biggest of the big movie screen theater chains.  Multiplexes in nearly every major market in America.

I would, for a time, get confused when people made references to OkCupid as "OKC."  I would think they were talking about the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA Team.

I grant you a lot of the humor in this blog is derived from my misunderstanding of something, but that also is the basis for the humor in "Three's Company!"   Come and knock on their door!

I would have been "waiting for them" in the 70's if that show was around first run.  It was a hoot!  Still is, actually.

Three's Company was set here in Santa Monica, where I live now.  Yet somehow, that doesn't sink in.  I never thought to seek out the Regal Beagle or Mr. Roper's apartment.

Three's Company was also nice in that it was not trying to teach your a lesson or make some big statement about society.  The collaborators who created the program were former collaborators for Norman Lear's "All in the Family," yet they took all the preachy out and just had a rollicking good time.  No worries, no pretense.

It was, in a sense, the ANTI-Norman Lear show. 

Here's something that could blow your mind... did you know that the show, which was BIG for ABC-TV taped its episodes at *CBS* Television City?   Can you believe that??

Network shows were not beholden to their own studios for taping, but I bet some people still are mesmerized by those little details.

NBC's "Seinfeld" also filmed its episodes at the CBS Studio "Radford Center" Studios.  

Fun interesting useless facts...  


Anyone ever watch "Super Train" back in the day?  I heard it was *really bad.*

70's television really did not seem that good to me, give or take a stroke of brilliance like "Three's Company" or "Dallas" in its beginnings.  Granted, I'm not a good judge as I wasn't even born until the next decade.

I know -- I'm *waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay* behind on SongPop.  Hang in there, I'll come around soon.  The new VIP membership is doing me in.  I get 20 new challenges every day now, as opposed to a few of them a day.

Can you believe the Dodgers won on the road again?!  Wagaaaaaaaain!   15 road wins in a row.  Now I would *have* to think it ends tonight, no?    I suppose we'll see but the Dodgers are still bringing the fun.

A-Rod went up to bat last night in Chicago, and he got the requisite boos.  He also didn't do much at the plate.   ...I don't know what the point of all that was.  A-Rod will get served pretty soon once he works out the appeal.  Godspeed.


That's all from here.  Have a good one everyone!