Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, April 18, 2018

  • WifeGeeding brought home some chicks last night, just not the kind of chicks I was imagining. Apparently, we are chicken-sitting until Thursday. Apparently, she doesn’t understand they tweet all the live long day and I work from home.
  • DaughterGeeding wanted a photo of me with DogGeedingII, BunnyGeeding, and several of the chicks. I caved. DogGeedingII seems scared of them but BunnyGeeding has warmed up to them.
  • One of the chicks is named Nugget.
  • I think it would be somewhat cruel to cook any chicken until they leave. I don’t know if a chicken can smell, but off hand, I don’t think any species would like to smell the cooked flesh of its own kind.
  • I’ve rediscovered Elvis and now I realize how much I miss singing the old gospel songs in church. All this contemporary church singing has worn thin on me. I’m not saying the church should only sing the gospels, just that we shouldn’t forget our past.
  • How Liberty University Built a Billion-Dollar Empire Online – With a hard sell to prospective students and huge amounts in taxpayer funding, Jerry Falwell Jr. transformed the evangelical institution into a behemoth.
  • What We Think Is Going To Kill Us Vs. What’s Actually Going To Kill Us, Visualized
  • The TICKET interviewed one of the passengers from that Southwest Airlines flight yesterday. He said he quickly grabbed his wallet to find a credit card so he could log into WiFi so he could send a message to his loved ones. I think he also said he lived streamed it on Facebook or something like that.
  • Unlike other airlines, Southwest doesn’t assign seats. Only one person died on that flight. I think it’s somewhat interesting how she chose that one seat out of all the seats she could have chosen.
  • No one pays attention to the flight attendants announcement:
  • Many would be surprised to know that was the passenger Southwest every lost due to a plane accident.
  • A fantastic obituary of Harry Anderson.
  • Amazon made an efficient Android browser called Internet, and it’s now available in India
  • Late-Night Ratings: Stephen Colbert’s Lead Over Jimmy Fallon Is Bigger Than Ever
  • GIF – Mommy muscle memory
  • A particular rough patch in Barbara Bush‘s remarkable life, who was a distant relative of President Franklin Pierce:
    • In September 1949, Barbara’s parents were involved in a car accident in which her mother was instantly killed. Since she was pregnant, Barbara was advised not to travel from California to the funeral, and the event left a lasting scar. Three months later, the couple welcomed a second child, a daughter named Pauline Robinson Bush in honor of Barbara’s late mother. In October 1953, the child, nicknamed “Robin,” died of leukemia, leaving Barbara and her husband devastated. It was during this traumatic time that Barbara’s reddish-brown hair turned prematurely white.
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The World’s Most Successful Megachurch Imposter

I’ve posted something related to this in the past, but VICE has more on the guy.

Joel Osteen is one of the most famous televangelists in the world. A Houston based pastor, Joel is famous for his arena-sized congregations, his globally broadcast sermons, and more recently, his refusal to open his church after Hurricane Harvey. Even Oprah is a fan. In this episode of Fame-ish, Vice meets Michael Klimkowski, a struggling comedian in LA with an uncanny likeness to the famous pastor. 

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Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, April 17, 2018

  • I desperately want to recreate this photo with WifeGeeding.
  • This past Saturday, HBO aired an Elvis documentary, Elvis Presley: The Searcher. The week before that, HBO aired the Joe Paterno film which starred Al Pacino and Elvis’ granddaughter, Riley Keough. April was a big month for the family of Elvis.
  • The documentary was long, perhaps close to three-and-a-half hours, but I enjoyed it.
    • Tom Petty provided a lot of commentary, as did Bruce Springsteen. They were fortunate to get Petty when they had the chance. You also never saw anyone providing commentary on camera, it was just their voices. If I didn’t have Closed Captioning on, I probably wouldn’t have noticed who was speaking.
    • I was surprised a bit disappointed the documentary didn’t mention anything about his impromptu visit to see President Nixon. Sadly, Nixon didn’t have his taping system installed yet so their conversation was never recorded.
    • I also hoped the document would lightly touch on Elvis earning a black belt.
    • I had no idea Elvis never performed outside the U.S. It was all because of his manager, Col. Tom Parker, who wasn’t a U.S. citizen was worried if he left he wouldn’t be let back in.
    • Springsteen mentioned that Elvis was only himself on stage and didn’t know what it was like to be normal at home, that he had to try to figure out what normal was when off stage. I bet that’s true of a lot of artists used to performing live.
  • When it comes to honoring a loved one a friend may have recently lost, I often pass on sending flowers and will make a donation in honor the deceased, and I try to make it relatable. In the case of my friend Jimi, Alcoholics Anonymous was a huge part of his life. I tried to make a donation in his memory but was surprised they don’t accept donations from non-members. When I try to donate I get this message, “In keeping with A.A.’s Seventh Tradition of self-support, we accept contributions only from A.A. members.
  • Hey, Bono, I know you are in town tonight. If you need a place to sleep tonight, GeedManor will be ready for you.
  • I loved ‘Night Court’. Rest in peace Judge Harold T. Stone. I love the story of how he got his appointment. The outgoing Mayor of NYC made a huge number of appointments on his last day (Thanksgiving, I think) and Harry was the only person on the judges’ list who was home and was able to receive the call and accept his nomination.
  • I don’t watch MSNBC, but they decided to no longer run a news ticker at the bottom of their screen.
  • How to Drink Tea Like a Royal, According to a Royal Butler
    • Add milk to your tea after you’re poured it from the teapot, never before.
    • And when it comes to stirring your tea, you want to do so in a back and forth motion rather than a circular one.
    • And don’t worry about holding your pinkie out.
  • A trauma surgeon explains the bloody reality of keeping gunshot victims alive
  • The New York Times has an article about what cheerleaders of professional sports franchises have to go through with fans. Here’s a snippet:
    • “We were taught, if someone’s getting handsy on you, how to navigate that,” said the former longtime Cowboys cheerleader. “We were told what to say, like, ‘That’s not very nice,’ To be sweet, not rude. Say, ‘Can I ask you to step over here?’ Use body language to help deter the situation. Never be mean. Never. Always courteous. Because if it’s not for the fans, we wouldn’t be here — that’s how we were supposed to think of this. Now I’m like, no, we shouldn’t be trained on how to handle that situation. We should be trained how to raise our hand and say, ‘Security, get this man away from me!’ I wish I could tell my 20-year-old self that.”
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