...is always good advice (better safe than sorry), but especially so today because today is the Leap Day that occurs once every four yars in the Julian calendar. It is also the birthday of two of my friends in real life, Dick S. and Walter T., the latter of whom is no longer with us.
The country in yesterday's Globle game was Oman. The country in English Worldle was Tajkistan. I got both of those. The country in French Worldle was Burundi. I didn't get that one. Call me crazy, but i really enjoy identifying countries by their silhouttes (Worldle) and by their distance from and in what direction from wrong guesses (both Globle and Worldle).
The blank stares I found most surprising on Jeopardy! in the last week occurred in a category called 4 Words. The clue was 'Poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote that of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these.'
All together now, class, the answer in the form of a question is 'What are "it might have been"?'. Without looking it up, do you know the name of the poem by Whittier from which those lines come? I do, thanks to who else?, my old English teacher Mr. D.P. Morris back in Mansfield, Texas, seven decades ago.
A short and hopefully sweet post today, and now that you have looked, you may take a flying leap and hurtle another 1.6 million miles along the path that is the earth's 584,000,000-mile-orbit around the nearest star, a path that takes (as readers of this blog should know) 365.25 days to complete.
All together now...3, 2, 1, LEAP!
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Saturday, February 17, 2024
The world keeps changing before our eyes
Things that once were true are now false. For example, I learned in school that there are nine planets orbiting our sun. Kids today are told there are eight. Pluto got the axe (translation: was reclassified as a dwarf planet not in the same league with the others).
Things that used to be described one way are now described another way. Take dates, which for the past couple of thousand years in the western world have been referred to as either AD or BC (or, more accurately, A.D. or B.C. before periods/dots/points fell out of fashion). More and more frequently nowadays I see dates referred to as either CE (Common Era) or BCE (Before Common Era). I believe this particular change has occurred in recognition of the fact that adherents of the Jewish and Muslim faiths with calendars of their own prefer not to measure the passing of the years with a Christian reference point. 2024 AD (Latin, Anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") is 5784 AM (Latin, Anno Mundi, "in the year of the World") to members of the Jewish community, 1445 AH (Latin, Anno Hegirae, "in the year of the Hegira") to members of the Islamic community, and we won't go into either the Mayan calendar or the Chinese calendar because they are complicated. You can read fascinating articles about them in -- where else? -- wikipedia.
Allow me a little Jeopardy! stuff before we continue.
The Clue: Minnesota is bordered on the north by Manitoba and this other Canadian province.
One contestant said Alberta, one said Manitoba, and one didn't buzz in at all.
The Answer: What is Ontario? More on geography later in the post.
It made me feel especially old when no contesdant buzzed in for these two:
Category: Presidential TV
Clue: The Man From Independence
Answer: Who is Harry Truman
Category: Notable Names
Clue: This woman was America's first black Congresswoman
Answer: Who is Shirley Chisholm?
Well, that's enough of that. Too much, probably.
I have been improving my geography and international skills by playing three online games every day -- two versions of Worldle (not Wordle) and Globle (not spelled Global). If you want to try your hand, here are the three addresses:
worldlegame.io
worldle.teuteuf.fr
globle.org
The second of the Worldle games is played in French and includes identifying the country's neighbors, capital city, flag, unit of currency, and population range.
Today, for the first time since I began playing these games several months ago, the answer to Globle and the English version of Worldle was the same country, Sierra Leone. The French version's answer was Australia (spelled the French way, Australie). I enjoy these games a great deal and can now recognize the silhouettes of such places as Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, United Arab Emirates, Lithuania, Venezuela, Myanmar, and many others that I couldn't have recognized before.
Which in the overall scheme of things doesn't matter to a hill of beans, but playing each day has helped me keep my mind active. I used to do that by playing the piano, but between my failing eyesight and my stiffening fingers, those days are pretty much over.
I close today's post with a question. Did you know there is a connection between Donald Trump and John F.Kennedy besides the fact that they were both presidents of the United States? Well, there is. Mar-a-Lago, Trump's palatial home in Palm Beach, Florida (126 rooms, 62,500 sq ft on 17 acres), which he purchased in 1985, was built during the 1920s by Post Cereal heiress Marjorie Meriweather Post while she was the second of three wives of financier E.F. Hutton (yes, that E.F. Hutton). Their daughter bcame the actress Dina Merrill, whose second of three husbands (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), actor Cliff Robertson, starred in a film called PT-109 as U.S. Naval Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy, who was commander of the vessel when it was rammed and sunk by the Japanese in the Solomon Islands during World War Ii. It is of only passing interest that President Kennedy's parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, lived in Palm Beach, Florida, when they were away from Hyannisport, Massachusetts. That is a coincidence, not the sort of connection I meant.
If I have told you any of these things before, I do apologize. My memory is not what it once was either.
Things that used to be described one way are now described another way. Take dates, which for the past couple of thousand years in the western world have been referred to as either AD or BC (or, more accurately, A.D. or B.C. before periods/dots/points fell out of fashion). More and more frequently nowadays I see dates referred to as either CE (Common Era) or BCE (Before Common Era). I believe this particular change has occurred in recognition of the fact that adherents of the Jewish and Muslim faiths with calendars of their own prefer not to measure the passing of the years with a Christian reference point. 2024 AD (Latin, Anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") is 5784 AM (Latin, Anno Mundi, "in the year of the World") to members of the Jewish community, 1445 AH (Latin, Anno Hegirae, "in the year of the Hegira") to members of the Islamic community, and we won't go into either the Mayan calendar or the Chinese calendar because they are complicated. You can read fascinating articles about them in -- where else? -- wikipedia.
Allow me a little Jeopardy! stuff before we continue.
The Clue: Minnesota is bordered on the north by Manitoba and this other Canadian province.
One contestant said Alberta, one said Manitoba, and one didn't buzz in at all.
The Answer: What is Ontario? More on geography later in the post.
It made me feel especially old when no contesdant buzzed in for these two:
Category: Presidential TV
Clue: The Man From Independence
Answer: Who is Harry Truman
Category: Notable Names
Clue: This woman was America's first black Congresswoman
Answer: Who is Shirley Chisholm?
Well, that's enough of that. Too much, probably.
I have been improving my geography and international skills by playing three online games every day -- two versions of Worldle (not Wordle) and Globle (not spelled Global). If you want to try your hand, here are the three addresses:
worldlegame.io
worldle.teuteuf.fr
globle.org
The second of the Worldle games is played in French and includes identifying the country's neighbors, capital city, flag, unit of currency, and population range.
Today, for the first time since I began playing these games several months ago, the answer to Globle and the English version of Worldle was the same country, Sierra Leone. The French version's answer was Australia (spelled the French way, Australie). I enjoy these games a great deal and can now recognize the silhouettes of such places as Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, United Arab Emirates, Lithuania, Venezuela, Myanmar, and many others that I couldn't have recognized before.
Which in the overall scheme of things doesn't matter to a hill of beans, but playing each day has helped me keep my mind active. I used to do that by playing the piano, but between my failing eyesight and my stiffening fingers, those days are pretty much over.
I close today's post with a question. Did you know there is a connection between Donald Trump and John F.Kennedy besides the fact that they were both presidents of the United States? Well, there is. Mar-a-Lago, Trump's palatial home in Palm Beach, Florida (126 rooms, 62,500 sq ft on 17 acres), which he purchased in 1985, was built during the 1920s by Post Cereal heiress Marjorie Meriweather Post while she was the second of three wives of financier E.F. Hutton (yes, that E.F. Hutton). Their daughter bcame the actress Dina Merrill, whose second of three husbands (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), actor Cliff Robertson, starred in a film called PT-109 as U.S. Naval Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy, who was commander of the vessel when it was rammed and sunk by the Japanese in the Solomon Islands during World War Ii. It is of only passing interest that President Kennedy's parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, lived in Palm Beach, Florida, when they were away from Hyannisport, Massachusetts. That is a coincidence, not the sort of connection I meant.
If I have told you any of these things before, I do apologize. My memory is not what it once was either.
Saturday, February 10, 2024
Here we go again
I just can't resist. Here are several recent additions to the ever-increasing list of answers to unanswered clues on Jeopardy!:
Who is Clark Gable? (The clue was that this man kept vigil when the plane carrying his wife, actress Carole Lombard, crashed.)
Who is C.S. Lewis? (The clue was that this man used the name N.W. Clerk when writing A Grief Observed about his wife's death.)
What is yawning? (The clue included the word 'oscitation' and added that if you start doing it, I probably will too.)
Who is Irving Berlin? (The clue was that this man did not write "God Bless Cuba" when his wife fell ill during their honeymoon in Havana.)
Who is Billy Wilder? (The clue was that this man's gravestone in Californiae reads, "I'm a writer but then nobody's perfect".)
What is the Grand Canyon Suite? (The clue mentioned Ferde Grofé and Arizona.)
Who is Paul Harvey? (The clue was a photo of him while the vcoice-over said, "This newscaster always gave us 'the rest of the story'.")
Who is Toulouse-Lautrec? (In a category called "Ah, The French" the clue showed a photo of a man with a dark beard and wearing a hat and a long coat. The voice-over included the words 'artist' and 'short'.)
Who is Jacob? (In the category Quoting The Old Testament, the clue was "This man said 'Joseph, my son, is alive. I will go and see him'.")
What are 86 and 99? (The clue said these two numbers identified the agents in Get Smart.)
Whar are foxes? (Also in the category Quoting The Old Testament, the clue was "Take up these, the little these, for it is these that spoil the vines",)
There are many categories and clues, of course, about which I know absolutely nothing. That goes without saying. I just happened to know these.
Helpful-to-know Factoid #1 -- Billy Wilder directed the film Some Like It Hot, the last line of which is Joe E. Brown telling Jack Lemmon, "Nobody's perfect".
Helpful-to-know Factoid #2 -- Irving Berlin wrote "God Bless America".
Not-so-helpful-to-know-but-interesting-nevertheless Factoid #3 -- Before Ferde Grofé wrote the "Grand Canyon Suite" in 1931, he played the piano in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra for over a decade and wrote many orchestral arrangemens for the group. Perhaps the most notable one (no pun intended) was a new work by George Gershwin written originally for solo piano that Mr. Grofé arranged into a full orchestration. Its debut, with Mr. Gershwin on piano and Mr. Whiteman conducting the orchestra in New York City, occurred exactly one hundred yearss ago this week, on February 12, 1924. You may have heard of it. It is called "Rhapsody In Blue".
Speaking of blue, how many songs can you think of that include the word 'blue' (but not 'blues') in the title. If we included 'blues' we'd be here all day. Here's my list:
Blue Skies
Blue Moon
Blue Velvet
Am I Blue?
Alice Blue Gown
Lavender Blue, Dilly Dilly
Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain
Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
My Blue Heaven
Blue Suede Shoes
Where The Blue Of The Night (Meets The Gold Of The Day
Bluebird Of Happiness
The Blue Tail Fly
Song Sung Blue
In my eagerness I seem to have co-opted the task, so please try once again to match as many songs as you can with their artists instead.
Finally, from our brand-new "Yeah, Right" Department, if you think Presidents of the United States would never lie on national television, consider the following three examples. Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" (November 17, 1973), Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" (January 26, 1998), and Joe Biden said, "I know what the hell I'm doing" (February 8, 2024).
Who is Clark Gable? (The clue was that this man kept vigil when the plane carrying his wife, actress Carole Lombard, crashed.)
Who is C.S. Lewis? (The clue was that this man used the name N.W. Clerk when writing A Grief Observed about his wife's death.)
What is yawning? (The clue included the word 'oscitation' and added that if you start doing it, I probably will too.)
Who is Irving Berlin? (The clue was that this man did not write "God Bless Cuba" when his wife fell ill during their honeymoon in Havana.)
Who is Billy Wilder? (The clue was that this man's gravestone in Californiae reads, "I'm a writer but then nobody's perfect".)
What is the Grand Canyon Suite? (The clue mentioned Ferde Grofé and Arizona.)
Who is Paul Harvey? (The clue was a photo of him while the vcoice-over said, "This newscaster always gave us 'the rest of the story'.")
Who is Toulouse-Lautrec? (In a category called "Ah, The French" the clue showed a photo of a man with a dark beard and wearing a hat and a long coat. The voice-over included the words 'artist' and 'short'.)
What are 86 and 99? (The clue said these two numbers identified the agents in Get Smart.)
Whar are foxes? (Also in the category Quoting The Old Testament, the clue was "Take up these, the little these, for it is these that spoil the vines",)
There are many categories and clues, of course, about which I know absolutely nothing. That goes without saying. I just happened to know these.
Helpful-to-know Factoid #1 -- Billy Wilder directed the film Some Like It Hot, the last line of which is Joe E. Brown telling Jack Lemmon, "Nobody's perfect".
Helpful-to-know Factoid #2 -- Irving Berlin wrote "God Bless America".
Not-so-helpful-to-know-but-interesting-nevertheless Factoid #3 -- Before Ferde Grofé wrote the "Grand Canyon Suite" in 1931, he played the piano in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra for over a decade and wrote many orchestral arrangemens for the group. Perhaps the most notable one (no pun intended) was a new work by George Gershwin written originally for solo piano that Mr. Grofé arranged into a full orchestration. Its debut, with Mr. Gershwin on piano and Mr. Whiteman conducting the orchestra in New York City, occurred exactly one hundred yearss ago this week, on February 12, 1924. You may have heard of it. It is called "Rhapsody In Blue".
Speaking of blue, how many songs can you think of that include the word 'blue' (but not 'blues') in the title. If we included 'blues' we'd be here all day. Here's my list:
Blue Skies
Blue Moon
Blue Velvet
Am I Blue?
Alice Blue Gown
Lavender Blue, Dilly Dilly
Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain
Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
My Blue Heaven
Blue Suede Shoes
Where The Blue Of The Night (Meets The Gold Of The Day
Bluebird Of Happiness
The Blue Tail Fly
Song Sung Blue
In my eagerness I seem to have co-opted the task, so please try once again to match as many songs as you can with their artists instead.
Finally, from our brand-new "Yeah, Right" Department, if you think Presidents of the United States would never lie on national television, consider the following three examples. Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" (November 17, 1973), Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" (January 26, 1998), and Joe Biden said, "I know what the hell I'm doing" (February 8, 2024).
Sunday, February 4, 2024
So many questions, so little time
An unanswered question on Jeopardy last week was "What is Whatever Happened to Baby Jane??" and it got me to thinking, as we former colonials say. How many other films that contain a question mark in the title can you come up with?
Here's my list:
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
What's Up, Doc?
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
What About Bob?
There is the 1966 song "What's It All About, Alfie?" but the film was just Alfie, not a question.
One film title that was definitely a question did not include a question mark. Quo Vadis is a Latin phrase meaning "Where are you going?" but the 1951 film starring Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr had no question mark.
There must be dozens of songs that are questions. Here are some:
How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?
When Will I Be Loved?
Will The Circle Be Unbroken?
What Now, My Love?
What Kind Of Fool Am I?
Is That All There Is?
Where Is Love?
Do You Know The Way To San José?
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
What's New, Pussycat?
What's Love Got To Do With It?
If I Said You Have A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me?
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?
Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?
and on and on and on.
Extra credit if you can match songs with artists.
Here's my list:
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
What's Up, Doc?
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
What About Bob?
There is the 1966 song "What's It All About, Alfie?" but the film was just Alfie, not a question.
One film title that was definitely a question did not include a question mark. Quo Vadis is a Latin phrase meaning "Where are you going?" but the 1951 film starring Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr had no question mark.
There must be dozens of songs that are questions. Here are some:
How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?
When Will I Be Loved?
Will The Circle Be Unbroken?
What Now, My Love?
What Kind Of Fool Am I?
Is That All There Is?
Where Is Love?
Do You Know The Way To San José?
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
What's New, Pussycat?
What's Love Got To Do With It?
If I Said You Have A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me?
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?
Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?
and on and on and on.
Extra credit if you can match songs with artists.
Thursday, February 1, 2024
.Their price is far above rubies
Within a month, Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I will become great-grandparents for a second time, and we just learned that a third great-grandchild is expected to arrive in August. Time and tide, I've heard, wait for no man. I can report for a certainty that time does march on. Tides, on the other hand, come and go.
Here's one of my favorite passages from Shakespeare:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
If anyone cares, that passage is from Julius Caesar, Act IV, scene iii. Brutus is talking to Cassius.
From time immemorial, sophomore students at Mansfield High School (my alma mater) read Julius Caesar in Mr. D.P. Morris's English class. Except us. The year we were sophomores, the school district hired a second English teacher, Mrs. Elinor Field, and assigned sophomore English to her. In the spring of 1956 Mrs. Field, being the thoroughly modern sort, scrapped Julius Caesar and decided we should read instead The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit, a 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson that had just been made into a 1956 film starring Gregory Peck, I don't remember a thing about the novel. I finally got around to reading Julius Caesar on my own about 15 years later.
Because I do not possess very many of this world's goods, I suppose an argument could be made that I have spent my life bound in shallows and in miseries. I reject that notion out of hand. The fortune to which my own particular flood tide led consists of a wonderful wife who has shared the voyage with me for more than 60 years, three magnificent children, six magnificemt grandchildren, and, so far, as I mentioned earlier, three great-grandcildren with whom I am eager to become better acquainted.
It's important to understand what is truly valuable. I am rich in the things that count.
Here's one of my favorite passages from Shakespeare:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
If anyone cares, that passage is from Julius Caesar, Act IV, scene iii. Brutus is talking to Cassius.
From time immemorial, sophomore students at Mansfield High School (my alma mater) read Julius Caesar in Mr. D.P. Morris's English class. Except us. The year we were sophomores, the school district hired a second English teacher, Mrs. Elinor Field, and assigned sophomore English to her. In the spring of 1956 Mrs. Field, being the thoroughly modern sort, scrapped Julius Caesar and decided we should read instead The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit, a 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson that had just been made into a 1956 film starring Gregory Peck, I don't remember a thing about the novel. I finally got around to reading Julius Caesar on my own about 15 years later.
Because I do not possess very many of this world's goods, I suppose an argument could be made that I have spent my life bound in shallows and in miseries. I reject that notion out of hand. The fortune to which my own particular flood tide led consists of a wonderful wife who has shared the voyage with me for more than 60 years, three magnificent children, six magnificemt grandchildren, and, so far, as I mentioned earlier, three great-grandcildren with whom I am eager to become better acquainted.
It's important to understand what is truly valuable. I am rich in the things that count.
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