With Thanksgiving just behind us and a veritable plethora of family based festivals coming up I think its time that we focused slightly on the Real Things in Life.
We worry about who the next American Idol is going to be and even who is to blame for the Economic Disaster we are in the middle of but now let's think about the guys out there, doing their normal jobs and paying the price for democracy.
In well-rehearsed fashion, the four Marines knocked on a farmhouse door, opened it and tossed in a flash grenade before rushing inside.
The morning of Nov. 16, 2005, was another day in Operation Steel Curtain to stem the flow of mercenaries entering Iraq from Syria. The end of this particular assignment was in sight as the Marines were running out of houses to check for signs of hostiles on the outskirts of New Ubaydi, near the Iraq border.
So apparently my life isn't relaxed enough so the wife, baby and I have taken a midweek break. Right now I'm in a coffee shop in Eilat using the iTouch and their internet.
I mentioned that the short film in my bloggage of yesterday, Jam, had two of my fave people on it and then went on to laud the amazingness that is Stephen Fry.
And the other fave person? That must have been Mr. Philip Schofield.
So who is he and why do I like him? Well, as always, I'll answer the second part first.
Not only does he answer my DMs on twitter, but he also sends out interesting Tweets. That's why I like him today. In the last 20 odd years he has been a TV presenter in the UK and has always come across as a 'good egg'. The same way that Stephen Fry appears but without the 'I know more than you so sit back and learn'.
Basically he comes across as a nice guy and I respect that.
And then there was Gordon the Gopher. If you don't know what I'm talking about then watch the video below or ask Mr. Google if he can help.
From his current TV show's website:
Phillip Schofield joined This Morning in September 2002 and currently presents the show four days a week.
By the age of ten, he had already decided he would like to pursue a career in broadcasting and began to write to the BBC. He was finally offered a job in September 1979 at Broadcasting House, London, working for radio outside broadcasts as a booking clerk.
Aged 19, Phillip left the BBC to emigrate to New Zealand with his family. He quickly landed a job presenting on Radio Hauraki in Auckland and went on to appear on television. Three-and-a-half years later, he decided that it was time to return to Britain.
Within four months of returning to the UK, the BBC presentation department offered him the job of fronting Children’s BBC from the Broom Cupboard.
Phillip accepted and stayed with presentation for two years. He then went on to present five series of the popular Saturday morning show Going Live, four series of Take Two, three series of his own quiz show, The Movie Game, two series of the highly acclaimed travel show Schofield's Europe and a series of Television's Greatest Hits.
In 1993 he signed a two-year contract with ITV and starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the London Palladium.
Phillip then took the show around the UK and Ireland from December 1993 until February 1995. In December 1995 he took up the Dreamcoat again at the Oxford Apollo Theatre and in February 1996 moved to the Hammersmith Labbatts Theatre through to the middle of 1996.
In 1996 he also signed an exclusive contract with Carlton Television and presented a number of shows including Schofield’s Adventures in Hawaii (a one-hour special), Schofield’s Quest, two series of Tenball and two Christmas specials: Schofield’s Gold and Six Little Angels.
Autumn 1996 saw Phillip presenting two series, One In A Million and Schofield's TV Gold, followed by a one-off Christmas special, Now We’re Talking. In autumn 1997 Talking Telephone Numbers returned for its fifth series and a further series of One In A Million ran through to July 1997.
I grew up in the (ahem) 70's with the Muppet Show and Sesame Street. I was allowed to watch as much of either of them as I liked, which in all honesty wasn't more than half an hour a day as we had no VCR but we did have British terrestrial TV.
As technology advanced the foam puppets moved over to Fraggle Rock and eventually even that was replaced on the TV shows, for the next generation of kids, by Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Postman Pat and other imaginative heroes.
I recently found out that my beloved wife, Mrs Jumblerant (aka Her Indoors or Mrs J) did not watch Sesame Street or the Muppet Show as a child. Her elder siblings made sure that the first programs she watched were Happy Days and The Love Boat. Sadly she missed out. She never learnt rudimentary Spanish on the stoop with Maria, or how to count, with the Count.
Sesame Street marked 40 years of production on the 10th November and I'm happy to say that our son Jack will be able to grow up with the The Muppet Show as well as it starts to make a return on YouTube.
I know you're busy and have all those chores to do.
And then there's that Buffy marathon going on later. And the kids need a bath.
Twitter isn't going to tweet itself and you just have to Facebook that kindergarten friend of yours from 28 years ago who doesn't even live on the same continent as you BUT you completely forgot to go here and vote for me by copying and pasting the 3 lines of info below;
Jumblerant
http://jumblerant.blogspot.com/
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Jumblerant
I know!! Crazy isn't it?
What you also forgot was that not only can I easily find out where you live, but I also know where to buy gasoline and matches ;-0
her highness the Oprah of Winfrey recently started her new season of chat shows with a Flashmob dance that took over Chicago's magnificent mile.
A group that assists Jews from around the world to move to Israel put together this Flashmob dance in Jerusalem's central Ben Yehuda Street to promote themselves.
Quite impressive when you realize that us Jews aren't renowned for our dancing abilities, except for Sammy Davis Jr., of course, but he was the exception!
After reading this headline I was appalled. The poor innocent bear was just doing what he normally does and this crazy guy goes into the bear pit without thinking about the consequences.
So who is to blame here? The doctors for letting him out by himself? The zoo for not ensuring the bear pit was inaccessible, even to crazed loons? Or society, for putting the bears out for show in the first place.
Is there any blame to be apportioned in the first place?
What do you think? Discussion in the comment area please, and keep it kinda pleasant!!
My school friend Jason died from pancreatic cancer last November. Here is the charity he started. His legacy I guess - No Surrender. Click on the pictures to get to the websites.
'Paddington Bear: The Early Years' 'Stephen Fry and the Spectacled Bears' 'Rescuing the Spectacled Bear: A Peruvian Diary'
My sister, who we all now know is not obese or even 'puffy' would have been safe in Peru even though it has come to light, with the arrest of 3 local Peruvians, that over 60 people were murdered.
And why were so many innocent lives taken? Organ sellers? Blood collectors? To get their money or valuables?
No.
To sell their fat on the blackmarket for cosmetic use in Europe.
WTF??
This is some scary stuff. And more reason than ever for me to get on with this exercise and diet regime.
I have given praise to Michael Yon before. Now he is passing on the praise to another visitor to Afghanistan, David Guttenfelder. Mr Guttenfelder is an amazing photographer and doesn't feel afraid about going into the field with the troops.
Sadly I can't quite get the high quality images he does on his website so go there and see the originals. Its worth seeing what the troops are really going through over there.
kthanxbai!
Justin, 29, lives with his father, 73.
Justin's father comes up with some amazing one-liners. Go over to Justin's tweet page (do I have that right? Seriously? Its a tweet page?).
Anyway, try not to eat or drink anything whilst reading what Justin's Dad says.
Don't we all love to pet seals on the head and thank them for being oh so cute? And penguins? Aren't they just adorable when they tap dance and walk all that way to be with their soul-mates?
Over here at Jumblerant we are very conscious of equality, women's rights and are keen to promote any new product that helps 'humankind as one'.
Wirecutter, over at Knuckledraggin my life away, has blogged about an interesting new product from Apple, the guys who brought us the Mac, the iPhone and the (and my) iTouch;
Apple announced today that it has developed a breast implant that can store and play music. The iTit will cost from $499 to $699, depending on cup and speaker size. This is considered a major social breakthrough, because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.
I have been reluctant to eat from any kebab house, anywhere on the globe since two unfortunate events in my life occurred;
1. An evening out in Bristol, UK in 1995. A nice night in a disco followed by a 4 am breakfast of kebab from the kebab house ended with me retching in my friend's neighbour's front garden.
2. After a simple shwarma in Bet Shaan the night before I stood in line at the main Bus Station in Jerusalem waiting for the trip to Tel Aviv. Stomach ache. Nausea. Headache. Shwarma returned.
And a new addition, number 3 if you will;
Russian police have arrested three homeless men suspected of killing and eating a 25 year old - and selling parts of his body to a kebab and pie kiosk.
The alarm was raised when bits of a corpse were found near a bus stop on the outskirts of Perm, about 720 miles east of Moscow.
A statement on thePerm police website said the three alleged cannibals had previous criminal records.
In celebration of Sesame Street's 40th Birthday Crankylitprof over at Cranky Epistles shares with us the truth behind Oscar the Grouch. This is the best quality I can get the picture at so go see the original from maneggs
As you can imagine from reading my post 'I beat my wife to get healthy', my one and only sister, who happens to be older than me, was not the happiest, fluffiest bunny on the planet. In fact she handed me my ass on a plate.
Map showing prevalence of obesity in the United States. Rates are according to the CDC.
I would also like to apologize to myself for that posting as I thought I'd be getting more comments with a title that starts 'I beat my wife'.
I recently read a blog posting by The Old Plod of Plympton about religious tolerance. In the posting the blogger had an article by Ben Stein in December 2005 which I found very interesting. In an apology to my delightful, feather-like sister who is a mere wisp of an essence where 'ere she goes... here it is:
Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:
I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.
Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.
Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?
I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.
Direct copy and paste from Ben Stein's website, www.benstein.com/121805xmas.html
I'm off to start buying presents for my family for Hanukah - enjoy your shopping too.
Over on Sky News (aka Fox in a British accent) there is a charming story about a teenager who is jailed for a crime but has a Facebook entry as his alibi;
Rodney Bradford spent 12 days in prison after being arrested on suspicion of holding up two people close to his home in Brooklyn.
And what kind of update did the young bastion of society send?
'Rodney Bradford is'....
upset at world hunger going out with the guys lol-ing at Glee
No, Rodney Bradford's jail breaking message on Facebook was 'where my IHop?'. The message was intended for his pregnant girlfriend who he hoped would cook him breakfast.
For that alone I would throw him back in the slammer! Too lazy to make your own breakfast, but up and about and faffing around on Facebook? 21 days your honor!!
Image via Wikipedia
