End of the Line

According to popular legend,  Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Longabaugh (better known to the public as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), were killed in a shootout near San Vicente, Bolivia after robbing a courier from the Aramayo Franke and Cia Silver Mine and then hiding out in a boarding house where the local townsfolk found them and cornered them.

The two criminals were said  to be buried  in unmarked graves whose exact locations have since become lost. However, there were numerous alleged sightings of both Parker and Longabaugh in the United States long after their reported deaths.

Feline Serenade

Chelsey was just a cat as far as I was concerned,  and I was probably just another dumb human to her.  She'd had two prior owners before being dumped in my lap, so probably didn't expect much better from me.  To be honest,  I didn't know what to expect either--she wasn't especially fond of me and demonstrated it in numerous annoying ways--but I took her in anyway because I figured the alternative would be a visit to the animal shelter.

Once Chelsey realized I wasn't going to get rid of her,  she grew to trust me and became friendlier and better behaved, and I, in turn, grew close to her. It was a privilege to share her company, and now that she's gone, I'm going to miss her greatly.  She entered the afterlife earlier this week after 18 years on the planet and 17 living with me, so as a final farewell to my little friend, I am going to show a few of her favorite videos this weekend, including this musical piece:

Messages from the Gray Area

Rod Serling takes us beyond the normal bounds of time and space this morning to share a tale of death and destruction, in a public service announcement broadcast only in the Twilight Zone:

The above video was actually a 1966 Ad Council fire prevention message with Serling providing the narration.

Saturday Cartoons

Winter is fast approaching and the flocks gather into formation to begin their flight south for the season, but the lazy young Anserini in the following cartoon elects to hitchhike to Florida instead. This Hanna-Barbera cartoon dates from 1941 and is titled, The Goose Goes South:

Film Babe Preview

This weekend I'm going to highlight the alluring Tamil actress, the lovely Sridevi Kapoor, who began acting at the early age of four, and enjoyed a thirty year career.  In the 1980s and 90s, she was one of the top actresses on the big screen in India,  winning the Filmfare  Best Actress Award four times.  Sridevi, as the film star is better-known,  won one of those awards in this 1989 Hindi film, Chandri.  In the scene below,  we're allowed a brief but tantalizing look at the actress as she moves rhythmically through the meadow in an enticing woodland dance :

Giant Jellyfish Sinking Ships

Need I say more?  Courtesy Fox News:

Pink, slimy and repellent, the Nomura’s jellyfish is an authentic horror of the deep that's been assaulting Japan. Now the creatures have sunk a 10-ton fishing trawler.

The boat was capsized off Chiba in Japan, as its three-man crew was trying to haul in a net containing dozens of huge Nomura's jellyfish. Four years after they last reared their slimy heads, and for reasons that remain mysterious, an armada of the gelatinous giants has gathered in the Yellow Sea off China and the Korean peninsula.

Now it has drifted into the Sea of Japan, and brought down the Diasan Shinsho-maru. One of the largest jellyfish in the world, the Nomura's jellyfish can grow up to 6 feet in diameter and weigh as much as 400 pounds.

400 POUNDS?!  CRIMINY!...and this is just one of the largest jellyfish in the world. 

I DON'T want to meet its big brothers...yeesh.

Early Aircraft Repair

Gladys Ingle was a famous barnstorming aerialist who gained quite a following in the 1920's performing a stunt known as wingwalking, which is demonstrated in the video below showing Ms. Ingle boarding an airplane and then repairing its landing gear, while the plane is in flight:

The United States Army Air Corps used windwalkers on occasion to perform aircraft in-flight refueling.

The Future of Baseball

No doubt the shade of old John McGraw is snarling somewhere at the news of those upstarts and former Polo Ground tenants, the Highlanders, taking their 27th World Series championship this week, but the Inside Baseball master would return from the grave and crack some heads if he saw what was happening on today's sandlots:

When the World Fades

The light shimmered a moment, wavered and then grew dim. As darkness slowly crept forward to make its final call, she reflected on the long parade of years passing and then wept as she watched the days, hours, and minutes crumble to dust and scatter themselves to the winds.

The time of departure had come, and memories begged a moment of consideration before fading away forever into dream.  She relished with a final breath those last years which would always be dearest to her heart, sad at the same time that the best days of life came near the end.

I had to say goodbye to my little 18-year-old feline friend, so I'm not up to writing right now. My apologies. I'll be back Friday.

Commercial Success

Shadoe Stevens, the television personality and former DJ on my favorite radio station, KROQ, celebrates his 63rd birthday today. Like Jim Varney, who got his start in television commercials, Stevens was also an advertising personality, gaining immediate local attention as Fred Rated, the manic fast-talking spokesman for the old Federated Electronics chain in Los Angeles.

This montage of some of his commercial spots gives one an idea why:

Poetic Outlaw

Charles Bolles, the infamous  Black Bart, a gentleman stagecoach robber and poet, committed his last hold-up on this date in 1883, but came away with nothing (he was shot at by a stagecoach passenger and dropped the cash box).

The video below is only remotely associated with Bart, but I'm going to put it up anyway:

Bolles was arrested a short time later and served four years (of a six-year sentence) in San Quentin prison.  His criminal career was fictionalized by William Henry Rhodes in 1871, which is probably one of the reasons Black Bart is still remembered today.

Visions of the Future

Last week we mentioned the anniversary of computers first communicating with each other using packet switching, from which the Internet eventually evolved.  Today we will have a look at what was envisioned for home network computing in 1969:

Running Late

Pace had overslept but figured he could still make it to work on time if he used the old '73 Mach I Mustang today instead of his newer fuel-efficient Hyundai. He probably would have arrived with time to spare if he hadn't encountered the local plainclothes traffic cop...and the rest of the city's police force:

The scene above is from the original Gone in 60 Seconds.

Public Viewing

Those among the unwashed masses were finally permitted entrance into the Sistene Chapel on this date in  1512 to view the masterpiece created by Michelangelo upon the chapel's ceiling.  To mark the day, we'll pay a short visit to Vatican City and have a look for ourselves:

Sunny and Mild

The United States National Weather Service makes its first forecast on this date in 1870:

Posting will be likely light the next few days...something has come up that will need to be attended to sometime between now and Wednesday, so I'm not sure if I'll have much of an opportunity to write. Things should return to more of a normal pace by the end of the week.