But That's not important right now.

Leslie Nielsen died from complications from pneumonia at a hospital this weekend.



You know what a hospital is – it's a large building with a lot of beds


Run for your lives - It's Cyborg Monday.

Wait - this just in - it's Cyber Monday. Continue to shop til you drop!!!


Our Third Annual Christmas video countdown. Today is - Really Bad Holiday Songs:

Driving Home for Christmas - Chris Rea:



Chris, either speed up and get home or drive off the road and put us all out of our misery.

The Christmas Shoes - Newsong :

In case you need to 'purge' music



PS- if your Mom is dying, there are more important things to worry about than buying her new shoes.


Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time - Paul McCartney:

Sir Paul got a new synthesizer and after a few drinks during a holiday party this is what he came up with




Any Christmas song processed by Mannheim Steamroller.

This is the music that people who are deeply concerned with the cholera epidemic in Haiti but tweet about the new flavor of free trade coffee Starbucks has, listen to during the holidays.



Macarena Christmas - Los Del Rios:



A song so odious that they won't even play it on the 'all holiday music' radio stations.


November 29, 1940 -
I'm very fond of children. Girl children, around eighteen and twenty.

W.C. Fields at his peak, The Bank Dick, premiered on this date.



Universal's censors initially objected to W.C. Fields' script and demanded many changes. Director Edward F. Cline suggested that Fields should go ahead and film it their way, and that the front office wouldn't notice the difference. They didn't.


November 29, 1945 -
Remarkable for it frank portrayal of alcoholism (for it's day), The Lost Weekend, opened in Los Angeles on this date.



Paramount were very nervous about releasing a film with such an adult theme and very nearly buried it when it didn't do too well with preview audiences. Ultimately, of course, it went on to become a major hit and Academy Award winner.


November 29, 1950 -
Jean Cocteau's beautifully magical, Orphee, opened in the US on this date.



The opening scenes set in the Cafe des Poetes were originally set to be filmed with regular extras. However, Cocteau found them to be too self-conscious and artificial so they were all dismissed. Instead, real bohemians from Paris' real cafe culture were drafted in. These proved to be so natural and relaxed with the cafe setting, they actually stayed on for two extra days after filming had finished, just hanging out in the cafes that the film crew had been using.


Today in History:
November 29, 1864 -
The Sand Creek Massacre occurred, on this date, when Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington, in retaliation for an Indian attack on a party of immigrants near Denver, massacred at least 400 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants (mostly children, women, physically- and mentally-challenged, and elders) inside Colorado Territory.

It also generated two Congressional investigations into the actions of Chivington and his men. The House Committee on the Conduct of the War concluded that Chivington had "deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the varied and savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty."

The American Government has so much to be proud of with their dealings with the Native Americans.


November 29, 1929 -
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd (on a break from his experiments with frozen vegetables) radioed that he'd made the first airplane flight with pilot Floyd Bennett, over the South Pole: "My calculations indicate that we have reached vicinity of South Pole."



After briefly loitering around the Pole, Byrd and his crew headed back to their home base, Little America and more intense testing of frozen zucchini.


November 29, 1961 -
The US sends the chimpanzee Enos into space, on the Mercury Atlas 5 capsule from Cape Canaveral.

Enos returns to earth safely but dies less than a year later before he can sign with the William Morris Agency.




November 29, 1986 -
82 year old Archibald Leach, better known as Cary Grant, died on this date.



While rumors of Grant's sexuality have been around for years, consider in perspective the words of US congressman Bob Dornan, spoken on the House floor: "I do not think Cary Grant was a homosexual or bisexual. He just got carried away at those orgies."

I love that quote.


November 29, 2001 -
The "quiet" Beatle George Harrison silenced by cancer on this date.




Oh yeah, millions of years ago (or at least more than half a century ago) the earth cooled and formed a hard crust, huge dinosaurs ruled the land and John was there to see it all. Happy Birthday John.

About a decade later, vast plains with wildflowers sprung up and Mary skipped along them all. Happy Birthday Mary.



2 more shopping days until Hanukkah, 26 more shopping days until Christmas.

Start scouring the paper for cooking oil sales.



And so it goes