Early Saturday Morning

Got up at 6 a.m. partly because my head was stuffed up warning me a headache was close; my mouth was dry; my dreams were disturbing; and my bladder was full.  Yeah, a great way to start the day.  But oh well, at least I'm starting!  Fixed a cup of coffee and turned on the cool air humidifier, who I've named Ole Blue.

Since I had two miserable days of stuffy head with runny nose, I've decided to keep Ole Blue up and running.  Especially when I have to turn the heat on.  Seems kind of okay in here today temperature-wise so I'm hoping I can keep the heat off or at least manage by wearing a sweater.

Yesterday I pulled out my rinky dink tape player (that I bought at a thrift store) so I could try again to practice getting my old cassette music onto my computer so I could burn them to a CD.  I know the sound quality on tapes isn't as good as on regular vinyl and that could be part of the problem I'm having as far as sound quality goes.  Or it could be my old tape player is just too worn out to be of much use.  Problem is, you have to use a tape player with the special outlets in the back for the hookup and not all tape players have those.

I'm using this program called Audacity and I have figured it out enough to get the music onto my computer BUT....there are sound settings with language terminology over my head so I'm not having a lot of success fine tuning the song.  A few years back, I transferred a couple hundred of my record albums to my computer with this program and it worked just dandy.  The only thing I had to do with click the "normalize" button.  This time, though, I'm at a loss and I get too frustrated if I have to spend a lot of time on it.  Kind of like untangling cords. Patience isn't my strong suit sometimes.

I haven't decided, for sure, how I'm going to spend my day today.  I've got a fun jigsaw puzzle set up on the card table so that will get some of my attention.  I've also got a stack of books by my recliner.  I read over a hundred pages of 'The ladies of the club' but I just couldn't get into it so I took it back to the library and bought another for a quarter in the lobby.

I started reading it in the car while I was waiting for Maddie to finish up with their basketball team picture taking at the gym. Called 'Father Melancholy's daughter', by Gail Godwin. I like books that you can start reading right away and be interested in.  If I have to go past page 100 and I'm still struggling, I set it aside and move on.  I've got a Stephen King book of short stories I'm working on at too. At least with King, it's easy reading and you're into it from the first paragraph on.  I also found a book on my shelves by Phillip Margolin called 'The Associate' so here I go again...reading several books at the same time.  This is one of the reasons I have trouble finishing a book but it's what I do.

I've had problems settling in on my tv watching with Netflix and Amazon Prime.  Can't seem to get interested in anything.  And I've tried weird stuff like Dracula and Frankenstein along with Airplane and The Reader.  I decided to give 'The Americans' another chance and I think it's taking this time as I'm up to episode 3 or 4 and looking forward to the next chapter.

I had to turn my background sound of the tv off early this morning as those local news shows out of Seattle make me want to throw a pot at the screen.  So sick of cutesy blonds coyingly giggling over videos or pretty boy newscasters laughing it up over YouTube videos about kids or animals.  Yesterday the Today Show gang played a game that Ellen had going on her show.  Stupid with a capital S!  Thank God for Pandora Channel on  my Roku.  I've got the Chuck Berry channel tuned in now with means I get music from that whole era.  Ray Charles is singing 'What'd I say' at the moment and I'm glad I can still appreciate good music!

Two interesting facts I found online recently. (at least interesting to me...)

Though Leave It to Beaver ended in 1963, it appeared so frequently in syndication that Billingsley had difficulty escaping her image as the sweet 1950s matron. With trouble getting other roles, she took time out of her career to travel the world. Her second wind came when producers took comedic advantage of her wholesome persona to cast her as a jive-talking passenger in Airplane! the 1982 hit film.

Another note:

Since 1967, there have only been three albums that have truly affected the culture, and that's the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, Saturday Night Fever and Michael Jackson's Thriller.
My opinion:  I don't know who decided this about the three albums but I'd say there are a whole lot of other albums that deserve to be in this category.

On the Three Stooges (who I never enjoyed all that much but my dad loved them!)

Moe (the one on the right) was the business-minded one of the group. He knew that Curly liked to spend his money on partying and women, and Larry liked to spend his at the racetrack. So, he drew up an agreement where Larry and Curly turned over a certain percentage of their salaries to him. He, in turn, invested it for them. The result was that, while Larry and Curly were not as wealthy as Moe was (he invested far more of his own money and was quite well off), he ensured that their spendthrift habits did not result in their being broke when their careers ended.