Share Your World – Week 277

Posted on April 25, 2024 by evilsquirrel13

Madame Mitzi’s Wheel Of Deathies! Oh, how I miss the glory days of Shelf Critter Theatre…

On April 25, 1792, French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by that wonderful French invention that made everyone lose their head, the guillotine.  While the specifics on the crime the committed to earn such a distinction are somewhat lost to history, his Wiki page notes that the French citizens were somewhat underwhelmed by this new method of public execution as it was too swift and failed to properly entertain as much as more drawn out affairs like hanging, draw and quartering, or a good old manual decapitation.  While we tend to associate the guillotine with late 1700’s Revolutionary era France and a more unenlightened time, the guillotine was still the legal method of execution in the country up until capital punishment was banned in 1981 as saw its last head drop in the ancient year of 1977…

Ahem, ahem!

And The Nest would be remiss if we didn’t mention that today is also the 16th anniversary of what I’ve considered to be the creation of this blog’s flagship character, Evil Squirrel.  Without him, I am not here today to educate you on fun methods of execution or to answer the wonderful Share Your World questions Di has for us this week!

And congrats to Cher on making the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

Have you ever attended a First Aid Course?

No.  If you need urgent medical attention, I am the last person you want to need it around… as I not only am probably going to run for the hills, but with no cellphone I can’t even call someone who might save your ass…

You call for help, Mr. Fox. I’ll go get Hung Lo…

Incidentally, we got one of those zapper things at Mecca now that’s supposed to help restart a heart if someone goes into cardiac arrest.  Communication is always poor on the night shift, but we have been wondering if anybody in the store is even trained to use it…

Apart from grazed knees and applying a band aid, have you ever applied First Aid?

No, as I’m busy heading for the hills.  I’ve had to tend to my own cuts at work before, and I don’t even like doing that, because………..

Are you squeamish about the sight of blood?

I’m squeamish at the mere mention of blood.  Those ads they like to do on the radio for blood drives alone are enough to make me sick to my stomach.  I can’t even look when they draw my blood for testing.  And yes, if you’re familiar with the SCT stories I used to tell here, that is probably a major shock to you… but it’s true.  For some reason, though, I can set aside my blood queasiness when it comes to cartoonish situations…

It’s just pixelated ketchup… I think.

How far away is the nearest hospital?

I grew up just a couple blocks away from the hospital.  Now it’s about a three mile drive from my house.

I just realized how well the SYW theme this week tied in to my historical fact about the guillotine…

Gratitude AI Image:

BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!

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Sweet Home Chicago

Posted on April 22, 2024 by evilsquirrel13

Does anybody really know what time it is?

It’s Monday and that means it’s time to get down to earth on this Earth Day with another lost hit from DJ Scratchy’s Dusty Vinyl Archive!  We love to recycle the earworms at The Nest, and here’s one from 1985 that has yet to biodegrade…

It’s kinda hard to believe that with Muzak Monday just a few weeks away from its tenth anniversary that I have yet to feature a single song by a band that was a consistent hitmaker during the entirety of the 1970’s and 1980’s… and that would be the band that named itself after a local government agency, Chicago Transit Authority!

I’m sorry, but you can’t use that name per local ordinance!

When the real Chicago Transit Authority complained, the group shortened the name to just Chicago.  Chicago started out as the prototypical large 70’s rock band that came complete with a horn section, then morphed into a group that made its name with power ballads in the 1980’s.  This is the version of Chicago I knew and loved growing up in the MTV era… and I thought of making a DVA out of “Stay the Night,” which was the first Chicago song I ever knew when it was released in 1984 off of the Chicago 17 album.  Instead, I’m going to choose a song from that same album that even I had forgotten about until it surfaced as an occasional Mecca earworm over the past year…

“Along Comes A Woman” was the fourth and final single released from Chicago 17, which also made it the final Chicago single to feature the group’s best known member Peter Cetera on lead vocals, as he was booted from the band shortly after this single was released.  It only reached #14 on the Hot 100 in 1985, but it really a pretty good rocker that also brings back the horns that made Chicago famous.

Not one of the horns that made Chicago famous.

More lost muzak next Monday!  And a big thanks to everyone who showed me how dumb I am when it comes to purple flowers!

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Pretty Purple Flowers

Posted on April 20, 2024 by evilsquirrel13

Hmmmm… it’s 4/20! I wonder if I can smoke them?

Lots of different flowers…. er, weeds sprout up in the early Spring that give the newly growing grass some color variety.  April and May will bring yellow dandelions and puffballs and those weird white flowered weeds that come later…. but before all that comes the purple.

This week’s Saturday Squirrel from my last park trip in late March has found himself a field of purple weeds.  I wanted to try and identify them for the education of my readers, but was stunned to find out that purple-flowering weeds are actually very common and come in all kinds of species.  I can’t even positively identify what those are in the photo from that list I just linked to… so feel free to chime in if you know!

Whatever they are, they’re a pretty shade of purple and no doubt look delicious to squirrels.  But then again, what doesn’t?

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Share Your World – Week 276

Posted on April 18, 2024 by evilsquirrel13

Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect your Sunday shoes.

The town of Elmore City, Oklahoma kicked up its heels for the first time on April 18, 1980 when the local high school held its first ever prom to feature actual…. (gasp!) dancing!  The city had long banned the disgusting act of cutting loose in public places, and the kids fought for and finally won the right to legally bust a move (though only because the dance was not deemed to be a “public event” by town leaders).  And yes, this was the story that inspired the 1984 movie Footloose…

Elmore City still has a ban on public nudity…. as do so many other backwards cities around the world.

Now The Nest will take its two left feet and put them to better use answering this week’s Share Your World questions from Di…

This scene is too sexualized for Elmore City.

Regardless of whether you had them or not, can you remember three popular toys from when you were a child?

I can remember all kinds of toys that were popular when I was a child…. a surprising number of which can still be found on store shelves today (even if they look a bit different from back in the day).

Lite Brite was a favorite which let you make art on a backlit pegboard, and is still sold today.

So many small pieces for kids to choke on. The perfect gift!

I was lucky enough to have a Mr. Potato Head from just before he had his iconic pipe taken away from him by the Anti-smoking nazis…

This was the exact design I remember! Puff on that pipe, Spuds!

And for a toy I didn’t have (nor did my sisters thankfully), there’s Puppy Surprise!

Sticking your hand up a dog’s coochie has to count as animal abuse.

I did a whole Retro Ad post mocking this travesty of a toy back in 2015, and declared that at least this terrible idea for a children’s activity would never see the light of day again.  Only it did….. they brought back Puppy Surprise a few years ago in the midst of the insane market for toy collectibles that now makes up nearly a third of the entire toy department at work.  Puppy Surprise with its rare (4 pups) and ultra rare (5 pups) models was not only a stupid idea, it was a stupid idea that was ahead of its time…

Did you ever want something specific as a child, but never had it?

An Atari.  We had the ColecoVision, which was better and more expensive than Atari.  But I fell in love with playing Pitfall at a friend’s house who had Atari, and Coleco didn’t have Pitfall…

Coleco did have this shitty ass Smurfs game which was about as much fun as falling into a crocodile pit.

Do you still have any toys or games from your childhood?

My sisters and I destroyed and/or lost every toy/game we ever had…. usually within weeks.  I still have the odd relic from the past though, many of which could be spotted in my Shelf Critter Theatre stories…

Now I wish I had a Ninja on a Skateboard when I was a kid…

I think I’ve asked this before, but what was your favorite toy as a child?

Well, after the ColecoVision and the nine games we had for it got old, there was the Nintendo Entertainment System…. the best video game console in the history of the market.

Hours of fun!

Gratitude AI Image:

I have a new favorite toy.  My Lite Brite art never earned me any money…

Mitzi says “Yooooohoooooo!!!!”

I think I’m gonna try to sell that one…

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D-Minus Earworm

Posted on April 15, 2024 by evilsquirrel13

I get a D-minus in effort on my blog.

It’s time for another lost earworm straight outta DJ Scratchy’s Dusty Vinyl Archive!  Let’s see what B-side reject she’s found for us today…

I was scrolling through some of my very old DVA posts the other day and hit on one I did almost exactly eight years ago for Dean Friedman’s lost hit “Ariel.”  In the comments of that post, a certain someone who used to faithfully read my blog (Hi if you’re lurking!) mentioned that the bass line in Ariel was a lot like that of another song that came out just a couple years prior.  Some third rate song about a “Third Rate Romance”…

“Third Rate Romance” was a #14 hit from the 1975 debut album of a Tennessee band by the name of The Amazing Rhythm Aces.  Like just about every other American band that got its start in the 70’s, they did a lot of country rock… and this song is country rock all over, with a sense of humor about a really awkward hookup.

Of course, if this were really a third rate song, it wouldn’t have also been recorded by luminaries such as Elvis Costello, Tom Jones, and a group called The Fabulous Poodles…

Third rate high class romance.

I’ll have a really awesome fourth rate lost hit for you next Monday….

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