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shadowkat
3. The Danish/American comedian and pianist, Victor Borge was born on this day in 1909. Are you familiar with his comedy style?
He was very popular in the 1950s when I was growing up. It's good that there are recordings of his routines.
4. Dry January is a campaign where people choose to abstain from alcohol for the entire month of January (the campaign was started in 2013 by Alcohol Change UK, a UK charity). Are you joining in with dry January?
I haven't had any booze in years, but mostly because it makes me gain weight.
6. When was the last time you cleaned/polished your shoes?
Oddly, I wanted to buy some shoe polish this past week. I haven't found any for sale yet. I don't know if it's just Tucson being Tucson or it's out of fashion everywhere in the U.S.
8. Do you tend to text people or phone them and chat?
Right now more texting.
9. On this day in 1969, the first trial flight of Concorde, the supersonic jetliner, took place in Bristol, England. Have you, or anyone you know, been on Concorde?
Nope. I'm just glad the supersonic military flights over this country ended many years ago... BOOM!!!
10. Has anything recently made you laugh out loud?
My cat somehow speeding up a YouTube video with his paws on the keyboard a few minutes ago.
12. In 1966 Adam West debuted in TV’s Batman. Do you have a favourite actor who has taken on the Batman role on TV or in film?
I enjoyed the Batman comics, back when, but don't think much of the live action TV or movie versions. I probably just got too disgusted with the 1960s version.
13. What’s the weather like where you live today? Is it typical for your area at this time of year?
Chilly in the morning tending toward warm in the afternoon. It's started getting the coldest in January rather than in December, like it did a few years ago in AZ.
14. Ironing – yes or no..?
Hell, no. I gave my iron to my mother when hers died decades ago.
16. How often do you eat out at restaurants or cafés?
About twice a month. Once with my nieces and once with my former neighbor.
17. In Somerset (England), it is traditional on this day to enter the orchards and toast the trees with cider to encourage a fruitful season. Have you ever had alcoholic Somerset cider or Scrumpy?
No, but I miss having unpasteurized cider that would go hard in the fridge.
19. How many pairs of socks do you own?
Many, I don't know how many.
20. How do you keep your photographs? As physical copies or virtual copies on a device? Do you sort them into real/virtual albums?
I keep both hard-copy photographs and electronic ones. I don't really like albums.
21. Have you ever made pastry from scratch?
Cookies, brownies and cake, but not pastry.
22. Are you a cat person or a dog person?
I like both, but currently my cat is insisting I be a cat person.
23. On this day in 1842 Charles Dickens arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, to start a tour of the US (he wrote about it in a travelogue: American Notes for General Circulation). Have you a favourite Dickens novel?
Bleak House. Yes, I know I'm weird.
24. It’s the International Day of Education – what was your favourite class in school?
I suppose I better say Russian, since that's what I went to grad school in.
26. Where is your favourite place in your home?
Hard to choose between my library and in bed on these chilly nights.
27. Have you ever been boating?
Many, many times. My father loved boating to the point I got bored of it.
28. Most countries have at least one example of a long-running soap on TV. Do you watch soaps (have you in the past)?
Just for giggles I watched a bit of a well-known soap back in the 1990s. The thing I remember is a guy and his son getting on a plane in Springfield to fly to Las Vegas to stop their ex-wife/mother from making the mistake of her life, by marrying someone else. The flight was so slow, it took them the whole week of earnest discussions on the plane to get there. Quicker than by ox cart, but not quick. They might as well have gone by car and seen the sights along the way and stayed in comfy hotels every night. Naturally when they got there the father realizes that the marriage will make his ex-wife happy so he smiles and just congratulates her when he sees her. Of course she divorces the new guy in six months or a year. But it's a soap so nobody really cares or remembers.
shadowkat3. The Danish/American comedian and pianist, Victor Borge was born on this day in 1909. Are you familiar with his comedy style?
He was very popular in the 1950s when I was growing up. It's good that there are recordings of his routines.
4. Dry January is a campaign where people choose to abstain from alcohol for the entire month of January (the campaign was started in 2013 by Alcohol Change UK, a UK charity). Are you joining in with dry January?
I haven't had any booze in years, but mostly because it makes me gain weight.
6. When was the last time you cleaned/polished your shoes?
Oddly, I wanted to buy some shoe polish this past week. I haven't found any for sale yet. I don't know if it's just Tucson being Tucson or it's out of fashion everywhere in the U.S.
8. Do you tend to text people or phone them and chat?
Right now more texting.
9. On this day in 1969, the first trial flight of Concorde, the supersonic jetliner, took place in Bristol, England. Have you, or anyone you know, been on Concorde?
Nope. I'm just glad the supersonic military flights over this country ended many years ago... BOOM!!!
10. Has anything recently made you laugh out loud?
My cat somehow speeding up a YouTube video with his paws on the keyboard a few minutes ago.
12. In 1966 Adam West debuted in TV’s Batman. Do you have a favourite actor who has taken on the Batman role on TV or in film?
I enjoyed the Batman comics, back when, but don't think much of the live action TV or movie versions. I probably just got too disgusted with the 1960s version.
13. What’s the weather like where you live today? Is it typical for your area at this time of year?
Chilly in the morning tending toward warm in the afternoon. It's started getting the coldest in January rather than in December, like it did a few years ago in AZ.
14. Ironing – yes or no..?
Hell, no. I gave my iron to my mother when hers died decades ago.
16. How often do you eat out at restaurants or cafés?
About twice a month. Once with my nieces and once with my former neighbor.
17. In Somerset (England), it is traditional on this day to enter the orchards and toast the trees with cider to encourage a fruitful season. Have you ever had alcoholic Somerset cider or Scrumpy?
No, but I miss having unpasteurized cider that would go hard in the fridge.
19. How many pairs of socks do you own?
Many, I don't know how many.
20. How do you keep your photographs? As physical copies or virtual copies on a device? Do you sort them into real/virtual albums?
I keep both hard-copy photographs and electronic ones. I don't really like albums.
21. Have you ever made pastry from scratch?
Cookies, brownies and cake, but not pastry.
22. Are you a cat person or a dog person?
I like both, but currently my cat is insisting I be a cat person.
23. On this day in 1842 Charles Dickens arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, to start a tour of the US (he wrote about it in a travelogue: American Notes for General Circulation). Have you a favourite Dickens novel?
Bleak House. Yes, I know I'm weird.
24. It’s the International Day of Education – what was your favourite class in school?
I suppose I better say Russian, since that's what I went to grad school in.
26. Where is your favourite place in your home?
Hard to choose between my library and in bed on these chilly nights.
27. Have you ever been boating?
Many, many times. My father loved boating to the point I got bored of it.
28. Most countries have at least one example of a long-running soap on TV. Do you watch soaps (have you in the past)?
Just for giggles I watched a bit of a well-known soap back in the 1990s. The thing I remember is a guy and his son getting on a plane in Springfield to fly to Las Vegas to stop their ex-wife/mother from making the mistake of her life, by marrying someone else. The flight was so slow, it took them the whole week of earnest discussions on the plane to get there. Quicker than by ox cart, but not quick. They might as well have gone by car and seen the sights along the way and stayed in comfy hotels every night. Naturally when they got there the father realizes that the marriage will make his ex-wife happy so he smiles and just congratulates her when he sees her. Of course she divorces the new guy in six months or a year. But it's a soap so nobody really cares or remembers.
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Was the soap As the World Turns? I wasn't really watching it in the 1990s, but it sounds like it. That took place in the Midwest. It might have also been The Guiding Light, which also took place in the midwest, I think. (I don't know, stopped watching both in 1995). They died in the early 00s.
I'm with you on ironing. And I keep meaning to read Bleak House - I might try the audio book, I have that.
Also, pastry? Impossible to do well - it requires precision in basically every step. There's 0 room for error. Also it's a lot of work. Just no. (And that was before I was diagnosed with gluten intolerance.)
From:
no subject
I remember As the World Turns and The Guiding Light from the early 1950s. Back then The Guiding Light had the classic, sometimes sappy, sometimes overly dramatic organ music punctuating everything, DUN, DUN, DUN! The opening of As the World Turns with the spinning Earth was at least clever. This was before I started in school. I had the TV on when they were on to keep me company, but saying I watched them would be a lie.
The closest thing to pastry my mother ever made from scratch was pie crust. But once she tried refrigerated crust from the store, she gave that up for good. You can't eat it anyway, but it's let me bake a few pies for myself without all the extra work.
From:
no subject
It is popular - but I always found it boring.
Guiding Light started on radio, and dates back to pre-television. It ended around 2010, I think? I don't know, I stopped in the early 90s when it went off the rails. Neither were as you remembered. Soaps have changed a great deal since you watched them. For one thing? They are more diverse now, and there's more action. For example? A bomb went off in a penthouse, a character was engulfed in flames, and sent to a burn unit in Germany in a medically induced coma. And two other characters were murdered in the hospital and they are investigating.
It moves a little faster too. No one takes long plane flights. Usually the plane flight lasts five minutes. Or seconds. One minute they are in the US next in Germany or Paris or Sweden. They can get across town in a snap - I think the writers got bored of writing long scenes on planes and trains.
They are also filmed at the speed of light. One take. 240 pages in a day. Over 10 episodes a day. This isn't your mother's or grandmother's soap.
**
I get gluten free pre-made pie crust which is kind of the same thing from health food stores.