It's how you wear it that matters!

Thelma Todd

Polly Walters

Aileen Pringle

Alice White

Gwen Lee

An interesting day...

I get to the doctors office today and I am led to the back by a very professional and friendly nurse. We get to chatting and I find she is an ER nurse - nothing to blink at. After spending some quality time recently in the hospital I have a whole new found respect for ER people. We get to chatting about the weather and how really careless drivers are between going too fast and driving too close and we came to the conclusion that people just don't think and there is very little common sense in use out there on Midwestern roads. Then she said something that blew my mind - "The new man in the White House will bring back common sense". I nearly fell over. Honest to goodness she believes that Obama can make people use their common sense. All I could reply was "I sure hope so!" and left it at that. Well let's face it I certainly didn't want to piss off the person handling my test. But WOW. I found her naivety most shocking. Here was an obviously intelligent woman, seemingly well read and up to date on current events but then that came out. I have to admit it made me so curious and I wanted to ask 100 questions as to how, why and when, but like I said I didn't feel I was in the right place.

For the longest time I had thought this Obama cult thing was media hype, do people really believe he is going to give them free healthcare and pay their mortgages?! Are people really so gullible? To think that Obama is going to make people have common sense is really stretching it a bit. I think it was Gandhi who said "Be the change that you want to see in the world", no one can make you change, you and only you can make that change. Perhaps people can inspire you but ultimately only you can change you. Maybe Obama inspires people to be better, if that's the case all the power to them, I hope they succeed in being a positive change in their communities and maybe even the world.

The scary part of all this cult like Obama worshipping is the fact that no one seems to like to mention the fact that he's only human, just like you and me. He's apt to stumble and fall, screw up, make bad decisions and mistakes just like the rest of us. What will all these people who believe in his infallibility do when he eventually does screw up or fail? It isn't pretty when peoples heroes take falls. I wonder if he realizes that he carries the weight of the hopes, dreams and aspirations of many people on his shoulders? Not to mention the burden of the many people who just want everything handed to them free and clear? How will they react when they find out that their unrealistic expectations will go unmet? How will the hero worshippers take learning that their god is only flesh and blood? Only time will tell...

A great Valentines night dress

Here's a great dress for that romantic evening out on Valentine's Day! Feminine and sleek velvet slenderizes your figure into beauty personified ~ daring to bare only so much to keep the mystery of you. A bustle of taffeta completes the look, tied into a perfect bow to cover the perfect end! Simple yet elegant jewelry enhances the look and gives this gown the polish it needs along with high heel strappy shoes. No longer do you have to wear your heart on your sleeve - you can wear it on your greatest asset now! Accent those curves and those gorgeous gams girls!

(I'm not sure where this photo is from but it is from 1930. The irony of it, and I do love irony, is that the number of the photo starts with "But..." Irony just doesn't get much better than that!)

The Cat Brain

THE CAT BRAIN

The Ultimate Fashion No-No

10 points for stratigiclly arranged maribu!

I do wonder how does one enter a doorway with this dress on?!

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Take a hint in case you decide to wear a 'Swan Dress' in the future:

If Marlene Dietrich couldn't pull it off in 1935, nor could Bjork in 2001 - chances are you will look just a stupid if you wear one. I could be wrong, but I certainly won't be wearing one of these feathered doozies and I certainly ain't no fashion diva!!!

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Yikes, but I do like those shoes!

Bjork did auction this dress off on Ebay (or plans to, not sure if it already happened) for a charity event so that's definitely a positive side to this fashion disaster.
I wonder what it sold for?!

Elinor Fair

Elinor Fair was born Eleanore Virginia Crowe on December 21, 1904 in Richmond, Virginia. During her childhood her family moved many times and she lived in New York, Virginia, Washington State, California and possibly other states. Though her first screen credit was at the youthful age of 13, Elinor started her career as a violinist. According to some releases she studied music in Berlin, Paris and London but returned to the United States when World War 1 broke out. After returning to the States she worked on stage and in Vaudeville then in 1916 the family moved to California when Eleanor started work in silent films.

Early on she was credited as Eleanore Crowe, Lenore Fair and finally Elinor Fair. She was a popular actress and received positive reviews for her performances in both drama and comedies. Some of her most popular early films were a string of comedies about the marital misadventures where she was paired with Albert Ray. Then in the early 1920's came more dramatic films and again, more rave reviews of her performances. By the time 1924 rolled around and Elinor was chosen as a WAMPAS Baby Star she already had at least 33 movies under her belt! Elinor's biggest role came when she caught the attention of Cecil B Demille. DeMille cast her opposite William Boyd in 1926's epic story of The Volga Boatman. As the feminine lead she certainly did shine!

Unfortunately The Volga Boatman was the peak of her career. When filming wrapped, Elinor and William Boyd who had fallen in love during the filming, went to Santa Ana and were married on January 13, 1926. It was his third marriage and her first.

After the wedding, she went on to act in more movies some of which also starred Boyd. Like The Yankee Clipper. Then it seems she went into semi-retirement, happy to be Mrs. William Boyd. Sadly in only a few short years the marriage ended badly amid rumors of mental instability, drug use and infidelity on Elinor's part.

With her marriage finished, Elinor tried to go back to work although the parts became less important and much more scarce. She had put on some weight and her strong Southern accent seemed to work against her in the talkies. In the years 1930 and 1931 she couldn't get any movie parts. Finally in 1932 she was able to find some extra work and her last film was an uncredited bit in 1934. Frail mental health and 'nerves' no doubt came into play also.

After all the good parts stopped coming her way, things started to unravel for Elinor. After years of being a top billed actress she was only given small and sometimes uncredited bits. Life would never be the same for her and soon her mental stability was also called into question as her behavior became more and more erratic. In 1932 after having a fight with her movie stunt pilot fiance Frank Clark she flew to Yuma Arizona and eloped with aviator Thomas Daniels out of spite. A few hours after the nuptials, Elinor returned to her fiance and explained to the press "I was blue after having quarreled with Frank Clark my sweetheart and I thought I'd show him how smart I was. It was just a big mistake." After this affair, Daniels was arrested for writing a bad check to cover the flight to Arizona though this was soon cleared up when he made good on the payment. A few days later Elinor was reported to be 'seriously ill and at the home of her mother recovering'. I have found no evidence of her ever marrying Frank Clark. In July of 1934 shortly after Elinor received her annulment from their first marriage, she remarried Thomas Daniels. Their second divorce came about a year and a half later in 1935.

By 1936, in her own words she was broke due to "poor business investments and wildcat stocks" Elinor was financially destitute and was unable pay her rent or medical bills. Elinor was twice found by the police wandering the streets in a bad mental state when she and her mother were about to be evicted from their apartment. Both of her ex husbands stepped in to help them out. William Boyd hired a doctor and a nurse for her and agreed to pay all her expenses until she was able to work again. Daniels took care of her rent. "If Elinor could just get her health back" said Mrs. Crowe "I know she could go into pictures again. But her nerves won't stand it. Everything is gone now - money, furs, jewels, cars. I don't know what we are going to do when another rent day comes around."

In 1938 Elinor along with other broke and forgotten silent movie stars petitioned the governor for a law that would compel actors and actresses to save 10% of their earnings in order to protect them from having to beg for bit parts when they were no longer in demand. It was called Career Insurance or Mandatory Film Savings Law, sadly this turned out to be a press agent stunt to exploit fallen stars in order to promote a new movie.

Elinor married Jack White, an actor, in 1941, but this marriage also would be short lived. White filed for divorce charging that Elinor was continuously intoxicated, he received a marriage annulment in early 1944.

Elinor passed away in 1957.

http://www.dorothysebastian.com/efair.html

My Dove Garden

The widest thing occurred today. As usual I feed my ducks every day, whatever they miss goes to the little birds that are around here like sparrows, juncos, starlings and doves. Well it seems the doves have decided that this is the place to hang out at because here are 7 of them snoozing in my garden paraphernalia. I have been meaning to get out there and clean all the fences and empty pots up and put them away, but it seems the birds like all the clutter... They are a little hard to see on the left, but there are three there. The one on the top left is cute, he watches me but doesn't fly away as quickly as the others do. Guess he's used to me being curious about them. I snapped this picture through the sliding glass door because if I moved any closer they would all get nervous and fly away and I didn't want that to happen. Besides, the door was frozen shut. Literally! It has been so cold here that for two days now I've needed to use my hairdryer to thaw out the sliding door just to open it. Moments of sunshine that is usually enough to warm it and thaw it are few and far between. I feel so bad for all the little critters out in this weather, yet they survive in it. Isn't nature amazing? Click on the picture to make it much larger, that way you can see all 7 doves...

Iceman the Duck

Meet a mallard drake named Iceman the Duck. We named him that because he almost froze to death during the first bad freeze of this winter. He's a little miracle duck! A few weeks ago, one night the temps went down from 20 degrees to below zero in just a matter of a few hours. To make things worse there was a terrible wind that just wouldn't stop blowing. Parts of the pond that hadn't frozen yet sprayed upon this little guy as he lounged on the ice and his left wing became frozen to the surface of the pond. Iceman struggled for most the day to free himself, twisting the stuck wing into what looked like a feathered pretzel. He was too far out for a person to reach him (my husband tried twice) so he had to free himself with only the help of the sunshine. We really thought we were going to lose him for a while there.

Somehow between his struggling and the warm sun (it never really did go above freezing that day) this duck got himself free of the ice! Now his wing is torn up pretty badly as he needed to pull out a bunch of feathers to free himself, but he seems to be pretty much back to normal now. Unfortunately he cannot fly so he and another mallard drake with a damaged wing have become fast friends and always travel around here together. We call that one Parky. Happily they like to stop by our patio for food and we happily oblige!

Grace Bradley

Grace Bradley (aka Mrs. Hopalong Cassidy) in 1934.

http://www.dorothysebastian.com/gracebradley.html

A beautiful photo of Dorothy Sebastian

Dorothy Sebastian 1903 - 1957

Actress

www.dorothysebastian.com

The Crawling Eye - run for the hills! No run away from the hills!

Oh happy day! Did I find a GREAT stinky Limburger cheese of a film today! We didn't make it to the bookstore this past weekend due to an ice storm but I am glad we went tonight. Today's movie rant is about the unforgettable 84 minute cornea assault known as "The Crawling Eye". Maybe they should have called it "Oversize Moaning Tentacled Eyeballs of the Alps" instead. The hills were definitely alive ~ but with what leaves you wondering as it certainly wasn't music.



Come to think of it, the eyes did crawl....


Here's my description of this highly underrated cinematic masterpiece: Mountain climbers keep turning up headless or not at all. Then while the hero and star of the film (Forrest Tucker of F-Troop fame) is heading to the film's ground zero, he meets on his train 2 sisters, one of which is clairvoyant. So they all go to the same hotel and find out about the disappearances when they arrive.



Then our hero meets with a scientist friend who has a lab on an observatory conveniently located on the same mountain responsible for all the disappearances and deaths. Here we learn about a mysterious and radioactive cloud (hey, this is from the 50's!) that seems to move with a certain amount of intelligence... Which is a good thing because that is the ONLY intelligence in the whole film. Anyway, after the cloud whacks a few more folks; all the living survivors, lab staff and the whole village of about 17 people end up seeking refuge in the observatory. There they wait for the inevitable - death by cheesy movie monster.


Now I know you will want to run out, buy this film and see it for yourself so I refuse to divulge how this one ends. But I will tell let you in on some 0f the exciting aspects of this sadly Academy overlooked brilliance: Molotov cocktails! Thrilling escape scenes! Murderous zombified people! Little girls almost grabbed by evil alien tentacles! Then there's that heart stopping moment when you just don't know if the cable car will make it to the top or come crashing down the rocky mountain with all it's helpless passengers -aaaarrgghhh there's just too much suspense! You MUST see it to find out..... Or at least to laugh your bummy off like we did.

I think living in a Pixar world, sometimes we take for granted the special effects we have nowadays. We should probably appreciate more of the old sci-fi effects as I'm sure movie makers did the best they could to pull off a movie in the 1950's whose guest stars were giant eyes with tentacles. Brilliantly using the old 'blow up the front door so all you can see is a HUGE eyeball looking in at a tiny victim' scene. Used to great affect in this gem.

OK, maybe appreciate is too strong a word but I get a strong feeling that a large amount of tequila may have been involved with the making of this film. That's cool with me though, especially since you don't need large amounts of tequila to enjoy this film.... But you may need to if you lack a sufficient sense of humor to get through the ending!!!

1950's film-makers and their 'women issues'...

I have come to the conclusion that the men who made horror and sci-fi movies in the 1950's all had serious 'women issues'.... Click the photos for a better view of their cheesiness! :)

Why do cats need humans?

There are days, weeks or years when you feel on top of the world and in total control of your life. Then something happens to make you realize that total control is more or less relative, if not an illusion!

Case in point, our favorite pets ~ Click here to find out: Why do cats need humans....
http://iam.homewithgod.com/nspirn1/WhyDoCatsNeedHumans.html

3 men to walk on water..

There have been 3 men in the history of the world to walk on water.

This shows the 3rd man in history to ever walk on water.

The 1st one was Jesus Christ.

The 2nd one was Peter the apostle.

Then there was this guy, Jose, a local from Houston......

Last photo

This is probably the last thing the photographer remembers before it all went dark....

Monkeys....

The Angry Duck

A Spurt of Quake Activity Raises Fears in Yellowstone

We who live along Montana's Yellowstone River are downstream from a simmering caldera, a geologic hot spot that has become especially active recently. Indeed, Yellowstone National Park contains the floor of a gigantic volcanic cauldron, one that rises and sinks with the forces that lie beneath - hence the picturesque geysers and steam holes. But a wave of recent earthquake activity is raising fears that have their origins 642,000 years ago, when a Yellowstone "supervolcano" exploded so violently that it created the caldera itself. Today, such an explosion - 1,000 times more powerful than the explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980 - would not only cover most of the U.S. with ash but also throw so much dust into the atmosphere that the world's climate could change.

Could the current activity be the warning signs of another such apocalypse? Or just a large but not world-ending earthquake, like the 7.5-magnitude temblor that happened on a summer night in 1959 and caused a mountain to slide down into a campground, killing 28 people and damming the Madison River?

Last week, geologists at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) announced they had recorded a "notable swarm of earthquakes under way since Dec. 26 beneath Yellowstone Lake." The strongest tremor among the hundreds in the past week measured 3.9 on Dec. 27; most of the readings above 2.8 were felt by park employees and visitors around the lake area. The activity relaxed in magnitude early this week but then flexed upward again to top 3.0 by early New Year's Eve. "This December 2008 earthquake sequence is the most intense in this area for some years," YVO reported, "and is centered on the east side of the Yellowstone Caldera," the ancient collapsed volcano beneath Yellowstone Lake. The scientists said they cannot immediately "identify any causative fault or other feature without further analysis." (See a gallery of recent volcanic eruptions.)

This activity could have a whole range of consequences. In a study released last year, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said possible hazards could include hydrothermal explosions, when steam breaks through the surface and forms a crater. That has happened 26 times in the park's 127 years of record-keeping. The USGS discounted chances for cataclysmic eruption of the caldera, noting that the hot, active magma chamber below Yellowstone has turned into "largely crystallized mush." But the same study also said: "Depending on the nature and magnitude of a particular hazardous event and the particular time and season when it might occur, 70,000 to more than 100,000 persons could be affected; the most violent events could affect a broader region or even continent-wide areas."

Jake Lowenstern, Ph.D., YVO's chief scientist, who also is part of the USGS Volcano Hazards Team, told TIME that a supervolcano event does not appear to be imminent. "We don't think the amount of magma exists that would create one of these large eruptions of the past," he said. "It is still possible to have a volcanic eruption comparable to other volcanoes. But we would expect to see more and larger quakes, deformation and precursory explosions out of the lake. We don't believe that anything strange is happening right now." Last summer YVO installed new instrumentation in boreholes 500 to 600 ft. deep to better detect ground deformation. Says Lowenstern: "We have a lot more ability to look at all the data now." (See an interactive graphic depicting how scientists monitor volcanoes.)

The Yellowstone Caldera - formed by the massive upheaval 642,000 years ago that spread airborne debris all the way to the Gulf of Mexico - is nowhere close to being extinct. Areas of the park's topography inflate like a bellows because of magma infusing into volcanic chambers about 6 miles below the surface. About 1,000 to 2,000 tremors a year (mostly small) have been recorded since 2004, when interpretation of satellite imagery with GPS readings indicated the caldera had been rising as much as 3 in. a year. The past week's number of tremors - about 400 - is considered unusual.

The 1991 explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines was the largest eruption in recent memory, and its effects on the atmosphere are still being measured. The 1883 eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa led to a global cooling and the deadly winter of 1886-87 that wiped out the short-lived open-range cattle bonanza of Montana Territory. In 2000, Ken Wohletz, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, postulated that an even bigger Krakatoa eruption in 6th century A.D. may have sent a tall plume of vaporized seawater into the atmosphere, causing the formation of stratospheric ice clouds with superfine hydrovolcanic ash, which literally cast a pall over much of the world at the beginning of what became known as the Dark Ages.
YVO's alert code for the Yellowstone Caldera stands at green, but if it ever elevates to yellow or red based on seismic readings, Lowenstern says, "Ultimately it's my responsibility to put out alerts. The National Park Service and local officials would be responsible for civil defense measures and evacuation plans. For now, life goes on. The system is generally automated, and a seismologist at the University of Utah is on call to make sure it's a real event should it be anything unusual."

This time of year, Yellowstone is a land of dramatic fire-and-ice contrasts, with hissing, boiling water heated in chambers far below shooting out clouds of steam over a subzero, snowy alpine landscape, where bison and elk find warm patches of open ground to browse. We who live here, it has been said, do so at the mercy of geology. In much of the West, with its long seismic faults and Yellowstone-centered hot spots, it is for humans a sublimely tenuous coexistence with the earth's fickle tectonic temperaments.

By PAT DAWSON / BILLINGS

Poodle With a Mohawk

Awesome photo

This photo was taken in Latvia.

Not sure who took it, but it sure is a beauty!

Lewd Garden Gnomes

I remember a story from the newspaper when I was living in Germany of how this man collected "lewd gnomes". These adult garden decorating naughtys vanished from their home in his Berlin garden so the owner phoned the police to report the gnomenapping. Sorry, but I don 't know if the little pointed hat pervy's ever found their way back home.

Reminds me of the "Gnome Liberation Front" we had back in Upstate New York who stole a bunch of people's garden gnomes and then placed them around a baseball diamond at a local park so they could get out and have a little gnome fun. They even left a note explaining that to the police...

Perhaps tending gardens all day can make gnomes a little restless?

Want to see some lewd gnomes? Go here: http://www.tradition-shop.de/index.php I have never shopped there, but it's a good chuckle anyway. Lewd gnomes fresh from Germany ~and you thought only the beer was worth going there for!

Resolutions smesolutions!

Here we go again, a new year and a new resolution or two or ten...

What was I thinking?! Like I really plan to carry out a plan conceived on a night when adult beverages are a flowin' freely about the room? Some vodka induced weight loss plan? Decisions decided after shots and beer chasers? Promises made after after 3 too many Long Island Iced Tea's) cannot legally be considered able to hold water!! And then champers....Good grief! I didn't even drink this year - I was the "DD"!

Resolutions smesolutions. Don't think so. Resolutions get packed away with the Christmas decorations for next year.

No resolutions for this year for me. I need to keep all the ones from previous years that I have been re-resoluting. Let's face it, most things we resolve are lifestyle changing anyway - like weight loss, or being more organized, having patience yada yada you get the idea. It's not something to restart it's something to be continued or else you've wasted it and have to start from scratch. OK so that's where all new resolutions come in! Uugh! It's a vicious cycle!

Anyway, Happy New Year!