A music machine using marbles or balls....

 Yesterday, a friend in the U.K. posted a video about a machine that plays music by using marbles or small balls. This is another similar but different one.

 

Let's have some music, shall we?

 

 

Reconciliation: 'Give the country back to the Indians'

Once, facetiously, I said, "If we tried to give the country back to the Indians with the condition it's in these days, they probably wouldn't take it."

Looks like I was wrong about that. Lately, there's been a rash of demands by our venerable aboriginal community both hither and yon for a return of not only their traditional lands, but a return of their traditional hunting and fishing rights. 

The lands, they could have, perhaps, if they can successfully wrest them from the tightly clenched fists of the existing establishment, which will insincerely but quite graciously try to pacify them in hopes of continuing to seem to be doing something while actually avoiding that like the plague. 

However, the hunting and fishing rights, such as they'd like to have within one of our access-restricted forested water reservoir areas, I'm against. Their tearful pleas of needing these rights for the continuance of their traditional ways of living strikes me as being more than a little hollow, a bit dishonest, actually. And I say that because our local aboriginals not only shop for their groceries at the same supermarkets we all use, but they also work there, and probably get an employee discount. They look and act healthy, and most of them are in much better shape than I am. 

They profess to respect and honor nature and the earth, and if so, then why do they need the right to hunt game and catch fish that are already endangered from encroachment of civilization and recent climate changes? I just can't connect the dots on this one. This just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, I'm sorry. Leave those deer and those fish alone! 

Today's 'Question Everything' is ....

Why is our health authority about to relax restrictions for full crowds at sports events and concerts, while we're seeing a 5 month high in requirements for beds in our hospitals because of new Covid cases? Is our government playing politics with our healthcare requirements? Is this just more of the old 'Mushroom Philosophy'? You know.... 'Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em BS'... I certainly hope not! 

 

Here's some famous guys from an old movie...

 And the old movie is 'A Song Is Born' with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, and most of the big band era's top players and band leaders. But this bit is about two guys that were known as Buck and Bubbles, and the piano work is amazing...

Here's a song I like, done by Annette Hanshaw back about the time I was born...

 When I first stumbled on this tune on YouTube, I couldn't hardly believe how well it sounds. It seems almost like a more recent effort. Or maybe it's just me....

Most of our leaves are still showing but it was frosty last night.

 

The leaves are turning

 

This still works, I think...

The format on here seems to have changed, but the blog is still active. 

I wondered about that, and did some searching, and found it is still 

being maintained, and that Google has no plans to shut it down.

I hope that's the right information.

Christmas 2020

 

Forest fires are reducing our air quality

 In the past few days, we are getting smoke from fires

further south, in the USA. It is getting bad.

Having 'second thoughts' .....

After thinking about it, I may have been hasty in deciding against the new blogger.

I'm old now, and changes are not as welcome as they once were. But they are inevitable, and we have to deal with that. I'll try to do that.

So please try to stay tuned....

Previous posting continued....

In the previous posting, I said Google has cloned Twitter with its changes to Blogger.

Why would I say that? Because they've been cropping my recent posts during the process

of publishing them. Obviously Blogger as I know it is dead. It's no longer worth my time.

"Some things are not the same as the others..."

Some things are not the same as the others... one thing is not like the others...

With apologies to the famous children's show, Sesame Street, I'm referring here to multitasking megamonster Google's venerable old Blogger project that launched millions of us into the realm of cyberspace, lo those many years ago, and its latest modernization by Google into something they shyly tell us is meant to make it more accessible to phones.  They've cloned Twitter but they don't have the balls to say so, so let me say it for them. How do I like it? Just don't ask. You won't like my answer.

Today's paper:- "What is 'spin doctoring'? An example...

Here's something I'd call a good example of 'spin doctoring'....

This implies that Justin can save the day by giving us yet more bafflegab to explain away this, his third violation of the Ethics Commissioner's code of ethics for politicians with proclivities for jumping into bed with lobbyists, supporters,  or 'friends' seen as being useful to the furtherance of one's career and beneficial for one's chances of re-election.

This is his third serious violation of the ethics code governing precocious politicos bent on furthering their careers by any handy means without regard to established rules.

 

Today in the Globe and Mail...

My previous post questions whether 'I love a piano' is a song title...

So here's Irving Berlin's 'I love a piano' done with a modern touch...

I love a piano...

That almost seems like a song title.... but let's have examples,  may we?

Let's begin with a little Fats Waller tune,  Ain't Misbehavin',  played by Stephanie Trick...

 

I never learned to play piano, but I love listening to one, and Stephanie does a great job.
Let's have another from her.  Here's Anitra's Dance ... 

She also has fun with her partner...

We started on a Fats Waller favorite, so let's hear old Fats himself....

Fats did that in the 1943 movie 'Stormy Weather'  in which Lena Horne sang the title tune and never looked back. Here she is, doing one of my favorite Cole Porter songs....

Updating Linux Mint 19.3 -

On this desktop, there are two drives: an optical solid-state drive, and a regular hard-drive. I have Linux Mint 20 on the optical drive, and its predecessor 19.3 on the larger hard-drive. Both are actively supported systems. LM-20 is fully supported until 2025, and LM-19.3 is fully supported until 2023. Lately, I've been familiarizing myself with LM-20, but today, I've updated LM-19.3 with its latest batch of updates.

Why two versions of the same operating system? For comparison, and to find out which I like best, and why. So far, I can't decide on one over the other. Both are very good, and I like them both. The older one is more familiar, and the newer is fun to explore, and both, as they say, 'just work'. Unlike Mighty Microsoft's Windows, these don't require a lot of frantic searching for repairs to their parts. They work the first time, and they work properly. And they update or upgrade a hell of a lot faster than Windows ever has. That's one of the main reasons I like them so much. These guys who make Linux Mint know how, and it shows where it really counts. You should try it...

A little more Annette Hanshaw...