Just A Bit Of News …

Here’s just a bit of news from around the planet.

Just when you thought this year couldn’t get any worse – Snow White died!  Not the real one, obviously, but the one that Disney turned into a feature length anim … “Oh, for Godsake!  It was a cartoon!”  Anyway, Marge Champion has passed away.  She was 101.  Back in the 1930s, she was the teenage dancer Disney hired as a live model for his megahit Snow White.  She worked on and off for two years and was paid $10.00 a day (Actually decent money, back then.)  But Ms. Champion was only the body.  Adriana Caselotti was the voice, and she passed away in 1997.  Thus, Disney’s Snow White is no more.  But that’s okay: we all know that — like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and all the rest — Snow White is actually immortal.

In other news, the town of Asbestos, Canada (Pop. 7,096) has decided to change its name.  From now on, it wants to be known as Val-des-Sources.  Kinda cool, given that asbestos is one of the bogeymen these days.  However, there are a significant number of townspeople who aren’t happy about it.  They speak French, and they see this as another example of the Anglo-Canadian majority pushing them around.  You see, the French word for “asbestos” is amiante, so strictly speaking, to most of the people who live there “asbestos” is just a made-up English word, and changing the name is bowing to Anglo pressure.  Perhaps!  Personally, however, I think calling your town Asbestos is not the best way to attract tourists.  “Tired of the Covid Lockdown?  Why not spend two weeks in the breathtaking town of Asbestos?”

Meanwhile, NASA has taken the gloves off.  They’re going back to the Moon, and they’re taking one of the toughest companies on this planet with them — Nokia.  NASA has selected this bad boy to build the first cellular telephone network on the Moon as a prequel to a long-term human presence on our nearest celestial neighbour.  Kickass choice!  Nokia means NASA is serious.  Any network they build will be heavy-duty and probably permanent.  Remember, it was the good folks at Nokia who made the Nokia 3310, back in the 2000s.  That baby was the Chuck Norris of cellphones, and the stories about it are legendary.  People bounced the Nokia 3310 off concrete sidewalks, dropped it out of apartment buildings, threw it at speeding cars, ran over it, set fire to it, tried to drown it and there’s even a documented case where it stopped a bullet!  In your face, Huawei!

And finally:

Another Prime Minister (Katrin Jakobsdottir of Iceland) laughs off yet another earthquake!

Elsa And Jack – Frozen III

I just saw Frozen II.  It’s a good movie — not as good as the original, but sequels rarely are.  Unfortunately, Disney, you screwed up!  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this is the movie the whole world wants to see!

frost 1

frost2

frost5

frost6

frost7

Frost

 

 

Christmas On Pause

mickeyWe interrupt this traditional, sugarplum Christmas to bring you some stuff that is currently going directly to WTF? without even pausing at OMG!

Research Shows Man-Flu is real — No it isn’t; I don’t give a rat’s bum for your research.  Here’s the deal.  I’m a man; I recently had the flu.  It was the regular, one-size-fits-all, everybody-gets-it flu.  I was in the hospital with a bunch of women (we were all contagious together) who had the flu — the regular, one-size-fits-all, everybody-gets-it flu.  They handled it much better than I did.  Why?  ‘Cause man-flu is what men do when they need to catch a break from the constant pissin’ contest that is masculine existence.  (God!  Why do women always need an explanation?)

Some six-year-old earned 11 million dollars last year — That’s correct.  There’s a kid out there named Ryan who plays with toys every week on You Tube and earned 11 million dollars last year doing it.  However, just to clarify, the pre-schooler himself didn’t actually earn 11 million dollars.  (There are some serious child exploitation laws against that sort of thing.)  His parents did.  Either way, turning an ordinary childhood into an annual eight-figure money-maker is quite an accomplishment.  In my neighbourhood, the woman at Starbucks (who’s invested several years and a lot of money into two degrees in microbiology) is pouring coffee for minimum wage — plus tips (that she has to share with the guy who washes the floor.)  I guess it’s all a question of marketing.

The Minister of Happiness in India is wanted for murder — Staggered by the irony of that, I still have to ask the question: “How come we don’t get a Minister of Happiness?”  We’ve got any number of useless government departments, wasting tons of money on crap we don’t need.  Why not throw some coin at a Department of Happiness?  What’s it going to cost, anyway?  Some balloons?  Streamers?  Lemonade?  Maybe a juggler?  It’s something to think about it.  Anyway, the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh created the Department of Happiness last year and put Lal Singh Arya in charge.  Unfortunately, nobody bothered to background-check the guy, and now Lal Singh Arya is accused of murdering an opposition politician back in 2009.  He’s disappeared, and the authorities are looking all over the place for him.  (They might want to try looking in the Tickle Trunk.)

Walt Disney just bought FOX — Mickey Mouse, the squeakiest clean rodent in history, is about to give Rupert Murdoch (the Sorcerer of Sleaze) a boatload of money.  (Several boatloads, actually.)  These are the end of days, my friend — the End Of Days.

And now, back to our regular Christmas programming: the best rendition of the worst Christmas carol ever.