I recently heard a radio commercial by Peter Scolari. I think he was selling some sort of Viagra type product, but it could have been Lipofuze for all I remember. I was still stuck on the line that he introduced himself as a “Bosom Buddie”. If you remember, he stared in the show Bosom Buddies with Tom Hanks. He later went on to star in Newhart. He has starred in other television shows and also on Broadway.
I am not going to go into a full biography of Steve McQueen quite yet, but I was interested to learn that McQueen died from Mesothelioma cancer. McQueen, who appeared in numerous movies, including my favorite “The Great Escape” was probably exposed to asbestos during his time as a Marine. Plus, he wore flame retardant suits while racing cars and motorcycles and these suits used to contain asbestos. He was also a heavy smoker which increases your risk of contracting the disease. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 1979 and was told there was no cure. In 1980, after surgery to remove a tumor, Steve McQueen died of a heart attack.
I was asked to do some research on highest paying affiliate program but I got distracted when this video caught my eye. I have always been a big fan of Phyllis Diller. She was one of the few women comedians back in the 50s and she made quite the name for herself. A few years ago, she had lunch with Roseanne Barr where they made some delicious looking pasta and sauce. I think I will have to try this recipe:
You probably remember the spiked blond hair of Susan Powter and her catch phrase “Stop the Insanity!” Susan was born December 12, 1957 in Australia. Her claim to fame was losing 130 pounds by not dieting but becoming fit. I am sure that she caused the purchase of many new and refurbished fitness equipment packages in the United States. Her infomercials focused on becoming fit by not dieting. She advocated whole-foods, organic, low-fat diet, and regular cardiovascular and strength-training exercise.
She was recently on Good Morning America promoting her online seminars and classes.
“Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.” Who remembers this old rhyme?
Lizzie Andrew Borden was born July 19, 1860 in New England. She never married. She lived with her stepmother and father in Fall River, Massachusetts where, on August 4, 1892, she was accused of murdering them with a hatchet. Andrew Borden, Lizzie’s father was not a popular man. He had planned to give some of his property to other relatives and not to Lizzie and her sister. Lizzie, who raised pigeons, found their heads cut off one day by her father because the attracted young boys to the barn who the father claimed might get hurt or start a fire.
Before the murders, Lizzie had attempted to buy prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) from the local druggist to clean a seal coat. The request was denied and this evidence was not heard in the trial.
Lizzie was arrested a few days after the murders and the police found her stories inconsistent. A hatchet and handle were found in the basement, but no fingerprints were taken since the Fall River police did not have faith in the new technology. No blood stained clothing were found, but Lizzie burned a blue dress in the stove a few days after the murder claiming that she brushed up against wet paint.
Lizzie was acquitted of the murder and moved with her sister to a new home. She settled all claims against the estate from her step-mother’s family to avoid further lawsuits.
There have been other theories that William Borden, an illegitimate son of Andrew committed the murders or that the maid did it. I guess we will never know, Lizzie died on June 1, 1927 still proclaiming her innocence.
Last month, I was able to visit The Mark Twain House located in Hartford, Connecticut. My daughter had just read Huckleberry Finn and I was interested to see where it was written. The house sits up on a hill and is quite large. Not all of the rooms have been refinished. Of the original 8 bathrooms, only one is shown. I was surprised to see two sinks set in a cabinet and not vintage pedestal sinks. The tour guide pointed out that the house had been sold to another family and it was sometimes difficult to get the house to original condition since they relied mostly on old pictures. I guess no one ever really takes pictures of the bathroom!
If you are near Hartford and have a chance to take the tour it is very informative!
Tombstone, Arizona
“Can’t you hurry this up a bit? I hear they eat dinner in Hades at twelve sharp and I don’t aim to be late.” – Black Jack Ketchum, just before he was hanged at Clayton, New Mexico on April 26, 1901.
“They say I killed six or seven men for snoring. It ain’t true. I only killed one man for snoring.” — John Wesley Hardin.
“A jail is just like a nutshell with a worm in it, the worm will always get out.” — John Dillinger several weeks before he bluffed his way out of the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana.
Have fun looking around the site and reading interesting facts about the Old West.
You might remember Stephen Furst as the character Flounder in the movie Animal House. Furst was born May 8, 1954 in Norfolk Virginia. He graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth University. In 1978, he was cast in the role of Flounder in Animal House. He developed type II diabetes, but it wasn’t until 1996, with the threat of having to amputate his left foot that Furst finally asked himself the question do diet pills actually work? Instead, during a hiatus of Babylon 5 where he plays the character Vir Cotto, he started eating healthy, exercising and ended up losing 80 pounds. He wrote a book Confessions of a Coach Potato about his weight loss and diabetes.
He is married and has two sons.
I think I like commercials more than television sometimes. This Samsung commercial by Ozzy Osborne is one of my favorites. I love when celebrities are able to take a jab at themselves. It is all in good fun and gets right to the point. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Ozzy was very speedy at texting either. Maybe he has a lot of practice!
Whatever happened to the job of paperboy. It seems that they no longer exists. Recently, a journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle tried to find a paper that still employed paperboys. He tried even the smaller papers. No one was hiring.
You can no longer see clean cut boys, riding their bikes, throwing papers onto their customer’s lawns, driveways or bushes. This is a job of the past. It used to be a great way for kids to learn responsibility, to manage money. Now, we are too afraid to let them leave the house alone. What a shame.
