love Hall and Oates, and Cat Stevens. A bit strange to see Yes as a huge 70's fan i didn't know anyone knew who they were.

Happy Birthday Mignon!

and

Happy Birthday Just Lou!

Have a great birthday Mig & JL. Hope your birthday wishes all come true.






TIS

Will Cat Stevens go in as "Cat" or Yusef? (Ya know like baseball players pick which team they want to go in Hall). After all, his best work was done when he was "Cat".

Hall and Oates get the longevity award. They come to Atlantic City every year. They must tour continually. They must need the money or like singing "Maneater" over and over and over an..

Glad to see Linda Ronstadt get in...a bit late. She is credited with launching women into the Rock mainstream. I saw her in concert in 1978 which was probably the height of her Rock career. Fabulously, powerful voice. Its a shame she is suffering from Parkinson. She can't even sing anymore.

Mr. Babe had a huge crush on Linda Ronstadt back in the day. She was a beautiful woman.

Don't know if it was her debut group but I first remember her when she was the lead in the group Stone Poneys, singing "Different Drum" which btw, was written by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees. I thought she had a good voice then. I even have the 45 somewhere. LOL I feel badly for her though after hearing of her health problems.

Oh, and she also dated our Governor way back when. LOL


TIS

Thank you Giancarlo & TIS for the birthday wishes. xoxoxo

I'm glad Kiss is being inducted in the HOF. It's about time.

Happy belated birthdays to Mig and Lou.

Thanks Kly.

Anyone interested in playing next year's "Dead Pool" must submit their list of 50 people whom they think will die in the year 2014 by 12:00 midnight, January 1st (when the ball drops in Times Square, ringing in the new year). See the "Dead Pool" thread for further details.

We don't have accents in Michigan but speak the way English is meant to sound. Yeah, that's the ticket...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html

interesting Lilo. I took the quiz and got the orange/blue lines but there are no maps showing the details.

Being raised in MI and living in CA for the last 33 yrs there were a couple words that I "use to" use like expressway (but freeway in CA) that I don't use anymore. Anyway, I'll try again later.



TIS

And what's the prize for being the first one to send it in? A cruise, a free r/t ticket to NYC, a trip to Corleone, Sicily. I only ask cause I sent mine in last week.


TIS

Give Peace A Chance

ESPN broadcaster Chris Fowler was apparently in a near fatal predicament when his broadcast partner, Jesse Palmer, saved his life with the Heimlich maneuver in the broadcast booth during halftime at the Pinstripe Bowl.

Officials say it was the worst choking incident in Yankee Stadium since the 2012 AL playoffs against the Tigers.

OUCH! I felt that one, Klyd!

There are three television commercials that annoy me to no end and I hope they'll be gone for good in 2014:

1. The Michael Bolton Honda sales commercial. It's like waterboarding.

2. The Bears fans "Discount DAAAH-ble check" on the plane with Aaron Rodgers. That skit with George Wendt was never really funny and its fifteen minutes were over fifteen years ago.

3. The Gerber plan for savings for a baby's college fund. The Gerber plan is nothing more than a higher premium whole life insurance policy.

The ad campaign I like is the AT&T commercials with the guy sitting around four young kids and asking them a question.

Have you seen the cowboy speaking Mandarin?

Love those kids, too, Klyd. Geico commercials seem to be losing their edge. I am not finding them nearly as funny lately.

I can't say that I have. What is it advertising?

I used to like the cavemen commercials, but the gecko is certainly losing its edge, and the pig isn't funny anymore. I dislike the Flo commercials for Progressive, but I think Progressive Insurance is tops for automobile insurance.

Thank you, Dellacroce. Pretty original. I somehow hadn't seen it before.

(CNN) -- Congressional leaders say they have reached agreement on a $1 trillion spending bill that will fund the U.S. government through the end of the 2014 budget year.

The measure follows the guidelines laid out in the budget agreement Congress passed in December. In a joint statement, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees said the bill "keeps the government open and eliminates the uncertainty and economic instability of stop-gap governing."

Talk about dedication:

Tokyo (CNN) -- Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who refused to stop fighting World War II until the 1970s, has died in Tokyo at the age of 91.

During the war, Onoda was sent to the small island of Lubang in the western Philippines to spy on U.S. forces in the area.
He ended up remaining there, eking out a life in the jungle, until 1974, nearly three decades after Japan surrendered.

Allied forces defeated the Japanese imperial army in the Philippines in 1944, but Onoda evaded capture and stayed on.
For about 30 years, he survived on food he gathered from the jungle or stole from local farmers.

Detroit four-year-old child accidentally shoots cousin.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25787934

Unfortunately these stories are too common and we've become almost indifferent to them, like all of the shootings that took place this week in grocery stores, schools, another movie theater (but he was texting his daughter during the credits), etc.

One thing I've been telling my students for a decade now is that as the US population grows, so do its components. Thus, the bad components grow and the incidence of their bad acts will grow with them, be reported in the news, and, as you point out, will become expected and we will grow indifferent to them.

I don't know how many of you listened to or read Glenn Beck's apology on Megyn Kelly's show, but here is part of what he stated:

“I wish I could go back and be more uniting in my language because I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart and it’s not who we are and I didn’t realize how really fragile the people were. I thought we were kind of a little more in it together. Now I look back and I realize if we could have talked about the uniting principles a little bit more, instead of just the problems, I think I would look back on it a little more fondly.”