Hitchcock, Paul McCartney & Clackers

Good evening cheeky monkeys!

That just doesn't sound natural...Who actually says, 'Good Evening'? (or 'cheeky monkeys'??)

The only real, 'Good Evening' sayer that I can think of is Alfred Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock and Ebeneezer Scrooge.

I think in Scrooge's time whenever someone said "Good Evening", it was with a stern, clipped voice and was meant to be dismissive. At least that's the way I remember him using it with Bob Cratchit.

I couldn't find the scene where Scrooge tells Cratchit, "I said GOOD EVENing!", but I found the funniest scene in the whole movie...

.."I must stand on my head!!"

As for Alfred Hitchcock...or 'Alvin Brickrock'...let's see what Fred Flintstone has to say on the subject...

In other thoughts...

Happy birthday to Paul McCartney, who turned 70 the other day!!!

Not that Paul McCartney reads this blog....or any blog...(I mean, if YOU were Paul McCartney would you sit around reading blogs all day?! Neither would I...you know what I WOULD do? ..whatever I wanted to!...I mean, my god..isn't he a gozillionaire or something?... Plus I'd be so shocked to all at once discover that I was a 70 year old man that I'd probably drop dead from the sudden change in outlook...however, I digress)...so why am I wishing him a happy birthday? I don't know him, he'll never see this...

..we are strange...why do we wish people we don't know happy birthdays and congratulations on the baby/marriage/graduation/being so popular/losing all that baby weight 15 minutes after the kid is born/kicking that habit of snorting Drano/drinking wine coolers laced with Lysol/, etc...these people are almost fictional to us...it's kind of like wishing Batman a happy birthday...that being said...I grew up listening to the Beatles, so I stand by my birthday wishes..

Raise your hand if you thought the video was going to be 'Birthday'....

I was thinking about it earlier in the evening, (Good Evening) and what 'it' was, was, I was trying to think of what the first song that I can consciously remember hearing was.

(That's gotta be a record number of 'was' in one sentence....if that even WAS a sentence...if you get the drift of what I'm trying to say, that's good enough....and put your fool HANDS down!)

Anyways....I think this may be it:

  I remember hearing this song blaring out of the hi-fi when I was too young to know that regular people don't really dance to Petula Clark....who else remembers having a hi-fi?...(or rocking out to Petula!?)

                                                     These days music systems are soooo small, but back in the dark ages people heard their music through what was basically a piece of furniture.
Or, if you were lucky enough to have a system like the one in the picture, it was literally a piece of furniture.
                                                      We didn't have the chair and table system....the downside to that particular piece of technology was that you had to be sitting in the chair to hear the music...it made for awkward parties when too many people tried to sit in the chair at once...the person sitting and listening had to hum along so the rest of the party goers would know what song was playing!...(I don't know if that's all true, but it is funny!)...and the speakers were those tinny, shitty a.m. radio sounding speakers that were the norm in the '60's and '70

                                                  We had some strange toys back then too... Do any of you remember 'clackers'? They were a kind of toy/weapon that we played with in and around the time of the 'Future is NOW Hi-Fi Stereo Chair' and 'The Partridge Family'.......essentially, what this toy was, was a length of rope with a glass ball (like a big marble) tied at each end.

                                                    
How you played with them, was you clacked the balls together....the manufacturers of this toy failed to take into account all the blinded children whose parents would sue them for using balls made out of glass...(hahaha...Balls of Glass!....that sounds like a movie I saw once back in '83..)

The stupidity is amazing...why would grown people think it would be a good idea to make something like this for kids to play with?
They didn't think the glass balls would send shards flying into the air and landing where slivers of glass tend to land...in the eyeballs of children...kids lived dangerously back then...we clacked huge marbles together, ate peanuts and played outside till 8:00 at night.

Speaking of little kids, my oldest grandson has a birthday coming up. He's going to be eight and his father, (my son) bought him a WII system with a bunch of games.
Last week I asked him what he wanted and he said a paddle ball and a bag of army men. (Maybe he just told me that because he doesn't think there's any way in the world he'll get a WII!)
                                   

It doesn't matter, I'll be going all out and getting him both of those things.

The paddle ball reminds me of 'Ball in a Cup'

                                                       I totally had Ball in a Cup when I was a kid!...I also had Clackers, and an ugly little doll that was called a Wishnik....Wishniks are still around, but they're called Trolls now...
                             
                                    (.....hours and hours later.........)

                                        I started this post last night, and then we had a terrific windstorm here in Chilliwack....the power went out and came back on and then went out again several times....it would have been way less annoying if it had just stayed out...I must've reset the clock on the microwave a hundred times!...this morning we're back to our regularly scheduled weather....gray skies, damp and cool...

                                         Here's a Good Morning tune for you. Have a fabulous day!