Category: Entertainment

Los Angeles Union Station Reaches 75

LA Union StationIt was August 1948 when I arrived in Los Angeles. My first view of this city was the parking lot lined with the tall Mexican Fan Palm trees.   Thousands celebrated the 75th anniversary of the iconic Union Station in L.A yesterday. I was there once again.

It’s not the most beautiful building but for many it evokes memories. If nothing else the anniversary celebration provoked a cleaning and polishing of the facility. Recent add-ons to the station have made it a far more attractive site.

Public transportation has received a very big boost in Los Angeles over the past 20 years. This facility has become a significant transit center for that development. Freeways have not provided the transit solution that many believed would be the future for this metropolitan area.

More photos on Los Angeles Photo Gallery link.

Broken Flowers – A Really Bad Movie

Broken Flowers Netflix description: “After being dumped by yet another girlfriend, serial bachelor Don vows he’ll be alone forever. But when an anonymous letter informs him he has a 19-year-old son, Don sets out on a cross-country journey to confront his past — and a few old flames.”

This movie stars Bill Murray, a well known and capable actor. Why he agreed to take this role is a mystery to me. He must have needed the money. The movie starts out with an interesting puzzle. Does the protagonist really have a son? Who is the mother? His search for the answer brings no answer to those questions and does bring the viewer to wonder what purpose this movie serves. Nothing is revealed about his past girl friends and nothing is revealed about Don.

My daughter’s boy friend said he thought it is a comedy. I thought think it is a waste of film and talent.

Unemployed – Explained by two eminent economists

So how can over 873,000 people come off the unemployment line when there were only a little over 114,000 jobs created?

Luckily I found a transcript of a conversation between two eminent economists discussing this very
question!

Abbott & Costello explain unemployment


Here we go, the recent unemployment report explained —

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.


ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It’s 7.8%.


COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?


ABBOTT: No, that’s 14.7%.


COSTELLO: You just said 7.8%.


ABBOTT: 7.8% Unemployed.


COSTELLO: Right 7.8% out of work.


ABBOTT: No, that’s 14.7%.


COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 14.7% unemployed.


ABBOTT: No, that’s 7.8%.


COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 7.8% or 14.7%?


ABBOTT: 7.8% are unemployed. 14.7% are out of work.


COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.


ABBOTT: No, Obama said you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.


COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!


ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.


COSTELLO: What point?


ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.


COSTELLO: To whom?


ABBOTT: The unemployed.


COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.


ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.


COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment roles that would count as less unemployment?


ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!


COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?


ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how the current administration gets it to 7.8%. Otherwise it would be 14.7%. Our govt. doesn’t want you to read about 14.7% unemployment!


COSTELLO: That would be tough on those running for reelection.


ABBOTT: Absolutely.


COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?


ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?


ABBOTT: Correct.


COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?


ABBOTT: Bingo.


COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have administration supporters stop looking for work.


ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like the Economy Czar.


COSTELLO: I don’t even know what the hell I just said!


ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like Obama.

OK.. So why did the chicken cross the road?

chicken crossing the roadSARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it, he’s a maverick!

BARACK OBAMA: Let me be clear, the chicken crossed the road because it was time for change! The chicken wanted change! Real change! Change he could believe in!

JOHN McCAIN: My friends; that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure, right from Day One, that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or against us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken.

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal > the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth? That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, That chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the Liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like ‘the other side.’ That chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as > plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish it’s lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2013, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2013. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

The magnetism of pooping

From The Week magazine

Dog - which way to goWhy do dogs tend to circle around before getting down to business? Because they like to be aligned with the earth’s magnetic field before they poop. Researchers finally figured out this great mystery after watching 70 dogs engage in 1,893 defections and 5,582 urinations over a two-year period, and recording the time, place, and body orienta­tion for each one. They found that dogs’ preference for the north-south axis was most pronounced during the roughly 20 percent of the day when the magnetic field was calm and steady. When the field was in flux-due to solar flares, solar wind, and sunspot activity-the canines had real trouble finding a suit­able place to go. “We found that dogs are magnetosensitive, and they are pre­dictably disturbed by even small changes of the magnetic field,” zoologist Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Esser in Germany tells HuffingtonPost.com. Previous studies have shown that cattle and deer graze in a north-south direction, and that birds and fish use the magnetic field to guide their seasonal migrations.

Uncle Paul?

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, honey.
This is Daddy.
Is Mommy near the phone?’

‘No, Daddy.
She’s upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Paul.’

After a brief pause,

Daddy says,

‘But honey, you haven’t got an Uncle Paul.’

‘Oh, yes I do, and he’s upstairs in the room with Mommy,
right now.’

Brief Pause.

‘Uh, okay then, this is what I want you to do.
Put the phone down on the table, run upstairs,
knock on the bedroom door and shout to Mommy
that Daddy’s car just pulled into the driveway.’

‘Okay, Daddy, just a minute.’

A few minutes later
The little girl comes back to the phone.

‘I did it, Daddy.’

‘And what happened, honey?’

‘Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes
on and ran around screaming.

Then, she tripped over the rug, hit her head on the dresser
and now she isn’t moving at all!’

‘Oh, my God!!! What about your Uncle Paul?’

‘He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too.
He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window
and into the swimming pool.
But I guess he didn’t know that you took out the water
last week to clean it.
He hit the bottom of the pool and I think he’s dead.’

Long Pause

Longer Pause

Even Longer Pause

Then Daddy says,

‘Swimming pool? …………

Is this 486-5731?’

No, I think you have the wrong number ….