Rain. It began with a crisp sunny morn, and then strange wavy clouds flowed in and the cold rain started. Autumn got serious this week, and feels a bit early. Why? Because everyone remembers the Halloween when it as 70 at night. Everyone also remembers the Halloween when we got three feet of snow, and does a little Burl-Ives-as-the-Rudolph-snowman shiver at the thought it.

Got an Amazon box today, and thought: now what? Judging from the weight, I had bought one (1) feather. Turns out it was a USB-C adaptor, but the wrong kind. Someday there might be no such thing as the wrong kind of plug, but we do not live in that magical world quite yet. Well, send it back. Took a look at my options:

I could drop if off at any UPS place. I could leave it outside and Amazon would send someone to get it. I could leave it in the mailbox. In each instance the cost of returning the item was $8.02. The item cost $7.98.

Amazon was willing to eat the four cents.

Now. If it cost $8.02 to return it via mail, which I doubt, then how did it get here by UPS without costing the company money? If it cost $8.02 to send someone to pick it up, how does it cost $8.00 to have a USPS or UPS person handle the shipment? I understand there’s a restocking fee, but c’mon. So I kept it, of course.

This could be a brilliant strategy to discourage returns, but I doubt it.

I’m thinking of going to Facebook comments. WHHHAAAA NOOOO and all that, I understand. But these ads are driving me crazy. Disqus isn’t as bad as some, but all of these “Sponsored Content” link-chum boxes make me feel stupid. I mean, look at this crap.

Lots of jaws dropping in Chumland; if it's not what they look like today it's how much they make. You will be stunned. You will be JAW STUNNED. And look at the name of those useless sites - Direct Expose. GridRead. Cheap clicky sites written by idiots whose only goal is to string you along for six or seven clicks while forty-five more ads load.

Oh. SECRETS! The Blowing of Minds, which is a step above the dropping of jaws, involves all the secrets that were kept from Fans. But now we know! Believe me, there's just a million millennials out there eager to hit Direct Expose for Bonanza dirt.

Thing is, you'll want to click to see how banal and dumb they are. You click to see how they've oversold the idea.

Lockerdome is posting the enormous ads that might as well be called "You Won't Believe How Bad We Are at Resizing Pictures"

I did click, just to see if they ever used the obviously non-iconic non-historical photo above. (It's also used for JAW-DROPPING WW 2 PICTURES THAT WILL SHOCK YOU.) One of the iconic history photos that taxes the limits of your comprehension? Bill Clinton's 4th grade picture. No! They took pictures back then? In History? Awesome

   
  Then there's crap like this, from an utterly useless shite-show site no one will visit, but they'll think oh yeah Disney was a Nazi I heard
   

A pox on the lot of them.

Hey, looks like no Facebook comments, at least for now. I found a way to change the settings for the comments. I got some money for hosting them but I feel like I am the problem with stuff like this. BECAUSE I AM.

We return to the deeping pit by the library, in hopes that they're putting down the foundation for something majestic:

it doesn't look as if it's the whole block. It looks as if it's half, but it's stil a big project. By the way, the buildings on the left and in the distance of the right are new additions within the two last years. Before that. Parking lots. This block? Parkings lots.

What it's going to be:

Well . . . better than a parking lot. The views will be be nice. Meanwhile, over at the KA Block:

I never see more than six people on the entire project. Yet every day there's more.

 

 

 

Back to music cues for "The Little Things in Life," Peg Lynch's last continuously running sitcom. The cues run from substandard 60s cues to cringingly 70s, and I'm surprised at how few there were. I think I'm already repeating what I previously played. In fact I know I'm already repeating the fact that I think I'm repeating myself, but on we go: this is the sound of narrative radio in its strange last gasp.

Given all the 70s attributes to the show - the plots, the commercials, the other bumper music - this sounds like something from another dimension.

     

Busytown!

     

I mean Busy Town in the whirling shopping metropolis sense, not the Richard Scarry sense.

     

How civilized.

     

I'm curious how they thought all these different styles would work from day to day. They don't give the show a consistent feel; they make it seem hodge-podge. I'm not sure they cared.

Radio ads in 1957 had to stand out from all the other competing mediums and messages. One way to do that was "be annoying in a novel fashion."

     

Oh, no.

     

The worst story-teller in radio. We all know someone like this.

     

Oh get to the point

     

 

An odd coincidence:

The Amazon review says: "The overall vibe of the songs is, well, lurid, tawdry, cheap, burlesque (that's a solid recommendation; the worst of all worlds is "boring," and this album has style!)."

   
 

About the organ: it's not just for church any more.

   

About that coincidence: I'd chosen this album for the Vinyl feature before I knew B&W World would discuss the movie from which it that song was taken. Stella by Starlight.

Spooooky, no?

No, you're right, it's not.

Another week - hope it was worth your time. I thank you for your visits, and we'll do it alllll again starting Monday. Have a grand weekend.

 

 
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