Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Soviet Union invades Afghanistan; Charles Darwin sets out on round-the-world voyage; Radio City Music Hall opens in New York; James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opens in London.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Assassins and presidents invite the same basic question: Just who do you think you are?
In feudal times the lord of the manor would give boxes of practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land.
Many years ago on the day after Christmas servants would carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day’s work. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts.
In churches, it was traditional to open the church’s donation box on Christmas Day and distribute it to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day.
Take your pick.
In the world of retail Boxing Day is the day everyone brings back all the crap they got for gifts that they didn’t want or is the wrong size or the wrong color or that they shoplifted and now want full retail for instead of the 10% that the local fence will give them.
Now fortunately for me I never had to work the counter during this period of long lines and testy, hung over sales people and managers dealing with irate customers who think that making their sob story more pitiful than the last one will get them any treatment more special than what everyone gets.
Is it all there?
Is it undamaged?
Did you buy it here?
Bingo, have some store credit. Go nuts. Have a nice day.
What makes it especially crappy for the clerks is that you don’t normally get a lot of practice with the return procedures because your manager will handle it since it’s easier than training you. Now you have 20 in a row and the first 7 or 8 are slow until you get the hang of things.
As a customer I have to warn you, this is not a swap meet. If they didn’t have a blue size 6 on Christmas Eve, they don’t have it now either EVEN IF THE CUSTOMER RIGHT AHEAD OF YOU IN LINE JUST RETURNED A SIZE 6 IN BLUE!
It has to go back to the warehouse for processing and re-packaging. Really.
So if you braved the surly stares today you have my admiration for your tenacity. If you waited for the rush to pass my respect for your brilliance.
But don’t wait too long. It all has to be out of the store before February inventory so it doesn’t have to be counted.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
A tsunami kills more than 200-thousand people is Southeast Asia; Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey is found beaten to death; Winston Churchill addresses joint session of Congress; Presidents Truman and Ford die.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
It’s amazing where the paranoid mind can take you.
Twitter is a strange place. Depending on who you follow or what you read in the news on the internet that leads you there, it can be informative and educational. A blog post led me to a tweet where I found this tweeted response
And Carol of the Bells is based on a Ukrainian folk song written during an intense political and social upheaval time in Soviet Ukraine.
Conductor of the Ukrainian Republic Choir Oleksander Koshyts (also spelled Alexander Koshetz) commissioned Leontovych to create the song based on traditional Ukrainian folk chants, and the resulting new work for choir, “Shchedryk”, was based on four notes Leontovych found in an anthology.
The original folk story related in the song was associated with the coming New Year, which, in pre-Christian Ukraine, was celebrated with the coming of spring in April. The original Ukrainian title translates to “the generous one” or is perhaps derived from the Ukrainian word for bountiful (shchedryj),[3] and tells a tale of a swallow flying into a household to proclaim the bountiful year that the family will have.
With the introduction of Christianity to Ukraine and the adoption of the Julian calendar, the celebration of the New Year was moved from April to January, and the holiday with which the chant was originally associated became Malanka (Ukrainian: Щедрий вечірShchedry vechir), the eve of the Julian New Year (the night of January 13–14 in the Gregorian calendar). The songs sung for this celebration are known as Shchedrivky.
The song was first performed by students at Kiev University in December 1916, but the song lost popularity in Ukraine shortly after the Soviet Union took hold.[5] It was introduced to Western audiences by the Ukrainian National Chorus during its 1919 concert tour of Europe and the Americas, where it premiered in the United States on October 5, 1921 to a sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall. The original work was intended to be sung a cappella by mixed four-voice choir.
By the time “Carol of the Bells” became a global hit, the composer, Mykola Leontovych, had been assassinated by Soviet secret police on January 21, 1921.
Considering the significance of Ukraine in our current political news, I thought I’d pass it on. Here are a few of the versions of this popular carol from traditional to funny to rock, starting with the carol sung in its original language.
Having been in Sarajevo on a humanitarian mission and watched the 1984 Winter Olympics held there, combined with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” this is my favorite from the Trans Siberian Orchestra.
Let me end with this thought. Whether you believe in an almighty, male or female, we all want there to be peace on Earth and the first place we start is within yourself. Blessed Be
By ek hornbeck 12/25/2019. Repostedd by TMC for ek hornbeck
The Season’s Upon Us
Hail Santa
I am Santa Claus
Christmas At Ground Zero
The Egg Nog Song
Merry Christmas Everybody
Turn Left alternate Universe. Last Christmas, other appearances. Popular across the pond I’m given to understand.
A Triumph Family Seasonal Special
Office Party
You’ll need that light Johnny, for your crane shot.
Did we have a rant this week? I forget.
Well, that ought to isolate you from your family for at least an hour and I’m not a miracle worker though it comes pretty close and I’m thinking about petitioning Francis “God still loves us all, even the worst of us” for Beatification but maybe not since I’m not so big on that whole forgiveness thing.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
George Washington crosses the Delaware River; Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigns; Ousted Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife are executed; James Brown dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Imagination… its limits are only those of the mind itself.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Martin Luther King, Junior accepts Nobel Peace Prize; Women get the right to vote in Wyoming Territory; America’s first domestic passenger jet flight takes off; Soul singer Otis Redding, General Augusto Pinochet die.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.
