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It’s Friday morning, I’m taking the day off for some personal matters and later on attending the Erie County Fair, and right now I’m sipping coffee and thinking, “What’s a quickie topic I can write a post about?” And last night we watched two new episodes of Gordon Ramsay shows on Hulu, so…let’s talk about Gordon Ramsay’s teevee shows! Obviously the man is all over teevee the last bunch of years, and I’m not complaining. We find him addictively watchable and have only actively disliked one of his shows. Here are a few thoughts on each show of his that we’veDown the rabbit hole….

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In the course of keeping my father company lately, I’ve been watching a bit of Jeopardy*  lately. I enjoy it as much as ever, though something happened earlier this week that annoyed me. First, let me say that I’ve noticed over the last bunch of years–maybe since Ken Jennings’s big run–that the runaway blowout game has become more and more common, and it seems like more often than not, by the time Final Jeopardy rolls around, the score is something like $28000 to $3600 and $1900, respectively. I watched one champion rack up a week of such wins, and then she lostDown the rabbit hole….

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Yup, it’s that time again: When I look at Chrome and realize, “Wow, I have a lot of tabs open to stuff.” ::  On the oldest book in the world printed with movable type, and it’s not the Gutenberg Bible: The oldest extant text ever printed with movable type predates Gutenberg himself (born in 1400) by 23 years, and predates the printing of his Bible by 78 years. It is the Jikji, printed in Korea, a collection of Buddhist teachings by Seon master Baegun and printed in movable type by his students Seok-chan and Daijam in 1377. (Seon is a Korean form ofDown the rabbit hole….

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So, what did we watch in March? ::  We went to see Casablanca on the big screen, which makes it by definition the best thing we saw or watched in March. As Casablanca is my second-favorite movie of all time, the only way it could be bested for a month’s viewing is if we watched Star Wars in the same month, which we did not. I wrote about it on my Substack. (And I have got to stop letting so much time pass between viewings of this movie. It was about a year-and-a-half between viewings. Too long, man. Too long!) ::  Your Place Or MineDown the rabbit hole….

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So, what is noted master furniture restorer and upholsterer Sonnaz Nooranvary so cheerful about? Clearly, it’s the latest issue of my newsletter, in which I write about one of my favorite teevee shows ever (and one that features Ms. Nooranvary), The Repair Shop. Check it out and subscribe! Tell your friends and your neighbors and your coworkers and that sleep-deprived barista who nevertheless gets your coffee order right more often than not! (No, Ms. Nooranvary isn’t cheering anything I did, that’s just a screencap from an episode of The Repair Shop. But I’ll bet she would cheer it, if she had any idea whoDown the rabbit hole….

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Parrots being trained to say naughty words is an underused comedy bit, I think. From NYPD Blue: the squad is now under the command of Sergeant Gibson, who is a pretty annoying dude who think he’ll keep his parrot at work. Detective Andy Sipowicz has other plans.   From Shoresy: Shoresy has brought in new talent for the hockey team he plays for, but it’s a sudden thing so he’s housing them himself, in his apartment. In showing them the place he introduces them to his pet parrot, who has picked up one of Shoresy’s favorite profane insults. Now back to tryingDown the rabbit hole….

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Here are some random notes and thoughts on things we watched in February: Teevee: If you’re not watching Abbott Elementary, I really don’t know what you’re doing with your life. I was getting kind of tired of the whole “workplace documentary” sitcom subgenre that The Office blew up, spawning a dozen imitators, but the characters in Abbott Elementary are just so fun and compelling that all the usual “workplace documentary” stuff–the knowing glances at the camera, the “stealth shots” of characters’ hidden reactions to things other people are saying or doing–don’t feel at all forced. If you’re unfamiliar, Abbott Elementary takes place in an innerDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve drifted away from tracking things we’ve watched in recent years here, so I’m going to start getting back to it. Teevee: Kaleidoscope (Netflix): This is a heist show that tells a pretty standard heist story: a guy wants to rob another guy, but stealing his stuff is going to be very difficult, so he puts together a crew to help him. The crew consists of career criminals each with a different skill set, and they all have trust issues. All that, and there’s backstory between the main thief and the planned victim. It’s all pretty standard, as heist storiesDown the rabbit hole….

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For no real reason other than I need a blog post (and I’m waiting for The Wife to get ready so we can go out to dinner), here’s a memorable clip from the finale of the sixth season of Dallas. When I was a kid, I loved Dallas. That show was golden–at least for several seasons; later on it started getting a bit cornier and even slapsticky (there was even an episode where JR got hit with a pie!). Early on, though, it was a blast, even if I think the delightful portrayal of someone as awful as JR onDown the rabbit hole….

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I first wrote this on the old blog six years ago, on the 50th anniversary of STAR TREK’s first airing. Today that anniversary rolls around again, now the 56th, and all these words still apply, so here they are! And you people, you’re all astronauts on…some kind of star trek? –Zefram Cochrane, Star Trek First Contact Wow. Star Trek made its official US debut fifty years ago today. That’s…amazing. (The show aired for the first time anywhere on September 6, 1966, in Canada.) Star Trek came and went and was already in syndication when I was born, but my sisterDown the rabbit hole….