April 24, 2026

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happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Fawn is picky.
Buddy eats rocks.

DancingBuffalo
Reply to  happyhappyhappy
1 month ago

Maggie ate turds. I’d take rocks over that any day.

Saucy1121
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Reply to  DancingBuffalo
1 month ago

Saucy did that, but only when frozen.

Saucy1121
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Reply to  happyhappyhappy
1 month ago

Moxie was a vacuum cleaner. Cookie eats what and when she wants.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Once again, the Cliffords prove they are worthy of the Most Lenient Dogparents Award they won at last summer’s Independent Comics Picnic and Honors Ceremony.

Claude doesn’t like the look of it; Clara wears a look of mild concern. But they hold fast to their title by never uttering that cruel word, “No.”

Not even a “Confound it!”, much less a threat of punishment.
They capitulate to the catapult, and give Cleo what she demands.

It’s clearly Claude and Clara who succeeded in obedience school, not Cleo.

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Today’s dog haiku:

I am your best friend,
Now, always, and especially
When you are eating.

happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  Arfside
1 month ago

Truth!

JP Steve
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Reply to  Arfside
1 month ago

LOL!

DancingBuffalo
Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Not messin’ with that in a dark alley…

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  DancingBuffalo
1 month ago

Or a light alley!

Arfside
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Reply to  DancingBuffalo
1 month ago

Aw, they can be sweethearts! Just socialize them early and often.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Arfside
1 month ago

True…. But that doesn’t nullify their fighting skills, if you’re “messing” with one in the alley.

baconboycamper
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

If Red Skelton’s Freddy the Freeloader had a dog, this would be the one

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

What is that gadget down in the bottom right corner?

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Arfside
1 month ago

I tried to find out…. Not many talking about it.

Those who did said probably an anvil, but they never saw Macgyver use one.

Everybody was complaining cos there’s no Swiss army knife.

crazeekatlady
crazeekatlady
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

And no pinecone.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  crazeekatlady
1 month ago

A lot of people complained about no wad of chewed gum.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Well, no wonder I’m told Macgyver could do so much with duct tape and a paper clip.

I’ve never seen the show, myself, and nobody told me it was giant tape, and a heavy steel paperclip, longer than his foot.

Of course, this isn’t a real product… I saw another version with the same tape, a roll of wire, and some matches, which were on a scale with the paper clip.

Last edited 1 month ago by SusanSunshine
Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

He got to play a lot of fun parts.

Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

He was the go-to man if you needed someone to play an eccentric wacko, or an outright loon. For laughs. It helps to have a rubber face and a flexible voice.

DancingBuffalo
Reply to  Liverlips McCracken
1 month ago

Yeah, but a Klingon? 

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  DancingBuffalo
1 month ago

Rubber face, change-of-pace.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

“A Mickey Mouse” … I guess maybe people called a cartoon the name of character… “I saw a Popeye and a Donald Duck”?

DancingBuffalo
Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

That’s only the first part – read the rest at the bottom, and it becomes “A Micky Mouse R.K.O. Radio Picture in Technicolor.”

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

The caption I found has extra names….

Looking further, I discovered that the picture has people cut off on both sides… Not that it really matters, but just so the names line up, l’m attaching the wider version below.

Anyway…. according to Getty Images…

This is….
The Modern Screen awards, 1956 presentation, televised on the Ed Sullivan show, Dec. 2, 1956.

Left to right; Front row; Victoria Shaw, Tony Perkins, Natalie Wood, Doris Day, holding her award and also award she accepted for Frank Sinatra, King Vidor; who accepted the award for Audrey Hepburn.

Left to right, back row: director George Stevens, Debbie Reynolds, Louella Parsons, George Delacorte, publisher of Modern screen, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas.

BTW… Modern Screen is/was a popular “movie magazine”… At first it was about movie stars, later adding television stars and personalities.

gettyimages-515019536-612x612
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

How far gone am I? When looking at the first, cropped photo, I see the gentleman front and center moving his jaw, like in a tense way. I also see his Adam’s apple move up and down. Maybe it’s a hypnotic illusion from the year of my birth, still working its magic after 69 years.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Liverlips McCracken
1 month ago

Happens to me all the time when I’m scrolling past, or towards, a photo.

I could swear somebody moved, or the light changed.

Then I stare at it wondering how I saw that, or whether I’m somehow being gaslighted.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Gathering all that ash was a big job for the neanderthals in Yellowstone… especially rolling it into a big ball. They were smaller than modern humans.

But the park service probably paid them to get it out of of the way so they could open the.park.

Arfside
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

The hard part was painting them orange.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Sad, but hopefully will recover … This is a tiny little guy, according to a couple of sites, the size of a fingertip, and makes no noise. A rare variety of narrowmouth frog, it has become known as the galaxy frog, for its starry appearance.
It looks like the night sky descending directly over a fiery sunset.

Living only in one spot, a specific mountainside in India, it’s listed as vulnerable… Meaning not quite endangered, but not exactly safe.

It wasn’t really known to be vulnerable, until it was discovered by nature photographers, and photos of it won a prize or two. So many zealous photographers came looking for it, it apparently caused lethal stress in the small population of frogs.

Photographers usually don’t want to cause harm; they often see themselves as champions of saving wildlife. But they uncovered the wee frogs in their hiding places, and took closeup pictures… sometimes picking them up and placing them on top of rocks or sticks, and then putting them back.

The Indian caretakers of the area noticed that after the cameras left, the frogs were gone, or even found dead… The stress was too much. They’re now considering laws in India to limit access and protect animals from photography!

Last edited 1 month ago by SusanSunshine
Arfside
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

Maybe photographs really do steal souls!

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Believe it or not, this is a real dress, over 4,000 years old, though the original beads have been restrung on stronger thread, without changing the pattern.

(It)” comes from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where archaeologists reconstructed a beadnet dress discovered in 1927 in a tomb at Giza. The garment belonged to a woman who lived during the reign of King Khufu (c. 2551–2528 BCE). Although the original linen threads had decayed, approximately 7,000 faience beads remained in place, allowing experts to carefully rebuild the dress. According to the MFA Boston, the beads were originally vibrant shades of blue and green, designed to imitate precious stones like lapis lazuli and turquoise.”

It’s not the only one… I saw pictures of several while searching for info. There’s apparently a bit of debate about how they were worn. Because lapis and turquoise were sacred, some archeologists think they were created as burial garments.

But the edges are fringed with little shells, which make a pleasant sound striking each other, and sometimes have little bits of stone or metal placed inside to make them rattle. This makes other archeologists think they were made for sacred dances.

Most think they were actually worn over other garments, so they’re not as slinky as we imagine… But no one knows for sure. The design and workmanship could give movie costumes a run for their money!

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

For a moment I thought

it might be…
Jeff Goldblum, but not with that golden blonde hair. And Goldblum is much more exaggerated looking, if that makes sense.

Then before I looked at the later picture…

I unintentionally…
scrolled down a couple of posts and saw another picture of him, and realized this was also Gene Wilder.

Last edited 1 month ago by SusanSunshine
SusanSunshine
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

Actually I think i was picturing the face of the actor that Liverlips guessed, not the one I said.

It was wrong anyway… But on top of that I was mixed up.
Not that such a thing ever happens to me.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

My immediate reaction on seeing the “early” photo was

that is
Nicholas Cage.
Now we’ll take a look at the “after” photo.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Liverlips McCracken
1 month ago

Looks a bit like him too.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  Liverlips McCracken
1 month ago

👎

Tigressy
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Recognized him instantly.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

“I didn’t know this train had a dining car!”

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

When opportunity knocks, you should always answer.

happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

“My father’s work was Doo Doo !!!”

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  happyhappyhappy
1 month ago

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

“Class dismissed.”

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
1 month ago

Going by this chart, I’ve got one foot in the 60s and one in the 90s…

But my decades weren’t like these, so I can’t compare.

It’s funny, when people talk about “the 60s”, cos the actual 1960s were split into two parts.

The first half was more like the 50s, and the 2nd half, which is the half that’s pictured, extended well into the 70s.

1965 was a big dividing point for a lot of people.
And that 1970s disco stuff was at the end of that decade.

We want everything to match convenient charts and timelines, but real history is messier that that.

More_Cats_Than_Sense
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1 month ago

The Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, photographed during construction in 1905.

The-Sagrada-Familia-in-Barcelona-Spain-photographed-during-construction-in-1905
SusanSunshine
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Reply to  More_Cats_Than_Sense
1 month ago

By Antoni Gaudi, one of my favorite architects ever.

It’s unfinished… But I read somewhere that they plan to finish it this year, 100 years after Gaudi died. By “they” I mean I can’t remember who’s doing it, but it’s a World Heritage site.

I’ll try to look it up tomorrow… Right now zzzzzzzzzzz..

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

Okay, it’s tomorrow. Well, I mean .. it’s today… but last night wa…. you know what I mean.

The 1905 picture shows the basilica between 15 and 25% completed, but construction was actually started in 1882. Gaudi took over in 1883, and worked on it till he died, in 1926.

It’s privately funded by and ticket sales, managed by a foundation… It’s all very complicated… For more detail than I can fit here, I recommend Wikipedia.

But I can tell you, it’s a lot farther along now, the tallest church in the world since last year, and actually in partial use. It was consecrated in 2010.
Visitor tickets, which aid in the costs of construction, are around €20. Mass, held every Sunday, doesn’t require one, but seating is quite limited.

Gaudi has always been controversial… Famous architects have praised his work, especially this church. I think it’s absolutely gorgeous (not that my opinion counts for much) while George Orwell called it the ugliest building he’d ever seen.

Current bit of info from Wikipedia: “The basilica reached structural completion on 20 February 2026, when the final piece of the central Tower of Jesus Christ was installed. While an official inauguration is scheduled for June 2026 to mark the centenary of Gaudí’s death, work on the sculptures and decorative details of the Glory Facade, along with a controversial monumental stairway, is expected to continue until 2034″

A relatively recent view:

Σαγράδα_Φαμίλια_2941
Arfside
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

It should have been two churches instead of one, and not so close together.

More_Cats_Than_Sense
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1 month ago

Male Spotted Towhee in breeding attire with white tail spots.

Male-Spotted-Towhee-in-breeding-attire-with-white-tail-spots
SusanSunshine
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Reply to  More_Cats_Than_Sense
1 month ago

Very spiffy.

Did he have to rent the outfit, or do they have their own, and bring it out every year?

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  SusanSunshine
1 month ago

Looks too sharp to be a rental 😉

Tigressy
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Reply to  More_Cats_Than_Sense
1 month ago

Yes indeed…
comment image

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  Tigressy
1 month ago

Ah a tail coat. Ideal for playing ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’…….! 😉

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