James Amos

Svengoolie Show Movie: “The Fly”

We watched the Svengoolie show 1958 movie “The Fly” last night and Sena says she’s seen it before. I can’t remember seeing the full movie, but for some reason the final scenes when the tiny creature in a tiny voice keeps screaming “Help me!” sounds familiar. I don’t know why I would “remember” only that scene.

That brings up something Sena alerted me to and which I’ve mentioned before in an oblique reference to the non-review I did of the Svengoolie movie, “Young Frankenstein” a week ago. It’s the Mandela Effect.

Some trivia about “The Fly” included the Mandela Effect about whether it was made in black and white—which didn’t happen. It was made in color. But many believe it was made in black and white.

Anyway, as a guy who writes parodic reviews, I can say that I have a couple of issues about this film directed by Kurt Neumann and starting Vincent Price (Francois Delambre), David Hedison (Andre Delambre), Patricia Owens (Helene Delambre), Charles Herbert (Phillipe Delambre), Herbert Marshall (Inspector Charas) and a white-headed fly as himself.

Andre is a dedicated scientist who develops the early version of the Star Trek transporter for which he gets no credit and his brother, Francois, who secretly loves his brother’s wife, Helene, eventually tricks her by lying about having the white headed fly locked in his desk drawer next to his shaving kit, convincing her to tell him the whole story about how and why Andre can apparently see just fine to use a typewriter, write on a black board and operate all the knobs and dials in his lab despite wearing a black beach towel draped over his head, which essentially makes this movie a very long flashback about the original theft of the x-ray vision technique from Superman, who already had a patent on it for about 20 years.

That’s one thing I don’t get about this film. Flies have compound eyes, but they don’t see in the dark any better than humans do, partly because they’re not related to bats who use sonar to guide them in dark caves where they zero in on your hair because you’re fool enough to blunder into the Bat Cave in order to find out just how Alfred keeps Bruce Wayne’s suits so nicely pressed.

Another thing that “bugs” me (Har! See what I did there?) is why do I not remember seeing Andre ever talking to his son, Phillipe. Is that some other variant of the Mandela Effect, only, of course, if my experience is similar to that of anyone else who has seen this movie? I know I didn’t fall asleep during the movie and miss the scenes of heartfelt interactions between father and son. Phillipe and his mother get along just fine and discuss the finer points of capturing white headed flies with Zagnut bars, which Beetlejuice described in the materials and methods section of his article published in the Lancet some time ago.

Svengoolie mentioned something pretty funny about the only scene which I seem to remember, which is the white-headed fly (which is you know who!) incessantly screaming “Help me deepen my voice so that Herbert Marshall and Vincent Price won’t bust out laughing at me!”

I think this movie is OK, and I give it a shrilling chicken rating of 4/5.

15 Minute Push in Cribbage Game Today!

Today we filmed our cribbage game with a goal of completing a game in 15 minutes. We managed to do it, although I played out of turn on the last pegging phase. Sena got skunked today, but that’s rare!

You have to pay attention to the clock on the table in the video, showing we essentially made the 15-minute mark that cribbage tournament rules require for playing a game. We also decided to shuffle a few times every deal so as to try to mix the cards enough.

This is better than the time we usually take to play a typical game, which is generally 20 minutes. It’s hard to shave just 5 minutes off the game. I get pretty jittery trying to stay that focused, but today we did it. We helped each other, which doesn’t happen in tournaments. And there’s not the distraction of hundreds of other players in a giant auditorium all crammed together cheek by jowl and talking at once.

We’re not going to play that fast all the time.

Cribbage Could Help Preserve Your Brain Health!

I just saw an article that working on your cognitive skills might make you less susceptible to dementia. There are some websites that help you, but I think some, like BrainHQ, could cost you money.

On the other hand, there is some evidence that playing card games can help protect your brain. I think cribbage could be one of them, although it’s tough to find specific studies on it.

I checked around and found a few studies about how playing games like solitaire and hearts could help keep you sharp. On the other hand, when I was a young man, I worked on a land survey crew. We played hearts over lunch hour and when it rained. I consistently lost.

But for the last several years, Sena and I have regularly played cribbage, a card game that calls for some math skills, concentration, attentiveness, and strategy.

The one problem I see with picking cribbage as one of your main sources of cognitive stimulation is that many people see it has an old person’s game. They should try playing cribbage with someone who really knows how to play.

Cribbage players tend to be older; many tend to be over 50. The American Cribbage Congress (ACC) is the major organization for cribbage and they hold lots of tournaments, both local (called grass roots clubs) and national. They always welcome new and younger players. In general, you need to be able to play a game in 15 minutes in tournaments.

We have tried to finish a cribbage game in 15 minutes, but we can’t seem to do it in less than 20 minutes. I always know when Sena wants to play. She like to use the automatic card shuffler (I like to shuffle manually) and whenever I hear the card shuffling machine (which is loud enough to hear from all over the house), I know it’s time for a game!

Upcoming Svengoolie Movie: “The Fly”!

Svengoolie Intro: “Calling all stations! Clear the air lanes! Clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”

We got the 1958 classic bug flick “The Fly” with Vincent Price coming up this Saturday and boy can I wait…no, sorry, I mean I can’t wait. I’ve never seen this particular film, but I did see the one made in 1986 in which Jeff Goldblum played the fly and developed superhuman strength, busting a man’s arm in a wrist wrestling match.

Until now, the insects we’ve seen on the Svengoolie show have been atomic bomb testing created giant insects like spiders and ants. Now we get to see a dead guy who survived the black plague, went to Harvard Business School and Julliard, and saw the Exorcist 167 times trick a giant fly by tempting it with a Zagnut bar, and drag it into his dining room where he has built the well-known transporter room with only limited help from chief engineer Scotty and also they’ve modified it to rearrange the atoms of creatures including humans and extraterrestrial giraffes, enabling them to prevail in stomping combat with the army of the planet of the apes who are just looking for a decent banana split for crying out loud and…well, that’s probably not how this movie goes, but I’m not in charge here.

Walking the Clear Creek Trail Today

Took a quick hike on the Clear Creek Trail this afternoon. Last week, my step counter logged about 5 miles or so when I walked out to the mall. I paid dearly for that; I could barely limp around the house for a day and a half. Today, I got about 7,500 steps which now gives me an average of about 10,850 steps over the last week. But I burned only 30 calories per day over the last month. Walking 10,000 steps usually burns 300-500 calories.

Not good if I’m going to get rid of a belly which could threaten to qualify me to play Santa Claus at the mall—eventually (I’m exaggerating—a little). The web tells me I have to burn 3,500 calories by exercise to lose a pound or 500 calories per day over a week.

One incentive to walk more frequently (at least until the snow flies) is to walk where I can see interesting scenes in nature, like today. I’m pretty sure I saw a downy woodpecker because it was pretty small, which distinguishes it from a hairy woodpecker—otherwise they look a lot alike. And I caught a chipmunk trying to hide from me.

On the other hand, I saw an article indicating that you could get good results from working out 2 days a week. They always quote a study, which in this case was published in the open access journal Obesity. It says that a weekend warrior can get the same results at losing belly fat as those slogging away every day. Maybe.

I’m not a weekend warrior. In fact, lately I’m a peacenik when it comes to exercise. I’d rather sit on a bench than bench press.

Individual Mandela Effect?

I watched the Svengoolie show movie, “Young Frankenstein” last night and the most striking thing I can say about it is that, while it was really funny, it set off a train of thought that led me to question whether or not there should be an individual category of the Mandela Effect. As everyone knows the definition of that phenomenon is when a large group of people collectively misremember an event or fact. I misremembered an event that happened when I was in the 6^th grade.

Incidentally, the Mandela Effect was a feature in an X-Files episode entitled “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat.” In my case, this would just be called a false memory. You could call it confabulation, which can be a brain disorder caused by thiamine deficiency—but I eat too well for that.

On the other hand, I can say that I forgot that the Iowa Hawkeye vs Penn State football game that was scheduled for yesterday afternoon was not available on cable. It was only on a streaming service and so I didn’t have to go hunting for an Internet Archive recording of “Young Frankenstein” to avoid my presumed time conflict between the Svengoolie show and the game. By the way, Iowa won 25-24.

This is not going to be a post about “Young Frankenstein” because this movie already has enough reviews and since it was directed by Mel Brooks and released in 1974 it’s still pretty fresh in the minds of many people, including baby boomers like me.

I’m really sure I’m probably the only one who misremembers an “event” about a movie which I heard some 6^th grade kid talking about, which was another Mel Brooks movie, “Blazing Saddles.” This film was also made in 1974. I was not in the 6^th grade at that time.

I’m sure you caught that. No 6^th grade buddy of mine in that era could have been talking about that movie and saying something like “I didn’t think it was going to be a farce!” Those were my friend’s exact words and he never said it—but I have this bogus memory of it being attached to “Blazing Saddles.”

I looked at a Wikipedia list of movies with western themes in the 1960s and I can’t pick one out that my friend in the 6^th grade would have thought was a farce.

I probably can’t chalk this up to getting older because I’ve had this false memory for decades.

And I made a YouTube several months ago telling a bald eagle joke that I persist in “remembering” Jim Carrey tell many years ago during a televised stand-up routine. I asked that people contact me on my blog to let me know if they knew the origin of the joke. No takers. That event never happened either, apparently. When I google it, my video pops up near the top of the list of a very short list of links and AI is not helpful. It’s probably just another false memory.

I know this is only tangentially related to the movie “Young Frankenstein.” But I thought it was more interesting.

Big Mo Pod Show: “The Dark Side of Legacy”

This was a fascinating episode of the pod show for more than one reason. The title is interesting if only in the sense that it might a reference to B.B. King—who wasn’t on the playlist either last night or the song selection for today’s podcast. Briefly, what we learned was that B.B. King had a lot of heirs (17 was the number of dependents) to his fortune when he died and that led to conflict over his estate. This came up during the conversation about Mud Morganfield.

Big Mo Pod Show 080 – “The Dark Side of Legacy”

One song that I couldn’t find on the Big Mo Blues Show playlist was “Floating Bridge” a 1937 classic by Sleepy John Estes and I couldn’t remember hearing it last night. It’s a deeply personal story of his own near-death experience when he nearly drowned but was saved by a friend. Eric Clapton covered it in 1981.

Another thing we learned about was the double neck guitar, which came up in the conversation about the tune “Blue Guitar” by Earl Hooker. Earl Hooker was famous for playing the double neck guitar, a heavy instrument with two necks, in this case a six string and a 12 string. I found a very long and deep web article about multi-neck guitars and they appeared in the late 17^th century.

As Big Mo and Noah pointed out, there were other musicians who played double necks, among them Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin (“Stairway to Heaven”).

Big Mo mentioned the word “mambo” while talking about Mud Morganfield, who sang “Big Frame Woman.” I had to look up mambo and I think he might have meant a latin dance of Cuba? On the other hand, I found a reference that the word has African origins as well. Maybe some of you have ideas about that?

Quick Video on Installing the Case for iPhone 17 Pro

So, about a week ago, I posted a YouTube video about my first ever time installing an OtterBox protective screen on my new iPhone 17 Pro. I installed the case the same day. I also have a holster with belt clip. If I can do it, anyone can. My smartphone situation is pretty much back to normal now and I won’t have to use the fanny pack.

Tried Watching Young Frankenstein on Internet Archive but No Go

OK, so I tried watching the movie Young Frankenstein on the Internet Archive just now, but it’s a no go. The choices are watching it formatted in a different language or sitting through endless buffering. So, I’m choosing to watch it on the Svengoolie show when it’s scheduled tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. That means I’ll miss the Iowa Hawkeye vs Penn State football game, which comes on at 6:00 p.m.

So be it.

The Zamboni Can Help Skaters Only a Little

Hiked out to the mall today and watched the Zamboni smoothing out the ice-skating rink. It can help skaters a little.

It was pretty crowded this afternoon and there were several beginners. They’re easy to pick out because they fall a lot and tend to pull themselves along using the handrails along the sides of the rink. I think a few made the most contact with the ice not so much with their skates as with their knees and elbows.

I can’t remember if I had as much trouble turning left and right as one guy. But I’m pretty sure I fell just as hard when I first learned how to skate. He did fine in a straight line, but turning was his downfall—literally.

There was a short kid out there who was fast and nimble. He was evidently a hockey player and somebody was training him.

There are certain balance aids like stacked pylons. A little bitty girl used those twice for about 2 seconds each and figured she’d had enough.

There were more experienced skaters, but all of them were learning—and falling. They just picked themselves up and tried again. I guess that’s the main thing.