Just Because We Need It: Dog Gets Great Gift, Everyone Happy

Cash, left, meets his new, young best buddy Jennings
at Christmas, making everyone happy 

It's been a trying 2017 to say the least, so the last post of this year, or at least something close to the last post, should go like this one. Just ot make us feel better.

In Ortonville, Michigan, Cash, a 12-year-old Golden Retriever, also had a bad 2017. His best friend, a fellow dog in the household named Rosie, passed away.

Cash mourned. He was getting older and this was too much. He lost all his energy after Rosie's death, and pretty much slept close to 23 hours a day.

That is until Christmas. Cash's human companion, Marie Ahonen, decided Cash needed a new companion to get him back to his old self.

It was a Christmas present: "It'll be our Christmas present to our family - that was our first thought. Then it just kind of piqued in my mind that this will be Cash's present," Ahonen said.

The idea worked. "(Cash) just got so excited and his paws were going a million miles an hour and I'm so excited, like this is what he needed," Ahonen said.

The gift for Cash was a Golden Retriever puppy. In the video,  Marie's husband, Jay, brings in a box and Cash immediately knows something cool is inside. Cash opens the box, and there's the puppy.

Cash immediately came back to life. The puppy looks confused at first, but then at the end decides he's game.

The puppy's name is Jennings (named after Waylon) At last report. Cash and Jennings were gettin along famously, and Cash was indeed back to his old, pre-2017 self

Let's hope the same for the rest of us.

Here's the fun, cute video:

Annual Google Search Video Reflects An Exhausting 2017

This wonderful woman was among the many iconic people
featured in Google's annual searches of the year video.

At the end of each year Google releases a sort of year-in-review video of top news events and top search subjects during the prior 12 months.

This year's Google search video which is at the bottom of this post, is surprisingly emotional, at least to me.

I guess 2017 was even more trying than I thought, what with the constant political upheaval; endless string of disasters; scandals, sexual and otherwise; and more encouragingly, a sharp uptick in citizen activism.

It seems we had only the Great Eclipse of 2017 to distract us from all the messes we endured.

The year was surely reflected in some of our most frequent Google searches:

"How far do North Korean missiles go?" 
"How do wildfires start?"
"How to help flood victims"
"How to be a strong woman."
"How to make a protest sign."
"How to run for office."
"How to be fearless."

I think we all want to know the answer to that last Google search on the list you just read.

I like how toward the end of the video, Google tries to encourage to keep going, keep doing what's right, as other people in the video's closing half minute or so do.

I wish everyone a calm and happy 2018, and I hope we all find the best answer to the last and most poignant Google search question in the video you are about to see: "How to move forward."

News Bloopers Of 2017 A Good Time Waster To Close Out The Year

As is always the case on live news programs, things go
wrong, like this uninvited furry guest on a news program. 

At the end of December, I always welcome the inevitable video, which is the Top News Bloopers Of the Year.

I'm a news junkie, so I watch and read up on current events a lot. Much of the news is presented on live TV, which can always be dangerous.

You have missed cues, unprepared reporters, unanticipated gliches and eyewitness interviews that go awry when the interviewees themselves go seriously awry.

Some bloopers get famous intantaneously, like when the Weather Channel was trying to film the implosion of a sports stadium in Atlanta and a bus got in the way at just the wrong moment.

Eyewitness interviews are the most dangerous. You'll see in the video the most obnoxious one is a little brat at a fireworks retailer. A local reporter, who is also the television station's meteorologist, tries to ask him, "What's the best fireworks to buy?" Innocuous question.

But the little shit replies angrily, "Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy."  Insulting, yes. But I think the reporter/meteorologist got the last laugh in that the kid is now exposed to the world as a real worthless jerk. Ha!

Here's the video. It's 15 minutes long, but worth it. Also NSFW, but why would you be watching a 15-minute time waster at work?

Addams Family Dance To The Ramones, Making Everything Right In The World

The website Open Culture gave us this little gem recently: It's the 1960s television sitcom version of the Addams Family dancing to the Ramones'  classic "Blitzkrieg Bop." I know, I know, it didn't really happen, the Ramones song was just dubbed over some Addams Family scenes.

But this is delightful. You HAVE to watch the video:

The Addams Family dancing Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones from Gabriel Magallon on Vimeo.

Our Yearly Tradition: Darlene Love Gives Us "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"

Darlene Love (left)  performs "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
with Fantasia in this year's installment of a Christmas tradition.

We have to do our yearly Christmas Eve tradition today: Darlene Love singing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home.)"

It's my favorite Christmas season song, mostly because it's not sticky sweet saccharine like most holiday songs, which are awful.

Most of them are so sentimental and icky that you go into a diabetic coma if you hear just 10 seconds of them. ("I'll Be Home For Christmas.") Or they're so deliriously happy that you wonder what kind of drug they're taking ("Santa Claus Is Coming To Town") Or they're so stupid and odious they make you want to throw up. ("Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer")

Not "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," popularized by Darlene Love. Musically it's an uplifting, take me to church melody. The lyrics are bittersweet. The emotional complexity of the song, at least compared to almost all other holiday songs, makes this one work

For 29 years, Darlene Love made it a tradition to sing this tune on David Letterman's show. Click on this mashup of her years on David Letterman for proof that Darlene Love sure isn't losing any of her glorious power as the hears go bh.

However, Letterman went off the air. So "The View" took it over, and now they're in their third year. Of course, as always, you will see and hear this year's video of her performance at the bottom of this post.

This year, Darlene Love got some help from Fantasia, the awesome R&B singer.

Love and her song have become such a national Christmas tradition that she's turned up elsewhere, too. Click on this link for a fun video of Darlene Love performing the song on "The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon" in which Love, Fallon, The Roots and Anna Kendrick perform the song accompanied by child classroom instruments, which is a regular feature on this show. It's a bit tinny but surprisingly good.

Without further delay, here's this year's Darlene Love's Christmas performance, with the fantastic Fantasia from this year. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Woman Gets The BEST Help Decorating Her Christmas Tree

I'm sure you have your holiday decorating done by now, given that it's just two days before Christmas.

Next year,  however, you ought to plan on hiring this woman's helper. She got her Christmas tree decorated in flash, thanks to her handy helper. Watch:

Google Translate Really Improves Christmas Songs

Christmas carols are MUCH better after having been run
through Google Translate a couple times. 

A fun trend on YouTube and elsewhere is to use Google Translate and convert song words in English to some other language and back to English again, with hilarious results.  

Tis the season, so here's a couple videos that will let you know what I'm talking about, using holiday music. They're great time wasters, and I must say, the Google Translate versions of Christmas songs are a vast improvement over the original.

The first video is by Malinda Kathleen Reese. She uploaded it to YouTube a couple years ago, but it's still a great find.  (In a none-holiday moment, check out Reese's Google Translate version of Adele's hit "Hello." It's worth it. Even the Defense Secretary is involved. (Watch and listen to it, you'll see.)

She has a great voice, but the translations to the songs are hilarious. My favorite part is one of the songs gets into Saudi Arabian monetary policy. Who knew Saudi Arabian financial rules make sentimental holiday wishes. After this video, I got another one, below this:



Next, we have a very recent episode of Jimmy Fallon teaming up with Rebel Wilson to do Google Translate versions of other Christmas songs. In "Deck the Halls," we learn that ancient sparrows fight with Carol. (I don't know who Carol is or why the old sparrows are mad at her.)

Oh, and "Walking In A Winter Wonderland" becomes much better, with an awesome new name: "I Ran Through The Land Of Cold Unknowns"  Here it is: