Slice, please

Robin Williams said cocaine was God's way of telling you that you have too much money.

Today's clue is Domino's "carryout insurance." On the Trump sucker scale, this rates 8 out of 10.

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Surfed past an episode of the animated show "All Hail King Julien," a prequel to "Madagascar." The episode was from 4 years ago, early in the first season. The female character was the only one to take action to solve Julien's problem. All the males were upset but unable to accomplish anything, until Julien stumbled into a solution.

The female, perhaps named Clover (I didn't make a note), also was the only slender lemur. Everybody else was chubby.

Yes, I was really, really, really bored and I have too many channels.

I remember the same phenomenon, males flummoxed while the female takes action, in the "Penguins of Madagascar" TV show.

Before and after the crisis, the females are pushed aside.

On the other hand, I don't remember females at all in the cartoons of my childhood, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry, unless they were there to be harassed sexually. The females in "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" were passive, as were human females in sitcoms.

My childhood TV-viewing pre-dates "Scooby Doo," so I missed out on what became pop culture references.

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Recent A Word A Day entries:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.  — Hermann Göring, Nazi military leader (12 Jan 1893-1946)

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. — Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), novelist (23 Jan 1783-1842)

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Blip my mind

The TV-set weirdness opens a new chapter:

Jan. 17, I woke up to find that the TV was on and showing the Roku home page.

Roku's on the 2nd HDMI input. With Roku's home page.

DirecTV's on the 1st.

The TV was on 1st when I shut it off the night before.

I discovered this about 8 a.m., shortly after the house's electricity blipped,  as I found out later. The microwave clock lost its hold on time, and a mattress-warmer controller blinked in distress.

Apparently, it also turned on the TV.

I turned everything off and crawled under the bedcovers, pulling the blanket over my head.

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Dino grin

Made my first-ever visit to the Wells Discovery Museum in downtown Reno today, for the exhibit "A T-Rex Named Sue," which has a full-size copy of Sue's 90-percent complete skeleton.

Excellent exhibit with numerous info bits, video, buttons to push. Pieces of copy-Sue to touch.

Wow.

However, never in my life will I follow the instructions "push button and sniff." Supposedly, that kiosk delivers scents found where Sue hunted, trees, stream, etc.

"Push button and sniff." No good comes of that.

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By way of proving that I can whine about anything:

My doctor's medical group/Renown octopus has an excellent Web site.

Except "MyChart" first loads a huge picture of Lake Tahoe.

The lab appointments page loads a huge picture of a river.

Which take for-fricking-ever to load. My Internet connection's fairly fast, but these images kill it.

Fact is, I know what Tahoe looks like, and a lot of rivers.

Get me to the page where I can make the lab appointment.

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I want those 2.5 hours back

I waited a couple weeks for the crowds to melt away before seeing "The Last Jedi."

Since then, I've been trying to form an opinion other than "hated it."

I'm not finding one.

Sure, there are the writer/director's allusions to multiple old movies; I actually spotted three (don't know much about Kurosawa; Japanese movies didn't play Reno when I was young). Apparently, Johnson specializes in allusions. Since I've never heard of him before, I can't be sure.

Sure, there's the light-dark dichotomy.

Sure, there are the porgs, the vulptex, and the fathiers.

Sure, there's the avoiding "Star Wars" snares.

Sure, there's Luke returning to his whiny beginning.

I wish I could remember other characters' names, beyond Rey and Finn. And Leia, of course.

If the Force is with them, the creators of the next installment will recast Leia instead of dumping her. Fans are smart enough to catch on. I hope.

The day's best part? The butter-colored slime on my popcorn didn't climb back up my throat later in the evening.

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Lost in the dark ... in more ways than one

Channel-surfing brought me to the show "Finding Bigfoot" on Animal Planet. It seems to follow the same moronic idea as various "ghosthunters:" wander around outside in the dark, or in a building in the dark.

Hey, idiots! Human eyes don't work well in the dark. That's why the taxpayers fork over huge amounts of money to buy night-vision equipment for the military, among other people. It's why low-light cameras exist.

If Bigfoot's there (he's not), he is laughing his hairy ass off.

Try daylight hours. You'll find the Sasquatch cave you totally missed in the dark.

Unless you trip and fall into it as you stumble around blind in the dark. That's gotta hurt more than your pride.

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