Nothing's been badly wrong with me or with the laptop--we've just been preoccupied with off-blog things.
Animals
Crude, rude cartoon some cat owner Out There needs to see. Of course Serena and her kittens would never do anything like this...hah. If pushed to it, by confinement with a neglected litter box and punishment when they protested, they could probably think of worse things! Your cat wants all solid bodywaste removed within a few hours, all clumps of soaked clay removed while there's still a dry patch somewhere. Your reward for doing this is that the cat will stop thinking of creatively annoying ways to soil your personal property. (Nothing from the litter box flushes well but your cat may let you recycle dried-out clay.) Cat just wants not to step in anything that makes cat's paws smell or feel nasty. If you can safely let cat go out and use a sand pit, cat will be delighted to keep all bodywastes there, unless of course it's overcome by the same sort of uncontrollable reaction humans sometimes have, in which case cat will at least make a much smaller mess than you would, yourself.
Cows.
Green
Another cartoon some people need to see...suitable for framing.
History
Virtual tour of Eatonville, for those of us who are allergic to Florida. If Florida ever stops spraying poison on itself, it will be a duty and a pleasure for everyone to visit Eatonville. I've been there--in no physical condition to get out and appreciate the place.
Joe Jackson salutes Desmond Doss of Lynchburg, possibly the best-known (in a good way) Seventh-Day Adventist in the church's history. (Lots of well-known people, from Warren G. Harding to Ozzy Osbourne, have been ex-Adventists.)
Doss didn't write a book, though one was written about him (and the author was so impressed that he went on to write a book about the Adventist church). This web site is a posthumous fan project. Doss was a quiet, private man during his lifetime.
Microsoft, Self-Destructive Hubris of
I don't do this every day, but in order to see where we had the most readers I peered below the cover of the statistics page Google generates for all Blogspot blogs. We had approximately 19,000 readers using Chrome and TWO, count them, two whole visits from people using Edge. Because Microsoft's efforts to push Edge and other Microsoft products are making all Microsoft products wix, that's why. Only three years ago, Edge seemed to be very similar to Chrome; the sister whose information was stored in Edge on this computer had no complaints. It was merely that Edge was her browser and Chrome was my browser. That was all! But friends don't let friends use Edge, now.
Opera was what the poor little Sickly Snail used to have. This web site officially cheers for everyone Out There who is still putting up with Opera. More than are putting up with Edge.
Music
Dolly Parton.
It came up in a discusion. Since this web site did US patriotic songs last week, why not? Why shouldn't readers in other countries get to laugh at the versions of your songs Google chooses to offer us? National anthems: New Zealand's.(Rock'n'roll version!)
Great Britain's. (And Google felt a need to apologize for there not being a pop-type video. Hah. A commenter thought the tune was "lugubrious." I had no idea what commenter was talking about until I heard the tempo at which it has to be played to be recognizable in the vastness of St Paul's Cathedral.)
Canada's.
Greece's.
Cornwall's. (Cornwall is not, strictly speaking, a nation, but that doesn't stop them claiming a good old traditional song as their "unofficial national anthem.")
South Africa's.
That takes care of Ellen Hawley's commenters' national songs but why leave out our own readers? Love and peace to all readers who are human, and a quick clean death to those who are bots. Singapore's. (No, I'm not seeing enough visits from Singapore to suggest another bot army.)
Germany's.
(Pause for US Christians to sing the hymns, in English, that we sing to this tune, just to clear our minds. This web site will stay entirely out of any question about whether the tune properly begins with "Glorious things of thee are spoken..." or "Praise the Lord, ye heavens, adore Him.")
France's.
Hong Kong is not, technically, a nation either but Google lists this as its anthem:
Brazil's.
The Netherlanda'.
Japan's.
India's.
Sweden's.
Spain's. (The Spanish Marcha Real doesn't have official lyrics. This doesn't stop Spanish people from singing it. Lots of people have written words to this song; an official choice has never been made. So what's linked is just one of seveeral Spanish songs written to the tune of their national anthem.)
Belgium's.
Bangladesh's.
Vietnam's.
Russia's. (I'm not saying people who feel attached to Ukraine need to click. Actually I wish both countries would just stop quarrelling. Actually I think watching these videos of what people in all these countries choose for emblems builds a feeling that all people have something to preserve--and not sacrifice to war.)
In fact, though Google is not showing Ukraine on our Top 20 list for this week, here's a version of their song, too, to spare people the trouble of complaining. I didn't choose a video knowing it would end with "We Are All Brothers And Sisters. THE WAR MUST END" on the screen, but I endorse the thought.
Argentina's.
Turkiye's.
There.
The "All in the Family" song.
Steeleye Span.
Neil Diamond.
Dee Dee Sharp.
Deana Carter.
The Drifters.
Don Henley.
Joe Cocker...I'll admit, I think (1) the video is full of anachronism and (2) Joe Cocker, being his real age, and all these images of people in their early teens, mix badly and really bring out the smutty quality of the song, which tends to be lost in nostalgia when we listen to the original version. I don't think he meant to make a video that might have been called "Dirty Old Man Who Can't Sing." I suspect the cavorting teenagers are meant to be memories of his younger self and friends. But that's not what comes to mind first.
The Jamies.
Keith Urban.
Red Clay Strays.
Cody Johnson.
Ella Langley.
Lainey Wilson.
Little Texas.
Graham Parker.
The Band.
Weather
Virginians will never forget Camille (even if we weren't in Virginia when "she" landed). New Orleanians will never forget Katrina. Floridians will never forget Andrew. Those used to be human names. Not any more. Though I do wish the Weather Service would stop wasting perfectly good human names on hurricanes.
