Eventful Friday

The family started the day by going to the Museum of Television of Radio on West 52nd Street.  We saw:

1. Batman episode with Julie Newmar as the Catwoman

2. The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 with the Beatles.

3. A James Brown special that was originally on the air in 1968

4. A show about Teenagers on TV series over the past 50 years.

From there we walked to the Times Square area to eat dinner.  I originally wanted to go to Ellen's Stardust Diner on 51st Street and Broadway but there was a very long line at 5 PM.  As expected there were mobs of people, most tourists, in the Times Square area.  Instead of waiting on line we walked to West 38th Street where we ate at Ben's Deli.

We walked to Madison Square Garden and got tickets for the College Basketball doubleheader.

Game 1 - St Josephs beat Boston University 58-53

Game 2 - Hofstra beat St. Johns 63 - 51

It was a shame that the crowd was so small.  It seems there is very little interest in College basketball even with 2 New York schools in the finals.  At $15/ticket, it was realy a bargain for Madison Square Garden.

David Crosby Book

It's nice to have the week off.  I don't have to schlep to Jersey to stare out at a computer lab and cope with the lunacy, hypocrisy, mediocrity and prejudice of the management.  I stopped in the Queens Public Library branch down the street from where I live.  I have very low expectations of this small branch.  I don't even go near the computers there.  I use a low tech approach by just browsing the shelves for a book that may be of interest.  Today, I found the book David Crosby: Since Then:  How I survived Everything and Lived to Tell About it.  David Crosby was an original member of the Byrds and Crosby Stills Nash (and Sometimes Young).  This book is a  sequel to Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby published in 1988.  Today, I read the first 30 or so pages.  I looked through my vinyl collection and found one LP of David Crosby as a solo artist and several of Crosby Stills Nash and their various permutations.

We Are Marshall (the movie)

Movies are generally the only businesses that are open on Christmas Day so we walked over to the local multiplex and saw We Are Marshall.  The movie was about the tragic loss of the football team in a plane crash at Marshall University in 1970 and how the community reacted to it.  It was very touching.  The movie complex was crowded for Christmas Day.  Maybe many kids get tired of their new toys by the early afternoon and ask to go to the movies.

Walking around Little Neck Bay in Douglaston

It was very mild for Christmas Eve.  We just took a walk around Little Neck Bay in Douglaston as we did on August 13.  This time we didn't take the digital camera.  the Giants lost to the New Orleans Saints 30 - 7.  Nothing much new.

Rocky Balboa - the movie

From 1976 - 1990 there were 5 Rocky movies staring Sylvester Stallone as the fictional boxer.  He just released a new movie titled Rocky Balboa where a 60 year old Rocky fights a young boxer named Mason Dixon.  The movie was enjoyable but conceptually did not offer anything new.  It seems that Hollywood will release sequel movies as long as money can be made.  My wife Karen taped the first two Rocky movies years ago.  She found a VHS version of Rocky III in the local public library.  We dug through my old vinyl collection and found the soundtrack for the first Rocky movie.

College Basketball St. Johns vs NJIT

This season the NJIT men's basketball team is making the transition to Division I.  Tonight they lost to the St. John's Red Storm 68-50 at the Carnesecca Arena in Queens.  I didn't go to the game, but I listened to most of it on the radio.  I worked at the St. Johns University library from 1990-92 while I have been at NJIT since 1992.  St. Johns had been a nationally ranked team.  Their famous coach Lou Carnessecca retired at about the same time I left.

Just Love that British Rock of the 60s

Regular readers of this blog should have observed that every Sunday night when I write a blog entry I am listening to Sound of the Sixties on BBC Radio 2.  Long time British DJ Brian Matthew normally hosts the show, but he has been ill for a number of months now.   Several different British personalities have substituted for him.  I enjoy listening to British hits that did not get radio play in the USA back in the 60s.  American hits are also featured.  Today with saw the movie Pusuit of Happyness with Will Smith.