Economy Makes Startling Rebound

As you may remember, See's Candies™ stopped selling the Gift of Elegance™, which experts determined was a sure sign that the U.S. economy was "in the crapper". Well, happy days are here again! The Gift of Elegance™ has returned!:

Synergy

Supplemental M*A*S*H post

These terrible-looking books were a common sight on drugstore paperback spinner racks in the 70s:
These titles beg the questions: How does "M*A*S*H" get to all these fun places, and does it have to go back to Korea afterward?

The Weird Offspring of M*A*S*H

This long-running tv series was spun off from a successful movie based on a semi-successful book.

Toy M*A*S*H latrine. I didn't have this, but I had the toy operating theater.

Eventually, it had its own spin-offs and semi spin-offs.

First, a semi-spin-off: Wayne Rogers (Trapper John McIntyre) playing a different comedic doctor in the tv spin-off of the Walter Matthau movie House Calls.

At a approximately the same time, Pernell (Bonanza) Roberts was playing the titular role in Trapper John. M.D., a hospital drama with only the most tenuous connection to the movie/tv series of M*A*S*H.

This was all very confusing to me as a child!

Then it got even worse: AfterMASH, the sequel spin-off, featuring three character actors from the show: Harry Morgan, William Christopher, and Jamie Farr. Oof! A big, lifeless flop. For years, I forgot that Father Mulcahy was in this--I thought Radar O'Reilly was the third one...but he just appeared in two episodes.

But wait, there's more! Gary Burghoff filmed a pilot called W*A*L*T*E*R in 1984!

You can read about the whole thing in the Wikipedia link, but here's the horrible plot:

The episode opens with Walter O'Reilly in his cousin Wendell Micklejohn's apartment. They are getting ready for their workday while watching the start of a television interview. The interview shows journalist Clete Roberts following up on the members of the M*A*S*H 4077th. The previous week Roberts had interviewed Hawkeye Pierce, and this week he is catching up with O'Reilly. At the police department and through store windows on the street, O'Reilly and Micklejohn catch pieces of the television interview, giving viewers of the pilot a chance to sample the potential series and to build a bridge between the events of M*A*S*H and W*A*L*T*E*R.

Viewers learn that O'Reilly returned to Iowa, where he failed at farming. He sold the farm and the livestock and sent his mother off to live with his aunt. His bride left him for another man after their honeymoon. O'Reilly decided to commit suicide, and went to a drug store to buy sleeping pills for an overdose (as well as aspirin, because sleeping pills give him headaches). The drugstore clerk, Victoria, cheered him up and they became good friends. His cousin Wendell helped him get a job on the police force. Walter solves a dispute between two strippers, and gets his wallet back from a young would-be thief whose father had died in Korea.

MALM again

I managed to finish assembling MALM last night without too much tsuris. It's sitting off to one side of our living room right now, looming like the monolith from 2001. Tomorrow (Saturday) we'll extract the old brokedy-ass dresser, vacuum the spot where it's sat for the past seven years, and wobble the new one over there. Huzzah!

Passages

Noted CNN host and crazy person Lou Dobbs has announced his immediate retirement from CNN.
"Over the past six months, it has become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us," Dobbs said during his Wednesday broadcast. "And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day and to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible."

"And so today I announce my intention to finally apprehend the menace that has made a mockery of Our Broken Borders. Frito Bandito, your days are numbered!"

MALM

I'm currently locked in battle with the Ikea MALM 6-drawer chest, which comes in two boxes with approximately 9000 separate pieces. We managed to get it out of of the store yesterday (after getting one wrong box, and then correcting our mistake), into a 4-door compact car (with three passengers), and up to our apartment on the 4th floor (not so hard, with ramps and a hand truck).

I was going great guns with the assembly until I made one boo-boo putting together the first drawer, which proved very difficult to undo, since the part I screwed in incorrectly was not made to be unscrewable. Not cool! I'll still be able to get the whole thing together adequately, but my efforts will not be 100% perfect, as I'd hoped.