A to Z 2024: Tis for Table Tennis

  For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in an A to Z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.

April 23rd is World Table Tennis Day

I'm gonna be honest.  Most of these holidays I am highlighting for the challenge.  I am going to forget about for next year.  Some I've probably already forgotten.  World Table Tennis Day is one holiday I don't want to forget.  In fact, I am kind of bummed that I probably won't ping some pong today.  Ping some pong is what I call playing ping pong or table tennis.  

When I think of table tennis the first thing that pops into my head is this commercial from when I was a kid.  

Gnip Gnop not only sparked a passion for ping pong but  also a passion for gnikaeaps sdrawkcab  (speaking backwards) which turned into my love for all things palindromic.  

When other  people think of ping pong this scene from Forrest Gump may pop in their head ...

I love playing table tennis.  I may lack the Gumpian endurance or skill  but what I lack in endurance and talent I make up in zeal.  In college I played a lot of table tennis, it is a great way to spend time between classes or as a study break.  It is both social and athletic.  I even had an album that I thought was the best accompaniment for playing ping pong.  It was Jacob's Trouble's debut album, Door Into Summer.  When I hear other people incorrectly say that this group has better albums, my initial thought is not to play ping pong with. You listen and you tell me if the beat doesn't want to make you ping some pong.

 

One fun thing to on World Table Tennis Day would be to play a variation called round robin.  It is basically a cross between table tennis and musical chairs.  You play with 2 paddles and as many people as can fit around a ping pong table. Instead of describing it, here is play in action ...

 

To get a full ping pong experience play the round robin clip without volume while listening to the  Jacob's Trouble and you'll see what I'm talking about.  So, ping some pong today if you get a chance and if you can't that's just how the ball bounces.

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The song of the day today is Tell It Again by J.J. Heller

20 songs now comprise the A to Z playlist.

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

The Dave Out Loud Show (Dave Out Loud)

 

 

JJ Heller - God Is Still Here (Live)

Haven't shared for a while. I have been greatly encouraged by  this song. You can listen to the official version of the song on Spotify by clicking here.

T is for This Year

You Tube A TO Z

T is for This Year

One of the things I like best  about You Tube are some of the cover  contests that are conducted using it.  For example, at the beginning of 2015 One of my favorite artists released this song on video.

She also announced a contest asking for people sending their covers of her song in.  I watched a couple dozen of these and this one was my favorite.








For more blogging A to Z click here.

JJ Heller - Boat Song (Official Music Video)

OPV

Other People's Videos

We are big J.J. Heller fans.  We saw her in concert earlier this year.  More on that concert  can be found at HSD by clicking here. So I thought her boat song, which is based on Margaret Wise Brown's book the Runaway Bunny would be a good fit for this session of OPV.

Re United

V as in Viral, Video and Vault

This is only my second time using an HSD rewind to get through the marathon-like paces of blogging from A to Z.  I say marathon-like, because if this were a marathon, we would need to stick an extra 1/5 of a letter at the end.

Today's post goes back to October 2010, when I was writing posts about labels something, I call meta blogging, something Amy calls wake me when it's over.  I wanted to share this post about the United Break's Guitar videos yesterday for U.  But it turns out V works just as well.

One of my most popular tags is videos (# 6 after initial 300 posts). There are 3 types of videos that I post here:


1) videos I have taken of my family


2) Videos friends and family have asked me or allowed me to post


3) Viral videos I have found on the internet or that have been reccomended by other blogs.


One of the videos from the third category that I found most compelling is actually a series of three videos by a group called the Sons of Maxwell fronted by Canadian Dave Carroll.

The incident that inspired the songs took place in my home town of Chicago as United Airlines mishandled the guitar of Mr. Carroll. The real tragedy took place as Carroll could not get United to fix the guitar. After going round and round with United, Carrol told the airline's representative that he was going to write 3 songs about the incident, record them, make music videos and post them on you tube. Carrol was as good as his word and he posted the following 3 songs:

United Breaks Guitars Song I

United Breaks Guitars Song II

United Breaks Guitars Song III

Now I haven't flown United since the incident. This isn't really much of a boycott as I haven't had flown anywhere to since July of 2001. I will continue to post cool videos like these though.

Meanwhile back in 2012

I still haven't flown in a plane (although the rest of my family has) since July 2001.  I have continued to post cool videos and will continue to do so.  Here is a video of J.J. Heller who we as a family saw in concert last Friday. 



They told us at the concert that the video had just reached  100,000 views on YouTube.  I am going to take credit for anything past that, so go ahead and share it with your pals.  And don't worry United didn't break her guitar, she has a tour bus, and she plays harmonica. 

Six Word Concert Surprise Update

S AS IN SURPRISE

Six Word Saturday.

Here's our Six Words:

Eureka, We found J.J. Heller Concert.




Puppy loves a Christian music artist by the name of J.J. Heller.  Whatever Puppy loves usually becomes a giant obsession with her.  So when she fell in love with the song "What Love Really Means" she wrote J.J. and asked when she was coming to concert near us.  J.J. wrote her back and told her to have us check the schedule at her website for upcoming concerts in the area.  Months passed and Puppy diligently reminded me to check the schedule.  When I did, nothing was really close.  Then a few months ago, I found it, a concert 2.5 hours from our house.  The concert was in Eureka, Illinois.  Eureka roughly translated means I found it. 

Now knowing Puppy like I do, I knew that 3 months of anticipation might not hurt her, but would probably kill us.    So I planned an elaborate day trip to see some historic Ronald Reagan sites which had us ending up in Eureka, Illinois this afternoon.

Bunny and Spider Droid were in on the secret, and it took every inch of self control they had not to spoil it for Puppy.

The field trips and the concert were amazing.  Here is some footage and pictures from the concert.

JJ Heller when she found out Puppy has same birthday as her daughter

For More Six Word Saturday CLICK HERE

Pandora and other Fragments

It is time once again .  Yes Half past Kissing Time and time for Friday Fragments. 

1.  I heart Pandora.

I have a very eclectic taste in music.  Show tunes, Pop, Rock, Christian, folk, country.  You name it I like it.  I don't even mind listening to many genre's at the same time.  That'w why I like Pandora.  I have about 50 different channels and when the mood strikes me, I hit the shuffle option and get my eclectic on .  This is what I am listening to right now.  I can go from that to Under The Sea from Little Mermaid.  (Which, incidentally just happened.) From there maybe Bowling For Soup or Barry Manilow to Bing Crosby or Puppy's favorite, JJ Heller.   This musical journey may contine with music from Journey or the musical saga may continue with The Saga Begins by Weird Al.  Like I said, eclectic.

Sure, I could do and  do the same thing with my IPod and Itunes.  But, the songs I listen to, I have to own.  With Pandora it often plays songs I not only don't own but am sometimes not even aware of.  I just listened to 5 O'clock world by the Vogues from my Beach Monkeys(Beach Boys and Monkees are the seed artists)  channel on Pandora.  I may have heard it before on an oldies stattion but I would never be able to ask for it by name.  That's why I like the music genome project employed by Pandora.  It takes what you like and plays music similar to it.

2.  A to Z coming soon.







Earlier this year I joined up for the A to Z blogging challenge for this April. March is 1/2 way over and I hope I am up to the task of 26 letters in 30 days. We get each Sunday off except the first Sunday, which is the first of April. It seems a little NABLOPOmish to me. Click here to review my love/hate with Nablopomo. I don't have a theme or even a plan yet. But I do have a little inkling of a system. I love systems, so it may still work.

Here is a cool promotional video for the event.



3.  I owe I owe so back to blog I go. 

I am so behind in my blogging for promotional items  I have received.  There is a math program that Spider Droid and I used last month that I need to write a review of.  There are almost a half dozen books I received that I owe reviews for.  Hey I think that's a good future Friday Fragment post!
I also owe the host of Home Spun Juggling a review of her fabulous book of cartoons. 

Bunny did  her own review of this fine Tome of Homeschool wit and wisdom.  So in lieu of my  review here is a link to hers.  Hopefully, I'll catch up soon.

4. It's not a test, it's Iowa

Did you ever take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills? I did a few times as a kid.  I really enjoyed it, because it was a day or 2 off from the routine of regular school.  I also brake for scantron.  Next week I will be proctoring an Iowa Test for a bunch of home school kids.  Spider Droid and Bunny will be among those taking the test.  I will spend the next few days of school just getting them  familiar with the world of testtaking in a classroom setting.

I'm not out of fragments but I am out of time.Click here   For more fun filled fragments of Fridaytude.

Mid Week Music Break

I have made it clear that my Puppy loves the music of J.J. Heller.  I thought I'd give you a chance to find out for yourself how good she is.  Here she is with What love really means, the song that Puppy fell in love with.

What Love Really Means (Single)

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The HSBA winning blog for Best Group Blog was TOS Homeschool Crew.  This blog continues to provide excellent product reviews as this sample post attests.

A JJ Heller Style birthday

Today is Puppy's birthday. A few months ago Puppy heard a song on the radio by J.J. Heller. She calls it Love me for me which are the main lyrics in the chorus. The actual song is called What Love Really Means. Puppy instantly fell in love with that song and with J.J. Heller herself. She wrote her a letter and even got a response from her.

Since then I found out that J.J. Heller and I have a lot in common . . .

1. Her daughter has the same real name as Puppy.

2. She has a husband named Dave. I am a husband named Dave.

3. She blogs. I blog.

4. She made her daughter rainbow cupcakes for her recent birthday. We made Puppy rainbow cupcakes for her birthday.

5. She has a lovely singing voice. I have a lovely singing voice blog.

So for Puppy's birthday we got her the J.J.Heller C.D.. that has What Love Really Means on it. When Puppy found out that J.J Heller's daughter got rainbow cupcakes on her birthday she said I'm having a J.J. Heller style birthday. Puppy you bring your own style to every birthday and everything you do and as pal J.J might say we love you for you. Happy Birthday!