Time to snap, crackle and pop with TVTA as we celebrate half a million site views!

Half a million site views? Pas mal.  

Yes, since 2011 here at WordPress, the site has moved in all the right places I wanted it to, and it’s a pleasure to see so many daily visitors come check out the 4k+ images I’ve steadily been adding to the archives, along with the visits and interaction from my good blogging buddies (you know who you are and you know I love you 😍)

Here’s the screen shot I took the other day showing the magic number:

 

So, a BIG thanks to all my vintage mates and visitors, and remember – if it’s not TVTA then it’s probably something else! 

Cereal-y speaking…

Dear vintage mates, is your office cat addicted to cereals? Is your monthly procurement budget being constantly blown on Cheerios and Cornflakes? Are you finding empty boxes of bran flakes hidden behind the office scanner?

You would think a cat might be content with just milk, yes? Bah. Not TVTA’s intrepid office cat Wooof!

Read on to discover what happened on that fatal day during breakfast; a deadly tale of cereal overdose and fancy dress costume parties gone mad!

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You are what you eat

You see, it all began – as most things do – quite innocently, over breakfast, when Wooof was on his eleventh bowl of Cornflakes, and I said to him: “If you continue to eat cereals at the rate you are, you will soon start looking like a soggy toasted bran flake.”

To which the cat replied: “At least I don’t look like you.”

“Oh? And how do I look?”

“Well, at best, a discoloured and collapsed soufflé. At worst, a mouldering year-old pickle found behind the fridge.”

“Charming,” I said. “I’m sure.” (It was time to quickly change the subject; Wooof was obviously suffering from some sort of e-number/calcium/sugar cereal overdose. “So, tell me, old chum, what’s new in the world of vintage? Or should I say, what’s so old it has become new again? Hahaha.”

The cat looked at me like I was a two-bit film extra reject from a critically panned movie called: Village of the Village Idiots, and said: “You’re not making sense. Have you been drinking?”

“Me? Today? A little nip, yes.”

“It’s only half eight in the morning, man!”

“But I’ve been up since three a.m. It’s not my fault my body clock is out of whack and I need a drink. What’s breakfast to you is lunch to me, dear cat.”

“Since when has a Belgium beer with a triple rum chaser constituted lunch?”

“Damn you!” I said. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“Wrong,” said the cat. “We felines are the bosses of everything. You need to cut down on your early morning drinking… I’m sure you’re getting the slogan: Go to work on an egg mixed up with: Go to work on a bender.”

“Oooooh, self-righteous much?” I retorted. “A cat with principles all of a sudden? Funny how you abandoned your principles so quickly when you went to the premiere of Cats before the pandemic, eh?”

Wooof: “Curses! I told you never to mention that again!”

Me: (singing) “Memories, all alone in the…”

Wooof: “Grrrw@!!LLL!!myawl@@X!!”

Me: “You need to calm down.”

Wooof: “And you need to go on a diet. But do you see me complaining?”

“No need to get personal,” I said.

“I thought you liked the personal touch?”

“Dear cat, your personal touch is more akin to a punch in the face with a pillow case full of steel ball bearings.”

“Hurrumph. Don’t talk to me about pillow cases,” grumbled the cat. “It was like that time when we went to a fancy dress party, and you made me wear a white pillow case and told everyone I was Casper the Friendly Ghost.”

“Ah, you looked so cute.”

“I was mistaken for a bag of cocaine! Being snorted by decadent fancy dress party goers is no way to enjoy an evening.”

“Well at least you didn’t go dressed as Big Bird,” I said. “Like how I did, and on the way we stopped to ask a policeman if he knew the way to Sesame Street.”

“Yes, I suppose a truncheon in the ribs and a squashed beak is no way to attend a fancy dress party.”

Me (sighing): “We’ve never had much luck when it comes to dressing up.”

Wooof: “True. Like that time we dressed in red boiler suits and Salvador Dali masks to binge-watch season two of La Casa de Papel.”

“Don’t remind me,” I said. “I’m still suffering nightmares of seeing gambolling, rolling-on-the-floor, spinning, diving, faking football superstar Neymar Jr’s cameo in that otherwise fine TV series.”

“Me too,” said Wooof. “His 40 seconds or so screen time is the most I’ve ever seen him stay his feet.”

“Which is why whenever I see his antics or his grinning face endorsing something, I remind myself he looks like Pigsy from 1970s TV show Monkey.”

“That’s rather unfair to the actor Toshiyuki Nishida who played Pigsy!” said Wooof.

“Blame it on the producers of La Casa de Papel then. Shocking. Inserting someone like Neymar Jr. into such a fabulous TV show.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said the cat. “It’s like getting into a Lamborghini only to find the steering wheel is from a Reliant Robin.”

“Or like eating a delicious cherry pie, only to find a toe nail buried halfway through the filling.”

“Like putting on a tuxedo for the Oscars, and casually sinking your hand into a pocket to strike a pose for Celebrity Uber Cool Film Star Doofus Magazine – only to find that gastro-riddled squirrels left six pounds of varmint shit during an impromptu nesting frenzy while the suit made its trip from the dry cleaners.”

“Dear cat, you have quite the imagination.”

“I know. But then I have been eating rather a lot of cereals lately.”

“Which brings us back to the main point of today’s post…”

“Which is?”

“Cereals!” I said.

“And, is there a moral?” asked the cat.

“Yes. Of course. The moral is… no matter how many cereals you think you may have tried in life, there is always another cereal to discover; or at the very least your cereal may go by another brand name if, say, you are having breakfast in America!” 

Wooof (singing): “Could we have kippers for breakfast, Mummy dear, Mummy dear… They got to have ’em in Texas ‘Cos everyone’s a millionaire…”

“So, therefore,” said I, interrupting the cat, “it’s a new cereal, in an old way, or an old cereal, in a new way.”

Wooof: “Once again, you’re making no sense.”

“Thank you, old chum.”

“You’re welcome. Now, shall we press on with posting today’s ads?”

“Yes. Shall we wear some fancy dress costumes as we post?”

“Good idea,” said the cat. “What are you going as?”

“Neymar Jr,” I said. “And you?”

“Pigsy.”

“How strange.”

(Cut to):

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Introducing: cereals you may or may not have tried in your life

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Afterword and Afterwards

Me: “Wooof, we forgot something important regarding the post title!”

Wooof: “What did we forget?”

“We have plenty of cereals, but no milk!”

“Aha,” said the cat. “Remedied. Thank you Sarah Michelle Gellar.”

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That’s all vintage mates. Thank you for eating cereals and celebrating half a million site hits with us 🙂