Have you finished fainting yet? 
Yes, this is the day I finally begin to unpack the 2025 False Ducks New Year’s Day Video Ramble. I posted the video on January 1st of this year but was sidetracked a few times and didn’t get around to the unpacking. The unpacking is basically me explaining or detailing some of the things I mentioned in the video ramble. Normally I address the topics in the ramble in the following blahg but, as I said, I got distracted. First there was the DARKWING DUCK AND THE NFT CASH GRAB…UNBOXING!, and then there was the two part blahg series of THIS IS 150ISH, PART ONE and THIS IS 150ISH, PART TWO. Those were written after I discovered that the “Darkwing Duck And The NFT Cash Grab…Unboxing!” was blahg number 150 and I always review the previous 50 blahgs in some sort of summary form. The “ish” is because “This Is 150ish, Part One” was actually number 151. Then there was the posting of a new short story in the blahg, THE KEYS OF HIRAM CRENSHAW. But, today’s the day, with no further excuses. Let the unpacking begin!
First I should post the 2025 False Ducks New Year’s Day Video Ramble so you will know what I’m talking about. Here’s that video:
The first thing I’ll address is the reference to launching our Christmas Tree into the creek. This has become a tradition every year of me launching the tree and watching it float away or possibly me failing to get the tree to float away. In previous blahgs like HOW WAS YOUR CHRISTMAS? and LAUNCHING AND RELAUNCHING, I posted videos of me launching the tree. Here’s this year’s video. Don’t be confused because it says “2025 Christmas Tree Launch” but I’m actually launching our Christmas 2024 tree.
Yes, it was an epic fail. I went back two weeks later and the tree was still there. I went down to the creek again this past weekend, the second weekend in March and the tree was still there. It was partially submerged and probably waterlogged. I’m not sure if it will ever find its way downstream.
I mentioned Jeanette’s health scare in this video. There are no pictures. Luckily, all was good. During a routine mammogram in November, they noted that one of Jeanette’s breasts was not the same size since the previous mammogram. This might have been the result of a mass or anything disastrous really. She didn’t have a follow-up appointment until January and the results were that there was nothing abnormal. We had to keep it from our kids over the holidays and stress and worry about it until the subsequent results gave us better news. Enough on that.
Part of the ramble highlighted my accomplishment in reading all 30 of the Cool and Lam detective agency books by Erle Stanley Gardner. Here’s what I said in my blahg last year after I had accomplished the task: I finally finished all 30 Cool and Lam books. 
In my previous blahg, UNPACKING THE 2024 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE., I detailed how I had about four to read. This is a detective series by Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of “Perry Mason”) using the pen name of A. A. Fair. There were 30 books and I finally finished “All Grass Isn’t Green” this past weekend. So that’s something off my to do list for 2024.”
I haven’t set a goal of reading any more books in a series but I did decide to try and do something else monumental. I’ve read for years that 1939 was one of the greatest years for films. Just look at the list below of strong classic films from 1939:
- Gone with the Wind
- Stagecoach
- The Wizard of Oz
- Wuthering Heights
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
- Goodbye, Mr. Chips
- Ninotchka
- Destry Rides Again
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- Dark Victory
- Young Mr. Lincoln
- Of Mice and Men
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- Babes in Arms
- Beau Geste
That is just a sampling of 1939 films. I set a goal of watching as many films from 1939 that I possibly can. Some have had DVD releases and are already in my collection. Others can be viewed online but sometimes the prints are not great. I have a list of just over 400 films from 1939 and I’ve watched almost 50 films from that year. I’ll update my progress and thoughts in a later blahg.
Some of my ramble was dedicated to my writings. I published my book “Pippa’s Passing” last year and it can be purchased in paperback and kindle versions from Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Pippas-Passing-Scott-Henderson/dp/1738299120/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U0H43M9PQB3&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tZB__wB1CglXGVRj0WczhXkKeBXVXCHKTAWgkJXR50ZwZk3lK82YLeGm-7ee9xQd97pxJaD4WBhUB92aoptxVbDllZrcrRUeg8KSgpi9RD6qPY0NqaFijKeb8KumYT_Lx_WX2xsbw1L5AbAhgHThgQpRGE5kZ78iFdgYRtBd8qwJep2U7Z3xMUrcodprgw6P.nmkJUbcZzavDFklC4MIUEO5lG0DNaQamgDkd76XPF4w&dib_tag=se&keywords=pippa%27s+passing&qid=1741803229&s=books&sprefix=pippa%27s+passing%2Cstripbooks%2C196&sr=1-1
I also mentioned the short stories I wrote last year. You can read them in the following blahgs:
HOW GRANDPA PUT DOWN THE ROBOT UPRISING.
I also said I wanted to do more writing this year. I started off this year with another short story that I published last month, THE KEYS OF HIRAM CRENSHAW. I hope to do even more writing. I have an idea for a story that I’m tentatively calling “Pocket Pal.” We’ll see if I get it written. I still have to complete “The Soda Machine” which I started writing about two years ago. It took me long enough to write this unpacking blahg as it is!
Politics came up in my ramble. I don’t know what to say. I’m completely disgusted with this topic. Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau is stepping down in a few days and Mark Carney will be the new Prime Minister. That will follow with a Federal Election in about six weeks. It’s a wait and see what will happen. We had a Provincial election and nothing changed. Here’s what I posted on my Facebook (which I don’t usually do so you know I was upset):
Now, we have a tariff trade war going on with Donald Trump and 
Doug Ford is trying to antagonize Trump with reciprocal tariffs and then backing off and saying “let cooler heads prevail.” The problem is that there are no cooler heads…just hot heads full of hot air.
I won’t talk further about Charlie’s lost Christmas gift and how it was found by our cat Rogue. You can read about that in the 2025 FALSE DUCKS NEW YEAR’S DAY VIDEO RAMBLE blahg. We’ve since mailed the missing gift back to Charlie.
Speaking of Charlies, or in this case, Charley, I discovered the other day that a new Charley Chase DVD set was released last November called “Charley Chase At Hal Roach: The Late Silents (1927).” I’ve collected all of the other Charley Chase at Hal Roach studios DVDs and I had not known about this release. Check out the description:
Both Charley Chase and the Hal Roach Studios Golden Era was in the late 1920’s, and 1927 was the year Charley Chase was the Lot of Fun’s Number One star. His films from that period, directed by his Brother James Parrott and supervised by Leo McCarey, were not only some of his best but were some of the best silent comedies from the silent era. Most of these classic shorts have never been seen since their original release, and this set combines materials from film archives and private collections from around the world to bring these shorts together for the first time, all with wonderful accompaniment from Dr. Andrew Simpson, commentary tracks by noted Hal Roach Historian Richard M Roberts, and restoration by the experts at CineMuseum. Fifteen great comedy shorts like MANY SCRAPPY RETURNS, WHAT WOMEN DID FOR ME, THE WAY OF ALL PANTS, and US show Charley Chase as a comedy talent at the top of his game, with interesting co-stars like Lupe Velez, Jean Arthur and Eugene Pallette, as well as Hal Roach regulars like Anita Garvin, Charley Hall, Noah Young and even Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
I’ve only watched a handful but these are very funny shorts that I have never seen before. I wanted to add that information into this blahg because that mention of world politics is no laughing matter…at least this new Charley Chase set is. Here’s one of the videos on the set, “There Ain’t No Santa Claus.” Of course it’s not as good as the print on the DVD and the music is not as good as that scored to the films on the set.
That’s just a little bit of the unpacking or maybe it’s the important bits. I’ll end this blahg with the same quote I always use at the end of my ramble videos. I don’t know who originated it but I’ve heard audio of Frank Sinatra saying something to the effect “In this upcoming year, may we find peace in the world and peace among ourselves.”
Was the unpacking worth it? Ask me again next year after I delay unpacking the 2026 False Ducks New Year’s Day Video Ramble.
Tags: 1939, Charley Chase, Donald Trump, Doug Ford, False Ducks, Scott Henderson, Sinatra