Grinding teeth, racing heart, short on time, missed dinners, no alcohol or coffee please, no time for friends, movies are too long, sun rising from my desk at work. All for a prep football scoreboard that we adapted and developed for pjstar.com. There’s also a photo blog I created, and the weekly River City Roundup episode (this time from a farm in Wyoming… Illinois.) On the plus side, I now have a rudimentary knowledge of Drupal.

So I’m checking myself into a work detox program. With all the OT I’ve earned the past two weeks, I’m afraid of turning in such a leaden timecard, possibly upsetting the delicate newsroom budget like heavy cargo on a listing ship. And since vacation time is in short supply, I’m taking comp time. See you in a week, newspaper ball and chain!

To celebrate such a miraculous break, there are two YouTube videos I need you to see.

First up: the Nicholas Brothers in “Stormy Weather.” Consider for a moment that this was filmed in the 1940s, a time before camera motion capture and fancy editing techniques. This is unmatched dance, especially that crotch-busting maneuver they perform over and over again.

Second prize: a terrifying Betty Boop cartoon mixed with Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher.” What a find! In a late-night daze, I saw a Facebook post from a friend with Hugh Laurie’s version, but soon went down the long and winding road of Internet linkdom. I can’t come up with a modern equivalent to this seedy, creepy, very adult bit of cartoon. [update from the web: The Fleischer Studios were renowned for their use of Rotoscope – a process they patented – used sometimes in the Betty Boop cartoons. The Old Man of the Mountain dancing is actually Cab Calloway doing those smooth moves, drawn over by the animators.]