Strongly Worded Letter

This Is Why You Shouldn't Do Drugs

"Albert Hofmann, who died on Tuesday aged 102, synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 and became the first person in the world to experience a full-blown acid trip." (Telegraph.co.uk)

Okay, I had two thoughts when I heard the news yesterday. First, anyone who had Dr. Hofmann in his celebrity death pool technically lost ground in the game. The way many of these pools work is on a point system. You generally get 100 points, minus the celebrity's age. That way Miley Cyrus, God  forbid, would be worth  85 points but would be a much gutsier pick than, say, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who is on the exact flip side at 15 points. So if you had Hoffman, you owe 2. 

Secondly, he was only 102. Imagine how long he might have lived if he'd stayed clean like his parents probably advised him to. This is why you shouldn't do drugs.

In case the letters LSD mean nothing to you, here is more from the rather interesting Telegraph obituary:

"Hofmann was working as a research chemist in the laboratory of the Sandoz   Company (now Novartis) in Basel, Switzerland, where he was involved in
studying the medicinal properties of plants. This eventually led to the study of the alkaloid compounds of ergot, a fungus which forms on rye.

Hofmann’s studies led to many new discoveries such as Hydergine, a medicament for improvement of circulation and cerebral function and Dihydergot, a circulation and blood pressure stabilizing medicine.

His interest in synthesising LSD was stimulated at first by the hope that it might also be useful as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant.

But when his molecule, known as LSD-25, was tested on animals, no interesting effects were observed, though the research notes recorded that the beasts became “restless” during narcosis. The substance was dismissed as of no interest and dropped from Sandoz’s research programme.

But five years later, acting on some intuition, Hofmann decided to resynthesise LSD. In his autobiography, LSD, My Problem Child (1979), he recalled that in the final stage of the synthesis, he was interrupted by some unusual sensations.

In a note to the laboratory’s director, he reported 'a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.'

'In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.'

Hofmann concluded that he must have accidentally breathed in or ingested some   laboratory material and assumed LSD was the cause. To test the theory he waited until the next working day, Monday April 19 1943, and tried again, swallowing 0.25 of a milligram.

Forty minutes later, his laboratory journal recorded 'dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh.'

Unable to write any more, he asked his assistant to take him home by bicycle. 'On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms.'

'Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me that we had traveled very rapidly.'

Back home, when a friendly neighbour brought round some milk, he perceived her as a 'malevolent, insidious witch wearing a lurid mask.' After six hours of highs and lows, the effects subsided.

Sandoz, keen to make a profit from Hofman’s discovery, gave the new substance the trade name Delysid and began sending samples out to psychiatric researchers.

By 1965 more than 2,000 papers had been published offering hope for a range of conditions from drug and alcohol addiction to mental illnesses of various sorts.

But the fact that it was cheap and easy to make left it open to abuse and from   the late 1950s onwards, promoted by Dr. Timothy Leary and others, LSD became the recreational drug of choice for alienated western youth.

An outbreak of moral panic, combined with a number of accidents involving people jumping to their deaths off high buildings thinking they could fly, led governments around the world to ban LSD.

Research also showed that the drug taken in high doses and in inappropriate settings, often caused panic reactions. For certain individuals, a bad trip seemed to be the trigger for full-blown psychosis.

Hofmann was disappointed when his discovery was removed from commercial distribution. He remained convinced that the drug had the potential to counter the psychological problems induced by 'materialism, alienation from nature through industrialization and increasing urbanization, lack of satisfaction in professional employment in a mechanized, lifeless working world, ennui and purposelessness in wealthy, saturated society, and lack of a religious, nurturing, and meaningful philosophical foundation of life.'

Good times.  

Shop Around

I've never met most of my regular blog readers, am email pals with a few, but appreciate all of you. Nicole is one who has often tipped me off to fascinating topics that she thinks might be worth sharing.

So, welcome to GroceryLists.org. Here's Bill Keaggy:

"In 1997, I picked up a discarded grocery list at a St. Louis supermarket. I found it to be a fascinating glimpse into a stranger's life and decided to pick them up whenever I found one. In 2000, I posted my collection of about 40 lists to the web. By 2004, when the New York Times Magazine profiled me and this collection, I had about 500. In early 2006 I started working on a book about these lost lists and by the time it was published in May 2007, there were 1,600 lists on the site (with thousands more yet to be scanned and posted).

The book, 'Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found', features about 200 of the best: The funniest, the weirdest, the saddest, the strangest, the unhealthiest and more. Simply put, it is a strange, fascinating and hilarious look at other peoples' discarded grocery lists. Published by HOW Books, it's hardcover, 240 pages, full-color — a beautiful compilation of shopping habits, spelling quirks and good fun. Learn more about the book at www.milkeggsvodka.com."

"List #1261: Hmmm. Considering this is New Year's Eve, I'd say this person has a pretty damn awesome night lined up, even if they are going solo and doing a little math on the side."

"List #1648: Nice. Self-directed sarcasm, bad dogs. Keeping it real. And very alone."




"List 1114: All I need to tell you is that this list was found in West Virginia. It's like the joke writes itself!"

Click here for hundreds more of other people's shopping lists! And thanks, Nicole!

Watch This

The conversation never actually happened but through the years some have reported that authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway had this exchange:

Fitzgerald: "The rich are different than you and me."
Hemingway: "Yes, they have more money."

Of course rich is relative. I know people who would mock my bank book but to others I would be considered very wealthy just by having two cows.

To the former group, here's a new item for sale you may want to get on the waiting list for. To the latter, I'm sorry you have to see this, as you sit surfing the internet on your free government laptop in your dirt hut in the Congo.


Here are the details from the Wall Street Journal.

"A $300,000 watch? Luxury. A $300,000 watch that doesn’t tell time — and that sells out? Pure genius.

Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome just launched the Day&Night watch. The watch won’t tell you what time it is. That’s so yesterday. But it does tell you whether it’s day or night — helpful, I guess, for billionaire types who can’t afford windows.

As the company’s Web site boasts: 'With no display for the hours, minutes or seconds, the Day&Night offers a new way of measuring time, splitting the universe of time into two fundamentally opposing sections: day versus night.'

What’s most impressive about the Day&Night is its complexity, given its absolute uselessness. The watch features two tourbillons — devices that overcome the ill effects of earth’s gravity on a watch’s accuracy — connected by a differential mechanism. Instead of hands, the watch has a 'contemplative tourbillon operation whereby the ‘Day’ tourbillon operates for 12 hours to symbolize working life, while the ‘Night’ tourbillon takes over afterward to represent an individual’s private time.'

Like other Romain Jerome watches, the watch is made in part with steel salvaged from the sunken Titanic, along with material from the shipyard where it was built. That sounds creepy to me, but maybe today’s buyers prefer morbid metals.

The company’s chief executive, Yvan Arpa, cited statistical studies to explain how the watch better reflects the time-philosophy of today’s wealthy.

'When you ask people what is the ultimate luxury, 80 percent answer ‘time’. Then when you look at other studies, 67 percent don’t look at their watch to tell what time it is,' he told Reuters.

He added that anyone can buy a watch that tells time — only a truly discerning customer can buy one that doesn’t.

And here’s the best part: The watch sold out within 48 hours of its launch."
   

Hail Hail Rock And Roll!!!

"If you tried to give Rock and Roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry."

So said  John Lennon and he was spot on.  I'd place Chuck in the Top 5 most influential musicians of the 20th century alongside giants like Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Rodgers, and the obvious #1  K.C. & The Sunshine Band.    

A few nights ago I had a dream that Chuck Berry had died. He didn't: he's alive and still rocking at age 81.  But in my dream I was sad that it didn't seem like many people cared or acknowledged him as the true Founding Father of Rock and Roll. Johnny B. Goode, Roll Over Beethoven, Maybellene, Sweet Little Sixteen, and many many more hits are his legacy that should be remembered forever.   

Well, after my troubling dream, I pulled out my Chuck Berry on Chess Records boxed set and moved it into my car where I have been listening and re-listening to little else for the past week. I picked up a cheap used copy of Chuck's 1987 autobiography too and eagerly packed it in my backpack where I devoured it, half each way on the airplane, during my recent business trip to California.

Did I enjoy the read? Yes. Do I wish Chuck had more to say about his legendary songbook and how those songs were written instead of story after story about all the white women he nailed on the road? I do.

For instance, we got just two lines in the book about his song Rock And Roll Music, one of the definitive classics of the genre, and a cover hit for both the Beatles and the Beach Boys too.   

Instead, from page 305 of the autobiography, here are Chuck's food likes and dislikes.

     "First of all, I do not like liver. It dries my throat and feels and tastes like a mixture of cardboard and sour-pickle patties. I don't get near okra or gumbo because it's just the opposite, slimy and gooey; I can't even hold it in my mouth, let alone swallow it. At a point of starving I'd eat celery, carrots, cooked onions, eggplant, grapefruit or salami, but only as survival nutrition. I'd rather my taste buds suffer than my heartbeat flutter.

     I especially have a taste for pork though I'm not too fond of hog jowls or chitlins; I enjoy beef as in T-bone steak or stew, but absolutely no brains, tongue, and all that. I like fillet of catfish and salmon best of all freshwater fish, sweet and pungent shrimps of sea foods.

     Peaches are my favorite of all fruits; home fries and/or candied yams of vegetables, soupy chili of all bowl portions; date or apple-filled oatmeal cookies of the cookie kingdom; 'pea' in the nut field; raspberry in preserves (never jelly) and grape in soda pop. The only sandwiches I care for are egg and bacon on lightly toasted bread or apple butter thickly spread on lightly toasted white bread.

      I like Butternut or Snickers in candy bars; pineapple in fruit juices; and I drink orange juice all the time, anytime. White sliced French bread, soft vanilla pound cakes, and Dutch apple pie are especially good for treats at any hour of the day. For hot cereals it's oatmeal and for cold cereals it's corn flakes with a very ripe banana. I prefer fried (fresh) rabbit over chicken, duck, or turkey.

     To finish things off, I like assorted mints, Colgate toothpaste, and well water. Darn, I'm getting hungry." 

       

Thanks, Chuck. That is so much more interesting than one word in your book about Back In The U.S.A., Little Queenie, Come On, Run Rudolph Run or dozens of other songs you wrote but didn't mention at all.

 

Would You Like Some Desert With That?

Quick, what do the following celebrities have in common?

If you said, "Well, they are all dead white people," I can't argue with you but that is not I was looking for. Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Gene Autry, Bob Hope, Ginger Rogers and Gerald Ford all have streets named after them in Palm Springs, California. By the way, if you were able to identify both Dinah and Ginger, congratulations! You just came out.

Perhaps you should relocate to Palm Springs. Did you know it has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian residents in America? Suck on that, San Francisco!

I didn't know about all the streets either but I was in Palm Springs for less than day this week on business and saw each of those names on street signs on the way from my hotel back to the airport. I am willing to bet that other one time locals like Dean Martin, Liberace, Sonny Bono and Ronald Reagan must have received a similar honor there too but I did not see those with my own eyes this trip.

I'll tell you what I did see though. A decent sized city that people actually live in that some a-hole decided to build in the middle of the freakin' desert!!! It was already Africa hot there. Seriously, in the month of April does it need to be in the mid to upper 90s? And that's Celsius! Stop it.

Someone is NINE!!

Someone turned nine on April 15. Happy Birthday Tater Tot!!

Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldog:

This week was the annual Beautiful Bulldog contest, held in downtown Des Moines, Iowa.  Here's the winner, three year old Buddy, from Ankeny, Iowa. The contest is one of the events leading up to the Drake Relays, a track and field competition and is held to honor Drake University's mascot, the bulldog! 

Have a winning weekend yourself! 

BRRRRRRRRRR...........

Old business first: Yes, as many of you surmised, it was #1. And, no I can't explain the belly button thing either.

New business: I love chicken pot pies. Who doesn't, right? But the weirdest thing happened yesterday. Nea, my friendly FedEx guy showed up at the front door with a big ol' box and inside were two frozen pot pies (yay!) from an outfit in Chicago.  No note or anything so I don't know who to thank but just in case it was you, thanks!

The pot pies were packed in dry ice.  I should have remembered something about that from high school science class, right?  I didn't, so I touched it with my bare hand and froze/burned it in a bad way. Ouch.

What is this mysterious thing called dry ice? Is it from outer space? Here are some fun facts, courtesy of the sometimes reliable Wikipedia.

In 1835 the French chemist Charles Thilorier published the first account of dry ice. Upon opening the lid of a large cylinder containing liquid carbon dioxide he noted much of the carbon dioxide rapidly evaporated leaving solid dry ice in the container.

In medicine it is used to freeze warts to make removal easier .

In the construction industry it is used to loosen floor tiles by shrinking and cracking them, as well as to freeze water in valveless pipes to allow repair.

Dry ice can also be used for making ice cream.

It can be used to carbonate water and other liquids such as beer.

It can be used as bait to trap mosquitoes and other insects

It is also used in cloud seeding: the process of altering cloud precipitation.

One of the largest alternative uses of dry ice is blast cleaning. Dry ice pellets are shot out of a nozzle with compressed air. This can remove residues from industrial equipment, such as ink, glue, oil, paint, mold and rubber. Dry ice blasting can replace sandblasting, steam blasting, water blasting or solvent blasting.

When dry ice is placed in water sublimation is accelerated, and low-sinking dense clouds of fog are created. This is used in fog machines, at theaters, discotheques and nightclubs for dramatic effects, and at Halloween.

Good times!

Just The Facts, Ma'am

Nineteen of these are true,  according to the authors of Bla Bla: 600 Incredibly Useless Facts. One I made up. Can you guess which one?

1. A giraffe's neck has no bones

2. A vulture's stomach is so acidic that it can dissolve a nail after just a couple of hours.

3. Fifty percent of all bank robberies are done on Fridays.

4. Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button.

5. If you spend one hour in a  public swimming  pool you will come in contact with about fifty ounces of urine.

6. Twenty three percent of all copy machine breakdowns  come from people sitting on them to make copies of their own butts.

7. You can't sneeze in your sleep.

8. More than fifty percent of the world's population has never made or received a phone call. 

9. Adolph Hitler had only one testicle.

10. A polar bear's skin is black.

11. The largest exporter of camels in the Western world is Norway.

12.  We are born without kneecaps. They develop by the age of six.

13.  Your hearing is better when you are hungry than when you've  just eaten.

14. On average each year, you will consume twelve pubic hairs while eating in restaurants.

15. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

16. There are 336 dimples on a golf ball.

17. The national anthem of Greece contains 158 verses.

18. The albatross can fly while sleeping.

19. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg.

20. The given name "Wendy" first appeared in the book Peter Pan.


Post your guess below and I'll reveal the right answer tomorrow!

Strongly Worded Letter #7

22 April 2008

NBC Universal
100 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, Ca.

Attn: Jeff Zucker, President & CEO

     Congratulations on the weekend's big box office for your new movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  I went to see it and as long as you keep giving Kristin Bell roles you'll be getting more of my business in the future too.
      However, I could not have been more disappointed with one completely unnecessary minute of the film. I know comedy is subjective and maybe others will object to the coarse language or the nudity but it's safe to say most people who go to an R rated  movie expect that these days.
     But how on earth did a scene where Jason Segal's character Peter knifes a pig to death end up in this movie? It came completely out of the blue and  was so tonally out of step with everything else in this otherwise light, romantic comedy as to ruin an otherwise festive outing. Is there anyone who finds that kind of gratuitous violence against an animal funny? Do you?
     Don't misunderstand me. I recognize that people eat pigs and I've even seen them, just like in this film, cooked in the sand at a Hawaiian luau before. But don't they deserve to die as humanely and as with as much dignity as possible, even in a movie, and not appear to be chased, caught and slashed to death for "entertainment?"
     Thank you for your time and attention to this customer's concern.

Respectfully,    

CC: Ron Meyer, President & COO, Universal
        Nick Stoller, Director, Forgetting Sarah Marshall
        Jason Segal, Writer, Forgetting Sarah Marshall
        Judd Apatow, Writer/Producer, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

And Now The News...

I believe I have made reference to the 1905 waterfront home that Donna and I are beginning to remodel here on the island.  During the past two weeks our team has gutted it on the inside; removing all of appliances, most of the utilities and nearly all the interior walls too.

It was inside one of those walls that we found a partial Seattle Daily Times newspaper dated 14 November, 1926. By happy coincidence, 14 November is my birthday and I believe I was just thirteen the year this paper came out.   

As excited as I was to read what President Coolidge was up to that week, the only two sections we found were the Automotive and Society pages. 

"Channel Conquerer Rides In Olds

During her stay in Seattle last week, Gertrude Ederle, famous Channel swimmer, took in all of the swimming pools here. On the trip she was the guest of Charley Tyson of the Oldsmobile Motor Company, who drove her about in an Oldsmobile Landau Sedan. The photograph shows 'Trudie' and a few of her little friends who accompanied her, with the Oldsmobile in the background."

(Ed: How's that for product placement?  Was that news or advertising, I wonder?)

"Autos Now Built For Women. Friend Wife Causes Change. Easier Control Demanded by Increasing Number of Feminine Drivers; Hupmobile First to Meet New Order of Things

The male sex has plenty to thank the fairer sex for now-a-days, especially when it comes to improvements in motor cars. It is not because she took an active part in devising the improved car that gratitude is due her, but the equally important fact that she demonstrated the need and thereby mothered the inventions which brought the better car that we have today.

'When formerly masculine drivers were in the majority the car maker did not need to extend himself to the limit to eliminate the labor of gear shifting, difficult steering and the like, for the ordinary male had the strength necessary  to cope with any inconveniences,' says Martin Saboe, Hupmobile dealer. 'If the engine gives satisfaction and service the man was content, so engineers directed their attention to the perfection of that mechanism.'"

(Ed:  Great, now chicks will want to vote too.)

"Keep Thin To Keep Young

Fight excess fat, whatever else you do, for youth, beauty and vitality. Fat is not popular today.

Some fight fat by strenuous exercise,  some by starvation diet. But the fight is hard and never-ending.

Millions have learned to fight it with Marmola Prescription Tablets. They correct the cause. This is the easy, pleasant way. It is the enduring way.

Marmola has been used for 19 years. The use has grown, through proved results, until people are using some 100,000 boxes monthly. You see the results wherever you look. You can learn them by inquiring of your friends.  Excess fat is not one-tenth so common as it was."

(Ed note:  We beat obesity in 1926? How come that wasn't bigger news?)   

I'll save some more for another post. When all the news is online one day I guess we won't have newspapers for insulation and birdcages anymore. Sigh.

 

 

More, More, More

About every six weeks or so I take a day to share some of my favorite photos from the LiveJournal picture feed site. For new readers, this is a constantly updated  page of whatever photos users of the LiveJournal community are uploading at that minute.  Warning! If you go here, you will become addicted.

Hope you enjoyed the shots. The brunette hottie is actress Megan Fox. And, no kidding, the girl in the last photo used to be a man.  Yep.  Please enjoy.

 

Whoa!!! Slow Down!!!

Ready for a webcam where nothing happens for years at a time? Nope, not the treadmill in my attic, this is the Guinness Book of World Records' "longest continuously running laboratory experiment."

Highlights from the website of The Pitch Drop Experiment:

"The first Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, Professor Thomas Parnell, began an experiment in 1927 to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit quite surprising properties.   The experiment demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats. 

At room temperature pitch feels solid - even brittle - and can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer.  It's quite amazing then, to see that pitch at room temperature is actually fluid!  

In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem.  Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut.  From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that now, 77 years later, the ninth drop is only just forming.  

The experiment was set up as a demonstration and is not kept under special environmental conditions (it is actually kept in a display cabinet in the foyer of the Department), so the rate of flow of the pitch varies with seasonal changes in temperature.  Nonetheless, it is possible to make an estimate of the viscosity of this sample of pitch. It turns out to be about 100 billion times more viscous than water!   

In the 77 years that the pitch has been dripping no-one has ever seen the drop fall.  If you're interested in trying your luck, or at least just having a look at the experiment, you can view it live."

   

If your eyes glassed over a few paragraphs in, here's the gist: These scientists figured out that tar was not a solid but a liquid. So they are letting it flow but it is so thick that only one drop falls every eight to twelve years. And the pitch sample is large enough that it is expected that the experiment can continue for at least another hundred years!

Thanks to blog reader White Devil for the tip. Let me know if you connect to the video. I was unable to but if the trouble is on my end I don't want to deprive you of the sheer joy of  watching history being made. That pitch could drop any month now! 

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Tater has sort of lost interest in American Idol now that Michael Johns has been voted off and here she Tuesday night dozing at the start of the hour.



Now her head is on my knee and she is fading fast.

Good night, Tater!!

Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldog:



Blog reader Wenyee sends word of Joe. He is two-and-a-half years old and doing great since being rescued from the Humane Society in Chino. California. Tater, Joe and I all wish you the best weekend ever!

Now A Tater Tot Friday Bonus Not Bulldog:



Donna was in Italy last week and this is the family's dog that lives at the villa where she stayed in Florence. Meet Obi, a Newfoundland, I guess. He pretty much adopted Donna as his new person and here he is ready for bed.

Failure Is The Best

I'm not sure why but many folks delight in the failure of others. Not me, of course, but maybe you. Okay, maybe a little bit me too.

Thanks to blog reader Sylvia for her tip about The FAIL Blog . The premise is simple. Readers send in their photos of failing in action. Hilarity ensues. Some examples:


Catching Fail:


Sunroof Fail:


Girlfriend Fail:


Salad Fail:


Cat Fail:



The site's creators might be unhappy to see their site called "successful" but I think I like it.

Too Good To Be True?

It's called Muxtape and it is all the rage with the kids. As you can almost guess from the title, it is a site where music lovers share what used to be called mixtapes.

I can't figure out how it is legal or how it makes money but it is as simple as uploading 12 songs and presto!,  you're done. The site is extremely minimalist with no search function for users or particular songs that I can find but it is elegant and easy to use.    

I quickly put one together with some (mostly) recent rock songs that were already in my itunes but my mind is already racing ahead to lots of fun potential mixes I can make. Click here to check it out. You can click on Song One and let it play all the way through or skip from song to song if you prefer. Please enjoy!   

What? What? What? Seriously, What?

JustPetStrollers.Com is just one of many sites representing businesses that sell, well, pet strollers.

From the site: "Highest-quality pet strollers available, sold & serviced by pet stroller professionals.  Beware of cheap look-alike products.  We've sold over 8,000 pet strollers, and we won't offer anything but name brand products in which we trust our own pets!"

"April '08 Customer Raves:  'This has been the BEST purchase I have made in a very long time."   'The pets love it.'  'This is the way all online shopping should be!'" 

"'GREAT product at an incredible price. I researched for weeks and found yours was the lowest price.'   'Couldn't be happier.'   'The pet stroller is just fantastic.'"

Okay, I know I ask a lot of my readers. But I really need you to step up today and tell me why you would need to take your pet for a "walk" in a pet stroller. Isn't at least half the reason we take our dogs out so that they can get exercise too?

Maybe if you are homeless and don't want your dog to have to walk all day in extreme weather then it make sense.  I'm pretty sure they haven't sold over 8000 strollers on just this one site from people who have dogs that can't walk either.  So what is the deal?

Strongly Worded Letter #6

14 April 2008

Jack In The Box
1127 128th St.
Burien, Washington

Dear Jack,

     Hey, I'm a big fan of your restaurant, Jack, and especially love your new grilled chicken strips.

     I have really pressing question though and would very much appreciate your answer by return post.  When the voice in the drive-through window speaker asks me what kind of sauce I would like with my chicken strips, what is done with that information? I mean, what is it for? What is the reason that question is asked?
            
     I'll tell you what you don't do with that little tidbit. Use it to direct anyone in your kitchen TO ACTUALLY PUT THE SAUCE I'VE REQUESTED OR ACTUALLY ANY SAUCE AT ALL INTO THE FOOD BAG THAT I THEN DRIVE AWAY WITH AND GET TWO MILES DOWN THE ROAD WHEN AT A STOP LIGHT I OPEN SAID BAG AND HOPE TO DIP MY CHICKEN STRIPS INTO SOMETHING ONLY TO FIND OUT I HAVE BEEN STIFFED AGAIN BY YOUR INCOMPETENT AND PROBABLY EVIL FAST FOOD WINDOW EMPLOYEES! OH, AND MORE THAN ONCE!!!!!

     Best of luck, Jack, and the new TV commercials are funny too.

Sincerely,





    

You Be The Judge

My dear friend Rose, when she is not busy looking for a man and looking for a job, still amazingly finds the time to send me 100,000 word emails about the most curious aspects of her life.   

I got this one a few days ago and did not even ask her permission to share it with you because a) she's a blogger too so knows that ones life informs ones blog so nearly everything one comes across is fair game and b)  she is too busy writing the next 100,000 word email to have time to read anything I might post anyway.

Don't worry, I cut it down by 99% but I think you'll still get the gist. I know if Rose were reading this she would be very interesting in your comments too. Okay, deep breath and settle in.....


"Hi. I'm flummoxed. This may be something that takes a collective of brains to work out, because it's a conundrum of assumptions, laws, vanity and lack of common sense.

So:  A guy has parked a Range Rover in a 'compact' space.  Said space is immediately to the left of what looks like an acceptable, available space.  The Range Rover is so hulkingly large that I can't see that its tires are very nearly in the next space, and that it's parked at a slight angle.  I know, park somewhere else, put a note from YouParkLikeAnAsshole.com on it and go about my day, right?

Problem:  I can't get out of my car from the driver's side. I know this because I try to open the door, gently. My mirror lightly touches his passenger side door, because that's kind of what happens in that situation.

Another problem: Due to the angle at which the Range Rover is parked, I can't back out without rubbing my mirror against the paint job.  I only realize this after attempting to back out verrrrrry slowly, and stopping the second I realize what's happening.  I verrrrrry slowly pull up to the front of the space and resign myself to climbing out of the passenger side.

As it happens, the guy and his (presumably) girlfriend show up just then.  'Oh, sorry,' he says, obviously not meaning it.  'It was the only space.'

'Did you try downstairs?' I ask. 

Despite the literally dozens of signs around the parking lot mentioning the underground parking, he had been unaware of the existence of such a thing.  Of course.

'Hey, you scratched my car.'

(Ed: skip, skip, skip, angst, tears, and talk of insurance companies here)

So, I'm waiting.  I'm sure that if a claim is filed, I'll be at fault.  Here's the question:  Why?  I pulled into a space, realized it was not the right space for me, tried to extricate myself, and was unable to do so without touching a huge-ass truck parked in a space meant for a compact car.  Yes, I misjudged the situation, because when I'm coming up to a space in a parking lot, I can't pause time, fly several yards into the air, see the problem and avoid the situation entirely. 

But isn't he at least as much at fault for creating the situation in the first place?  Did it not occur to him that when he parked his huge-ass truck in a compact space, the mirror or door of any car parked next to him -- even if it was all the way to the other side of the adjacent space (also a compact spot) -- was going to touch the front passenger door?  Does he really expect to drive and park a huge-ass truck around L.A. without getting the occasional scratch?  Am I supposed to park elsewhere because he's just too damn important to find another spot, or does he think that the laws of physics don't apply to Range Rovers?   And what's up with his girlfriend?  'Cause if it were me, I would've dumped him at "not [his] problem".

Yeah.  I'm kinda stumped.  You got anything?"

Vamonos! Vamonos!

As you know, we do not have anything resembling a secure border policy in this country.  The current administration gave great lip service to getting serious about knowing who comes in and out of America after 9/11 but more than six years on (six years!) it is just as easy today to walk from Mexico into Texas as it was in 2001.   

Blog readers living along the southern U.S. border states will no doubt recognize the sign to the left. The Los Angeles Times recently ran a fascinating article about the artist behind this iconic 'running immigrant' sign.

Here are a few tidbits from the paper's profile of John Hood, the California Department of Transportation graphic artist who designed it.

1)  Hood is now 59 years old, close to retirement and has worked for Caltrans for 27 years.

2) His most famous sign went up in 1990, after more than a hundred immigrants were killed on Interstate 5 trying to cross over.  

3) In one earlier version of the sign "the characters had eyes and other features; officials felt those would be too detailed for motorists to discern at high speed. In another, the mother juggled a baby and a sweater, but that too was deemed overly complicated for the freeway."

4) "Comic Carlos Mencia 'whose family immigrated to East L.A. from Honduras when he was an infant -- filmed a segment based on the sign. 'Maybe,' Mencia says at one point in the segment, 'it's telling them: Run across the freeway. Just do it really fast.'"

5) "A photograph of the sign is hanging at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington," where it is described as "without a doubt, an icon of the current immigration debate. It's taken on meaning that was never intended."

To read the whole article, click here and thanks to  blog reader Chris for the  suggestion.

If It's Friday It Must Be Tater Tot!!!

That is one happy dog! I wonder what her secret is? Keep it simple? Just be satisfied with love, sleep and food because nothing else really matters? Perhaps.

Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldog (Celebrity Edition!):

Did you watch American Idol: Idol Gives Back charity telethon on Wednesday night?  Lots of talented A-list stars, plus Dane Cook, were pushing the phone number 1.877.IDOL.AID for viewers to donate to some wonderful children's charities. Lines are still open!  Visit AmericanIdol.com for more information.

One star brought some help. In a taped piece, Adam Sandler appeared on his couch with his sprawled and snoring English Bulldog Matzo Ball!  Give if you can. Thank you, and have a spectacular weekend!
   

My Wife Left Me

Yes, she is on vacation in Europe helping a girl friend celebrate a milestone birthday (Happy 70th, Gina!).

Knowing that I am only self-sufficient when she is at home, she did an awesome wifely thing for me though. The night before she left she cooked up a whole bunch of food and left it in Tupperware in the refrigerator for me.

One night I microwaved a turkey burger that already had the cheese on it! It was great. At lunch I had some delicious chicken and pasta. Last night was the fancy dinner though.

Donna had prepared a beautiful piece of fresh salmon, seasoned it to perfection and sealed it up in a Pyrex bowl. She also whipped up some fresh mashed potatoes and left those in another container too.

I brushed some olive oil on the fish  so it wouldn't dry out in the microwave and added a little butter on top of the mashed potatoes. I selected two minutes at 80% and started salivating as I counted down to the feast.



When the buzzer sounded, I was shocked to see a bowl of fish soup. The potatoes had absolutely evaporated. How could that be?

I got a spoon out and took a taste. Hey, Donna in Rome, thanks for the fresh whipped cream too. 

In case you are wondering, it wasn't bad.


 

I'm Just Sayin'

I know it can't possibly matter to anyone else and you have already wasted your time by clicking on today's post but I just gotta dash off a couple of weakly worded letters.

Dear Bill Maher,

     I couldn't be a bigger fan of your Real Time show on HBO.  I look forward to it Friday nights like it was free Hot Wings. You tell it like it is and even when you are wrong I appreciate your perspective, intelligence and passion.
     It's such a small thing and I hesitate to even call it to your attention but on more than one occasion I have heard you describe someone in the news with a difficult task ahead as having a "long road to hoe."  This past week's show you used the expression to describe Senator McCain's task as he tried to court conservatives yet still distance himself from President Bush. 
     Unfortunately, nobody hoes a road. The term comes from the farm and it is a long row of crops in front of the farmer that represents the difficult task ahead. Interestingly, The Oxford English Dictionary dates it back to 1835 and gives Davy Crockett credit for the first published usage.

Continued success,

Dear Senator McCain.

Congratulations on your party's presumptive nomination for the office of President  of the United States. You should be very proud of the way you campaigned and, obviously, connected with millions of American voters.
     I know you have given thousands of speeches over the past two years and the sheer volume of details you must keep straight in each appearance, especially under the glare of the media, would make  it easy to not be conscious of pronouncing every word just so.
     But more than once I have heard you use the word heighth instead of the intended height. Just this week, in your speech to veterans in Kansas City, you characterized  a "quick troop withdrawal from Iraq" (as) "the heighth of irresponsibility."
     With the next few months of campaigning you still face before November the last thing you need is your Democratic opponents being able to make fun of your version of President's Bush's pet word nookyular.

All the best to you, Sir, and God Bless America.

P.S. Hey,  did your friend Davy Crockett really come up with that "long row to hoe" thing when you guys were still rolling together?

Note to readers: The reason these are weakly, not strongly, worded letters is that the topics are too insignificant to actually print and mail. I just write them to make myself feel like I have addressed them and then I can move on with my life. There is something wrong with me that I have to do this.

 

 

    
 

Please Explain

I had something completely different planned for today but while cleaning up my desktop (not, that is not a euphemism and if it were, it would be a damned poor one) I came across this photo that I must have saved.

I think I remember why. I guess I had heard they were together and realized what a ridiculous thing that was but when I saw it with my own eyes - I mean, the proof that they even know each other - I must have blocked it out until now.

It's been, what, six months or so since Matter met Anti-Matter? For the benefit of my dad, and anyone else who does not recognize these two by sight, the happy couple is:

In the Light corner, beautiful 20 year old actress Evan Rachel Wood, best known for her roles in the independent film Thirteen and last year's mainstream hit Across The Universe.   

In the dark corner, brutally ugly 39 year old musician Marilyn Manson, famous for his outrageous horror themed stage shows and hit albums like Antichrist Superstar and  Mechanical Animals. He is notorious for his heavy drug and alcohol abuse and was previously engaged to actress Rose McGowan and divorced from burlesque star Dita Von Teese.

These aren't two celebrities who were snapped standing together at a party. They live together. She lies down with him. They are "in love."

Look, we've all seen couples that seem unlikely to the outside world. We can't know what is really going on here. They could be the new Paul Newman and  Joanne Woodward  for all we know. But what is your theory? Daddy issues? Good girl/rebellious phase? Junkie/Pusher? Please discuss.

This Is A Test

I have seen my blog described on another site as "boring and interesting at the same time." Today I plan to test the truth of that  assessment as far as possible.  I know this post rings the bell on boring. Only you can decide if it is also interesting.

James Audubon Killed All The Birds He Painted

One of America's great naturalists, John James Audubon painted highly realistic portraits of practically every type of bird in North America. The self-taught artist's resulting four-volume collection of life-size paintings , The Birds of America (1827-38), is regarded as both an artistic and an ornithological masterpiece, and reproductions of his work are still brightening walls around the world.

But exactly how Audubon was able to capture our feathered friends' likenesses so completely is usually glossed over. The Encyclopedia Britannica fails to even broach the subject. The Audubon Society's page on their namesake mentions that he loves to hunt, but the connection is never explicitly made.

Audubon Shot All The Birds He Painted.

He then used wires to pose the corpses of these hawks, falcons, partridges, sparrows, woodpeckers, and other winged creatures before putting brush to canvas. In one diary entry, he writes about sneaking up on a large group of sleeping pelicans and blasting two of them before his gun was jammed and the two awakened survivors took off (he was disappointed that he didn't get to kill them all.) And when hunting snoozing avians in the wild was too much trouble, he resorted to other methods. He once bought a caged eagle, killed it, then captured its likeness.

One of Audubon's biographers, Duff Hart-Davis, reveals: "The rarer the bird, the more eagerly he pursued it, never apparently worrying that by killing it he might hasten the extinction of its kind."

Over 1,000 individual birds appear in Audubon's paintings, but we know that the body count is much higher. He did't feel some kills were worthy of being painted. Others were put on canvas, but the artist was dissatisfied with his work and never displayed it. In other cases, he had already painted a specific type of bird but then found an intriguing individual variation, so he just had to blow it away.

He once wrote: "I call birds few when I shoot less than one hundred per day."

(#65 of the 100 Things You Are Not Supposed To Know by Russ Kick.)

Actually, I Prefer Rosemary.....

In the last few years the media have placed more emphasis than ever on a new movie's opening weekend box office. If you are not #1 or at least made more money than predicted in your first three days in the theater than you are shamed and ridiculed as a failure.

I saw several articles online yesterday suggesting that the  apparent #2 finish of  the new movie Leatherheads, about the early days of professional football in America, might be some sort of backlash toward its writer/director/star George Clooney.

Here are a few sample comments from readers left on one of the Hollywood news sites, some edited for length and/or decency:

"I could never understand the 'Clooney is a movie star' assertion. Just saying it doesn’t make it so. Hollywood’s fawning over him is sickening. His smugness is unbelieveable. I cannot sit in a theater and watch him in a movie. His persona in films seems to be misogynist. When he held a press conference to rage against the press after Princess Diana’s death - My GOD! The guy’s arrogance is breathtaking. Who does he think he is? He’s a goddam TV actor. This is why Hollywood is so f***ed. When you’ve got TV actors thinking they are auteurs, we’re f***ed. This probably explains why his movies make no money. Why would the average Joe spend 10 bucks to see this arrogant actor when he may lose his job at the factory tomorrow? Sorry to rant, but Clooney has been bugging me for a while."

"The Ocean’s movies STUNK! George Clooney is a monotone, a talentless f***! And his political rants just reveal more about his lack of character and egotistical need for attention."

"George Clueless - please, you couldn’t pay me to go see one of his bombs. I can’t stand him, when I have, by accident, seen him try to act, it was stiff and uninspiring. When I see he is in a movie, I pass right by.

Hollywood just gets weaker by the day. I am not interested in their politics and views of the world. I just want to be entertained when I go to see a movie, not lectured to. I want to see actors who view their careers as acting and don’t pretend their wealth and limited education gives them credibility in science, economics, foreign affairs, etc."

"It’s always a delight to see the work of a self-annointed priest from the propaganda office of Hollywood, the left-wing Vatican, fail miserably."

"I’m sick of arrogance and Hollywood actors who deem to lecture me on the wisdom of their political beliefs. They are actors and they need to shut up and act. At one time Hollywood made timeless movies with great stars who were talented and larger than life. It’s gone now, and we’re left with vapid intelligence and arrogant actors lecturing those they consider the unwashed. Pathetic. I won’t see a George Clooney vehicle, ever. Box office is the only thing Hollywood gets."

"Clooney is ANOTHER of the undereducated/uneducated of Hollywood who try to tell the rest of us how we should think and live. These jerks forget that there are more folks in flyover country than there are in New York City or LA. WE determine who is going to be a box office draw and WE decide who won’t make it at the box office. It’s the sycophants in Hollywood who cannot say NO to a no-talent hack like Clooney."

"I’ve never seen Clooney in anything and I plan to keep it that way. For some reason, he just isn’t appealing, but I can’t comment on his acting. I abhor his personality so I will never see anything he is in. Hope this helps."

And on it goes for literally hundreds of posts. Do you think they're right when they suggest that Clooney's movies are being boycotted due to his crazy political views? If so, what about the eight movies he's been in that have grossed over 50 millions dollars in the United States? Or do we only boycott the ones we weren't going to see anyway?

Look, I didn't make it to Leatherheads because like millions of others in the target demo for this film, I had  the NCAA Final Four Tournament to watch for seven hours yesterday!  For other potential customers, maybe a sports film set in the 1930s isn't that appealing. Plus there have to be a lot of folks that very much dislike looking at Renee Zellweger's scrunchy face.   

If you are among the boycotters, I totally back your right to make the statement with your wallet that you will not voluntarily support someone's art whose politics you disagree with. Please help me better understand your parameters though:

1) How much formal education is required before one's opinions are considered valid? And are there any people with multiple degrees who are just as wrong?   

2) If an entertainer is equally outspoken politically ("in your face" came up a lot on the boards) but shares your views, is it also offensive?   

3) Besides actors and singers, what other occupations do you stop patronizing if you know their views differ from your own? Do you switch dentists? Stop rooting for a sports team? Go to a different Starbucks?