Strongly Worded Letter

More Than A Feeling...It's A Job!

This truly is one of the most remarkable rock and roll fantasy stories I have ever heard. Helpful back story for my younger readers (Hi Melissa!): The band Boston had the best selling debut album of all time in 1976. That one sold 17 million copies (!) and they followed it up with several other multi-platinum efforts and hit songs like More Than A Feeling, Don't Look Back, and their #1 charting ballad, Amanda.

Now, highlights from the recent USA Today article:

"One day you're trying to get Home Depot shoppers to apply for in-store credit. The next you're rehearsing with Boston and getting ready for a national summer tour.

'I never could have dreamed this,' says Tommy DeCarlo, 43, Boston's new  frontman, who is taking leave from his credit manager job at a Charlotte Home Depot to perform with the band. "That first gig is going to be something."

Bands ranging from AC/DC to Lynyrd Skynyrd have found new singers in the wake of tragedy (Delp committed suicide last year), inevitably choosing road-tested replacements. DeCarlo's rocking Cinderella tale includes the fact that he never has even been in a band.

'I did sing After the Lovin' at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary,' says the affable DeCarlo, who is married and has two teenagers. 'I think they enjoyed it.'

All Boston founder Tom Scholz knows is he can't believe his ears. 'During rehearsals, it can get downright eerie,' he says. 'I forget it's not Brad. It makes me feel like someone was at work up there.'

In tribute to Delp, DeCarlo posted MP3 files of himself singing Boston over a karaoke soundtrack on his MySpace page. (He had hocked his prized keyboard in 2006 to buy his kids' Christmas gifts.) An impressed visitor to his page urged him to contact Boston management and offered up an old e-mail address. Doubtful but with nothing to lose, DeCarlo sent off a note with a link. Destiny intervened.

'My wife was at her computer playing our tunes, and I asked her whether it was us playing live,' Scholz says. 'She said, 'It's some guy in North Carolina singing your songs.' I said, 'I know Brad's voice, and that's Brad.' She turned it up, and only when I heard the backing track did I know it wasn't us.'

Scholz flew DeCarlo and his family up for an audition, which led to a Delp tribute show and the tour invite. DeCarlo and the band's other new member, Stryper frontman Michael Sweet, will appear on Boston's next album in early 2009.

Even if DeCarlo's Boston idyll proves short-lived, he's unlikely to forget this summer. His colleagues won't let him.

'It's like we've got our own American Idol winner right here in our store,' says DeCarlo's manager, Mark Ortiz. 'When he plays nearby, we'll all be there, orange aprons on.'

Me again: Isn't that an incredible story?  The fact that he was never even in a band before Boston makes it so much more bizarre  than the real life story of the Judas Priest cover band singer who took over the real thing. That tale was turned into the Rock Star movie, starring Mark Wahlberg.

Tommy Decarlo's Boston plays Seattle July 10th (with Styx!). I am tempted to go and see  Mr. Home Depot for myself.

And Now The News, Page Two...

Here's the first part of my post from April 21, 2008:

"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...

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. "

Today, I bring you  the second part of our tour through that day's paper.

Here's an ad for the Hartford Glass Co., at 910 Pike Street:   

"Show us your Open Car. We'll Show you a Genuine Rex Enclosure at Amazingly Low Cost.

Don't put up with the discomforts of side curtains any longer!  Drive in and let us show you a genuine Rex Enclosure that will give you all the smug comfort and warmth of a closed car at amazingly low cost.

No Delay. Installed In A Few Hours."

"Teeth Like Pearls, by Edna Wallace Hopper

My teeth, as countless women know, glisten like a row of pearls.

This tells you why. I use a new type tooth paste which combines all helps in one. The ablest authorities I consult told me to employ it.

The name is Quindent, meaning five in one. It is made by Quindent Laboratories. It contains an olive oil cleanser of the highest order. Two harmless polishers which beautify the teeth. Four antiseptics and iodine, to combat germ attacks on the gums. Magnesia and other antacids, to neutralize the acids which cause tooth decay. And breath deodorants...."

(Can you imagine an ad today that would say, "The ablest authorities I consult told me to employ it"?

Here's the 1926 college football schedule, brought to you by General Moto-Crat Gasoline: (Click on this, or any photo, to enlarge)

"Football Huskies Ready For Action

There's plenty of power  and getaway in this bunch of boys and they tie in very well with the big General Moto-Crat Gasoline sign which is directly in back of them.  Yes, it's the University of Washington Huskies..."

(Travel times in the 1920s  probably explain why  there were no California or Arizona teams in the conference yet. Just nearby Idaho, Oregon and  Montana.)

Ready to travel? Here's  an ad from the Tacoma office of the Canadian Pacific Cruise Line. Remember, the stock market crash of 1929 that ushered in the Great Depression was still nearly three years away so many Americans were feeling flush.

"Visit the world's out-of-the-way places; see the places of history that have always appealed to you - the Sphinx, the Pyramids, Bethlehem, the Holy Land! All this on the Canadian Pacific Mediterranean Cruise - 64-day journey to fifteen nations; seventeen ports of calls with 34 days ashore. Finest accommodations, services and management - afloat and ashore. Book now.

Sailing from New York City on February 12, 1927, on the Empress of France..."

Here's my favorite ad in the paper, not for any particular shop but just to promote sending Christmas cards, a tradition that sadly seems to be dying out in 21st century America. 

"Aren't they bewildering? Christmas cards, I mean! They are so crisp and their message so very 'Pollyanna' that one needs a particularly cheery frame of mind to select them properly.

I saw a card with only a robin red-breast perched on its gray background, but his beak was so wide open as he tweet-tweeted his Christmas anthem so wholeheartedly, or rather whole-throatedly, that he was quite irresistible.

Then the inevitable snow scene and prancing horses that make one think they smell turkey cooking, and green cedar boughs.

Cards whose messages give one a catch in the throat with their verses starting - "Do you remember when" - and cards so formal and elegant with their gorgeously lined envelopes and the messages couched in carefully chosen phrases. Each has individual charm."

More to come at a later date and check this out. Since my first post on the newspaper bounty, we found another one, this time below the kitchen floor. It is the Seattle Daily Times sports section dated October 9, 1927, the day after the New York Yankees won the World Series. Beautiful photos of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the rest of what many consider to the the best single team to ever take the field. What do you think? Ebay?

 

Kwyoo Vee See

I'm not what you would call the target shopper for the QVC television shopping network. A) I'm a man and B) I'm way under their average audience age of 54. I've bought maybe two things from them ever and do not make that channel a destination on my  DirectTV.

Having said all that I was still fascinated by the newspaper profile on QVC this week in USA Today. Did you know the channel was founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel, who also founded the Franklin Mint, a direct seller of collectibles, in 1964?

Here are more fun facts from the article. See how many you know:

1) What does QVC stand for?

2) Sales in 2007? Take a guess.

3) Orders typically received per hour?

4) Units delivered to customers worldwide last year?

5) Number of products offered on air annually?

6) Number of people who auditioned to be a QVC  host last year?

7) Number of new hosts selected?

8) Unique visitors to QVC.com in March?


Answers:

1. Quality, value, and convenience

2. $7.4 billion dollars

3. 15,000

4. More than 166 million

5. About 60,000

6. More than 3,000

7. Three

8. 4.2 million


Happy shopping!! Oh, and what have you bought from QVC? 

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.  

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!

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.

 

 

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! 

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!   

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.

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.)

No Way!!!

Uh...this can't be real, can it? A few more long shots would certainly make it more convincing, but still....What do you think?

I can't get my dog Atomic to remember where the doggie door is yet someone was able to teach this elephant to paint like this?

Live Through This

I saw a mention in the paper the other day about a website called BlueZones.com and am glad I checked it out. Skimming the home page I've concluded that a guy wrote a book about what he calls Blue Zones, the places in the world where people seem to live the longest.

All the other sections on the site support that goal by offering "daily, practical tips and up-to-the-minute research on health and aging." I won't read any of it because it's pretty obvious to most adults, even me, what is good for us and what is bad for us and we make those choices every day, already knowing the risks and benefits. Do I know walking is better than driving? Green beans are healthier than milkshakes? Of course.

What I wanted to find and did, was the Vitality Compass, a 35 question quiz that promises to be "the most accurate life estimator ever," unless you get hit by a car coming through the window at the Starbucks where you are WiFiing the survey, I guess.  Bet the quiz didn't see that one coming.

So I took the test answering predictable questions about body type, age, race, habits (both physical and mental) and guess what? I should live to be 90.6. They didn't ask about family members, but that is, I think, fairly consistent with the age many of my relatives lived to be.   

My today age given my lifestyle was 41.9 which is less than my actual age, my healthy life expectancy was 79.3 meaning my last ten years are gonna suck, and I could apparently add 4.6 years by "optimizing my lifestyle." That is the one that must be site's moneymaker but I did not click on the link to meet my Vitality Coach however I'm sure he's selling pills, exercise equipment or Martian water.   

If you go there, how did you do? Will I be the last man standing at age 90 or will there still be readers of this blog?

"All Right. Embalming. First I Position The Body On Blocks..."

"First things first. Suiting up. As you can see from the pictures of me, we wear lots of protective gear. The picture doesn't even show the full extent of it. We also have surgical masks that we usually wear to protect our mouths and noses. The suit is essential. Blood, embalming fluid, and other assorted liquids get everywhere. And believe me, the times that I don't wear the face shield are the times that I splash blood on my face (do that once and you definitely wear the face shield for the next embalming).

All right. Embalming. First I position the body on blocks. The head rests on a concave head block. The feet are elevated on a body block. We typically put a body block under the butt and one under the shoulders, as well. The arms get propped up on blocks so that they are crossed on their chest or belly..."

That's an excerpt from an article called My Life As A Mortician written by a  funeral director here in the Pacific Northwest named Annie Forrester.

That's just one of the festive features in the new issue of Girls And Corpses magazine! I'll give you a moment to mentally confirm that today is April 2nd and not the first so this must be real.

Other highlights include an interview with comedian Mr. Deadguy  ("He's Mr. Rogers for maggots") who also sings a song called, It's Always Saturday When You're Dead in his act.   

Want a photo shoot that pushes the legal limits of blood, sex, and gore? Then you want the Satanic Sluts.  Or an artist whose images are all of torture. They call that piece No Pain, No Painting.

Music fan? How about the interview/photo shoot with Mistress Gen, a former organ transplant coordinator whose band's live show included  crucifixions, branding , sewing lips shut and more.  They're called the Genitorturers. And I thought the Wiggles were crazy with those wacky primary color sweaters!

You get the idea. The Lighter Side of Torture, the Wheel Of Misfortune, an article on Cutters, and advice from Dr. Necco Feelya are all included in this issue too.

No please.

Girls Are Fun

My California readers will recognize the woman shown in these photographs as porn actress Mary Carey. Shame on you by-the-way if you voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2003 recall election when you had the chance to make her your Governor. Others might know her as the participant on the Celebrity Rehab TV show whose flirting caused Daniel Baldwin to quit the show to get away from her. 

These paparazzi pictures were posted online over the weekend  on mainstream sites such as TMZ.com, whose family friendly policy did not allow them to post what happened next in the sequence.

In the first shot, Miss Carey is seen on the street walking to her car while talking on a cellphone.   

 

Now she is joined by a friend who looks like she is having every bit as much fun as Mary. I don't know where they were or what they were drinking but the friend seems very touchy feely already.   

In the final TMZ shot you can see Carey in the car (nice airbags) but can't see where the friend is or what she is about to do to her.

What happens next involves both women and all four boobs and I have never seen anything like it, especially in a car on a public street.  As I warned you before, this is definitely NOT safe for work.  Click  here to see it and don't say I never did anything for you.

Never Gonna Give You Up

I stumbled upon (in an old school way, meaning I didn't Stumble Upon them) a local blog called Citizen Rain this weekend whose home page states, "We serve up the day's most interesting links from 295 Seattle blogs and the media." I will certainly be bookmarking their page especially when the first story I read there was this gem:

                                                    

"Ever heard of 'rickrolling?' According to the (Spokane) Spokesman Review, it's a prank in which someone clicks on a internet link and ends up watching a video by Rick Astley – the 80s singer (pictured here) famous for the song Never Gonna Give You Up.'

"The Spokesman today reports that an Eastern Washington University student pulled a fast one on a New York Times reporter writing a story about 'rickrolling.' Twenty-two-year-old Pawl Fisher posted a YouTube video of someone lip-syncing Never Gonna Give You Up at an EWU women's basketball game. If you watch, it looks like the entire game comes to a pause as cheerleaders, athletes and audience members start rocking out to the song."






"The video ended up in a March 24 NYT article, with the reporter writing: 'A routine timeout turned into a 1980s flashback, as two men on the sidelines briefly hijacked the proceedings with a popular prank known as rickrolling.' But the incident never really happened – Pawl is an aspiring film-maker. He crafted the scene with film editing. 'My intention was never to punk the New York Times,' he told the Spokesman. 'My intention was to punk the whole planet.'"

"Ever heard of 'rickrolling?' According to the (Spokane) Spokesman Review, it's a prank in which someone clicks on a internet link and ends up watching a video by Rick Astley – the 80s singer (pictured here) famous for the song Never Gonna Give You Up.'

"The Spokesman today reports that an Eastern Washington University student pulled a fast one on a New York Times reporter writing a story about 'rickrolling.' Twenty-two-year-old Pawl Fisher posted a YouTube video of someone lip-syncing Never Gonna Give You Up at an EWU women's basketball game. If you watch, it looks like the entire game comes to a pause as cheerleaders, athletes and audience members start rocking out to the song."






"The video ended up in a March 24 NYT article, with the reporter writing: 'A routine timeout turned into a 1980s flashback, as two men on the sidelines briefly hijacked the proceedings with a popular prank known as rickrolling.' But the incident never really happened – Pawl is an aspiring film-maker. He crafted the scene with film editing. 'My intention was never to punk the New York Times,' he told the Spokesman. 'My intention was to punk the whole planet.'"

If I Can Dream

How many thing are there that you would pay three million dollars for? I know it's a hypothetical question for most of us because most of us don't have three million dollars but if we did, what would we be willing to spend all of it on?

Three things come immediately to mind for me.

1) The moon.  It would be cool to own the moon. And I would send that punk Neil Armstrong back up there to pick up all that trash he and the other hooligan astronauts left all over my lawn.

2) Sofia Vergara. Even among her peers of other South American supermodels, she is exceptionally exceptional. Ideally, I could buy her outright for just two million of my dollars so I could invest the other million into cloning her. For obvious reasons.      

3)The World's Greatest Music Collection, also known as Ebay Auction #320230084120. For reals, it ends today and is currently at $3,000,000. 

Here's their description of the bounty:

"Organized and cataloged, the collection is meticulously maintained and housed in a climate-controlled warehouse. Every recording in this amazing collection has been personally acquired by the collection’s owner over the past fifty years and represents a lifetime of work and his desire to see the music preserved for future generations. Deteriorating health and related financial concerns are forcing the owner to sell the collection at far less than its true value. The estimated value of the collection, on a per-item basis, is in excess of $50 million."

Some of what the winning bidder receives:

The entire record collection of more than a million- and-a-half 45 RPM Records, a million plus albums, more than 300,000 compact discs, thousands of 78s, cassettes and 8-Track tapes.

A few other interesting items singled out in the collection are the first CD ever made (of 300), the first flat phonograph record (from 1888), antique recording and listening devices, 10,000 phonograph needles and hundreds of cartridges.

Here is the staggering statistic that really got my attention. More than six million song titles are in the collection. That represents 99% of all of history's charted music and 50-60% of the uncharted songs.  It is the greatest collection of recorded music in the world. 

Imagine the mix tapes I could make. Sofia will be so impressed.

"You Are Being Hijacked..."

"On Wednesday, November 24, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving, a man traveling under the name Dan Cooper boarded a Boeing 727-100, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 (FAA Reg. N467US), flying from Portland International Airport in Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington.

Cooper was described as being in his mid-forties, and between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall. He wore a black raincoat, loafers, a dark suit, a neatly pressed white collared shirt, a black necktie, black sunglasses and a mother-of-pearl tie pin. Cooper sat in the back of the plane in seat 18C.

After the jet had taken off from Portland, he handed a note to a young flight attendant named Florence Schaffner, who was seated in a jumpseat attached to the aft stair door, situated directly behind and to the left of Cooper's seat. She thought he was giving her his phone number, so she slipped it, unopened, into her pocket.  Cooper leaned closer and said, "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb." In the envelope was a note that read: "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked."

The note also provided demands for $200,000, in unmarked $20 bills, and two sets of parachutes—two main back chutes and two emergency chest chutes. The note carried instructions ordering the items to be delivered to the plane when it landed at Seattle-Tacoma airport; if the demands were not met, he would blow up the plane..."

So begins the unusually well expressed Wikipedia entry on D.B. Cooper, the man famous for pulling off the world's only unsolved skyjacking. He's still a local legend here in the Pacific Northwest but his story has continued to fascinate people all over the globe in the 36 years since he jumped and either got away with it or died trying.

If you are new to the story, you owe it to yourself to read the rest of this Wiki entry to read all about the theories, investigations and clues, plus the aftermath of the hijacking (hello, metal detectors at airports!).

Why bring this up now? Perhaps a break in the case just this month.  It's  potentially the most significant new development since 1980 when a family on a picnic near the Columbia River found $5,880 of Cooper's money in a bag on the beach. 

A few days ago a man was plowing part of his rural property near Amboy, Washington  and uncovered what might be the NB6 parachute that was on Cooper's back as he jumped from a plane going nearly 200 miles per hour and 10,000 feet up in the night sky.

The FBI is still investigating and is seeking people with expert knowledge of this type of chute as well as with any new information about the Cooper case, through the Bureau website.   

 

All About Eve

This is one of my very favorite photographs hanging on the wall at Chez Bean.  Taken in Mongolia in 1979 it's a militia soldier training a horse to  play dead.

One of the giants of 20th century photography, Eve Arnold, captured this image during her six years spent working in China. 

Miss Arnold was born in 1912, the same year the Titanic sank. She became interested in photography in her mid-thirties and in 1951 became the the first female member of the prestigious Magnum Photos agency.



Besides her China photos she is perhaps best known for her many pictures of Marilyn Monroe taken over a ten year period.

So why do I bring all this to your attention today? Because if you live in the Bad Place you are in luck just this once. My friend David is presenting a major exhibition of Eve Arnold's photographs at his gallery beginning this Saturday, 29 March.

I don't know exactly which photos will be on display but here are a few more of her images that I really love.


Retired Chinese Worker.   

Bar Girl, Havana.

Malcolm X.

If you missed the link above, the David Gallery is at 5797 Washington Boulevard in Culver City, Ca. 90232. If you go, please say hello for me.

Oh, I saved the most interesting thing about Eve Arnold for last. I told you she was born in 1912.  Well, it turns out she is still alive! At 95 she doesn't take pictures anymore but is still active in managing her photo portfolio. Neat, huh? 

You Fascinate Me, Tell Me More

The world is a much more engrossing place when you read past the headlines and seek out the details.

The BBC news website agrees and publishes a regular column called 10 Things We Didn't Know Last Week.

Here are some interesting facts usually gleaned from getting past the first paragraph of some recent news stories. (Thanks to blog reader Sean for the tip)

Archimedes was murdered over pi.  More details

Forty years after color TV was introduced to the UK there are still 34,700 people with black and white television licenses.  More details

Arthur C Clarke wrote story-lines for the comic-book hero, Dan Dare.  More details

There are frogs that use semaphore.  More details

A bear helped carry ammunition for Polish troops during World War II.  More details

Men eat more Brussel sprouts and broccoli than women.  More details

Dishcloths are purged of 99% of their bacteria during two minutes in a microwave.  More details

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hosts a daily radio phone-in show.   More details

The average duvet is home to 20,000 live dust mites.   More details

There is mobile phone reception from the summit of Mount Everest.   More details

Kryptonite exists.  More details

Zombies can't run because their ankles would snap.
More details

People can have four kidneys.
More details

The secret to happiness is accepting misery.   More details

Won't You Wear A Sweater?

Today is March 20 and would have been the 80th birthday of the late children's television host Fred Rogers.

He's been gone 5 years now, thanks to stupid stomach cancer, and his best friend David Newell has a special request, "We’re asking everyone everywhere... from Pittsburgh to Paris...to wear their favorite sweater on that day. It doesn’t have to have a zipper down the front like the one Mister Rogers wore on the program, it just has to be special to you.”

Newell is better known as Mr. McFeely, the world's greatest mailman, who brought speedy deliveries to the Neighborhood for many years on Mr. Rogers' show. Here is more on his idea for today.

By-the-way, Mr. Rogers most famous sweater, a red one knitted by his late mother, was donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History by Fred Rogers on Nov. 20, 1984.

"Gummy, Gummy, Gummy, I've Got....."

This doesn't happen very often but I saw a piece in the paper the other day  and made a mental note that it might be a good blog topic. But then, before I had the chance to write about it, the subject of the article emailed me too!

Photographer Kealoha Villa of Long Beach, California has embarked upon a once-a-day photo project where he takes pictures of gummy bears. He's been at it for almost eight months so far.

Here are gummy bears doing a crossword puzzle.

 

Here they are enjoying some art.

Enjoying leap day!

And playing with a Slinky!

If  Kealoha's  project tickles you too you'll want to see more at his Flickr page.

I smell a coffee table book down the road!!!   

 

Beam Me Home!

Two things I love so much converge beautifully in today's post: Flying Saucers and buying houses.

Some highlights from the AP news story about today's auction:

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. —   "A mountainside house being auctioned in Tennessee is perfect for anyone tolerant of gawkers and fascinated with outer space: It's built like a flying saucer.

The home 'landed' on a twisting road leading to Chattanooga's Signal Mountain in 1970..... The circular house — ultramodern when it was built — is ringed with small square windows and directional lights and perched on six 'landing gear' legs. It has multiple levels, three bedrooms, two baths and an entrance staircase that retracts with the push of a button.

Terry Posey, an agent with Crye-Leike Auctions of Cleveland, Tenn., said the current owner has had the property only four months and didn't want to comment. Posey posted an e-Bay ad and said he already has a $100,000 bid.

The Chattanooga home's unusual shape — sort of like two white Frisbees pasted together — poses some interior decorating challenges. The curve of the exterior creates a sloping ceiling and short side walls, but there's also a striking curved bar and a custom bathtub.

'It really looked like a spaceship ready to take off,' said realtor Lois Killebrew, who handled an open house at the first sale of the Chattanooga home decades ago."

When I first heard a flying saucer house was going up for auction I thought it might be the one I saw on HGTV last year on their show Extreme Homes. That one is in Wisconsin and is much smaller than the model above, with only 500 square feet of living space inside. Too small for this space traveler. 

"But Wait, There's More!"

Last week's post about ApostropheAbuse.com drew a lot of reaction from you, including an excellent followup suggestion from reader Evelia. She sent in this link to The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.  No explanation necessary but here  are just a few of the photos you'll find there.

Plus, several of you wanted to make sure I saw the recent New York Times article titled, Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location. Very interesting and  very funny, for the Times.