Some are confused by Black Friday

The wave of fresh converts to evangelical Christianity appears to contain many who are confused about certain details of this, their first holiday season.

“I’m still learning my way around,” admitted Sonya Bennett. “I mean, I believe in Jesus and all that stuff; I’m just a little hazy on the reasons for some of these celebrations.”

Much of the bewilderment is becoming apparent during today’s so-called “Black Friday.” Large numbers of newly minted Christians showed up at post-Thanksgiving sales at Wal-Mart, Target and other retailers, thinking they were observing the day Jesus was crucified at Calgary.

“I guess I was thinking of — what is it? — Good Friday,” said Heather Thompson. “I thought Black Friday was the day the altar was draped in black cloth, and a somber service acknowledged our Lord’s ultimate sacrifice for mankind. Turns out, it’s more about low, low prices.”

Thompson said many of her friends were also confused about the day. She said she felt that the Church of Christ, of which she became a member earlier this year, and the nation’s retail sector were “just asking” for there to be such widespread misunderstanding.

“I mean, think about it: Good Friday marks an occasion when something bad happened, and Black Friday marks a good day, a day of door-busting bargains. That’s just plain screwy,” Thompson said. “You’d think it would be the other way around. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one expecting up to 60% off the cost of my salvation.”

Bennett, a recent convert to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, said the church calendar at first didn’t make sense to her. She said she had time to meditate and reflect on her faith while waiting in line from midnight till 4 a.m. outside the Valley Hills Mall in Seattle.

“I finally puzzled through it,” Bennett said. “It just wasn’t possible that Jesus was crucified in late November, then born in late December, and then ascended into heaven in March or April. I know He can do some amazing things, but this just seemed totally whack.”

Similar puzzlement was expected during next week’s “Cyber Monday,” which has become the day on which close to a third of on-line Christmas gift sales are made. Either that, or it’s something to do with Simon Peter, or maybe the Immaculate Conception, or maybe Zhu Zhu pets.

“The one that always messes me up is Maundy Thursday,” said Oscar Bennett, who joined the Southern Baptist denomination in February. “I mean, is it a Monday or is it a Thursday? I’m all for talking in tongues, but come on. How can we have effective outreach to non-believers with this kind of double-talk?”

Raymond Price, a new member of the fundamentalist Mercy Schmercy Catholic Church in suburban Atlanta, defended Christianity’s elaborate calendar as something that novices should study and become comfortable with.

“It’s really not that complicated when you put your mind to it,” Price said. “Ash Wednesday is the day we remember volcano victims. Palm Sunday celebrates the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem in triumph after inventing the handheld personal digital assistant. Corpus Christi, in mid-June, marks the beginning of beach season on the south Texas coast.”

Price said his personal favorite day on the liturgical calendar was Ruby Tuesday.

“Any day that honors both the Rolling Stones and the Seaside Sensations combo platter is truly a holy day in my book,” Price said. “Ruby Tuesday — Fresh Taste, Fresh Price.”

A look at the turkey

As part of my occasional series titled “Lives of the Dead,” today’s post will look at the turkey.

This fabled American bird takes its place at the table with the likes of Christopher Columbus, Caesar Augustus, St. Patrick and Martin Luther as subjects of a DavisW’s blog profile. Not dead as a species but with plenty of specific casualties by this time tomorrow, the turkey becomes the first to be a living topic in this space. Let’s take a brief look at its history before we examine its innards over pumpkin pie and coffee at dinner Thursday.

In a way, it’s fitting the turkey be granted this exceptional treatment. As much as his species is appreciated as both a symbol of gratitude and a meat product, there have been no individual turkeys to rise above the rest and distinguish themselves. Other animals at least have had animated anthropomorphs to speak out on their behalf — Donald Duck, Porky Pigg, Sylvester the Cat, Fernando Lamas, the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). There’s never been a single famous turkey.

It’s probably due in part to what’s come to be known in zoology circles as the “K Factor”. The K Factor is that rule which says any animal with a “K” in its name is automatically funny and disrespected. Your monkeys, your donkeys, your yaks and your kangaroos all suffer from this syndrome and can’t get anyone to take them seriously. We laugh at the poor dumb turkey even as we enjoy his succulent thighs simply because it’s fun to say anything that rhymes with “jerky” or “quirky”.

The turkey first came to the attention of an increasingly hungry Western Civilization when 16th-century Europeans exploring America encountered a bird similar to their familiar guineafowl. Since their larger poultry were imported into continental markets through Central Europe from Turkey, they thought of calling the wild Meleagris gallopavo a “Serbian” but eventually settled instead on “turkey”. (That’s why we also get the word “grease” from Greece, and the word “chili” from Chile).

The wild turkey can weigh up to 100 pounds and has a wingspan of almost six feet. They can fly for short distances, mainly when they’re being pursued by predators. Turkeys have a distinctive fleshy wattle that hangs from the underside of their beak which, when combined with their huge breasts, make them resemble actress Pamela Anderson. (You can tell the two apart because the birds have too much sense to go anywhere near Kid Rock). They also have another protuberance growing off the top of their beaks and dangling off to the side called a “snood”. Links to recipes for these appendages, including the famous Wattle Supreme and the underappreciated Stewed Snood, will follow this article.

There’s a fairly extensive fossil record of the early turkeys, starting from the Miocene Epoch over 20 million years ago. Ancient remains have been found throughout the Western Hemisphere and, when they are, inevitably the wishbone is broken in two. The Aztecs called the creature huexolotl, and it was associated with their “trickster god” Tezcatlipoca when it wasn’t being killed and eaten. (Even then, the turkey was laughed at. Aztecs would’ve told each other “that wacky huexolotl and his pal Tezcatlipoca are at it again” if they could’ve pronounced either of the words.)

It’s only been in the last century or so that turkeys became a popular form of poultry. Though it’s likely the meat was served at the first Thanksgiving attended by the Pilgrims and the Indians, that’s probably only because they kept running around the food preparation area. It was actually too expensive to become a staple at holiday meals until just recently. Before World War II, goose or beef was more likely to comprise the common holiday dinner.

When the wild turkey was domesticated, its life became both easier and harder. Today’s birds could live to be ten years old if they weren’t slaughtered at about 16 weeks. They grow up on a factory farm, bred to have magnificent white feathers to make their carcasses more appealing. The male is the tom, the female is the hen, and the baby is a poult, though they don’t spend near enough time together as a family. Mature toms are too large to “achieve natural fertilization,” as Wikipedia delicately puts it, so their semen is manually collected and hens are inseminated artificially. Neither much care for this arrangement, but what are they going to do? Break out on their own and find a nice apartment they could afford on a turkey salary?

Turkeys are popularly believed to be unintelligent. Claims are made that during a rainstorm, they’ll look up at the falling precipitation until they drown. Recent research has shown, however, that many aren’t simply stupid but instead suffer from a genetic nervous disorder known as “tetanic torticollar spasms” that causes them to look skyward. Like human parents embarrassed by the poor performance of their offspring, turkey parents can point to a disorder similar to ADHD as the reason their brats are running around like madmen, toppling lamps and unable to stay focused for more than a few moments.

The turkey is now solidly a part of American lore, especially at this time of the year. Schoolchildren trace outstretched hands to create likenesses of the animal for fall craft projects. Coworkers abandon casual conversation in the breakroom and opt instead to gobble at each other. The turkey lobby brings one lucky tom to Washington so it can receive the traditional presidential pardon, though in an attempt to be seen as moving toward the political center after recent election losses, President Obama is considering slitting its throat this year.

By Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, all we really care about is how to prepare the bird for dinner. Available in the market as either fresh or frozen, the meat typically requires several hours baking or roasting in the oven to become fully cooked. A recent trend has seen the rise of a new method, deep-frying the turkey in an outdoor vat of hot oil for 45 minutes or until the entire set-up explodes and is next seen on YouTube under the title “Butterball goes fireball.”

Ultimately, the dish is surrounded by cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn, and whatever that awful casserole is that your sister-in-law keeps bringing year after year. Extended families come together to share an all-too-brief moment of togetherness before heading back to their separate lives watching televised images of Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions facing their own slaughter. Soon, the notorious “tryptophan coma” descends on the gathering like a cloud of carbon monoxide until participants awake to find themselves waiting in line for Walmart to open at 2 in the morning.

As we pause during the next 24 hours to give thanks for all the bounty we share, let’s not forget to express appreciation to the noble turkey for his contribution. If Ben Franklin had his way, the creature would be our national bird, seen all over our money and other national emblems instead of all over our shirts and tablecloths. And we’d be eating bald eagles for dinner, arguing over who gets the bald spot rather than who gets the drumstick.

I’ve had deep-fried eagle before and, trust me, it’s not something you’d want to eat.

Note: To read more about Lives of the Dead, please visit the following posts:

http://davisw.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/happy-columbus-day-sort-of/

http://davisw.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/lives-of-the-dead-augustus-father-of-august/

http://davisw.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/lives-of-the-dead-st-patrick/

http://davisw.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/lives-of-the-dead-martin-luther/

He’d say “Happy Thanksgiving,” but the snood keeps getting in the way

Thanksgiving comes early in the office

The turkey carcass sits mangled on the serving table, looking like the victim of a bear attack. The sweet potato casserole has been denuded of its marshmallow topping, but you could probably scrape a few more servings out of the corners of the pan if you tried. The stuffing is completely gone, serving its stated purpose of stuffing those who now lounge around the edges of this scene, barely moving except for the effort it takes to moan.

No, you haven’t been transported several days into the future by the magic of the blog. This is the scene I left behind at yesterday’s office celebration of Thanksgiving, long before most of us will commemorate the occasion.

The corporate calendar of holidays is not something most of us are aware of until we walk into work one dark January day and discover we’ve neglected to bring the green bagels for St. Patrick’s Day, which the outside world celebrates on March 17. Maybe I exaggerate a little, but not much.

The government has imposed Monday observance of the more minor holidays like Presidents, Labor and Memorial days. Christmas and New Year’s are complicated by the fact that the days before them — the Eves — are in many ways more important than the actual holidays themselves. Many human resources departments have come up with the concept of a “floating” holiday for individuals to use in the religious observance of their choosing, such as Yom Kippur, Kwanzaa or Talk Like a Pirate Day. People in my mostly Christian office, for example, use their optional holiday for the day after Easter, prompting one observer to wonder if the “floating” had something to do with Jesus’ ascension into heaven.

I guess having the Thanksgiving potluck yesterday made some sense on a gut level, considering few of us would want to gorge like that two days in a row if it were scheduled for Wednesday. The only opening left on the sign-up sheet when I got to it was “salad,” which seemed very un-Thanksgiving-like but worked for me since it was so easy to prepare (take one head of lettuce, rip to shreds, serves 20). Management was providing the ham and turkey, and everything else was being brought in by the staff, who would have a chance to dazzle coworkers with their best recipes, many of which involved green beans, cream soup and those crunchy onion things.

The sit-down time was scheduled for 11 a.m. so the organizers had the better part of the morning to set up the centerpieces, warm and then re-warm the hot dishes, and tempt us all with the smells of the season. This was to be an affair that combined our staff with workers from the front office, who we sometimes pass in the restrooms but about whom we know little else.

As the serving time arrived, I was unfortunate enough to be just outside their offices when a manager called out for me to summon them. At first I was confused about who exactly he meant, and nearly beckoned the 200-plus temporary work crew from the warehouse. That would’ve been a horrible mistake, certain to result in stolen plastic cutlery and tiny, tiny portions for everyone. Still, I didn’t want to call for these front-office folks I didn’t know (“hey, it’s the guy from the bathroom – what’s he want?”) so I went to hide in my car for a few minutes.

I hoped this would have the added benefit of allowing me to miss the inevitable speech-giving and prayer that would precede the food consumption. But as the schedule started running behind, I made it just in time to hear the department head note that though these are difficult times, we still have much to be thankful for, followed by a brief blessing.

Not being a currently practicing Christian myself, I’ve always felt awkward during this portion of the proceedings. It’s not because I take offense at having others’ religious beliefs imposed on me; rather, I’m bothered that I use the respectful silence to think of the sarcastic prayer I’d be tempted to offer if I’m ever called upon. Instead of beginning with “dear Jesus” or “holy Father,” the sacrilegious scamp in me wants to begin with a “good God” and then launch into several other James Brown references like papa’s brand new bag and how good I feel (so good). Fortunately for everyone, Edna does a nice reverent offering, and it’s finally time to chow down.

Office chairs were pulled up to the long row of covered work tables. After people made their way down the buffet, carefully gauging the decreasing capacity of their Chinettes against the promise of what appeared further down the line, we were told to squeeze into a seat and begin the scheduled conviviality. The randomness and closeness of this seating arrangement, not to mention my very real fear of being injured by flying elbows, caused me to linger toward the end of the buffet line in the hope the table would be too full. I lucked out and was able to return instead to my work station to eat, where I got a kernel of corn stuck between “F7” and “F8” on my keyboard.

I genuinely enjoyed the food, as did everyone else. I was also able to enjoy the air of warmth and geniality in the room without actually having to get any of it on me. We didn’t have any holiday music piped through the intercom as we’ll do at Christmas — primarily I guess because there isn’t any, except for the less-than-festive “Turkey in the Straw” – but there was a certain atmosphere that for a moment almost made me give some actual thanks.

I managed to avoid overeating, which was good since I had a long drive home to navigate in the next hour and I didn’t want to sleep through it. Others in our department weren’t so lucky, as they staggered back to their desks to face another three hours of duty. The combination of turkey, heavy carbohydrates and the kind of workload you might expect at a financial services firm during a lingering downturn must’ve been as tough to handle as an Ambien/opium blend injected directly into your forehead.

At least there were no Detroit Lions to send them over the edge and into lethal coma.

All ready for the office reorganization

My boss asked to see me in her office Friday. This is far from an everyday request so – considering the state of the economy and particularly concerns about the so-called “jobless recovery” we’re experiencing in which the unemployment rate still hovers near 10% and new job creation is at a virtual standstill – I was, like, freaking out.

A manager who wants to discuss potentially bad news with an underling is at a distinct advantage if they play their cards right. In this environment, the employee automatically assumes the worst is about to happen. Anything less than a pink slip, a box to collect your personal effects and a security-guard-escorted walk to the parking lot becomes welcome news.

If they put enough drama into the meeting, closing the door behind you as you enter and remaining grim-faced as you settle into your chair, you’ll accept almost anything else they have to say with enthusiasm.

“Dave, I’ve called you in here today to discuss some new directions we see your career here taking,” they can say.

“New directions,” you hear. As in, make a left as you leave the building, then a right at the second light, and you’ll see the unemployment office on the left? you wonder.

“We’ve got some new duties we want you to add to your current skill set,” they can continue.

“New duties,” you hear. A sign of hope?

“We need someone to scrub the floor of the men’s room each day using only their tongue,” they can offer. “And we think you’re just the man for the job.”

“I still have a job!” you think. Relief floods your mind. “That sounds like something I can handle,” you answer. “I’m all salivated up and ready to go. When can I start?”

So when my boss started talking about the reorganization our department is about to undertake, and how it will affect the hours I work and the place where I sit, I was more than happy to listen respectfully and nod my head in an affirmative motion at all the right places. I was not losing my job after all. That was what they call in the corporate world my “key takeaway.”

But now that I’ve had a few days to think about what she said, in the context of not having to trade my comfortable suburban house for a homeless shelter, I have some concerns about a few of these changes.

I’m not going to have to get used to a new chair, am I?

We all have the same type of chairs in my office, but after several years of use, not all of the features still work on every chair. I need more than just a flat horizontal surface to place my can. I need a certain level of lumbar support. I don’t like the armrests to be so high as to interfere with my typing, or too low to provide rest for my arms when I’m reading. The wheels need to work properly so I can scoot to the coffeemaker with a single thrust of my legs.

What about mousepads? Can we keep the ones we currently have?

I like the kind that has the little mound of gel you can rest your wrist on. I don’t like the kind that advertises Office Depot or the pharmaceutical industry’s latest anti-depressant. My wrist tends to get tired after a long day of clicking and dragging, and I’m not sure I can put in a full eight hours with a weary forearm.

The carousel of supplies at my current desk is organized just as I like it. Can I take it with me to my new desk?

A few years ago, in the throes of another reorganization that saw us sticking labels on everything that didn’t move, the different storage slots on my carousel got signs for what goes into each area: “staple remover” reads one, “red pens and pencils” reads another, “black/blue pens” reads a third. This seemed silly at the time, but I’ve grown used to it since then. When I’m through using a rubber band or a paper clip, I want to know where it should be returned to. These labels are the lifeblood of my sanity, and my whole worldview will be affected if I don’t know where to put the medium-sized sticky notes when I’m through with them.

Will I have a stapler and scissors at my new desk?

Right now, I don’t have ready access to these seemingly essential tools of office work. I don’t know whether we just have a shortage, or whether there might be some safety issue involved. I feel I’ve demonstrated a level of responsibility during my 30-plus years with the company to show I can be trusted to handle sharp instruments. If there is some training involved in how to properly attach one piece of paper to another, I’d be eager to learn. I believe learning is a lifelong pursuit and am always eager to gain new skills.

Can I be positioned directly beneath an air-conditioning vent?

Most people in my office seem to be suffering a chronic hypothermia that requires them to constantly fiddle with the thermostat until the room becomes a sauna. I’m originally from Miami, and grew up there in the days before air-conditioning. I appreciate a nice draft as welcome refreshment. You can even put me near the door if you want to; it’ll make it that much easier to slip out five minutes early at the end of the day.

Please don’t make me sit next to Kelly. Please. I beg of you. Have some basic human compassion.

Kelly is our office loudmouth. She chatters endlessly about every detail of her personal life. I don’t want to constantly be hearing about how her son has done at soccer practice, how she has a new cat, how her husband is going back to school again instead of getting a job, how she has this lump on her side that she needs to get checked out. If I want to know these things, I’ll sign up for her online newsletter.

Finally, I need both a recycling bin and a trash can at my new desk.

I’ll often work through lunch, eating a sandwich at my work station. When I’m done, I’ll usually save the Zip-Lock bag I packed it in, unless it’s been stained by mayonnaise dripping out the side of my turkey sandwich. When this happens, I’d like to be able to throw it away without getting up. I don’t want to put it into recycling, because that would destroy the Earth.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: Don’t make me share a desk with Edwin on second shift.

Edwin is notorious for eating three-fourths of an onion-packed Subway sandwich and tossing the rest in his desk-side garbage can instead of — as we were specifically instructed in an email dated September 27, 2003 — putting any smelly trash in the breakroom receptacle. The maintenance people usually empty the office trash cans at mid-morning, so whoever shares a desk with Edwin has to smell old onions for half the day. This, I will not abide.

Somebody in management needs to have a talk with Edwin. Let him think he’s getting the ax, and he’ll be more than grateful to stop putting his onions in the regular trash.

Turkey time at the office

The food for the office Thanksgiving luncheon was all set up and ready to be eaten. Workers summoned for the feast from different departments stood about awkwardly, hungry but mindful of the need to wait for some kind of “GO!” command.

First, the district manager had a few words to say. He welcomed the 50 or so white-collar staffers, and spoke of an old tradition that he greatly admired. He’d heard of a family that asked everyone in attendance at their holiday dinners to talk briefly of something they were thankful for in the past year.

A few sidelong glances were exchanged among the famished professionals — “at this rate, we’re never going to eat” seemed to be the unspoken consensus. The manager sensed the crowd’s reluctance to talk about home and family matters at work.

“Anybody have anything they’d like to share?” he asked.

There was some lame muttering from the back about being thankful for friends. Another person said they had suffered a lot in the last year while recovering from a serious motorcycle accident, then realized this wasn’t much of a reason for thanks and instead turned it into a “deep gratitude” that another accident hasn’t happened again.

I felt embarrassed by the silence and sorry for the well-intentioned manager, and almost spoke up myself. I was going to say I was just thankful to have a job in these difficult times, then realized it might prompt him to wonder “why is he still working here?” and decided to hold my tongue. When it became apparent that no one else was going to speak — unless we wanted to ask the people ringing our phones off the hook while the receptionist was away microwaving the green bean casserole — he moved on.

After a pause, he again looked around the room and asked if anybody wanted to say “a word” before we began eating.

Were this any other region of the country besides the South, the word people might’ve offered would be something like “c’mon” or “let’s go, already.” Down here, though, “a word,” especially when requested immediately prior to the consumption of food, means a prayer. Finally someone accepted the challenge, and asked everyone to bow their heads. I used the opportunity to study what a nice pair of running shoes the person next to me recently purchased, and how well their color coordinated with the office carpet.

The prayer (prayist?) proceeded through an acknowledgement of the usual litany of Christian superheroes. He thanked an unseen timekeeper who granted us the opportunity to join together. He gave a brief preview of the available entrees, specifically mentioning both turkey and ham. He said he did all this “in Jesus’ name” (though I bet he’d be resuming his usual role as Bobby in just a minute), then everybody said “amen.”

I’m really glad that I, an agnostic, have never been forced to deliver an impromptu invocation at a company function. I’ve had years of Lutheran training and could probably recall a doxology or two if pressed. I think I could fake my way through it.

Actually, I’ve been known to invoke the various names of the Almighty and His Posse on numerous occasions throughout the average workday. I’m not sure how good a prayer it would make, but I could improvise something like the following.

Good God
I can’t believe the last person to use the copier didn’t hit the reset button when they were through.
Now I have 50 copies when I only wanted two.
And they left blue paper in the legal tray.
Christ Almighty
Those people on the night shift have been using our creamer again.
And doesn’t that guy over in Legal realize that you’re supposed to pay to be in the coffee fund?
Mary, Mother of God
Why have these maintenance people vacuuming while I’m on this important call?
They now wear portable motors and bags on their backs.
I wish those were jetpacks and they’d fly the hell away.
Sweet Jesus
I’m out of sticky notes again.
And I think someone slid a different chair over here, because this one just doesn’t feel right.
Is there no respect for personal property in this place?
Holy Cow
They’re cranking up the thermostat again even though it’s already 150 degrees in here.
These women need to ditch the sleeveless tops already or else bring their Snuggies to work.
God Damn It
It looks like there’s another network outage coming in five minutes.
Tech says it’ll only take about thirty seconds, but by the time you have to restart and bring all your programs back up, you might as well call it a day.
They’re probably doing some upgrade that blocks even more websites.
Jesus H. Christ
Those new paper towels in the men’s room are so thin, they’re practically toilet paper.
I’m sure it’s cheaper than the old stuff, but don’t they realize we’re using twice as much?
I am sick of tiny disintegrated shreds of saturated paper sticking to my hands.
God Almighty, what is wrong with these people?

 

Sweet Lord

Watching too many TV commercials

Open with exterior shot of long white limo driving down a country road. Graphic points to car’s “blacked-out windows”.

Announcer overdub: “A lot of people don’t think food companies are honest about the source of their ingredients.”

Cut to interior shot of focus group sitting around a conference room table. Facilitator asks: “Do you think Domino’s wants you to know where their ingredients come from?”

Hispanic woman: “You should be able to know.”

Anglo woman: “Yeah. With Domino’s you assume the worst, so it would be reassuring to at least believe the ingredients are carbon-based.”

Black man: “I don’t know about that crust, man. Kinda reminds me of chipboard.”

Walls of conference room fall away.

Asian man: “Oh, my god. It’s an earthquake! The building is collapsing! Hand me that pizza so its rock-hard shell can protect my head from falling debris!”

Collapsing walls reveal exterior shot of expansive paper mill. Focus group surprised to find it’s now inside a large warehouse. Safety-helmeted plant worker approaches group and speaks:

“No, it’s not chipboard. Domino’s crust is made of only the finest corrugated cardboard, formed right here in this mill from virgin stands of California hardwood.”

Hispanic woman: “What’s that horrible smell?”

Worker: “That’s the smell of raw wood pulp being boiled and processed to make the grade-A cardboard that forms the base of our famous pizza.”

Black man: “So that’s how I can now order two medium-sized two-topping pizzas for only $5.99 each. You save on production costs by cooking the packaging right into the pie.”

Worker: “That’s right. By eliminating the box and building the pizza out of triple-laminated paper products, we save you money while also offering you the best quality possible.”

Announcer overdub: “Be sure to visit behindthepizza.com to see what else we’re baking into our product that you wish you didn’t know.”

Anglo woman: “I had a friend who worked at a Domino’s once. She said it’s not what’s behind the pizza you should worry about, it’s what’s behind the ovens, behind the counter, in the bathroom, under the fingernails of the workers. But seeing this paper mill somehow makes me feel better. Or at least light-headed. What are those chemicals I’m smelling, anyway?”

Asian man: “I always thought Domino’s was only slightly better than the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the subsequent world war that killed over 60 million people. My opinion of them is now much higher, considering the paycheck I’ll be getting for this commercial.”

Announced overdub: “Order your all-natural Domino’s pizza today.”

Small disclaimer type at bottom of screen: “Not responsible if delivery man slays your family. Our drivers carry less than $20 in change and make less than $15 per day. Must purchase at least 50 pizzas to receive advertised price. Must specifically ask for ‘limited time offer’ and use a cartoonish high-pitched squeak to place your order. Prices, participation, delivery area and charges may vary. We reserve the right to substitute a picture of a pizza for a real pizza.”

Possible alternate ending for release later in current advertising campaign: Focus group questions quality of meat toppings, and conference room walls fall away to reveal a slaughterhouse. Panicked cows cry out as they’re stunned before butchering. Focus group participants comment favorably on freshness of meat. “You can almost taste the blood,” one says. “Or is that the tomato sauce?”

+++

Fed up with partisan bickering among the nation’s three branches of government, Americans appear ready to install a new regime headed by the three most prominent insurance pitchmen currently on commercial television.

An all-powerful triumverate consisting of Progressive’s “Flo,” Nationwide’s “The World’s Greatest Spokesperson in the World,” and State Farm’s “Vaguely Mexican-Looking Guy Outside a Coffee Shop” has agreed to rule the land with a sympathetic but iron fist.

“I’m ready for any change at all that will get the Republicans and Democrats out of Washington,” said Alyce Jones of Chicago. “Those insurance folks offer a goofy sincerity that seems right for these troubling times.”

“The World’s Greatest Spokesperson in the World has really come into his own since being lured out of his backwoods cabin and back into insurance sales,” said Rob Fallon of Las Vegas. “He’s convinced me that Nationwide wants to know everything about me so they can tailor a product that meets my needs. Have you seen the one where he’s dealing with a lady named ‘Pam,’ and he offers to change the name of the company to ‘Nationpam’? That’s the type of can-do spirit we need if we’re ever to convince the Chinese to allow their currency to float on the open market.”

“Like a good neighbor, that Mexican-looking guy is there, always hanging outside of cafes and introducing people to State Farm agents,” said Ronald Henderson of Atlanta. “He puts a real friendly face on the problem of illegal immigration. I’d rather see him outside a Starbucks than offering to do day labor outside a Home Depot.”

The trio would govern by fiat, announcing a new round of federal laws several times an hour on all the major networks. Viewers who don’t follow their every command will be banished to a world where modern insurance products don’t exist, and yet people somehow survive by simply being careful about how they live their lives.

Tentative plans call for Flo to head up the nation’s judiciary as a one-person replacement for the Supreme Court. The World’s Greatest Spokesperson will replace both houses of Congress, and the Mexican guy will become the nation’s first Hispanic president.

“Flo’s perky haircut and headband will look just darling accented by judicial robes,” said Jones. “And the Nationwide Guy, with that signature blue rotary phone hanging from his hip, should be able to reach across the aisle in both the House and Senate to compromise with himself. I’m finally excited about the direction our nation is headed.”

“I think the new president is hunky,” said Phyllis Lee of Oklahoma City. “That could carry some real weight in the START Treaty negotiations with the Russians.”

Cancelling the Gutter Guy

Sometimes, voicemail can be a blessing. Other times, it only delays the inevitable.

Yesterday morning I had to call and cancel an appointment with a pushy salesman trying to get me to buy new gutters for my house. Under the mistaken impression that his firm would simply clean my gutters rather than propose a whole new installation, I made this poor man drive all the way from Charlotte to Rock Hill last week. I dashed his planned two-hour sales pitch about 15 minutes in, when I had decided that I (and he) urgently needed to be someplace else.

To peel him off of me, I had to promise he could come back when I’d be better prepared to carve out a good eighth of my waking hours to learn about the advantages of Guardian Gutters (or perhaps it was Gutter Guardians). Now, only hours from the appointed time, I was going to back out.

I called his office and listened carefully to their voicemail options, as it seems they had changed recently. Patience paid off when I learned that option 6 was to cancel a sales presentation. It looked like my rejection could be done automatically.

Unfortunately, after a few rings on the other end of the line, a machine belonging to “Ed Reynolds” picked up and claimed he was out of the office but would return my call when he returned. I didn’t dare simply leave a message and hope that my salesman, some non-Ed Reynolds guy whose name I think was Mike Something, would get word in time to abort his 2 p.m. appointment. So I hung up and re-dialed the main number.

This time, I chose option 2, to speak with an office manager. I mentally rehearsed the reasons I would give for ditching a perfectly serviceable gutter guy on such late notice:

• My aunt’s recently diagnosed hair cancer looked like it was spreading to her eyebrows and mustache, and family had been advised to prepare for the worst, plus

• I was expecting an urgent call from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, plus
• I damaged my hearing at a Mannheim Steamroller concert and couldn’t hear a word he was saying, plus
• It’s pretty hectic so close to the holidays, maybe we can reschedule after the new year.

The office manager was all business regarding my request and, to my relief, she didn’t demand an explanation. She did press for a January meeting, and I agreed, but didn’t settle on a year. When they do call back to remind me of that perceived commitment, I’ll deny all knowledge of gutters, eaves, fascia and soffits, and will adamantly insist that roofing in general is all a big hoax.

I did, however, want to make sure that the salesman was absolutely, positively not coming. I didn’t fancy the thought of again having to resist his sales superpowers and escort him off my property at the same time.

“You’ve definitely got the right appointment cancelled?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re in Rock Hill, on Brookshadow Drive. The 2 p.m.”

That’s the one. I thanked her for her time, apologized for the inconvenience, and ended up pretty confident that the salesman wouldn’t return that afternoon.

I got off early from work so I could be home in time to lock all the doors, draw all the curtains and hide under the covers of my bed until at least 3:30. Just in case.

From this angle, the gutters don’t look that bad after all.

Wallowing in the gutters

I am not what you would call “handy.” I do have hands — two, I’m proud to say — but I use them primarily for eating, typing and pointing at ugly people, not for do-it-yourself jobs around the house. My idea of a home-improvement project is buying a big-screen TV or spraying a room with air freshener.

Somehow, I’ve still managed to be a homeowner for most of my adult life without having the structure collapse around me. I’ve accomplished this through a strategic combination of not caring when the small stuff breaks, and hiring a contractor to take care of the bigger repairs.

If the sliding glass door is permanently stuck or the lights don’t work above the vanity, I can adapt to the small inconvenience. The tile on the floor of our half-bath is warping from shower seepage that may eventually rot the flooring, but who can name the day I’ll slide nude and lathered into the crawlspace beneath our home? We might all be living under North Korean rule by the time, which would make a hole in my bathroom floor pale by comparison.

As long as the embarrassing demise of my residence is happening in private, I can look the other way. But when it is taking place outside in public view, there are certain covenants in our subdivision’s homeowners association agreement that require me to give a shit.

I’ve had to deal with two of these issues in recent weeks. First, a windstorm sheared a backyard hardwood in half, dropping about 25 feet of lumber into a stand of shrubs. We called a tree service to offer an estimate of what it would take to fix. In just a few minutes, the tree guy told us he could cut down the rest of the trunk and haul everything away for $350. He made it sound so simple that we hired him on the spot, and within a few days the tree was gone. Once again, we were in compliance with the provision that commercial logging of old-growth timber should be kept to a minimum in Brookshadow Acres.

While we were outside and looking up, we also noticed that the gutters meant to collect rainwater from our roof had become packed full of fallen autumn leaves. I could scale a ladder and waste a perfectly good Saturday afternoon digging decayed biomass out of the trough, or I could pay someone to do it. Much as I might enjoy the satisfaction of going elbow-deep into a 30-yard tube of acorns, mud and squirrel remains, I’d rather hire some poor bastard who does this for a living.

I noticed that our next-door neighbor recently had some gutter maintenance done on his home by a company called Guardian Gutters. I took down the phone number and set up an appointment for the next day to meet with a gutter professional.

Mike arrived promptly at 2 p.m. and barged into our sunroom with the breezy confidence of a well-polished salesman. He admired our decor, repeated my name frequently to show that he had remembered it, admired the decor again and remarked that — imagine the coincidence! — his wife was also named Beth. He had already launched into his carefully practiced sales pitch when I reminded him that the gutters were affixed to the exterior of the house, something you’d think a pro would know. I ushered him back outside, where I felt it’d be easier for me to run away if things got out of hand.

We stood shivering in a cold breeze as he began his presentation. The modern roof is the culmination of eons of trial-and-error by ancestors looking for the ideal way to shelter themselves from the elements, he said. Early dwellings were often covered only with twigs or animal hides, and did a poor job of protecting residents. The caves of the Neanderthal provided better protection, but since the collapse of the grotto bubble with the recession of 1 million B.C., these were generally outside the price range of most primitive families.

“If you look right up under here,” he directed, “you’ll see this long panel of wood stretching the length of your house. This is called the ‘eaves.’ Attached to the eaves is a strip that we call the ‘fascia,’ and it’s behind here that poor gutter work can lead to trouble.”

“And you can fix that?” I interrupted. “You can clean those things out for me?”

“Well, no,” he chuckled. “These gutters you currently have are going to require constant maintenance. We sell a far superior product called the Guardian Gutter, and we’re the only contractor in the area that offers this patented technology.”

While I had originally been interested only in having my gutter cleaned, I’d be open to the idea of getting a replacement that would free me from fascia-related worry. But I was getting cold, and he was getting nowhere near the bottom line of what his company’s work might cost me.

“If you notice that small bit of separation right there along the edge, you can see why the French aristocracy first used gutters in the early 18th century,” he continued. “Now, if we walk around to the front of the house…”

“Look,” I interrupted. “I’m kind of interested in wrapping this up pretty quickly. Is there any way you could hit just the high points for me in about 10 or 15 minutes?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I want to make sure you and your wife understand fully the value we offer with our product. We can finish this exterior inspection in probably 20 to 30 minutes, but then I’ll need another hour or so inside to lay out all the options we’re prepared to offer you.”

“Can you at least just tell me the price before we go any further?” I pressed.

“No, I can’t really do that without you knowing our features thoroughly,” he said. “If I told you right now that it would cost — say, $8,000 — you wouldn’t be able to appreciate all that your money would buy.”

Eight thousand dollars? I thought in italic. I’m not paying that kind of money to make sure rainwater is corralled down a drain spout unencumbered by putrefied leaves. I had obviously gotten in over my head, and needed to explain to this guy that I wasn’t prepared to make such a big investment, neither in thousands of dollars nor in hours of study about the history of modern roof drainage.

I would just have to explain that I misunderstood what his company offered, thank him for his time, and send him on his way.

“I’m sorry, we had an emergency visit to the hospital last night and I’m still a little distracted,” I lied. “My daughter was diagnosed with an immune-deficiency disorder, and I’m not going to be able to allow you in the house. Sorry.”

A salesman of this caliber, however, was not about to take “no” for an answer.

“Perhaps I could return at a more convenient time,” he offered. “While you’re thinking it over, let me show you this list of satisfied customers in the area. We have pages of names and phone numbers in here, and I would encourage you to call several of these folks to hear for yourself how they feel Guardian Gutters have made all the difference for them.”

“Okay, okay,” I relented. “Maybe we could have you back next week. Maybe Carla’s immunity will have returned by then, God willing.”

“Great,” he said, and dialed his home office to officially set up another appointment for 2 p.m. Monday.

Be sure to read tomorrow’s post, in which I describe how I call and cancel the appointment at the last minute.

My clogged gutter: A shame I may have to live with

Cleaning out some old pictures

I’m told our home computer is getting too full, that it has memory problems. Since I can relate to both of these issues on a personal level, I told my wife and son — the two resident computer experts in my home — that I’d do what I can to help.

I haven’t noticed any performance concerns myself. I looked behind the monitor to see if any bits or gigs had overflowed out the back and, unless they look exactly like common household dust or small dead spiders, I didn’t see anything. I have noticed a slight bulging in the tower but attribute that to the Reuben sandwich I accidentally inserted into CD-writer slot when I got confused at lunch one day.

Response times still seem quick enough for the programs I use, even a little too fast sometimes: I barely have enough time to feel triumphant about laying down a ”VULVA” in Scrabble before my computer opponent counters with a “QUIXOTIC”. Not only am I suddenly down 87 points, but I’m reminded of my own quixotic quest for the vulva.

As far as I can tell, the system’s memory is fine. I tell it to save a file in subfolder “STUFF” inside subfolder “BLOG” inside subfolder “DAVIS” inside subfolder “MY DOCUMENTS”, and it’s I who can’t remember where to find it, not the computer.

Beth said she needed to “de-frag” or “de-frog” or “de-something” the system to consolidate files and free up more storage capacity. I told her to go for it, as long as she wore one of those bomb suits like in The Hurt Locker in case shrapnel suddenly erupted from the keyboard. Or frogs.

What I could do to help, I was told, was to get rid of all the photos I’ve taken over the past two years for use in my blog. There were also some other pictures that might be worth saving that I could offload onto a ”thumb drive,” though somebody’s going to have to tell me which slot I need to stick my thumb in to make this happen.

It was kind of fun going through all the pictures I’ve collected. Many can be easily deleted, as soon as I figure out what I was thinking when I took a picture of a featureless patch of grass. Others represent fond memories of family life: a wedding picture of me and my wife, my son’s graduation from elementary school, the time our cat thought it would be fun to go for a swim in the toilet. Still others are from my business trips overseas.

There were a few I felt deserved one more chance in the light of day before they were consigned to the trash bin icon of history. And so, I present those here.

Then I right-click and I select “delete.”

 

This is a bunch of garbage. You might immediately recognize the soiled mattress and the rolled-up carpet, but it takes a discerning eye to pick out the broken office chair in the back. Why I would take a picture of garbage, I don’t recall.

 

That’s me, enjoying a 2007 vacation to New York City. You can tell what a wonderful time I’m having by the crossed arms and the sidelong grimace. When the city workers to my left finishes painting the fire hydrant, he’ll begin work on my gigantic walking shorts.

 

This is the office where I worked in Sri Lanka training a team of outsource proofreaders. I still recall my first lesson with this group of eager young office workers: “DOITRIGHTTHE” is four separate words, not one.

 

This is a mountain bike my wife won in a drawing. We thought it was a regular bike, so we don’t use it, except to take up space in our sunroom. I’d like to donate it to some deserving youngster who lives in a mountainous region — perhaps in wartorn Afghanistan — but I have no idea how to do that. I suppose I could sell it on eBay, but I don’t know how to do that either.

 

During one trip to an Asian nation that will remain anonymous, I encountered this sign in the men’s room. Note the mortification on the face of the worker who peed himself, and the stern condemnation from the supervisor who points out his error. It’s management techniques like these that have catapulted the powerhouse economies of the East right past the U.S.

 

In Hong Kong, a street vendor of meats and meat byproducts proudly displays his inventory. “How are the pig colons today?” I ask. “Only average,” he replies. “The elk diaphragm, however, is most excellent.” In the end, I opted instead to vomit on a side street.

 

Speaking of disgusting masses of sagging flesh, enjoy this world’s worst self-portrait as I wade in the waters of Subic Bay, near Manila. Moments after this shot was taken, we were hit by a simultaneous volcano and civil insurrection.

Trying to figure out the new cell phone

Often, I’ll write about being flummoxed by new technology.

When I first started this blog over three years ago, I wrote that one of the slots on the side of my laptop must be malfunctioning because twenties were not flowing out, like is supposed to happen when you have a blog.

When I discovered Wikipedia, I thought it was an online shopping site. I tried to buy three Christmas presents for my uncles there: Flucindole, a never-marketed antipsychotic drug; an Australian Wood Duck; and a Chartered Economic Analyst (ChEA).

I’ve told of the time I mistakenly recited my fast-food order into a trash can that I thought was the speakerbox interface to the order-taker.

“Ha, ha,” as we say in the humor business. “Very funny.”

Today, that is not my theme, although you’d think it would be considering that I bought a new cell phone on Monday. Today, I get to describe my mastery over at least a small sliver of the Digital World.

My old phone was so ancient that Motorola was still a respected producer of handheld sets at the time it was made. I had the Razr, a state-of-the-art device for about a month back in 2005. It had all the latest features, including a camera, internet access and text messaging. Some telecommunications analysts were even reporting you could make phone calls on it.

What I fell in love with was the text messaging. No more phone calls. No more “Hi, how are you?”, “Fine, how are you?”, “Fine. How’s the wife and kids?”, “They’re fine. How about your family?”. Now, telephonic communication could be done in a direct, efficient, soulless manner.

And the bonus was, you got to typeset. I love typesetting, as my 35-year career in the business can attest. Now I could do it anywhere.

The problem with the Razr is that it has one of those old-fashioned keypads with three or four letters to a key, so to type something like the word “feces,” you had to punch different buttons 35 times, complete with occasional pauses. I might like typing and I might like the word “feces,” but that amount of time and effort was ridiculous. The more I got into text messaging, the more I realized I needed one of those slide-out QWERTY keyboards.

When we went to the local wireless provider, my wife and son helped me consider the dozens of sets on display. My primary criteria were that my new phone have a user-friendly keyboard and be less than $100, after mail-in rebate, with a two-year contract renewal, today only. Because I have a heavy swipe finger, I also would’ve chosen to avoid touch-screen technology if that were possible, but apparently it is not.

We settled pretty quickly on the Pantech Ease. Pantech is a South Korean company that has a long tradition in the telecommunications industry, going back to at least April. The Ease is one of their most popular models.

I cracked open both the phone and the Quick Start Guide as soon as I got home, and started noodling around with the features. A certain long-tenured female in my family believed that I should read the 200-page User Guide cover-to-cover (including the last half, which was upside down and written in Spanish) to figure out how it worked. I made a different choice, and basically just started pushing random buttons.

I looked occasionally at the one-sheet overview and for some reason, a certain phrase caught my eye.

“Ease is about options. You can get quick access to the features you need in easy-to-use, easy-to-read Easy Mode,” read one paragraph. My son noticed all these “easy” references too, and made a succinct observation.

“What you’ve got there, Dad, is one step up from a Jitterbug,” he said. I think he’s probably right.

Reading further, we saw other clues that confirmed this suspicion. In a segment on mobile email, the sample address is “silverfox2″. The Cool Tools section describes how to use the “pill reminder,” a kind of alarm to prompt you to remember your heart medicine. This feature even comes with a “snooze feature” to give you an extra 15 minutes in case you’ve already passed out from your bout with angina. A box describing the available accessories called the Velcro belt-attached carrying case “fashionable.”

That doesn’t mean it didn’t take me a while to master the Ease’s rather limited offerings. I’ve spent the last 24 hours puzzling through the different screens and have figured out how to send a text, how to text a picture, how to shoot video and how to send an email from my phone to my office. With an attachment. I think that’s pretty impressive.

My studies haven’t come without some trial and error. I wanted to see if I could receive video, so I asked my son to make a short film of what our three cats were up to yesterday morning and send it to me at work. It came through loud and clear. Too loud, in fact, as I couldn’t find the volume button and when I did it wasn’t very responsive.

“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” rang a high-pitched chant audible throughout the department.

“What’s that?” snapped Regina over in customer service. “There better not be a cat in here.”

When I woke up at 4 a.m. earlier that morning to get ready for work, I grabbed the phone from my dresser and apparently hit the “Say A Command” button on the side of the device.

“Say a command,” instructed a woman’s voice in a stern but friendly tone.

I was only half awake during all this after maybe five hours sleep, and you can probably imagine how aback I was taken with this middle-of-the-night directive. I thought I was caught in the midst of some S&M-themed dream. Fortunately, the Ease’s voice-recognition software didn’t know what to make of the command “Wuh? Huh? Shit! Ouch!” as I stumbled through the dark. I’ll have to come back to this feature later.

I really think I’m going to like this cell phone. There’s still a lot to be learned, so I am starting to make my way through the large User Guide. I’ve already learned you can toggle over from the Easy Mode home screen to an Advanced Mode display with three pages of apps icons if you want to attempt things like mobile social net, mobile banking and mobile web. Frankly, though, I have enough trouble doing those things standing still.

The only thing I miss so far about my old Motorola Razr was the resounding metallic thunk it made when you were done with your telecommunications business. It made me feel important and plugged-in to the larger world. People standing nearby would look admiringly at me, whispering to their friends “Hey, that guy’s got a cell phone!”

Sliding the QWERTY keyboard soundlessly back into position after firing off a text doesn’t draw anybody’s attention. But maybe, if I keep studying hard, I’ll find there’s a feature to record everyday sounds, and I can capture the sound of my slammin’ Razr for use as a ringtone.

Out with the old …

… In with the new

Profiles in line-waiting

     I’m writing today from our local Earth Fare grocery store, which has kindly set aside – whether they know it or not — a table and a wi-fi connection for my almost daily use. For those of you not familiar with the chain, it’s in the organic/health/inedible food segment, featuring high-end gourmet offerings along side free-range sticks and locally grown chaff. How it ended up in my rather working-class neighborhood is beyond me.

     Since I am using their space and their power and their Internet waves, I’m careful to patronize them on each visit with at least the purchase of a bottled tea (today I’m sampling the “fair trade” flavor). When I approached the checkout, there were two lines open, each of which had a single customer with a significant basket-load of merchandise. I lingered back briefly because I hate being reluctantly waved ahead when the large purchaser feels obliged to let me and my single item go through. Once each of them had committed to their position by partially unloading their basket, I picked the guy on the left to get behind.

     Usually, I’ll do some profiling of the people ahead of me before I commit to a line. It’s a sexist, ageist, racist, classist habit I have that you’d think would get me to the cashier faster. Obviously, I look at the quantity of items being purchased but that’s actually a very small factor in my assessment. The ideal people to get behind are young professionals who have that urgent on-the-go air about them. They’ll typically be paying with a debit card, usually swiping it crisply before the purchase is even completed, and the next thing you know they’re motoring out the door. At the other end of the spectrum is the harried working mom herding her kids while talking on her cell phone, the college student who’ll be digging through the 12 pockets in his cargo pants trying to scare up enough coin to pay, and the elderly couple fumbling through their belongings looking for the check book.

     Today, I waited patiently as Guy on the Left fell slightly behind Guy on the Right in their unloading. Switching lines at this point is usually not a wise option, as inevitably that speeds up the line you left and slows down your new choice. Besides, you can’t switch more than once without looking like you’re planning an armed robbery. You need to commit to your choice and stay with it unless some serious misfortune befalls the line, like a price check, a register running out of receipt tape, or (God forbid) some once-in-a-lifetime calamity like a travelers cheque.

     The line I didn’t choose is now wide open while in my line, the unloading has just finished and the customer is ready to step forward and acknowledge the cashier. I momentarily consider switching before two more carts pull in the temporarily cleared line and eliminate that option. That’s okay, though; I’m thinking my patience has paid off and I’ll be plunking my tea on the conveyor belt shortly. Suddenly, I’m horrified by a completely unexpected development: the customer in front of me knows the cashier’s mother! Soon there is chitting and chatting and reminiscing and banter, and I’m starting to wish my tea had a little more preservatives and a little less organic brown rice syrup, because it looks like I could be standing here a while.

     While the grocery checkout system we have in America has its flaws, I still think it’s better than the foreign alternatives I’ve seen in some of my travels overseas. In Manila, where retail seemed to be on steroids with the humongous Mega Mall just a few train stops down from the even larger Mall of Asia, I was in a grocery store that had no fewer than 35 checkout lines, and each of them was staffed on the busy afternoon I visited. In addition to designating several lanes as eight items or less (I think they’re on the octal system there rather than the metric), they also had two lanes marked “elderly only”. I would’ve thought this was a great idea if they hadn’t defined “elderly” as 50 and over, so I decided to be offended instead.

     In London, where I believe food stores are called apothecaries or chemists or something like that, I was too intimidated by biscuits that looked like cookies and cashiers that looked like earls to buy anything. In Bombay, the huge population apparently necessitates a whole different system that involves massing around the checkout and jostling for recognition like you were in some sort of commodities trading pit. Where there were lines, they didn’t seem to exist for any reason, as I had people literally step in front of me to make their purchase. In Sri Lanka, a rebel insurgency requires you to stand in line to go through security before you can stand in another line to do something else, so you’ve kind of lost interest by then and decide to order room service instead.

     Then there are the lines to get out of these countries and back into the U.S. Unlike retail lines, where annoyance and a waste of time are the biggest risk, the immigration and customs lines feel like actual life-or-death scenarios. When I tried to get out of Hong Kong, I had to pass through a scanner that detected my body temperature to make sure I didn’t have SARs, bird flu or other forms of excessive hotness. After it was determined that I was cool, I was challenged again at the ticket counter to prove that I was eventually going back to the States instead of staying indefinitely at my interim destination in the Philippines. My pasty features and American passport apparently weren’t proof enough that I wasn’t Filipino; I had to go through back flips to produce documentation that I had an airline ticket back home.

     Once I got to my final stop in Charlotte a few days later, my joy at being home after five weeks abroad was quickly dampened by the long, snaking line leading up to the immigration desks. About a half-dozen officers were on hand to service two jumbo jets that landed simultaneously for what must’ve been the first time in North Carolina history. Two subsections separately serviced American citizens and foreign nationals, though a third one for suspiciously dusky people who carried all their luggage on the plane with them would’ve been helpful. The perfunctory inspection that resulted in every one of the hundreds who were waiting being waved through eventually got me to my baggage and the customs officials. As soon as the official saw that I had visited something called Sri Lanka, I was ordered aside for a thorough search. The inspector was very chatty and very friendly, which I suspect was the result of some intense profiling training rather than a desire to be nice. Finally satisfied that my cheap souvenirs and even cheaper wardrobe presented no significant threat to national security, I got to meet my family and head for home.

     I suppose it’s only appropriate that the profiling came back to haunt me.

Being neighborly in the subdivision

They say that good fences make good neighbors. Since the restrictive covenants in our particular subdivision forbid the installation of “fences, barriers or similarly containing obstructions”, we have lousy neighbors.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh. I’m actually quite fond of the neighborhood we’ve lived in now for almost 15 years. It’s a collection of perhaps 60 or 70 upper-middle-class homes built in the pre-McMansion era, when floor plans were sensible and pre-existing plant life was respected by not being slashed and burned. In fact the name of our subdivision – I think it’s “Shady Creek”, but it could be “Shadow River” or “Dappled Brook” – reflects both the old hardwoods that canopy the main road and the shallow creek that, if you don’t look too closely, runs cleanly alongside the main road.

We live on that road, on the corner of one of about a dozen cul-de-sacs. We have a nice mixture of young families and retired couples, many of them academics from the college about two miles away. We’ve seen little of the housing market distress that haunts Subprime Village at the Township at Cityplace across the way, and even enough of a progressive streak that we sported a few Obama yard signs during the recent election season. I nod to the people I pass on my occasional walks and raise two fingers off the steering wheel  (three if I’m feeling friendly) as I drive past them, and am on good if anonymous terms with everybody. Most of them know me as the Stocky Guy that Runs and would probably describe me as the quiet type should I ever be charged with some gruesome crime.

I don’t really know my immediately adjacent neighbors at all. Some community-minded type down the street recently collected names, professions and other basic data for a small directory she published, but several families on our block declined to participate in the census. So they are known to me as follows.

The retired couple on our right (they’re either retired or simply don’t work very hard) have lived in their house for about two years now. I thought about approaching them and introducing myself when they first moved in, but after a few near-miss encounters it grew increasingly awkward to do so. Now I mostly see the husband as he walks his harnessed cat in the yard behind our shed. Why our property is better suited for the feline constitution than his is a mystery to me, but what’s even more curious is that he does this activity in full view of my wife and me. At least he has enough shame not to wave when he sees us. I’ve seen his wife only rarely when, for some reason, a different antique auto appears in front of their home every weekend and she engages in a long discussion with the driver. Maybe they’re running a stolen vintage car ring and the cat on a tether is meant to be a cover for their criminal enterprise.

The family on our left, across the cul-de-sac, consists of a young couple with two school-age daughters. They all seem nice enough from a distance, if balloons occasionally displayed on their mailbox is any indication. I have no problem with them, but I do have a concern with one of their visiting mothers. She recently pulled up to the side of their house to witness both me and her son hard at work in our respective yards. It seemed pretty obvious that both of us were herding leaves toward the curb, where the city’s vacuum truck would pick them up in a few days. Rather than park her car in front of his home, however, she chose instead to put it on my side of the street. I was stunned at first by this blatant show of preference for her own flesh and blood, especially since she did it right in front of me. After she went inside, I continued shepherding my leaves to the curb and put them exactly where I had originally intended, leaving a small space for her late-model sedan in the center of my pile. At least the vehicle was still largely visible from the door handles up.

Behind our house is an African-American family that I also know very little about. They’ve lived there about five years now but it’s been hard to watch their comings and goings because of how our respective homes are positioned. They probably know us a lot better than we do them, since the sliding glass double doors leading into our family room let them look out of one of their bedroom windows and directly into our lives. We had a good bit more privacy until they cleared a stand of shrubbery just inside their property line about six months ago; I’m not going to ascribe any voyeuristic motives to this questionable bit of landscaping, though I cut a pretty dashing figure as I clomp around the kitchen in my pajamas. The only other thing I know about them is that, for some unknown reason, they have their grass cut by the retired Southern gentleman on their other side. I’m guessing it’s some sort of Civil War reparations arrangement.

Finally, across the street there lives a cluster of several hundred people. It’s not an overcrowded group home but instead a development of townhouses just beyond the creek. Though not technically a part of the subdivision, the only way they can come and go is via our main road so I’ll consider them neighbors enough to grumble about. My primary beef is that they and their landscapers use the grassy area visible through our front window as a place to heap their trash, in direct violation of some municipal code or other we discovered when we called the city to complain. A guy came out and posted a “no dumping” sign, which they promptly ignored except for knocking it over. When we put it back up, someone stole the sign leaving only a post, which is nice as posts go but mentions very little about the ordinance. I bet the mostly retired community that lives in this development would sympathize with our concern and might even mention it to the landscapers, if any of them spoke English.

All in all, it’s really a pretty good place to live. We may not be neighborly when it comes to borrowing cups of sugar and checking each other’s pets while on vacation, we do have a Neighborhood Watch program. I know this because there’s a sign (not yet vandalized) and because the neighborhood coordinator stopped at my door one day to ask if she could have our stepping stones. I suppose they are desirable as stepping stones go – cement, circular, about 2-feet wide, truly exquisite – but I wasn’t quite ready to simply give them away to the crazy lady who yells at passing cars to “slow down!” Perhaps, for the betterment of the community I should have.

Learning to blog at WordCamp

Attendees at yesterday’s Charlotte WordCamp — you could tell it was a new media thing by how they took the space out of “WordCamp” — generally fell into two categories. There were the experienced bloggers looking to refine their skills and improve their social networking by actually meeting real people, and there were those like me, real (but old) people who had heard of blobs and inner-nets and wanted to get into this online action while we still lived and breathed. It was the twitterers and the twits. The avatars and the ava-tards.

The event was sponsored by The Charlotte Observer, respectfully called the “mature” media by symposium leaders who probably refer to it as the Observersaurus in private. I learned about it while reading an article in the paper a few months ago that promised an opportunity for new bloggers like me to learn the ropes. Publicizing the affair in the local section of the paper, right next to the article about Billy Graham “celebrating” his 90^th birthday, apparently garnered little notice, and registration was wide open when I went online to sign up. When word finally made it out to the blogosphere a few weeks later, the location planned for 50 participants now had to hold in excess of a hundred.

I arrived early Saturday to make sure I could get an outlet for my laptop’s power cord. Going through the lobby and up to the third floor of the Observer building, it was painfully evident that such a long-respected bricks-and-mortar newspaper operation was on the wane. The faded paint, the tattered flooring, the creaking elevator that failed later in the morning, trapping its inhabitant into the identity of “Elevator Guy” for the rest of the day, all served to reinforce the transition now taking place in the media world. We signed in at the registration desk, wrote our names onto nametags in marker ink that soaked through two levels of clothing as it made you high, and headed into the conference room to begin the session.

It was pretty evident right from the beginning about the dichotomy we’d be struggling with all day. Mostly middle-aged representatives of the Observer stood around the edge of the room, studying the participants like we were lowland gorillas. Their sponsorship was obviously aimed at figuring out how to get in on this young demographic and turn them into eyeballs they could charge 37½ cents a piece each day. Sharing their background if not their status among the employed were about a third of the participants. As we learned during brief self-introductions, these folks had opted for a “midlife career change”, “early retirement” or “freelance writing” that all looked suspiciously like being laid off. The other two-thirds, including the people at the front who’d be doing the presenting, may or may not have had jobs and didn’t really seem to care one way or the other. They had Twitter, and that’s all they had time for anyway.

After the introductions, the first item on the agenda was a meet-and-greet for non-beginners and a general Q&A session for the rest of us. The meet-and-greet would take place in an adjacent room, so the non-beginners were told to adjourn for about 30 minutes while the newbies remained behind to ask their stupid questions. I probably had enough experience to go either way but the prospect of climbing through all those wires and aisles convinced me to stay behind, though it did occur to me that perhaps we were being separated like the concentration camp victims told to stay behind for the showers.

I don’t know what went on the other room (I suspect there was a fair amount of snickering and cootie vaccines) but my group took the opportunity to ask variations on the same question for the better part of the session. What was a tag and what was a category? How are they different? How are they the same? What’s a tag again? What do you mean by category? A tag cloud, what the hell is that? Should I have brought a laptop?

After a break, we were again allowed to commingle with the veteran bloggers. There was a technical and design panel that gave ideas on how to make your blog stand out from the 700 billion blogs out there. We were told how to steal a theme, copy a graphic and plug in a plug-in. Most of these tips were delivered in reverse top-ten formats, a la David Letterman, which I’m guessing was supposed to make the aged among us feel like we had taken a long afternoon nap and stayed up past 11 for the first time since college. The nap came in handy, as the discussion turned to FTP, future-proofing, subdomains, RSS and microblogging, and I turned to my version of the Internet to avoid boredom. I had AOL open for about five minutes before I realized this was probably the most embarrassing site choice anyone in the room could possibly make.

After a lunch break for pizza (exactly what I thought bloggers ate), we began the afternoon session with the topic of content development. Not surprisingly, a recurring suggestion from all five presenters was that a blog should actually have some amount of content, which may not have occurred to about half the room who were waiting for the part about downloading reliable cash streams. Content was described as “king”, “queen” and, ultimately, the “ten of spades”. We were told we’d need dynamic content to attract readers but probably wouldn’t have any readers to appreciate it in the beginning, unless you worked for the Observer or developed wide social networks in places like FaceBook, MySpace and the bulletin board at Goodwill.

Some of the ideas for good content seemed to be exactly what I was already doing. One slide read “picture = 1000 words”, which I initially took to mean that the picture of the perfect web posting was something that ran to a thousand words in length. Unfortunately, what this actually referred to was the assertion that you could put photos and other graphics on your blog. My thousand-long-word essays now seem to be serious overkill compared to many of the blogs we were shown, where perhaps as few as fifty words were needed as long as several of them were “tweet”, “Obama” or “my naked girlfriend.” Apparently you can also put video on your blog, and I plan to do that as soon as I can find the port on my laptop that accepts VHS tapes.

Of course, no seminar like this is complete without the inspirational speaker offering his formula for success. Right before the keynote address, we were told that promoting your site was as simple as (now write this down) “create” plus “serve” times “community” equals “wealth”. This was about the most useless formula I had heard at one of these things since a corporate development trainer had advised me that ambition divided by talent minus honesty to the third power is greater than or equal to the cosine of success. Nobody wrote anything down, primarily because pens and papers are such primitive technology that only the older folks even brought them, and most of us were back in the lunchroom by now trying to snag a few more Chips Ahoy. Among those who remained, I did hear some tap-tap-tapping followed by a long pause as they looked for the “equal” key.

At the end, we collected our decidedly low-tech T-shirts (not at all virtual or digital, like I was hoping), said our goodbyes to the new contacts we had made, and hoped that someone somewhere in the room would be visiting our blogs.

Achieving quality step by step

Ever since we started outsourcing a lot of our work overseas, many companies have been real big on standard operating procedures. I think the theory is that breaking down your production process into a simple step-by-step operation makes it possible for even the most untrained worker to perform. While that can work well at a very basic level for those eager but inexperienced developing-world types, it hampers the ability of us still working on American soil to find creative ways to screw things up.

About ten years ago, the rage in corporate quality movements was something called ISO 9000. The idea was that if you documented (or “wrote down”) all your processes and then operated as you said you would, nothing could go wrong. No variation was possible when humans were turned into mindless, instruction-reading work-bots. Errors in this system were supposed to be so few that a special numeration system had to be devised to describe how tiny the odds of failure were. This was the concept of “Six Sigma”, or six mistakes out of all the fraternity or sorority members in the world.

Though ISO 9000 is still followed in some corporate backwaters of the world, it gradually lost credibility in the U.S. First there was the problem that even if American workers could make sense of the instructions, there was no guarantee that just because something was written down that it would work (see the 2008 Republican platform and any MapQuest directions for just two examples). And then there was the problem with the name of the initiative itself: ISO stands for International Society for Obduration, which I think has something to do with pity, and the 9000 part represented the year in which actual gains from the program will be seen.

The remnants of this system that still exist in most lines of work are now called “standard practices”. They used to be called “best practices”, but that was considered too elitist, I guess, and it was judged more important that we do everything the same, whether it was actually good or not. Now, whether the person doing the work is in Boston or London or Hong Kong or Neptune (in the year 9000), all they have to do is go to the corporate intranet, access the development and training section, then go to the operations page, then find the kind of process they’re doing, then call up the appropriate requirements, then find the “SP”, then start looking for another job because they missed a critical deadline while monkeying around on the computer.

When you do have time to follow the standard practice, you better pull up a chair because it’s typically going to take a while to get through it. One example I’m looking at breaks a particular operation down into 15 steps, which seems almost manageable until you consider that step 8 alone includes four checkboxes followed by 16 bullet points and six sub-bullet points. Other steps are ridiculously simple, like step 15 which involves taking your page off the printer. The standard practice doesn’t tell you how many fingers to use to pick up the sheet of paper, whether to use your left hand or your right hand or what kind of protective gear you should be wearing but, as the website warns all users, “don’t use a hard copy of these instructions because they are constantly being revised in the spirit of continuous improvement.”

When despite the best efforts of the quality mavens something wrong does make it out to a client, an investigation into how this could possibly happen usually takes place. A “service recovery account” is requested of the offending manufacturing site who attempts to figure out, usually several weeks after the error was committed, what step in the flawless process was not followed. Usually, the answer is something like “we didn’t work on this job”, and the matter is referred to another location. Once the site is definitively determined, the managers there will “drill down” through a massive collection of archived paperwork to figure out which individual or team was responsible (the drilling is just a figurative term at U.S. offices but involves an actual boring device for workers offshore). A corrective action is implemented, typically a scolding email to anyone who might’ve participated in the misdeed. We’re able to report back to the client that we appreciate they’ve pointed out an improvement opportunity that has made our process even better, and that someone won’t be getting their merit raise, if it’s ever decided these will be reinstituted.

What all this ignores is that some of the steps in a process are more critical than others, and that it takes an experienced person to know when it’s safe to cut corners and skip something trivial. If sub-step 2.4.7(A)(e) involves hopping on one foot while you key in your job number, you’ll see the Bombay skyline compliantly swaying with tremors while in Atlanta they’ll just take a chance they can skip the hopping. Our overseas workers are extremely good at doing exactly what they’re told to do, knowing they could be out on the streets if it’s found they cut a corner. At best, there will be “stand-ups” (where a top manager stands up before the group and yells at them), “letters of retribution” inserted into personnel files and, worst of all, week-long reprogramming regimens that involve the south Asian equivalent of a forced march. Virtually no one gets dismissed for cause domestically, since downsizing is certain to eventually take care of them anyway.

There’s a pendulum of emphasis that swings back and forth between quality and meeting deadlines that American workers seem to be better at timing. We’re much closer to the screaming customer to be able to tell when we’re about to enter a new era. We use those all-American traits of innovation and intuition and poor reading skills to perform from the gut what we think needs to be done rather than what some piece of paper says. And we can tell when it might be a good time take a lunch break to avoid those managers who are shocked (shocked!) to learn that a standard process wasn’t followed step by ridiculous, excruciating step.

Thanksgiving comes early in the office

The turkey carcass sits mangled on the serving table, looking like the victim of a bear attack. The sweet potato casserole has been denuded of its marshmallow topping, but you could probably scrape a few more servings out of the corners of the pan if you tried. The stuffing is completely gone, serving its stated purpose of stuffing those who now lounge around the edges of this scene, barely moving except for the effort it takes to moan.

No, you haven’t been transported a week into the future by the magic of the blog. This is the scene I left behind at yesterday’s office celebration of Thanksgiving, a full seven days before most of us will commemorate the occasion.

The corporate calendar of holidays is not something most of us are aware of until we walk into work one dark January day and discover we’ve neglected to bring the green bagels for St. Patrick’s Day, which the outside world celebrates on March 17. Maybe I exaggerate a little, but not much. The government has imposed Monday observance of the more minor holidays like Presidents, Labor and Memorial days. Christmas and New Year’s are complicated by the fact that the days before them — the Eves — are in many ways more important than the actual holidays themselves. Many human resources departments have come up with the concept of a “floating” holiday for individuals to use in the religious observance of their choosing, such as Yom Kippur, Kwanzaa or Talk Like a Pirate Day. People in my mostly Christian office, for example, use their optional holiday for the day after Easter, prompting one observer to wonder if the “floating” had something to do with Jesus’ ascension into heaven.

I guess having the Thanksgiving potluck yesterday made some sense on a gut level, considering few of us would want to gorge like that two days in a row if it were scheduled for next Wednesday. The only opening left on the sign-up sheet when I got to it was “salad”, which seemed very un-Thanksgiving-like but worked for me since it was so easy to prepare (take one head of lettuce, rip to shreds, serves 20). Management was providing the ham and turkey, and everything else was being brought in by the staff, who would have a chance to dazzle coworkers with their best recipes, many of which involved green beans, cream soup and those crunchy onion things.

The sit-down time was scheduled for 11 a.m. so the organizers had the better part of the morning to set up the centerpieces, warm and then re-warm the hot dishes, and tempt us all with the smells of the season. This was to be an affair that combined our staff with workers from the front office, who we sometimes pass in the restrooms but about whom we know little else. As the serving time arrived, I was unfortunate enough to be just outside their offices when a manager called out for me to summon them. At first I was confused about who exactly he meant, and nearly beckoned the 200-plus temporary work crew from the warehouse. That would’ve been a horrible mistake, certain to result in stolen plastic cutlery and tiny, tiny portions for everyone. Still, I didn’t want to call for these front-office folks I didn’t know (“hey, it’s the guy from the bathroom – what’s he want?”) so I went to hide in my car for a few minutes.

I hoped this would have the added benefit of allowing me to miss the inevitable speech-giving and prayer that would precede the food consumption. But as the schedule started running behind, I made it just in time to hear the department head note that though these are difficult times, we still have much to be thankful for, followed by a brief blessing. Not being a currently practicing Christian myself, I’ve always felt awkward during this portion of the proceedings. It’s not because I take offense at having others’ religious beliefs imposed on me; rather, I’m bothered that I use the respectful silence to think of the sarcastic prayer I’d be tempted to offer if I’m ever called upon. Instead of beginning with “dear Jesus” or “holy Father”, the sacrilegious scamp in me wants to begin with a “good God” and then launch into several other James Brown references like papa’s brand new bag and how good I feel (so good). Fortunately for everyone, Edna does a nice reverent offering, and it’s finally time to chow down.

Office chairs were pulled up to the long row of covered work tables. After people worked their way down the buffet, carefully gauging the decreasing capacity of their Chinettes against the promise of what appeared further down the line, we were told to squeeze into a seat and begin the scheduled conviviality. The randomness and closeness of this seating arrangement, not to mention my very real fear of being injured by flying elbows, caused me to linger toward the end of the buffet line in the hope the table would be too full. I lucked out and was able to return instead to my work station to eat, where I got a kernel of corn stuck between “F7” and “F8” on my keyboard.

I genuinely enjoyed the food, as did everyone else. I was also able to enjoy the air of warmth and geniality in the room without actually having to get any of it on me. We didn’t have any holiday music piped through the intercom as we’ll do at Christmas — primarily I guess because there isn’t any, except for the less-than-festive “Turkey in the Straw” – but there was a certain atmosphere that for a moment almost made me give some actual thanks.

I managed to avoid overeating, which was good since I had a long drive home to navigate in the next hour and I didn’t want to sleep through it. Others in our department weren’t so lucky, as they staggered back to their desks to face another three hours of duty. The combination of turkey, heavy carbohydrates and the kind of workload you might expect at a financial services firm during the worst economic downturn in 70 years must’ve been as tough to handle as an Ambien/opium blend injected directly into your forehead.

At least there were no Detroit Lions to send them over the edge and into lethal coma.

A bad time to start eating good

Food has always played a central role in my life. I know that’s something that everyone can claim, except maybe those lucky few who survive by photosynthesis. I use it not only for sustenance and pleasure but also as a major contributor to my overall sense of well-being and security. If I have an ample store of baked goods, take-out entrees and my favorite soft drink, I feel I’m ready to survive any calamity short of a thermonuclear holocaust. My wife accuses me of collecting cookies and cakes like a squirrel collects acorns, but where else am I going to find a chocolate-chunk blondie post-apocalypse?

We’ll all be thinking a lot about food in the coming days, with Thanksgiving just around the corner. Because of its carbo-centric theme, this has always been my favorite holiday, but it’s hardly the only day where I’m thinking about the menu days in advance. As I write this posting, it’s Saturday afternoon and I can tell you virtually every meal I’ll be eating between now and the holiday five days in the future.

(This is what makes blogs so interesting).

During the workweek, I’ll have a blueberry breakfast bar, hazelnut-flavored coffee and pulp-free orange juice for breakfast, and a sliced deli turkey sandwich on Milton’s bread with two reduced-fat Oreo cookies for dessert. I’m very particular about these selections, and will not tolerate orange juice with medium pulp, some pulp, a little pulp, or one small suspicious glob you’d hope is only pulp. Pulp is for paper mills, not breakfast juices. I might allow some variation in this otherwise rigid schedule for a special celebration – the day after Obama was elected, for example, I treated myself to reduced-fat Chips Ahoy! (because of the exclamation point) – but I take great comfort in the predictability of this regime.

Dinner is my opportunity to allow a little variation in my food consumption. Tonight, for example, I’m considering the hamburger I bought but never ate at lunch today, some leftover Japanese food from my wife’s lunch, or I may just pick out some items from the prepared-food bar here at the grocery store coffee shop where I’m writing. I’ve already checked out the grilled hot dogs sitting under the warming lights and, though they look tasty, there’s a sign that says the buns are available behind the bakery counter, and I’m a bit reluctant to ask the worker there “do you have buns?” (especially since there’s a new hire sitting behind me who’s going through the company’s sexual harassment training DVD).

I may be able to attribute some of my quirky attitudes toward food to my upbringing. My mother created most of her meals out of her Pennsylvania Dutch background until she moved to a Miami neighborhood dominated by Italian transplants from New York. This allowed her to add things like lasagna and meatballs to hog maw and shoo-fly pie, though usually not in the same meal. Breakfast was typically skillet-fried potatoes and something called “scrapple” – more appetizingly known as “liver mush” in the South — and the lunch I carried off to school usually included a can of Vienna sausages (whatever rarely harvested parts of the pig that weren’t in the scrapple were probably in the sausages). It was all very tasty and very dense on a molecular level, and was probably a significant contributor to the fact that I weighed nearly 250 pounds by the time I graduated from high school.

When I went off to college, my eating habits didn’t get any better. “Healthy” eating was a concept still in the distant future in the 1970s; all foods that didn’t contain metal filings were considered healthy in those days. Despite the fact that my favorites at the time included the Burger Chef “Big Chef” and French fries covered in tartar sauce, and I remember celebrating my new-found independence early in my freshman year by eating a two-pound bag of Hershey kisses, I managed to lose weight throughout my college years. I briefly fell under the mistaken impression that there were other things in life besides eating, some of which suppressed your appetite when taken in illegal quantities. I rarely missed a meal – to this day when I hear someone say they forgot to eat lunch, it’s as astounding to me as if they forgot to properly regulate their body temperatures – yet I somehow found a way to metabolize the calories efficiently.

When I met my future wife after college, concepts like fat and cholesterol had become more widely known, as well as the idea that green plants could be used for something other than landscaping. Unlike many kids, I actually enjoyed most vegetables during my formative years. The cartoon character Popeye got me started on spinach and from there it was a slippery slope onto harder flora like broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. I never went for the likes of okra and squash because of their funny names, though that never kept me away from a McRib. My diet did gradually improve throughout my marriage, largely thanks to my wife’s vegetarian tendencies and a maturing of my tastes that allowed me to appreciate fine wines as well as fine Pepsi.

Now I have a son who eats like the typical teenager, and I find myself once again coming under negative influences. The appreciation I had cultivated of foodstuffs like tofu and tempeh is now being undermined by Rob’s affection for all things nuggety. I still enjoy good-for-you quality – right next to those hot dogs I have my eyes on is a loaf called “field roast grain meat”, the first two ingredients of which are filtered water and wheat gluten – yet I find myself increasingly drawn to fast foods. Maybe I can find a proper balance in the oxymoronically named taco salad.

One of my wife’s favorite sayings is “life is too short to drink cheap wine”. In these uncertain economic and geopolitical times, I’m tempted to agree, and extend the aphorism to include “…eat healthy foods”. I worked hard a year or two ago to lose about 25 pounds, suffering through sensible portions that bordered on the subatomic just to make my clothes fit better. Now I’m inclined to think that’s a pretty high price to pay for a single notch on my belt buckle, and find myself migrating back to comfort foods, so-called because you can trade your trim-fitting clothing for a comforter.

When I drove through KFC for my son on the way home from school the other day, and I got to smell the barbecue boneless chicken wings he ordered, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

That may yet be my fate if I don’t straighten up and eat right.

My life as a football fan

I’ve been a football fan for as long as I can remember, but I’m not sure why. In recent years, I’ve been able to put my attention to the game on a more sane footing than when I was young. I understand now that the outcome of a contest played by rented behemoths who’s five seconds of action is constantly interrupted by hopped-up robot graphics, slowed-down replays and giant pickup trucks running over things has very little to do with my happiness. Or at least that’s the way it should be.

That’s not always how I viewed it. My earliest memories are not of watching others play the game but rather participating in the activity myself, a concept now seen as hopelessly quaint. Larry and Lloyd and Ricky and I would take over the only open area in our Miami suburb – a public street – and play two-on-two games with gutters for sidelines and mailboxes for goals. It was a touch game consisting almost entirely of passing, since tackling on the asphalt was frowned upon by our moms and pediatricians. (Tackling was done only when we couldn’t scare up the four-person minimum and resorted instead to a backyard version of the game called “kill the man with the ball”.) We’d play for hours at a time, up and down the street with scores often soaring into the hundreds, interrupted only by the occasional cry of “car!” to avoid being struck by an oncoming vehicle.

The first football teams I followed from afar were the University of Miami Hurricanes, a pathetic bunch in the ‘60s more concerned with tanning than athletics, and the Green Bay Packers, more concerned with winning than packing. We didn’t have a pro team south of Washington back then, so proximity wasn’t an issue in my choice of gridiron heroes. The closest we ever got to the pros was when the now-abandoned consolation “championship” game was played in the Orange Bowl, and my father and I would use tickets promoters could barely give away to watch teams casually vie for the title of Third Best Team in the All of Football.

In 1967, the NFL finally realized that the South might possibly be interested enough in physical brutality and incredible amounts of sweating to support a pro team, and Miami was awarded the Dolphin franchise. They were lovable losers in those early years, featuring a head coach who chose his inept son to be quarterback and defensive stalwart Wahoo McDaniel, part of that rare breed of wrestlers-turned-linebackers who were named after game fish. The best part of those early years were the rare occasions when the Dolphins scored a touchdown and a porpoise I thought of as Flipper (though for copyright reasons, I think his name was actually “Blipper”) would leap in celebration from his above-ground pool in the end zone, then retrieve the extra-point kick on the occasions those were made.

I rooted so hard for the Dolphins in my high-school years that they actually started winning games. This was the beginning of my only recently abandoned fantasy that I could positively influence the outcome of a game by jumping up and down in front of a TV screen, crying out “yes!” or “no!” as appropriate to the circumstance. I imagined that either I had keen enough acumen to recognize quality players and coaching better than other observers, or else that I possessed a supernatural skill that somehow would propel footballs over goal lines and through goal posts. When the team posted a perfect 17-0 record and won two Super Bowls in the early ‘70s, I was proud to take the credit personally.

Shortly after I went off to college, I began to develop other interests. I worked at the school newspaper, finally found enough self-confidence to begin a form of dating, and even went to class now and then. As a result, or so I believed, the dynasty began to wane. I’d still watch when I could, on the TV in the dorm lobby, but thunderous expressions of glee or outrage had to be muffled lest onlookers be frightened. I still remember going back to my room after a narrow loss to the Raiders, and getting mad at my roommate when he teased me about my disappointment. “You don’t understand,” I tried to explain. “You making fun of the Dolphins is like me making fun of your family.” In an epiphany, I realized I was an idiot.

Fortunately, the timing of my about-face couldn’t have been more convenient, as my college team, the Florida State Seminoles, were in the midst of their worst run in school history. They had made the ludicrous move of hiring a coach with a doctoral degree who was using good-vibe pop psychology to coax the players into winning, if they felt like it. The result was an 0-11 season, followed by an only slightly improved record the next year after the coach vowed no more Dr. Nice Guy. I had picked up the contrarian nature of the counterculture by this time and, since football was only slightly less politically incorrect than the secret war in Laos, my friends and I delighted in the ‘Nolean ineptitude. Again, though, I was believing that my mental state was directly affecting results on the field.

It took a move from football-blessed Florida to the football-cursed Carolinas to finally break the spell. During my first 15 years in the region, there was again no pro team to follow and the game as played at the college level here contained more than enough mediocrity to keep me at bay. (Anyone who can get excited about a match-up between perennial rivals like Duke and Wake Forest is in serious need of a hobby). The last time a team from that Atlantic Coast Conference generated widespread enthusiasm was around the time the ocean of the same name was formed out of ancient Pangaea.

When the Carolina Panthers came into being in the mid-1990s, I followed them somewhat when they were up and not so much when they were down. Some might accuse me of being a fair-weather fan by ignoring their exploits when success was limited. But I’m not buying tickets to their games when they’re not providing entertainment, just like they don’t come to my house and run the west coast offense when I’m not providing them money. I am watching their games this season, since they currently sport an 8-3 record, but I do it by first recording the contest on my DVR and then playing it back at triple speed. That’s my idea of a hurry-up offense.

Now, when coworkers talk on Monday morning about their respective teams of preference and how “we” really handed it to the Cowboys yesterday or “our” defense made the difference, I can see the truth behind their perceived participation. As my wife succinctly put it when I got a little out of control watching a game early in our marriage, “do you even know any of those guys?”

Thanksgiving weekend musings

Among professional writers, I think the best job would be working in the press office at the State Department and the worst job would be as an editorial writer. At the State Department, every time there was some international catastrophe, it’d be your job to come up with the modifier that expressed the unparalleled level of concern all Americans felt in this time of tragedy.

“Hey, Bob,” your boss would instant-message you, “how concerned are we about Finland being invaded by space monsters?”

“Pretty darn concerned, I’d imagine,” you’d respond, stalling while you reached for your thesaurus. “I’d say we’re either ‘profoundly concerned’, ‘gravely concerned’, ‘momentously concerned’, or ‘really, really super-concerned’.”

“Good job, Jim,” the boss would reply. “We can always count on your sympathy.”

At the other end of the spectrum is the poor editorial writer, whose job it is to be outraged by mass murders, supportive of the local blood drive, and troubled by the rise in teen pregnancies. Only blatantly obvious and widely agreed-upon opinions are allowed. It’s only if you want to end your career in a hail of indignant letters to the editor that you could endorse an armed revolution against the government or a boycott of Girl Scout cookies.

* * *

I went to the mall this weekend, not because I needed anything but because it’s required by federal statute. I avoided the so-called Black Friday (which I thought is what they used to call Good Friday and actually seems like a better name, since it wasn’t good that Jesus was crucified but rather it was black, which I think in the current reference indicates retailers’ profits) like the plague, which was also black but not as popular. Anyway, my wife and I went on a rainy Saturday afternoon, mostly just to see the crowds and punish ourselves for eating too much turkey.

What I like best about a crowded mall is a game I made up that I call “mall-walking”. It’s not the slow-paced circuits made by energetic seniors, but rather an attempt to dart as fast as possible through crowds of zombified shoppers, imagining I’m avoiding tacklers while returning a kickoff for a touchdown. It’s best to walk quickly rather than run, unless you want to really be tackled by security guards. You start on the clockwise side, so you have a few “blockers” going in your direction but most everyone else is coming toward you. Extra hazards include kiosk merchants trying to rub you with cologne samples, restaurant workers trying to hand you teriyaki chicken, slow-moving family blobs who spread out six-wide, and fast-moving professional shoppers erupting unpredictably from storefronts. If you make it to the goal line (a pod of easy chairs containing heavy-eyed husbands who, before the mall was redesigned last summer, had to seek out the bedding section of Sears to recline their slumping figures) without being touched, you win.

I still think this would make a great video game, where you could use famous malls or other high-traffic areas – Times Square, the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo, penitentiaries serving the U.S. Congress – as different game fields. Electronic Arts, are you out there?

* * *

One of the most embarrassing situations I’ve ever encountered happened recently in my office. Coworkers were circulating a card to send to someone’s father who was about to have a serious operation. I was vaguely aware that someone in that family was in the midst of a health crisis, and had wrongly assumed that a death was involved.

When the card got to me, it was left at my desk with the inside open, so I could add my thoughts and/or prayers but I couldn’t see the message printed on the cover. Too quickly, I scrawled my message: “Thinking of you in your time of loss.” It was only when I closed the card to pass it on to the next person that I realized it wasn’t a sympathy card, it was a get-well card.

My callous lack of sincerity was captured in permanent ink. It didn’t matter that my sympathy was in one sense technically suitable – there probably was going to be loss involved in the anticipated amputation of his arm. But it was pretty clear that this wasn’t the kind of loss I was referencing and, even if it was, it was a pretty insensitive way to express my wishes.

Switching into recovery mode, I considered my options for fixing the hideous error. I obviously couldn’t run out and buy a replacement card, because of all the original messages already affixed. I considered white-out, but the glossy smear would only draw more attention and some curious individual would inevitably scratch it off to see what was underneath.

The only other choice was to work with the existing ink-strokes and modify them to change the message. After about 20 minutes of work, I got it to read “Thinking it’s your time to floss.” I had no idea what this was supposed to mean. My hope, however, was that my coworkers would think it was a friendly inside reference that only the patient would get, and that the patient wouldn’t know who I was anyway.

* * *

I called my insurance company this morning to investigate an apparent error in billing that cost me about $250. I was almost positive I was right, but even the smallest doubt seems magnified when you’re dealing with a sophisticated multinational computer system. I actually got through the automated voicemail system relatively unscathed and in touch with a real live person, who turned out to be quite helpful. After the usual small delays (“our computer seems to be a little slow today,” he says as he looks at my premium history in a grid that dictates how nice to be) he located my account and the source of the problem. “Yes, I think our records may be in error,” he says. “Will it be okay if we make the correction in your next billing period?” Yes, of course, that’s great, I say.

Then comes the little trick they’ve apparently taught every help desk in the world in the last year: “Before I let you go, can I interest you in our new 3.5% APR certificate of deposit?” While you’re still in the throes of relief over your billing being corrected, there’s a piece of your willpower against solicitation that has become slightly weaker, and they’re damn sure going to take advantage. I very much want to return the favor of helping this individual like he’s just helped me, and $5,000 does seem like a small price to pay. But in the end, I recover enough to politely decline.

 

 

 

Bits of Thanksgiving leftovers

Question: Is this a fitting response to the stampede tragedy at the Long Island Wal-Mart? “I don’t know why people were being trampled to death — the sales weren’t that good.”

* * *

If you stuff a turducken (a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey) with a tofurkey (a tofu-based turkey substitute), would you call it a “turfucken”?

Please discuss amongst yourselves.

Dispensing with good taste

If we could apply some of the same principles used by manufacturers of toilet paper dispensers to our country’s ports and immigration checkpoints, our concerns about national security would be over.

Bathroom tissue located in public restrooms is way more secure than it needs to be, if you ask me. American industry has developed highly engineered systems mounted in our nation’s stalls that are designed to allow users the absolute minimum amount of product while simultaneously making that product maddening to get at. These hulking plastic cases dribble a thin, single-ply dangle of paper out of their interior with a reluctance disturbingly similar to what I’m feeling in my own mid-section while trying to wrestle a few squares free.

Managers of these communal bathroom facilities – in restaurants, offices, government buildings – know this is a service they have to provide free of charge to their customers. So they’re obviously interested in limiting their expense as much as possible without putting their drapes and other nearby textiles in jeopardy. I sympathize with their situation in these hard economic times, but I also have similarly urgent hygiene concerns that need to be addressed. I decided to learn more about the companies that build and market these stingy dispensers.

Not surprisingly, most of them are manufactured by multinational corporations with interests in many sanitization-related areas. They are typically sold as part of a package that includes both the dispensers and the toilet paper, which I guess makes sense if you think about it. (The Pez analogy is one that unfortunately comes to mind; you rarely see the candy sold without the dispenser.) Bay West is one such company, offering a broad array of services in the environmental, industrial and emergency segments. Their corporate motto – “Slide Door Right for More Paper”– is printed proudly on each of their dispensers, and belies their larger mission in fields like brownfield site remediation (ew!) and hospital waste management. It’s good to know they have something to fall back on if bidets ever catch on in this country.

Another name that I came across in my research in the lavatory at a local bagel seller was SCA. When I searched for this firm on-line, I came back with several hits that caused me concern that this trend toward synergy in the industry was spinning out of control. Was SCA the Society for Creative Anachronism? The Student Conservation Association? The Society of Crystallographers of Australia? I could imagine any of these names being euphemisms for the business of helping the public do their business in public, but none turned out to be the company I was looking for. A link to “SCA Armor (Heavy)” seemed promising, considering the amount of protection these devices provide, but also led to a dead end. Finally I was routed to something called “Tork Online,” which referenced an SCA that sold “away-from-home tissue products,” and I knew I had struck pay dirt.

“An in-depth knowledge of our customers’ businesses means our products work hard to eliminate waste, reduce maintenance costs and offer hygienic solutions,” reads the products page. “Our dependable, attractive dispensers are designed to optimize hygiene, function and cost-in-use through designs that reduce consumption and maintenance time, dispense effortlessly and discourage pilferage.” Note that it’s only in the last two words of their blurb that they hint at their true purpose, keeping me and others from making off with free toilet tissue.

A more thorough look at the products section shows a fine array of conventional and jumbo dispensers, and a certain genius of these producers that I hadn’t considered before. The conventional model is described as “preventing waste by dropping a reserve roll only after the primary roll is depleted, keeping the used roll core in the unit and washroom floors clear of debris.” The jumbo model — for high-traffic facilities and, I presume, the waiting rooms of gastroenterologists — offers a “unique tear feature that eliminates the risk of cutting or scratching hands,” convenient for those moments of desperation we’ve all experienced but are too fortunate to remember in any detail.

Another maker is a company called Merfin, which I’m proud to say services my own workplace. With their system, “time spent replacing rolls can be reduced by up to 90%, and savings are increased by reducing waste and over-consumption with virtually indestructible locking dispensers.” I knew over-consumption was the problem that hyper-extended our nation’s credit system, but I never thought of it as an issue in the area of personal hygiene. Who are they to judge what’s enough or what’s too much? Anyway, I will give them credit for coming up with a cool trademarked and intercapped name for their line – VersaCore, offering the most versatile (bold italic theirs) tissue dispensing options in the world.

Finally, I want to reference probably the best-known company in this field, Georgia-Pacific. I didn’t go to their website because I found out enough to convince me that they are the future of public bathroom tissue during a recent and urgent visit to the toilet in the new upscale Barnes & Noble not far from my home. This casing, while still made of the traditional PMMA polystyrene that seems to be an industry standard, features a stylish, sloped front-end and an overall design that would be at home in the lobby of Europe’s trendiest boutique hotels. I was so impressed that I took a picture with my cell phone, even at the risk of criminal prosecution and a probable listing on certain predator lists. (I’ll include the photo with this posting if I can figure out how to get it off my phone and onto my computer). Even better, it dispensed paper easily in a free-flowing, luxuriant manner that tempted me to roll a mound out onto the floor and lay down for a nice nap.

All things considered, though, I think I’d still prefer the retro approach – the lone, free-standing roll sitting on the tank behind the seat.

The Handwashing Leadership Forum? Really?

While doing online research for my Wednesday posting about toilet-paper dispensers, I came across the following press release. Maybe this isn’t funny if you’re involved in one of these trade groups, but it sure seems curious to outsiders who happen upon them. Tork, by the way, is a leader in all things sanitized, so it seems only fair that they step up and be recognized.

Dateline: New York (Dec. 2, 2008) — Tork® has joined The Handwashing Leadership Forum, an alliance dedicated to advancing the science of hand hygiene to reduce foodborne illness and prevent infections caused by poor hand hygiene in healthcare settings.

“Members are invited to join The Handwashing Leadership Forum based on their demonstrated leadership and commitment to lowering the risks of foodborne and person-to-person illness,” said Jim Mann, Executive Director of the Handwashingforlife Institute, which is the forum’s umbrella organization. “Forum members agree that by thinking and working together, we can replace today’s misinformation with integrated solutions. We can fill the gaps in the science of hand hygiene, frequent handwashing and good gloving practices.”

Mann said SCA Tissue was invited to join the forum because of the technology and research behind its Tork brand products and dispensing systems as well as its ecological and humanitarian record. As examples, he cited the EcoLogoCM certification of its products and its donation last year of 34,560 rolls of paper towels to hurricane relief efforts on the Gulf Coast.

Ian West, SCA Tissue Category Director — Washroom, said The Handwashing Leadership Forum provides an important, unified voice in addressing hand hygiene issues and an effective way to share expertise across a wide range of industries.

“A lot of the issues addressed are related to foodservice, but the forum also looks beyond that sector,” said West, who represents SCA Tissue in the forum. “The membership of the forum represents a diverse, cross functional group that can address any hand hygiene issues that come up.”

In addition to SCA Tissue, members of The Handwashing Leadership Forum include: GlaxoSmithKline, 3M, and NSF, the Public Health and Safety Company™.

“The Handwashing Leadership Forum’s role is to support operators and regulators already searching together for solutions to the ever-growing threat of foodborne illness,” Mann said. “Poor handwashing plus poor gloving now add up to the No. 1 risk factor in foodborne illness.”

Hand hygiene topped the list of health-related risks among respondents in a global hygiene survey recently commissioned by SCA Tissue’s Swedish-based parent company, SCA. Three out of four respondents in the survey said they have been concerned at one time or another about getting sick because of poor hygiene.

The survey was conducted in nine countries: the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Mexico, Russia, China and Australia. Approximately 500 people were surveyed in each country with respondents balanced for geography, age and gender. Results were analyzed and compiled in a report “Hygiene Matters: The SCA Hygiene Report 2008.”

Several smart remarks, if I may:

·                     The Handwashing Leadership Form? Are you serious?

·                     The Handwashingforlife Institute? You can’t be serious.

·                     I didn’t know “gloving” was a proper gerund, but I plan on using it as soon as possible. I’m just not looking forward to the circumstances where it will be appropriate.

·                     Any humanitarian effort that involves the donation of almost 35,000 rolls of paper towels to desperate hurricane victims is definitely to be applauded. I wonder if they considered putting a little square of Danish on the napkins, to address needs equally important to clean hands, like maybe hunger.

·                     It’s good to have a single unified voice on the subject of handwashing. Only with that unanimity can the forces pushing dirty hands be overcome.

·                     So three out of four respondents in the survey said they have been concerned at one time or another about getting sick because of poor hygiene. The other 25% aren’t concerned and in fact actually enjoy getting sick.

Cruising to Alaska (without Somali pirates)

     The recent news story about the cruise ship full of luxury passengers almost being hijacked by decidedly more downscale Somali pirates reminded me of my own experience with the cruising lifestyle. It’s all too easy for everyone to make their own jokes about the prospect of buffet-stuffed tourists brandishing pool cues and miniature golf putters to ward off the boarding party, but I’m sure the confrontation was still very frightening to all those on board.
     The real story of vacationing aboard a lavish mega-ship is something I got to experience first-hand a couple of years ago, back when people had something called disposable income (ask your grandparents, kids). My wife, son and I had the chance to get nicely priced package through our local YMCA’s Silver Fox Club, a group of retirees who more typically take rollicking day trips to Charleston rather than the seven-day voyage from Vancouver to Alaska that we had latched onto. I kept asking at the sign-up if it was okay that we weren’t doddering and they insisted that it was, so off we went.
     Our group of about 20 departed from Charlotte on a flight to Seattle where we would catch a chartered bus for a quick ride across the Canadian border to our port of departure. We arrived at SEA-TAC airport (so named because it’s both seamy and tacky), collected our baggage and shuffled over to the bus loading area. After some considerable delay – we had to shove our own suitcases into the storage bay, which our elderly companions apparently hadn’t trained for at the Y – we left the airport for the two-hour drive north.
     Our driver, a heavy-lidded man who looked like he’d hijacked a few buffets of his own, was just across the aisle from my seat near the front of the bus, er, motorcoach. As our vehicle veered from one side of the lane to the other, I could’ve sworn I saw his head nodding. I’d survived five trips to the south Asian subcontinent without a bus plunge and I wasn’t about to experience one on I-5 just outside of Bellingham, but there was the usual sign that said not to talk to the driver, er, operator, so I resisted. Finally, I thought it might be better if I said “much longer till we get there?” now rather than “oh my god, we’re going off a bridge” two minutes from now, so I did, and he seemed to brighten.
     By now, though, we were seriously behind schedule and faced the real possibility that we’d miss our debarkation. Even though the cruise line had contracted with the ground transport provider to get us from the airport to the seaport, I doubted they’d delay 2,000-plus other passengers just to wait for the Foxes, even if we were Silver. After we made several wrong turns around the port facility, we found the ship and managed to get out and scramble up the passageway just in time.
     The ship was named Something of the Seas (Empress? Brilliance? Enchantment? I forget now) and was as huge as it was magnificent. Greeted in our stateroom by our steward with the usual joke about how the salt air would make our clothes shrink, we stopped to nosh on the welcome-aboard buffet before proceeding to the lifeboat drill/buffet (all jackets extra-large), then on to the settling-in buffet before a quick nap and the midnight you’re-still-not-full buffet. The next two days we were “at sea” according to our itinerary, churning through the Inside Passage while playing trivia games, going on scavenger hunts, scaling the on-board climbing wall and admiring an outdoor pool that seemed out of place off the coast of western Canada.
     We arrived at our first stop on the morning of the third day. This was the famous Hubbard Glacier, a mass of ice a thousand feet deep and a mile wide, inching slowly through the mountains and into the sea. We couldn’t actually get off the ship and experience the glacier first-hand (too slippery, I guess) so we sidled up several hundred yards off shore to watch the glacier “calving.” This is the process where huge chunks of ice fall off into the ocean with tremendous splashes while several cruisers-full of drunken tourists watch and talk thoughtfully about global warning. Though this was an unusually moderate June for these parts, the wind rushing over all that ice made us quite cold, so we switched over to Irish coffees.
     The next day we arrived at our first on-shore excursion at a small town with a “k” in it. We were told they only had about 100 year-round residents, who kept several blocks of souvenir shops during the summer and kept indoors the rest of the year. The main attraction was a vintage steam train that carried us about 15 miles into the snow-capped mountains where we enjoyed fantastic views. Probably the most unusual of these was a cliff face with a huge graffiti scrawl that read “Mr. Hamilton made us do this.” The story was that in the 1930s, a high-school teacher from the Midwest brought his students up here for a summer of adventure, character-building and, apparently, dangling from ropes. They thanked him at the end of the summer with this cliff-drawing before those who survived returned to Illinois.
     We docked next in Juneau, Alaska’s capital city. As we learned in the recent presidential election, state government in this part of the country isn’t much to look at, so we skipped tours of the boxy administrative buildings for a ride up the skytram to a park perched high over the city. We walked a nature trail hoping to spot any of the Big 3 of the Alaskan outdoors (bear, caribou and eagles) but encountered only these furry groundlings that scampered through the brush in a pale imitation of wildlife. The park also had a Pepsi machine.
     Our last stop on Day 6 of the trip was in the fishing village of Ketchikan. We had previously shunned the expensive excursions offered by the cruise line; however, this was our last chance to do something truly special, so my son and I signed up for a seaplane trip into the interior. We joined the pilot and a couple from Arizona for a 45-minute hop to a crystal-clear lake virtually untouched by the outside world. We flew in low over the mountainsides while the pilot played inspirational music (“America the Beautiful,” the theme from “Rocky”) over the intercom and let us all take turns holding the steering thing and pretending to fly. Once on the lake, we taxied over to the shore where the pilot produced a small fishing rod and allowed my son to catch his first fish. On the flight back, the pilot surprised us with short dive, just long enough to photograph everyone’s delighted expression, then maneuvered back into Ketchikan Bay just as an unforgettable sunset broke through the clouds. Meanwhile, my wife had been to the totem pole museum, which I heard was quite nice.
     All that was left now was our return to Vancouver and the flight back home, both very dreary prospects. Before you get off the ship, they make you gather in arbitrary color-coded groups before you’re allowed ashore, since everyone surging to the gangway at once is apparently a bad idea. All the fees and tips have been paid, so there’s no incentive for ship personnel to be pleasant to you anymore and you end up feeling like you’re in a refugee camp. My group, Camp Yellow, was among the last to be able to board our bus. We drove about an hour through the grey drizzle to the U.S. border where we were ordered off the bus by immigration while our vehicle was thoroughly searched. “We’re old and tired and all have headaches,” I wanted to scold the officials who had delayed us. I doubt that would’ve helped our situation, and eventually we made it to Seattle and barely made our return flight, no thanks to the Department of Homeland Security.
     It truly ended up being the trip of a lifetime and I think of it often now that I face a future of lean times and modest vacations. Having been born in Florida and currently living in the heat of the South, Alaska had long been for me an idyllic land of cold and mountains, and in 2005 it was yet to be despoiled by its association with a certain bee-hived governor. Unfortunately, now, when I wear one of my souvenir “Alaska” t-shirts bought on those rustic wooden sidewalks of that town with a “k,” I have the conservative Republicans of my hometown coming up to me, pointing at my shirt, and saying, “Alaska! Alright!”

You want my advice? (Pt. 1)

Free advice seems to be everywhere these days – in the newspapers, online, on television, floating freely in the ether. The problem with the stuff I’ve seen is that they rely heavily on so-called “experts” who have some kind of experience or background in the area they’re discussing. Starting with this installment today and continuing periodically, I will begin offering my own brand of advice, rooted deeply in a philosophy that values the concept of making things up as you go along with no regard for the consequences. Today’s topic addresses an interpersonal relationship, but I’ll also be tackling health problems, spiritual concerns, computer problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. Important Disclaimer in Bold: Remember, I have no idea what I’m talking about.
Q: Three years ago, my brother donated a kidney to me. I’m grateful and have told him so many times. The problem is that he talks about it every time I see him. He will tell complete strangers he gave me his kidney. He even took me to a school reunion to show his old teachers what a wonderful person he is. I’m glad I received the kidney, but how can I let my brother know that while I’m appreciative, I’m also tired of hearing him remind me every day? – Peeing Great in Arkansas.
A: As I see it you have several options: (1) Give him back the kidney. If you sit on the commode and strain really hard, this can be done without surgery. (2) Give him another organ in return. The lungs also come in twos and we can survive quite well with only one. Have it surgically removed (these are a little trickier than kidneys to expel yourself) and overnight it to him — I’d recommend FedX rather than UPS, what with the high volume of packages going through for the holidays. Or, to make even more of a point, smoke cigarettes like a chimney for the next few weeks and then send it to him regular mail after the holidays. You’ll save a lot on postage. (3) Accuse him of wild psychotic distortions. Claim that he made you a pot of kidney bean soup, and then became disoriented. (4) Kill your brother.

Help me Honda (my life in cars)

     With all the attention currently being given to the plight of the American auto industry, I thought I’d take this opportunity to use other people’s hardship for my own personal gain as a topic for a blog posting.
     Not that I’d be caught dead driving an American car, because driving while lifeless can be very dangerous. Actually, my family and I have a long history with domestic auto producers. My grandfather worked for a Ford dealer in Pennsylvania. My father owned almost exclusively Ford products for most of my childhood, except for a failed and ultimately flaming experiment with a Renault. The two most memorable vehicles of my youth were a giant Mercury Monterey with a reverse angle rear window that rolled down at the touch – actually it was more of a 15-second jiggle – of a button, and an even gianter Galaxy 500, our first car with air conditioning.
     And my first car was a “blue” Ford Falcon I inherited from my mother just before my junior year in college. I put blue in quotes because the paint job had become almost crystalline in the heat of the Miami sun. It ran reliably enough despite its stunningly ugly appearance, safely taking me the nearly 500 miles I’d routinely drive between Tallahassee and Miami. My most vivid memory of the Falcon was the day I parked it in front of my landlord’s office while I ran in to pay the rent, then emerged just in time to see it rolling downhill toward several parked cars. Not the best way to find out that adding transmission fluid twice a day was an inadequate alternative to actually getting the transmission fixed.
     My next car was also a Detroit creation, the much-maligned Chevy Vega. This one really was blue, a “fastback” that seemed like one first-rate vehicle to a poor college student of the early ‘70s. Even though it was another automatic transmission, the gearshift was on the floor, which gave its sluggish drive a certain sex appeal (if only to me). We bought it from a neighbor in Miami, who convinced us it was a great deal, which it probably was since he used his front as a used-car salesman to hide what in retrospect were obvious organized-crime connections. I don’t know how many headless bodies were crammed into that hatchback before the Vega came into my hands, but I know they had a remarkably smooth ride to whatever paving project they ended up in.
     The Vega had the distinction of transporting me from my dismal life as an eternally under-achieving college student in Florida to an honest career in a suburb of Charlotte. I drove it for about a year in my new hometown, until I became concerned the corrosive oxidation would metastasize from its body to mine. In my first independent transaction with a car dealer, I made the ghastly mistake of trading it in for a brown VW Rabbit. Not an American car, I know, but by the early ‘80s VW had picked up many bad influences from its U.S. counterparts, not the least of which was constant breakdown. I wasted a lot of money on fruitless repairs before taking it back to the dealer, who took pity on me and put me in my first brand-new car, a Datsun 210.
     I was still a very uneducated consumer – I bought the car in the hope that the “cool” setting on the dashboard fan was actually air-conditioning, which it wasn’t – yet I lucked into a reliable basic vehicle whose fanciest extras were FM radio and faux leather seats. I still remember the feel of those seats after driving through the afternoon heat to my second-shift job a half-hour from home. Open windows on the interstate and that “cool” setting provided little relief to the pit of my lower back, which was utterly sodden by the time I arrived.
     Now that I was experienced with Japanese models, I bought a succession of sensible cars. First there was a red Honda Civic, then a white Honda Civic, then a grey Honda Civic and finally a silver Honda Civic. Not much imagination, I admit, but memories of that damn VW were slower to recede than the stench of a dead rabbit jammed in the under-carriage, and I wanted reliability above all else. I admit I was tempted more than once during that 20-some-year span to go all middle-aged in my car selection, maybe a Miata or a convertible or at least the Honda CRV, the company’s smaller SUV. But common sense (and the advice of my wife) always prevailed. The craziest I was ever able to get was the Honda Odyssey, a chick magnet of a minivan if ever there was one.
     My only complaint with the succession of Civics was that there always seemed to be a slight problem in the same area, one I’ve found hard to describe to my mechanic. It’s sort of near the steering wheel, a bit to the left of the gearshift, maybe just above the accelerator pedal. I think it’s referred to as the vehicle operator, or “driver.” Aside from that incident with the wandering Falcon, I’d never had any accidents with my American cars, probably because I was so attuned to every detail of their operation that I actually paid attention while I was driving. With the Hondas I was able to do other things, like listen to the radio and go in reverse.
     In my first accident, an oncoming driver tried to turn left in front of me and we had a major fender bender in which I actually sustained an injury, a sprained thumb. The next incident was on the interstate near the exit ramp on my way home from work. A line had backed up for some reason, and when the truck in front of me rear-ended the vehicle in front of him, bringing him to a sudden and, I might add, un-signalled stop, I naturally plowed into him. Some extensive front-end damage but nothing irreparable. Finally, I was backing out of a parking spot at the mall on a foggy day, trying to see over the monstrous SUVs that flanked me on either side, when another driver looking for a parking space backed into my rear side panel. In none of these three cases were the Hondas “totaled”, an extremely cool verb I’ve always wanted to use; they were only partialled. All were fixed and returned to service.
     In the judgment of the moment, none of these episodes seemed even remotely to be my responsibility. All of them were largely caused by the inattention or carelessness of others while I was going about my business. I couldn’t have anticipated things were going wrong or changed to a direction that would have led to a more positive outcome. Simply put, none of the three failures were my fault.
     Sounds like I could get a job as head of one of the Big 3 automakers.

You want my advice? (Pt. 2)

This is the second installment in my free but awful advice service. As I mentioned before, my philosophy values the concept of making things up as you go along, with little or no regard for the consequences – a methodology I call “selfish preposterism”. Today’s topic addresses a health matter, but I’ll also be tackling interpersonal relationships, spiritual concerns, computer problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. Important Disclaimer, today in Bold Italic: Remember, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Q. My 77-year-old husband has a bizarre skin problem. On his left arm he has red blotches that appear and then disappear every several days. He’s seen several dermatologists but none can give him a diagnosis. Now it’s showing up on the other arm. The spots are not itchy or painful, just unsightly. Please help us figure out what is happening.

A. There are several bizarre things going on here: your husband apparently has some skin without red blotches and, at age 77, if this is the best he can do for a health complaint, he’s better off than my sorry 55-year-old body.

 When you say the blotches appear and then disappear every several days, do you mean that they flash on and off like Christmas lights, or do they change more slowly? If they’re flashing, this could be very amusing to circus folk, and you should consider renting a tent for him and charging admission. If it’s more gradual than this, your profit-making options are limited. When it shows up on the other arm, does it disappear from the original arm? Does he ever have both arms in this disgusting condition? And are you sure those are dermatologists you’re seeing, or might they be herpetologists, who would be less surprised because of the unusual skin features they routinely see in snakes and alligators.

My advice would be that, if the spots are just repulsive, not itchy or painful, your best bet would be to cover him in a full-body burqa and move to the tribal regions of northeast Pakistan, which is about as far away from me as you can get.

Rediscovering the rock concert

     As a fifty-something man, it’s been some time since I’ve been to a live rock concert. I’ve been a fan of the genre for as long as I can remember (at least since 1966’s “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” assuming that counts) and grew up being inspired by rock’s energy and message (the Red Baron gets shot down in the end). Nothing beats a live performance of rock ‘n roll to celebrate those two magical elements in a community of like-minded people.

     The last concert I can remember attending before just recently was during my final year in college when I drove 180 miles to see John Denver. Now I know a lot of the purists out there will claim that John Denver hardly qualified as a rocker, but let me tell you that the bespectacled moptop could seriously get down. He wasn’t all “Rocky Mountain This” and “Rocky Mountain That.” He actually had a drummer on several of the songs.

     This past summer, I got to attend my first arena show in ages as I accompanied my 17-year-old son to a performance of Canadian rockers Rush. I was delighted to be invited, first because it indicated that Daniel wasn’t too embarrassed to be seen with his dad in public, and secondly because he was embracing a style of music that we could share an appreciation for. Also, I wasn’t on restriction, like the friend he originally planned to go with.

     We made our way to the Verizon Amphitheatre just north of Charlotte on a hot July day. Walking through the parking lot, we saw numerous tailgate parties featuring abundant amounts of beer and suspicious smoky odors. The rebellious nature of rock was alive and well in these small groups who were openly defying the property-wide ban on cigarette smoking. When we got to our seats, we found ourselves situated in mid-row between a guy throwing back Bud Lites at an alarming pace and a 6-foot-8 student with limbs the length of a primate.

     The three-man band took the stage and proceeded to rock long and hard through a set list of new songs and classics. We tried to care about selections from their new “Snakes & Arrows” album but were really there for oldies like “Tom Sawyer” and “Working Man.” To give something of a theme to the tour, they’d produced a short film featuring Jerry Stiller on a nationwide search for rotisserie chicken (I didn’t get it either), and stage props that included upright ovens that roasted rotating birds. The increasingly drunken guy to our left was really getting into this, repeatedly shouting “chicken! wooo!” and “wooo! chicken!” directly into my ear. As the afternoon heat and closeness of the crowd started getting to us, we retreated to the back lawn and spent the rest of the show looking up at the stars and considering how man should “put aside the alienation and end up with the fascination.”

     Then, just this past Wednesday, I had an opportunity to join Daniel for another concert, this time with former Talking Heads front-man David Byrne. We drove through a soaking rain to arrive at a trio of venues clustered together on the east side of Charlotte. I had been to this site several times before but became confused about where exactly I was supposed to park. There’s an auditorium, an arena and a theatre, and they are forever changing labels as corporate naming rights come and go. Were we looking for the Bojangles Arena, which used to be the Blockbuster Coliseum after it had been the Cracker Barrel Arena for years? Or did we want the Papa John’s Theatre, formerly the Time Warner Cable Theatre, formerly the Slim Jim Turkey Jerky Performance Space? We found a line of cars queuing up for a parking lot, so we got in it and hoped for the best.

     And the best is what we got. David Byrne put on an absolutely brilliant performance with all the quirky lyrics and bizarre choreography of the Talking Heads. Three back-up singers and three dancers lumbered frantically around the stage in hilarious chaos, at one point performing while lying flat on the floor and at another time scooting around in office chairs. The music was every bit as enthralling, with the new stuff as mesmerizing as the oldies. I will say nothing nasty or sarcastic about Byrne who is, remarkably, a fellow fifty-something.

     The auditorium offered very comfortable amenities and seating, though the crowd didn’t seem to know how to use the latter. When the musicians first took the stage, we all stood and welcomed them loudly. We continued standing through the second song, and the third song, and I began to wonder why we had bothered to pay for the seats. When a slower-paced song began, most of the audience took the chance to sit down and rest, but then re-exploded onto their feet when a high-energy number followed. My back is not in the best shape and I was starting to wish we could pick a pose and stick with it; I didn’t care which one, I just didn’t like all the up and down. Perhaps the guidance of a program would’ve been handy, like those we used to have in church that prompted “the congregation rises” and “now you sit down.”

     The other parts of the concert that gave me pause were the sing-along portions. It wasn’t a formal row-row-row-your-boat kind of thing. I’m talking about how enthusiastic audience members would chime in with the chorus of certain songs, whether they knew the lyrics or not. I wanted to hear Byrne singing “Life During Wartime,” not the bozo behind me who chanted “This ain’t no Hardee’s/This ain’t no Frisco/This ain’t no dueling in town/No time for potluck/Or heebie-jeebies…” and so on.

     The end of the set arrived, a reasonable 90 minutes after the show began, and we gave a rousing ovation as the band bowed, waved and then left the stage. Then, more awkwardness – how exactly is this encore thing supposed to work in a way that doesn’t embarrass the performer and afflict the audience with repetitive motion injuries? We all know it’s a sham, that the musicians are going to return for another song or two. Still we play this little game where we pretend we can’t live without them and they pretend to be on their bus, halfway out of town already. Byrne and company seemed to stretch their luck a bit with the amount of time they stayed off-stage, and the cheers were starting to ebb when they finally returned. Embarrassing, yes, and yet we did it all over again following another song. After this one, though, we clipped our appreciation short and managed to get them to stay away.

     Though awkward, uncomfortable and slightly scary to someone my age, I must say I enjoyed both of these concert experiences thoroughly, probably slightly more in retrospect than during the event itself. It was a great chance to bond with my son and allow us to share a common passion for a cultural phenomenon that will never die, even if most of its earliest fans will shortly.

Don’t forget to get Alzheimer’s

Like many people approaching late middle-age, I’m starting to have some concerns about my memory. I’m not sure where on the continuum from a few “senior moments” to full-blown Alzheimer’s I might be, and even if a neurologist could pinpoint it, I wouldn’t be able to remember what he said.

It’s that short-term memory that I seem to be having the most trouble with these days. I guess this is something everyone struggles with to an extent; even the twenty-ish cashier who I just paid for my tea had notes scribbled all over the back of her hands, including a scrawl that looked suspiciously like “kill.” (You’d think a chore that life-altering would tend to stick with you, but maybe she’s got a lot of holiday-related obligations – parties, cards, gifts for the nephews, etc. — on her mind.)

Now that I think of it though, my mid-term memory is also suffering. I recently made a list of all the places we’ve gone on vacations over the years so I wouldn’t forget the tremendous time we had in Montreal or that great walk along Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. My wife would suggest that if these events were so memorable, then I’d remember them, and I suppose she has a point. But I did shoot photographs and took video on both of these trips, so why should I have to waste cranial storage space when I can just as easily root around in the dusty bags stashed in the top of the coat closet to recall such precious times?

What tends to be most bothersome to family members, and I’ve heard this is a symptom I share with the most desperately neuron-deficient, is that my long-term memory remains quite good. The problem is that it’s not important lifetime milestones like weddings and births that I remember with such clarity. I do vaguely recollect that my wife had some sort of child a while back, and I’m pretty sure it was a boy because that’s what we have walking around the house now 17 years later. But the details of that event are roughly equivalent to my recall of the ’63 Dodgers and the record-setting 104 steals made by Maury Wills on their way to the World Series. The emergence of a living being who represents my own flesh and blood from the womb of my beloved life partner is a truly magical experience but, c’mon… 104 stolen bases in one season?

What worries me is that it’s neither long- nor medium-term memory that allows you to get through the day in some sort of organized, survivable fashion. It’s the immediate stuff that’s most important to daily life. I can’t imagine arriving at the airport having forgotten my passport and yet getting a reprieve from the screeners because I can remember the actress who played Granny on “The Beverly Hillbillies” (Irene Ryan).

For just one example, with this being the Christmas season, I am expected to remember hints dropped by loved ones about the type of gifts that would be most dear to them. I barely even realize that it’s the most wonderful time of year until we’ve run out of Thanksgiving leftovers, and that still hasn’t happened yet. My wife and son already have an estimated four presents either in-hand or on-order for me, and I’ve yet to visit a single retail website (unless you can count ESPN.com). I think Beth said she wants an iPod or socks or tea, or something in that general area. But these kinds of things come in such a huge variety of options these days that it’s very challenging to pick out exactly the correct item. Beth has kindly promised to get me to the website of choice this weekend and position the cursor directly on the gift she wants, then turn away as I click so that there’ll be at least some element of surprise.

It’s exactly this kind of immediacy that enables me to function with some measure of decency. I’ve borrowed a term from modern manufacturing techniques to give credibility to the technique I’ve developed. Called “Just in Time” – for the idea that you don’t build something until right before someone wants it – I want to learn what I need to know just before I need to know it. Don’t tell me several weeks in advance that my mom’s birthday is coming up. I need to know at the very last minute so I can spend three times the necessary amount on rush postage and still be two days late.

Aside from occasions like gift-giving and breaking the heart of my dear mother, the other major handicap I’m learning to live with has to do with following directions to get from one location to another. Visiting my son’s high school the other day, I asked at the main office to be directed to a particular room number. I was told go out this door, turn right, go down the hall and through the double doors, walk across the open area to building E and take the first hall to the right all the way to the end. I moved my head up and down and put the most understanding look I could summon on my face as the sounds being made by the secretary in front of me went whizzing by my head. It was at this point that I wished I’d put a Garmin GPS on my Christmas gift list.

There is one major benefit to a severely deficient memory, and that comes while watching television. I can’t tell a first-run TV show from a rerun even if it stars Bernie Mac, Heath Ledger and Pope John Paul II. I can blissfully sit through every episode of “Seinfeld” or “The Office” that I’ve ever seen and enjoy the jokes like I’m hearing them for the first time. This annoys my wife to no end, since she has the memory of a wolverine and can recite dialog from foreign films she hasn’t seen for years, and do it in French. Plot twists already known to millions hit me out of left field, like an errant throw from Orlando Cepeda trying to gun down the speedy Wills on his record-breaking dash for third base.

I’m just hoping to hang on till retirement, when I can while away my remaining days, remembering to drool now and then but not much else.

You want my advice? (Pt. 3)

This is the third installment in my free but dreadful advice service. As I mentioned previously, my philosophy uses the concept of making things up as you go along, with little or no regard for the consequences – a methodology I call “selfish preposterism”. Today’s topic again addresses a health matter, but I’ll also be tackling interpersonal relationships, spiritual concerns, computer problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER, TODAY IN BOLD CAPITALS, IN HONOR OF THE FROZEN CAPITAL MARKETS: REMEMBER, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

 

Q. My 82-year-old father was recently hospitalized with complications from a blood disorder. Medical staff assessed the need for a urinary catheter. The insertion was done with a dry tube surface. When asked if they could “put something on it,” the female nurse just told him to “take a deep breath”. The insertion was done twice, both times without lubricant. When he told his regular doctor, she just about came unglued. My father is now unable to urinate on his own because of a blockage, which his urologist said may have been caused by the dry insertions. He now has to live with a catheter. I cringe whenever I think about his experience and wonder if others have been subjected to this.

     A. HOLY CRAP! DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO TELL ME THIS? OH MY GOD, THAT SOUNDS HORRENDOUSLY PAINFUL.

     On a more sane and sober note, I agree with your father’s regular doctor who suggested using glue as a lubricant. Wait, that’s not what you said. Jeez, I’m really unhinged here.

     I’m guessing that the female nurse who did the unlubricated insertion misconstrued your father’s request to “put something on it” as an improper sexual advance, which it may well have been. Is your father currently getting “any”? Was “it” in an engorged state when the request was made? It may be that his eagerness for admittedly pleasurable but inappropriate touching by the nurse could have caused him a more painful procedure than was necessary.

     As for the blockage he’s now experiencing, I would suggest limiting his intake of fluids to zero. If he still has to urinate, you might try the homeopathic version of a catheter: a Burger King straw (the big ones they give out for milk shakes). Instead of the greasing the tube, try lubricating your father instead with a tall glass of Bacardi 151 rum. While he’s unconscious, his limp appendage should be far more user-friendly.

     And please, PLEASE, never write to me about urinary catheters again. I’m serious.

I beg (urp) your pardon (achoo!)

I wrote not too long ago about my annoyance with the social convention that demands a verbal response from bystanders when someone sneezes. Just as we properly fail to comment when our friends and coworkers make other kinds of unprompted nasal or oral outbursts — like snorting or saying “hi” — so too should we mind our own business for the sneeze.

The most common response always seemed a little presumptuous to me anyway. “God bless” sounds too much like an order to the deity. He’s supposed to stop whatever grand enterprise He might be involved in so He can heed your command to bless Bob from accounting simply because he (Bob) had an irritation of the nasal passage that caused a sudden, forceful expulsion of air and God knows what else? Even the most focused of us has to concentrate when creating worlds or smiting errant Methodists; we don’t need to be distracted by requests for trivial blessings, especially when we all know that Bob makes it louder than he has to just because he craves attention.

Saying “God bless” is second nature to many of us, yet would other cultures similarly demand their gods do such casual bidding? Can you imagine hearing “Shiva, hand me that stapler,” or “Yahweh, tell that guy to knock off the humming”? I don’t think so.

If we’re all going to agree that spontaneous eruptions from the mouth or nose need some kind of acknowledgment, let’s at least be consistent and come up with some standards that make a little bit of sense. I think I’m as competent as anyone to start the discussion.

For sneezing, I proposed we switch over completely to the more secular “Gesundheit.” I believe that translates from the German to “good health,” which is probably too late to hope for if the cold germs are already in the trachea but seems like a nice sentiment anyway.

For coughing, I think we should say “Schadenfreude.” Again, turning to the Germanic tradition feels appropriate and, since the translation has to do with taking delight in the failure of others more successful than you, a certain bitterness is properly communicated.

For hiccupping, I would suggest something along the lines of “Sorry you’ve had a convulsive gasp caused by the involuntary contraction of the diaphragm. Let’s agree that it won’t happen again.”

For burping, let’s go with “Jacksonian democracy.” Admittedly it makes no sense, but it should at least prompt a change of subject to 19^th century American history. I think we also need to acknowledge the pause in conversation you’ll sometimes detect when someone just barely manages to suppress a burp. Your boss says “I really think that in order to cut costs further we’re going to have to (pause, slight puffing of jowls and slight lowering of jaw) lay off our entire workforce and outsource our production to Chimp Haven, the retirement home for lab monkeys” and you’re thinking “Wow, he almost burped; I should probably say something.” That something should be “Hail, Satan.”

For yawning, no response should be required unless the yawn is accompanied by an audible sound. If it is, let me propose either “need a nap?” or the equally appropriate “please close your mouth as soon as possible.”

For throat clearing, keep in mind that this is usually done as a preface to an interruption, so a good reply might be “what the hell do you want?” If instead, a true backup of phlegm was actually involved and the “ahem” was sincere, say nothing but instead evacuate the area immediately.

For chewing gum in such an insistent manner as to cause a cracking sound, we should say (into the nearest 911-enabled telephone) “The nature of my emergency is that my friend has apparently swallowed Bubble Wrap.”

For sniffing or sniffling, like when you’re try to get air through a slightly congested sinus, I’m tempted to suggest the caustic “Oh, boo-hoo, what a baby” but that seems a little harsh, even to me. I think I’ll recommend tactful silence unless – and this is a very important exception – the sniff is accompanied by a high-pitched tweet, which should prompt the response “There seems to be a bird in your nose; let’s join together to kill it.”

Nose-blowing, even the most subtle variety, is an abomination that I can’t believe is sanctioned in polite company. Considering that it’s far less spontaneous than other expulsions – the blower even premeditates (if we’re lucky) his or her move by producing a hanky – it should not be tolerated, much less tacitly endorsed with a friendly comment. Nose-blowing should only be done under the care of a healthcare professional on an in-patient basis at the nearest major medical center, or at least not in the same room as me.

Horking, mostly done by cats trying to expel a hairball though occasionally heard from elderly gentlemen, should be met with “bad kitty” (or “bad elderly gentleman”) followed by a stern “No!”

I think I’ve provided an adequate framework for the transition from our current methods of recognizing these outbursts to something much more fair and equitable. I realize that there may be some categories I haven’t covered, in particular those hybrid explosions that combine two or more of the above-defined events: the sneef (sneeze + cough), the curp (cough + burp), the york (yawn + hork) and the never-documented but often-theorized snickup (sniffle + hiccup). But I can’t both create and manage this new system, and will have to rely on the good sense of average citizens to take it to the next level if that’s what’s needed.

I don’t want to appoint a Language Czar to oversee my plans though, if necessary, I understand George W. Bush may soon be available.

You want my advice? (Pt. 4)

This is the fourth installment in my free but increasingly dreadful advice service. Today’s topic again addresses a technical matter, but I’ll also be tackling interpersonal relationships, spiritual concerns, health problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. TODAY’S DISCLAIMER APPEARS IN UNDERLINED CAPITALS, BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE HOW UNDERLINES ARE CONVERTED FROM WORD TO HTML: REMEMBER, I HAVEN’T THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Q. I’m hoping you can provide guidance concerning harmful radiation from a satellite dish mounted on my roof. I’m a little concerned because we’re expecting a baby soon, and her crib will be just a few feet away from the satellite dish’s position on my roof.

A. You’re quite right to be concerned about the position of the satellite dish. The way that it’s mounted, the angle of the dish and the condition of the bowl itself are all very important considerations in the well-being of your loved ones. You also need to look at the power source, the wiring and the connection into your TV. All of these must be in proper shape to guarantee you’re getting the crispest picture as well as all the channels you’re entitled to. The happiness of your family members hangs in the balance, especially if they can’t see all the Indian cricket, Mexican soap operas and NFL football they want.

As for the baby you’re expecting, I wouldn’t recommend putting her crib on the roof. Most roofs are slanted to allow rain and snow to trickle off, and the same thing could happen to your little girl if the crib isn’t soundly secured. It would be much better to keep her inside the house, preferably in a room by herself, if she’s going to scream and moan anything like my kids did. This room, often called a “nursery,” should not be confused with the nurseries and rooftop herb gardens some people keep in the city. It should contain bedding of soft cotton or linen, not soil or mulch.

Allow me to wish you all the best with the new addition to your family. A rewarding life of laughter, pride and contentment await you as you watch the number of channels offered on satellite TV continue to grow and grow. There’s nothing quite like a dish to make you appreciate how happy you can be with your family.

Just make sure that new little girl doesn’t get loose and chew through the wiring.

Playing the corporate game

As I’ve written before, I’ve been involved in a lot of game-playing during my corporate career. I’m not talking about the politics and back-biting that make the corporate life so much fun. I’m referring to the all-too-occasional exercises in what’s generally called “career development,” where a group of employees sit around a table (or a bush or an abandoned fire training tower) and get run through a series of humiliations and/or life-threatening workouts. If you’re lucky, you only feel stupid; otherwise, you end up “developed,” a painful condition where you exhibit a positive attitude all out of proportion to your circumstances.

Generally, these outings are designed to promote creativity and build camaraderie among the troops. You’re taken out of your normal cubicle environment and put in a setting where you are encouraged to think outside the box, dare to be great, or push the envelope of your normal comfort zone. I happen to believe that thinking outside the box is over-rated, and remind my cat of this every time he strays over the edge of his litter container.

Nevertheless, I try to be a good boy and play along. The first couple times, I genuinely tried to improve myself and my value to the company. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become a lot more jaded, as you’re about to read.

One fairly common method to get group members to open up and talk freely is to mentally transport them to a different place in time. Here, they can talk about their aspirations or ramble nostalgically about the past. In one session I went through in the early ‘90s, staged for what were (wrongly as it turned out) perceived to be future leaders, we were told to draw a picture of where we saw ourselves in ten years. The only thing the 15 people had in common was that they imagined a future somewhere very far away from the company they were supposed to be leading. I remember that my picture had me sitting on a dock next to a huge satellite dish that retrieved documents from outer space that I would then proofread while my son sat next to me fishing. (I wasn’t exactly prescient about the coming rise of the Internet.) Poor artist that I am, my group’s facilitator interpreted the scene as someone working at NASA directing the first mission to Mars, with my son playing the part of a tethered robot. Close enough, I figured.

A similar exercise was done with another group a few years later: they were told to think exactly ten years into the past. Headlines of the exact day were read aloud and a hit song from the period was played to tickle everyone’s memory. We heard funny tales from high school, a story about a surprise birthday party and, from one young woman who could barely hold back her tears, a recounting of the day after her mother was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. The brainstorming was not especially inspired after that.

Another common activity is to break the group into smaller teams who are then given an assignment that requires them to work together to accomplish a goal. Once, we had to use tape, pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks to create a contraption that could cushion an egg from a six-foot fall. Another time we had to reach consensus on the best way to fold a sheet of paper into an airplane, then test our designs with a farthest-flight competition in the parking lot. My prototype was damaged when it was run over during flight testing; I wanted to ball up the remains and wrap them around a rock, which I was convinced I could throw way farther than anyone’s aircraft was going to go. Apparently, this was not the paradigm shift my trainer had in mind. Maybe I’d do better if a coloring or finger-paint session was next on the schedule.

I also had an opportunity to work on the other side of the equation when I spent a few years as an excellence trainer. (Note that I said “excellence,” not “excellent.”) During each day-long quality awareness session, we played what was called the JIT game, which was meant to demonstrate just-in-time production techniques. Each six-person team was given a collection of interlocking blocks and asked to set up a line that could produce exact replicas of a certain configuration. They were required to re-engineer their process several times – with blatant hints from the trainers – to achieve more and better widgets crafted each time with fewer and fewer people. At the end, they could do their very best work with only two people instead of six. Inevitably, some participant would learn the wrong lesson and ask what would happen to the four people who no longer had jobs. The trainers were told to make some vague hint about how maybe they could work in marketing instead.

The most enjoyable game I can recall from my quarter-century experience with this garbage was the Myers-Briggs personality assessment. What I liked best was that this was something you could do largely in the privacy of your own personal space, without having to “team-build” with your half-witted coworkers. You’d answer a battery of questions about your preferences – there were no right or wrong choices – and then you’d be put into one of 16 categories that labeled you as an extrovert, a thinker, a perceiver, an innovator, a molester, an invertebrate, etc. The only group participation required was at the end when you were given your results and told to go to a part of the room where you’d join up with others of your monstrous ilk and compare notes.

One thing I have learned from all these corporate games is how to game the system. Since no judgments are made, no answers are wrong and no ideas are too ridiculous, you can offer up the most absurd input and enjoy watching your guide squirm as they validate your responses. “Yes, Davis, your idea about twirling on our tippy-toes while talking to clients on the phone is a very innovative one,” the trainer says. “Let’s write that up on the whiteboard.” Until they wise up and put your manager behind a two-way mirror with your personnel file, your pay grade and a taser at the ready, these learning opportunities can actually be rewarding. Just not how they were intended.

 

Worst Christmas songs ever

Today I begin my list of the five worst Christmas songs in the history of the universe. In reverse order, they are:

Number 5 – “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” by Michael Jackson

This is the only song on my list that is a re-imagined classic rather than an original composition. It was recorded back in the Jackson Five days and features Michael at his high-pitched screeching worst. (I’d say he was pre-pubescent at the time, but then I could be talking about last week.) In the final bars – “…mommy kissing Santa Claus … last … night” – the pitch is so grating that I get a headache just describing it. It’s so bad that it’s possibly even worse than the allegations of child abuse against him.

Number 4 – “Little St. Nick” by the Beach Boys

Allow me to quote what is otherwise one of my favorite groups of the rock era:

Well, way up north where the air gets cold
There’s a tale about Christmas that you’ve all been told
And a real famous cat all dressed up in red
And he spends the whole year workin’ out on his sled

It’s the little Saint Nick / Ooooo, little Saint Nick
It’s the little Saint Nick / Ooooo, little Saint Nick

And haulin’ through the snow at a frightenin’ speed
With a half a dozen deer with Rudy to lead
He’s gotta wear his goggles ’cause the snow really flies
And he’s cruisin’ every pad with a little surprise

Run run reindeer / Run run reindeer / Run run reindeer / Run run reindeer

Ahhhhhh / Oooooooo
Merry Christmas Saint Nick
Christmas comes this time each year

I think that last line is my favorite. Nothing puts cheer in the season like reminding us that holidays come on a regularly scheduled basis.

Number 3 – “Step Into Christmas” by Elton John

I don’t know if Elton collaborated with long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin to create this song, or whether it was one of his rare song-writing efforts with the ghost of Adolf Hitler. Either way, it’s a sorry, sorry offering.

Welcome to my Christmas song
I’d like to thank you for the year
So I’m sending you this Christmas card
To say it’s nice to have you here
I’d like to sing about all the things
Your eyes and mind can see
So hop aboard the turntable
Oh step into Christmas with me

Step into Christmas
Let’s join together
We can watch the snow fall forever and ever
Eat, drink and be merry
Come along with me
Step into Christmas
The admission’s free

 Note that he’d like to sing about “all the things your eyes and mind can see,” in other words, virtually everything known to mankind, from kangaroos to the tensions on the India-Pakistan border to the third law of thermodynamics. Just “hop aboard the turntable so … we can watch the snow fall forever and ever … because the admission’s free.” Excuse me, but I just have to ask: what?

Number 2 – “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney

This “song” is an absolute abomination. Even if you didn’t compare it to other holiday efforts by former Beatles – the haunting “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” by John Lennon and the not-really-a-Christmas-song-but-I-think-it-mentions-Jesus “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison – it would still be ghastly. Let’s look at some of the “lyrics”:

The moon is right
The spirits up
We’re here tonight
And that’s enough
Simply having a wonderful Christmastime
Simply having a wonderful Christmastime

The party’s on
The feelin’s here
That only comes
This time of year

Simply having a wonderful Christmastime
Simply having a wonderful Christmastime

The choir of children sing their song
Ding dong, ding dong
Ding dong, ding ohhhh
Ohhhhhhh

“Ohhhhhh” indeed. And, I might add, “arrgghhh” and “eeewww.”

Tomorrow, the number-one worst Christmas song of all time.

The worst Christmas song of all time

Yesterday, I listed what I thought were four of the five worst Christmas songs of all time. Today, we learn who the winner is and, of course, by “winner” I mean “loser.”

The perhaps unlikely recipient of this honor is “Do They Know It’s Christmastime?” by Band Aid. I will admit that this song had at least two positives going for it: (1) it was a genuinely catchy and inspiring arrangement, and (2) it single-handedly saved the African continent from the ravages of hunger. Those are pretty strong plusses, so you can imagine the kind of negatives it would take to offset all that good, and transport this effort to the status of worst Christmas song of all time.

I know he’s already considered something of a “Gloomy Gus,” but consider what singer Morrissey had to say about the song. “I’m not afraid to say that I think … (Band Aid creator) Bob Geldof is a nauseating character. The record itself was absolutely tuneless. One can have great concern for the people of Ethiopia, but it’s another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of England. It was an awful record considering the mass of talent involved. It was the most self-righteous platform ever in the history of popular music.”

Another critic suggested “the song presents a very bleak view of Africa, which the lyrics appear to refer to as a whole. Some of these, such as the suggestions (if read literally) that the continent has no rainfall or successful crops, have been seen as absurd by critics. The lyrics as patronizing, false and out of date.”

Well, let’s take a look and see what we, and by “we” I mean “I”, think.

It’s Christmastime (for the half of the African continent that is Christian)
There’s no need to be afraid (yes there is, if you’re living in many part of Africa)
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade (thank you, ‘80s British rockers)
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy (that’s your best idea?)
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime (just not practical)

But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmastime it’s hard when you’re having fun (please, don’t put yourself out)
There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you (that just seems terribly selfish)

And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime (Accuweather calls for humid)
The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life
(Oooh) Where nothing ever grows
No rain nor rivers flow (except the Nile, Niger, Zambezi, Victoria Falls, etc.)
Do they know it’s Christmastime at all? (do these people have no calendars?)

(Here’s to you) raise a glass for everyone (we’ll have champagne; you drink the tears)
(Here’s to them) underneath that burning sun (thanks for that shade banishment)
Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?

Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmastime again
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmastime again (OK, OK, we heard you the first two times)

With only a few days left till Christmas, I think I can avoid radios, malls, medical offices, elevators, etc., long enough to avoid this song for the rest of the season. If you can’t hole up quite the way I plan, then all I can say is thank God it’s you instead of me.

 

Twas the parody before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land
The economy’s falling like castles of sand
The stock market tanked like a chimney of hair
Investment banks toppled, and wide roamed the bear
The Dow hit new lows, then fell even more
The middle class joined with the ranks of the poor
Retirement and pensions and 401(k)’s
And savings we’d kept for our golden-age days
Were gutted and shredded and eaten for lunch
And now try to borrow in this credit crunch
We’ve bailed out the autos, insurance and banks
And we’re thrown out of work — this is our thanks
Unemployment climbs higher, near seven percent
And foreclosures rise and yet so does the rent
The Internet’s fun but it’s taking our jobs
And turning us all into hypnotized mobs
Outsourcing continues, white-collar work prowls
To lands in South Asia with too many vowels
We tried “Buy American”, tried doing our part
But succumbed in the end to the lure of Wal-Mart
When all looked quite lost and we struggled to cope
We saw signs of life, we saw signs of hope
When what to our wondering eyes did appear
A president-elect a bit large in the ear
But he knows how to lead, even knows how to talk
And he goes by the uncommon name of Barack
His electoral victory o’er Old Man McCain
And that gal from Alaska, the one who’s insane,
Was truly historic, inspiring and cool
After eight years of piss-poor incompetent rule
Now he’s picking his cabinet, a quite able lot
Can’t remember them all but I’ll give it a shot
Now, Daschle! Now, Vilsack! Now, Holder and Duncan!
On Solis! On Salazar, Gates, Chu and Clinton!
From the right, from the left, labels falling away
Need just one from the South and one who is gay
Transition’s proceeding at an admirable rate
Less than thirty days now till the January date
That Cheney and Rove and their underling Bush
Return to their homes with one final push
To a life full of leisure while the rest of us work
To undo the disaster that’s left by this jerk
But we’ll hear him exclaim as he flies out of sight
“Sure I lost your life savings, but I coddled the Right”.

You want my advice? (Pt. 6)

This is the sixth installment in my free but increasingly dangerous advice service. Today, rather than giving advice, I’ll be answering a deep theological question posed by one of our dimmer readers.

Q. Who created God? Everything else in the universe had a beginning, so why not God? – Just Curious

A. What an appropriate question for this magical day. The answer lies in the Christmas Story itself.

Hundreds of years ago, it came to pass that the Italians wanted to impose a tax on the people of Galilee, so they had to return to the land of their birth to register for a census. The tax was to be placed on wine and some of the Galilites protested this with a “wine party” in which they dressed up as Judeans, boarded a ship in the harbor and threw the wine overboard. Most of them, however, did as they were told.

A carpenter by the name of Jesus and his wife Mary were among those who had obeyed, so they rented a donkey to carry them to Bethlehem. But when they arrived, there was a big convention of the local medical association in town so no rooms were available. At the last hotel they checked, Jesus demanded to see the manager but while they discussed the matter behind the front desk, Mary went into labor and the child was delivered right there by the manager (now translated as “manger”). When the clerk came to check on the commotion and witnessed the scene, he shrieked “Oh my God,” so that was given as the new baby’s name.

Soon, there were Three Wise Men who arrived carrying gifts for the young God: gold, myrrh and a burning bush. The gold and myrrh looked on in silent awe, but the bush spoke up, saying “you must go find a man named Noah and get on his ark because there is a Great Flood on the way.” The young family headed for the mountain where Noah was known to reside. It was a two-day trip, so they had to stop for the night at a cave. When they woke up the next morning, someone had put a giant stone in front of the cave so they yelled and screamed till the Pharisees showed up and rolled back the stone. Finally they arrived at the ark and just as they were about to board, a giant whale ate them. But John the Baptist intervened, administering the Holy Emetic (later found to be syrup of ipecac) to the great fish. He swam as far as Gethsemane before he couldn’t hold it down any longer. Jesus, Mary and the young baby God were saved from the flood and the fish only to be injured by a stampeding cavalry (now translated as “Calvary”) of soldiers.

Some shepherds soon came to pass and carried the family to the nearby Garden of Eden. They were welcomed there by a talking snake who offered them a large meal consisting of apples, one fish, one loaf of bread and some communion wafers. The baby smushed his food all into one pile, creating the first shepherd’s pie. When the Holy Family recovered, they traveled to Rome to wreak vengeance on the Italians but soon became distracted and instead single-handedly built the Vatican.

And that’s roughly why we celebrate Christmas today.

Giving vs. receiving — which is best?

They say that giving is better than receiving. This sounds to me like one of those counterintuitive urban myths, except with fewer unauthorized kidney transplants. I would contend that common sense dictates that it’s the receiving that’s better than the giving. Sure, there’s a rush of warmth when you see the look on that loved one’s face as they open your gift. But that tends to pass pretty quickly, whereas on the receiving end, you’ve still got the socks.

No matter how much joy I’ve ever experienced giving or receiving during the holidays, it can’t possibly match what one of my coworkers went through just the other morning. Lucy is widely known as, shall we say, the expressive type, never one to keep her thoughts or feelings unshared. The generosity with which she lays out all the details of her life is something I don’t always appreciate. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. And giving. And giving.

The co-worker sitting immediately to Lucy’s right has become her close friend, which Lucy pretty much requires when you’re that close to her every day. Jen was nice enough to bring Lucy a gift, a contraption called the Pasta ‘n More. You may have seen the ads on late-night TV: features include a strainer lid, steam rack, storage lid and, if you order now, two handles. You can cook, drain, serve and store pasta all in one vessel constructed of FDA-certified materials. Makes a great gift.

But “great” didn’t come close to describing how Lucy felt upon opening the package. There were shrieks, there were yips, there were even tears. The entire production floor ground to a halt and got to hear how wonderful the gift was, how fantastic the pasta was going to be, and how unbelievably extraordinary was the two-quart capacity. Eventually, she had to be comforted and led to a chair.

Kind of made one of my most memorable gifts from childhood pale in comparison. I grew up in Miami, which sounds like an ideal place to spend your formative years but was actually quite lacking in many ways. I’d read in books at school about concepts like autumn leaves, mountains, chimneys and snow, though these were totally alien to the south Florida scene. Our Santa came not in a sleigh drawn by eight tiny reindeer. He came in a helicopter powered by Pratt & Whitney.

My grandmother, who lived in Pennsylvania, took pity on me one year and actually mailed me an oak leaf that had fallen in her yard. I removed the leaf from the envelope and marveled at how red and how leaf-shaped it was, not like the palm fronds and crocus spirals in my unnatural subtropical hell. She could’ve used the U.S. Postal Service to clear her yard like her neighbors used the city’s curbside vacuuming trucks if we could’ve figured out the logistics. Only the intervention of my parents kept me from requesting a snowball with the next shipment.

This is not to discount the value of the gifts I received from my own parents, for these were also very special. We lived in a modest working/middle class neighborhood but they always made sure my sister and I had one of the best Christmases in that part of town, and not just because all our neighbors were Jewish. My anticipation and gift list began in late November, when the 3,000-page Sears catalog would arrive at our door by flatbed truck. Up till about age twelve, I’d quickly flip to the last section of the giant volume where the toy section was spread out in its full black-and-white glory and begin to compile my list. (When my teens arrived, I tended to first make a furtive stop to check out the models in their industrial-strength bras and the sexiest girdles this side of J.C. Penney.) More often than not, I’d get most of the items I’d requested.

Aside from the conventional gifts that every boy of the ‘60s received – footballs, cap guns, the occasional bike – my parents were as accommodating as they could afford to be to some of my more unusual requests (no, not the bra). One year I asked for and actually received a full-size pool table. Our three-bedroom home contained modest floor space at best, yet we managed to turn that monster on its side and wrestle it down the hallway to my bedroom. There, it barely fit next to my bed, hard up against the other three walls. I still remember how impressed visiting friends would be as we stood in the closet banking shots into the corner pocket.

Other especially memorable gifts included a punching bag, a portable tape recorder and a slot-car racing set. As a nerdy, pimply overweight kid, my pugilistic skills were not the best. It was theorized the punching bag would build both the confidence and technique that would allow me to defend against those vicious Jewish bullies. The height of the bag on its spring was not quite right, so my most vivid learning experience consisted of the punched mass viciously returning back to my lower abdomen. I spent hours complaining about this to the tape recorder in an affected British accent, which I imagined would ultimately land me a job as radio deejay. The car racing set, much like the small stereo and the electric guitar I received at subsequent Christmases, was a mass of primitive electronics that alternately provided fun and dangerous high-voltage currents.

My folks were also open-minded enough to buy me some of them rock and roll records all the kids were so crazy about. I still remember the year I received the Beatles’ White Album, and the contortions I had to go through to hide the picture inside of a naked John Lennon. Though I succeeded at that, the Fab Four were eventually exposed when my mom overheard a playing of “I’ve Got a Feeling,” which contained the line “everybody’s got a wet dream.” What had previously been just noise to her now took on the awkwardness of a subject the 15-year-old doesn’t especially care to discuss with his mother. A year later, she heard the lyric “nothing’s gonna change my world” on “Across the Universe,” and commented that John should “quit whining and do something about it if he doesn’t like the world.” That is one valid criticism you can make about the Beatles: they didn’t exert much influence on the culture.

So now it’s the day after Christmas, and I’m enjoying playing with this year’s gifts – peanut-butter-stuffed pretzels, a book of crossword puzzles and a hat. (“Whee!” I gushed as I spin the fedora on my finger. “It’s a hat!”) At least these gifts are unlikely to electrocute me.

New ideas of 2008

The New York Times recently ran a feature in their Sunday magazine profiling what they called the “Year in Ideas.” They examined several dozen new concepts floated in 2008 that “helped make the previous 12 months, for better or worse, what they were” – an introduction that belied their alleged astonishment at the unlimited nature of the inventive mind.

I’ll admit that all the ideas are extremely imaginative, but that doesn’t mean that some of them can’t also be extremely bizarre. Today and tomorrow, we’ll look at a few examples:

Air Bags for the Elderly – In light of the fact that falls are the leading cause of death among people 65 and older, a Japanese company has begun selling a wearable set of airbags. Describing the device as looking “something like a fishing vest with a fanny pack attached,” it contains motion sensors that will inflate two airbags – one around the hips and the other around the neck – when a fall is detected. “Instant Michelin Man,” notes the Times. This innovation updates an earlier attempt to reduce injuries, the foam hip pads. Both the low-tech hip pads and the high-tech air bags could be a success from a bioengineering and cost standpoint and yet still fall victim to the elderly’s penchant for wanting to be fashionable. “One of the reasons people shy away from these is that they don’t want to make their hips look larger,” said one independent researcher. “These air bags look kind of parachute-y.”

The Biomechanical Energy Harvester – A knee-brace-like contraption has been developed by a Canadian scientist that reportedly can harness the power of your walk and turn it into something your cell phone and other small electronics can run on. Strapped to the back of your leg, the device taps the power of your muscles with each stride without making walking feel any more difficult. At less than three pounds, it’s small enough to fit under your pants (or, less subtly, just below the hemline of your skirt), which is a significant improvement on version 1.0 – a backpack that made its own electricity from the subtle bouncing of your walk but, unfortunately, weighed in at 80 pounds.

Bubble Wrap that Never Ends – Again it’s the Japanese leading the way to a better future. They’ve created a battery-powered keychain with a panel of eight buttons that simulate the tactile joy of bubble-package destruction. Roughly translated as “Infinite Pop Pop,” the company has already sold a million of the gadgets in its first two months of release, and it’s reportedly now available at American outlets such as Target and Wal-Mart. Makers of the real thing, the Sealed Air Corporation of New Jersey, acknowledge the tension-relieving properties inherent in ruining their product, yet they won’t admit to feeling the stress of potential competition from the Far East. (Probably the same way GM felt when that first Toyota rolled onto the docks of California.) No word yet on whether the Biomechanical Energy Harvester could be used to power the “Pop Pop” keychain.

Carbon Penance – To assuage the guilt many of us feel about our contributions to climate change, a Swiss-born inventor (again with the foreigners) has built a leg band that monitors how much power you’re consuming. When levels have exceeded a certain threshold, the techno-garter slowly drives six steel thorns into the meat of your leg. The concept came to the inventor, who not surprisingly also refers to herself as an artist, while designing a device that punishes the wearer who doesn’t spend enough time talking to their houseplants. The leg band is apparently not quite ready for full-scale development and distribution because of a slight flaw: when the spikes dig in, they don’t hurt that much.

The Cloth Car – This is a concept car developed in Germany that substitutes fabric for the more conventional (and you’d think safer) hardened plastic and aluminum auto body. The shell, made of polyurethane-coated Lycra, is stretched over a car’s frame in four separate pieces. It creases when the door opens, can be unsealed if work needs to be done on the engine, and contains eye-shaped slits so the headlights can shine through. The interior is similarly flexible, featuring a steering wheel and dashboard that collapse to lie flat and create more interior space. Perhaps the seatbelt and upholstery will be made of steel.

Tomorrow: eatings kangaroos and a vending machine for crows

More new ideas of 2008

This is the second installment looking at innovations of the past year that have both the potential to make all our lives more comfortable and, at the same time, illustrate why researchers and inventors typically live such lonely, pathetic existences.

The Dog-Poop DNA Bank – The mayor of a small city near Tel Aviv wanted a more effective way to enforce regulations requiring pet owners to clean up after their dogs have done their business. So he turned to the city’s director of veterinary services to come up with a system that could use DNA fingerprinting technology to attach (so to speak) unclaimed feces to specific dog owners. An army of 13-year-old volunteers recruited by the mayor’s office fanned out across the city, going door to door to collect samples of poop with which to create a DNA bank. Surprisingly, about 90 percent of city residents who had kids showing up on their doorstep asking for some shit complied with the request. Once the problem of random canine defecation is solved, scientists will then turn to less pressing issues like genetic research on dog diseases and returning strays to their owners.

Eat Kangaroos to Fight Global Warming – An official with Australia’s wildlife services, which you’d imagine is supposed to be protecting indigenous species, proposes that raising and eating kangaroos instead of sheep and beef could cut methane emissions by as much as three percent. Unlike the ruminants we’re used to slaughtering and devouring, kangaroos have a different stomach structure with different organisms to digest their food — probably something to do with the pouch. Already considered a specialty meat that’s (not surprisingly) a bit gamy in taste, the hoppers-cum-whoppers sustained native Australians for 40,000 years before Europeans arrived with their stupid cows. Reaction in the land Down Under has not been especially positive: the official can’t find any funding to further his study, plus he’s battling newspaper headlines that read “Skippy on the Menu!”

Scrupulosity Disorder – Researchers from Brigham Young University suggest that as many as a million Americans suffer from this disorder defined as “obsessive doubt about moral behavior often resulting in compulsive religious observance.” Not to be confused with your standard evangelicals, sufferers worry about thinking bad thoughts, whether or not these thoughts are acted on in the physical world. An omniscient God, after all, sees past the bumper stickers on your SUV and into your heart, where you may be doing things like being aware of curse words. Though possibly related to obsessive-compulsive disorder, there can be a fine line for chronic hand-washers like certain sects who observe such a ritual as part of ordinary religious observance. Treatment is thus problematic but another researcher says once patients are released from the crippling doubt about their own virtue, they can emerge with a new sense of faith, even if it means slightly more soiled hands.

The Spray-On Condom – The idea with this device is not so much the convenience of application but with the way it can made to fit a variety of sizes. Rather than asking retailers to stock a quantity of as many as 30 or so sizes, the spray-on condom can be customized to each man. The inventor, a German entrepreneur, got the idea in an automated car wash – not in the back seat while canoodling but while observing that the car was being inserted into a tube-like structure and then sprayed with latex from all sides. (Oh, baby). The only drawbacks reported in real-life testing were that the spray was a little cold and that the latex would take up to two minutes to dry. That, and the fact that the European Union’s strict product standards will make it difficult to bring to market, means the condom won’t be commercially available any time soon. I guess if you can wait two minutes, you can wait two years.

Vending Machine for Crows – An NYU graduate student (probably a marketing major) put coins and peanuts into a dish attached to a vending machine he created. The crows arrived and picked out all the peanuts, leaving only the coins. As they pushed the coins out of the way while looking for more peanuts, the coins were dropped into a slot which then dispensed more peanuts. When the crows figured out the equation that coins plus slot equaled more nuts, the more entrepreneurial birds starting looking for loose change on the ground to put into the slot. Realizing that the flock was quickly becoming his intellectual match, the grad student brought in a few more researchers to help him figure what all this might mean. Rather than arriving at the obvious answer (a fleet of trained ravens who could steal cash from the pockets of pedestrians, thereby giving the students the power to ultimately rule the world), they’re trying to do something positive. “Why not see if they can do something useful for us, so we can all live in close proximity?” they asked. They’re now busy trying to apply their techniques to train rats to sort garbage for us, instead of imagining a future in which they could practically bathe in dimes.

Giving until it bleeds

There was a lot of negative talk out there after my Friday posting claiming that gift-receiving was so much better than gift-giving http://davisw.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/giving-vs-receiving-which-is-best/. The Internet was absolutely abuzz, if you count the guy who said I was a “seflish idoit” and the email I got from my mom asking if that’s the way she raised me.

To prove the point that I can also be a very caring individual who feels deeply the importance of giving back to his community, I’ll be hauling a load of stuff over to Goodwill at the end of the tax year on Wednesday. I also went to the bloodmobile Saturday to give the gift of life.

Talk about giving of yourself, this is the most selfless contribution one can make short of a lung. My wife and I have been giving this annual donation right around Christmas for the past five years or so. She’s actually way ahead of me in the quantity given, having started in college. I was only introduced to the concept when the local Starbucks began sponsoring the event with the incentives of free coffee and a baked good for all donors. I also wanted to see if it was true that you’d get drunker on a couple of beers after your body had been sapped of almost a quarter of its life-force.

We arrived early enough to be first on the list of those signing up. While the rest of the nearly overflowing coffee shop was lounging around concerned only about number one (that coffee goes right through you), Beth and I read through the pre-donation materials to be sure we were still eligible. Easily clearing the requirement that I was at least 17, weighed at least 110 pounds and had at least one arm, I signed where they told me and soon was called out to the parking lot where the bloodmobile was parked.

I was directed to the tiny interview room by a middle-aged South Asian woman. This was a good start: my past experience with the workers who staff these events was that they tended to be either young Hispanic- or African-American women who were fast on the take but still required several jabs to hit the right spot, or else they were older Southern white women who were equally jab-happy but much slower about it. I’ve seen enough cardiologist ads in the paper to recognize that Indians make great healthcare professionals. In addition, when it was discovered the scanner connection to the laptop wasn’t working properly, she was able to troubleshoot that without calling home.

We huddled together in a space about the size of an airliner bathroom while she ran through the extremely personal health history questions she kept assuring me she was required to ask. Was I a hemophiliac? No. Have I had an organ transplant in the last 60 days? I don’t recall one. Have I ever had sex with another man? No. Have I ever had sex with a hemophiliac or transplant recipient who was a man? Have I ever been in prison? Have I ever been to Africa? Have I ever killed and consumed the flesh of another person? If so, did that person have hepatitis? Was I bitten by a crazy cow in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1996? No, no, no, no, and no, that unfortunate cow encounter was in 1997.

 Finally cleared to proceed, I walked out to the main aisle of the mobile. My interviewer asked which arm I wanted to use, and here’s where I must admit I puffed up a little with pride. If you read my previous posting about selling my body to a company that was doing shingles research http://davisw.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/a-second-career-perhaps/, you might remember how exceptional the main vein in my right arm is. The inside of that elbow has been widely admired for the way in which the blue vessel protrudes in a come-hither fashion just below the thinnest layer of skin. Since the right-armed donation loungers were all full, I was asked if I wanted to offer my left arm instead. But when I showed the admiring circle of blood ladies my right vein, they all agreed I should wait. One of them marked the vein with a pen, then posed next to it for a photo to show her family. I took a seat to wait my turn.

 

Check out the vein

After about ten minutes, Beth finished her session and I was able to take her spot. The needle went in effortlessly and soon the blood was flowing. I sat back and relaxed as much as I could while workers scurried perilously close to my connection and the intercom played Christmas songs. And, wouldn’t you know it, two of them were from my “Worst Christmas Songs of All Time” list http://davisw.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/worst-christmas-songs-ever/ and a third was Bob Seger’s boozy rendition of “Little Drummer Boy.” (I don’t know if I was starting to get a little light-headed or what, but the line “the ox and lamb kept time” struck me as absolutely hilarious.)

My languor was soon interrupted when one of the workers reported that an “overflow situation” was developing somewhere in my vicinity. I tried to look behind me where my bag hung to see if the room was starting to look like a Quentin Tarantino film and I was preparing to bleed out. Apparently it was only a minor overflow so I was able to avoid infecting the whole bus with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or whatever it was that wacky British cow gave me.

I was disconnected from the tubing, had a gauze bandage affixed to my magnificent vein and was told to raise my arm high in the air. After a minute or so, a role of colored tape was brought out and a length was cut off and wrapped around my arm. Everyone else who’d been through this step in the process was asked what color tape they wanted, so I already had my eye on a nice pale green that would contrast nicely with my hazel eyes. But I was assigned the blue with no questions asked in what would turn out to be the only disappointment of the experience.

As Beth and I headed back into Starbucks to collect our premiums, I began thinking what kind of bakery item I’d be selecting for my freebie. When I placed my order at the counter for a tall-low-fat-mocha-no-whip and a slice of coffee cake, I flashed my bandaged arm at the barista and told her I’d just given blood. The point was to communicate that I shouldn’t be charged for my order but apparently the counter people hadn’t been told how this worked so she rang me up for $5.57. I got the confusion straightened out easily enough, but the embarrassment I endured for those few seconds when she thought I was just showing off my bandage to impress her lingered longer than it should have.

Now if I could’ve shown her my vein, that would’ve been a different story.

 

You want my advice? (Pt. 7)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Heed my word at your own risk.

Q. I recently graduated from college and started working in the real world. My problem is that my name is gender-neutral, which my parents tell me was intentional. Many new business acquaintances, whom I meet through e-mail, mistake me for a man. I am often addressed as Mr. and worse, taken for my own secretary when they call. It’s awkward to explain and then embarrassing for the person calling. Is there a polite way to let people know my gender? – It’s Pat

A. I can definitely sympathize and may be able to offer some unique advice from the perspective of someone named “Davis Whiteman.” The “Davis” part comes from several previous generations of fathers and grandfathers, and is not to be confused with “David,” which I’m often mistakenly called. Because my father was also a Davis (actually he went by “Dave”), I became known as “Davie,” which I dropped as soon as I got to college. My son also has the first name of “Davis,” but we call him by his middle name, Daniel. I don’t know who or why somebody came up with the “Whiteman” part – it might’ve seemed like a good idea at the time (1800s), but is definitely awkward in this modern multicultural era. It’s actually pronounced “White-mun,” a small consolation.

Now what was your question again?

Oh, yeah … something about how you want to show your genitals at work. This is not something I’d recommend for most professional workplaces. While it may be essential for certain jobs in adult entertainment and, more recently, the real estate industry (“I’ll show you mine if you buy this house”), most of the dress-for-success literature out there strongly suggests dressing. If you’re a woman, you may want to stay away from pant suits; if you’re a man, I’d avoid putting flowers in your hair.

Electronic and telephonic communications are admittedly a little more problematic. For email, I think you can solve the problem merely by using pink paper for emails if you’re a girl and blue paper for emails if you’re a boy. On the phone, just talk in a real high-pitched squeaky voice if you’re a girl and a booming low-pitched baritone if you’re a boy. As an added flourish, make passing references to Barbie dolls or rocket-propelled grenades, as appropriate.

Doing the Charleston, Holy-style

A spokesperson for the travel industry estimated this week that at least 5 billion Americans made a trip of 100 miles or more during this holiday season. A large majority of these were on the airlines or driving on the road, though a growing minority of travelers are choosing clean alternative transportation such as paddle boat, skate, and sliding downhill on a piece of cardboard.

When my family and I decided to go the 200 miles from Charlotte to Charleston, S.C., to visit my great aunt, we debated the merits of flying versus driving. We could make it either way in about the same amount of time, when you consider the attendant hassles and time delays involved in modern jet travel. Did we want to pay about ten times what it would cost to drive so we could experience the stimulation of surly counter agents, body searches and a potential plunge from 20,000 feet, or could we endure the tedium of freeway motoring? We realized how close a call the decision was about 50 miles out of town when I almost fell asleep at the wheel, but in the end, we’re glad we decided to drive.

There’s little of the magnificent American landscape so idolized in popular culture on the stretches of interstates 77 and 26 that bisect the state of South Carolina. Brown flatlands give way to sulfurous marshes as you approach the coast, so you’re generally left to your own imagination to summon enough interest to stay alert.

One way to do this is to admire the creativity (and lack thereof) that’s been put into the naming of different locations along the route. Towns have been saddled with unimaginative monikers like Jedburg, North, Cope and, from mapmakers who gave up completely, Ninety Six. There’s also a “Townville” that apparently was judged to be better than “Cityberg” or “Villageton”. Meanwhile, interchanges between the federal highway and various county roads have been given elaborate names to honor prominent locals, I guess because “Exit 17” was just wasn’t inspirational enough. For example, there’s the Medal of Honor Recipient Eugene Arnold Obregon Memorial Interchange, the State Solicitor J. Robert “Bobby Joe” Adamson Jr. Interchange, and the Buck Mickel Memorial Southern Connector, to name just three of the dozens we passed. I can only assume that the memorials were put at highway exits to symbolize how these heroes left the mortal world in much the same way we drivers are forced to get off for gas and a Pepsi.

Though most of the old-time South is located too far off the highway to appreciate, we did get a good sense of the bygone era when we stopped in a tiny village called Restarea. The town had only two roads – “Cars Street” and “Trucks and Campers Avenue”. Though the manufacturing base of Restarea left long ago, there are still pockets of commerce among the 100 or so residents of this bustling community. The only shopping area is a bank of vending machines behind a beautiful wrought-iron gate. There’s a small park where families eat at picnic tables and dogs romp at the end of a leash. The city hall still shows an unfortunate remnant of segregation, with the community rooms divided into separate men’s and women’s facilities. Despite that, there’s still evidence of an active cultural scene inside, including an innovative arts installation where residents can leave their thoughts for others to consider, including thought-provoking folk wisdom such as “eat me,” “Goths and emo rule” and “your stupid.”

As we got further into the last half of our four-hour drive, amusements starting running low until we were passed by a large semi with a sign on the back that asked “How’s My Driving?” I’ve seen these for years and always wondered if anyone ever called, so I pulled out my cell phone and decided to give it a try. After a couple of rings, the operator answered “England Transport customer service, can I help you?”

“Yes,” I responded. “I wanted to offer a comment on the driving of one of your owner-operators.”

A pause, then skeptically, “How can I help you again?”

“I was just passed by one of your trucks on the interstate and a sticker on the back asked ‘how’s my driving?’ and gave this 800 number. I figured not many people responded unless they were mad about something, and I just wanted to offer another perspective.”

“OK,” said the woman. “Can you give me the truck number, please?”

“No, I can’t. It’s already passed. But I can tell you it had a metallic silver trailer, mud flaps on the back wheels and was heading south about 60 miles from Charleston.”

At this point, I got the distinct impression this woman was only pretending to care. “Oh… kay,” she said. “Can you give me your, uh, comment?”

“Yes,” I said. “The driver seemed to be doing an adequate job. Nothing dangerous, nothing dramatically good either. I’d say he was meeting expectations.”

Another pause. “Um, okay. England Transport appreciates your input. Thank you for calling.”

“Do I get a coupon or a discount or anything toward my next less-than-truckload haul?”

No response. She’d hung up. At least my grogginess had passed.

Rural South Carolina was now receding in the rear-view mirror as we headed toward the more metropolitan Low Country. We passed a pickup truck with a bumper sticker advertising the “Medieval Tattoo Studio,” and I couldn’t help but wonder how inked scarring of the skin could be more primitive than it already was. Maybe they splash you with flaming tar to give your etching a random effect. Soon, the “Holy City,” as Charleston bills itself, was all around us.

We had a pleasant two-night stay at our favorite Hampton Inn-Historic District (thanks for the one night free, Mr. Eichmann). We started to remember next morning at the lobby breakfast buffet some of the reasons for the “Holy City” nickname. A family at the next table grasped each others’ hands and bowed their heads, quietly but audibly thanking the Lord for the Honey-Nut Cheerios, banana and decaf that His Mercy had bestowed upon them. Later we met up with our aunt, and got to hear all the details about how her tiny evangelical congregation had schismed yet again, this time over something to do with casseroles. (They had been renting a movie theater for their weekly services when there were 40 of them; now that they’re down to 20, they’re looking at local self-storage facilities.) Aunt Vertie confirmed later that she had indeed erased the line between faith and lunacy. We commented on how well her Buick Regal seemed to be running, and she noted that it probably needed some brake work but she was hoping the occasional addition of fluid would allow it to last “until the Rapture.” This sounds like something that GMAC and other car loan financers should investigate – leasing options that are pegged to the End Times.

It was a short enjoyable vacation that made a nice respite during the holidays. Charleston is a great place to visit but I prefer my home just off the Ungodly Memorial Interchange.

You want my advice? (Pt. 8)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, in the spirit of the New Year, we hear from a writer who decided to take matters into her own hands.

Q. In an attempt to stop smoking, I chewed gum all day and suffered from halitosis. I went to dentists and doctors to no avail. My family and colleagues at work learned to keep their distance. It was very embarrassing! Eventually, I discovered it was the aspartame in the gum and the many cups of coffee I devoured each day. After I switched to another sweetener, the halitosis disappeared and has never returned. – How About Me? Aren’t I Something?

A. Sounds like problem solved. What do you want from me?

I’m glad to hear you achieved success in your resolution to quit such a nasty habit. That can be an inspirational and helpful story for others of us who are trying to turn over new leaves at this time of year.

It can be, but it’s not. Instead, it just sounds like you’re bragging about your ability to identify a problem on your own and think it through to a successful conclusion. This is a very bad thing for us in the advice-giving field. People should not be trying to improve or change their lives in any way without the close supervision of a professional. You’ve seen the signs at the health clubs about consulting a physician before beginning any kind of exercise program? They speak the truth.

I’d recommend that you back up all the way to where you started on this journey — resume your smoking, resume your gum-chewing, regain your odious breath – then call up Harpo Productions to get on the waiting list for the Dr. Phil Show. Otherwise, you’re doomed to failure or, at best, a success that’s not nationally televised so no one cares.

A resolution on resolutions

This being the New Year, it seems we’re required to propose resolutions to improve our lives and the lives of those around us. What a drag.

I agree that it’s naturally appropriate to respond to the excesses of the holidays with a good stiff shot of moderation. It just makes sense that we can’t spend the entire year eating rum balls and eggnog for breakfast, and so it’s reasonable right now to assess the wisdom of year-round splurging, especially as you approach your late fifties. But to formalize this reasoning into a strict resolution is not something I’ve ever felt comfortable doing.

However, if I must, let me put it this way: everything I’ve been doing for the last month or so I’ll stop doing, and everything I’ve stopped doing I’ll resume. As an important exception, however, I will continue running my autonomic nervous system as I always have, and I’ll persist in being unable to take to self-powered flight.

I went online this morning to see what were some of the more common resolutions being considered. According to Wikipedia, these resolutions were “sorted by the horizontal pixel dimension in ascending numerical order. It is important to realize that the use of the word ‘resolution’ in this context is misleading and inaccurate. The sizes given are pixel dimensions, and do not imply anything about the resolution of the display, which would be expressed in pixels per inch or pixels per centimeter.” Typically helpful Wikipedia.

When I looked around a little longer, I found a more useful list that cited the following as popular choices among Americans: lose weight; manage debt; save money; get a better job; get fit; eat right; get a better education; drink less alcohol; quit smoking; reduce stress; take a trip; and volunteer to help others. I think just about everybody can agree these are worthy aspirations for self-improvement. All of us are imperfect in one way or another, except for a certain savior born over 2,000 years ago who probably never smoked in the first place and already had a pretty good job. If He wanted to make some kind of resolution to improve, about all He could do would be to work on His tan. (Should I capitalize the “t” in “tan”?)

The other thing about starting these new resolutions right on the advent of the New Year is that the timing of this particular holiday isn’t at all convenient. It’s virtually impossible to begin the New Improved You right at the stroke of midnight, when drinking less alcohol is probably the last thing on what’s left of your mind. You might be considerate enough to hold your girlfriend’s hair out of her face while she vomits over the balcony railing, but that’s hardly what you’d call volunteerism. You’re still wanting to celebrate throughout the day on Jan. 1, and then even though it’s back to work for most of us today, it is a Friday and then you’ve got all that free time to be tempted on Saturday and Sunday, and now you’re out to the fifth of the month before any proper behavior can reasonably be expected to begin.

Which reminds me: whoever is in charge of such things needs to resolve to reschedule our holidays so they’re more evenly spread throughout the year. After the King holiday in the third week of January, there’s nothing until Memorial Day, a full four-and-a-half months away. The summer holidays are pretty well spaced, but you hit another dry spot of almost three months until Thanksgiving, then there’s a holiday virtually every other week. I wouldn’t be opposed to getting rid of the January New Year’s Day altogether and putting it back to the beginning of spring, where the Druid gods intended.

But I digress, and that’s something I need to work on improving.

Anyway, while I was researching this subject yesterday, I did come across something I might be able to sign off with. Access Hollywood had talked with a variety of celebrities and other prominent individuals from around the world to see what a few of their resolutions might be. A number of them struck me as a tad bizarre, but most of these are folks who have risen to the top of their professions, so it’s probably worth taking a look at this insight into some of what made them so successful. The following list includes the individual quoted and what they wanted to accomplish in 2009:

George W. Bush: To discover and settle the West Pole, using only dogsleds and shopping carts for transportation

Laura Bush: To bank the seven ball into the side pocket

Barack Obama: To attend next year’s Chick-fil-A Bowl, especially if Vanderbilt is playing

Michelle Obama: To make a smoked bacon reduction sauce

Bill Gates: To learn to play the songbah drum using a stapler

Rod Blagojavich: To drink more brackish water

Oprah Winfrey: To breathe more frequently

Will Smith: To move furniture randomly throughout the day

Warren Buffett: To wear underclothing more often

Peyton Manning: To become chief technology officer of Dr Pepper

Usain Bolt: To play Scrabble with the evil twin of Mickey Rourke

Dakota Fanning: To close on a stunning three-bedroom, two-bath townhome condominium

Michael Phelps: To have his teeth yellowed from drinking coffee

Bernie Madoff: To be run over during the live telecast of a NASCAR race

Britney Spears: To have cholesterol so high it starts leaking out her nose

J.K. Rowling: To be sentenced to 35 years in a federal penitentiary by mistake

Tiger Woods: To review a major motion picture that doesn’t exist

Judge Judy: To develop gills and swim like a fish

Brad Pitt: To eat more cologne samples from men’s magazines

Vladimir Putin: To avoid saying the words “Queen Latifah”

Tina Fey: To climb more trees

Amy Winehouse: To cozy up to a warm winter soup

Tom Cruise: To have that 6-by-8-inch mole on my lower back checked out

T-Pain: To upgrade his 401(k) to a 407(m)

Robert Mugabe: To learn arthroscopic colo-rectal surgery by correspondence course

 

Wrapping up the bowl games, sponsored by DavisW

One of the great things about the global economic catastrophe has been the effect on certain corporate marketing decisions. High-powered multinationals have been forced to look at their priorities and re-evaluate how important it is to shareholders to have the company name plastered all over everything from sporting venues to golf tournaments to baby’s foreheads.

Two new baseball parks being built in New York City for the Yankees and Mets are struggling to find firms willing to spend multi-millions for naming rights, and may have to begin hosting games next season as Hank’s Place and Choker’s Field, respectively. NASCAR auto racing has seen a significant decline in its sponsorships, to the point where you can almost see a bare patch of material on drivers’ uniforms. Traditional suppliers like GM and Chevy are scaling back their involvement in motorsports and we may soon see a Daytona 500 featuring Mini Coopers and old VW minivans.

I’ll miss the occasional unintended consequences that resulted when corporate takeovers clashed with the best-laid marketing plans. For example, when First Union Bank acquired CoreStates, it also inherited the basketball arena that was home to the NBA’s 76ers. The “CoreStates Center” sign was coming down and the “First Union Center” sign was going up when it occurred to someone how headline writers were going to abbreviate the new name.

Before the college football bowl season finally began winding down, many of us (OK, a few of us) sat in front of our TVs wondering about this new crop of low-rent game sponsors. Slashed rates allowed local credit unions and regional trucking firms to have their images splashed across a national stage, prompting viewers to wonder how exactly they could patronize the San Diego Credit Union or R+L Carriers even if they wanted to.

To help these would-be customers, I’ve compiled a complete list of the games and their sponsors with a little something about each firm. I would’ve included the teams who played and the final score too, but nobody cares.

magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl – The magicJack is some kind of device you stick in your computer to make phone calls. Sounds like a good idea until you realize how awkward it is to hold the monitor up to your ear while you try to talk into the mouse.

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl – R+L is an Ohio-based trucking firm founded in 1965. Ralph L. “Larry” Roberts was a mere teenager with aspirations of owning his own business. His dream became a reality with the purchase of a single truck he used to haul furniture. The firm then grew into … That’s really all you need to know.

SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl – Everyone living in San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties is eligible to join this federally insured credit union. If you watched the game from your home in Louisville, their competitive CD rates make a move to California worthwhile. I hear R+L is available to help with your couch.

Motor City Bowl – Not too surprisingly, this Detroit game failed to attract a big-name sponsor. Reports are that next year’s game will be called the Bailout Bowl.

Meineke Car Care Bowl – Meineke is a car maintenance franchise clever enough to have worked not only their name but also what they do into their bowl name. This might be something for the SDCCU to consider when they begin negotiations for next year’s Poinsettia Bowl, which could instead become the SDCCU Foreclosure Poinsettia Bowl.

Champs Sports Bowl – Champs is a seller of sports equipment even though I thought they were a sports bar. I must be thinking of some other company I’ll never patronize.

Papajohns.com Bowl – Most people are aware of Papa John’s Pizza, but they also want you to know about their website, which uses a PDF (pizza delivery format) to bring you hot pies through your high-speed Internet connection.

Valero Energy Alamo Bowl – Valero is a retailer of gasoline that managed to work a slight rule change into the Alamo Bowl. Team scores not only can rapidly rise, but they can plummet just as quickly.

Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl – Roady’s Truck Stops are the nation’s largest chain of truck stops, catering to the professional driver and traveling motorist in 45 states, meeting the humanitarian needs of people low on fuel for many years.

Brut Sun Bowl – As the final seconds ticked off the clock in this classic, the winning coach was drenched by a cooler full of Brut cologne. He’s currently recovering in the Augusta burn center.

Bell Helicopters Armed Forces Bowl – The rush to purchase helicopters from viewers who enjoyed this match-up drove Bell’s stock price to a three-year high.

Chick-Fil-A Bowl (formerly the Peach Bowl) – They dropped the “peach” out of a concern that fuzz is not something chicken consumers want to be reminded of.

Outback Bowl – This is much like the regular college game except the football is replaced with a Bloomin’ Onion.

Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl – This bowl game had more adjectives (4) than one of the participating teams had points (3).

Konica Minolta Gator Bowl – Makers of fine cameras until the next leap in digital technology sends them into bankruptcy.

AutoZone Liberty Bowl – Perhaps the winners of this game and the Meineke Car Care Bowl could meet in a playoff: the Sell ‘Em a Muffler When They Just Need a Spark Plug Bowl.

GMAC Bowl – A long, long time ago, people bought cars from a company named “General Motors” and frequently did something called “financing” with GMAC to pay for the car on credit. This bowl is a salute to those bygone days, and includes players using helmets made of leather that have no faceguards.

AT&T Cotton Bowl – AT&T is one of the few big names still in the bowl sponsorship business. Send me a 10-cent text message and I’ll tell you more.

FedX Orange Bowl – Another of the big names still in the bowl scene. Surviving despite the tremendous loss of business due to email attachments and zip files, FedX now has a business model that relies primarily on Amazon and eBay shipments, along with its recent diversification into mowing lawns.

Allstate Sugar Bowl – A curious combination considering New Orleans was wiped out by a hurricane and is still having trouble recovering because of tight-fisted insurance companies. You might be “in good hands” with Allstate, but watch out for their prehensile tail that may be picking your pocket.

Capital One Bowl – What’s in your wallet? Not much cash after you’ve finished paying the astronomical interest rates on their credit cards.

Tostitos Fiesta Bowl – The most delicious, crunchiest game on the postseason calendar.

Insight Bowl – I challenge you to follow this one: Starting in 2000, this game moved to Bank One Ballpark, now known as Chase Field. The game moved yet again effective with the 2006 game, but remained in the Phoenix metropolitan area, this time in Sun Devil Stadium, which was left without a postseason game when the Fiesta Bowl moved to the University of Phoenix Stadium.  The game was formerly known as the Copper Bowl until 1996 when sponsorship was assumed by Insight Enterprises and it became the Insight.com Bowl from 1997 to 2001, and then the Insight Bowl. Insight, incidentally, is either a type of Honda, a broadband service, or a laptop maker.

Rose Bowl, sponsored by citi – Yes, the same “citi” as the Citibank that narrowly avoided financial collapse late last year. So their stockholders wouldn’t be pissed that they threw money at the little-known Rose Bowl, note how they put their sponsorship after the bowl name and lower-cased the first letter, hoping no one would notice.

The Fabulous Band Names

There was a time when I thought the creativity put into the naming of a rock band correlated to that band’s skills and success. If you came up with a clever enough name, you’d shoot straight to the top. Then I became familiar with the oeuvre of “Frankie Goes to Hollywood,” “Death Cab For Cutie” and “Panic! At the Disco,” which made me realize that talent wasn’t necessarily a part of the equation.

Still, you have to admire how witty some of these are. Take a look at this collection I compiled recently:

Sonic Death Rabbit

Southern Culture on the Skids

Cottonwood Frostbite

Phil and the Blanks

Dexateens

Plants and Animals

The Hothouse Hefftones

Closed for Remodeling

Trivia Night

Bubonik Funk

Thunderlip

Coma League

Dante’s Camaro

Cowboy Mouth

Electric Chicken

The Holy Trinity Family Band

Stiff Knee Birthday Jam

Dangermuffin

Col. Bruce Hampton and the Quark Alliance

British Sea Power

These Arms are Snakes

I Set My Friends on Fire

The Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank

Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head

God Came From Space

Lee Press-on and the Nails

Somebody and the Really Somethings

IWANTTOKILLEVERYHUMAN

And I’ll Form the Head

E=MC Hammer

The Unnecessary Gunpoint Lecture

Guy Who Looks Like Me with Glasses

Penguins with Shotguns

Robin Williams on Fire

Mel Gibson and the Pants

The Shark that Ate my Friend

One Small Step for Landmines

Boneless Children Foundation

The Busiest Bankruptcy Lawyers in Minnesota

Sorry About Your Couch

 

 

As great as those real-life names are, I always thought there was a rich source of funny names that were being overlooked. They could easily be ripped from today’s news headlines:

Gaza Rocket Attack

Mideast Peace Initiative

The Heart Transplant List

Workplace Hazards in the Poultry Industry

Federal Wildlife Experts

The Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology

Cholera Death Toll

The Volatile Diyala Province

Bhutto’s Ancestral Village

The Year-End Deals

Santa Slays Seven

36 Months Free Financing

The Taliban

The Obama Daughters

The Spectrum of Neurological Disorders

Boneless Wing Tray

Double-Digit Unemployment

Multiple Listings Service

Certificate in Treasury Management

Checked Baggage Fees

Consumer Price Index

Federal Stimulus Package

Children Left Behind

Bristol Palin’s Baby

50 Herbert Hoovers

Repeat DUI Offenders

The Credit Freeze

Pork Tenderloin and the Spicy Cranberry Glaze

The Additional Rebates

 

 

Happy Worst Day of the Year

The first Monday in January should receive some kind of official designation as the worst day of the year. State and federal offices should be closed, black bunting should drape store windows, and flags should be lowered to half-staff. Calendars should note this as a day of commemoration of how miserable our lives are going to be for the next four to five months.

If you haven’t done so already, pause now for a moment in recognition of just how bleak our immediate future is. We’ve been observing one holiday after another for several weeks now, so even happiness and celebration are no fun any more. We’ve gorged on foods we’d never otherwise eat (can you imagine a dinner of goose, champagne and chocolate-covered cherries in August?). The friends and family we only get to see once a year have reminded us all too clearly why we moved halfway across the continent to get so far away from them.

I don’t know about you, but the weather where I am today is cold and wet, the sky a low-hanging grey. I’ve returned to a job that seems unlikely to get any more exciting or any more secure in 2009. There are no significant holidays, no coming of spring, no summer vacation anywhere in the near future. The landscape of life is desolate, barren, foreboding, dreary and miserable. Happy god-damn new year.

I tried yesterday to head off this gathering funk by going to the Y for a nice vigorous run on the treadmill. Exercise has always elevated my mood, even when it has to take place elbow-to-elbow with my fellow fatties in front of a bank of TVs showing the Dolphins losing another playoff game. I’m not one of these exercisers clogging the floor who are motivated only by recent resolutions to get fit. I’m the guy who was complaining to the manager that they were closing the Y early on Christmas Eve. Now here I am, unable to find a vacant treadmill because of all these latter-day athletes.

Out of the ten machines available, two of them have runners while the rest have walkers. Walking is for the hallways of hospitals, not for expensive exercise machines. The guy who just barely beat me to the last available treadmill is wearing a sweater, pleated slacks and penny loafers. He jabs perplexedly at the control buttons until the belt begins the slowest possible movement, which seems to satisfy him until a few minutes later when he feels compelled to poke a few more buttons, bringing the machine to a stop. The same pattern of behavior is repeated several times before the pudgy woman to his right finishes her stroll and lowers her moist bulk to the floor. A machine is finally open.

As the endorphins kick in during my run, I start thinking of a few of the positives that do exist in the first half of the calendar year. There’s the new TV season, one that’s lacking the day-long “Password”-a-thons we’ve endured over the recent holidays. There’s the Obama inauguration in mid-January and the Super Bowl in early February. But all these are enjoyed vicariously at best and don’t even require us to leave our living room.

There are some legitimate holidays on the calendar falling between now and the unofficial start of summer on Memorial Day. There’s Martin Luther King’s birthday in just two weeks, so we’ll get a Monday off to remember the accomplishments of the great civil rights leader. But greeting card companies haven’t told us yet how we’re properly supposed to celebrate this day. Neither parties nor gift-giving nor dressing up in costume seem quite appropriate.

In February, we have Groundhog’s Day, which represents the point at which we might potentially see an end to winter in the distance. Recent efforts to turn February 2 into even more of an occasion have met with limited success. Watching Punxsutawney Phil being groped by that guy in tuxedo and top hat was amusing the first 40 times I saw it on the news, though the novelty has since worn off. I liked the idea of expanding the number of species honored to include other groundlings – moles, voles, badgers, hedgehogs, large rats, etc. – but this added biological diversity did little to spur retail sales and holiday cheer.

Later in the month is Valentine’s Day, when we honor our beloved ones with candy and flowers and the disappointment of knowing a spouse can’t be any more thoughtful than that. Then, just a week or so later is the government-concocted President’s Day, timed to honor the birth of perhaps our greatest commander-in-chief, Abraham Washington. Once every four years, we celebrate the rare Leap Day by trying to find the instructions for changing the date on our digital watches. On March 17, St. Patrick’s Day comes rolling in drunk and smelling of cheap beer. We all wear green so as to better disguise the vomit stains on our shirts. By the time it’s April, we’re starting to sense that warm weather is in the air and we all get a little silly celebrating April Fool’s Day, when radio shock jocks trick us all into thinking an asteroid is about to hit the earth. We laugh when we realize it’s not.

Finally, on some apparently random Sunday between March and May comes Easter, originally scheduled to honor the birth of Christ but now more about the bunnies and candy than the Lord and Savior. When I was a kid, Easter was second only to Christmas in significance. Hunting for eggs, rather than avoiding them like we do as adults, was a big deal, as was the story of Peter Cottontail rolling back the stone from Jesus’ grave. With its Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Sadder Saturday and Maundy Monday (which gave us one of the few Easter carols, performed by the Mamas and Papas), Easter had the potential to give us almost a week off from work, but now most offices barely notice it.

Well, there seems to be a few breaks in the clouds as I look outside, and at least I have a job, a wonderful family and a home that’s not on the auction block. There is something to be said for the satisfaction of getting back to a routine that gives you a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day instead of the incessant bloating I’ve endured since Thanksgiving. Once I get hungry again, and tired, and overworked, and stressed, and anxious about the economy, maybe then I’ll be happy.

 

You want my advice? (Pt. 9)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a writer who likes to complain.

Q. Whatever happened to the idea of keeping to the right? Most drivers observe this rule in their cars, but as soon as their feet hit the pavement, all memory of it vanishes. Our sidewalks, airports, grocery stores and shopping malls have become free-for-alls. People have crashed into me with their grocery carts as I made a right turn from one aisle to the next and they are making a left turn on the left side. If people will remember to stay to the right and pass on the left, they’ll see that these important rules of the road make all traffic move more smoothly. – Your Mother’s Busybody Neighbor

A. I couldn’t agree with you more. Perhaps together we can change the world.

There’s really not much difference at all between motor vehicles and what I call “pedestrian vehicles,” also known as “humans.” The windshield is like the eyes, the grill is like the mouth, the tires are like the legs, the headlights are like the headlights, and the tailpipe is like the you-know-what. Didn’t any of you people see the Disney movie “Cars”?

What we need to move toward now is fully equipping individuals with the accessories that automobiles have, so they can more easily obey the rules of the road. For example, we could attach turn signals to hip pockets so pedestrians could signal which way they’re turning. We could surgically implant an antenna in their heads so they don’t need to be distracted by their cell phones and music players. We could require everyone, instead of saying “hi” as they greet one another, to say “honk.”

The next time someone brushes against you with their shopping cart during one of these encounters, drop immediately to the floor and start yowling like a scorched cat. A store manager should arrive shortly with a specially equipped shopping cart into which you’ll be placed to be hauled out to the parking lot. There, this cart will be tied to the back of an ambulance and you’ll be taken to the nearest hospital. Meanwhile, the offender will be left in stunned silence before resuming their shop, hopefully noticing the great deal on frozen chicken breasts.

 

Three procedures and still alive

ATLANTA (Associated Press) — Griffin Bell, 90, the shrewd Southern lawyer who grew up with Jimmy Carter and later became U.S. attorney general after Carter was elected president, died Monday in Atlanta. He was being treated for complications from pancreatic cancer, kidney disease and being 90.

From the perspective of someone still in relatively good health, it often seems like medicine can go too far in treating the ravages of time. I think there comes a point when you feel like you’ve lived a rich, full life and now it’s time to go do something else, like maybe die. Throwing the incredible expenses of the modern healthcare establishment at the elderly and infirm just doesn’t always seem wise, especially if you hit one of them in the eye with an otoscope.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate with my health for over 55 years, and haven’t spent a night in the hospital since that whole birthing thing back in 1953. I’ve had my fair share of the usual modern maladies that almost everybody goes through – measles, mumps, mole removal, molar removal. I had what we politely called a “nervous stomach” in my teens, I’ve had a couple of lower back issues that kept me prone for days at a time, and I got chicken pox as a Christmas present from my son about ten years ago. Only three times have I gone through anything more serious.

My first such episode occurred in 1989. For years, I had noticed a brownish area just inside the top of my left ear. I chalked it up to poor hygiene until one day when it started bleeding. I knew that blood was only effective when it was coursing through your veins and that having it drip off the end of your earlobe wasn’t as good. I made a visit to the dermatologist who took one look at the wound and made his frightening pronouncement – ear cancer.

Well, not exactly ear cancer. It was a skin cancer that happened to be on my ear. All those hours I’d spent on college break in Miami laying out on my parents’ patio without benefit of sunscreen hadn’t been wasted after all. I was referred to a cosmetic surgeon despite my protests that I already looked damned good, but they explained he’d be the one carving off thin layers of my cartilage until all the cancer was removed, then would rebuild what was left into some semblance of an ear. The procedure I’d be undergoing was called “Moe’s surgery,” which sounded like it might involve a conk on the head rather than traditional anesthesia, but actually turned out to be Mohs surgery.

The operation was done in a Charlotte doctor’s office while I was fully awake but feeling no pain. Everything went as planned and the doctor assured me that all the malignancy was removed. I couldn’t look at the cosmetic results right away, since they wrapped my whole upper head in a bandage. I was able to return to work the same day, looking like that guy playing a fife in the middle of that iconic Revolutionary War painting, except that I had a $4,000 doctor’s bill sticking out of my pocket. But my coworkers we really impressed at the dedication I showed by coming in with such an apparently brutal head wound.

My next significant experience came in 2003 while I was planning my first business trip to India. I had noticed occasional discomfort in my groin for a few weeks before a particularly acute episode sent me home from work to wander restlessly around my house. When I went to the doctor later that morning, he immediately recognized the wandering as a symptom of kidney stones (go figure). X-rays confirmed the presence of a crystalline mass lodged firmly in my urethra. “It’s about six millimeters in diameter,” the technician told me, but failed to note whether that was considered small, medium or super-sized. Regardless, it was bad enough to require what they refer to in the business as a urologic intervention. Unless I passed the stone naturally or wanted to risk the male equivalent of childbirth while 35,000 feet in the air over the Middle East, I needed to get this taken care of.

Shortly before the outpatient procedure, called a “simple basket extraction,” I thought I might’ve avoided it entirely. After using the urinal at work, I looked down to see a corn-kernel-sized piece lying next to the scent cake. Had I painlessly expelled the stone and avoided costly surgery? Unfortunately, it turned out to be exactly what it looked like – a piece of corn – though I fail to understand even today how it got there.

Either kidney stone or granola

 

 

 

Going ahead with the physician-assisted removal turned out to be fairly simple, at least for me. The trickiest part was counting backwards from 100, and then waking up to ask when we were going to start, only to discover the doctor had not only finished but left the building. The nurses kept watch on me until I was able to wiggle my toes and pee on my own, which took only a few hours. Recovery was quick and relatively pain-free, and I’ve survived to this day without another incident.

What you’ll doubtless be glad to hear is the last experience I’ll recount was the highly recommended (by doctors, not by patients) diagnostic colonoscopy. As veterans of this wonder of medical science will tell you, the worst part comes the day before when you have to drink huge amounts of a foul liquid designed to cleanse your system of everything you’ve ever consumed. Once this is accomplished, you’re ready for your outpatient visit at the hospital. There was no backward counting this time; instead, you get an injection that puts you into a “dream sleep” where your dream consists of someone putting the proctological equivalent of a Swiss army knife (including a light, camera, scalpel, eraser, fountain pen and comb, I seem to recall) several feet up your colon. I do remember lying on my side and watching a TV show where the plot consisted of a cute little pink character named “Polyp” being snipped by a “Mr. Scissors”. The next thing I remember after that, I was arguing with my doctor about the billing.

It seems there’s a loophole in the way most insurance companies view the colonoscopy. They urge you to get one, they tell you it’s fully covered because it’s purely diagnostic in nature, but if they find anything that needs to be removed (which they apparently always do), then the diagnostic designation disappears and you’re suddenly responsible for a percentage of the $5,000 cost. Or, you could choose to have them maintain the status quo by shouting “hey, leave that thing alone” during your dream sleep. I almost came to the point of demanding that my gastroenterologist reinstall the polyp before I finally knuckled under and paid the fee.

I seriously doubt that any of these conditions, left untreated, would’ve led to my untimely demise. I suppose I could’ve had colon cancer, renal failure or an ear fall off, though chances are excellent I would’ve survived at least two out of three. Had they occurred later in life, I think I might’ve considered that option more seriously. I hope Griffin Bell didn’t suffer too much from treatments for the kidney and pancreas problems when his larger issue was that he was 90 years old. I’m not sure living to a ripe old age just for the sake of hitting a really high number is a worthy goal. It seems like the oldest living person is dying every other day anyway.

 

You want my advice? (Pt. 10)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a love-lorn teenager.

Q. At school last year there was this guy that I really liked. He was just a friend but then I realized that I really liked him! We ride together on the school bus, so while we were on the bus I asked him for his phone number. He said, “I don’t think so. I don’t want you to bug me.” Now what do I do? – Cute Girl in Third Row Who Accidentally Fell Out the Emergency Exit That Time

A. Some guys like to play hard-to-get, and I’m thinking that’s what’s going on here. You need to keep after him in every way you can think of – late-night knocking on his door, throwing pebbles at his windows, moving into his attic, etc. It’s only proper that you don’t technically “bug him,” since he made that specific request, but asking his friends to wear a wire is completely within reason.

Maybe a story from my school days will be enlightening. There was this girl I liked in the first grade and I think she liked me too. I wrote her a note – I don’t remember the specific language I used, but I’m pretty sure “like” was in there a lot – however I was too shy to hand it to her personally. I knew where she lived so I walked by the house and threw the folded piece of paper onto her lawn. Whether she eventually got it or her father simply ran over it with the lawn mower I’ll never know. Eventually, though, we entered into a tumultuous relationship that ended on the balcony of a Paris hotel where she struck me with an exquisite piece of Waterford crystal when I called her a “doody-head.” When we returned to second grade that next fall, we knew we were not meant to be.

My point is that young love has a way of resolving itself, though it usually involves an unwanted pregnancy. You just need to look your best, be kind and friendly when you’re around him, and slip some rohypnol (the so-called “date-rape drug”) into his Full Throttle when he’s not looking. When he falls to the floor of the bus, sit on his face, and I think you’ll be “2 forward + 2 be = 4 gotten.”

 

 

 

 

Website review: M&M’s.com

While I was at a theater recently waiting for the movie to start, I temporarily pulled my attention away from the trailer for Kevin James’ Oscar-bound vehicle “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” to read my M&M’s wrapper. I wasn’t too surprised to discover there’s an M&M’s website (mms.com, not the mandm.com I might’ve expected, which is being cyber-squatted on by men who like Depeche Mode) and I promised myself I’d check out this internet curiosity the next time I couldn’t find anything better online.

Several months later, I made my first visit and was delighted to learn there’s a world of enchantment behind that hard candy shell. The folks from Mars – the candy company that owns M&M’s, not the single-celled life forms on the nearby planet – have put a lot of work into dreaming up ways they can sell all things M-related. They offer not just the candy itself, with colors and imprints I could hardly believe, but an immense variety of merchandise, recipes, games and allergen warnings. Let’s review the site map as soon as I down a handful of America’s favorite sedative-shaped chocolate treat.

Mmmmmmmmm! I love the taste of ampersands.

The home page currently features three revolving promotions: exploring the five fabulous flavors of new M&M premiums; the somewhat-outdated “make holiday magic with M&M’s and Martha (Stewart, I’m guessing, not Washington)”; and the “bring ‘M’ to the party” Super Bowl campaign. I’m guessing “M” is the cool new identity designed to appeal the younger generation, who love the brevity of single-lettered terms, as in “let’s do some ‘X’” and “I have to ‘P’”. This is where I also learned that the iconic “melts in your mouth, not in your hands” slogan has been replaced with “Always Fun,” which works, I guess, unless one of them gets lodged in your trachea.

The recipe section was largely predictable, taking just about any cake, cookie or pie concoction and throwing a bunch of M&Ms into the mix. There were a few interesting ideas that wouldn’t have occurred to me (“put ‘em in your coffee!”) as well as a number of others that struck me as a bit of a stretch. These would include the Autumn Turkey Casserole, Citrus Basil Sangria and something called “Plantains with Mex,” which I hope includes a type of southwestern flavoring and not an actual Mexican. In addition to the recipes was a related section called crafts, which offered creative ways to assemble the M’s into works of art. Among the more inspired suggestions were the Eight Nights of Light cupcakes (for the Jewish holiday known as Hanukkah, which Mars has apparently moved to January), a party pizza cookie with M&M’s standing in for pepperoni and anchovies (two of the aforementioned “five fabulous flavors” I suppose) and a holiday wreath made of hundreds of green M&Ms crazy-glued together into a wheel.

Other ways to incorporate the M&M experience into your personal lifestyle included bedding, clocks and, not surprisingly, extra-large sweatpants; online games such as “Red vs. Green,” “Flip the Mix” and “Shmuffleboard” (that’s right, spellcheck, shuffleboard with an “m”); and the company’s venture into sports marketing with a sponsorship of NASCAR driver Kyle Busch. This last section is particularly interesting to those of us in the South. We get to read about the entire crew – cleverly dubbed the guys who “show grit in the pit” by some pathetic corporate copywriter – including jack man Jeff Fender, who  during his downtime enjoys fishing, the music of Bad Company, and long walks on the beach without being hit by racecar. We also see Kyle himself, posing at the track alongside a cocky-looking M dressed in a fireproof suit, because though he won’t melt in your hand, he doesn’t do real well with 900-degree gasoline fires. We get to read extensively about Kyle’s 2008 season, lowlighted by a nineteenth-place finish in Miami, a solid eighth in Phoenix and “surviving crash-filled Talladega despite damage from a late-race accident” to celebrate his birthday May 2 with M&M candies and “finding his inner M.”

Another way that Mars is trying to engage the candy-buying public is with the opportunity to create your own virtual characters. To get you started, they show a group of anthropomorphic sweets sitting around a breakroom table with coffee (WATCH OUT!!) and “Hi my name is” tags identifying them as Stacy, Naomi, Larry, Tony and Mike. A few of these guys are what you might call slightly edgy-looking – no body piercings or purple hair but a tattooed “m” on their chins. We see another set of unnamed characters standing proudly in front of a picture of an actual 50-foot M&M-styled Statue of Liberty holding her beacon skyward near the Brooklyn Bridge in 2007. One of these characters does have a mohawk, perhaps in recognition that Lady Liberty welcomes the tired, the wretched and the haircut-impaired.

My favorite part of the mm.com website is where you can order personalized M&M’s with words, faces and colors of your choosing. The faces consist primarily of the characters noted above and the colors include just about any pastel you can imagine. The words, however, are subject to a list of do’s and don’ts. The do’s include the requirement to use nice words, be cheerful, have fun and be expressive, just as long as you don’t take your basic American freedoms too far. You can’t use obscenities, proper nouns like business, celebrity or product names and, “to avoid any confusion and keep everyone safe, we will not print any reference to prescription drugs, especially those that are in pill form.” To drive this last point home, they show a diagonal “no” slash through a candy that reads “Mary’s pills.”

Finally, there’s the boilerplate part you see on just about every commercial website, offering basic facts about the company. We learn that Mars also makes Uncle Ben’s rice, Combos snack crackers, Seeds of Change for the home gardener, and a disturbing quantity of cat food varieties, including Whiskas, Sheba and Pedigree. An ingredients section talks mostly about potential allergens in their products, with additional unnerving references to bass, cod, crab and shrimp (hopefully these are in the cat foods, not candies like Skittles and Snickers.)

Then there’s a store locator to help you find where to buy M&M’s. It’s hard to imagine that locating the ubiquitous dark brown bag we all know and love is really a problem, unless perhaps you’re on safari in Kenya. I keyed in the zip code where I’m writing this posting and found that there are bags for sale in the drugstore across the street, the gas station opposite that, the bookstore on the other corner, and the dollar store three doors down. In total, there are 29 outlets within ten miles of my house.

I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about this fine all-American product and what makes it so special. Watch for more website reviews in future Friday postings.

 

Breaking news from the local paper

Being an old guy, I’m understandably a fan of old media, or what we used to call newspapers. I remember how excited I was the first time I had my picture in the local paper, as an awkward preteen caught in mid-air jump during a tryout for a local production of “The Sound of Music.” A few years later, I had a letter to the editor published that espoused human rights for broccoli in The Miami Herald. I spent many hours I should’ve been sitting in college classes instead working for the student newspaper, where my big achievement was planting a story about a meeting of the Streakers Club, which ultimately led to a mention in Newsweek magazine and a nationwide craze.

If that’s not the most bizarre career arc in journalism, it’s probably pretty close. I applied for a few editorial positions with publications as esteemed as the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat and the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer after college, but fortunately for everybody involved I didn’t get the jobs. Still, I’ve remained a life-long news junkie, subscribing to a number of papers (two).

In many ways, my favorite is the small local daily in my mid-sized South Carolina city. It’s a surprisingly professional periodical with just enough small-town amateurism to keep me unintentionally entertained. Today and tomorrow, I’m going to highlight (copy) a few of the more memorable features I’ve encountered in the last month. We’ll start with the news side of the operation.

From a “Fireworks primer” published during the holiday season: “Shooting fireworks from a moving vehicle or at a vehicle is prohibited. Nominate a ‘designed shooter’ for your fireworks display if alcoholic drinks are part of your plans. Let neighbors know your plans – hearing firecrackers explode unexpectedly outside the window can be a shock.” You think?

From “Deaths in the news”: “George Francis, the nation’s oldest man, died Saturday. He was 112. The UCLA gerontologist who maintains a list of the world’s oldest people says the oldest living person is Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who is 115.” Or at least she was a living person at press time.

From “(Local) woman hopes for return of stolen Jesus”: “(She) has set up a crèche every year in the yard of her home for as long as she can remember. The two stolen figures [a wise man was also snatched] can’t be replaced, she said, because she bought them four or five years ago from Carolina Pottery, which has since (gone out of business.)”

From a correction: “In a story about actor David Spade donating $100,000 to the Phoenix police, the AP erroneously reported the first name of a Phoenix police spokesman. His name is Andy Hill.” You would’ve thought the error was going to be that David Spade even had $100,000.

From the sports section: “Practice starts Jan. 12 for men’s (college) golf, with the season opener set for Feb. 15 at the Rice Intercollegiate. Practice starts Jan. 12 for women’s golf, with the season opener set for Feb. 22 in Kiawah Island.” Nothing matches the excitement of college golf – the pep band, the cheerleaders, the tailgating, the ceremonial washing of the balls…

From “Religious recordings hidden in dolls”: “Jennifer Calandra bought dolls at Wal-Mart for her daughters shortly after Thanksgiving. What she ended up with was a baby doll that says ‘Islam is the light.’ Calandra said she thought she was going crazy. She exchanged the doll for another but the second doll said the same thing. ‘It’s not really something you want to hear coming from a doll,’ she said. The doll’s message has sparked a lot of questions from her 7-year-old daughter about religious tolerance. She wants to know why it’s wrong to say ‘Islam is the light.’”

From the veteran local gardening columnist: “The kids are here! The grandkids are here! They were throwing a party for us so of course I had to get a hairdo. First let me tell you about the party tables. Each had three candlesticks, special ornaments turned upside-down and secured with double-sided tape, and a bed of greenery. The theme was repeated outdoors using large concrete urns filled with kitty litter. I ventured into the foggy night to gather more greenery … golden mophead cypress and Siberian Iris seedpods and twigs. What a difference those twigs make! It was nearly 3 a.m. when I brushed my teeth, glanced into the mirror and went into shock. My pretty hairdo was long gone, a victim of our misty foray into the woods.”

Finally, from two separate letters to the editor: “We recently attended the Cheer for Children Charity event and were really impressed. The crowd was lively, loud and good. Meaningful gifts were distributed.” And the other letter: “There are several states that have God on their license plates. Yet even though the plate costs $29 and gives Christians their first amendment rights for free expression, the judge shot it down. Separation of church and state doesn’t apply when Muslim students are allowed to pray in school several times a day, or where taxpayer money was used to provide foot baths so these students could clean their feet before praying.”

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at some local advertising.

 

Amusing ads from the local paper

Yesterday, I wrote about (made fun of) some of the news items I found amusing in our small hometown newspaper. Today I’m going to mock the advertising side of operations.

From an ad for a local car dealer: “Free breakfast with the purchase of any new or previously owned vehicle.” Some are offering thousands of dollars in cash back, some are giving away gas cards, one carmaker is even offering to take the car back with no obligations if you lose your job. But how many will give you a cup of coffee and a free McMuffin (and hash browns) with your new Ford Focus?

From another desperate car dealer: “All credit applications accepted.” Note that they used the word “accepted,” not “processed,” “read,” “considered,” or “acted upon.” This same dealer also offers something special on their website: “up to 60 photos per car.” I would never consider buying a car online with only 40 or 50 photos, but somehow 60 seems like the right minimum.

From a fitness center trying to lure new customers with the high quality of their personal trainers: “Not all personal trainers are equal. At BOROCK, our standards are high. Our trainers are specially eductated [sic] to offer you the best in fitness.” Proof positive that you don’t have to be a good speller in order to clean and jerk 350 pounds.

From the county’s newest independent assisted-living facility: “Enhanced dementia care. Beside Outback Steak House.” The convenience of this set-up is that if your elderly Alzheimer’s-addled loved one does wander away from supervision, you know where you’ll find them – face down in a Bloomin’ Onion.

From a furniture store promoting a mattress sale: “Purchase any Tyndall Pedic Visco Memory Foam Mattress Set during this sale and receive a $1000 shopping spree.” That’s a lot of adjectives to describe a mattress set. But even more interesting is the adjacent picture of an astronaut fully dressed-out for an extra-vehicular spacewalk. The apparent connection is that the mattress features three layers of “certified space technology,” whatever that is. Among other features of the bedding listed in a bulleted checklist: “fibromyalgia, hands tingle, lower back pain, pain sitting at desk, nervous leg syndrome, diabetes, pain driving, arthritis, hurting shoulders, many other sleep problems.” These are listed as features that will come with the mattress, but I’m pretty sure they mean these problems will be alleviated, not imparted.

From the owner of an air conditioning and heating firm that suffers from the sad but silent epidemic of mental illness which accompanies price reductions everywhere: “AM I CRAZY? I’m offering my $179 furnace super tune-up for only $89… and I guarantee your system won’t break down this winter or this service is FREE!!!” Accompanying the offer is photo of owner Charlie Reid, known to his friends as the “King of Comfort.” I just love a promotion that offers you more of the same defective product or service if you’re not satisfied the first time. “If you don’t like our meatloaf lunch special, here, have another one.”

From another heating and cooling company, this one a bit punctuation-challenged: “Comfort you can depend on, is just a phone call away.” The ad also proclaims “from all of us to you – Jesus is the reason for the season.”

Speaking of Jesus, the most touching of all advertisements in the paper are those located on the obituary pages, remembering beloved family members who have passed on. An elderly lady who died in 2004 is wished “Merry Christmas on your 5^th Christmas with Jesus.”

Obituary pages, though very sad for obvious reasons, have a certain something about them I’ll be addressing in a future posting. Look for it soon.

When I first learned to blog

The following is a piece I wrote as a submission to our local newspaper when they expressed interest in the subject of local blogging a few months ago. Though it “doesn’t meet their needs at this time,” I believe that by “this time” they mean “while humans walk the earth.” So rather than waste my efforts, I’m putting it in as today’s posting.

As a fifty-something middle-class European-American, I long ago gave up any aspirations to be on the cutting edge of modern culture. There was a brief period years ago when I might’ve considered myself marginally “cool” – I think it was for about a half-hour during my junior year of college – but once you find yourself with a family, a suburban home and a corporate career, you are so far past cool as to need only a light jacket.

I like to think, however, that I’m at least aware of all the latest happenings among the younger generation. Though I choose not to indulge, I know all about the discos, the hip-hop, the so-called “brake” dancing, where kids stop and reverse direction in mid-tumble. I’ve heard the music of Madonna, LL Coolio J-Z, and Fall-Down Boy. I have a cell phone and I’ve walked past the video game section in Best Buy. And I’ve learned enough about computers and the Internet to think I’ve found a niche where perhaps I can rekindle enough of my def self to put a toe in the kids’ pool.

I’ve started a blog.

The young people out there know what I’m talking about, but let me take a moment to explain this phenomenon to any of my contemporaries who aren’t familiar with the concept. The blog has nothing to do with Steve McQueen and meteors exuding a pink, gooey substance (that’s “The Blob,” as I was embarrassed to learn a little too late) and everything to do with chronicling your every thought, move and breath for a fascinated world to follow. It’s a little like being an exhibitionist from the comfort of your home, without the gross and illegal parts.

I went online and found WordPress and Blogger, two of the more popular sites that serve as portals to the time-space wormhole known as the “blogosphere.” This huge ball of Internet waves, sitting in geosynchronous orbit over south Asia, is where you choose your blog name, create your profile, even upload video, if you can find the VHS port on the side of your laptop. The setup is quick and remarkably painless (as long as you keep your power cord out of the water) and before you know it, you’re a blogger!

Now that you’ve got the infrastructure in place, you need to turn your attention to something known as “content.” This annoying but necessary part of keeping a blog requires you to think of something interesting to put in your postings so that when people open your webpage, there will be words instead of blank space, which tends to discourage return visits. From looking at some of the blogs already out there, it seems that your content doesn’t have to be especially pertinent – cats, lawyer jokes and death threats are a few common themes – it mostly just has to be there.

My favorite subject so far, as I hope you’ve been able to guess from the last 491 words that preceded these, is humor. Since standards aren’t especially high, what with the lack of editors, fact-checkers and other mainstream media flotsam, all you need to do is position your screen pointer on the “write” tab and click it to open a window that looks something like an email entry. Type until your hands get tired and then press the “publish” button.

At this point, you’re usually given the option to “view site” so you can see what you just wrote in a slightly different format, but one that is now being viewed by millions of people around the world. Or at least that’s how I thought it worked. Turns out that the hardest part of blogging once you’ve gotten this far is figuring out how to get people to actually visit your blog. I believed that once your posting went up, there’d be a flashing signal on every computer then online that would direct readers to stop whatever they were doing and read all about you. I kept watching for evidence of all this traffic to show up in the comments that record what visitors think of your hard work. It’s the positive reinforcement of these remarks – notes like “wow, you’re terrific” and “worst blog ever” – that provide the incentive for people to keep up their blogs for weeks at a time. It’s been slow to come in my case, though with networking, webcasting and poking people with sticks, I’m starting to build a respectable audience.

It’s certainly not money that provides the motivation for blogging. If you’re thinking about joining in this communications revolution as a way to add a little extra income during this time of tight cash, you’ll find out quickly that that’s not how it works. Though my laptop does have a slot on one side that looks about the right size to spit out fifty-dollar bills, they haven’t come yet, and I’m starting to think they never will. Still, I’ve achieved the satisfaction of joining a community of like-minded citizens to whom connectivity, even though it’s virtual, gives us all a sense that we’re involved in something very, very special.

Being cool.

You want my advice? (Pt. 11)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, design, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a reader in the midst of a home redecoration.

Q. We are starting to renovate our kitchen and are thinking about basic black and gray and white. We would like modern, but not too cold. Maybe a bit Oriental. We also wanted to install a backsplash that has the “wow” factor. We want to replace the current countertop, which is tropical brown granite, and the deep sill of the bay window over the sink also needs tile. We’re also removing a dated sunshine ceiling light, which leaves a 3-by-4 foot rectangle that is unfinished, plain gyprock. The rest of the ceiling is popcorn finish. We’re installing three pendant lights. Our kitchen is contemporary with cream cabinets. How can we unify the ceiling? –Worried, Perhaps Even a Bit Paranoid

A. You’re under arrest for possession and distribution of methamphetamine. Put down the trowel and step away from it slowly.

Seriously, what is it with you ambitious do-it-yourselfers and your plans for creating the perfect home? Can’t you think of anything better to do with your free time? Maybe you should take up a more soothing hobby, like golf, stamp collecting, or occasional sleep.

I can try to answer your questions, but I’ll tell you up front that my heart’s not really in it, considering I live in a house with 15-year-old carpeting that used to be tan but now tends more toward a muted shade of cat-stain.

I’d say black and gray and white sound just about right for your kitchen; you can avoid the cold feel and add an Oriental touch at the same time by adding a flaming Buddha to your breakfast nook. I don’t even know what a backsplash is, so instead of a “wow” factor you’d be getting the “huh?” factor from me.  I’d go counter-intuitive on the countertop and replace the granite with hard cheese, maybe a nice Gouda. I also don’t know what a “deep sill,” “sunshine ceiling light,” “gyprock,” or “pendant light” is. I’ve heard of rectangles and popcorn, though admittedly not in the context of home décor. So I’ll refrain from advice on these issues, except to note that popcorn is to be avoided on a low-res diet.

Your final question about unifying the ceiling I feel fairly comfortable answering. You’ll definitely want all parts of the ceiling to touch all other parts, so as to avoid rain and bees.

Good luck with your renovations! I hope you finish before the Rapture.

This post not available in stores

With the poor economy continuing to affect TV advertising revenue, you see more and more direct marketing commercials selling items that are “not available in stores.” These ads typically feature extremely agitated pitchmen, a toll-free order number, a price that’s typically $19.95, and tiny-font shipping and handling charges that run you another $12. If you order now you can get two, and don’t forget that these items are not available in stores, probably because the idea behind stores is that they offer products people actually want and need to buy.

It used to be that you only saw these commercials late at night, when you were so worried about how you’d deal with sudden urges to fish that you couldn’t sleep. And mercifully, there would be an ad for the “pocket fisherman.” Now you’re likely to see these kinds of spots any time of the day or night. An NPR report recently explained the trend: as traditional advertisers reduce their budgets, local stations make leftover air time available to these low-end buyers at drastically reduced rates. One ad buyer interviewed admitted he was a “bottom feeder,” which I think would be an excellent name for a product: Try the BottomFeeder! You’ll never need to buy bathroom tissue again!

A lot of the trailblazers in this industry have unfortunately been made archaic by modern technology. The Ginsu Knives, famous for cutting through a can, were so sharp and awkward to use that most of their purchasers accidentally slashed their wrists. The Medic Alert bracelet, for when you’ve fallen and can’t (or simply don’t want to) get up, was antiquated by the cell phone. The Clapper, which allowed you to turn stuff on from across the room, was discontinued when seniors began using the Segway to travel effortlessly about their homes from light switch to light switch.

One of the promoters currently most in demand for these frenetic spiels is a bearded, raspy-voiced fellow named Billy Mays. Son of baseball’s Willie Mays, who roamed centerfield for the San Francisco Giants for over two decades on his way to 12 Golden Gloves and the Hall of Fame, Billy wanted to get out from the shadow of his famous father. His big break came in the ‘90s when he was selected to be spokesman for the Bedazzler, a tool that embedded plastic gems into jackets, jeans and that household pet desperately in need of a makeover. He later sold items like OxiClean, the Mantis Tiller and Miracle Whip (I can’t remember ever seeing him hawk the well-known mayonnaise substitute, so I can only guess this product was instead some kind of domination device).

Described by The Washington Post as having a “signature yelling approach” and being “known for screaming in lieu of talking during infomercials … a full-volume pitchman, amped up like a candidate for a tranquilizer-gun takedown,” Mays was last seen branching out into the service economy. He was recently named the new voice of iCan Benefit Group, “the first company offering health insurance Billy Mays has been excited to endorse.” (He’s endorsed many other insurance plans, but steadfastly refused to be excited by them until now.) I anticipate a not-too-distant future in which Billy sells everything from mutual funds to cremation services in his classic manic shriek.

Mays is not affiliated with the infomercial product that most recently has been all over the airwaves — I mentioned him mainly because I wanted to see how many readers would buy the Willie Mays connection. I’m talking here about the “Loud and Clear” sound-amplifying device that fits in your ear like a Blutooth cell phone apparatus. No longer will your difficulties interpreting sound be obvious to all who can see the electroacoustic device in your ear; now, they’ll think you’re just another self-absorbed tool enamored with pointless technology that hangs off the side of your head. I can hardly wait for the next-gen app that enhances your smelling abilities with the brushed-steel device that protrudes from your nose.

Rather than using a spokesperson, the Loud and Clear commercials feature actors pretending to go through their daily routines enjoying the life-enhancing properties of a monstrous hearing aid. There’s a guy in bed next to his annoyed wife, who’s giving him dirty looks because the TV is too loud for her to sleep, until he discovers the Loud and Clear and can turn that damn thing down. There’s a woman rocking out to the kitchen radio while her husband tries but fails to concentrate on his laptop work. Rather than asking him to get his stupid computer off the kitchen table, she’s seen moments later happily accessorized in her Loud and Clear. Others are involved in a number of activities designed to demonstrate that today’s seniors aren’t your father’s old people – they’re energetically playing bingo, strolling through the woods in tight jeans, and listening in on two neighbors having a private discussion across the street.

This last example hints at the more malicious uses of the Loud and Clear, which are also illustrated in the commercial with a surprising lack of guilt. One scene shows a guy, hopefully a private detective, sitting at the wheel of his parked car with the amplifier in his ear and a camera in his hands. He becomes suddenly attentive, clicks the camera at some off-screen scene, then nods in quiet satisfaction at how easily he was able to get naked pictures of his kid’s hot teacher. I’m not sure how the hearing device helped with this, unless maybe it keeps him on guard for the piercing sirens of approaching squad cars.

Generally, though, the Loud and Clear is shown engaging in harmless fun. There’s a party scene where a trio of attractive women are chatting, then the shot widens to show the eavesdropping stud who’s delighted to learn they’re talking about him. There’s a hunter in the woods — hopefully not the same woods with the tight-jeaned woman — using the hearing enhancer to listen for the rustle of live game. I only hope the L&C has a volume control handy, because when he lets loose with that shotgun, he’s going to get way more amplification than he bargained for. There’s a quiet conversation at home with the family, above a caption that reads “HEAR PEOPLE AROUND YOU!”

Probably the worst, most devious thing about this product is that I want one. I can tell that my hearing has declined in recent years, and I recognize that it would be nice to watch television and have some idea of why Howie Mandell is beating that guy over the head with a baseball bat. My world could be so much richer.

Actually, I think I’d like to have two, one protruding out of each ear. Maybe if I order now…

 

You want my advice? (Pt. 12)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, design, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a reader in the midst of a spiritual crisis.

Q. Why should I believe in Jesus and give up my lifestyle right now, if God will forgive me anyway whenever I ask him? Why not wait until I’m about ready to die? I like the way I’m living. – Tweet from the Floor (And I Do Mean the Floor) of the S’Uptown Dance Club

     A. Is that right? God will forgive you a lifetime of sins even on the day you die? Hang on a second while I check Bible.com.

     Wow, you’re right! I did not know that. Right there in Revelations 13:35-36, it says: “For ye shall be able to do all kinds of unrighteousness — up to and including sins of the flesh, sins of the spirit, and sins upon thy brother and thy father – as long as ye shall call upon the Lord during your last days and ask that He give unto you a break.”

     So what’s the point of living a proper and sin-free life? If you can lie and steal and murder and work for the Bush Administration during your days here on Earth, and you can still get into heaven with a deathbed confession of your wrongdoing and a new-found faith in God, why wouldn’t you want to do as much harm as possible in the time you have? Because even the “God-less” can have some sense of propriety and a recognition of what’s right and what’s wrong? That can’t be true.

     In my role as a leading theologian and an Authorized Vessel through which the Lord speaks unto all the world, I would still advise that you not to be so callous and calculating in the timing of your final confession. What if you’re walking down the street and suddenly struck by a truck? By a meteor? By a runaway train? I have connections and can make it happen, just like that if I want to. You might survive for a second or two plastered on the grill of that speeding Freightliner but I wouldn’t count on having your wits about you. They’ll probably be lying in the road about a hundred feet back.

     Get right with the Lord now, I say unto you. I’m not kidding around.

Website review: CNN.com

This … is … C … N … N.

So intoned the Lord our God, in his only commercial spokesperson role, some 40 years ago when the Cable News Network premiered. I was an early adopter of the cable news format when it was first made available in the 1970s, and have been a fan of its derivative networks since then. I enjoyed watching Braves baseball, Turner Classic Movies and the unchanging drumbeat of Headline News (now rechristened HLN) repeating the same stories over and over and over. I got a vicarious kick out of Ted Turner’s unsuccessful mergers, with both Jane Fonda and Time Warner. I’ve even taken the tour at the Atlanta headquarters, ascending the world’s tallest escalator to end up in a tiny room where they explain how the weather people can’t even see what they’re pointing at as they wave their arms in front of a green screen. Amazing!

Having seen the bricks and mortar of the operation, I was eager to take a look the digital and the virtual in the form of the network’s website, CNN.com. As you might imagine, the home page is heavy on the headlines of breaking news. Thursday’s highlights included must-reads such as: “Rabid fox attacks dad, son,” “Man complains about Buddhas at zoo,” “Cow gas tax not happening,” “Eighteenth Porta-Potty set on fire” and “Iowan: Cold hurts, makes ‘skin burn.’” There’s also promotion of a feature about what’s on schoolchildren’s minds (“Make Iraq war go away”) and an offer to update your Facebook status while you watch the inauguration on CNN.com.

CNN is working hard – some might say a little too hard – to make itself relevant in the new-media landscape that potentially threatens its very foundation. In its efforts to involve viewers and make them more a part of the news operation, it’s giving Average Joes nearly equal footing with its staff of veteran journalists. While participation from the grassroots can offer a broader perspective on the events of the day, it can be distracting to those of us used to a little more professionalism.

Take the concept of the “iReport,” a user-generated site containing stories that are “not edited, fact-checked or screened.” Just the kind of reliable information source you want. One recent example went beyond news into the realm of opinion and policy-making, allowing an iReporter to offer his views on how to fix the most severe economic crisis of our time. Zennie Abraham, also known as “Zennie62,” offered his taxpayer stimulus package to CNN chief business correspondent Ali Velshi. Zennie’s plan calls for a $3,500 stimulus check to those making less than $100,000 a year, presumably including Zennie. Velshi said such a plan wasn’t targeted enough to work but Zennie defended his idea: “$3,500, particularly for college students and their parents, can help pay for their housing.” (Sounds like someone trying to afford first and last month’s rent so he can move out of his parents’ basement.) CNN’s Velshi, after hearing the explanation – and mindful perhaps of the network’s changing demographics – started to agree. “That could work,” he said lamely.

Another new feature a little too close to the cutting edge for my comfort is the Rick Sanchez Show, wherein Rick attempts to moderate a Twittering free-for-all that’s taking place in a strip across the bottom of his screen. He tries his best to turn submissions like “great rap, agree … disagree no matter … all good. gots to go to bed. will do again morrow” and “hey, why’s ur girlfriend gaining weight again. u making her too happy?” into relevant commentary on the topic at hand. He squirms so hard at some points that you fear he’ll pull a muscle.

The website also includes details and extras about certain on-air personalities and the efforts they go to in making themselves more interesting. The “Today”-equivalent morning show on HLN is called “Morning Express with Robin Meade,” featuring a former beauty queen with a chatty manner, a smile as wide as  Heath Ledger’s Joker, and the kind of extreme makeup required in today’s high-definition production. Robin hosts the Morning Express Challenge, a news quiz where both the first correct answer and a randomly drawn player win the same prize – an autographed picture of Robin – but both are enrolled in a chance to win the grand prize, a trip to Atlanta to meet Robin in person. We also see Robin posed in what looks like the open bay door of a helicopter, the smile wisely turned upside down as she offers her “Salute to the Troops.” And, you can sign up for her daily email news preview, sent out early each morning in her signature lower-case style: “morning glory! let’s shake the sleepy out of you. this isn’t our top story, but i love this one: too much caffeine can make you hallucinate and see ghosts. okay, how much are we talking? more on that.” I actually subscribed to this service for a while, until I cancelled after realizing there’d be no pictures of Robin still in her baby-doll pajamas.

Other highlights around the site include pictures of Indo-hunk Surgeon General-designate Sanjay Gupta, promotions for the “News to You” show (a kind of “Best Week Ever” rip-off without the snark), and the obligatory nod to Nancy Grace’s all-consuming obsession with the Caylee Anthony case. I looked for something on CNN’s resident right-winger Glenn Beck, but he’s apparently left the company for a new and more welcoming home on Fox News. Either way, I’m glad to see network news offering a big enough tent to employ those afflicted with uncontrollable facial tics such as Glenn’s.

You can also sign up for CNN Mobile alerts, in case you want to be notified immediately via your cell phone should there be a warning about Vicks Vaporub or how “doctor [is] interested in seeing kids not kidney, lawyer says.” I tried to find out more about similar high-tech extras but crashed my PC twice when I tried to go to the Tools and Widgets section of the site.

All in all, it’s a respectable representation on the Web, almost deserving of the thunderous tones I quoted at the beginning of this post. If God is no longer in the promo business, maybe they can get James Earl Jones to splice a “… dot … com…” onto the audio for their site.

The mystery of health-food names

I absolutely love my neighborhood organic health-food store. They let me hang out in their small Wi-Fi-equipped café for hours at a time playing with my laptop, drinking cold bottled tea and raiding their free samples. Though the freebies don’t always complement one another — yesterday’s selections were chocolate brownie bites and garlic hummus – they’re always delicious.

My wife and I shop here on a regular basis, so I don’t feel too guilty doing this cyber-loitering. I blend in nicely with the houseplants and pistachio-nutshell artworks (I’m the one wearing sweatpants) and I try not to make a nuisance of myself. It’s become something of a home away from home since my hours at work were cut back a few months ago and I started getting on my wife’s nerves at home.

I’m not a big health-food consumer though I do enjoy just about anything that’s tasty and expensive. Browsing the shelves here I find a lot of products I’m sure I would enjoy, but I also see a lot of items that are something of a mystery to me. Health and organic food manufacturers have gotten very creative with their naming conventions. It does make them memorable, though often in an unintentionally funny way.

Here are some of the products I found while wandering around the store yesterday afternoon, and my guess of what they really are:

Wallaby yogurt – I’m sure it’s not made of wallaby, but I also want to know that it’s not made of wallaby milk.

Seventh Generation recycled toilet paper – Recycling is obviously a good and important thing, even in items like bathroom tissue. Taking it all the way to the seventh generation, however, seems a bit much.

Women’s bread, man’s bread, brown sandwich bread, kamut – These are all frozen bread products and are fairly self-descriptive, except for whatever the hell “kamut” is.

Dr. Praeger’s spinach pancakes – This sounds more like a prescription than a healthy side dish.

Amy’s tofu rancheros – Yee-hah, let’s round up those free-range tofus and slam ‘em into these rancheros.

Gaga’s SherBetter orange frozen dessert – I guess this is some kind of sherbet substitute. I thought sherbet was already healthier than other frozen desserts but, as the name suggests, this is even sherbetter.

Scandinavian-style Gravlax – This was displayed next to the salmon and crab dip, so I’m guessing it’s a fish product, possibly similar in nature to the notorious Norwegian lutefisk. Combining the word roots “grav” (as in “gravel” and “grave”) and “lax” (as in “laxative” and “lacks edible texture”) does not tempt me to buy it, however.

Chocolate hazelnut tea – Just doesn’t seem like a good taste combination.

Blackwing ostrich filet – “Blackwing” sounds like a disease sweeping through the ostrich population, not a brand of their tasty meat filets.

Uncured organic chicken corndogs – I know curing is considered a bad thing among whole-food purists, but it seems like if anything needs to be restored to health it’s chicken corndogs.

Ziyard vegetarian kibbeh – I had to go online to learn that kibbeh is a “Levantine dish made of burghul,” which wasn’t particularly helpful.

Quorn turk’y and chik’n products – I’m presuming these are made of corn and at least vaguely resemble the poultry products they sound like.

Dominex eggplant burgers – I’ve never before thought of the eggplant as a particularly assertive or strong-willed vegetable.

Baby Mum Mum vegetarian rice husks – Start your child out right in life with the kind of taste-free bulk that brightens the eyes of kids everywhere.

Venison jerky with sea cucumber – This product was in the pet food section, though I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the more hard-core customers here have eaten it themselves.

Organic Ghee – Ghee is a clarified Indian butter that can be stored without refrigeration. Mmm!

 

Soon, I’ll venture into the neutraceutical (pill) section of the store and report on some of those names. Stay tuned.

Now we’re cooking … with crackers

There’s been quite an explosion in culinary creativity in recent years. Things that just were not done with foods in the past are now being routinely cooked up by top-flight chefs as well as amateurs in their home kitchens. Taste combinations we couldn’t fathom ten years ago – lamb and Pez, free-range chicken and bubblegum, eggplant and Chloraseptic, pomegranate and mint-flavored toothpaste – are now so commonplace as to be almost ordinary.

Television, at least at some level, seems to have had a large part in driving this revolution. Shows like “Top Chef,” “Iron Chef” and “You Think You Can Cook? Well, Think Again” are all over the airwaves, showcasing cooks with stars in their eyes and eyeballs in their soups. Celebrities such as Anthony Bourdain, known for using his lit cigarettes as a heat source for his famous fondues, and Andrew Zimmern, the “Bizarre Foods” guy who recently added blown-out retreads and chunks of asphalt to the carbon-based matter he’s willing to consume, are well known and admired, assuming they’re still alive as of this writing. Racheal Ray brings less exotic ideas like pasta-stuffed Mom jeans to dinner tables all over the country.

But even at the everyday level where most of us live, we see these changes. Fast food restaurants that once offered only regular French fries, now also offer curly fries and seasoned fries. Pizza toppings, the most exotic of which used to be anchovies, now include pine nuts, pine cones and pine tar. You can even buy a hamburger that has another hamburger on top of it.

Large corporations have been quick to join in on this anything-goes bandwagon with suggestions of their own, cooked up in the same kitchens that brought us such entrees as high-interest junk bonds and collateralized mortgage originations. It’s a great opportunity to team even the most pedestrian snack foods with exotic recipes in the interest of selling more Fritos and Twizzlers.

One such company is Nabisco, makers of not only nature’s most perfect food, the Oreo, but also saltines, more formally known as Original Premium Saltine Crackers. The quick and easy recipe on packaging now on the shelves is the Grilled Steak Salad with Creamy Avocado Dressing. Below is the actual recipe:

Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Sprinkle steak with chili powder. Grill steak 7 minutes on each side. Remove from grill and let stand 5 minutes. Meanwhile, toss lettuce with tomatoes, onion and olives. Place Italian dressing and avocado in blender and blend until smooth. Cut steak into thin slices; arrange over salad. Drizzle with dressing mixture.

And then, the final and, some would say, most important step: Serve with the crackers.

Lives of the Dead: Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483-1546), widely regarded as the father of the Protestant Reformation and a number of unintended babies, was a German theologian and religious reformer who challenged the supremacy of the Catholic Church. He also had a vast influence on European concepts of politics, economics, education, language and hair styling, with his now-familiar bowl cut making him one of the most crucial figures in modern European history.

He was born in Eisleben (later Hitlerville, and then back to Eisleben) in what today is Germany. His father, originally known as Hans Luder, had wanted to name his son “Lex” but was convinced by his wife to go with “Abraham Martin and John,” later shortened to simply Martin. The family was descended from peasantry, but Hans made a nice living for himself and his family as a copper miner and part-time fletcher/cooper (roughly equivalent to today’s writer/director). Martin received his early education at Magdeburg and Eisenach, before enrolling at the University of Erfurt at age 17. Red-shirted during his freshman season, he became an outstanding left tackle for the Fightin’ Furter football team by the time he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1502. He passed on an opportunity for a pro career — he was projected as high as the eighth round by some scouts — and chose to stay in school to pursue his master’s, which he received in 1505.

He began to study law, as his father wished, but didn’t have enough credits to graduate so he fell back on his undergraduate major – monking — and entered the Augustinian monastery. Within a year, he had so impressed his superiors that he was selected for the priesthood, ordained, and conducted his first celebration of mass. (“Celebration” might be overstating the case, as he kept stumbling over the unfamiliar phrasing, once mispronouncing “Madonna” as “My donut.”) He continued his studies in theology, including multiple re-takes of basic Latin, until he got his big chance to go to Rome and check out how Catholicism was done in the big city.

To put it mildly, he was not impressed. In fact, he was shocked by the worldliness of the Roman clergy, especially the way they had substituted vodka shots for wine in the communions they conducted. This led him to question other basic tenets of church, and he gradually came to believe that Christians were saved not through their own efforts but instead by God’s grace. The church leadership was making a tidy fortune off the sale of indulgences, which were peddled to the peasants in the form of mugs, posters and t-shirts (“Rome Rules” was a common slogan for this merchandising). This crass effort disgusted Luther to the point where he suffered from nearly constant vomiting, though scholars recently discovered a sixteenth-century Domino’s menu that led them to believe that salmonella-tainted pizza may have been a contributing factor.

Luther finally emerged into worldwide prominence when in 1517 he was named Holy Roman Empire Today’s “Most Pious Man Alive” and became known for some graffiti he had scrawled on the door of All Saints Church in Wittenburg. This posting of the so-called Ninety-five Theses has been greatly misunderstood by historians and only recently was clarified when the old door itself was located at a garage sale in East St. Louis, Missouri. It was long believed that Luther wrote the theses before-hand and then nailed them to the cathedral door as a sign of protest and to show his growing prowess as a construction worker. In reality, Luther wrote the seminal document on-site, meticulously painting it onto the oak with a fine single-haired brush. What bothered the church elders more than what the manuscript said was the fact that he was always in the way, blocking the main entrance almost constantly during the three weeks it took him to finish. Most of the demands were not that unreasonable – for example, he wrote of the need for sturdier pews to “accommodate the ample Germanic hind.” He also wanted Wednesday night services moved to Tuesday because most members couldn’t TiVo floggings in the public square like the wealthy clergy could, and he wanted the liturgy conducted in native languages because Latin “sounds too much like they’re just making it up as they go along.”

He made it all the way through the next-to-last thesis (“94. Enough with the incense already, it’s giving everybody a headache”) with church officials only mildly curious about the progress of the bowl-headed scribe. On the morning of his final day of work, he began writing the last entry as a crowd of onlookers grew around him. “The pope is not ni…” he began. The throng began buzzing with anticipation. The pope is not what? Nitrogen-based? Nihilistic? Luther slowly added a “c”. Nicene? Nickel-plated? Then he added an “e”. “Don’t get upset everybody – it could still be ‘Nicene,’” shouted one observer, trying to quell the growing distress of the crowd. Then Luther added the punctuation mark that would change European history forever, a period. “The pope is not nice.” The multitude gasped, but soon dispersed when they heard a beheading was being set up across the street.

The Roman Curia, which is kind of like a Senate subcommittee only crankier, began an investigation that eventually led to the condemnation of Luther’s teachings in 1520 and his excommunication a year later. He was summoned to appear before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms and asked to recant. His famous assertion of conscience in the face of certain punishment – “No Can Do!” – is most likely legendary, but still he was spirited away by Prince Frederick the Wise who kept him in virtual house arrest at his castle.

Luther was able to continue much of his other life work, though it paled in comparison to royally pissing off the entire Catholic Church. He made a little money doing some free-lance translations and sticking his nose into the Peasants’ War of 1524-1526, where he supported the peasants’ political demands while repudiating their theological arguments, a fine distinction that was lost on all the people who had swords. He married a former nun, a widely acknowledged hottie by the name of Katharina von Bora, and continued his writing as his influence spread across northern and eastern Europe.

By the late 1530’s, his health began to deteriorate and he took on an anti-Semitic bent by accusing the Jews of exploiting the confusion he had caused among Christians. This made him virtually unable to locate a decent doctor, and he died on Feb. 18, 1546. His obituary, printed several days later in the Eisleben Picayune-Examiner, included a long list of his works, an even longer list of his children, and the name of his new religion: Martinism, which was later changed to Luthermania, then Lutheranism.

You want my advice? (Pt. 13)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, manners, faith, technology, geopolitics, design, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from readers looking for a more open and honest relationship with their friends.

Q. Our best friends, “Bill and Melinda,” are financially well off. My husband and I make just enough to get by. We have been friends for a long time and always have a good time together. “Bill and Melinda” are always inviting us to go with them on expensive trips. When we say we can’t afford it, they insist on paying. They even offered to buy us a membership in their country club. When we explain we’re uncomfortable with them paying for everything, they tell us the money is no big deal. How can we make them understand that we appreciate their generosity but are uncomfortable accepting their charity? – Not Only Poor But Really, Really Stupid

A. I think that if you’re truly best friends with these folks, you should be able to have an honest conversation about your concerns. I suspect they don’t even realize your discomfort, and would try to be more understanding if they did. I also would bet that they consider your friendship far more valuable than anything they could buy, and that’s why they want to be so generous.

No – forget that. It’s entirely too reasonable.

I would make a point of entertaining them the best way you can afford, in the coziness of your own home. The fanciest restaurant in the world can’t compare with a home-cooked meal of spam-and-dog-food lasagna around the small bench you call a dining room table. Go all out for this event, setting a trash fire in the corner of the room to provide the right ambience and putting a block of cheese on the back porch to draw out all the rats. After your friends have had a few glasses of malt liquor, all class differences will be forgotten.

Then, when they return the favor by inviting you into their home, be prepared to thoroughly ransack the place looking for jewelry, cash and expensive electronics to be loaded into your pick-up truck and hauled away while they’re preparing the canapés. If they happened to surprise you during your looting spree, just laugh it off – in as threatening and maniacal a laugh as you can summon.

By the way, you say these people are named “Bill and Melinda.” That wouldn’t be Bill and Melinda Gates, would it? If so, make sure you also steal the Microsoft stock certificates.

 

Impressions on an historic day

Observations on yesterday’s historic events:

• My suburb of Charlotte, NC, was slammed by two inches of snow Tuesday, grinding everyday life to a complete halt. Transportation was paralyzed, schools were closed and people stayed home from work to eat French toast, made with all the eggs, bread and milk they’d purchased the previous night. Life slowly returned to normal later in the day when all the car accidents that could possibly happen did happen. In other news, the U.S. inaugurated its first African-American president, beginning an era of hope and promise not seen in decades.
• When Chief Justice John Roberts bungled the first few lines of the presidential oath of office, I got the sneaking suspicion that he was laying the foundation for a constitutional challenge that Barack Obama was not in fact president because he didn’t say exactly the right words. What Roberts should have prompted was “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the president,” but instead he came out with “I do slovenly swear that I will facetiously execute the president of the office.” Fortunately, Obama saw what Robbie was up to and managed to recite the correct wording.
• In an attempt to capture every possible camera angle, the networks at one point were focusing their cameras through the bullet-proof glass and onto the front line of dignitaries right before the oath was delivered at noon. An astute reporter observed that the giant foreheads seen on the distinguished guests were a “funhouse mirror reflection” and not actual giant alien foreheads.
• I noticed that 10-year-old Malia Obama was fiddling with some kind of electronic device while waiting for her father’s big moment. TV commentators claimed it was a camera, but I got the distinct impression that she was texting her friends. I can only imagine the message that a pre-teen girl might send in the midst of so much attention being paid to her and her family: “OMG – my dad is becoming president – I’m so embarrassed!!!”
• I was not particularly impressed with the invocation delivered by controversial preacher Rick Warren. He managed to avoid the verb “smite” while talking about the diversity of America, but still snuck in a few ingratiating references to his own personal savior, while giving only passing acknowledgment to everybody else’s. Then, for the last quarter of the recitation, he had the nerve to sample from the Lord’s Prayer. What is he, some kind of DJ Saddleback? I just hope he’s made to pay royalties to whomever it is who owns the rights to that “Our Father, who art in heaven” lyric.
• I thought it was very sad when the Obamas had to get out of their GM-produced megamobile during the parade and begin walking because the vehicle couldn’t get above 2 mph. This was the Big Three’s opportunity for some impressive grill time before a huge national audience, and the giant Escalade broke down at least twice on the route. They were able to get it re-started both times and finally ended up at the reviewing stand in time to watch the rest of the parade.
• During some of the postgame analysis on CNN, Democratic strategist and Louisiana native Donna Brazille talked about how great it was to be so close to the historic event up on the main stage. She said she ran into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at one point and, in the spirit of bipartisanship, resisted what had to be an overwhelming temptation to punch him in the mouth. Instead, she reportedly told the Savannah-raised justice, “Georgia in da house, Louisiana in da house.” Responding with classic Thomasonian wit, the soft-spoken arch-conservative responded, “duh?”
• It was high noon, the historic moment was at hand, and inauguration coordinator Senator Dianne Feinstein takes the stage to introduce … an overhead backup band? Their set was mercifully short, just long enough for me to make a quick trip to the restroom before the presidential oath. They were just finishing when I got back, so I may not have the band lineup exactly right, but I think I know at least a few of them – cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Billy Joel and saxophonist Kenny G were immediately recognizable. It was only the tambourine player that I didn’t recognize.
• Dick Cheney made his final appearance as sitting vice president literally sitting, in a wheelchair. He couldn’t have been happy with how diabolical that made him look. Reportedly, he suffered a back sprain while helping move furniture out of his office the day before (that man-sized safe isn’t going to move itself, you know). I’ve been through similar back pain myself, and I can tell you that sitting down is not the position you want to assume. When I had my most recent spell of back spasms, I wanted to either stand up straight or lay flat the whole time; any bending at the waist was extremely painful. I guess they couldn’t wheel him into the proceedings on a stretcher, since that would make it too hard to see unless he had one of those iron-lung mirrors you see in old movies. I suppose they could’ve slanted the gurney to a 45-degree angle so he might get an actual view. That was probably vetoed, however, when they realized how much it would look like he was doing a shout-out to waterboarding.
• Since I had to watch the proceedings from the office, I had to rely on the magnificent architecture of the worldwide web to get my live feed, and things were not going well. I went to several sites I would’ve thought reliable – CNN, CBS, ABC, MSN, even, in desperation, Fox – and all of them said I could “click here for live video.” I’d click there and nothing would happen except for a circular graphic rotation. I could understand why CNN’s wasn’t working; they had to use up half their bandwidth to include inane but real-time comments from their Facebook connection (Allegra Bischoff is thinking Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are total foxes; Reza Gulastani is thinking I love everybody, God loves everybody, I think I need to study now). I finally got a site up and running just as Obama was stepping up to the podium for the main event, then … screen freeze. I rushed into the breakroom and was able to see the historic moment along with a group of African-, Asian- and Latino-Americans from our warehouse. When they broke into applause as the oath finished, it was a great moment.

Best of luck to all of us and to our new president.

You want my advice? (Pt. 14)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, manners, faith, technology, geopolitics, health, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from an elderly reader wondering about his medications.

Q. I’m an 83-year-old man and am medicated pretty well. I walk sometimes but otherwise get little exercise. Recently, I started having bad cramps at night and my legs are getting weak. Please advise me. – Old Man

A. You’ve come to the right place. I’m a 55-year-old man and am also “medicated pretty well,” if you know what I mean.

Have you ever tried Simvostat, sometimes known as “Simmies” or “Vo-vo”? It’s a drug designed to lower your cholesterol but, man, I gotta tell you, that stuff sends me totally flying. If you’re at all into mad hallucinations, this is for you. After I dose myself (don’t take with grapefruit), I’ll just lay back and stare at the clouds. Sometimes they form themselves into the Face of God and speak to me, while other times all I can see are flying monkeys and these transluscent fish that just laugh and laugh. It’s so cool, AND it’s gotten my cholesterol down to 135.

Another high I can recommend is Lorzepam, often called “Zeps” or “Lordy Lorzy” on the streets. This is ostensibly a sleep medication, but if you can manage to keep yourself awake, the effect is similar to surgical anesthesia. You’re just drifting, drifting – it feels like your brain is buzzing. If you do fall asleep, beware that side effects may include amnesia with no memory for the event, such as sleep-driving, sleep-eating and sleep-robbing-convenience-stores.

The last medication that I would “highly” recommend is something called Flomax. This is frequently prescribed to men of a certain age who may have trouble “going” or else find themselves going “all the time.” Flomax isn’t in generic form yet, so you might also ask for pharmaceutical equivalents such as Peezalot, WeeBegone or Pissanpiss. Besides fixing your prostate, this stuff makes your face literally vibrate and gives you incredible incentive to get things done (mostly involving urinals). If you need to stay up late to study for a test or prepare a presentation for work, this is the junk you want.

As for bad cramps and leg weakness, I think you’ll forget all about these problems – not to mention the names of close family members – if you try any of the above-recommended drugs. Have fun, dude.

 

Website review: Pepsi.com

There’s probably no consumer product I’ve consumed more of in my life than Pepsi-Cola. For at least the last 40 years, it’s been my everyday drink of choice – preferred over water, over beer, over tea and over coffee. Especially preferred over ice, with a straw, in a tall frosty glass. A quick calculation shows that I’ve probably spent close to $10,000 on the corn-syrup-infused soft drink over the years. I’ve downed 438,000 ounces, which amounts to over 5 million calories, which adds up to about 5,000 pounds of added bulk, roughly the weight of a modern supertanker. It also means I’ve consumed more than a million milligrams of sodium – enough to build my own salt mine.

My love affair with Pepsi began as a youth in the 1960s. It was the ultimate treat my parents could get me at the end of the day. I occasionally strayed to other brands of cola, specifically RC Cola which at the time was the only drink to come in a 16-ounce bottle. Like many, I experimented during college, trying now-defunct brands such as Jamaica Cola, Chek Cola and the poorly-conceived Ebola Cola. Pepsi’s arch-enemy, whose name I shall not allow my fingers to type, is my choice only when there’s no other choice.

There’s nothing quite like that feeling you get after about the fourth or fifth gulp, when the carbonation in your gut reaches critical mass and that gentle eruption of flavor flows back into your sinuses and, if you’re lucky, stops there. It’s “the taste that beats the others cold” and “the choice of a new generation,” to quote slogans the company has used since its creation in the nineteenth century. I’ve got a lot to live, and Pepsi’s got a lot to give. Let’s see what some of that is by visiting the pepsi.com website.

The first inclination for any consumer visiting this site, after considering the home page request to make suggestions to our new president about how to Help Refresh America (I think I can guess at least one), is to find out what it is that makes Pepsi so tasty. I know there’s water and I suspect there’s sugar, but what else gives it that special bite? Well, there’s caramel color, phosphoric acid, caffeine, sodium benzoate, potassium, citric acid and “natural flavors.” I know what caffeine is, I imagine citric acid comes from fruit, and I read somewhere that phosphorous can make you glow, all of which are good things. And who can dispute the wholesomeness of natural flavors? I can practically taste the dirt in a freshly opened can of soda.

In the “yesterday and today” section, we learn that Pepsi was invented in 1898 by Caleb Bradham and was originally called “Brad’s Drink,” a clever name that survived for days. It was created, Bradham said, to aid digestion. He said it tasted good and was good for you, unlike certain other colas I could name who bred a generation of cocaine fiends. We see a whirlwind of Pepsi logos circling the computer screen and eating up display memory before being shown the new container design. This is introduced with inspired words we could just as easily have heard during President Obama’s inaugural address: “We’re looking forward without losing sight of our past. We celebrate tomorrow, but honor yesterday. Today, we introduce the new face of our future.” Be assured, however, that “the taste remains the same” and only the marketing campaign changes.

Wandering around the site a little more, I see a part that issues “false rumor alerts,” where the company gets a chance to address concerns that the drink is made from the liquefied remains of slaughtered Amazon natives (completely untrue). The only entry here is a rather benign story about a patriotic can Pepsi allegedly produced with an edited version of the Pledge of Allegiance. Creating a patriotic can hardly seems scandalous; I can only assume that the abridged Pledge was the point of concern, maybe something about the “Republic of Richard Stanz” preparing for an attack on the American homeland.

We also see the obligatory corporate interest in protecting the environment in the form of the Pepsi Eco Challenge. I thought this might be a specific effort to restore balance to the biosphere – maybe planting a new tree for every plastic bottle cap that’s properly disposed of. Instead, it’s some vague “New Pepsi Challenge,” designed to recreate the excitement of that time the company dared consumers to choose among competing cola brands. “Today we heed a different call and face a different challenge, one that cuts across brands, companies, industries, even continents – the challenge of environmental stewardship, protecting our planet’s resources for generations to come.” I expected perhaps a call to pursue renewable stores of potassium or an end to our nation’s reliance on unfriendly suppliers of benzoate, but couldn’t find it.

It was fun to view the company’s current TV ad campaign, the “Pepsi Pass,” in which every generation is shown refreshing the world. We see Pepsi first being served at an old-time soda fountain, then the drink is successively passed to a 1920s flapper, soldiers celebrating the end of World War II, teenage drag-racers, hippies, a streaker, disco dancers, break dancers, Germans tearing down the Berlin Wall, and finally modern concert-goers. Most historians credit the pressure of Ronald Reagan’s military build-up in combination with decades of economic stagnation for the collapse of the Eastern bloc. As a loyal Pepsi drinker, I’m glad to see the truth finally told: the gassy fullness caused by drinking too much requires you to vigorously move around to get relief, and the Germans chose to get their exercise by dismantling the symbol of communism.

Finally, I did a quick review of all the current Pepsi products on the market. I barely survived the emotional roller coaster that was the rise and fall of Crystal Pepsi in the 1990s, so I was glad to see that the diversification of my favorite soft drink is still robust. We now have regular Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Caffeine-Free Pepsi, Diet Caffeine-Free Pepsi, Pepsi Max (with extra caffiene), Diet Pepsi Max, Pepsi One (with one calorie, for those who can’t stand zero-calorie drinks) and an orchard of fruit-flavored Pepsi’s, including cherry, lime, vanilla, cherry and vanilla, and caramel cream. It’s only a matter of time until we see Pepsi with Chicken Broth and Green Pepsi, with broccoli, kale, cabbage and algae.

I’m sure they’ll be wonderful. I plan to drink many thousands and thousands of ounces.

 

More celebs to rewrite history

Film actor Tom Cruise revealed last week that he had a childhood dream of killing Adolph Hitler. While on a world tour promoting his new movie “Valkyrie,” Cruise told reporters he regretted that time travel was not available for him to show up in 1930’s Europe and personally take out the Nazi leader responsible for the deaths of millions.

“I always wanted to kill Hitler, I hated him,” Cruise, 46, said. “As a child studying history and looking at documents, I wondered, ‘why didn’t someone stand up and try to stop it?’”

News of the Hollywood star’s desire to transcend the laws of time and space in an effort to preemptively remove the brutal German tyrant represented a new high-water mark among celebrity do-gooders. No longer content to adopt Third World children and raise funds to fight disease, today’s idols won’t limit themselves to what’s physically possible as they aspire to help humankind and promote their vanity projects.

Here’s a look at what other kinds of murderous retro-vengeance are on the minds and lips of the stars:

Kirsten Dunst: “When I was a very young girl, probably not more than two or three years old, I harbored a desire to kill (Hall of Fame Detroit Tiger) Ty Cobb. He was a very racist, very mean man. He may have held the all-time base-stealing record for decades, but he did it with a cleats-up style that injured many a second baseman. I really, really hated him.”

Bruce Willis: “I’ve always had a very strong distaste for the Chinese Cultural Revolution that led to the deaths of uncounted thousands. I’m not saying I’d want to kill (then-Chinese leader) Mao Tse-Tung because he did some good things to fight the Japanese during World War II. I’d just like to have been on hand to advise him against some of the more heavy-handed aspects of his efforts to overhaul his society.”

Marg Helgenberger: “Given half the chance, I’d put fifteenth president James Buchanan on my hit list. He did virtually nothing to head off what everyone could tell was going to become all-out civil war, plus he was our only bachelor president. He was a real bungler, and we’d all be better off today if his sorry ass had been eliminated before his 1856 election.”

Carson Daly: “For me, it kind of depends on how far back in time I could go. If there was no limit, I’d want to kill Alexander the Great. His reputation, as the nickname implies, is that he was an enormous political and military talent. Though he did bring Western culture as far east as India, he was very pushy about it, killing many tens of thousands of innocent people. If, however, I’m limited to just the last century or so, I’d kill (Russian tyrant) Josef Stalin.”

Philip Seymour Hoffman: “Rather than bring physical harm to flawed-but-human creatures, I’d go back to 1935 to prevent so much devastation from the Labor Day hurricane that ravaged the Florida Keys. I’m not naïve enough to think I could’ve prevented formation of the storm, but I do think I could use my histrionic acting style to warn many hundreds of residents to move to higher ground.”

Meryl Streep: “I’d kill Vlad the Impaler and I’d do it with my bare hands. Even though he was the basis for the great dramatic character of Dracula, that whole impaling thing just rubs me the wrong way.”

Roger Moore: “I’d kill Ivan the Terrible. He was just terrible – what more can you say?”

Rene Russo: “I’m not sure I’d go so far as to kill him (Oliver Cromwell), but I’d definitely do something to seriously hamper his more vicious tendencies. While I sympathize with his anti-royalist tendencies, there were more constructive ways to achieve the ascent of the Parliamentarians without all the fighting and executions.”

Dennis Quaid: “I’d kill either (Roman emperors) Caligula or Nero, I’m not sure which. Caligula was mad, so I guess you could say he had something of a medical excuse for his virtual ruin of Rome. Nero, though, you know he fiddled while Rome burned. That’s very un-cool.”

Orlando Bloom: “There’s not one individual I could name, because I was never very good at history, but I’d definitely want to do something to prevent the Spanish Inquisition. I’m a big believer in freedom of religion, so you can imagine how I feel about the idea of Catholics burning alleged heretics alive. By the way, watch for the upcoming release of my film ‘Elizabethtown,’ coming to DVD on January 31.”

John Mayer: “I know Tom Cruise is already taking care of Hitler, so I’d say I’d want to kill (Italian fascist) Benito Mussolini. He would’ve been as bad as Hitler if he had the skills, but things just didn’t quite work out for him.”

Osama bin Laden: “I’d go back in time to kill the mother and father of Mike Meyers. That ‘Love Guru’ movie absolutely sucked.”

A visit to the neutraceutical aisle

Last weekend I wrote about some of the strangely-named — and downright strange — grocery items I found in my neighborhood organic health food store. Yesterday, I wandered through what traditional stores would call their HBC section (health, beauty and cosmetics) but this store would have to call their USB section (unguents, salves and balms). Here are some of the items I found:

Candex Yeast Management System – I know yeast are living creatures, however I doubt they really need a manager. If they do, I know several from my work that I can recommend.

Super Digestaway – I’d imagine this is for people who feel their food is staying in their gastrointestinal tract for too long, and would prefer to see it expelled only moments after it is eaten.

Colon Green – I can understand the importance of an environmentally correct colon, and I hope that’s what this product delivers. If instead it actually turns your colon green, that is something I would not want, no matter how many glaciers melt as a result.

Deglycyrrhizinated Licorice Root Extract – Whatever this product is, it single-handedly broke the spellcheck function in my word processing program. It now stops on every single word and instead of offering “suggestions,” that field is simply headlined “huh?”

Intestinal Bowel Support – I hope this isn’t what it sounds like: a contraption of harnesses and trusses.

Parasite Formula – Like several of the products listed here, I’m not sure if this formula fights the title character or is comprised of it.

Gigartina Red Marine Algae (5 strains) – For those situations where four strains aren’t enough.

Dr. Ohhira’s Essential Living Oils – I’m guessing these do NOT include gasoline, motor oil, heating oil, etc.

Fucothin (concentrated Fucoxanthin) – For consumers ready to say to society “screw your impossible body images and screw your xanthin as well.”

Show Me the Whey – It’s so clever, you have to buy it, regardless if your diet is whey-deficient or whey-cool.

Hemp Shake – Not yet available at Burger King, fortunately.

Goatein (goat’s milk protein) – Stimulates those follicle-producing glands on your chin and upper lip in a way that will produce a strong, healthy goatee.

Host Defense – Something you take before going to a party thrown by your pushy neighbor?

MucoStop – If mucus has already been produced in overabundance, I wouldn’t want it to stop; I’d want it to MucoGo, into a tissue, into the garbage and into the landfill.

Super Lysine+ FizzSticks – Imagine the disappointment of young children who instead were expecting fish sticks.

Organic Motherwort – Just because “organic” and “mother” are in the name does not make up for the fact that “wort” is there too.

Quai Dong – I wouldn’t buy this product simply because I’d be afraid that a mis-type dropped the “l” from “quail.”

IP-6 and Inositol Plus Maitake and Cat’s Claw – When IP-6 and Inositol and Maitake are simply not enough, it’s time to get out the nail clippers and call Harriet in from the other room.

Bone Up – Please, please, please, let this product be for sufferers of osteoporosis and not for middle-aged men.

Ultimate Eye Formula – Again, I’m not sure if this is something that purports to help your vision, or is simply made of eyes.

Holy Basil – St. Basil was one of the group of great oriental theologians to whom, under God, we owe our right belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation, and also the chief organizer of ascetic community life in the East. When he died in 329 A.D., he was freeze-dried, ground up and sold as a spice.

Inflatrol – Can be used both on your tires and on your gut.

Calming Kit for Kids – This is an organic collection of Benadryl, vodka and cough syrup with codeine.

Confidence and Daydream Remedy – These are two different products sold for use with children. I assume the former boosts confidence and the latter suppresses daydreaming, but I could have it backwards.

Gummy Omegalicious – Another product for kids, most of whom are smart enough to see past the “gummy” and the “licious” to find that key ingredient of fish oil hiding in the middle.

Ubiquinol – It’s the herbal treatment for everything!

Guggul and Red Yeast Rice – Guggul is the resin from a tree from India. Why you would want to ruin perfectly good red yeast rice with it is beyond me.

Ditch the Itch Bar – This label is pasted on the product sideways and I originally read it as “Ditch the Bitch Bar,” believing it to be some kind of soap that would repel an estranged loved one. That actually sounds like a more useful product than this anti-itching formula. You can relieve an itch by scratching it with your fingernails but you can’t … Wait a minute, I guess you could.

Superhazel – Sounds like a mash-up of two sitcoms from the 1960s, where the sassy maid and the suburban witch become one, and madcap antics ensue.

Licefreeee! Lice Killing Hair Gel – For those kids who want to be fashion-forward and parasite-free at the same time.

Bone, Flesh and Cartilage – Are these things enhanced if you take this product, or is that what it’s made of? We need to know.

Thoughts on death and dying

I’ve been thinking lately about death and dying, and there are a few things I don’t like about it.

 

Obituaries, for one. I find myself being drawn to reading the obituaries in the local paper, since I’m more likely to find people I know hanging out on that page than in sections like sports, weddings or commodities futures. As my young son used to observe as we’d drive past a cemetery – “that’s where the dead people live” – I think it’s time for us to take a fresh look at the concept of death notices.

 

Currently we get to read all about how old people were, who some of their survivors were, and which email address condolences can be sent to. We’re told that they “passed,” “departed this life,” “were funeralized” or “went to be with [their] Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” but are given few other details. Sure, some notices may say that the departed passed “peacefully but unexpectedly” or “after a courageous fight.” That doesn’t really tell us enough. What we don’t get to hear, unless we’re good at reading between the lines, is what everyone really wants to know – the cause of death. If, in lieu of flowers, mourners are asked to make a donation to the National Skydiving Association, there’s a decent chance that the dead guy fell 10,000 feet out of an airplane. If they were employed by Johnson’s Crushing and Hacking, Inc., it’s a fairly safe bet they were killed in an industrial accident.

 

I think it’s a shame that the dead and their family members have to be ashamed of the way in which they left this earth for realms unknown. We have a much better understanding these days of what’s involved in the cessation of bodily functions, and it’s usually not anything to be particularly embarrassed about. My face might be red (before turning ashen) if it’s reported that I died trying to hold down a mattress in the back of a speeding pickup truck before the mattress became airborne. But at least everyone would know I was the kind of guy to help move a friend to his new apartment.

 

Then there’s the issue of what to do if your passing is going to take a while. No one wants to die of a lingering, painful illness, though I can’t say for sure I’d prefer the quick and easy death involved in a head-on train impact. You hear people saying they don’t want to spend their last days lying in a hospital bed hooked up to all manner of mechanical intervention to keep them alive. “I’d rather be home with my family,” they say, conveniently forgetting the smell of the cat box, the annoying telephone solicitations and how far ten steps to the bathroom seems when you’re no longer the most continent person in the home.

 

Before I’m discharged to my cluttered, dusty bedroom, I’d want to know more about which particular machines I’d be hooked up to if I stayed in the hospital. Might there be morphine involved? High-definition satellite television? The ability to pee without having to get out of bed? Talk about being treated and released. I’d be tempted to sign up for that now if I didn’t have to start paying for four years of college education this fall.

 

Speaking of early enrollment, I read a science fiction story once where members of the aging population were given the opportunity to end their lives sooner rather than later in return for a cash reward, a fabulous vacation and a pain-free passing. The short-term expense to society would be offset by the decades in which the fading individual was not eating their meals on wheels and using up other social services that might be better dedicated to those who could chase down their own food. I think this proposal should be given serious consideration. Put me down for spending a week in a hot tub on cruise ship eating prime rib with Anne Hathaway.

 

There’s one important consideration to reconcile before this can become a workable public policy: how you would create the least difficult death. Humanity has had a long history of failing to figure out the easiest way to go, if you can use execution methods as any example. The intentionally cruel attempts of ancient peoples – stoning, crucifixion, being fed to whatever wildlife was handy and hungry – gave way in recent centuries to progressively more user-friendly methods. The guillotine, gallows, electric chair and lethal injection were all thought at one time or another to be humane choices, though I don’t think any are quite my cup of poisoned tea. I think more research is needed to figure the fastest way out, and might I suggest the cast of the movie “Twilight” as possible volunteers in this study.

 

Finally, there’s the question of the afterlife. Most organized religions regard self-destruction as a sin, probably because it can make such a serious dent in their membership rolls. If you get to the other side legitimately and have lived a relatively good life, most creeds will give you a pass to a magnificent paradise featuring angels, harps, virgins, clouds, cows, gods with lots of extra arms, and all your dead relatives, though presumably the grumpy ones will have found other accommodations. If you’ve sinned or, in the Southern Baptist tradition, done a disco dance, you instead are consigned to a hell that will likely include at least one Bee Gee as well as a lot of other horrible stuff.

 

I honestly don’t know what waits for me in the Great Beyond. My best guess is that it’s eons and eons of nothingness, kind of like what the A&E channel has become. It’s only because we have such difficulty imagining what that void would feel like that we’ve come up with all these elaborate afterlife scenarios. Since they can’t all have it right, and because I hesitate to cast my lot with a randomly chosen sect (with my luck I’d get Zoroastrianism, which preaches a final purgation of evil from the Earth through a tidal wave of molten metal — ouch!), I prefer to think that you get whatever it is you believed in while you were alive.

 

 

And for me, that’s where Anne Hathaway comes in again.

You want my advice? (Pt. 15)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, manners, faith, technology, geopolitics, design, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a reader with a possible new-product idea.

Q. I am a registered nurse three days a week at a hospital and a bartender one day a week at a country club. I am about to launch an all-natural premium margarita mix and want to include on the label that it is endorsed by a nurse – me. Ethical? — An Entrepre-Nurse

A. Sure, why not? It should be fairly obvious to potential buyers that the mix is not intended to be used in a medicinal way and, while I don’t necessarily think the “AS ENDORSED BY A NURSE” tagline is going to be driving buyers to your product, I don’t think it’s unethical. The only potential for misinterpretation might come at the hands of dumb college frat boys who think they’ll be able to binge drink without any ill effects.

I admire your ambition in trying to bring something like this to market, and wondered if you have thought at all about the reverse synergy of capitalizing on your medical connections to make something that would appeal to the country-club set. You could do a line of pre-mixed drinks that were infused with various medicines you have access to at the hospital. Maybe a “Vodka Collins with Ritalin” for those wanting to focus in on improving their tennis forehand, or a “Cosmopolitan with Ortho Tri-Cyclen Patch” for the desperate housewives on the nineteenth hole concerned about their birth control. You could even do something as simple as a band-aid or aspirin, put it into hospital-style packaging, and charge $25 a piece like they do on the insurance claims. Or you could do a line of congealed, room-temperature entrees and casseroles and sell them as Hospital Cafeteria Healthy Meals.

By the way, I also think it’s ethical that you cut me in for a percentage of the profits if any of these ideas work out.

Let’s recognize the underappreciated breakroom

When he grows weary of his heavy labor and seeks a few moments of rest and reflection, the American worker is able to turn to a quiet refuge of solitude where he charges his batteries before re-entering the global economy with renewed vigor. These are the hallowed halls of the corporate breakroom.

The origins of the breakroom may be lost in the mists of time, but we can imagine how ancient hunter-gatherers might take a few moments from their huntering-gathering to rest under a sprawling fruit tree. With the modern marvel known as the vending machine still eons in the future, they had no coin slots that would lead them to refreshment. Instead, they’d nudge the trunk of the tree with their brawny shoulders and hope that an apple or pear might fall at their feet. As is the case for us, their modern cousins, sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes, instead of fruit they’d get a bird’s egg or a dead raccoon. What are you gonna do?

As societies moved to an agrarian and eventually an industrial economy, the breakroom evolved with the times. In the sweatshops of eighteenth-century England, the 14 hours of toil spent every day tending the steam-powered orphan press would be broken into manageable chunks by the occasional moments spent chained by your overseer in a quiet corner for trying to steal some steam. The apples of yesteryear and the SunChips of tomorrow may have been replaced by  badger-sized rats, yet still it was good to catch your breath.

Today, we have advantages and comforts unimagined by our forefathers. As an example I’m familiar with, I’ll describe the breakroom at the office where I work.

The room is painted a shade of ecru/tan/beige/off-white that is the closest thing possible in the visible spectrum to no color at all. I’m not sure of the room’s dimensions, but if people were laid end-to-end on the floor (which only happens during third shift), I’d imagine it’s roughly twenty by forty feet. There are maybe eight or ten nondescript grey tables each surrounded by a random mix of plastic and cloth-covered chairs.

However, it’s what’s around the edges of this quiet corner of the corporate world that draws in the tired workers of both the office and the warehouse. Primarily, there are the vending machines: one that contains mostly snack foods such as candy, cookies and chips; one that was intended to hold actual meals of sandwiches and salads but now offers only instant oatmeal, cup-o-soup and plastic orange juice containers with some type of dark sludge in the bottom; and one each for Coke and Pepsi products, still sadly segregated in these otherwise diverse times. You can tell all the machines host a lot of traffic by the sticky notes affixed to their fronts, bearing messages like “you owe Jane in accounting 85 cents” and “I found a roach in my Snickers!!!”

Almost as important as the vending machines are the appliances used to make their products more palatable. We have two microwave ovens, one splattered with hardened sweet residues and the other with savories, so your cooking won’t be too badly mis-flavored if you choose the right one. There’s a toaster oven that neither toasts nor ovens, though it will provide a measure of warmth to your food. There’s an ice machine where you can immerse your hands when they get tired of typing (at least that’s what I think it’s for). There’s a refrigerator for those who choose to bring their meals from home, as long as they heed the warning sign on the door: “Absolutely no pizza boxes or two-liter bottles – they WILL be thrown away.” We used to have a coffeemaker but the warehouse people ruined it for everybody by using up all the artificial creamer and never replacing it, the jerks.

As for entertainment, besides watching people bang their fists on the vending machines, there’s a television perched in one corner with its endless loop of Headline News. We also have a bookshelf generously stocked with a surprising variety of paperbacks and magazines that makes it appear we’re a more literate crowd than we actually are. There’s a single window that looks out onto the parking lot, a clock with hands that make a 360-degree circuit every hour, and those intriguing walls I mentioned earlier. Those last three features draw as much attention as the more stimulating options the later it gets in the day; people working on overtime seem to have an especially keen interest in the walls.

Finally, I’ll mention the internal communications centers of the room, a couple of bulletin boards. One of these contains information being communicated by management about health, legal and other employment-related issues, as well as copies of recent emails sent out by headquarters, including the one explaining how we can afford to buy a company in Brazil but no employee hams for the holidays. The other board is a forum for people wanting to get messages out to their fellow workers. There are a few rules – nothing allowed that promotes commercial or for-profit enterprises, all postings must be approved by site management, they can be up for only ten days before being removed – but otherwise it’s the kind of wide-open space that our brave patriot ancestors earned for us when freedom of speech was first established in this country. When I checked the board yesterday, it showed a newspaper clipping of a record catfish catch, an article about how much trouble you can get in if you tell the health insurance people you don’t smoke but you really do, advice to wipe down all surfaces during cold and flu season and, inexplicably, a large map of the United States. (I think it fell out of one of the National Geographic magazines.)

It’s a warm and welcoming place where we while away our 15 minutes of paid break time twice a day. While it may not be for everyone – like the people who choose to sit in their cars or the coworker I discovered doing some bizarre exercise routine in the darkened training room next door – it can be a special “happy place” for those who need a break.

 

You want my advice? (Pt. 16)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, manners, faith, technology, geopolitics, science, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a reader with a really stupid, really boring science question.

Q. With talk of rising seas, what could happen to the rivers that flow into the oceans? Will they reverse flow? Will rising seas back up into freshwater lakes? And what happens to our groundwater should saltwater flow backward into it? – Getting Thirsty Just Thinking About It

A. Finally … a hydrology question. Our readers have been waiting forever.

Though I’m an expert in many fields (taxidermy, thoracic surgery, the Dave Clark Five, the Ming Dynasty), this is one area where I’m a bit of an amateur. I’ve never studied the subject formally but rather have approached it as an all-consuming hobby, primarily through my quest to drown as many fire ants with boiling hot water as I can. (It’s fun to put a stick in the middle and watch a few lucky creatures survive, only to realize later their world has been wiped out.) So let’s see what the professionals have to say on the subject.

Hydrology has been a subject of investigation and engineering for millennia. For example, in about 4000 B.C. the Nile was dammed to improve agricultural productivity of previously barren lands. Aqueducts were built by the Greeks and Romans, while the history of China shows they built irrigation and flood control works. The ancient Sinhalese used hydrology to build complex irrigation works in Sri Lanka, and are also known for invention of the valve pit which allowed construction of large reservoirs which still function.

All of which has nothing to do with your question, especially that part about whatever the hell a “valve pit” is. I predict that when the seas rise that rivers will indeed reverse their flow and the seas will back up into freshwater lakes, just as you’ve postulated. Our groundwater will be rendered too saline to drink, which doesn’t bother me because I only drink Pepsi anyway.

It’s basically just an end-of-the-world scenario, and nothing to worry your little head about.

 

Website review: NorthDakota.com

I consider myself to be a pretty experienced traveler. I’ve been to England, Germany, Asia, the Philippines, Alaska and all over the Caribbean. In this country, I’ve been to all the major cities except Los Angeles. The only wide swath of territory I’ve missed are the so-called “flyover states” west of the Mississippi.

I’ve never gone to North Dakota and, frankly, I can’t imagine a scenario where I will. Of all the Dakotas, I’d rank it only my third favorite: behind the more populous South Dakota but also trailing the mythical East Dakota (when you’re a Dakota, imaginary is often better than real). I’ve heard claims made that North Dakota is the gateway to the Wild Wild West, though any time you hear something referred to as the “gateway” to something else, that just means it’s next to it, not part of it. I was once the gateway to Bill Clinton when he campaigned in my area for president in 1992, though I’d hardly put that on my resume, for a number of reasons. If I check my atlas, North Dakota could at best call itself the gateway to the Upper Midwest.

Fortunately, in this the age of the Internet, I don’t have to make a half-dozen flight connections all for the pleasure of ending up in Fargo. I just have to search for “North Dakota travel” and there I am at the official website of that frigid state’s tourism division – this week’s choice for a website review.

As you might guess, the home page features a collage of photographs, all of them featuring snow. There’s a couple wearing oversized sweaters snuggled up to their mugs of cocoa while leaning on the side of their log cabin. There’s a guy on a snowmobile, and there’s a view of a balcony in the woods where it looks like someone has fallen. I don’t know if this is the slide they put up just for winter, though from what I hear it could just as easily be a scene from June.

Next, a little history is probably in order. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison signed the order granting North Dakota statehood. Nothing significant has happened since.

“Dakota” is derived from the Sioux word for “friend.” North Dakota ranks number one in the U.S. in a variety of agricultural categories, including durum wheat, all dry edible beans, canola, flaxseed, all dry edible peas, lentils and navy beans. (I’m not sure how many friends you’d have left after eating such a flatulence-inducing diet, but I imagine at 40 below you’ll take whatever warmth you can get). The official beverage is milk, the official dance is square, the official fossil is petrified wood, and the official fruit is the chokecherry.

The tagline for the travel site seems to be “North Dakota: Legendary.” To quote further: “you ask, ‘what is there to do in North Dakota?’ and we answer, ‘what ISN’T there to do?’ The options are as diverse as the imagination. Some like to hunt, either for antiques or big game. Others enjoy howling, at a comedy club or while camping. Then there are the trails.” Let me pause to catch my breath before we look at some of the more memorable sites, events and activities throughout the state.

According to the “what to do” section, there are 606 statewide attractions. Neither space nor interstate commerce laws against using the Internet for fraud will permit me to describe them all. However, I can report that there is an albino buffalo, a 9/11 memorial site with a girder from the World Trade Center, a number of swimming pools, and a Celebrity Walk of Fame with signatures and handprints of notables including Debbie Reynolds, Maury Wills and the band KISS (rumor has it their handprints in cement were the result of a drug-induced fall rather than anything intentional). There’s also the David Thompson State Historic Site, a monument to the pioneer explorer who mapped the Missouri-Knife River area and later went on to basketball stardom at North Carolina State. And let’s not forget the Enchanted Highway, featuring metal sculptures including “The World’s Largest Tin Family” and “Grasshoppers in the Field.” Also there’s a batting cage called “Field of Swings,” a game warden museum and the geographical center of North America.

Not only are there places to see but there are things to do, as listed in the events section of the site: A Wine Tasting, Cabin Fever Days, ShiverFest, Quilt Til You Drop, the Dakota Bull Session (a three-day gathering of former military members), and A Cowboy and His Horse (“learn about the Old West from local cowboy Lyle K. Glass”). There’s also a production of the hit musical “Cats,” but I’ve got one of those in my back yard, so that’s hardly a big deal.

The website is not the only evidence that North Dakota has entered the digital age with the kind of enthusiasm its residents usually reserve for dying of hypothermia. The state is also mentioned on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. It’s seen in the background of at least several You Tube videos. And there’s also a blog, with one posting that seems to sum up what for many visitors is the typical North Dakota experience:

“I arrived just two hours before the start of what would become the biggest early November blizzard in the last 20 years. I traveled to the state to hunt whitetail and waterfowl for six days. The snow forced me to spend the night in Bismarck, since the interstates were shut down, but I spent a pleasant evening at the Expressway Inn and was able to get on the road by 10 a.m. the next day.”

In North Dakota, they don’t believe that getting there is half the journey. When explorers Lewis and Clark arrived, they stopped and spent the winter (not a bad choice when you consider they could have proceeded on to Montana). And, as the tourism office concludes proudly, “Theodore Roosevelt visited twice before he became president.” Twice.

* * *

For those as bored as I am by the prospect of the Arizona Cardinals playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday, I’ll be live-blogging during the game (or as much of it as I can stay awake for). I’m sure I’ll be making a lot of rude, sarcastic comments, if that’s your thing. Watch this space starting a little before the game begin around 6 p.m. For those who miss it, I’ll compile a summary to be posted on Monday morning. I look forward to “seeing” you there.

The New York Times goes potty-mouth

While I personally regard The New York Times as the world’s greatest newspaper, there are others who substitute nicknames different than the traditional “Grey Lady” or “The Paper of Record.” They may call it “Home of the Eastern Elite” or simply “Those Jewish Guys.” These are politically driven criticisms that I won’t dignify with a response, other than to say that those people are rednecks.

I understand how certain recent changes have been made necessary by market demands on the financial side of newspapers. The design has changed to acknowledge that it’s now possible to produce color on a printing press. Advertisements recently made their way onto the bottom of the front page.

But what’s possibly most challenging for loyal readers is how the editorial content has had to change with the times and with the tastes of younger readers. Though not nearly as outrageous in their titillation as other media — see tomorrow’s post about America Online’s “front page” — the Times is venturing into subjects I’d expect to see in underground elementary school newspapers, if such things existed.

The following is an article the Times ran recently that’s a pretty good example of what I’m talking about.

 

CRAPSTONE, England — When ordering things by telephone, Stewart Pearce tends to take a proactive approach to the inevitable question “What is your address?”

He lays it out straight, so there is no room for unpleasant confusion. “I say, ‘It’s spelled “crap,” as in crap,’ ” said Mr. Pearce, 61, who has lived in Crapstone, a one-shop country village in Devon, for decades.

In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.

Others evoke images that may conflict with residents’ efforts to appear dignified when, for example, applying for jobs.

These include Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent. And, in a country that delights in lavatory humor, particularly if the word “bottom” is involved, there is Pratts Bottom, in Kent, doubly cursed because “prat” is slang for buffoon.

As for Penistone, a thriving South Yorkshire town, just stop that sophomoric snickering.

“It’s pronounced ‘PENNIS-tun,’” Fiona Moran, manager of the Old Vicarage Hotel in Penistone, said over the telephone, rather sharply. When forced to spell her address for outsiders, she uses misdirection, separating the tricky section into two blameless parts: “p-e-n” — pause — “i-s-t-o-n-e.”

Several months ago, Lewes District Council in East Sussex tried to address the problem of inadvertent place-name titillation by saying that “street names which could give offense” would no longer be allowed on new roads.

“Avoid aesthetically unsuitable names,” like Gaswork Road, the council decreed. Also, avoid “names capable of deliberate misinterpretation,” like Hoare Road, Typple Avenue, Quare Street and Corfe Close.

(What is wrong with Corfe Close, you might ask? The guidelines mention the hypothetical residents of No. 4, with their unfortunate hypothetical address, “4 Corfe Close.” To find the naughty meaning, you have to repeat the first two words rapidly many times, preferably in the presence of your fifth-grade classmates.)

The council explained that it was only following national guidelines and that it did not intend to change any existing lewd names.

Still, news of the revised policy raised an outcry.

“Sniggering at double entendres is a loved and time-honored tradition in this country,” Carol Midgley wrote in The Times of London. Ed Hurst, a co-author, with Rob Bailey, of “Rude Britain” and “Rude UK,” which list arguably offensive place names — some so arguably offensive that, unfortunately, they cannot be printed here — said that many such communities were established hundreds of years ago and that their names were not rude at the time.

“Place names and street names are full of history and culture, and it’s only because language has evolved over the centuries that they’ve wound up sounding rude,” Mr. Hurst said in an interview.

Mr. Bailey, who grew up on Tumbledown Dick Road in Oxfordshire, and Mr. Hurst got the idea for the books when they read about a couple who bought a house on Butt Hole Road, in South Yorkshire.

The name most likely has to do with the spot’s historic function as a source of water, a water butt being a container for collecting water. But it proved to be prohibitively hilarious.

“If they ordered a pizza, the pizza company wouldn’t deliver it, because they thought it was a made-up name,” Mr. Hurst said. “People would stand in front of the sign, pull down their trousers and take pictures of each other’s naked buttocks.”

The couple moved away.

The people in Crapstone have not had similar problems, although their sign is periodically stolen by word-loving merrymakers. And their village became a stock joke a few years ago, when a television ad featuring a prone-to-swearing soccer player named Vinnie Jones showed Mr. Jones’s car breaking down just under the Crapstone sign.

In the commercial, Mr. Jones tries to alert the towing company to his location while covering the sign and trying not to say “crap” in front of his young daughter.

The consensus in the village is that there is a perfectly innocent reason for the name “Crapstone,” though it is unclear what that is. Theories put forth by various residents the other day included “place of the rocks,” “a kind of twisting of the original word,” “something to do with the soil” and “something to do with Sir Francis Drake,” who lived nearby.

Jacqui Anderson, a doctor in Crapstone who used to live in a village called Horrabridge, which has its own issues, said that she no longer thought about the “crap” in “Crapstone.”

Still, when strangers ask where she’s from, she admitted, “I just say I live near Plymouth.”

* * *

For those as bored as I am by the prospect of the Arizona Cardinals playing in the Super Bowl tomorrow, I’ll be live-blogging during the game (or as much of it as I can stay awake for). I’m sure I’ll be making a lot of rude, sarcastic comments, if that’s your thing. Watch this space starting a little before the game begins around 6 p.m. For those who miss it, I’ll compile a summary to be posted on Monday morning. I look forward to “seeing” you there.

 

Startling news from the web

The teasers for upcoming local news shows we see sprinkled throughout prime-time network TV programming can be both annoying and alarming. When they take five seconds to shout “Find out what fast foods can kill your kids” or “Earth to be destroyed by asteroid? News at 11,” we know they’re just trying to get us to watch their show later that evening. So at least we understand their logic as we run screaming into the night.

When new-media news sites do the same thing, just to get you to click through to the actual story, it doesn’t make quite as much sense. I don’t mind annoying and alarming, but unnecessary tends to get on my nerves.

The following teaser headlines are a sampling of some of the more outrageous examples I’ve seen (mostly on AOL) in recent weeks:

 

–Toxin found in 1 in 3 grocery foods

–Man trapped under sofa for days: Manages to survive in bizarre way

–Peek at spots only rich people get to use

–Man returned from dead: He flatlined, turned blue and his family said goodbye, then he awoke

–Woman killed for Facebook status

–Woman literally scared to death

–Singer, 60, still hot in just fishnets

–Man’s story of harassment by boss is humiliating: He’s just ‘too cute’

–Fifteen things never to say on a plane

–Bride attacked on wedding day: Sister arrested for ripping her hair out

–Teen chases parents with knives over cell phone

–Casey Anthony’s new image in court: She wears suit, hair in bun

–Chat on couch turns mortifying: Wrong move in skirt exposes star to world
–Change coming to thin mints: Bet you’re not going to like it
–Had to see for yourself: Photo shows Janet’s weight is up
–Jessica’s mom jeans aren’t flattering
–New York baker defends racist cookies
–High sex drive linked to disease
–Book will rip apart Brad and Angie (only 37% believe it’s true)
–15 women who bared (almost) for a cause
–Watch as elephants play soccer
–Kids with cell phones at risk: More likely to be hit by cars
–Katie’s hair caused a stir: We called it a ‘mullet’, you called it ‘adorable’, then it disappeared
–Could have been much worse: Star’s undies flashing has you talking
–Road named after part of anatomy
–Is Kingston or Ruby cuter? One winning by a lot
–Hotel main spilled hotel guests’ oh-so-nasty secrets
–Actress refuses to fly with her husband
–Sitting here doubles risk of death
–Lesbian to be prime minister
–Bikini-clad Spears flaunts even more of her comeback body
–Island may look harmless but it’s disease-infested
–Man in dress steals NFL spotlight
–Oprah probably won’t be happy with this list
–Potato salad step you should skip
–Most searched facial cleansers
–Lamp makes your living room ugly
–Country singer goes to market but looks like she just rolled out of bed
–Couple spends $155K on a cloned dog
–Cindy and Mandy spotted wearing same dress
–Zombies ahead, Run for your lives! Why did drivers get wacky warning?
–Girl passed out eating sandwiches: what caused her bizarre illness
–Why sexy star wore her dress backwards
–Your reaction to Brit’s comeback bod was mixed (to say the least)

–Miss Kentucky is awfully hairy

–Teen star nearly gives crew eyeful

–Celeb baby showdown: It’s a close call, but you have to pick which tiny tot is cuter

–What your face says about you

(What was) live blogging of the Super Bowl

     For those of you who missed all the excitement last night, I spent a good portion of the Super Bowl live-blogging my impressions of the event. It seemed like a good idea in advance: watching all the TV proceedings and publishing my comments every 15 minutes or so. It was a lot harder than I thought it’d be, and detracted significantly from my enjoyment of an (eventually) thrilling game.

 

     I ended up posting ten different commentaries before running out of interest at the beginning of the second half. I’ve compiled the most trenchant of these in today’s post for those who were too involved in other activities (watching the game, partying with friends, enjoying life itself) to be spending time online.

• Our new president once again made a good impression with the viewing public in his interview with Matt Lauer before the game. Dressed in a casual shirt and looking relaxed, he chatted about his first days in the White House, his work on the economic crisis, and how “people may think I’m cool but they should see my daughter.” I was a little disappointed though that they didn’t introduce him the same way they introduced the players — that video head shot where the player is first seen looking down at his shirt, then raises his head and smiles at the camera as he announces “Barack Obama, sitting president, Harvard University.”
• Well, we’ve waited through all the hype and now it’s almost game time. The pregame show has just completed its fifth hour and the commentators have made their picks: five selected the Steelers and five picked the Cardinals. Most unbelievable of all is that they actually have TEN guys providing their insight.
• This just in – Kurt Warner is clean-shaven for the game and, in an unrelated story, the Hyundai Genesis is the 2009 North American Car of the Year.
• There’s a guy on the Steelers whose last name is “Colon.” I know former running back Jerome Bettis was called “The Bus”; I wonder if Colon’s nickname is “The Semi.”
• The Terrible Towels are much in evidence, with the majority of the fans apparently from Pittsburgh. The Arizona fans have either opted for the Lightly-Regarded Linens or the Formidable Facecloths, but it’s hard to tell which for sure.
• Time for the community outreach public service announcements, where players pretend to like underprivileged children just long enough for it to be caught on camera.
• I think Faith Hill has had a makeup malfunction. Her eyelids are a shade of blue not normally seen on the human anatomy, except maybe for those who have been deeply bruised. She added a “God bless America” and a “wooo” onto the end of her rendition of “America the Beautiful”.
• Look! It’s the flight crew of the USAir jet that landed in the Hudson River! Fortunately, they’re on the field and not involved in the ceremonial flyover.
• Gen. David Petreas of the central military command is tossing the coin. Glad he was able to pull himself away from that whole homeland defense gig for something more important.
• They promise that after this next set of commercials – “we PROMISE” – the game will actually start.
• Some woman just quoted somebody named “F. Scotts Fitzgerald” about there being no second acts in American popular culture. Good thing he died so long ago that he didn’t see how wrong that prediction was going to be.
• Second play of the game and it’s a run for three yards. I think I’m bored already.
• All this talk of penetration and offensive packages is very disturbing while I’m trying to watch this game with my family.
• Rothelisbergenberger (sp?) just leaned in for the touchdown … no wait, it’s a challenge on whether or not he crossed the goal line. Nope, he didn’ quite make it after all. Sounds like a good time for a commercial on beer and its drinkability.
• I really like the look of that Audi in the commercial just completed. Can I have one since I mentioned it on my blog?
• It’s the first penalty marker of the game, and it’s on the Cardinals who are now on offense. Then the Cardinals fumble and barely recover to gain half a yard. Troy Palamalamalu (sp?) is having trouble with his contact lens on the sideline.
• I do like the part where the players introduce themselves and mention the college they went to, if any. One guy simply says he’s got “swagger” instead. I’m guessing he left school early rather than choosing to pursue post-graduate work in genetic engineering.
• Maybe this would be a good time to mention the score, in the unlikely event someone reading this even cares. The Steelers made a field goal after they lost that challenge, so they lead by 3-0. Back to you, John.
• What’s with all these players with the long hair? You can’t even read the name on the back of their uniforms. Back when I was that age, why … oh, yeah, we had long hair too. Never mind.
• The always-exciting false start penalty on the Steeler offense. Glad they showed the replay to confirm the start was indeed false.
• Hey, that’s funny – they have the Potatoheads driving in a commercial. Mrs. P. is mouthing off at Mr. P. and suddenly he reaches over and knocks her mouth off. Just as my teenage son predicted at the beginning of the commercial. That was for Bridgestone Tires, by the way. Now there’s one for Castrol motor oil. I wonder what you use these products on, considering there’s no mention about GM, Ford or other American cars anywhere to be seen.
• We’ve returned to action and there’s a skirmish. John Madden says Hines Ward likes to get physical, even though receivers don’t usually get in on the fights. They’ll discuss third and goal while we go to another commercial.
• My wife just called me to dinner and I said “wait a second, Pittsburgh is about to make a touchdown.” “Make”? What am I, a girl?
• TOUCHDOWN STEELERS!!! I think that makes it 94-0 now.
• Suddenly, dinner is looking a lot more exciting than this game. I’ll take a break and return shortly. You’re reading live blogging from the Super Bowl on davisw.wordpress.com, you poor thing.
• Did you see that 100-yard interception return just now? I didn’t, because I was finishing my dinner, but I’ve seen about five replays. While we’re waiting for the review … the ruling on the field stands! The Steelers will have a comfortable lead going into halftime, 17-7. Now, for the real show.
• What’s with all the texting we’re now required to do during half the commercials? Text this to that, text that to this. Can’t we just relax and watch Danika Patrick continue with her shower?
• I love it when defensive linemen record a sack, and they’re so not used to celebrating that they instead go into this exaggerated stepping thing that looks so dorky. They need to practice this more during the offseason, maybe take a few cues from all those flamboyant receivers.
• Enough with the five-guy panel analysis already. Every time another prominent coach retires, he gets added to the panel. I still don’t understand why Matt Millen, the genius behind the Detroit Lions winless season, gets to give his opinion.
• Chris Collinsworth has this one really thick grey hair growing out of one of his ears. No wait, that’s his earphone wire.
• It’s Bruuuuuuuce. He’s really starting to show his age a little, as he jumps around on the equipment. First song of the 12-minute set is “Tenth Avenue Freezeout.” I would’ve preferred “Born to Run” but that’d probably take the whole allotted time. I hope he doesn’t do a medley with every song truncated.
• Clarence Clemmons is dressed in a very slimming black floor-length Matrix-style coat that belies his status as the “Big Man.”
• Nooo – it is a shortened version of “Born to Run.” How can you ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines in just 12 minutes? Well, I guess it’s still pretty good. He still gets to die with Wendy in an ever-lasting kiss. 1-2-3-4…!
• This gospel number by Bruce with the Arizona Cardinal cheerleaders singing in robes in the background is not one I’m familiar with. Of course, I haven’t bought a Springsteen record in probably 25 years, so what do I know?
• We Conan fans are more excited by Max and Labamba and the rest of the Late Show Band in the background than we are by Bruce and the lovely Patti and the even lovelier Little Steven, who’s not looking so little with that jowl thing he’s got going.
• Pretty clever to have the fake umpire declaring a delay of game on the E Street Band. Now Bruce and the boys are headed off to Disney World (probably got an extra $25K for that little shout-out). “The National Football League thanks you for watching the Bridgestone Halftime Show.” Yep, I’ll remember those tires long after I’ve forgotten that performance.
• There’s a kid who’s bringing a football out to the official, as he apparently won some sort of contest. I can’t believe he’s not sick or handicapped or dying and still gets to go to the Super Bowl as a kid.
• Okay, the Super Bowl halftime show is over, and most of the good ads have been aired, so I’m just about done. When they show the local insert that advertises the city transit system, you know they’ve played out the good ads.
• The teams are back on the field and there’s still buzzing about that huge interception return to end the first half. Either that, or my high-def TV is going on the fritz again.
• I can’t believe I’ve stayed up til 8:30. This is a really late night for me, considering I had to get up at 4 this morning. I actually got a chance to work some overtime this weekend, for the first time in quite a while. I hardly had any time to play online Scrabble – that’s how busy we were. We’re experiencing a peak in activity because of the end of the fiscal year a few weeks back and now we have to help prepare all this financial documentation of how and why various companies tanked this year. Oh yeah, somebody just rushed for a four-yard gain.
• Time for some ice cream and a sleeping pill. I’ll check out the score in the morning. I’m too old for this stuff. Goodnight, everybody.

 

You want my advice? (Pt. 17)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, manners, faith, technology, geopolitics, science, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a reader who’s having some problems protecting his hearth and home.

Q. A squirrel is trying to get in a bay of the roof just behind the side trim on my dormer. He has gotten in previously by chewing on the fascia trim board. I finally got him out and nailed some lightweight metal to cover the holes. He made short work of those metal patches, so the next time I got him out I covered the entire fascia with galvanized steel. He keeps scratching on the metal. How long will it take him to get in, one way or another? – Despiser of All Things Wild

A. The squirrel is one of nature’s most persistent creatures, so I’m guessing it won’t take long at all. In fact, in the time it took you to send me this correspondence, I’d be willing to bet you’re already up to your knees in acorns.

Just kidding. Actually, I bet the galvanized steel will work for a while, though most biologists now predict that squirrels will be developing blow-torch technology in the next two to three years that will enable them to burn through all metals except reinforced titanium. Some pest control experts are suggesting a “reverse psychology” strategy that will use the animals’ ingenuity against them. This philosophy involves you moving out of your house and into your yard, which will then encourage the furry-tailed scamps to try to break out of your house instead of into it.

I might also suggest the use of humane traps which would allow you to capture the squirrels and return them to your nearest nature preserve. If you don’t have a preserve in your area, watch this space on Saturday of this week. I’ll be posting some excellent squirrel recipes printed in the outdoors section of our local paper, including the compassionate and delicious fried squirrel and the hearty smothered squirrel.

News in briefs: multiple births and “bad” banks

Doctors in Texas have reported yet another record-breaking multiple birth. An unidentified woman delivered eleven babies in about 45 seconds early Tuesday as a team of 125 specialists assisted.

The babies, being called “eleventy-uplets” until someone figures out the proper Latin root words, are all remarkably healthy despite their tiny size and early deliveries. The eight boys and three girls are believed to represent the largest multiple birth ever recorded.

“You can imagine what it was like to have that many infants coming out at that rate of speed,” said Dr. Andrew Crisp, chief of obstetrics at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. “I’m just glad my team was already wearing safety glasses for medical reasons, or someone might’ve had an eye put out. Those kids were just flying outta there.”

It was believed the mother, identified only as a 25-year-old teacher, was taking fertility drugs, and lots of them. There was some speculation from relatives that she confused the medication with her favorite candy, jujubes.

Ultrasounds taken just days before the birth clearly showed eight babies in the woman’s uterus, so doctors were already prepared for an extraordinary procedure. There was a brief pause after the eighth newborn emerged before doctors discovered the existence of three more – one hiding behind a kidney, one in the mother’s handbag and the last in an easy chair in the hallway outside the delivery room.

The mother was reported resting comfortably following the historic delivery. The babies have taken over a nearby Hampton Inn until they reach a healthy enough weight to be released.

***************************************

The proposal being floated to create a so-called “bad bank” to contain shaky mortgages and other toxic assets is already being fleshed out by Treasury Department officials who would oversee such an effort. In fact, sources say, a working prototype has already been established in a Washington, D.C. suburb and is testing various business strategies with actual banking customers.

The new office, tentatively called the “Worst National Bank of Maryland,” will not only be aggregating assets that other banks are trying to get off their books, but will be test-marketing new policies and services keeping in line with their charter, “to really suck as a bank.”

“We know most banks currently serving the public are not very good,” said vice-president of marketing and community relations Robert Hanschu. “We know people are fed up with hidden fees, high credit-card interest rates and difficulties in getting a loan. But we think we can take that ‘screw-you’ attitude to a whole different level.”

Customers will notice a difference as soon as they arrive on the property of the WNB. The parking lot is broken asphalt, the grass is uncut and the windows are covered with plywood boards. There’s an ATM drive-through on one side of the building that’s actually a converted tool shed, with one side cut out to display an old TV screen, a telephone keypad and a mail slot configured to simulate the cash machine. Inside the shed sits a homeless employee who will pull your ATM card through the slot while making whirring noises with his mouth and then dispense your cash. The bills may be smeared with blood, mucus or feces but are still fully negotiable.

Inside the lobby there’s the usual armed security guard but he’s just as likely to rob you as protect you from criminals. There’s a rope to guide you to the tellers’ window though instead of velvet it’s made of razor wire. A small desk off to the side is set up for those opening new accounts, who get to choose from a dangerously rewired toaster or a 2003 calendar as their introductory gift. There’s a counter for customers to fill out their deposit slips and other paperwork, with the requisite pen chained to the surface. The tellers are also chained in place.

Most standard banking services are offered with a twist. Checking accounts with a minimum deposit of $1,000 offer modest interest – “You have a thousand dollars?” asked one teller as he rubbed his palms together. “That’s very interesting.” There are secured safety deposit boxes “around here somewhere,” she noted, and a line of CDs that aren’t actual investment vehicles but instead are compact disks featuring recordings from all the top hitmakers of the 1990s. Both auto and home loans will be available in the near future, and will be largely similar to the awful loans found at standard banks.

Federal officials are also looking at this retail concept as a potential vehicle for disbursing funds being made available through the economic recovery stimulus now working its way through Congress. Customers representing different problems in the economy could line up outside a small office in the lobby while government officials would throw money at them.

“I think the bad bank idea can really go far,” said Hanschu. “Almost as far as I’ll be going just as soon as I can embezzle enough money to get to the Caymans.”

You want my advice? (Pt. 18)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, manners, faith, fashion, geopolitics, science, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a reader who’s looking for some fashion and career advice.

Q. I have been working in fashion sales from the same department store for 16 years. Now I am one of several sales associates whose position will be eliminated. We all will be looking for retail-sales job. Should we wear pantsuits (which is what most of us wear to work now) or skirt suits? What about shoes and accessories? What is the rule for shoe color? I always thought your shoes were supposed to match whatever clothing was closest – pants, skirt, etc. What is the best thing to wear for a job interview? – Naked and Wondering

A. You’re asking the wrong person.

I am not someone who is known for their fashion sense. As I look down at my body today while sitting at my laptop, what I see is pretty much a disaster area on the order of the Kentucky ice storm, except maybe with fewer hypothermic horses. I’m wearing a faded “Salty Dog” t-shirt, grey sweatpants about two sizes too large (make that one size – I just finished a sausage and cheese McGriddle), white socks and ten-year-old penny loafers. Above the neck, I’ve got a two-day beard stubble, a windblown comb-over whose tentacles threaten to obscure my ears, and nose hair issues I should probably see an endocrinologist about. But this much I can tell you in response to your question: do not wear sweatpants.

In the eternal debate on pantsuits versus skirt suits, I come down firmly on the side of pantsuits. The last thing you want is a job interviewer who thinks you’re moderately attractive, and wearing a pantsuit will just about guarantee that this won’t happen. As far as accessories, I’d suggest something that’s going to grab their attention so that when you leave the interview, they won’t be able to forget you – maybe something like a live fish around your neck, fuzzy dice earrings, and a black inner tube inflated around your waist. (You can never go wrong with black.)

As for the shoes, you’re right that they should be matching whatever clothing is closest, which in my case is the white socks. However, it’s well known (even by the fashion-challenged like me) that you’re not supposed to wear white shoes after Labor Day.

Frankly, it’s probably just going to be easier for you to go on welfare.

If you had been paying any attention at all during your years working in fashion retail, you should be able to answer these questions yourself. What were you doing while customers were trying on clothes in your changing rooms – training for a career with an actual future? If you had any sense at all, you would’ve reached over the wall, stolen their old clothes, and then worn these when you showed up at McDonald’s to apply for the only position you’ve got a hope of getting in this economy. Might I suggest you order the sausage and cheese McGriddle to let them know how serious you are about your new career.

 

Website review: Chicken.com

The subject of this week’s website review – the National Chicken Council – proved to be a distracting and elusive target, much like the barnyard animal to which it’s dedicated with its head chopped off. I found myself wandering off to other areas of the Internet with no apparent connection to my original subject. The Web has a way of doing that to your best intentions. Start out researching American bomb testing on Bikini Atoll and the next thing you know, you’re studying American Idol contestant Bikini Girl.

The National Chicken Council, not surprisingly located at nationalchickencouncil.com, promotes the consumption of chicken and fosters a positive public image for the industry. It’s a full-service trade association that promotes and protects the interests of the chicken trade and is the industry’s voice before Congress and federal agencies. It is not, unfortunately, an association of the birds themselves determined to end their enslavement and exploitation.

The website features several appetizing pictures across the top of the home page, and if you allow your browser arrow to linger there long enough, these are identified as “chicken photos.” Further down, there are links to several of the key issues confronting the nation’s chicken producers. Specifically these include “correction” of an alarmist article in SELF Magazine about chicken preparation safety, how the council opposes a boost in the ethanol content in gasoline (to free up more corn for chickens, I guess), and how they applaud an end to the European ban on American poultry and support for a trade agreement with Russia. Like the chicken itself, the council is selfless to a fault, concerned more about the health and well-being of Americans than their own interests.

There’s also an article about the safe, government-regulated use of arsenic-containing compounds in chicken feed, but the less we know about that, the better.

Speaking of frightening thoughts, the NCC invited Gen. Barry McCaffrey to speak at its fifty-fourth annual conference last fall. (I guess if we all die as the result of a rogue nuclear attack on our homeland, it’s really going to put a dent in chicken sales.) McCaffrey virtually scared the feathers off the conferees. He noted how the situation in Pakistan is unstable, how Iran will soon go nuclear under the Sunni Arabs, how the death of Castro could mean 500,000 refugees within 36 months, and how a confrontation with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez will lead to continued instability in oil supplies. Because he didn’t mention the crispy goodness of a well-fried leg quarter, however, they reportedly knocked $25,000 off his speaker fees.

Speaking of fried chicken, which used to be the centerpiece of the KFC menu before it was replaced by the mysterious “FC,” I was intrigued by their newest TV ad campaign so I went to their website to read all the fine print I couldn’t make out on my 54-inch television.

There’s a Tyson chicken truck pulling up to the restaurant as the voiceover talks about how fresh the chicken is. But the tiny type tells us “fresh claim is applicable to KFC’s drumsticks, thighs, wings and breasts; not applicable due to supply outages.” Then we see a young woman who claims to be the in-house cook at that location, but the tiny type tells us it’s an “actor portrayal.” Then we see a tagline about the newest offer of dinners for five, $3 each, but the tiny type tells us this is a “limited time offer at participating restaurants , prices may vary, tax extra, extra charge for breast piece substitution.” As a professional typographer, I must object to the way small point sizes are used to convey such disclaiming. That’s what whispered fast-talking is for.

Getting back to the National Chicken Council, I started to wonder what other kinds of special-interest representation is being done on behalf of animals with similarly funny-sounding names. I searched for the National Turkey Council but it turned out to be more concerned with the geopolitics of Asia Minor than with our favorite Thanksgiving bird. Seems I should’ve looked instead for the National Turkey Federation, located at the not-so-subtle URL of www.eatturkey.com. Next, I tried to locate a lobbying group for ducks but came up only with hunting information and Food Network recipes.

Turning away from food animals (at least for most of us), I found that the Monkey Association is concerned primarily with a free-association exercise done by a digital monkey, that there’s something called the National Monkey Knife-Fighting Association, and that if you’re sincerely concerned about our closest relative in the animal kingdom, what you really want is the International Primate Association.

Change the “m” in “monkey” to a “d,” and you’ll find the American Donkey Association. This group was founded by Dale and Geri McCall of Oregon for the purpose of “improving the status of the donkey.” They are currently establishing chapters all over the country so that people who own donkeys and “people who just love donkeys can share their interests, their zeal, their passion and their knowledge of these fun animals.” The website tells us there are several sizes of donkeys and each has its own purpose and pleasure, and that Dale and Geri have been “involved” with donkeys, mules and horses for a combined total of 75 years. (I assume that’s human years rather than donkey years, which I don’t know the translation for.) The McCall’s ask “would you like to see donkeys presented in shows that are strictly for donkeys? We would too. Let the ADA show you how to do just that.” I’m sorry, but this is just getting a little too silly.

Speaking of silly, I got to wondering what it was about the chicken, the turkey, the duck, the monkey and the donkey that struck me as funny. The only commonality I could readily come up with was that all of them contain the letter “k”. So I Googled “animals starting with ‘k’” to see if this hypothesis would hold up to the rigorous scientific standards of the typical search engine. I came up with the kangaroo (funny), kookaburra (really funny), kinkajou (hilarious), kitten (cute but with sharp claws), kudu (sounds like “doo-doo,” so it’s funny), koala (again, cute), krill (shrimp-like), katydid (riotous), killer whale (endangered and not at all funny to small marine mammals) and Komodo dragon (first word funny, second word scary). So the evidence is a bit inconclusive.

By the way, there is an International Kangaroo Society, but I could find no council, federation, association, commission, congress, convention, alliance, partnership, union or society that cared about the Komodo dragon. I hear that they’re a very solitary creature and, besides, they would probably eat people rather than vice versa.

 

Recipes in squirrel (garnish with tail)

On Tuesday, in my guise as an advice columnist, I answered a question from a reader who was having trouble with squirrels trying to break into his house. More frightening than your typical 2 a.m. drug-inspired home invasion, this situation involved the furry yard-beasts chewing through various parts of the siding in an attempt to find shelter, food, girl squirrels or some paradisiacal combination of all three. The writer wanted to know what he could do to solve this problem. I gave a lame, tentative answer, but today I’ll elaborate.

Eat the squirrels.

How? For that answer, we turn to the outdoors columnist of my local newspaper. Keep two facts in mind as you read the following: (1) “dressing” the squirrel does not involve putting on cute little outfits but rather involves dismembering him; and (2) if you think removing the grey glands from behind the legs is really going to make a difference in how palatable the meal is, you better think again. Also, when the columnist says the broth “can” be used to make a delicious gravy, he is speaking in theory.

You must acknowledge that some of the names commonly used for squirrels aren’t exactly appealing when it comes to looking at them as table fare. Consuming critters known as bushytails or tree rats doesn’t put one’s salivary glands into overdrive. Then again, neither does goose liver, the basic ingredient in the gourmet delicacy pate de foie gras.

Yet as a reader recently noted, and as fond memories regularly remind me, properly prepared squirrel makes wonderful eating. Moreover, this is the time of year when squirrel hunting is one of only a handful of sporting activities which can be pursued with expectations of a high likelihood of success. So, with those thoughts in mind, why not take to the woods, bring home a mess of squirrels, and get ready for some mighty fine moments at the table?

I’ll leave obtaining the basic ingredients for the recipes which follow up to readers’ gumption, but drawing on a lifetime of dining on squirrel meat, along with the experience gained through writing a number of game cookbooks with my wife, I can offer some guidance when it comes to preparing this game delicacy.

As with any successful game cooking, the key first step involves dressing and handling the meat. Look at it any way you wish – squirrels are difficult to clean. The best way is to make a slit around the tail and a bit of a cut along the back hams and then shuck off the whole hide, following that with removal of the entrails. Alternatively, you can start in the middle and peel away toward both ends.

The keys are to get every bit of hair, along with any fat, off the carcass. Also, probe in under the animal’s front legs and remove the gray-colored glands found there (this is often overlooked). Once you have the carcass clean, and cut into pieces if desired, soak in a pan of cold water to which a bit of salt has been added for a half hour or so. Once you remove the meat, rinse it, and pat-dry, it’s ready for preparation. What follows are a few recipes suggesting ways to turn squirrel into scrumptious feasts.

ANNA LOU’S SQUIRREL

Place dressed squirrel in a large saucepan, cover with cold water, add soda, and heat to boiling. Remove from heat and rinse squirrel well under running water, rubbing to remove soda. Return to pan and cover with fresh water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until tender. Place squirrel in a baking dish, dot with butter, and bake at 350 degrees until browned and crusty. The broth left from cooking the squirrel can be used to make a delicious gravy.

SMOTHERED SQUIRREL

Saute flour-coated squirrel in butter until browned. Then cover squirrel with onion slices and sprinkle with salt and paprika. Pour sour cream over squirrel. Cover and simmer for an hour or until tender.

FRIED SQUIRREL

Mix flour, salt and pepper and place in a paper or plastic bag. Beat egg well and place in a shallow dish. Drop squirrel in flour bag, shake to coat, remove, and then dip in egg mixture. Return to flour bag and shake to coat well. Heat canola oil in large skillet and quickly brown squirrel. Then place browned squirrel in a roasting pan at 250 degrees for approximately 90 minutes or until tender.

SQUIRREL BOG

Sprinkle squirrel pieces with salt and place in a Dutch oven with enough cold water to cover completely. Add onion, celery and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer until squirrel is tender and readily separates from the bones. Remove squirrel, saving broth. Let meat cool and then remove from bones. Measure broth back into pot. Add water if needed to make four cups of liquid. Return squirrel to pot. Cut kielbasa into quarter-inch slices and add to pot along with rice, and then stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until most of broth is absorbed into rice or until rice grains are fluffy and tender.

Poets for our time (about 30 years ago)

The rise of folk and, ultimately, rock music was grounded in a lyrical foundation that gave us pop stars who were also poets. Beginning with the likes of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Simon and Garfunkel, it’s a tradition that has stalled in the contemporary era. Though Jewel may have published a book of poetry – including “I lived in a car/But couldn’t drive far/My teeth they are weird/It’s chewing I’ve feared/Yet somehow I’m hot/Which forgives quite a lot” – it’s hardly comparable to what the giants of the 1960s and 1970s were able to produce.

Two of my favorites from that earlier period were the Doors and John Denver. Mercurial front-man Jim Morrison composed lyrics for the Doors that were every bit as evocative and stirring as anything written by bards as far back as Shakespeare. When Morrison cries out “Father/Yes son?/I want to kill you/Mother/I … want…  to/Waaarrriiiihhhhyyyyaaaa!” in his masterpiece “The End,” it’s not hard to imagine Coleridge, Byron or even Emily Dickinson adding “right on, dude.” When John Denver soars through the musical heights of his beloved Rocky Mountains, he’s flying in the experimental tradition of earlier wordsmiths such as Buddy Holly, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Amelia Earhart.

I thought I’d take a look at one short piece from each of these inspired giants, and try to analyze what it was that causes our emotional reactions to be so profound. I start with Morrison’s tone-poem “Horse Latitudes”:

When the still sea conspires an armor

And her sullen and aborted currents breed tiny monsters

True sailing is dead

Awkward instant, and the first animal is jettisoned

Legs furiously pumping their stiff green gallop

And heads bob up

Poise

Delicate

Pause

Consent

In mute nostril agony

Carefully refined and sealed over

I remember when I first heard this piece as a young man how sad it struck me that early seamen had to throw horses overboard when the winds died. What a terrible fate those noble beasts faced. They suffered at least as much as Morrison himself did after his arrest on obscenity charges for exposing himself during a concert. I see the exposed horses as an allegory for the act he allegedly performed on stage in Miami, though I hesitate to think what the “mute nostril agony” might be symbolic of. This poem captures perfectly the angst of a time when America’s youth were questioning traditional morals, and what the hell something like this was doing on a rock album.

Now, let’s contrast that hallucinogenic imagery with a folksier sentiment from Denver’s classic “I’m Sorry”:

It’s cold here in the city
It always seems that way
And I’ve been thinking about you, almost every day
Thinking about the good times, thinking about the rain
Thinking about how bad it feels alone again

 

I’m sorry for the way things are in China
I’m sorry things ain’t what they used to be
More than anything else I’m sorry for myself
Cause you’re not here with me

 

I’m sorry for all the lies I told you
I’m sorry for the things I didn’t say
More than anything else I’m sorry for myself
I can’t believe you went away

I’m sorry I took some things for granted
I’m sorry for the chains I put on you
More than anything else I’m sorry for myself
For living without you

Denver, obviously, is sorry – he’s very, very sorry. To this day, some critics claim he was a sorry songwriter in more ways than one, though I tend to see his pathos in a more positive light. Remember that this song debuted in an era when the U.S. was feeling its way in a post-Vietnam world, trying to consider old relationships in a new light. Amidst the profound self-pity about his girlfriend leaving, he still takes time to offer regret about the Cultural Revolution in China and the hardships that caused for a billion people, as well as the cold and rainy forecast in his hometown. By the end of the song, you can tell he’s heading to a better place – this is about the time he left Colorado for California and the contentment that came from his role in movies like “Oh God” and “Walking Thunder.” We lost a great poet but we found an even better actor.

 

Early spring cleaning

I’m glad to report that activity at my workplace has really picked up in recent weeks. I’ve actually put in some substantial overtime the last two weekends, and the prospects look good for more. I realize I’m one of the few people still employed these days who can make that claim, so I am grateful.

Without being too specific, my job involves helping publicly-held companies prepare financial documentation that is required to be released to their shareholders. Most companies operate in the fiscal year that ended December 31, so this is the time when they’re pulling together the data that shows how they’ve done the last 12 months. As you might imagine, they have a lot of explaining to do. Which means I have a lot of real work to do, and not so much time to devote to my blog.

So what I’m doing today is something of an early spring cleaning, a yard sale of the half-baked ideas I’ve scribbled down in moments of questionable inspiration that later turned into “what did I mean by that?” Everything not marked with a price sticker is going for a nickel.

(10 cents) Everyone has enjoyed all the jokes at Rod Blagojevich’s expense, especially about that huge mane of hair he carries around. Long after he’s been reformed and elected governor of Louisiana, we’ll still remember that hairdo. We’re going to want to reference it to use on other people so we’ll need a proper adjective: Blagojevichian? Blagojevichesque? Blagojevichistic?

(25 cents) The woman in the news this weekend for swimming across the Atlantic Ocean is getting way more attention that she deserves. She went from the westernmost point in the east to the easternmost point in the west, she swam in a cage, and she spent only eight hours a day in the water while sleeping at night on a boat. With those kind of dubious criteria, I’m ready to make the claim that I’ve spent the last 55 years walking a billion miles across the galaxy. Never mind that I was attached to the Earth while doing it.

(10 cents) While sitting in a doctor’s waiting room the other day, I observed the woman across from me helping her elderly mother fill out the personal information form. When she reached the part about marital status, she was faced with the usual options – M, S, D or W. She selected “D,” because her husband was “deceased.” That’s not right, is it?

(15 cents) I’m getting a little tired of hearing the adjective “full” in news reports all the time. Someone is being buried with full military honors, the governor said there will be a full investigation, the church is taking full responsibility for neglecting the abuse charges. Does anyone every get buried with partial honors and, if so, how bad a serviceperson would you have to be?

(10 cents) If women ever knew the basketball fantasy that goes through a man’s mind when he throws a balled-up piece of paper into the trash can, we’d be laughed out of the house. “And the 30-footer from beyond the top of the key wins the game!” should not count when the paper napkin banks off the side of the refrigerator, leaving a dark lasagna stain.

(50 cents) Indecipherable commentary heard while trying to watch the recent Winter X Games: “skiing big air,” “clean grab,” “stomping it clean,” “kangaroo flip sweet double,” “he can’t tweak,” “that was all time” and “that’s how these Swedes roll.” I’m glad baseball season is just around the corner, because we all know that “back, back, back” makes a lot more sense.

 (20 cents) I once participated in a medical study that required me to answer an extensive list of questions asked by a nurse’s assistant. One of the questions was “do you ever have headaches?” I responded that I did, occasionally, like probably just about everybody in the world. “How long have you had the headaches?” she followed up. “On and off for as long as I can remember, I guess,” I responded. A look of concern crossed her face as she recorded my answer. I bet I’m eventually going to die.

(30 cents) Wouldn’t it be neat if they made more video games that simulated the tasks of everyday life? I know there are driving games and skateboarding games and guitar-playing games, but how about something that riffs on the thrill of using an ATM machine? Going through the self-scan at the grocery store? Pumping your own gas? I would so play those games.

(15 cents) I’m convinced the world is divided into two distinct groups: those who will eat only traditional breakfast foods for their first meal of the day, and those who will consume things like cold pizza, RC Cola and a Moonpie, or leftover Chinese food. I am a member of the first (correct) group, while my wife is a member of the opposition. So – as I found out on some recent business trips abroad – is the entire continent of Asia.

(40 cents) Speaking of which, during the three weeks that comprised my first trip to India, I yearned for a good old-fashioned hamburger near the end of my stay. As you might imagine, though beef is virtually everywhere in the streets, very little of it is in a readily edible form. (Take a bite out of a passing cow and you’re in big trouble). The closest that the hotel room-service menu could offer was something called the “Holstein Burger,” a small beef patty topped with cucumber slices and a fried egg, topped with a cherry. Not exactly McDonald’s.

(15 cents) What is it with little kids being so excited to get a sticker? Don’t they realize how little it’s worth in real dollars?

(no price sticker) We once had a backyard neighbor who claimed to have a shrinking brain. He always complained that we didn’t trim the grass enough on our side of the shared fence, and once killed a honeysuckle bush rooted in our yard but extending into his. I don’t know why or how I ever thought that was going to be funny. You can have it for free.

 

You want my advice? (Part 19)

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly feature (Tuesdays and Thursdays) of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, manners, faith, fashion, geopolitics, science, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a reader who’s looking for some advice on their love life.

Q: I feel like I’ve missed out on life. I grew up in a conservative Christian home where “gosh” and “heck” were bad words. I was homeschooled then went to a Christian university. After years of dealing with the crap, I became an atheist and am still going strong. After spending my whole life in the evangelical world, I have no idea how to function in the real world. I’ve never kissed a girl, had a girlfriend, or had sex. The only women I know are Christians. I’ve read stories about people hooking up in bars, but I have no idea what I’m supposed to do or how to meet people. – Awkward Agnostic

A. I’m sorry to hear how much trouble you’ve had with what is obviously a difficult transition. Changing from one lifestyle to another that’s so completely different can be very troublesome to your psyche. You need to be patient as this important transition proceeds.

Have you thought about asking God for help? Many people trying to survive in today’s hectic world think they can find easy answers to the trouble they’re having. The answers ARE easy, if you look in the right place, and by “right place,” I mean with those who have found the one true religion of Christianity.

Wait. I just reread your question. Sorry for not paying closer attention – I’m trying to balance one girlfriend on Twitter, another on Facebook, and my wife trying to get through to my cell. Pray to Jesus that you should be so lucky some day.

Yes, meeting women in bars is definitely the way to go. Hooking up in these establishments is not necessarily a requirement, but I’m guessing from your background that you’re going to want to have your potential mates as smashed as possible. Once you help them stagger out of the bar, into your car, and into your bedroom, don’t let them become unconscious because this would be considered “taking advantage,” which is something you should do only when you’ve reached a more advanced state. Also, don’t take it the wrong way if they cry out “Oh, God” or “Holy Jesus” during lovemaking.

I hear that meeting women on the Internet is also a very good idea. You can either use the popular social networking sites or a legitimate “matchmaking” service like eHarmony or FindAPiece.com. Just realize that most of the women you meet on line are actually going to be middle-aged men, and ugly ones at that.

One more thing: I don’t like your language when you talk about “dealing with the c**p.” Nobody, be they believers or non-believers, want to hear that kind of filth. Clean up your language, mister, and I think you’ll soon find yourself cleaning up with the ladies as well.

Going in for a haircut

The care and maintenance of the human head is something that we as a society devote an inordinate amount of interest in. A growth industry if ever there was one, hair cutting and styling is a multi-billion-dollar business that creates a fairly comfortable living for its employees, if you don’t mind touching strangers. Sure, you have to stand on your feet all day and pretend to be interested in what the head is saying as you groom it, but you aren’t likely to face having your job outsourced. At least until we develop the technology to ship scalps to Asia.

I’m not one to put a lot of effort into my appearance, so I view my periodic trips to Great Clips more as a necessary inconvenience than an opportunity to make a fashion statement. To me, the best haircut is a fast haircut. I’ve been known to tell my stylist to do the best they can in ten minutes because I have a pressing appointment to deliver a major address to a convention of neurosurgeons. This guarantees speedy service by allowing them to cut corners knowing that any injuries they cause can be repaired later. And yet, I’m proud to report that I still have at least an ear and a half.

During yesterday’s visit, I paid more attention than usual to the process because I thought I could write about it, so here we go.

I walked through the door a little past 4 p.m. and was greeted by the monotonic stylist nearest the front counter – “hell-o-wel-come-to-Great-Clips.” It must be a corporate requirement that they offer this less-than-sincere greeting because it is so lacking in enthusiasm as to be an embarrassment to us both, and I don’t embarrass easily. Another woman breaks away from her sweeping to approach the counter and sign me in. No need for names, please, they just want your phone number, like some would-be bar gigolo. When she enters my number into the computer, she’s apparently shown the names of everyone at my address, but can’t take the time to look up when she asks me, “Beth?” No, I’m Davis.

My cutter introduces herself as Holley, and I take the opportunity to ease into the casual conversation we’re going to have to have for next quarter-hour by noting that my sister is named Holly. “Mine is spelled with an ‘e’, like the high-performance fuel injection carburetors,” she tells me, but I don’t have the heart to ask if her parents were so funny-car-obsessed as to name their daughter for an after-market auto part.

I sit down in the twirly chair and remove my glasses as she drapes me with a thick blue sheet, like something out of “CSI” only grubbier. Then she asks the question I dread: “What are we doing today?” Well, I know I’ll be sitting in a chair and looking at the snappy corporate posters, including “Walk Right In, Sit Right Down” and “We’re Cutting It Out.” Holley, on the other hand, is going to be hard at work giving me what I lamely describe as just a trim, not too short, thin out this wavy stuff, none of those extra-short sideburns. And one actually specific point:

“Last time they left this part on the left” – I pull at a long, unruly strand of grey straw – “real long so I could do a comb-over but I’m out in the wind a lot and don’t want that look. So roughly the same length all across the top, even though it’s a little thin.”

As I settle in, I realize I’m hearing the second consecutive song by Eric Clapton on the in-house music player. So you know they’re not pumping in a specially crafted playlist, because that would certainly include only clean-cut artists, and Clapton – though he may be a god on the guitar – is barely a low-level angel when it comes to personal grooming. Holley asks me if I’m enjoying the nice weather (I am), then launches into her personal story: she just moved to this location from the next town over where they were a little slow and she likes it here better because she likes to keep busy, and (I presume) she enjoys rainbows, puppies and long walks on the beach.

She seems fairly adept at her craft, hacking away at my head with a level of expertise you don’t always see in Great Clips employees. Often you get one who is so methodical, you know you’re probably among their first real customers. You wish they’d go faster, but have to balance that impatience with concerns about ending up looking like somebody halfway through six weeks of radiation therapy. Holley is good, though, making rapid progress through both my thinning silver mane and her autobiography.

Soon, we’re in the end-game. She’s shaving my neck, dusting my face with talcum powder and asking if I want gel (c’mon, I’m 55 years old, what do you think?). We’ve come to that awkward moment where I have to gauge what other body hairs she’s willing to cut. We older guys have a lot of issues with random hair patches, and I’m never quite sure what’s acceptable to request and what’s off-limits. I’m pretty sure from past experience that eyebrow trims are fairly standard, but they fall near enough the middle of a continuum that runs from ear hair (obviously part of the haircut) to nose hair (apparently not, though if the issue is the relative grossness of ear wax versus congealed mucus, I really don’t see much difference) that I’m tentative in my request.

Holley is fine with the eyebrow shave. But she’s momentarily distracted by a newly arriving customer, who is also wel-come-to-Great-Clips, and nearly forgets to trim the left eyebrow. I can’t accept this. My brows are so thick that the imbalance of leaving one untrimmed would severely affect my already-poor posture and leave me walking in circles, so I have to speak up with a reminder. It only takes her a second, and I’m done. She holds up the mirror so I can give my final approval.

I leave what I consider is a fairly generous tip and I’m done for another month or so. In my car, I can give a more thorough examination in the rear-view mirror without appearing too vain, and I must admit: Truly, it is a great clip.

You want my advice (last one)

“You Want My Advice?” is (or, I should say, was) a twice weekly feature of davisw.wordpress.com. I looked at questions of ethics, manners, faith, fashion, geopolitics, science, etc., and offered completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. In today’s final installment, we hear from the reader who finally drove me over the edge.

Q. Out of the blue, I’ve been contacted by an ex. We had a brief relationship several years ago, which represents part of my past that I’d rather forget. He is emotionally unstable, so I can’t just tell him to leave me alone, even nicely. I’m afraid he might harm me. I’ve been responding to his phone calls and e-mails (which all have a general message of “I think of you often and I miss you”). I’m also a widow and a parent of two children. I lost my husband almost four years ago. I have been trying to date, but it seems harder now than it ever was before. Many men hear of my situation and run the other way. Some are so insecure they can’t handle the fact that I was married before. I think it is a little unreasonable for them to expect me to never mention my late husband in conversation. In high school, I dated this wonderful guy for two years. We came to a halt after we graduated, but kept in touch. I made a series of really bad decisions with him and find myself regretting them constantly. We talk regularly now, about things such as moving in with each other and getting married. I am currently in a relationship where the person has put an expiration date on it. He says “I love you” a lot but he also becomes distant and cold toward me. My ex-boyfriend has cerebral palsy. I have loved him for more than a year, regardless of his condition. He broke up with me because he didn’t think he could love someone if he didn’t love himself. I have an on-again, off-again relationship with this other guy for more than five years. We are “off” now but I can’t stop thinking about him. It was my decision to end the relationship because I felt I was wasting my time. We get along well, but he lies and cheats. But the love I feel for him never changes. I can’t help but wonder if he is really my soul mate.

Can you offer a suggestion for how I might deal with my situation? – Troubled in Love

A. No. In fact, I’m sick and tired of all you whiny, needy social misfits constantly beating a path to my website with your pathetic problems. You need to take control of your own lives and figure out your own solutions, rather than relying on all-knowing super-beings like myself to give you the answers.

I’ve been writing this advice column twice a week for ten weeks now, and I don’t see that the world has become a better place as a result. I’ve answered questions about invasive squirrels, proper shoe color, organ donation etiquette, satellite TV, the creation of God and gender-neutral names. Every answer has been as appropriate as can be, and yet no one ever writes back to offer their thanks. The most feedback I’ve ever received was that one time a guy was looking for a cure for halitosis and I told him to drink pesticide and he died and they wrote about it in the paper.

This marks my final advice column. I’m not going to be dragged down to the level of you lonely losers any longer. If you need suggestions about how to live your lives, you better hope that one of the following works, because it’s the last you’re getting from me:

·         Try rotating the tires on your car. If that doesn’t make the noise go away, remove the tires completely.

·         A shampoo with conditioner may be what you need. Just be sure to use it on your hair.

·         I also read that article about a donated kidney being removed through the vagina, but I still wouldn’t recommend dental work being done through your ear.

·         If you’ll limit your caffeine intake, I bet the vibrations will stop.

·         Tell your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend that you hate them and never want to see them again.

·         Try a non-allergenic carpeting or else stop eating off the floor.

·         You need to lose some weight, get a haircut and give up your dreams of moving to Japan.

·         The sim cards in virtually all cell phones will usually provide your minimum daily requirement of minerals and vitamins.

·         Before you think about remodeling your kitchen, might I suggest you remodel your face.

·         God is not sitting on His Golden Throne in heaven worried about which casserole you bring to the church supper. He thinks congregants would be just as happy with one of those KFC Famous Bowls.

Website review: God.com, and others

In this time of great uncertainty and upheaval, people from all different backgrounds are looking for something more in life than merely earthly contentment. They sense there’s something more to life than that which we can see, some great intangible force that controls our world in ways we can barely comprehend. If we can seek to understand this omnipresent yet invisible force in some fashion, perhaps we’ll gain insight into the fundamentals that underpin our very existence.

But I suppose the Internet can only do so much for us.

I’m actually more interested in realms even greater than the digital universe, though I know I can’t get there without going through the web. So I’ve done a little spiritual seeking of my own, looking at various sites that hint at divine intervention, at least if their domain name is any indication. (It’s no accident, you know, that “domain” and “dominion,” as well as “Domino’s Pizza,” come from the same Latin root, meaning authority or deity.)

Obviously, you need to start such a mammoth quest at the top, and that would have to be god.com. This is a very simple site with only a few sub-categories, primarily “food for thought” (which disappointingly is not gift baskets of heavenly treats) and a webstore. Actually, god.com is a redirect to emgonline, home of the Evangelical Media Group, producer of various religious tracts and audios. The home page asks some very fundamental questions – Does God exist? Is there a heaven and a hell? Is the Bible really true? – that you’d think they know the answers to.

Oh, well, let’s proceed next to jesus.com, which turns out to be another redirect, this time to the Metropolitan Community Church. When I first saw the URL of “mccchurch.com,” I thought I had ended up at McDonald’s latest diversification effort. After all, if innovations like healthy kid’s meals and fine lattes can work, why not a venture into Judeo-Christianity? Then I remembered where I had heard about the Metropolitan Church before: its membership is primarily made up of what they obliquely call the “transgender and gender non-conforming” communities, in other words gays, lesbians and transsexuals. Can you imagine the fit that fundamentalists would have if they knew that jesus.com linked to a site like this? Talk about your rapture.

Speaking of which, both rapture.com and heaven.com send you to an interesting page for the Gospel Media Network, which apparently is some sort of aggregation for these sites. It includes links to religion.com, messiah.com, muslims.com, jew.com, buddha.com and armageddon.com. This is really going to save me a lot of work. Both jew.com and buddha.com are concerned with both other-worldliness and concerns of the flesh, with jew.com offering links to dating, cars, entertainment and finance, and buddha.com providing credit card help, tanning lotion, dental insurance and golf vacations. Armageddon.com takes itself a bit more seriously, with a countdown to Armageddon, end-time Bible prophecy and, for the kids, movie downloads.

Bible.com, not surprisingly, sells Bibles: not just traditional translations like the King James Version but also the “New Men’s Devotional Bible” and the “Confident Women Bible”. There’s also a link that provides Bible answers for issues like trials and suicide (the latter of which I’m guessing the Bible is against). Salvation.com has as its focus an offer of better understanding that God loves you and that Jesus is “Lord”. It’s also the same site as something called 7777777.com, which isn’t thoroughly explained though it’s over 11,000 times better than the 666 mark of the Devil. Allah.com is an educational outreach spot that seems to be obsessed with Kosovo but also promotes Christian dialog with a downloadable biography of Jesus.

Several websites I would’ve thought were going to help me with my spiritual exploration were actually intended for purely commercial purposes. Cross.com is a seller of fine fountain pens. Revelations.com offers church management software and a payroll system. Lord.com provides valuable expertise in adhesives and coatings, vibration and motion control, and magnetically responsive technologies. Their tagline – “Lord. Ask Us How” – sounds more like a prayer than a corporate slogan, though I guess it could serve as both when you’re dealing as they do with poison-containing encapsulants.

With pagan and Wiccan religions gaining more and more legitimacy these days, I also checked out a couple of addresses from the dark side. Hell.com starts you out on a black page that says nothing but “no one can hear you,” then gets even scarier when you click on that and read that “hell.com is a private parallel web – there is no access via web browser.” Wow, that is scary cool. A visit to satan.com was a little more conventionally frightening, with categories like occult, witches, satanic rituals, the Antichrist and, inexplicably, debt consolidation.

Perhaps even more terrifying than these was the material I found at christ.com. Most of this huge website is comprised of a blog abandoned shortly after the recent presidential election, when Christ’s choice for commander-in-chief was crushed by over a hundred electoral votes. A “webservant” who calls himself Job (real name, Marc) laid out the case against Barack Obama in a September post, where he coined the term “Obamacide” to describe the candidate’s alleged support for the mathematically impossible fourth-trimester infanticide. In October, he ranted that Obama is too inexperienced to protect your diminishing 401K and that people should instead trust the Lord to turn the capital markets around. Just before the election itself, Job formally endorses McCain, though he seems resigned to the likelihood that most Christians are going to opt for the gay-marriage, assisted-suicide, child-murdering candidate.

Job has receded into the background since the election, perhaps practicing that patience he’s so famous for. Meanwhile, the rest of christ.com keeps chugging along with anti-MSNBC logos, Fox News reports on how only 40% of Americans believe in evolution theory while the engagement of Mandy Moore is a certifiable fact, and a spot where you can enter your prayer requests. Among those currently awaiting action is a supplicant who needs a car payment, another who wants their business blessed, and a third who inquires about God’s will for them, specifically tonight. There’s also a cryptic Bible verse that should serve to inspire and puzzle all visitors: “Suppose ye that I come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division (Luke 12:51)”. Huh?

I think part of the great spiritual hungering we’re now seeing around the world is linked to a belief that a better understanding of the mysteries of the universe will allow us to make a difference during our lives. We want to know what’s good and right and essential so we can do these things and leave behind a legacy that we have been here and left the world a better place.

 

If the browser history I’ve left behind during this research is to be my heritage, I think I can feel I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. Except maybe for that quick peek at TMZ.com.

Valentine’s poems both sacred and profane

While doing research for yesterday’s post about godly websites, I came across a selection of Valentine’s Day poems designed for those who tend to see all holidays through religious glasses. (Just wait to see what they’ve got cooked up for Washington’s Birthday next week). These sentiments in rhyme would fit just perfectly on that special card you present to your loved one today, though I guess they’d make some pretty good hymns too.

 

While the construction and meter and tone were all quite proper, I thought I could do just as good a job incorporating Holy imagery into messages suited for consenting adults. Let’s see what you think. Two of these poems were written by a legitimate Christian lyricist and two were written by me. See if you can tell which is which.

 

God’s Valentine Gift

God’s Valentine gift of love to us
Was not a bunch of flowers;
It wasn’t candy, or a book
To while away the hours.

His gift was to become a man,
So He could freely give
His sacrificial love for us,
So you and I could live.

He gave us sweet salvation, and
Instruction, good and true–
To love our friends and enemies
And love our Savior, too.

So as we give our Valentines,
Let’s thank our Lord and King;
The reason we have love to give
Is that He gave everything.

 

Way Better Than Your Spouse

When we awake to celebrate

This very special day

We look across the bed and see

The love we want to stay

 

But greater than that love is one

Who we can’t really see

We’re told He lives up in the sky

Near Alpha Centauri

 

The one we love on earth is dear

But we know they’ll end in death

They’re hardly perfect, that’s for sure

From here I smell their breath

 

But up above the loved one is

The one who wields the rod

For He demands devotion pure

I think they call him God

 

 

You Are Often In My Thoughts

Love is a command
That Christians are called to do;
Our Lord says “Love your God,
And love your neighbor, too.”

Some people are easy to love;
They are human rays of sun;
They light up every life,
And encourage everyone.

You are in that group,
So I sincerely want to say:
You are often in my thoughts;
Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

The Food of Love is Nutritious

My Valentine is special

She’s smart and pretty too

I like the way she does her hair

And the color of her shoe

 

Her eyes are like the stars that shine

Her ears are also nice

Her nose is pert, her brows are plucked

Her smell is like some spice

 

But these are things that don’t mean much

Unless you’re into one

Who spends the time God gave them

Forsaking Cinnabon

 

For eating too much high-fat food

Like cake and cream and cheeses

Will make them fat and gross to us

Unlike a certain Jesus

 

He kept His looks and kept His soul

He never tried to lose

The weight he gained from bread and fish

He was the King of Jews

 

In such a role he loved us all

The weak, the sick, the poor

We love him back as much we think

As we love the sacred ‘Smore

 

Today, a day to celebrate hate

One of the great things about living in the South is happening outside right now on this lovely February morning. There’s no snow or ice, as we’re still feeling the effects of a week-long warm spell, and some trees are even starting to show a few buds. There’s that rising-sap feeling that makes you look forward with hope and optimism to the future.

One of the awful things about living in the South was also happening outside this morning, in the editorial page of my local newspaper. Contained therein were some letters to the editor that are unfortunately typical of too many Southerners in these supposedly enlightened times.

So on this day after the holiday where we celebrate so much love, I thought it might be appropriate to look at (and laugh at) the ignorance of Southern hatred.

______________________________

Dear Editor:

What are the idiots in Washington thinking about? A stimulus of $825 billion that is supposed to create jobs and help the economy? President Obama said just a month ago that no pork would be in any bill he sponsors. That was a lie. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants contraceptives given out as part of it to young women. How is this supposed to help?

The local and national news media will not bring any of this up, so nobody will know any of this. Thank God for conservative talk radio. I really don’t think The Herald will put this in because 99 percent of all newspapers are very liberal as well. Did any of you know that during the Clinton years we sent $400 million overseas to pay for abortions?

Bush cut this out during his years and, out of the blue, Obama started this back up again. During a time we are hurting here at home. This is unacceptable. And then he had his first major interview to a Muslim TV network. His true Muslim faith has come out. But the 57 million Americans who voted against the socialist knew this. The media never brought any of this up.

Obama did not need one vote from a Republican in the House to pass his package, but he continues to lobby them to sign on. He is doing this because he knows when this blows up in his face, the Democrats can say the Republicans were on board with it. Well, that is not going to work. This will be a Democratic package and will be on their shoulders.

We are headed to a socialist country that is being put in place without the American people raising a cry. Well, I, for one, will not sit and not voice my opinion.

Sincerely, A Lunatic
__________________________

Dear Editor:

As Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency, it is indeed humorous to see [another letter-writer] calling for more cheese for his whine.

President Barack Obama’s Lincoln-inspired “Team of Rivals” is descending into a Grant-inspired “Team of Rascals.” At a cabinet meeting, we will see some who walk in, some who slither in and some who have to ooze through.

Perhaps this would be of more interest to our Democratic friends. We now have a liberal ecological group calling for a limit on children being born in America to two per family so as to not further damage the ecology. The Democratic Party is for abortion on demand and Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants the stimulus package to contain millions to buy condoms because the cost of public assistance is getting too high.

 

Connect the dots. And you thought only a Nazi could come up with this. The stimulus plan is nothing more than a pork pie. And the latest Gallup poll says over 50 percent of the people want a fork stuck in the pie because it’s done.

 

Yours, A Nutjob

______________________________

Dear Editor:

In response to the recent letter calling Republicans hypocrites, I think the writer couldn’t recognize pork if he was standing in a pig farm. The Republicans may be called hypocrites but we can’t be called baby-killers either! Does he not think the wonderful stimulus plan coming from Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank is not full of pork? Not earmarks but pure pork!

Two-hundred million dollars for insurance for honey bees. How about $250 million for the movie industry. Boy, that is a great stimulus. (It’s just payback for campaign contributions.) As far as deregulation, Slick Willie started requiring banks to stop red-lining people for home loans. How can you require a bank to loan money to people who don’t have jobs! I guess that is the Democratic way.

Slick cut the military funding just like the new king of the USA is going to do. We don’t need a strong defense in this country because the new regime is going to use diplomacy. We’ll just talk the terrorists out of attacking us. If Congress will rush, rush, rush the proposed stimulus plan through without going over all the details, then all the garbage will slip through. Nancy Pelosi said it’s unpatriotic to vote against all their paybacks. But the Republicans are only doing their job. You don’t rush through important matters unless you have a lot of pork to hide!

Respectfully, An Idiot

Twenty-five random things about me

1.       I’ve discovered both a simple cure for cancer and a way to convert water into a fuel that can be used to power the automobile. Wanna see?

2.       I have an extensive cardiovascular system that is centered in my heart and lungs but also includes numerous veins, arteries and capillaries. These blood vessels run throughout my entire body – from the top of my head to the tip of my toes – and supply both oxygen and nutrients so that I can experience cell growth.

3.       I once shot a guy just to watch him die. Unfortunately, he had a silver dollar in his shirt pocket that deflected the bullet and left him completely unharmed. What followed was one of the most awkward conversations of my entire life: “Did you just shoot me?” he asked. “Yeah,” I responded. “I’m sorry, I guess.” He pressed the point: “Why the heck did you do that? I’ve could’ve been seriously injured.” “Actually, I was hoping you’d be killed, ‘cause I wanted to watch you die.” “Man,” he said. “That is so uncool. I’m really, really tempted to tell on you.” “No, don’t,” I pleaded. “I’ll give you ten dollars if you’ll just forget about it.” “OK,” he relented.

4.       I just typed the word “indecipherable.”

5.       I am allergic to air. I’m currently on a waiting list for a gill transplant.

6.       My favorite word is “jubilee”. My least favorite word is “bolus,” defined as a soft, roundish mass or lump, especially of chewed food.

7.       I hope one day to be injured just enough for a brief hospitalization, during which I can be treated and released. That sounds so pleasant.

8.       When I was a young child, I thought that cats were the females and dogs were the males of the same species. If you think about it, it does make sense. I’m not sure to this day that zoologists have sufficiently proved me wrong to my satisfaction. I also thought that you could aspire to be a lion or giraffe when you grew up, just like you could aspire to be a policeman or football player. I’m convinced now that at least that part is wrong, but it doesn’t soften the blow that I ended up being a financial typesetter.

9.       I was among the five finalists when they held the selection process for the fifteenth Dalai Lama a few years ago. It was me, this guy Andy that I know from work, Arizona’s junior Republican Senator Jon Kyl, Victoria Beckham (better known perhaps as Mrs. David Beckham or Posh Spice) and this four-year-old kid from Tibet. The kid won out in what I thought was a very flawed, very prejudiced process, but I’ve since come to believe that just being nominated was an honor.

10.   I once invaded Europe though my assault was ultimately halted on the banks of the Rhine. I think I could’ve gone all the way to the Urals if I would’ve bothered to study the European language before hand. I could’ve explained my case for invasion.

11.   I’ve hugged a turkey though I can’t say I’d recommend it to just anyone. You really have to have a special place in your heart for barnyard poultry.

12. I once ran a marathon. By “ran,” I mean that I slowly jogged for large portions while occasionally stopping to walk and catch my breath. By “marathon,” I mean that I completed 22 of 26 miles before giving up completely on the running and instead walking to the finish line. By “a,” I mean “uh, I didn’t really run a marathon.”

13.   I’ve had 534 haircuts in my life, resulting in unknown quadrillions of individual hairs ending up in the landfill.

14.   While visiting Sri Lanka on business last year, I found myself on the fringes of an anti-government demonstration where participants were being tear-gassed. I caught just enough of a whiff of the gas to recognize what it was. It reminded me of the pickles they serve on Chick-fil-a sandwiches.

15.   I once correctly answered a question in my fifth grade science class that no one else could answer. The teacher asked: “Davis, can you tell us what is the thirteenth element in the periodic table?” “No, I can’t,” I responded. And I was correct – I couldn’t tell her because I didn’t know the answer.

16.   I once spent a lazy Sunday afternoon watching a rerun of a senior golf tournament. Think about how boring that is on so many different levels.

17.   I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.

18. My social security number is 834-68-8091. My Visa card number is 8934-8017-5583-7814, expiration date 5/10. The PIN number for my ATM is 9350.

19.   I was once abducted and probed by aliens. I’ve never mentioned it before because it didn’t seem that important. It happens to lots of people.

20.   Family legend was that if Ireland ever had its monarchy restored that I would become the king. I think that would be a mixed blessing. You’d be a king, but you’d probably have to live in Ireland.

21.   If I could live in any other state besides my current home in South Carolina, it would be North Carolina.

22. I am Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds.

23.   I can’t come up with 25 random facts about myself. I can only find 23.

Chimp beheads owner, wants more Xanax

A chimpanzee who founded a TV channel intended to counter violent images of higher apes has been arrested in the brutal beheading of his owner.

 

Mr. Bobo, who had lived with a human family for close to 20 years and before that had a successful career in advertising, apparently went berserk while under medical care for the treatment of Lyme Disease. Vets speculate that the medication, which was mixed with Xanax the owner had given him earlier in the day to reduce his agitation, may have triggered the attack.

 

“I am totally stunned,” said a neighbor who knew the animal and his owner, Sandra Herold of Hartford, Connecticut. “They were really more than pet and owner – they encouraged each other in everything. Mr. Bobo was such a lovely person.”

 

Court records may show a different story, however. Herold had obtained an order of protection from Bobo on Feb. 6, barring the simian from their home.

 

“There had been problems before,” said attorney Corey Hogan, whose law firm had represented Herold. “There had been prior incidents of physical abuse.”

 

The television channel, which Bobo founded after leaving a job at M&T Bank, had been under financial strain. Published reports said that the venture was seeking new investors and battling cable carriers for access to a bigger audience.

 

Bobo, a lovable 200-pounder who had appeared in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola, was captured by police after a short chase.

 

Following the savage decapitation, Bobo ran away and started roaming Herold’s property until police arrived, setting up security so medics could reach the mauled woman. But he soon returned and went after several of the officers, who retreated into their cars. Bobo knocked the mirror off the cruiser before opening its door and starting to get in, trapping an officer. That officer shot the chimp several times, who fled the scene but was eventually captured.

 

Bobo was well known around town because he rode around in trucks belonging to the towing company operated by his owners. He was toilet trained, dressed himself, took his own bath, ate at the table and drank wine from a stemmed glass. He also brushed his teeth using a Water Pik, logged onto the computer to look at pictures, and watched television using the remote control, police said.

 

Bobo answered a few shouted questions from reporters as he was transferred to the county jail, claiming “I was framed” and asking for more Xanax.

Fake news from the economy

(DETROIT) Feb. 19 — The economic crisis grew even deeper this week as the Big Three automakers appeared to fall short in their efforts to restructure, and several more high-profile companies announced a new wave of job cuts.

Drafts of the plans being drawn up by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler to show how they’re using bailout money approved in December to reorganize their business models were filed with Congress late Tuesday. Critics are already saying that Detroit is not going far enough to remake itself to face twenty-first century economic realities.

General Motors’ centerpiece involved reducing its brands from nine to four and retooling its plants to produce more of what the market seems to be demanding – specific motors rather than general ones.

“In the past, we have been guilty of building whatever motors we felt like on any given day, and hoping that someone somewhere would be interested in buying them,” said GM Chairman Richard Wagoner. “Lawn-mower motors one day, servo motors the next, then moped motors and Erector Set motors. We’re thinking now that if we build automobile motors more consistently, that might make better business sense. Then we could install them in all those surplus car bodies we have sitting around.”

Meanwhile, over at GM’s chief domestic rival, executives said their right-sizing efforts would include changing their name from “Ford” to “Third”.

“The math alone – reducing from four to three — tells you we’ll be able to save 25% on the expense side of our ledger,” said Ford CEO Alan Mulally. “To tell you the truth, we’d be happy to be third, instead of where we are now, which I think is somewhere in the twenties.”

Chrysler will also be announcing a name change, moving away from the “Christ sound” to something a little less ambitious. The firm will now be called Buddha-ler.

“If we can become one with a central consciousness, we stand a better chance of surviving in this difficult climate,” said Chrysler executive Bob Nardelli. “We’ll probably start by taking our portion of the bailout money and using it to ship all remaining PT Cruisers to a secluded cave high in the Himalayas.”

Meanwhile, a new round of layoff announcements seems certain to add to already-swollen unemployment roles.

Credit card giant American Express said it will pink-slip its entire corporate headquarters staff and replace workers with Roombas, the robotic vacuum cleaner.

Bank of America said that it will not only close every office west of the Mississippi, but that departing branch managers would also go out to whichever bank was next door and fire all those workers as well.

Starbucks said it has already down-sized its staff to a bare-bones level, and would now attempt to shed customers, using a strategy of over-priced coffee, under-cooked scones, and discontinuing limited-release items as soon as they caught on with the public, specifically the banana chocolate-chip coffee cake that one middle-aged blogger guy keeps asking for.

Cellular giant Verizon, well-known for its commercials featuring the nerdy guy backed up by hundreds of co-workers representing its support network, will dismiss all the commercial actors except for the front-man, who will carry on his shoulders one of those long poles with life-sized dummies attached.

 

WASHINGTON (Feb. 17) — Republican opposition to President Obama’s economic stimulus package remained strong this week, despite passage of the plan in Congress and the widespread desire of Americans to deal decisively with the current financial crisis.

With the new president in office less than a month, he continues his efforts to transcend “politics-as-usual” and the partisan atmosphere of Washington. But Republicans have grown impatient, waiting 29 whole days for the catastrophe of the two Bush terms to be repaired, and have become more adamant in their calls for resistance to Obama.

“The president thinks he’s addressing our problems with obvious solutions, but that’s just not the case,” said defeated Republican presidential candidate John McCain. “Conservatives among us see things a little differently.”

For example, McCain addressed Democratic assertions that the sky is blue by saying “you know, sometimes it’s more grey than blue, and at night it’s actually a dark black.”

“What we on earth are perceiving as blue is in fact the light refracting off of oxygen atoms and water vapor,” said the Arizona senator. “There’s really no blue there at all. I’ve flown Navy jets at high altitudes, and all I ever saw was clouds, enemy fire and the billowing white of my parachute as I ejected yet again from another plane shot out from under me.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell challenged what he called another common misperception among those in the majority party, that the Pope is Catholic.

“My Christian evangelical friends and I would challenge the notion that Catholicism is even a religion,” the cabbage-patch-esque Kentuckian said. “If it’s not, then how can they even have a pope? Just because there’s some guy speaking Latin and wandering around the Vatican in a Snuggie doesn’t mean he’s the infallible representative of God on Earth. I thought that was Rush.”

Suspiciously single South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham also spoke out to counter Democratic claims about the excretory habits of large mammals residing in the nation’s woodlands and national parks.

“They say a bear shits in the woods. I respectfully disagree,” the fiery but always dapper Republican said. “There is not one shred of scientific evidence that such a disgusting thing occurs with any regularity. And even if it did, the droppings of all other kinds of wildlife would substantially outweigh those of the bear, so their (Democrats’) claim is really a distraction more than anything.”

Newly elected Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele tried to sum up the sentiments of his GOP colleagues.

“It may look like we’re opposing everything Obama supports just for our own political posturing,” Steele told reporters, noting that if you stacked up dollar bills representing the size of the stimulus package, your arms would end up very, very tired. “It may seem like we care more about picking up some seats in the next Congress than we do about American society as we know it surviving. But that’s not true and you have to believe me. Remember, I’m a black guy.”

 

Remembrances of college

While my 17-year-old son considers his options for college in the fall, I’m reminded of the exhilaration of my own post-secondary educational experience some 35 years ago. As I’ve recounted to him numerous times — I’m hoping at least one account will make it past the iPod — it remains to this day one of the greatest experiences of my life, right up there with Daniel’s birth, my marriage to my wife, and the day I found 57 cents under a park swing when I was four years old. (It seemed like a big deal at the time.)

I graduated from Miami Norland High School in 1971, about 150 in a class of 991. As such a successful senior, I had my choice of virtually any public college in the state, primarily because they were legally bound to accept me.

I chose Florida State University in Tallahassee, over 400 miles northwest of Miami. My reasons were not the soundest: I longed for cooler weather, it had an active countercultural movement, and it was the farthest I could get from my dreary teenage life without leaving Florida. I was interested in pursuing a journalism degree but failed to notice in my research that such a program was not offered at FSU. Oops.

Since I couldn’t major in the field I wanted, I decided instead to work on the student newspaper. The Sunday before my first official day as a freshman, I showed up at the student union offices of The Florida Flambeau, wanting to be a reporter. I remember sitting in the hallway outside the newsroom, too scared to walk in and introduce myself but too overweight to avoid being in the way of the scurrying journalists who kept tripping over me. One of them finally asked what the hell I was doing on the floor, and my career in mass communications was launched.

I absolutely fell in love with the place and rose quickly through the ranks. My very first news story, on a new sleeping concept called the waterbed and students’ reaction to it (“they’re not allowed in the dorms”), soon gave way to meatier stories about all the political activity on campus. Both the draft and the Vietnam War were still in full swing at the time, and student protests had caught the attention of the state’s media. About the same time, a member of the state Board of Regents heard that male and female students were commingling, shall we say, in state-funded dormitories, which she colorfully labeled “taxpayers’ whorehouses.” By reporting on these events as an outsider instead of as a participant, I could share in the excitement without experiencing any of the risk (a good thing in the case of anti-war protests, not so good with the whorehouses.)

By the end of my sophomore year, I had become editor of the paper. I was spending all my free time in the newsroom, as well as a good bit of the time that I should’ve spent in lecture halls, laboratories and the library. We clustered around the ancient AP teletype machines and watched as the demise of the Nixon presidency unfolded in smeared black ink. We yearned for a similar scandal in our own corner of the world, so we found some faculty members who didn’t like the university president and started giving them press. But the excitement of the era was definitely on the wane. We could tell our chances of being shot by National Guardsmen were rapidly diminishing.

With the fad of opposing an unjust colonialist war losing its luster, it was time for a new craze, and I had an idea. I’d read a small article on the wire about a so-called “streaking” incident at a Midwestern school but the most compelling part of the story – photographic evidence – was missing. We ran the item, then I planted a fake meeting notice in our paper of the FSU Streakers Club for the following Friday night. Organizer Ed Mims failed to show up for the meeting, primarily because he didn’t existent, though about 20 others did come, including me as the reporter. When the group finally got tired of waiting for Ed, someone else took charge and recommended that FSU put itself in the national spotlight.

Within a few days, we got a tip to have a photographer ready at 1:30 p.m. in the parking lot near the Chemistry Building. In the interest of providing written documentation of the event, I went along and, sure enough, a naked guy emerged from a car and ran across a small grassy median before ducking into another car and driving away. We got five shots, two of which were genitals-free, and the least fuzzy of these made it into the next day’s Flambeau. The following day it was reproduced in the Jacksonville and Tampa newspapers and by the weekend, it made the pages of Newsweek magazine. FSU was being credited with starting the latest college fad as streaking broke out at campuses all over the country.

These were heady times as we attempted to capitalize and build on our new-found notoriety. We scheduled a mass “streak-in” on the campus’s main quadrangle, Landis Green, which brought out more local families and their picnic baskets than any actually nude people. Several locations did attract small aggregations of mostly male naturists – I still have a photo taken outside my freshman dorm of probably 50 or 60 streakers milling around the bicycle stands, frozen in a miraculous moment reminiscent of the Austin Powers openings, with all naughty bits hidden.

Soon the thrill and novelty of streaking began to wear off, despite our desperate attempts to lengthen its duration in the national consciousness to something more akin to Vietnam. We convinced a cub reporter to borrow his roommate’s cane so we could feature him on the front page as the nation’s first blind streaker. On April Fool’s Day, me and another editor got a guy to lie naked on the ground and we dragged him by his four limbs in front of the camera as the first dead streaker. For reasons that make sense in hindsight, we had to abandon attempts to record the first bicycling streaker.

Through it all, I never once participated in any actual streaking, not because of any quaint notions I had about journalistic integrity (ha, ha) but because I was rightfully ashamed of my own personal body. We had a ton of fun, nobody got hurt, and we all ended up with great stories to avoid telling our children.

 

Website review: Famous South Carolinians

In my website review of a few weeks back, I teased the good people and state of North Dakota, primarily for being a bleak barren winterscape but also because they considered the presence of a swimming pool to be a state attraction. It was all in good fun and hardly meant to offend, though readers from the Flickertail State contacted me to say … well … actually, I don’t have any readers in North Dakota. So screw you after all.

It did get me to thinking though about how people who live in glass houses should be foreclosed on for shear stupidity, and that they also shouldn’t throw stones. As a resident of South Carolina, whose unofficial motto is “thank God for Mississippi or we’d be last at everything,” I can honestly acknowledge that we have some serious image problems as well. I think it’s only fair that I examine these, primarily using the website that promotes tourism in the state, scprt.com.

Before we venture there, however, let me make an observation about U.S. states in general. Two things that North Dakota and South Carolina do have in common is an adjectival modifier in their names, and I believe it testifies to their lesser status. Think about other states that are easy to make fun of: there’s New Jersey, rather than just Jersey; West Virginia, rather than just Virginia (though Virginia is pretty laughable too); Rhode Island, rather than just Island. All of these, unlike powerful brands such as California, Texas and Hawaii, are commonly the butt of jokes. If I toss in Arid Zona, Mini Sota and Mass Achusetts, I’m obviously stretching to make a point, so I think I’ll return to my original subject.

The part of the website I’m going to focus on is a subsection in the “Facts and Figures – Help with Homework” that includes a list of famous South Carolinians.

There was a time about 20 years ago when there was a noticeable trend of bozos in the news who called the Palmetto State home, and I remember being vaguely embarrassed every time I met someone out of state and had to say where I was from (“originally Florida”). In the late eighties, we saw disgraced evangelist Jim Bakker, game-show manqué Vanna White, corrupt congressman John Jenrette, political assassin Lee Atwater and toothless tackle William “The Refrigerator” Perry almost constantly in the news. White and Perry both made the website list, the former as the 300-pound defensive lineman who helped the Chicago Bears win the Super Bowl in 1986 and the latter starring as Venus in the TV movie “Goddess of Love”.  (Or do I have that backwards? I always get former and latter confused.) Bakker, Jenrette and Atwater were conveniently overlooked.

Also on the website list are a number of other well-known Sandlappers from throughout history of at-best questionable integrity.

There’s the legendary U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, now remembered primarily for fathering a child with a black teenager while race-baiting his way to a third-place finish in the 1948 presidential race. The state web page fails to mention either of those milestones, of course, choosing instead to focus on his more intriguing stints as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition.

There’s Shoeless Joe Jackson, who is acknowledged to have conspired with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series as a member of the Chicago Black Sox. Despite having been the Jose Canseco/Roger Clemens/Barry Bonds/Jason Giambi/Alex Rodriguez/Andy Pettite of his time, he’s more fondly remembered as the holder of the third-highest career batting average in baseball history and having once played a minor league game in his socks. Big deal; I used to play tennis in my bare feet.

There’s James Brown, cited as the “Godfather of Soul” and “Hardest-Working Man in Show Business” though understandably not as “High-Speed Police Evader While Carrying an Unlicensed Pistol” or “Wielder of Steak Knife Against an Electric Company Repairman.” There’s Leeza Gibbons, a South Carolina native best known for her role as host for “Entertainment Tonight” and her own talk show, “Leeza!” (My editor tells me that the exclamation point should be outside the quotes, since the excitement is mine, not the show’s.) And there’s Darius Rucker, lead singer and guitarist for the hottest band of March 13, 1994, Hootie and the Blowfish.

Not yet on the list are two names I look forward to seeing in the not-too-distant future.

First is current governor Republican Mark Sanford. A right-wing purist, Sanford was in the news just yesterday for finally entertaining the possibility that he might accept federal stimulus money that is due his desperately poor state despite the fact that he opposes the package in principle. He said he’d comb through the fine print of the recently passed bill trying to find anything that would benefit the people of South Carolina, despite claiming “it’s a horrible idea” and has “real bad” ramifications for the country and economy. He’s also been in a feud with the state’s employment security commission because they’ve been unable to match 200,000 jobless people with 40,000 vacancies, conveniently overlooking the fact that by gutting education funding, he’s made it virtually impossible for janitor Clem from the closed textile factory to get a job in genome sequencing research.

Sanford was briefly considered a potential vice-presidential candidate last summer until he opened his mouth-like orifice on national television. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked him how the economic policies of John McCain would differ from what the Bush administration had proposed. Sanford replied: “Yea, I mean for instance take, you know, ummm, ahhh, take for instance the issue of, ahhh (knocks on table) I’m drawing a blank. I hate it when I do that, particularly on TV.” If he thought that was embarrassing, imagine the egg on his face when he’s unable to enunciate launch codes during a Russian missile attack should he ever become president.

 Secondly and, to this day, probably more famous than even the governor, is Lauren Caitlin Upton, former Miss Teen South Carolina. Lauren Caitlin is the blonde knockout who became a YouTube sensation when she mangled her question about why so many Americans couldn’t find the U.S. on a world map. As you probably recall, she responded that “U.S. Americans” had such trouble because they didn’t have maps and “I believe that our … education like such as … South Africa and … the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or… should help South Africa … so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.” If you realize that she was a student leader with a 3.5 GPA at her South Carolina high school, you can’t help but recognize the imprint of Gov. Sanford on her education.

Maybe the two of them could team up to make a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. If they ended up debating Sarah Palin, we could witness the end of the English language as we know it. And that would make all of us South Carolinians so proud.

 

 

Drugs can be funny

Anyone who has watched much late-night television knows that drugs are funny. Just let the host mention “weed” or “roids” and listen to the audience howl. Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez jokes proliferate like octomoms on fertility drugs.

But are legal prescription drugs as funny as the illicit kind? I think so, and so do the writers on the hilarious “Colbert Report” in their frequent segment on Prescott Pharmaceuticals, the fake drug company in constant legal trouble (“the tingling tells you it’s working; the class action lawsuit tells you it’s Prescott”). Their line of medicines includes Vaxadrone, Vaxachub, Vaxascab and Vaxamaxx. It’s usually unclear what the intended effects are – something to do with 1980s 32-bit computing architecture, I imagine – but the side effects are absolutely riotous: vivid dreams of self-cannibalization, late onset albinoism, increased risk of vampire attack. Vaxadrine use is discouraged “if you plan to walk around.”

The items that follow are either brand or generic names from legitimate pharmaceutical giants. Either laugh along with me, or ask your doctor if one of these is right for you and, as Prescott advises, “if he says no, see another doctor.”

Accolate – for treatment of former Lutheran altar boys who continue to extinguish candle flames long past adolescence

Bambec – for the easily confused wild antlered mammal, such as the proverbial “deer stuck in headlights”

Zafirlukast – for inflammation of the pan flute

Faslodex – a high-speed computerized system for recording and maintaining business phone numbers

Modip – a flea treatment for dogs and cats that results in fur styles which resemble the leader of the Three Stooges

Gastroloc – an antidote to diarrhea

Avlocardyl retard – a California-grown salad and guacamole ingredient that can also be used to treat cognitive and learning disorders

Goserelin acetate – Canada Geese dropping refined into a film stock and selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor

AscoTop – for treatment of pretentious English types who are too good to wear normal neckwear

Zomig Rapimelt – for treatment of ice-cream-induced brain freeze

Imigran – designed to turn illegal aliens into a bran fiber that can aid in digestion

Epzicom – a new Disney theme park designed for the treatment of patients with epilepsy

Bonviva – for the treatment of unusually annoying happy people

Twinrix – a rice cereal for fraternal twins

Rotarix – a rice cereal for plumbers

Integrilin – for treatment of the honest politician

Ipilimumab – for treatment of those who think they want to travel to India, but will realize when they get there that it wasn’t such a good idea

Baraclude – one ounce dropped in the ocean will eliminate vicious fish within a one-mile area

Aspergillosis – for treatment of green vegetable spears growing in the shaded parts of your body

Fablyn – an implant that provides instant fashion sense

Cymbalta – for the treatment of drum solos

Yentreve – a medication designed to get Barbra Streisand to appear in a quality movie

Humalog – for those who think going to the bathroom is funny

Survivin – for those interested in stayin’ alive

OpRA II – a cure for those who stay at home watching daytime television

 

The poetry of financial disclaimers

There’s a certain art and poetry to everyday life if you know where to look for it. One of the big differences, I believe, between happy people and sad people is that the happy among us are able to find joy and beauty in a bad situation. I often cite the great poet Raymond Stevens on this subject and his claim that “everything is beautiful in its own way/Like a starry summer night or a snow-covered winter’s day”.

 

In my real-life job working for a financial services company, I get to read a lot of writing that was never intended as anything more than stiff, informative prose: cash flow statements, auditors’ reports, etc. Occasionally, the author’s rhetoric will soar to unintended heights (perhaps while looking for a way to explain huge executive compensation packages, for example) but it’s usually pretty pedestrian stuff. Unless you can look at it a little differently.

 

The language that follows is a boilerplate disclaimer that appears in almost every financial document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With a little imagination, an italic font, and the right line breaks, however, it’s a work of art:

 

These statements are intended to enjoy

The protection of the safe harbor

For forward-looking statements provided

By the Securities Exchange Act.

These statements can be identified

By the use of the word or phrase

“well positioned,”

“expect,”

“expects”

or “would have”

in the statements

 

These forward-looking statements

Are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors,

Domestically and internationally,

Including general economic conditions,

The cost of goods,

Competitive pressures,

Geopolitical events and conditions,

Levels of unemployment,

Levels of consumer disposable income,

Changes in laws and regulations,

Consumer credit availability,

Inflation, consumer spending patterns and debt levels,

Currency exchange fluctuations, trade restrictions,

Changes in tariff and freight rates,

Changes in the costs of gasoline, diesel fuel, other energy,

Transportation, utilities, labor and health care,

Accident costs, casualty and other insurance costs,

Interest rate fluctuations, financial and capital market conditions,

Developments in litigation to which the company is a party,

Weather conditions,

Damage to the company’s facilities from natural disasters,

Regulatory matters and other risks

 

The company discusses certain of these factors more fully

In its additional filings with the SEC,

Including its last annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC,

And this release should be read

In conjunction with that annual report on Form 10-K,

Together with all of the company’s other filings,

Including current reports on Form 8-K,

Made with the SEC through the date of this release

 

The company urges you to consider

All of these risks, uncertainties and other factors

Carefully

In evaluating the forward-looking statements

Contained in this release

 

The forward-looking statements

Made in this release

Are made only as of the date of this release,

And the company undertakes no obligation

To update them to reflect

Subsequent events

Or circumstances

 

It was just one of those days

I had one of those days late last week. I’d say it was a bad day, except that in this difficult age – with poverty and recession and war and the CW network – it’s hard to complain about a series of mishaps from which you emerge with your health and livelihood still intact. The tens of thousands of people being laid off today will have a bad day. The 150,000 soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are having a bad day. Abraham Lincoln had a bad day when he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre. I merely had one of those days where you look up at that kitty in the “Hang in There, Baby” poster, let out a deep sigh, then rip the poster from the wall and tear it into a thousand pieces.

My ordeal was not a morning-to-midnight event but rather a 24-hour span that began around 3 p.m. Wednesday. I was just about finished with my daily treadmill session at the Y when I looked into the hallway. I saw a flesh-colored torso, sheared off at the hips and with the top of its skull blown away, lying on a rapidly moving gurney. My God, had there been some horrible elliptical machine accident? I rushed to the door to learn more, only to get a clearer look at what turned out to be a nude though otherwise unharmed “Resusci-Annie” figure. Annie, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is a mannequin modified for use in CPR training. She’s supposed to be missing her legs and cranium. All she really needs to perform her function is a chest you can press your hands into and a gaping mouth, not unlike Jessica Simpson.

After my workout, I usually stop by my favorite café to do a little blogging before heading home for dinner. I was barely settled into my favorite spot when my cell phone rang. Only a very few people have my cell number, and fewer still like me enough to call it, so I was a little surprised. It turned out to be my boss from work. A take-home project I had agreed to start on two days ago was finally ready to begin and – oh, by the way, the deadline is still tomorrow morning. I was being asked to proofread and edit a 200-page Form 20-F. For those of you unfamiliar with financial filings, a 20-F is one of your least interesting reads, not quite on the skull-crushing level of a Schedule 14A but at least as bad as a Form 6-K or a Dan Brown novel. So my fate for the next eight hours was sealed.

I abandoned my writing and rushed home to begin work, and was probably driving a little too fast past the dog-walkers and assisted-livers from the nearby rest home strolling through my subdivision. I didn’t hit anybody but apparently came close enough to one neighbor just before wheeling into my driveway. “Hey,” he called out, “do you think you can drive a little slower through the neighborhood?” His tone was perfectly even and polite, and he made an entirely reasonable request. This annoyed me even more, yet how could I respond as negatively as I felt here in front of my own home? I mumbled a weak “yeah” and hurried into the house, fuming with irrational anger. By the time I figured out that the person I was mad at was me, he and his dog had already moved off into the darkness. No apology was possible.

I plunged into my project hoping it would distract me from my bone-headed motoring. The document described a Swiss manufacturer of farming and construction equipment. Their market was a challenging one in light of the global economic downturn yet their management team had been prudent with expenses except for this one $385 million credit swap default agreement, the first tranche of which was due in 2013, blah, blah, blah. We tend to think that staying awake, being a mental state rather than a physical one, is something we can control if we only have enough will power. But I’m here to tell you that the functioning brain is no competition for European-made bulldozers and threshers. I gave the document my best cursory glance and headed off to bed around 11:30.

At about 1:30 a.m., my telephone rang. It was Elaine from the office. “Can you come in early this morning?” she asked. I felt like saying “I already come in early,” since my normal arrival time is 5 a.m., but I knew that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. I stumbled out of bed and into the general direction of work.

In between the other projects that were waiting for me when I arrived around 3, I had to send off the results of my previous night’s work. We have some very sophisticated communications equipment in my office, including two digital scanners (DSP) that would capture my marks and upload them to the client. I would create a PDF on the DSP using OCR and the OGF. The perhaps-unfamiliar acronym here is the last one, which stands for Old Guy Frustrator. This is the mechanism – installed especially for me — that pulled too many pages through the first time, caused a jam the second time, and ultimately rendered a file with a thick vertical line down the middle of the copy. When I re-fed the pages into the second machine, I got basically the same results except this time the copy was too light. (Apparently the OGF is networked). In frustration, I messaged the people getting the proof that somewhere in the six files they had received, they’d be able to see all my edits somewhere.

As the workday wound toward a close, I had one last chore: call my health insurance provider and make sure some upcoming surgery was pre-approved. I had to listen carefully to the voicemail message because my available options had recently changed. (Imagine that!) When I finally got through to a human, she proved very helpful in explaining to me it would take just a few moments to call up my information because the computers were a little slow this afternoon. (Again, imagine that!) She was soon able to determine that I was talking to the “completely wrong” department, and transferred me over to someone else. A very pleasant musical hold – T. Pain, if I’m not mistaken – soon ended and I found myself discussing the merits of a system that had designated my surgeon as “out of network,” roughly the same status as sword-wielding barbarian. I was told a further review would be necessary before he could be accepted, then I was given a case number and told to call back in eight to ten business days. Assuming I was still alive.

Twenty-four hours had now passed since my frightening encounter with Resusci-Annie, and I was glad at last to call it a “day.”

My son’s in surgery

For the first time in ten weeks, I won’t be putting up a new humor post today. My 17-year-old son is in surgery at this moment to fix a stomach problem he’s been coping with for some time now. He was incredibly brave and poised as they wheeled him down the hall about a half hour ago — I think he’s glad they’re finally going to fix him up good. He’s a great kid.

I hope to be back with a fresh humor post in the next day or so. Wish us luck. Thanks.

Inside the gut of the healthcare system

First of all, a sincere thanks to everyone who sent well wishes to my son on his encounter with abdominal surgery. He’s doing very well on his first full day of recovery, and doctors are optimistic about a rapid improvement in his condition. We hope that he’ll be out of the hospital and back on his feet – or, more accurately, his favorite sofa — by Friday.

Surgeons spent about two hours yesterday morning exploring his interior laparascopically before locating a diseased section of the small intestine and removing a segment described improbably as the length of a foot-long hotdog, or about ten inches. While in the gastrointestinal neighborhood, they also yanked his appendix because, like the mountain to the mountain-climber, it was “there” and thus demanded surgical attention. The doctor later explained that future physicians would see the scar and believe the appendix had been removed and, if it wasn’t and they thought it was, they might misdiagnose a future malady, which made marginally more sense.

We’re staying at a splendid complex in Charlotte called the Levine Children’s Hospital, which is part of the Carolinas Medical Center. Levine is less than a year old, and sports all the bells and whistles you might expect from a medical construction project finished right before the recession hit. In fact, for our tastes, it sports a few too many bells and whistles, some of which are attached to a remote-control toy train that toots down the hall hourly to the delight of four-year-olds and the annoyance of 17-year-olds.

The entire hospital complex here is an intriguing mix of the latest in high-tech medical care and more down-to-earth systems with chronic problems. When my son was wheeled off to the operating room, my wife and I were taken to a special waiting room where we’d receive hourly updates on the details of the procedure. In addition, there was a big-screen video display that tracked the progress of each patient in each OR. It reminded me of an arrivals and departures board at the airport, with a color coding system indicating who was in pre-op, who was in “stage 3” (something to do with rocketry, I assume) and who was in post-operative recovery. The coding tactfully did not include a color for who had expired on the table or who got one of those cool stab-the-syringe-into-the-chest moves you see on TV. I think they personally inform you of those.

Contrast the elaborate video display with an ID tagging system that seems archaic at best. When we first arrived in admitting, my wife and I each received a printout bearing our crude photographic likeness, our status as “parents” (disturbingly set to expire at the end of the day) and a bar code that we would scan at various access points throughout the hospital. The printout is extremely poor, looking something like the rendering you get when you swipe a pencil on a piece of paper covering a penny and end up with a smeared imprint. There’s spare toner all over the place, making the bar code completely unreadable. So every time we go downstairs to visit the cafeteria, we’re not sure we’ll be back; there’s this one door where we’re halted until a hospital staff member comes along to let us through. I’ve waved the ID in as many different motions as I can imagine, which only leaves me looking foolish, not to mention hungry.

On the elaborate TV remote control in my son’s room, there’s a poorly placed red button between the “movie” and “TV” selection, summoning the emergency nurse when all you wanted to do was get that damn Hannah Montana movie off the screen. The IV pump keeping my son hydrated starts a different series of warning beeps every half hour or so, the different tones meaning the battery is low, the fluid bag is half-empty, or the med-evac helicopter is about to crash through our window. We’re never certain, so we call the nurse (or perhaps change the channel) just to be reassured. The relaxation screen-saver on one channel, showing a teeming tank of tropical fish, is actually a repetitive loop, not the live feed from Sea World I had imagined.

Of course, it’s really the human side of the business that’s far more important, and I have to give very high marks to all the staff and doctors working on our case. Our surgeon is a calm, cool customer by the name of Dr. Bambini, and he was ably assisted by anesthesiologist Brian May. Despite the fact the first sounds more like a vaudeville acrobat than a pediatric surgeon, and the second, I believe, was lead guitarist for the rock group Queen before drugs apparently lured him into his current field, both were consummate professionals in the treatment of my son. The rest of the staff, while well-intentioned, is sometimes a little less stellar.

There’s an unending rotation of individuals parading in and out of our room at all hours of the day and night, performing the various support services every bit as necessary as what the doctors do. (Not really). We met a new nurse yesterday afternoon who entered the room with a breezy “Hi, Cameron, how ya doin’?” We were immediately impressed by both her professionalism and manner until we realized neither of us was named Cameron. The receptionist in the OR waiting room came to tell us our son was out of surgery with the pronouncement “he’s done,” sparking some panicked nanoseconds before her broad smile told us she probably didn’t mean it quite like it sounded.

This cavalcade of health-care workers gets a bit overwhelming, especially when you’re awakened in the middle of the night by the latest visitors. Is this the vital-signs checker or the child-life services volunteer? Is this the nutrition person taking meal orders or a nurse’s assistant? Even if they do identify themselves fully, it still can be hard to keep them all straight, and you fall back on conventional stereotyping to determine what kind of person looks like what kind of worker. If you don’t, you may end up asking the two well-groomed guys in white coats for an unsoiled set of linens, or the tattooed woman with a tongue piercing and a blue smock for another dose of morphine. Though that might actually work out too.
When the woman from the admitting office stopped by to graciously welcome us and ask how we wanted to pay the $300 deductible, there was no mistaking her role. She offered to take a check, a credit card or a debit card, then walked away to inform us a few minutes later that the computer was down so she’d be back to try again later.
Which got me to thinking about what all of this exquisite technology and highly-trained care was going to cost us. Whatever it was, it would definitely be worth it to have our beloved son converted into a healthier teenager than when he arrived, but I won’t mind at all if Admitting Lady gets eternally stuck behind that door with the bad scanner.
In my next post, I’ll write more about costs and other interesting features of our visit into the heart (or should I say gut) of the American medical system.

Fake News Bulletin: Detainees crash into ocean

A jumbo jet carrying all the detainees who had been housed at Guantanamo Bay for the past seven years crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff earlier this morning.

At this point, there appears to be only a handful of survivors, including most of the crew who apparently opened their emergency parachutes upon impact to use as flotation devices. The pilot, six crew members and 11 guards were picked up shortly after the crash by a Coast Guard rescue vessel that just happened to be in the area.

It is believed that all the prisoners died in the crash.

“This is just an awful, awful tragedy,” said Defense Department spokesperson Ron Kilgore. “We felt like we were making real progress in resolving these cases, and then for this to happen, it’s just a terrible thing.”

The prisoners, taken in for alleged war crimes during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, had been in legal limbo for some time. The Obama Administration had already pledged to close the prison at the naval station on the eastern tip of Cuba within a year, but it was still uncertain where the detainees would go. Most were regarded as too dangerous to set free, there were few countries willing to take them, and a growing outcry in the U.S. made relocation to domestic prisons problematic.

“Frankly, we have no idea what we’re going to do with these guys,” said an unnamed source at the State Department as recently as last week. “There really seems to be no good solutions.”

The cause of the crash is unknown at this point, but one investigator speculated that a build-up of ice on some Canada geese which crashed through the engine may have severed hydraulic lines that then caused an oxygen tank in the cargo hold to explode. He also noted that one of the prisoners could’ve been wearing a sandal bomb and another could’ve had a 3-ounce bottle of inflammable liquid, or possibly mouthwash.

Officials offered various accounts of why all 378 prisoners had boarded the flight. One said they were “just giving them a break from the same old routine by flying them around the island on a sight-seeing trip.” Another insider said they had been assigned work duty to clean the interior of the jet when it accidentally took off, while a third spoke of a trip to Disney World “paying them back for all the torture and hardships and stuff.”

Administration press officer Jason Seals said a full investigation of the crash would take place, just as soon as the economy had revived and a proper study could be funded.

“It’s kind of funny how it worked out, if you think about it,” said Seals. “On one hand, it’s an unimaginable loss of life that will haunt us for a long time, but on the other, we didn’t know what we were going to do with them anyway, so that’s the positive side.”

“Like they say, ‘shit happens,’” Seals concluded.

Getting the most for your healthcare costs

My son was released from the hospital yesterday afternoon and is now at home recovering from his Tuesday abdominal surgery. Doctors offered an excellent prognosis for him, meaning he actually might be pain-free or close to it for the first time in several years. We are thrilled with such an apparently positive outcome, and thank both those in the hospital as well as readers of this blog for their support and their thoughts.

Seeing a behemoth as much discussed as the American health care system from an inside perspective was quite a learning experience. I wrote on Wednesday about how impressive both the people and the technology were; now I guess it’s time to look at the dark side of that equation, which is the financial cost involved. Reading a news story on the day of the surgery about how health costs have now skyrocketed to over $8,000 annually per American put me into a hyper-cheap mindset as soon as my immediate concerns over the surgery had passed.

Right after leaving the OR recovery area, we were escorted to our home for the next 48 hours, a private room on the tenth floor of the Levine Children’s Hospital. Before we were even settled in, a volunteer and her “hospitality cart” appeared at the door, offering items such as toothbrushes, books and toiletries. Figuring we had surpassed our yearly cost allotment during my son’s first 15 minutes of surgery, I declined the hospitality, afraid it would show up on our bill in the form of a $65 deodorant stick. Assured it was actually free, we instead chose to load up.

That’s a strategy I continued over the next few days in an effort to counter my fear of what our ultimate costs are going to be. We have relatively good insurance by most measures (in other words, totally inadequate), but I’m sure we’ll still be paying quite a bit out of pocket. So, I made every effort to take full advantage of the offerings that did seem to be free.

I decided I would spend the night in the room with my son, since there was no double-occupancy add-on and the convertible couches looked relatively comfortable. The amenities in Room 10001 (we must’ve been in the Base 2 Annex of the hospital) were considerable. I’ve already talked about the in-house TV/movie system, hardly a Spectravision but still quite watchable for characters with their clothes on. There were a lot of recent releases on the movie channel and also some cable offerings of interest. I regret that I didn’t get a chance to check out the “Newborn Channel.” At first, I imagined a network of nothing but infant actors in a variety of drama, sitcom, sports, news and reality productions, though I later realized it was more likely intended as a how-to for new moms and dads.

Besides watching as much TV as possible, another way to recoup some of our charges was through the food service. I wasn’t so thoughtless as to filch nutrition from my ailing son – his bland mashed potatoes didn’t look that good anyway. My wife and I did, however, take full advantage of a family snack pantry halfway down the hall that had free soft drinks, cookies, puddings and cereals. There was also a high-tech coffeemaker in another common room that was complementary, and we received a number of $7 meal tickets redeemable in the downstairs café.

Say what you will about hospital food, the main cafeteria in major hospitals these days is on a par with food courts at the mall, except with slightly sicker patrons. There was a Sbarro’s, a Chick-fil-A and several grilles and a-la-carte stations. Though the food was a little overpriced it was quite tasty. There was the “Price Is Right” fun of trying to get your order as close as possible to multiples of seven without going over, since they wouldn’t give any change back for the tickets. Hopped up on cookies, pudding and free coffee, and appetite-impaired by both antiseptic and septic smells, we were even able to use a few extra tickets as we were checking out to purchase a take-home dinner.

Other comforts of the lodging experience weren’t quite as tangible, though I still tried to take full advantage. Public restrooms on the floor offered the kind of high-flow vortices you’d expect when half the patients in residence were afflicted with stomach ills, so I went to the bathroom as much as I possibly could. (The vacuum produced by some of these super-toilets could probably have performed their own gastrointestinal suction surgeries with a little supervision.) You could also freely pass gas anywhere on the wing and everyone understood or even encouraged you — and how could you even put a price on that?

The convertible bed where I slept during both nights of our stay was surprisingly comfortable. It was hard to attach the supplied bed linens to the Naugahydeous surface, and with my Restless Body Syndrome I’d almost slid out to the ledge by morning. The pillow was definitely sub-par, giving me a case of bed-hair that nearly required my own hospitalization, and yet I still got a much better night of sleep than I ever had on any transcontinental flight. And, as an added bonus, when I woke up, I wasn’t in India.

While we waited around for our discharge papers, I had a final surge of concern that I hadn’t thoughtlessly and selfishly contributed to spiralling healthcare costs quite enough. True, I had my surgically repaired first-born son, and that’s certainly worth more than all the money in the world. But still, as I looked around the room one last time, I wondered: Is there a market on eBay for the kind of disposable gloves being freely dispensed from the wall above the sink? I looked a little closer at the product. The packaging said they were “Ansell MicroTouch Nitrile new and improved, powder-free, latex-free medical examination gloves”. If adjectives counted for anything on the open market, these might be able to cover quite a bit of our costs.

A look at the art of “feedback”

Assessing the performance of your fellow humans is a tricky business. Whether you’re offering praise, a generalized judgment, or what has come to be known as “feedback” (and what used to be called “yelling at someone”), you have to be cognizant of the recipient’s feelings and at the same time get your point across. The idea is to not only suggest how better work might be done the next time, but also to avoid embarrassing them.

When you’re a teacher who’s reporting on the progress of your impressionable young students, you’re likely to be bigger and stronger enough not to care what they think. Still, you have to temper your frankness with a measure of sensitivity, so as not to damage those fragile self-esteems. You also have to consider, especially in my part of the country, that their father may be an Ultimate Fighting Champion.

The public school system in this particular Southern state supplements its grades with a place in the progress report where teachers can offer “personalized” remarks. A comment code entered in the system triggers a pre-phrased assessment that’s meant to appear sincere but instead sounds computer-generated. They don’t even try to disguise this shortcut: next to the letter grade, the report will say something like “22. A delight to teach” or “17. Always focused and prepared.” At least that’s how they read for good students like my son. I imagine the lower part of the class gets stuff like “42. Needs to pay more attention” or “38. Must stop trying to knife me.”

When you’re working at the adult education level, you still have to be careful not to offend. I’ve done enough training in the corporate world to know that you have to promise trainees there are no wrong answers to have any hope of getting a response. “That’s one way to look at it” or “I see your point” are some of the acceptable replies, even if you ask what’s the capital of Michigan and they answer “twelve.” I once sat through a six-hour CPR class that incessantly stressed how heart-attack victims were by far your most likely subjects. When a question-and-answer summary was conducted at the end of class, we were asked what was the most common cause of death in America. “Car wrecks?” said the guy to my left.

As hard as it can be to tell someone they’re an idiot, it can be equally challenging to say something that’s positive and yet also rings true. I don’t know how many times I worked my hardest to do a good job on a particular project and heard nothing in response, while the next day I put forth a pitiful effort and drew rave reviews. You eventually reach the point where you realize there’s absolutely no predictable correlation going on.

Still, I’ve been on the other side enough to appreciate how hard it can be for management to rally the troops with hollow expressions of praise. So I do have some sympathy for what follows. It’s a collection of comments submitted by a reader who started detecting something of a canned flavor to all the appreciative emails his team was receiving from a top executive in his company. Read what follows and try not to wince.

–Thank you for the exceptional job you did on Wills. Thank you especially for your focus on quality with this work.
–Excellent feedback on Kaline!!! It is great to be known for quality and speed. That will keep our clients with us.
–Accurate and two days early!!! Thank you for your work and the excellent results for our clients on Drysdale. Keep up the great work.
–Thank you for getting the Tresh work completed quickly and accurately. Keep it going through the year.
–Excellent work producing Boyer quickly and accurately. Looking forward to more successes through the year.
–Thank you for jumping in during a tough spot on Orlando and letting us shine. Keep up the great work.
–Great quality and responsiveness!!! Terrific words to hear from our clients. Johns gives us a tremendous amount of work. I am so glad our sales team is “impressed” every day.
–Excellent work on Jake. Glad to see you exceeding our client’s needs.
–Exceptional work on Anderson! Thank you for delivering for our clients so that they can meet their goals. This will keep them coming back.
–What terrific feedback on Nicks. It shows teamwork and attention to detail. Exactly the ingredients we need to provide a perfect product to our clients.
–Excellent work on Howard. Thank you for helping to get this client finished on time. Very nicely done.
–Thank you for your speed and accuracy on Warfield. The client was able to finish their project on time. Excellent work!!!!
–Excellent work on Roberts. Keep the focus on quality and speed.
–Awesome work on the Stofa job. Thank you for your focus on quality and speed.
–Excellent work on George. Difficult work delivered on time and in great shape. We cannot ask for more than that.
–Thank you for your work on Roseboro. It is great to be known for speed and a high level of accuracy.
–Excellent work on Moose. The more you “make people’s day”, the more work we will receive. Thank you and keep up the great work.
–Thank you for your work on Morris. Keep up the great work. Good comments on the communication as well.
–Excellent turnaround and quality on the job that had to finish yesterday. This is why our clients keep coming back.
–Thank you for completing the Venus work on time. Excellent work and keep it going through the year.
–Thank you for the quick turnaround and high quality for the Henderson job.
–Excellent work exceeding expectations on Lucille. Thank you and keep up the great work.
–Thank you for completing Dawn in half of the time expected. I appreciate your focus on quality and speed.

Final thoughts on hospitalization

Final thoughts on my encounter with hospitals and the American medical establishment this past week:

·        Almost every doctor and nurse we came in contact with seemed suspiciously enthusiastic when talking about the pain-killing drugs my son would receive during his surgery and recovery. While meeting with us in pre-op, the anesthesiologist talked about what the patient could expect as he was wheeled into the operating room: “We’re going to give you some drugs that will make you feel really, really good and you won’t remember a thing that happens.” Then the nurse anesthetist: “You’ll be getting some very fine narcotics.” Then the surgeon himself: “When we pump these drugs into you, you won’t feel a thing except you’ll be very happy and very high.” I half-expected these comments to be prefaced with “Dude.”

·        Is “Xray Café” really the best name for the children’s hospital snack bar? Yes, the rhyme is clever, but it raises the whole specter of irradiated chicken nuggets.

·        In the recovery room just after surgery, a slightly too informative nurse gave us a detailed step-by-step coverage of everything he was doing. He showed us the monitor recording my son’s heartbeat, and noted how it was just a little bit high. For the next 30 minutes, we’d watch with concern as the number would inch slightly higher, then with relief as it would inch slightly lower. Finally, he turned the damned thing off. Our concern returned, though, when he prepared an injection dose, then walked across the hall to another nurse for “verification,” and she just waved him off as if she trusted him.

·        Internal communication among the different practitioners that paraded into our room didn’t seem too effective. Shortly after a resident physician stopped by to talk about the clear liquids the patient would be allowed on the day after surgery, a woman from nutrition services stopped to deliver his dinner: a cheeseburger and fries.

·        Seeing a dark stain in the upholstery of a chair seat in your room is not especially reassuring, especially considering the quantity of gastroenterology patients on the floor.

·        How obsessed do you have to be to pass your time in an OR waiting room by shopping on eBay? Are you seeking a distraction from worrying about the loved one undergoing a life-threatening procedure, or do you simply not care about their outcome? Do they have good buys on stents and wheelchairs you might be needing for Uncle Lou? Or might you be able to purchase a whole new uncle?

·        Speaking of the OR waiting room, doctors would enter periodically to find the appropriate family and report on the outcome of their particular case. Sometimes it looked like they had met the family in advance, but other times they’d check with the receptionist to see who was who. That seemed a little too casual to me. Imagine waiting on your spouse’s appendectomy, and the wrong doctor shows up to report that “the donor heart has been slightly delayed.”

·        While riding up to the tenth floor on the elevator, I noticed that one of the lower floors was devoted entirely to what was called “progressive care.” As opposed to what everybody else in the building was receiving? I began to watch incoming medications more carefully in my son’s room, wary of poultices and monkey paws.

·        The children’s play room at the end of our floor was a great feature for the younger residents. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure it was clean, safe, and decorated for the nearest seasonal holiday. In late February, that would be Presidents’ Day and Mardi Gras, so in addition to bead necklaces hanging from the ceiling, there were also silhouette cutouts of presidential profiles. This gave me the uncomfortable image of James K. Polk lifting his shirt so someone would throw him some bangles.

·        I’ve written once already about the “fish channel” on the in-house TV network. This was a relaxing loop of footage showing tropical fish darting about a large, elaborately stocked tank. The only problem was that it proved to be just a little too riveting. You’d find yourself watching closely to find the point where the loop would start over. “Never mind that my uncle just suffered cardiac arrest,” you could imagine family members saying. “That clownfish is being attacked by a betta.”

·        The wide-screen HDTVs in every room were a nice touch, but it was a little disturbing that we weren’t given control over features such as aspect ratio. Our set was permanently set on “wide,” making our viewing of “The Biggest Loser” extremely disturbing. When even Gwyneth Paltrow in “Iron Man” looks chunky, you know it’s a distraction.

 

 

Encounters with the rich and famous

Someone asked me the other day how many famous people I’ve met in my life. I guess it depends how you define “famous,” how you define “met,” and even how you define “people.”

When I was growing up in Miami during the 1960s, I had several encounters with the rich and powerful. At the time, South Florida was considered to be on the brink of becoming another Los Angeles in terms of its connections with the entertainment industry. Comedian Jackie Gleason had moved his popular television show to Miami Beach and was touting the location as having “the greatest audiences in the world,” which the audience in attendance would riotously agree with. His influence led others to visit the area, including Ed Sullivan who brought The Beatles to town.

I never met Sullivan or The Beatles, but I did drive by Jackie Gleason’s house. In the days before the gated communities and private islands that now dominate the Miami landscape, he had a home in an affluent neighborhood several miles from my house, and whenever we had out of town visitors, we’d drive them past the expansive yellow structure. We never saw him mowing the yard or rolling out his garbage, but we knew he was probably just on the other side of those stucco walls, unless he was in one of his other homes in another state or in rehab.

In addition to seeing Jackie Gleason’s house, I also saw President Lyndon Johnson’s speeding car. Shortly after he succeeded John Kennedy, Johnson flew into a suburban airport, then motorcaded to an appearance downtown. My parents, eager for me to see history in the making, thought it would be an educational experience for my sister and me to stand in a roadside ditch and watch a long black limousine pass us at 70 miles per hour. I may have seen LBJ’s famous long face peering through the dark glass, though it could’ve been his beagle.

I also had the occasion while growing up to visit the set of “Flipper,” and personally meet with TV’s favorite cetacean. My sister, an aspiring model and child actress, was riding a wave of popularity at the time from her appearance as girl number three in a sunglasses commercial. (I almost had a similar career myself, but there turned out to be surprisingly few calls for pimpled, overweight teenage boys). Her agent had the connections to get us invited to the small inlet where the world-famous dolphin resided, and he came to the pier where we stood and offered up a fin in greeting. I doubt he’d remember the encounter today, principally because he’s long since been blended into a can of tuna fish, but it made a big impression on me. For literally days afterward, I wanted to be a marine biologist.

As I noted earlier, whether any of these events constitute “meeting famous people” or not is certainly debatable. It’s similar in a way to the discussion I often have with my wife – does it count as visiting a foreign country if you’ve only changed planes in the airport? I would contend that looking at someone’s residence, being passed by someone’s car, or pawing someone’s flipper counts as a meeting. She would disagree, and I can understand why, since she’s never been to Japan and I have.

When I left Miami for college, my encounters with fame became even harder to dispute. I attended a show by then-rising comedian Steve Martin in a small on-campus pub. Since I was covering the performance for the student newspaper, I got an excellent seat at the front table with some friends of mine. Martin interrupted his act long enough to acknowledge us at one point, I called out “Steve!” and he sort of waved in my direction. He continued with the show until being tragically wounded by an arrow through the head only moments later.

The next year, CBS news anchor Dan Rather came to campus as part of a speakers’ series, and was kind enough to visit our tiny newsroom after the event. As the paper’s editor, I served as host and invited him to sit at my desk as he was surrounded by eager young reporters. We were in a bitter rivalry at the time with a fraternity-sponsored newspaper, and the editor of that publication had the nerve to show up for the symposium. I interrupted Rather’s talk just as he was about to tell us how journalism was a solid career that would prosper long into the next century, and forced the rival editor to leave. Too bad I missed that part, or I could be laid-off even today.

After I moved to the Carolinas, I jumped to an even higher level of power encounters. While he was running for his first term as president, Bill Clinton campaigned at a motel near where I worked (the choice of a motel didn’t seem odd at the time though, in retrospect, it makes sense). He was surrounded by Secret Service guards as I approached him in the parking lot, and I asked their permission before attempting to shake his hand. The agents said nothing, though if body language could be interpreted as a response, it would be “Yes, but I’ll have to kill you.” I took a chance anyway and Clinton and I had a brief exchange. He might remember me now 18 years later, though I hear he’s had a lot on his mind in the interim.

About a decade and a half later, at a Charleston bookstore, I met two different celebrities on two separate occasions. The first was former Senator John Edwards, then campaigning for his first run at the presidency and promoting his book. I bought the book and asked him to autograph it, and we had a cordial discussion in which I said I’d probably vote for him just to annoy my right-wing mother-in-law. He seemed like a nice guy and I continued to be a supporter of his until that whole unfortunate cheating-on-his-dying-wife misunderstanding.

Interestingly, the second encounter at that same store was with Dr. Ruth Westheimer. She too was promoting a book, a fictional work about how it was possible to have great sex over age 50. We didn’t get a chance to speak, though I did point at her and laugh, mainly because that although she’s known as the “tiny sex therapist,” few people realize she’s actually only 7 inches tall. I guess that would make any potential shtupping of Senator Edwards somewhat problematic, but maybe not.

The last meeting I’ll describe took place while I was visiting New York. On a business trip in 2000, I had a free Saturday to walk uptown to Central Park. It was the first warm weekend of the year, and the sidewalks were packed with families. As I passed one couple pushing a stroller, I realized the mom looked vaguely familiar. It took a few seconds for me to realize that the lesion on her lip unmistakably marked her as supermodel Cindy Crawford. As a big fan for years, I couldn’t resist calling out to her, though by then it was over the heads of a hundred people who had passed between us. “Cindy,” I yelled, “I loved your work in the movie ‘Fair Play’. It wasn’t fair that critics dubbed you the worst actress of the year. What was it like to work with William Baldwin?” She must’ve thought I was kidding, or else just another Manhattan lunatic, because she walked on without acknowledging me.

So, what do you think: have I met any famous people in my life? I would say that I have, though the celebrities in question might deny it all.

South (barely) survives snowstorm

A rare March snowstorm marched across the South Monday, causing power outages and slick roadways that led to a number of traffic accidents. At least six people were killed, most from heart attacks caused by the shock that it’s possible for frozen precipitation to fall from the sky during the wintertime.

Schools and businesses closed throughout the region in reaction to snow totals that neared four inches in some locations, and most Southerners decided to stay home rather than face the treacherous conditions outside. Some exercised even more care to avoid possible injury.

Residents at the home of Charlotte native Guy Pepper declined even to leave their beds lest they slip and fall.

“When my clock radio came on this morning, the first thing they talked about was the inch and a half of snow we had outside,” said Pepper. “We’re not used to that kind of thing around here and I wanted to be extra careful. I just slept in bed all day.”

Neighbor Sue Walton said she considered visiting the bathroom about 15 feet away from her bed, but decided against it rather than take the risk.

“It’s not that I don’t trust myself to walk across the carpet,” she said. “It’s the other people out there that I worry about. My husband, he walks like a crazy man in these conditions, and I don’t want him losing control and crashing into me.”

The family at a home down the street was a little more adventurous in dealing with the storm, acknowledging that they did “take a chance” by venturing out of bed and into the hallway, eventually making it to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.

“If you just take it nice and slow, it’s not that bad,” said Edwin Drew. “What you have to watch for are the slick patches that seem to come up just as you’re gaining some confidence. It took me almost an hour to carefully walk down the hall, but I made it.”

Only a few blocks away, resident Robyn Blackburn actually went so far as to open her front door and grab the newspaper that was just outside.

“I lived in the north for about a year so I’m pretty familiar with these conditions,” Blackburn said. “I keep a set of chains at my bedside. I use them mainly for other purposes, but they can double as snow chains in a pinch. I wrapped them around my feet and lower legs and they gave me the traction I needed to make it to the door.”

Another Southerner who braved the wintry conditions was Ken Shelley, who went out to his driveway to check on the condition of his vehicle.

“I’m not insane enough to try to drive the thing, but I thought at least I could sweep some snow off the roof,” said Shelley.

The South Charlotte man used what he called a “four-wheel drive equivalent” to navigate his way about ten feet down the slope of a small incline.

“It’s probably more like six-wheel drive,” he said. “I get down on my hands and knees and crawl like a baby over the icy pavement. I have contact with two hands, two knees and two feet, so I feel I’m pretty likely to survive the trip without a skid.”

 

Taking pride in my Slob heritage

I declare today that I am a Slob-American. I say it loud, and I say it proud.

As enthusiastic as I might be now, I wasn’t always so respectful of my heritage. We Slobs were too frequently lumped in with the Lazy, the Listless, the Shifty and the Shiftless. I don’t deny those groups any less right than I have to view their ethnicity with pride, it’s just not who I am. We Slobs have a history of making an overt statement that we don’t care how we look, whereas other groups have not always had the same self-assuredness.

I can trace my Slob birthright back several generations before its carefree attitude toward dress showed up squarely in my wrinkled lap. One of my earliest ancestors was Maryland patriot Charles Carroll of Carrollton, an original signer of the Declaration of Independence. Documentation of his personal style is understandably scant, though there is a lithograph in the National Archives showing the Founding Fathers gathered around the hallowed parchment that is our nation’s charter, with Charles shown wearing a pocket t-shirt.

Almost a century passed before I could find a similar record of my later forbearers, and this time it’s Jebediah Stephen, posing for a Matthew Brady photograph on the eve of the Civil War’s Battle of Gettysburg. Stephen is just a kid, his unease with military life apparent in the way he stands apart from the other Union soldiers. You can’t tell it from the photo (Brady was of the minimalist/realist school and disdained the use of color) but Stephen is dressed in a green uniform. It’s only through later records that we know the confused young border-state native forsook fighting for either the Blue of the North or the Grey of the South, and instead insisted on defending the “glory of the East.”

Fast-forward to the 1950s and there’s a picture of my maternal grandmother. Vertie Wolfe was a proud Pennsylvania farm wife who raised eight children after her husband died. She’s shown in the only picture of that era still in my family, wearing a calf-length polka-dot dress, her grey hair in a bun, looking over the rims of her grandmotherly glasses. No botox, no blonde rinse, no fashionable pumps, the poor woman is a fashion no-show.

My earliest years were not particularly notable for their lack of fashion-sense. My baby pictures show a happy little boy. Sure, he’s wearing a rather frumpy diaper and has one sock pulled higher than the other, but at least there’s a doggie decal on his shirt. When I headed off to first grade a few years later, I’m wearing a plain shirt made by my mother and a pair of jeans that were meant to last at least through my teenage growth spurt. Their excess length is folded outward into white denim cuffs that reach almost to my knees.

More overt displays of Slobiness were not permitted in public schools at that time. We didn’t have uniforms per se, but there was a fairly strict dress code requiring long pants (not THAT long), tucked-in shirts and, inexplicably, shoes. Growing up in the subtropics of south Florida, I spent every moment I could romping through life in bare feet. You’d think the presence of scorpions, poisonous toads and giant roaches known for crunching underfoot would’ve offset the lure of constantly warm weather, but I loved to go without shoes. We played stickball in the street, rode our bikes through the neighborhood, even played tennis, and came to be proud of the thick calluses we constructed for ourselves. To this day, my big toes are each a full four inches wide.

It wasn’t until free-spirited seventies when I went off to college that I was able to “let my Slob flag fly,” to paraphrase David Crosby from his Slobian anthem “Almost Cut My Hair” and the lesser-known follow-up “Almost Took a Shower.” With no dress code whatsoever in place, I attended classes in frayed cut-off jeans, faded shirts, long curly hair and a scruffy half-beard. Even when I became editor of the school paper and a student leader, I clung to my carefree look, once interviewing the university president in his ornate office while wearing no shoes. I considered my slovenly appearance to be a political statement against the establishment; I imagine he saw it otherwise.

Now and for the last 35 years I’m out in the real world, dealing with real-world prejudices against my people. I live by the rules of corporate authority when I have to for the good of my household income. At work in the office, I wear business-casual black slacks, usually a grey or blue dress shirt and a black belt. I’m still a rebel below the ankles, though, opting for bright white running shoes and white socks, mainly because I thought they looked cool on Jerry Seinfeld 15 years ago. (That’s about my timeframe for keeping up with the few fashion statements I do agree with.)

But away from the corporate world, I exhibit all the Slob attributes that my people have proudly shown for centuries since they emigrated to the New World from Slobenia. My preferred winter attire – what I’m wearing at this very moment, in fact — is voluminous Hammer-style sweatpants, a tank top I found in the road in 1999, a worn synthetic overshirt with more pills in it than Rush Limbaugh, and a pair of penny loafers circa 1986. I only bother with the shoes because I’m writing in what is technically a restaurant/cafe that has no spine in standing up to plainly discriminatory health and cleanliness laws. Also, it’s 17 degree outside.

When warm weather arrives in a few weeks, I’ll again be able to break out the attire of my youth. The baggy cotton gym shorts, the vintage wear that includes a rare race t-shirt from the 1984 AMC Pacer 10-K (in which the Pacer famously finished a close third behind a pair of Kenyans) and a generic corporate t-shirt lacking the company imprint that was supposed to go with the words “technology, innovation and customer focus.” And perhaps my proudest possession of all: underwear briefs where virtually all the cotton has worn away and what remains is the elastic of the waste band and the seams of the legs, a sort of proto-thong I’ll still wear beneath my running togs.

My son and I were watching one of the Star Wars movies the other evening, and he commented how awkward it appeared for the Sith and the Jedi and all the rest of them to be laser-fighting in outfits that so severely limited their movement. Between the hoods and the robes and the long dangling belts and the extra-loose sleeves, we thought any of them would be easy prey should an invading civilization come along that dressed in jeans and sweatshirts. He propped his shoeless feet up on the couch as we laughed, and it was then that I knew that the Slob heritage would live on for at least one more generation.

 

Fake News: Steele apologizes — he’s really sorry (really)

WASHINGTON (March 5) — Republican National Chairman Michael Steele continued to back-pedal yesterday from comments he made over the weekend implying that right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh may not in fact be the Second Coming of Christ.

“I honestly didn’t mean to say those awful, hurtful things,” Steele said. “When I said his show was incendiary and ugly, I didn’t mean anything personal by it. He’s a great entertainer and a fantastic voice for the conservative cause. Really, really fantastic — beyond all conventional measures of greatness.”

Steele added that he was “really, truly sorry” and “truly wanted to make a major apology, really.” He called himself “stupid, stupid, stupid” and asked “what the hell is wrong with me?”

“How dare I question anything at all that comes out of his hallowed mouth?” Steele wondered. “Exactly what kind of idiot am I? I’ll tell you what kind – the biggest kind there is. That’s what kind.”

Meanwhile, post-convention analysts of the Conservative Political Action Committee sessions in Washington continued to look for a common theme to come out of the gathering. The new party slogans being floated for consideration – “The Hell With The Rest of You” and “Time For Some Rich White Guys” – are being judged by many as too divisive.

There was also no clear consensus among observers about which current party leaders might emerge in the next few years to offer a challenge to Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012.

“That Bag of Hammers who gave the opening address on Saturday sounded pretty impressive to me,” said one attendee. “I think he would take a direct approach to the problems we’re currently facing by applying tremendous force and power.”

Another conservative in attendance said he was leaning toward the Sack of Wet Leather that offered Sunday’s keynote address.

“He smelled pretty foul, but maybe that’s what this country needs,” he noted. “A president who stinks would be a president who gets noticed on the world stage.”

In the straw-poll “beauty contest” of early favorites for the nomination, a Box of Rocks received 31% of the vote, Bait got 25%, a Soapdish scored 21% and a Houseplant garnered 13%. Other potential candidates – including Raw Cookie Dough, a Post, and Dirt — scored in the single digits.

Many of the younger participants, as well as a large contingent of women and minorities, talked a lot about one potential candidate who had not even attended the annual right-wing confab.

“We’re holding out to see what the Truckload of Barbies is going to do during congressional elections in 2010,” said Bob Hefferly. “If she grabs a Senate seat, it could be a springboard on to the White House.”

 

Website review: UltimateFighting.com

If you find football not violent enough, boxing not bloody enough, and hand-to-hand urban counterinsurgency not conveniently located enough, have I got some mayhem for you.

It’s called Ultimate Fighting, and details of this fast-rising sport can be found at the subject of this week’s website review, UFC.com.

According to the home page, the Ultimate Fighting Championship organization follows a rich history of competitive martial arts that dates back to the ancient Greek Olympics and found a more modern embodiment about 80 years ago as Vale Tudo, which translates to “anything goes.” Known in some quarters as mixed martial arts (and in others as “beating the crap out of someone”), UFC combines elements of karate, jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, grappling and sumo, sprinkles in some bright graphics, explosives and scantily clad “Octagon Girls”, and finds itself near the top of the heap in the much-coveted young hyper-male demographic.

To entice us into their various pull-downs, we see a lot of mean-looking guys scowling at the camera in obvious discomfort with all the chains and ingrown hair around their necks. Upcoming bouts are promoted alongside ads for high-energy sports drinks, online poker and, inexplicably, Joe Rogan’s comedy tour. Tickets, for those who are interested, are still available for the Rampage Jackson vs. Jim Miller contest which, if names are any indication, Jim is probably going to lose.

As in any sport, it’s the personalities of the competitors that help determine its popularity, so I take a look at a few biographies of the 200-plus fighters listed. I find myself drawn to some less-competitive individuals, with winning records just a tad about .500 yet surprisingly still alive.

Rob Emerson is a smallish fellow who’s won only ten of his 18 bouts, including a loss in February by a method described as “submission/choke”. He describes his favorite hero as South Park’s Cartman, his previous career as something called a “scrapper,” and his favorite techniques as “leg kick, flying knee, and gogo platypus” (the last of which might explain his February choking). At least he’s now fighting others in his own weight class, unlike the early days of UFC when in one bout a competitor was outweighed by 400 pounds.

Krzysztof Soszynski is a bigger guy at over 6 feet and 200 pounds, but still has managed to prevail in only 17 of his 27 battles. As you may have guessed by his name, he’s not from around here. He’s from Manitoba. There, as a 16-year-old bodybuilder, he met wrestler Bad News Brown who “showed me an armbar and a kimura and I was immediately hooked.” He gave up his pursuit of a college degree to work as a driver and truck loader before devoting himself full-time to fighting. He describes his favorite striking method as the “up-down-up, jab to head, cross to body, hook to head,” which is not as frightening as it sounds, judging by his record.

Jess Liaudin is a Frenchman who’s won only 12 out of 23 fights with what he describes as a “well-rounded unorthodox style.” I guess losing almost half the time, including his last three in a row, could accurately be described as unorthodox. Having given up formal education at an early age, he spent 13 years trying to get into the UFC with the spinning back fist as his best move. After finishing well at a Japanese shootboxing tournament (guns and boxing?), a European Cage Combat championship and a Brazilian grappling meet, he was eventually called up to the big time, “where I intend to stick around and do some damage,” mainly to himself.

Elsewhere on the website, there are some good descriptions of what’s involved in the sport for the uninitiated or those who were perhaps searching instead for the Ugli Fruit Consortium or the University of Florida at Clearwater. Competitors use 4-6 ounce gloves designed to protect the hand as it impacts what’s euphemistically called the striking surface. Commission-approved shorts are the only uniforms allowed, as shirts and shoes present the temptation to grab, which is forbidden. Matches take place in the “Octagon,” an arena that includes safety padding for fighters who fall and a fence for those who are tempted to run away. The aforementioned Octagon Girls are also padded.

Despite its origins as an anything-goes format, there are restrictions on what competitors are allowed to attempt on each other. Not permitted are “butting with the head, eye gouging of any kind, biting, hair pulling, groin attacks of any kind, putting a finger into any orifice or laceration (!), small joint manipulation, clawing, stomping, kicking the kidney, spitting, pinching, kicking the head, and throat strikes of any kind including, without limitation, grabbing the trachea.” (These are only allowed at the next day’s chiropractor appointment.) Other behaviors that will get you disqualified include timidity and throwing in the towel.

The site also offers opportunities for fans who want to use new-media interaction to blog about their favorite UFC stars. One, known as mrkong, wants to see a fight between Josh “The Dentist” Neer and Diego “Nightmare” Sanchez – “this would be an amazing fight I think, how do you think it would go?” Another writer, cripplerfan, notes that “I am pleased to join the UFC community sharing my great interest in the UFC fight, I hope I will learn more about UFC, especially the fights in May, I go for Mir my patron in the coming fight, thanks.” There’s also an online fantasy league, news about the Spanish audio feed and trouble-shooting guides for the chronically bug-plagued UFC On Demand service. I didn’t see any news about fighters who Twitter, probably because few of them have thumbs left.

Lastly, there are the obvious attempts to conduct commerce and generate income for the UFC. There are ringtones for sale that are hard to describe in writing, though titles such as “Entrance – Get Out of My Way” and “Theme – Optimus Bellum Domitor” are certainly evocative substitutes. There are diet supplements like “N.O.-XPLODE,” “CellMass,” “Syntha-6” and the mouth-watering “ATRO-PHEX.” There are baby outfits with slogans like “Crib Fighter” and “Ultimate Screamer”. And there are souvenir items that can be ordered, such as a grappling dummy (disappointingly non-anthropomorphic), a UFC custom mouthguard, a chain wallet, a barstool and life-size cardboard standups of the five members of the UFC Hall of Fame, which welcomes steroid-users. Prices are reasonable, and you can get a discount if you join something called “Fight Club,” which I guess you can’t talk about except to speak the account number of your credit card.

All in all, I’d say UFC.com is a well-produced website, packed with enough bright colors and shiny graphics to attract even the most concussed patron.

 

Spring is here, and so is ageism

I’m not going to lie to you. Up and down the eastern half of the U.S. this weekend, full-blown spring weather is expected, less than a week after a monster snowstorm buried us under a couple inches of snow. In the area where I live, high temperatures are expected to approach 80 degrees under sunny skies. And it’s the weekend.

Surely you don’t expect me to be working on my blog.

Instead, today and tomorrow, I’ll be reproducing a couple of interesting and amusing articles I read recently in The New York Times. The first subject – ageism – is something I suppose I should care about, since I’m about to enter my late 50s. Even if you’re younger than that, I hope you can enjoy the following:

   Comparable to racism and sexism, “ageism” refers to stereotyping and prejudice directed at individuals and groups because of their age. The term is believed to have been coined in 1969 by gerontologist Dr. Robert N. Butler, the founder of the International Longevity Center in New York City, which as recently as two years ago published a comprehensive report on the problem.

   Now the center, along with Aging Services of California, has put together a stylebook to guide media professionals through the minefield of politically correct and politically incorrect ways of identifying and portraying the elderly.

   Lesson one. “Elderly” is a word the two organizations would prefer we eliminate. Oops. We have used it here often.

   But now we know better. In the glossary of the new stylebook, “Media Takes: On Aging,’’ the authors state their case against “elderly” as follows.

   Use this word carefully and sparingly. The term is appropriate only in generic phrases that do not refer to specific individuals, such as concern for the elderly, a home for the elderly, etc. In other words, describing a person as elderly is bad form, although the generalized category “elderly” might not be offensive. (Suggested substitutions include “older adult” or simply “man’’ or “woman” with the age inserted, if relevant.)

 

   Also to be avoided are “senior citizen” (we don’t refer to people under age 50 as “junior citizens,” the guide notes) and “golden years” (euphemisms are probably not the best way to go, we learn). “Feisty,” “spry,” “feeble,” “eccentric,” “senile” and “grandmotherly” are also unwelcome terms, patronizing and demeaning, as is calling someone “80 years young.”

 

 

   The guide is ambivalent on use of the word “home” as a replacement for “skilled nursing facility.” On the one hand, it can be both anachronistic and condescending to harken back to “old folks’ homes,” which is one of the reasons Aging Services of California changed its name from the California Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. But elsewhere the guide notes (see paragraph four above) that “these facilities are indeed people’s homes,” often permanently. Thus, the people who live there should be called “residents” rather than “patients.”

   The guide’s other “obviously ageist words and phrases to avoid” seem far less ambiguous. Among them are “biddy,” “codger,” “coot,” “crone,” “fogy,” “fossil,” “geezer,” “hag,” “old fart,” “old goat,” “prune,” “senile old fool” and “vegetable.”

 

Some companies giving “peternity leave”

Those of you who have multiple cats are probably familiar with the routine. About an hour before their usual dinner time, they start quietly staring at you, maneuvering into your field of vision so they can take up as much of it as possible. As their patience wears thin, they get grumpy, picking small fights with each other like senior citizens late to the early-bird buffet. Finally, the food is served and all is well — they dart for the bowls with their tails held high, then hunker down for the serious business of eating.

When they’re done, there’s a brief period of torpor, when I presume digestion is hard at work. But soon, the protein kicks in and they’re literally off to the races, chasing each other up and down the hall, over the furniture, to the top of the highest-most surfaces they can reach. When the digestion is completed, they head off to the cat box, do their business, then get a fresh injection of energy for another 15 minutes or so of racing until they settle down for the night.

Wouldn’t it be cool if humans had a similar cycle, that we came out of the restroom all jacked up and ready for action? Life at the office would be so much more interesting, I think.

As you may remember if you read yesterday’s post, I’m phoning it in with the blogging this weekend. We’re having some wonderful weather here in the Southeast, and I’m not about to spend two days off of work slaving over my laptop keyboard. So instead, I’m stealing an interesting article from a major metropolitan newspaper and, as you might’ve guessed by now, the subject is pets.

This might serve as a preview for a post I hope to produce some time in the next week, introducing the digital world to my three cats – Harriet, Taylor and Tom. But more about them later. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this feature about “peternity leave”.

At the recent Westminster Kennel Club dog show, type-A dog owners showed off their pampered pooches to a panel of judges.

 

Some pet owners can actually get company-blessed time off for pet-related matters, in what are dubbed “peternity” leaves, according to the Sloan Work and Family Research Network blog.

Virgin Mobile in Australia recently announced that it now offers peternity leaves for employees with new puppies or kittens under 10 weeks old. Such employees, who must have worked for the company for more than two years, can get five unpaid days off. (Owners of other animals, such as birds, fish or hamsters, can’t take advantage of the policy, alas.) Several U.K. and Canadian companies, including the Bank of Scotland, also offer time off to care for new or sick pets or for pet bereavement.

The trend doesn’t seem to have caught on yet among U.S. businesses, although some companies, such as Google, do allow workers to bring pets to work. (From Google’s Dog Policy, printed in its code of conduct: “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out.”) Most pet owners, however, have to take personal days or lunch breaks to care for a new pet or to deal with a sick or dying animal. And, of course, being able to take any company-sanctioned leave to care for an animal is a luxury in this tough job market.

Twitter too much? Try “!”

Blogging has been around long enough now that it’s hardly even new media any more. It’s definitely become the long form of virtual publishing, and seems to be waning a bit as shorter messages are increasing in popularity. Facebook condensed the form drastically, providing mostly just the facts and some embarrassing, though fortunately poorly-framed, photographs.

Now we see the ascent of Twitter into a mainstream consciousness that rivals the Octomom, Rush Limbaugh and even trivial stuff like massive bank failure. Twitter’s limit of 140 characters forces even more concision on the part of the user, requiring one to get the point faster than ever. If we want to communicate with our fellow man via this method, we need to choose every letter and punctuation mark with the kind of care that used to be reserved for bathroom graffiti written with a fading Sharpie.

Oh yeah, and there’s still real-life verbal conversations with real-life people, but nobody does that any more.

Now we’ve arrived at a place where even Twittering is taking too long. There was huge wave of negative publicity directed at members of Congress who spent more time thumb-wrestling their BlackBerrys than paying attention to the recent presidential address before a joint session of Congress.

So I’m proud to introduce the most concise digital messaging system yet available: a new service I call “!” (so far unpronounceable, though I have my marketing people working on that). “!”, as the name implies, allows users only a single character to describe what they’re doing, how they feel, what they like, or which ravine their car has plunged into.

Here are some of the more common messages being seen so far:

“A” – A greeting, usually elongated into something like “aaayy!”, like what Fonzi used to say.

“B” – A bid to practice existentialism; or, a panicked call for assistance about the bee on your forearm.

“C” – Look here.

“G” – Golly, gosh, jiminy and/or holy Moses.

 “I” – There’s something I need to say about me; or, there’s something I need to say about what’s in my eye.

 “J” – Only for use with friends who are named “Jay”.

 “K” – Alright already.

 “L” – Guess where I’m !-ing from – the elevated mass transit system of Chicago.

 “M” – How many points are there in an em-space?

“O” – I wish to express a strong emotional reaction such as surprise, shock, pain, or extreme pleasure.

“P” – Can you use your global positioning system to locate the nearest restroom for me, like, RIGHT AWAY!

“Q” – Take a prompt from me. You need to get in line to play pool.

“R” – Are you going to eat that?

“S” – You’re such an ass.

“T” – We should get together soon over a nice cup of tea.

“U” – You are the person I’m thinking about right now; or, I am a sheep.

“W” – I just saw former president Bush snacking off the samples tray at Costco.

“X” – Can you pick up some eggs on the way home from work?

“Y” – Why don’t you just bite me?

“Z” – This conversation is going nowhere; I seem to be drifting off …

You can also use non-letter characters, such as:

“,” – Help, I’m falling into a coma.

“:” – I seem to have been bitten by a venomous snake.

“_” – I really need to lie down for a while.

“{“ – I wish to become a portrait artist.

“~” – I’m having a great time at the beach, and I wish you had curly hair.

“#” – Want to play tic-tac-toe?

“%” – Can I have some of that?

“+” – I died on the cross for your sins; I hope you appreciate it.

“=” – I’m taking a shortcut home by walking on the train tracks, but I think I hear a thunderstorm com—“

“*” – I’ve discovered a new star in the heavens.

“^” – Look – up in the sky – it’s a bird, it’s a plane… no, it’s a huge burning asteroid and it’s heading right for us. Arrrhhh, we’re all going to die!

“!” – The coolest thing in instant communication for at least the next week.

Fake News: New Snuggie products coming

CHICAGO (March 9) – Manufacturers of the “Snuggie,” the blanket with sleeves that’s currently being heavily advertised on TV, have announced the introduction of several new products that will build on the success of their cozy cover-all.

First to be released will be the “Snuggie for Two,” a pair of the robe-blankets sewn together, allowing not only conjoined twins but also very close relatives, spouses or friends to compound their comfort with shared bodily warmth. Marketing executive Bennie Grundie said the stitching will be loose enough to allow relatively free movement, though “I doubt most people will bother,” he said.

Also in the development pipeline are other multiple-person garments – to be called “Wedgies” – that will accommodate three, four and five people, and even more, should the concept prove successful.

“I can even imagine a model that accommodates ten or eleven,” Grundie said. “It would be ideal for the football team playing in cold climates. Can you imagine how scary it would be to see a line of Pittsburgh Steelers all wearing the same ‘Wedgie’ coming at you? You’d be totally swarmed over.”

Grundie said his company is also in discussion with the makers of Huggies, a popular line of diapers, to test the viability of a jointly made product, tentatively called the “Mervyn.”

“People tend to get so comfortable wearing our blanket that they don’t want to be bothered to get up,” he said. “This would allow them to sit virtually motionless for hours or even days on end in homey ecstasy.”

Meanwhile, Wall Street experts were questioning the long-range business plan of the company, noting that the coming of warmer weather would be cutting deeply into sales. Analysts doubt that success of the brand can be sustained when outdoor temperatures approach 80 degrees, though Morgan Stanley’s Larry Powell, looking across a trading floor of empty cubicles, noted “we’ve been wrong on these speculations before.”

Snuggie’s Grundie responded that executives at his company had “never heard of seasonal weather changes” and therefore did not figure such a concept into their business strategy.

“If they’re talking about global warming, that’s yet to be fully proven. Plus it’s at least several decades off,” Grundie said. “That’s the only warming we’ve heard about. We’re so focused on the here-and-now that we can’t be in the business of weather prediction.”

When asked whether the cowl-and-cape sensation could be sustained in summer with the introduction of linen or seersucker models, Grundie noted that natural fibers such as these were “too expensive to fit within our price point.”

“I suppose we could drop the booklight offer,” he considered. “But frankly, that’s the heart of the package, if you’re looking for something actually useful in your purchase.”

Besides, he noted, in-house lab tests are revealing that the synthetic fabric tends to break down within several months, so “everybody’s soon going to have holes in the Snuggies anyway, and that should keep them cool if this whole crazy concept of ‘summer’ really does come about.”

 

I wouldn’t be caught dead…

I’ve got to think that one of the motivations behind the movement promoting a person’s right to die at home has to do with how embarrassing in can be to die in public.

If you doubt this, consider the appeal of the most popular reality show in the history of television. America’s Funniest Home Videos has consistently brought laughs to a large segment of the viewing public for close to 20 years. Their formula for comedy is showing people being injured in a variety of different and painfully public situations. Whether hit in the crotch with a baseball bat, conked on the head with a golf ball or falling down while dancing, the victim’s humiliation is compounded by a nationwide audience roaring with delight.

Now imagine how funny it would be if one of those victims actually died. Now imagine if that victim were you.

As a man approaching late middle age, I do occasionally consider the embarrassment that would follow should I suffer a fatal collapse to the floor during the course of my day. In some situations, I think, the shame would be such that I’d rather use my last ounce of strength to crawl off to the nearest handicapped stall and expire in dignity (well, privacy anyway) than cause a commotion. I guess, though, it depends on who is around, what type of activity you’d be disrupting, and what are the chances that someone present could actually do something to help you.

People discharged from hospitals with a fatal prognosis may long to die while surrounded by their families, and I can see how that would be desirable in most circumstances. However, if the dying were unplanned, it can get a little more problematic. Imagine keeling over at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and the impact that’s going to have on everyone’s future memories of the fall holiday, not to mention their appetites. Consider how you’d feel if you choked on the chicken served at your daughter’s wedding reception, and turned what should’ve been the best day of her life into an afternoon of horror. Even what would seem to be an appropriate setting – an uncle’s funeral, for example – would likely make too much of a scene. “Imagine the nerve of upstaging Phil at a moment like that,” people would whisper as you were carried away (into the next room over, I guess).

Almost as bad a place to die in public would be at work. Not only do you hate to think that reading an email about whose turn it is to clean the refrigerator could be your last act on earth, but you probably have a professional reputation to uphold that you don’t want besmirched by involuntarily released fluids. We deal a lot in my office with critical deadlines that are considered a “must,” and I’m afraid my death would not only cause me great personal shame but also contribute to a missed SEC filing. There might be someone available who could aid me – we do have a safety coordinator who makes lists during fire drills, and that seems potentially helpful – and yet it’s just as likely I’d be helped by someone I don’t care for, and that’s just not acceptable. I’d rather, as they say, be dead.

Dying in another public space where you might be vaguely known by some onlookers would be a lot better. That’s probably an option I’d consider if I felt a fatal seizure coming on. There’s a homey little diner less than a five-minute walk from the office, and I bet I could make it there with a little luck. Sometimes, I’ve even seen EMTs eating lunch there and, though I’d hate to impose during their down time, maybe they could squeeze in a quick CPR before their meat loaf got too cold. Even if it’s just the regulars behind the counter who saw me, I don’t think they’d mind too much just making a quick phone call, at least if I avoided the lunch rush.

I’ve also wondered what it would be like to collapse along the side of the road during one of my jogs through our subdivision. Even though we’ve lived there almost 15 years, we’ve always kept to ourselves. So it wouldn’t be that much more awkward to forever be known as “that guy they found dead in the cul-de-sac” rather than my current identity, “that heavy-set older guy crazy enough to run in the summer heat who never waves to anybody.” Plus, there’s probably a better-than-even chance that my family could be notified to pick up my body before the sanitation department got involved.

Finally, there’s the option of suffering your ultimate demise in a location where no one has the slightest idea who you are. If I didn’t make it to that luncheonette I mentioned earlier, I’d be falling by the side of a well-travelled state road. A slumped body on the shoulder would certainly draw someone’s attention, maybe even a police officer or fireman. And being right there on the street, I’d probably save precious moments being evacuated from the scene.

Probably the closest I’ve come to actual sudden death in my 55 years was during a recent business trip to Sri Lanka. As you may know, that South Asian island nation is in the midst of an insurgency by the Tamil Tigers (I know they sound like a baseball team but, trust me, they’re far more dangerous.) While eating dinner at my hotel one evening, we heard a loud explosion, and soon learned that a terrorist bomb had gone off in a phone booth I’d normally be walking past about that time. No one was injured in the blast – these Tigers are about as skilled as the ones from Detroit – though I could’ve been killed.

Now that would’ve been some attention I could get used to. “American is felled by fatal blast,” reads the headline. “President sends military jet to bring body home; hero’s welcome planned for what’s left,” says the subhead. Only foreigners I’d never see again would be subjected to the messy details of the immediate aftermath, and everyone else would get a nicely packaged overview.

That’d be the way to go.

Fake News: Bank makes money

NEW YORK (March 11) – In a rare piece of good news from the nation’s battered banking sector, sources reported Tuesday that Citigroup was actually going to be profitable for the months of January and February, due to strong trading results and fatter lending margins.

“You mean profitable as in making more money than we’re losing?” asked Citigroup’s chief executive Vikram S. Pandit. “I had not yet heard that report but it certainly would be good news.”

One of the biggest and most troubled of the big banks, Citigroup had seen large drops in its stock price in recent days, even briefly sinking below a dollar per share last week. News of the profits contributed to a huge rally on Wall Street, with the Dow gaining almost 380 points.

“Are you sure you’re talking about us? There are other banks with variations of ‘city’ in their name, you know,” Pandit said. “I certainly think we have the potential to make a profit, though I don’t want to be overly optimistic… Who is this, anyway?”

After more than a year of staggering losses and three rescues from Washington, the giant financial company was again making money, and appeared on track for its strongest quarter since late 2007, when waves of bad loans and trading losses began to crash down on the company.

“Seriously, if this is a joke, I’m going to be really mad. Is this Bob from governance?” Pandit continued. “Bob, if this is you and you’re yanking my chain again, you’re going to be in really big trouble.”

Tuesday’s breathtaking stock market rally left investors a bit giddy. Investors finally got a taste of what they desperately craved, a glimmer of good news in the financial industry.

“Bob, you’re in the conference room, aren’t you?” Citigroup’s beleaguered leader speculated. “I’m walking down the hall right now and if I see you on the phone in there, you’re a dead man.”

Troubled financial shares paced the gain on Wall Street, which saw its biggest one-day rise this year, and one of the largest on a percentage basis since World War II. Stocks surged 5.8% to 6929.46 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, while the broader S&P 500 index jumped 6.7% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped over 7%.

“You know, this isn’t funny any more. I can take a joke as good as the next person, but when you start making fun of our company like this, you’re treading on thin ice, buddy” Pandit said. “You need to stop it right now. Stop it, I say, or I’m going to tell.”

Banks large and small saw their stocks surge throughout the day, but the main catalyst was the news from Citigroup, which, with large consumer and investment banking operations in more than 100 countries, is viewed as a proxy for the broader banking industry.

Pandit has been frequently quoted as saying that his company’s business is financially sound, its businesses strong, and its deposits relatively stable. He continues to claim that the Citigroup is adequately capitalized, but “not to the point where we’d actually come out of the red.”

“All right, that’s it,” the CEO concluded, speaking from his midtown Manhattan office. “I’m hanging up the phone now and pretending that this call never happened.”

“Really, Bob, that was a low blow,” he concluded. “This is so uncool.”

 

Corporate risk factors revealed

General Motors was in the news again last week, and it wasn’t to promote the release of that stylish new Buick.

In their annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, GM’s auditors said the company’s survival was in “substantial doubt,” and that even if it received all $30 billion it hopes to borrow from the government, the automaker still might have to liquidate its operations. The company is perilously close to bankruptcy and faces a difficult restructuring.

“Our recurring losses from operations, stockholders’ deficit and inability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet our obligations and sustain our operations raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern,” GM said in its filing.

In other words, the company needs a little more “going” and a little less “concern.”

As someone who works with corporate filings of this type, I immediately recognized the language as coming from the “risk factors” section of what’s called a Form 10-K (so called because that’s how far report writers often stretch the truth, in kilometers). Public companies have to include a section each year that spells out in agonizing detail everything that could possibly go wrong with the company, so shareholders will be considered fairly warned if and when the firm tanks.

In the past, these were fairly modest confessionals, along the lines of “the husband of our chief risk officer is so ugly that we question her judgment,” for example. But with businesses failing left and right these days, the risk factors have evolved into multi-sectioned excuse-a-thons designed to protect executives from potential lawsuits. So you’ll see subheadings such as “Risks related to our business” or “Risks related to the return of rule by the dinosaur.”

Because this is annual report season (you can just feel it in the air), my usual Friday edition of “Website Reviews” won’t concentrate on one particular company but will instead feature some of the more creative caveats told in the risk factors portions of documents you can find online. For more fun-packed reading, check out www.sec.gov. Especially worthwhile are the 10KSB/A’s, the always-intriguing 13F-HR’s, the gripping yarns of the 20FR12G’s and the steamy 485APOS, a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Securities Act Rule 485(a) that you won’t be able to put down.

_____________

We operate in a capitalist economic system, which is subject to market variables which could increase or decrease our stock price. At least, we used to operate in such a system.

Those two helicopters and the corporate jet we bought last year may not have been such a good idea in retrospect; we suppose they could crash into each other, allowing us to make a substantial gain from insurance, but such a scenario is not likely at this point.

We make incredibly unreliable electronics that are susceptible to catching fire, and many consumers may find this feature to be inconsistent with their corporate goals.

Our chief financial officer was last seen in a cab speeding to the international airport, and if he flees the country and expects us to figure out this mess he’s left us with, he’s got another think coming.

Our software may not operate properly, which could damage our reputation, impair our sales, and cause our clients to realize we don’t actually make software at all, but dog food.

Any failure by us to protect our intellectual property, or any misappropriation of it, could enable our competitors to market a competitive product with similar features, though that seems highly unlikely considering the garbage we produce.

Our earnings can vary significantly depending on a number of factors beyond our control, although a large majority of the responsibility is in fact ours but you’ll never get us to admit it in a court of law.

Inability to obtain consents needed from third-party providers could impair our ability to provide technology services, but that’s the least of our problems.

We operate in an intensely competitive market that includes companies that have greater financial, technical, marketing, intellectual, artistic and competitive resources than we do. Those taco trucks have incredibly low overhead and use bloodthirsty tactics to win clients that otherwise might choose to do business with us.

Our business strategy includes expansion into markets outside North America, which will require increased expenditures and investments, the difficulty of which will likely be compounded by the fact that we hate foreigners and their stupid languages and cultures, especially Asians.

Our operating results may fluctuate significantly and may cause our stock price to decline. If it’s possible for a share price to fall below zero, we’ll likely be the ones to make it happen.

Loss of revenue from large clients could have significant negative impact on our results of operations and overall financial condition. If we had any large clients. Unless we can count that fat guy who is always sneaking into our breakroom and using our vending machines.

We may be required to repurchase mortgage loans in some circumstances, which could harm our liquidity, results of operations and financial condition. Why do you think we repackaged, disguised and sold them off in the first place?

Recent governmental actions to help stabilize the U.S. financial system or improve the housing market may not be successful. If they are, we’ll be happy. If they aren’t, we’ll remind everybody that we voted for McCain.

Our business is highly regulated, which limits our ability to be profitable and disrupts our revenue stream from protection rackets and gun running.

We have not been profitable in the past and may not be profitable any time soon. We’re not even sure why we’re in business, to tell you the truth.

Compliance with public company rules and regulations is costly and requires significant resources in proportion to our revenue. Contact your congressional representative to let your opinion be known that it’s time to let the marketplace run totally unfettered.

Our internal control systems could fail to detect certain events such as data processing system and accounting software failures. However, if our net income suddenly changes from dollars in thousands to dollars in gazillions, we’ll conveniently be looking the other way.

We received a letter regarding a confidential informal inquiry by the SEC and have recently received a subpoena from the SEC as well. Cooperation with such governmental actions may result in charges filed against us and in fines or penalties. We have not been in compliance with SEC reporting requirements and may continue to face compliance issues. If we continue to fail to comply with these requirements, the price of our common stock could be negatively impacted. Not to mention, this writer could personally go to jail, and that’s not going to happen without me taking a whole bunch of my fellow executives with me.

If we do not respond rapidly to technological changes or changes in industry standards, our products could become obsolete, though we believe typewriters and carbon paper will continue to be significant profit centers for us into the end of this century.

If our employees were to unionize, our operating costs would increase, our ability to compete would be impaired, and our feelings would be hurt.

Our latest pharmaceutical release, Eksinex, could actually make people feel worse rather than better, which could result in lawsuits, damage to our public reputation and decreased gross income. However, as soon as young people discover that it gets you incredibly high, we anticipate a significant rebound in sales.

The condition of the U.S. and international financial markets may adversely affect our ability to draw on our credit facility. Ha-ha, that’s a good one.

 

Real news that sounds fake

The challenge with writing satire these days is that real-life events tend to be more bizarre than anything most people could think up. I wrote a piece a year or so ago about how ridiculous it would be for someone to have seven babies at one time, and then Octomom comes along. What’s a humorist to do?

One option I’m taking today is to blatantly steal from real-life newspapers. In particular, I’m looking at a couple of days last week when the moon was full over my small South Carolina hometown and very strange stories started appearing in the local newspaper. What follows are four items as they appeared in The Herald, slightly abridged but otherwise unadulterated. Enjoy the lunacy.

More than just a sunburn

Investigators have yet to say what caused a tanning bed in Lake Wylie to catch fire Monday while a man was inside, but regulators insist such a burn is rare.

It’s the first tanning bed fire on record in South Carolina, regulators said. While the federal government oversees tanning bad manufacturers, it’s up to states to police local salons. Shop owners are required to show that at least one employee is certified to run tanning equipment.

“It keeps us very busy,” said the state tanning program manager, who oversees two employees tasked with inspecting the 1,900 salons at least once every two years.

Salon owners must also register with the Department of Health and Environmental Control’s Bureau of Radiological Health. But that group doesn’t inspect shops unless a complaint is filed. Routine inspections stopped seven years ago because of budget cuts.

The man caught in Monday’s tanning bed fire escaped unharmed, although neighboring shops suffered smoke damage that will likely keep them closed for several days. The victim, who declined to give his name, said he was working on his tan when he heard a popping noise, then saw a flame at the corner of the bed near his foot. He threw open the lid and jumped out, he said.

At least one other tanning bed this year caught fire with someone inside. A man in Saskatchewan told local newspapers that after three minutes in a bed he heard popping, smelled smoke, and then saw flames. The man escaped nude but safe, according to reports.

Local tanners said they’re undeterred by the fire.

“That could happen anywhere, not just in a tanning bed,” said tanner Kim Bazemore. “I would still feel comfortable (in a tanning bed). I’m fixing to get in one now.”

When an emergency isn’t

As part of an effort to reduce emergency room wait times, Piedmont Medical Center says it will begin encouraging patients who do not have a medical emergency to get treatment elsewhere.

“This allows the emergency room to focus on emergencies,” said hospital president Charlie Miller.

Sometimes a patient’s perspective of what a true emergency is and what a doctor determines to be an emergency can differ, said Dr. Peter Hyman, a practicing emergency physician.

“If a child wakes up in the middle of the night with an earache, the parents may think that’s an emergency,” he said. The doctor may decide the earache is not life threatening but if the earache is left untreated, it could become an emergency.

A candidate for losers everywhere

For a ballroom full of downhearted conservatives desperate for some good news, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford had an odd message. He urged activists gathered in late February to be prepared to lose, and to feel happy about it.

“Would you be willing to support a cause or candidate that is likely to lose?” Sanford asked.

Sanford’s speech prompted some to hope he seeks the White House in 2012. Nicole Quinn of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she felt “Sanford has the potential to win over mainstream voters. Whether or not he could beat Barack Obama, he would restore Republican credibility.”

Too much focus on winning leads to compromise, the governor said. As members of the audience leapt to their feet and applauded, Sanford declared “the name of the game is staying true to your principles and letting the chips fall where they may.”

Sanford’s following will likely grow among conservatives when he announces his formal rejection of some of the state’s federal stimulus funds. He’s scheduled an unusual statewide tour, with stops in three locations, to reveal his response.

The governor said he would write President Obama a letter seeking a waiver that would allow him to use the stimulus funds for something other than roads, schools, unemployment benefits and Medicaid benefits.

As for higher political aspirations, a prominent Republican consultant said “I don’t have a clue whether he wants to run, but he obviously is one of our better-known Republicans, having been on TV a lot.”

Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls – it doesn’t

A set of bell tower monuments will rise this month along Interstate 77, signaling the city’s latest effort to spruce up the area.

Two 45-foot-tall towers next to the exit ramps will greet drivers whizzing by in both directions. It’s all part of a $6 million makeover launched six years ago to generate more commerce in the surrounding district.

“If you’re going by at 70 miles per hour, you may wonder what it is, and stop on your next trip,” said developer Lee Thomasson. “It does make people think, what’s going on here? Should I stop and look? It will help just because of the curiosity factor alone.”

One tower next to Cracker Barrel restaurant will be visible to northbound traffic from nearly a mile away. On the opposite side, the other tower is envisioned as a gateway to South Carolina for drivers on their way out of Charlotte.

The structures will not actually contain bells.

More real news that sounds fake

Today, I continue with a look at some news stories from my hometown area that have the ring of satire even though they are completely true.

One important point I’d like to make: I’ve never been one to think that making up “funny” names for people is especially funny. Whenever I read a humor piece that cites someone named Herman Nostrilectomy or Lucille Boobie, I’m immediately turned off. Therefore, I want to make it clear that two of the people I’ve quoted in this weekend’s true stories – Dr. Peter Hyman in yesterday’s piece and Dick Blow in today’s – are not pseudonyms that I thought would be funny. Unfortunately (mostly for them and their heirs), they are real names.

Wonder why home sales are down?

A real estate agent has been arrested and charged with destroying a competitor’s sign.

Daniel LaFranca was arrested by sheriff’s deputies at his home after competing real estate agent Arthur Mullen told police he had video of LaFranca cutting apart a sign. Mullen said he’s had about 1,200 signs destroyed or stolen over the past six months, so he set up a video camera.

Mullen told police the video shows LaFranca destroying one of Mullen’s signs. In the video, a man walks up to one of the signs and cuts it in half before kicking it to the ground. Other parts of the video show a man walking away with some of the signs.

Mullen and LaFranca had worked together in the past, but Mullen left the company about a year ago to start his own business.

“We didn’t leave on the best of terms,” Mullen said.

Man attending World Pizza Games

The first time pizza entrepreneur Siler Chapman twirled dough in a competition, he was booed off stage.

But three gold medals later in the World Championship Pizza Acrobat competition, Chapman is part of the World Pizza Champions, a team of 40 international pizza superstars who compete and perform worldwide.

“I’m very competitive and I practice a lot,” said Chapman. “You need to be able to do that routine in your sleep.”

The pizza team is organizer of this week’s World Pizza Games, which will take place during the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. Chapman will help judge those seeking champion status in categories such as acrobat, biggest pizza, fastest pizza and box folding.

Chapman often entertains his store’s patrons with his dough-twirling techniques. He can twirl up to three pieces of dough at a time, standing or on his back. And he makes rolling dough like a saucer – down one arm, across his back and down the other arm – look easy.

Chapman said that at some performances with the team, hundreds of kids have swarmed them asking of autographs.

“We felt like rock stars,” said his partner, Joe Carlucci.

Although Chapman has been competing and performing for years, he said he still gets nervous.

“You wonder in your head – do they like you?” he said.

Elderly-on-elderly violence

A dispute over a real estate deposit led an 88-year-old Rock Hill man to shoot the manager of a realty office Wednesday afternoon, police said.

Dick Blow is charged with assault and battery with intent to kill and possession of a firearm during a violent crime after police say he shot 68-year-old Jerry O’Neill around 2:30 p.m.

O’Neill was shot in the lower abdomen and was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center where he was undergoing surgery.

About 10 people were inside the office at the time of the shooting, but no one else was hurt, said police. It’s unclear whether the shooter said anything to O’Neill before firing, he said.

“There had been kind of an ongoing dispute and he (Blow) showed up today,” said police Lt. Michael Belk.

“It’s so random and so shocking,” said one of the victim’s co-workers, adding that the victim was known for his friendly nature. “He is all about the customer.”

Blow was still in the parking lot when police arrived, and he surrendered without incident, Belk said.

Blow, an author and former semi-pro baseball player, has written at least seven books.

“Pitched against Joe DiMaggio when he was in the service, and I said to him, ‘Joe, I can throw it past you.’ Well, on the first pitch he hit it so hard it would have torn off my head if I hadn’t ducked,“ Blow wrote.

Hyena is no laughing matter

A South Carolina man has been cited for having a hyena in his back yard.

The Myrtle Beach Sun News reported Wednesday that the year-old hyena named Bubbles has been moved to the Alligator Adventure facility in North Myrtle Beach.

The animal’s owner was cited for owning and displaying a wild or exotic animal after police went to his home last Friday and saw the beast. It had been housed in a chain link pen that had a dog house in the center.

The owner told police he brought the hyena from Texas.

 

Fake News: ‘Quiet man’ in kill spree

LOS ANGELES (March 16) – A former dockworker who lost his job ten days ago has been charged by police in a murder spree that terrorized southern California for five hours yesterday afternoon.

Mark Crawford, 36, is being held without bond after highway patrol officers ended his rampage in a quiet neighborhood not far from the home that had been foreclosed on him only days ago. He had lived there with his recently divorced wife and teenage quadruplets until a judge had ordered him removed from the home Saturday. The cancer-stricken ex-con, who was reportedly undergoing treatment for alcoholism and was also trying to quit smoking, was believed to be living on the streets at the time of his arrest.

Killed in the mid-day horror were a family of three that lived just down the street, a convenience store clerk, two patrons at a fast-food restaurant, a librarian, four swimmers in a local pool, a motorist, two customers at a grocery store, the UC-Santa Barbara volleyball team, and “Dancing with the Stars” host Paul Bergeron. Also gunned down during the massacre were a pair of Golden Retrievers, four housecats, two feral cats, a hamster and a pig. During a period when Crawford led officials on a chase through a local zoo, he also slaughtered three howler monkeys, four gazelles, a giraffe, two white rhinos, a lemur, 16 flamingos, eight water buffalo, a peacock, and an astronaut ice cream vendor.

One former neighbor described Crawford as a “quiet” man who kept mostly to himself but still always had a kind word and a wave for others in his middle-class subdivision east of Los Angeles.

“I never would have imagined he’d be capable of something like this,” said Nancy Applegate. “He always seemed to be in a good mood and would often ask how your family was doing. He was just a nice, average kind of guy.”

Applegate said she often witnessed Crawford working in his yard, which she said he seemed to take great pride in maintaining. Most Saturdays would find him trimming his luxuriant hedges, cutting brush in the wooded area behind his home, or chasing down squirrels with his lawnmower.

Other former neighbors, however, described a very different man.

 “He always talked about how he’d like to kill a lot of people,” said neighbor Bob Hammer. “He even took out an ad in the paper saying he was going to do it. He had a television commercial saying he was going to do it. He even had a sign in his yard, and constantly wore a t-shirt that said ‘I’m going to kill people (and animals)’”.

“Don’t listen to crazy ‘Old Lady Applegate,’” said a man who would identify himself only as Gary. “Everybody in the neighborhood knew that guy was stark, screaming nuts. He’d stand out in his front yard all night at least twice a month, howling at the moon and discussing Australian regional politics with his mailbox.”

Gary said Crawford would often jog through the subdivision in nothing but a pair of plaid shorts and Doc Martens boots, carrying a 9-millimeter pistol strapped across his chest and singing off-key selections from the 1950s musical “South Pacific.”

“Even now, hearing ‘Bali Hai’ just sends chills down my spine,” Gary said. “We reported him to local authorities at least once a week but nothing ever happened.”

Another former associate from his days working at the Port of Los Angeles said Crawford used to talk to himself constantly throughout the workday.

“He’d hang a bottle opener from his ear and claim he was talking on Blu-Tooth, but everybody knew better than that,” said the unnamed coworker. “Sometimes he wore a hula dress and football shoulder pads to work, and the supervisor would always have to bring him down to the office to make him change. You can’t wear a straw skirt on the dock – you’ll get tangled in all the ropes.”

The former supervisor confirmed most of Crawford’s erratic behavior.

“Usually, when a mass killer goes off like that, you hear all his friends saying they never suspected a thing, that he was a model citizen who would never hurt anyone,” said Jack Pepper. “Well I’m here to tell you, Crawford was exactly the kind of guy to do such a thing. No one who knows him is surprised.”

Lives of the Dead: St. Patrick

It’s easy to forget that St. Patrick was a living, breathing person before he became better known as a Day and a Parade. Few people know much about him as a regular guy, so this seems like a good opportunity to take a look back through the ancient mists of time at who exactly he was.

Born as the unpronounceable Patricius Daorbae – he didn’t acquire the nickname “Saint” until later in his life – he was the son of wealthy Briton parents. The exact year of his birth is unknown, with some speculation putting his lifespan from 340 to 460 A.D., though most now believe he couldn’t have survived to be 120 with the pre-socialized healthcare system of ancient Britain. Although his father was a Christian deacon, it has been suggested that he took on the role for tax reasons rather than because he believed in anything in particular. That is actually true.

After a relatively uneventful childhood knocking around Wales and doing all the things that other Welsh children did at the time (trying to sacrifice each other, etc.), Patrick was taken captive at age 16 by a group of Irish raiders who had attacked his family’s estate. In a process strikingly similar to today’s NFL draft, Patrick was selected and transported back to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity, eventually becoming a first-team all-state herdsman.

Despite his skill in the position, he wasn’t particularly happy. He was constantly outdoors and away from people, lonely and afraid, and morbidly scared of sheep. It was at this time that he turned to religion for solace, becoming a devout Christian and dreaming of converting the Irish people to Christianity. Only later would he realize how convenient it would’ve been to actually learn the Irish language, which would come in handy in his eventual attempts at converting them.

Patrick escaped from his captors after a voice, which he believed to be God’s, spoke to him in a dream and told him it was time to leave Ireland (at least that’s what he thought “baa baa” meant in Irish). He walked more than 200 miles from where he was held in County Mayo – later scholars believe he may have taken a cab – to the Irish coast where he found a boat that was able to transport him back to Britain. Back in the land of his birth, he had a second revelation from an angel who told him in a dream to return to Ireland as a missionary. Longing to be through with the back and forth across the Irish Sea, he began a religious study that lasted 15 years before his ordination as a priest and his return to the Emerald Isle.

Already somewhat familiar with the Irish culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. Since the Irish were used to honoring their pagan gods with fire, Patrick suggested the same method of celebration be used for Easter, and only later introduced them to the concept of the Bunny. They also viewed the sun as a powerful symbol so he grafted it onto a cross. Purists back in Rome probably would’ve had a fit if they’d known about all this accommodation, which probably inspired Patrick to develop his theology of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Surprisingly little is known about the details of his ministry. No link can be made between Patrick and any specific church. The Irish monastery system evolved after his time, as did the model of the church that Patrick had tried to establish. It is known that he had a way with the ladies, converting many wealthy women to Christianity, including some who became nuns.

His position as a foreigner was not an easy one. His refusal to accept gifts and protection from the powerful left him outside the normal ties of kinship, fosterage and affinity, and without whatever that was, he was sometimes beaten, robbed and put in chains. The Druids offered their impression of how Patrick and other Christian missionaries were seen by those hostile to them:

Across the sea will come Adze-head, crazed in the head,

His cloak with hole for the head, his stick bent in the head.

He will chant impieties from a table in the front of his house;

All his people will answer: “so be it, so be it.”

 

(Sounds a little like a mashup between James Joyce and Bono.)

Patrick is believed to have died some time in the 460’s, coincidentally enough on March 17, which is now celebrated as his day.

Modern scholars debate whether in fact there may have been more than one individual who became tied into the legend that became St. Patrick. According to the so-called “Two Patricks Theory,” many of the traditions later attached to St. Patrick were originally ascribed to Palladius, a deacon from Gaul who was sent to Ireland by the Pope. Additional early missionary work was done by Auxilius, Secundius and Iserninus, so there may actually have been close to a six-pack of Patricks, which would somehow be appropriate.

That might explain how he was able to spend so much time not understanding the Irish language while still mixing in the job of driving the snakes from Ireland (talk about multi-tasking). This story, perhaps the best known of the Patrick legends, may have been symbolic, since post-glacial Ireland never had snakes. Because of the serpent symbolism of the Druids, it may in fact represent the expulsion of pagan beliefs. He was also known to carry an ashwood walking stick that he would thrust into the ground wherever he was evangelizing, and supposedly his message took so long to get through to the people that the stick had taken root by the time he was done. I’ve sat through enough Christian sermons in my time to believe this legend might actually be true.

Patrick is said to be buried at Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, County Down, which seems appropriate for such a downer of a guy. He shares a graveyard with St. Brigid of Kildare and St. Columba, who are also considered patron saints of Ireland. All will be covered by a thick carpet of green, green grass to celebrate tomorrow’s holiday.

 

Adventures in cell phone AutoCompletion

As the least technologically savvy person in my family, I’m typically the one to inherit the oldest piece of electronics making its way through our household. This laptop that I’m current working on is an IBM ThinkPad, and I believe IBM sold its hardware division to China in about 1957. My cell phone is a Motorola “Razr,” very cool when it was introduced in 2004 but now hopelessly out of date. My iPod is a diesel.

In my family, when I say I’m “into 3G,” it means I’m third in line to get the latest gadgets.

Getting back to the cell phone, it’s virtually an antique in today’s high-turnover digital world. I sometimes think it would be more useful if it had an “o” added to its name, and I could use it to shave. I really like to use the text-messaging feature, even though it’s one of those keyboards with three letters per key rather than the modern qwerty interface that my wife and son have on their Blackberrys. So it’s awkward, but I’m an old typesetter and I love the fact that I can now set type any time, anywhere. Even, to the eternal annoyance of my wife, from the other end of the house when I need to ask her a question.

The problem is that this is a used cell phone, and the memory has not been wiped completely clean from the previous user, who was apparently involved in a number of questionable activities. The reason I know this is that the auto-complete function, which uses past messages you’ve typed to predict future ones, has come up with some very bizarre suggestions. I start to input an innocent communication about some routine daily activity, and it’s transformed into either sinister plotting or completely irrational pronouncements.

Some recent examples:

• When I tried to ask my friend “when will you be home?”, it tried to ask “when will you be homo?”
• When I tried to tell me wife I was “stopping by the atm”, it tried to say I was “stopping by the atomic bomb.”
• When I asked my sister “will you pick up the baby?”, it tried to ask “will you pick up the baboon?”
• When I went to a charity pancake breakfast that my son couldn’t attend because he was sick, I wanted to ask him “would you like strawberry or blueberry pancakes?”, it tried to ask “would you like strawberry or blueberry pancreas?”
• When I tried to ask my son if he wanted anything from “burger king,” it tried to ask if he wanted anything from the “burn center.” (Admittedly, the two are similar.)
• After I learned that he did want something, I tried to ask about “French fries,” and the phone tried to ask if he wanted “French Colonialism 1684-1803” with his Whopper Junior.
• When I tried to ask my mother “do we need any milk?”, it instead wanted to start a philosophical geopolitical discussion about “do we need any military?”
• When I tried to ask my wife if it was “raining at home yet?”, it wanted to ask the offensive “raining at home yeti?”
• When I reminded her that we needed “to pay the phone bill,” it wanted to ask a question about the mythological “phone bison.”
• When I wanted to tell my son that I had “to work overtime,” it (perhaps more accurately) suggested I had “to work over-wrought.”
• When I wanted to ask “should I stop at grocery store?”, it tried to ask “should I stop at growth hormones?”
• When I wanted to say I was stopping “for a cup of coffee,” it tried to imply that I was going for a “cup of codeine.”
• When I tried to tell my wife I “got stopped by cop,” it tried to say I “got stopped by copulation.” (Admittedly, that would at least tend to slow you down.)
• When I told her I was going to “get some gas,” it tried to say I was getting “some gag reflex.”
• When I tried to tell my son I would “be home in 5 minutes,” it tried to say I would “be home in 5 Mini Coopers.”
• When I tried to ask my wife when my son “will be done with school?”, it wanted to ask when he would “be done with schadenfreude”. That won’t be for quite some time, I fear.
• When I was about to arrive home from work with a headache, I tried to text my wife to ask “do we have any aspirin?” but instead almost asked “do we have any asperger’s syndrome?”
• When I left for work later than usual the other morning, I tried to say that “the cats have been fed,” but instead it tried to message that “the cats have been felt.” (They had actually been both fed and felt, though I didn’t really need to mention the latter.)

So far, I’ve been able to catch all these potential errors in the auto-complete function and fix them before I was embarrassed by my lack of typing skills. Because I’ve worked so long in typography, I’ve taught myself to be a pretty good proofreader of my own work, when given the time. I’m afraid, though, that some day I’ll face an urgent situation and the mistakes won’t be able to be fixed. My panicked message that “oh god having heart attack” will instead be translated and transmitted as “oh gouda havarti head cheese.”

Fake News: The Running of the Models?

MADRID, Spain (March 18) – Municipal leaders in the town of Pamplona, known for its raucous Running of the Bulls festival every July, have contacted producers of “America’s Next Top Model” to negotiate a joint enterprise between the two.

Following last weekend’s model melee in New York outside a hotel where auditions for the popular TV show were scheduled, the Spanish officials made overtures to stage a pair of “home-and-home” events later this year. A group of aspiring models from the show would travel to Pamplona to join in the stampede of bulls headed for the local arena to face their deaths in a series of bullfights. Later, an unspecified number of enraged steers would board a flight for the U.S. and participate in the Tyra Banks-hosted runway competition.

The Spaniards were reportedly impressed with the fighting spirit and sense of recklessness shown by participants in the Manhattan brawl Saturday. Six women were injured and two were arrested for inciting a riot when hundreds of would-be fashion stars ran for their lives after rumors of a bomb began circulating. In what one onlooker described as “like it was 9/11 part two,” women were pressed against a retaining wall and unable to escape for several minutes.

“That’s sort of what we do with the bulls,” said Manual Orientes, assistant to the mayor of Pamplona. “We block off the side streets then release the bulls so they can run only in one direction. Festival participants run along side the bulls and poke them with sticks, then jump over the barricades to escape.”

Orientes said the models could either run along with the other festival participants, ride on the backs of the bulls, or even wear horned headgear and rings in their noses to pretend they were panic-stricken animals. The only stipulation is that they would have to agree to be poked by sticks.

“We think it would add a lot to the appeal of our event,” he said. “Then, we can reciprocate in some similar manner with the Americans.”

Orientes said the exact format of a revised modeling competition, usually held in New York or Los Angeles, could be determined by producers of the show. He said the only requirement he would place on the treatment of the visiting cattle would be that they couldn’t be harmed, which would rule out dressing the beasts in high-heel shoes, short skirts or painful jewelry.

Producers of “ANTM” couldn’t be reached for comment, though Banks has reportedly heard of the proposal and offered a tentative “girl!?” in what some were interpreting as a promising response.

Website review: The Hoveround electric wheelchair

About five years ago, I had a procedure to remove a kidney stone. A cystoscopy sounds unpleasant, as most invasions of the urethra are, but it was actually pretty painless under the spell of highly effective anesthetics. When I awoke afterwards, the hardest part was probably the pressure the nurses put on me to pee before they would let me go. I have “bashful kidney” under the best of circumstances, so you can imagine how I felt with several highly paid health professionals standing by.

My recovery at home proceeded nicely, and within a couple of days I was ready for an outing. I was moving a little slowly when we entered the local Costco and I spotted the motorized shopping cart. I’ve always been interested in the concept of assisted mobility and yet hadn’t found the opportunity to ride a motorcycle or jet ski, so it looked like I’d finally have a chance for something close. I shuffled my handicapped urethra over to the machine and fired it up.

What a revelation life is when seen from about two feet lower than usual! Your whole perspective on the world changes. Everyone else seems so tall when you’re buzzing along at waist level; you come to appreciate why children are so wide-eyed with excitement at the life that surrounds them. A certain playfulness came over me as I sped up and down the aisles running into people’s ankles and nearly toppling the pot stickers sample table.

I thought back on this childlike wonder when I was at the gym the other day and a commercial for the Hoveround came on TV. Men and women not much older than me were motoring all over the landscape with great delight. As I joined their admiring grandchildren in watching them sightsee the Hoover Dam and romp through the grass at the base of the Statue of Liberty, I found I had a subject for this week’s website review: Hoveround.com.

It’s a fairly simple site, which makes sense when you consider the generally limited computer skills of its intended audience. Most details are spelled out in a free information kit you can request to be mailed, though they also have “experts standing by” at a toll-free number if you’d rather talk to a live operator. (I frankly thought the choice of the phrase “standing by” was a little insensitive). The home page describes how electric wheelchairs and scooters are more than just a convenience, they are a bridge to fuller, more independent lives, and how Hoveround has spent the last 20 years committed to providing powerful, durable and safe vehicles.

The “About Us” section recounts how inventor Tom Kruse used down time during the filming of “Top Gun” to realize his vision to “build a chair that can go anywhere someone can walk.” He consulted with everyone from long-haul truck drivers to NASA scientists about how he could construct a small maneuverable wheelchair. (We can all be glad that the idea of using booster rockets was dropped in early prototypes.) When the final version was ready, he decided to bypass medical equipment dealers and sell directly to consumers, primarily through commercials.

Apparently it’s the round, compact nature of the Hoveround that sets it apart from bulkier wheelchairs. I had believed – mistakenly, as it turns out – that the name implied passengers rode on a cushion of air, much like those high-tech Hovercraft boats you see on certain ferry routes. I could’ve sworn I remember seeing segments of the TV ad where seniors were actually floating high above the Colorado River during their Grand Canyon tour, but I guess it was just wishful thinking. Riders unfortunately remain earth-bound.

There are a variety of models to choose from, depending on your mobility needs and your Medicare connections. The top of the line seems to be the MPV 5 which features a flip-up footplate, two large motors that give it enough power to work outdoors or indoors, and an optional power seat-lift controlled through the joystick. It offers a 300-pound weight capacity, a 15-mile range and, with a top speed of 5 m.p.h., it’s faster than walking (not to mention so much easier). Its two-and-a-half-inch ground clearance makes it a sweet low-rider, and yet it can still clear two-inch bumps or floor raises.

Other models include the Teknique FWD, a front-wheel-drive vehicle that presumably is better suited to wintry road conditions, the RWD, a rear-wheel-drive rover that offers a 20-mile battery range that appeals to wandering Alzheimer’s patients, and the GT, the fastest model which travels at a near hyper-sonic 7 m.p.h. All come with automatic braking, which seems like an especially worthwhile feature for that Grand Canyon outing.

The maneuverability of the Hoveround, with its extremely tight turning radius, will not accommodate the heftier handicapped. There is a Hummer equivalent in the personal mobility vehicle field – the Pride 1170 XL Plus, offered by arch-rival Jazzy – which is a wide-set behemoth that will carry a rider weighing 650 pounds that costs as much as a mid-sized sedan. But Hoveround chooses to remain in the compact sector of the market and, as such, remains the choice for most shoppers interested in economy.

That’s not to say, however, that you can’t spend a little extra to trick out your wheelchair or scooter. The website includes a wide selection of accessories: a beverage holder, a tray table (for those who want to recall the security of the infant high chair), a canopy, a crutch holder, a cane holder, a walker holder and an oxygen holder. You can also opt for a padded chest strap, which comes in a variety of fashion colors, to keep you from toppling forward into your own lap.

They also sell tie-downs and straps that will allow you to safely attach your electric wheelchair to the back of your car or van when you want to transport it cross-country. I would’ve thought you could just tie a rope and drag it from your back bumper but the small wheels can’t accommodate highway speeds and the thing would just bounce uncontrollably like a string of tin cans.

The only thing I see missing from Hoveround.com that you might find on other similar websites is a shopping option for those whose budgets won’t accommodate a motorized chair. I’m not quite disabled enough yet to qualify for the top-line merchandise, but if I wanted to start getting into the feel of the Hoveround lifestyle, I’d at least like to able to order a logo t-shirt, a cap, or at least a coffee mug. These are unfortunately not available.

Still, reviewing this very informative website has allowed me to dream of a future in which my legs can atrophy in peace while the rest of me can use the extra energy to take in the world from a fresh though slightly shorter perspective.

In their own words: AIG and GM

This weekend, we’ll take a look at how some of America’s most notorious corporate scofflaws want to project a very different, very positive image to the public. I won’t attempt to duplicate the fuzzy-focus grandpas playing with their blonde granddaughters in fields of wildflowers that you’d see if you looked at a lot of their corporate literature. But I will repeat some of the written equivalents here.

We’ll start with what, for today at least, continues to be the baddest bad-ass out there – AIG.

Here’s what they have to say about their retirement services and products:

AIG: Live Longer Retire Stronger

Good science and good lifestyle choices are adding up to longer, healthier lives. And that is a good thing. But increasing longevity creates new retirement challenges. How do you pay for a 30+ year retirement? How do you ensure a reliable income when financial markets zig and the economy zags. AIG’s retirement services companies can help answer those and other important retirement planning questions. We are in the business of helping millions of Americans find fresh ideas to help fund those extra years and make the most of your nest egg. So go ahead … live longer. The AIG companies have the strength to be there when you retire, so you will never outlive your money.

 

Especially, I guess it goes without saying, if you find yourself in receipt of a hefty retention bonus.

As their name implies, AIG is primarily an insurance company, offering a variety of specialized insurance products. One of these interestingly is insurance that protects some of a company’s top officials.

Public Companies Directors and Officers Insurance

As management liability exposures for public companies continue to grow both domestically and internationally, everyone from company executives to independent directors, general counsel and risk managers face increasing personal risk. [Our] insurance provides public companies and their management with broad coverage for securities claims and employment practices claims. Coverage encompasses the many individuals likely to be sued in such claims. Coverage can be enhanced with locally-admitted policies for claims arising overseas via AIG Passport.

 

Meanwhile, our friends over at General Motors were crowing about themselves as recently as their 2008 annual report.

Excitement and style for our biggest global brand.

In one of the most anticipated new-car launches in years, the all-new Chevrolet Malibu served notice to the perennial midsize sedan leaders in the United States. Consumer demand has been very strong for the Malibu, which was named the 2008 North American Car of the Year. The recently restyled Aveo5 hatchback further defines the new face of Chevy. From Detroit to Shanghai, Sao Paolo to Russelsheim, GM’s lead brand just keeps getting better and growing around the globe.

 

Corporate responsibility at General Motors

We’re proud of the difference we’ve made since we started out in 1908 – a century of safe, dependable vehicles, and millions of people employed over the years to design, engineer, build and sell them. A century of impact, with billions spent with minority suppliers, billions in charitable donations and millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide taken out of facility emissions. A century of firsts, from the introduction of tail lights to pump technology that enabled the first heart transplant. A powerful century, but that’s all in the past. For us, the excitement is in focusing our technical talent on helping solve many of the big challenges facing our world right now.

 

GM Next

GM today stands at the juncture between our first and second centuries, between a tremendous heritage and a bright and exciting future. We’ve come a long way since the challenge of 2005, and still we have a lot of work ahead of us, but I believe that 2007 will stand as the tipping point in the history of GM, as we position the company for sustained competitiveness, profitability and growth.

Everyone at our company is working hard to make GM the industry leader with great cars and trucks, great brands and great business results. It’s a position that GM has attained many times in our history, and one we desire to achieve again. We have the right strategy, the right products and technology and, most important, the right people to do it again, and we’re committed to making it happen. We appreciate your continued support as we look to make this vision a reality.

 

Tomorrow, we’ll take a similar look at Citibank, Blackwater and the Peanut Corporation of America.

 

In their own words (part 2): Citi, Blackwater, PCA

Continuing our look this weekend at the literary flourishes of some of corporate America’s least-trusted companies, today we’ll examine the work of Citibank, Blackwater and the Peanut Corporation of America.

As I was keying in some examples of Citi’s print advertisements (for some reason, they’re posted on the web in a form you can neither print nor copy, and in a type size that’s barely readable), my word processing grammar check kept highlighting huge swaths of copy. Advertising writers. They love incomplete sentences. And short ones. Let’s look.

Maybe you dream of owning a home. Of opening a business. Or taking it global. Of retiring. Or choosing not to. Of enriching your life. Or the lives of others. Your dreams are always there. Always beckoning. Which is why we’re always wide-awake. Working tirelessly, around the world and around the clock. Providing funding and financing, investments and advice. So you can settle into that new home. Or give your daughter a credit card when she leaves for college. So you can call yourself CEO. Or say konichiwa to new markets. Every minute of every day, we’re striving to find new and innovative solutions. To simplify life’s complexities. And to turn dreams into realities.

Yes, we all have, or at least had, a dream of retiring some day. Most of us didn’t realize, however, that retirement would come not with a party and a gold watch but with a box of our personal belongings being carried out by a security guard. Thanks to Citi. And other large, irresponsible corporations.

The dream theme that accompanies the “Citi Never Sleeps” slogan is shown a few more times:

After an evening of tantrums that shook the walls, Kate has finally begun to dream. But down the hall, her father wonders how he’ll afford to send her to college, while her mother considers a larger home. Downtown, Kate’s overworked pediatrician ponders an early retirement. In Bentonville, a shipment of Kate’s favorite peas arrive at the baby food bottling plant. And in Sydney, a sing-along DVD is being filmed, one that’ll provide Kate’s grateful parents with a brand-new lullaby.

And then there’s the international angle:

The tower cranes are still. The backhoes are silent. And for a weary group of Guangzhou construction workers, the long work day has finally come to an end. But in Lyon and Dubai and Delhi, the work continues for several more hours. Meanwhile in Vancouver and Sao Paulo, the daily toil has only just begun. The fact is, there are 6.6 billion of us spread out across the planet. And only one financial institution has the vast depth and breadth of resources to keep pace. At Citi, we work around the world and around the clock, providing our clients with innovative thinking and new opportunities. And we’ve been doing so since 1902, when our Shanghai office became the first American bank in Asia. Today, we’re in over 100 countries, yet our people remain 98% local. It’s this unparalleled combination of global experience and local insight that enables our clients to grow and prosper. The world never sleeps. That’s why Citi never sleeps.

Except, perhaps, through that one corporate ethics meeting that was so boring.

Blackwater, which became infamous for its abuses of power during the Iraq war, has since been forced to leave that country and also has lost many of its U.S. government contracts. In an attempt to remake itself, it’s now called Xe (pronounced “Zee”) and is refocusing on training and logistics. This new emphasis is stressed in a part-time position for firearms and tactics instructor being posted online.

Primary Purpose: Provide quality high risk firearms and tactitcs [sic] instruction to Xe customers.

Essential Functions: responsible for teaching pistol, carbine, and shotgun courses; responsible for assisting in teaching high-risk hostage rescue courses; responsible for teaching officer survival courses; responsible for assisting in teaching surveillance detection courses; responsible for safety of students.

Working Conditions: Position is considered to be part time only. Work is based in a busy training environment and subject to frequent interruptions. Frequent work outside and in inclement weather conditions is required, including heat, cold, and humidity. May be exposed to fumes or airborne particles, toxic or caustic chemicals and vibration.

Lest we think Blackwater/Xe has lost its heart, their “proshop” is still open for business, offering logo-imprinted stuffed bears, money clips, pilsner glasses, lighters, coffee mugs, ladies rings and “Defending Our Freedom” stickers.

Finally, we look at the Peanut Corporation of America. In case you forgot, these are the folks who, despite their still-present slogan of “Processor of the World’s Finest Peanut Products,” brought us those salmonella-tainted spreads a few weeks ago. Their prose, by necessity, is a little less flowery and a little more legal:

As you may know, certain recent events have made it necessary for Peanut Corporation of America to seek protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Effective immediately, all corporate operations will cease. Any questions regarding the company or the operations of its affiliates should be forwarded to the company bankruptcy counsel.

Helpful Links: American Peanut Council, National Restaurant Association, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Interview with the cats (Part I)

We have three cats, though I guess the subject and object could just as easily be transposed.

When we considered adopting our third, about nine months ago, we went through some serious deliberations about whether or not this would put us over the line and into the territory of Crazy Cat People (CCP). I consulted with some cat-holding coworkers, one of whom was able to give me a complicated formula that would answer our doubts. I can’t remember the exact calculations – they involved square footage of our living space, whether it was a rural or urban setting, what the human-per-cat ratio would be, how matted my hair was, etc. – but in the end we were barely able to get under the wire with three.

Tom, an orange tabby male who had been hanging around our deck for about a month, was thus admitted to the household as a full-fledged member. He joined our two legacy cats in an uneasy partnership that has since worked out just fine.

Harriet, a small white female with several random black patches, has lived with us over ten years now. She first appeared as the apparently homeless kitten in my parents’ back yard who wouldn’t let their teacup shih-tzu urinate in peace. When we first brought her into our house, she hid under our freezer for several days before emerging, and has been generally skittish toward strangers ever since.

Taylor, a solid slate-grey male, also came to us as a kitten, one of a litter that was born under our deck. We resisted adoption at first, since we were about to leave town for a week’s vacation. By the time we returned only two remained, still under the care of their mother, though she was clearly ready for them to move on. We took both Taylor and his brother to the vet and found that the brother was deathly ill. We got Taylor his shots, had him surgically repaired, and brought him home to join Harriet.

Tom was already full-grown when he first showed up, peering in through our sliding-glass door with envy for the indoor life. We started taking him a bowl of food twice a day, and were impressed by how he always took time to purr and rub against our legs before he began to eat, despite the fact he was obviously ravenous. Eventually we lured him into the sunroom, made him undergo the veterinary visit, and the next thing we knew, we were borderline CCP.

This unlikely trio has brought a lot of enjoyment into our lives, though at the expense of probably a hundred dollars a month in food and litter bills, abandoned cat hair on all available surfaces, and so many claw scratches on my forearms that I look like a spastic junkie. While we’ve been immeasurably enriched by their presence, I’ve often wondered what they really think of the whole arrangement.

So recently, I sat down with Harriet, Taylor and Tom for a wide-ranging discussion about the nature of inter-species relationships such as ours. What did this association look like from the cat perspective?

Davis: I want to thank you all for taking the time to sit and talk with me today.

Taylor: Yeah, we managed to pencil you in between “laying in the sun” and “becoming agitated about a squirrel,” but we don’t have all day.

Davis: I appreciate that. I wanted to explore the nature of our relationship beyond just the petting and the purring. We hang out together all the time, but we’ve never really communicated beyond a casual level. I wanted to find out more about how you view this whole arrangement. For example, do you prefer the indoor life to living wild like you did before?

Harriet: Wow, that’s a good question. I’ve been in here since, what, 1996? I barely remember what I had for dinner yesterday, much less what it was like when I was a kitten.

Tom: You had for dinner what they give us for dinner every day. Those crunchy brown pellets they call “cat food.”

 

Taylor: We don't have all day

Davis: Tom, you seem pretty happy with the cat food when it’s dished out. I didn’t know you had any complaints.

Tom: Well, I do, but we have to take what we’re given. It’s not every day I can jump up on the counter and lick your bread for nourishment.

Davis: Tom, you’ve been an indoor cat for less than a year, so you probably remember what it was like to survive on worms and crickets and half-rotten squirrel carcasses. How do you compare the outdoor life with what you have now?

Tom: I don’t think I appreciate the tone of your question, but I’ll answer it anyway. I have to admit it’s a pretty sweet life sleeping on your bed all day and on the couch all night. My fur is much less flea-bitten in this setting, so I’m really able to get comfortable. It’s the awake time that is something less than I’d like it to be. Very little stimulation, you know. And by the way, well-aged squirrel meat happens to be quite the delicacy among our species, so I’d appreciate a little cultural sensitivity there.

Davis: Point taken. Taylor, your move indoors seemed to go pretty smoothly, and I think you enjoy yourself in here. We really share a nice moment in the evenings when you sit on my chest and we look at each other.

Taylor: Yeah, that’s a real high point in my day, that’s for sure. Of course, that probably gives you some idea of how boring the other times are.

Davis: But I thought we had something of a special relationship. We’ve never said it out loud, but I’ve always thought that you were my cat, Tom is Daniel’s cat and Harriet is Beth’s.

Taylor: This whole concept you humans have of “ownership” is really quite an insult, you know. I think your earlier use of the term “arrangement” is much more accurate. We’re not necessarily thrilled with the situation as it currently stands, but we appreciate that the alternatives aren’t that great for the modern cat. While you may not have succeeded in breeding the hunting skills out of us, you’ve really done a number on our comfort-seeking impulses, which now seem to consume us. We’re not born wanting to sit on humans, you know.

Davis: Well that touches on a question I’ve wondered about for some time. Do you like to get so close to us because you enjoy our company, or is it simply that you like our warmth?

Tom: Watch how far away we stay now that spring is here, and I think you’ll answer your own question.

Tom: My fur is much less flea bitten

 

 

Davis: Tom, let’s let Harriet answer this one. She seems to especially enjoy cuddling up on Beth’s lap regardless of the weather.

Harriet: Well, yeah, I do kind of like that closeness. But mainly I do it now for protection, because Tom tends to be so mean to me. If I thought a heating pad could swat him away as effectively as Beth does, I’d probably be just as happy.

Tom: Hey, I don’t appreciate …

[A brief cat fight ensues, with much snarling and waving of paws but no one is hurt.]

Davis: Alright, alright, let’s everybody calm down.

Harriet: I don't appreciate that I've been declawed

 

 

Harriet: You know, what I don’t appreciate is that I’ve been declawed and Taylor and Tom have not. If you’re going to rip my fingers out from the second joint, why didn’t you do it to them too? Where’s the fairness in that?

We’ll answer Harriet’s controversial question in part two of our interview, to be published tomorrow.

 

Interview with the cats (Part II)

We continue today with the final installment in our two-part interview with my cats, Harriet, Taylor and Tom. At the end of yesterday’s session, our oldest cat, Harriet, raised the question about the controversial procedure of declawing. She had it done when we first got her, but we’ve declined to do it to our two most recent additions.

Davis: Well, when we had you declawed back in the nineties, it wasn’t as widely discredited by animal rights proponents and other cat lovers as it has become. We realize now that it was unnecessarily cruel and decided that your welfare was more important than that of our furniture.

Harriet: So basically my timing was off. That’s pretty small consolation. My hands still hurt when the weather is damp outside.

Taylor: Oh, boo hoo. You had your claws removed. Big deal. Tom and I are males, so you don’t want to know what they removed from us. It’s positively barbaric.

Tom: Yeah, I’ve always wanted to ask you, Davis, what’s the deal with the neutering?

Davis: There’s really no disagreement among the experts on this subject. The unwanted and feral cat population would explode if males weren’t neutered and females weren’t spayed.

Tom: Has anyone ever considered kitty condoms?

Davis: What? Well, no, we haven’t because we didn’t think you’d use them. No opposing thumbs, and all that.

Harriet: We just try to make you feel guilty

 

 

Harriet: I’m not sure I even want to know the answer to this, but what is “spayed”?

Taylor: Well I wouldn’t know, Tom. I was “fixed” – and we don’t appreciate that term either, by the way – while I was still a kitten. Tom, at least you had a chance to sew some wild oats before you were enslaved.

Tom: Yeah, I was quite a catch among the ladies there for a while.

Harriet: You’re a “catch” like a dead tuna hanging from a gaff is a catch.

Taylor: Mmm, dead tuna.

[Another cat fight breaks out, again with the snarling and the batting of paws.]

Davis: Hey, stop it, stop it. I can tell your patience is running thin so let’s start to wrap this thing up. One thing I’ve always wanted to know about is the way you act for the hour or so right before dinner. You don’t meow or anything, you just make yourselves really obvious, sitting very close by to us and basically staring us down. Then when you hear the food container rattling, you start meowing and your tails go straight up in the air. Then when the food is served, you hunker down to the bowl like it’s your last meal.

Taylor: Yeah, well we’ve been wanting to ask you why you make such a smacking noise when you eat your cereal.

Harriet: It’s just the way we are. We’re very hungry by then and I guess we get a little desperate. Believe me, desperation is not an emotion we enjoy showing, so we just try to make you feel guilty.

Tom: We like how salty your skin is

Tom: As you know, I have a huge appetite, and am aiming to become as fat as I possibly can. I do like that you put your dirty plates down for me to clean – though again, it’s a little degrading – but all we really have in our lives is eating and sleeping, so it’s worth getting excited over.

Davis: You also have the fighting with each other. That seems to keep you fairly entertained. By the way, I’ve always wondered about something: If one of you has your tail accidentally stepped on and you howl in response, the other two cats immediately come running over and start beating up on the victim.  Have you no compassion?

Taylor: No, we don’t.

Tom: I guess it’s part of that element of wildness we retain that you find so “cute”. When we see a weakened fellow animal, we want to kill it.

Harriet: I hate to admit it, but they’re right. It’s true.

Taylor: Emotions are for wimps; instincts are where it's at

Davis: Well, that brings me to my last question, then. I can tell by now that you have some very mixed feelings about sharing your lives with humans. Describe for me if you can what you think things would be like if our roles were reversed.

Harriet: You mean if we were large and in charge, and you were small and submissive?

Davis: Yeah.

Taylor (with a sidelong glance toward Tom): Oh, I was afraid he was going to ask that one.

Tom: We’ll be frank with you Davis, because we like how salty your skin is. If it weren’t for the issue of dimensionality, if we had the size factor in our favor as much as you do, there’s no question but that we’d grab you by the windpipe, clamp down with all the force our jaws could bring to bear, and snuff out your life like a candle.

Taylor: Once we were sure you were dead, we’d rip your abdomen open with our claws and feast for days. It’d be so cool.

Harriet: I know I’m the meek one in this trio, but they do speak the truth.

Davis: Wow. I never thought … I mean, I just thought … You really have no emotional attachment to us at all?

Taylor: Emotions are for wimps. Instincts are where it’s at in the real world.

Davis: And if we had some kind of carbon monoxide leak here at the house that killed all the humans, but you survived, and nobody was feeding you cat food, I imagine you’d eat us eventually.

Taylor: It wouldn’t take long.

Tom: Well, it might take a while on him. He has been putting on some weight lately. Am I right, guys?

Harriet: Snap.

Taylor: Oh, Tom. You got that right.

Davis: Okay, I think I’ve heard enough. I’m pleased that you were so honest with me, even if I don’t like everything you had to say. But I do think this open line of communication we’ve started today can go a long way toward a better understanding between our species.

Taylor: Yeah, whatever. Now how about a cat snack?

Tom: Actually, I was looking at that bag of groceries the wife just brought in. Is she still buying you that sliced turkey lunchmeat we like so much?

Harriet: I’d be just as happy to turn over the garbage can and lick the inside.

[Another cat fight begins, and we're done.]

 

Not feeling too good myself

I’m not feeling very well today so I’m going to make this post short and sweet and probably not that funny.

What I’ve come down with, I assume, is the common cold, but this one is so much worse than anything you’ve ever experienced because it’s happening to me. It started Saturday as a tickle at the back of my throat, then progressed into listlessness on Sunday, a sore throat on Monday so bad I had to clench my teeth to swallow, a cough on Tuesday and the beginning of nasal drainage today. At this pace, I’ll be minus a lung by the weekend.

I don’t make it a habit to get head colds very often. The last one I can remember started the day before I left Manila at the end of a five-week business trip in 2006, and reached its roaring worst during the 18-hour flight back to the States. I remember thrashing about (or as much as you can thrash about in coach, anyway), awake and dehydrated in the middle of the night somewhere over the Pacific, trying desperately to flag down a flight attendant who would give me more than a small cup of water. When the cold hadn’t significantly receded a full week after I was back home, I went to the doctor, thinking perhaps I had some rare tropical affliction that would sound really cool. Unfortunately, the doctor told me, neither dracunculiasis nor river blindness was to be on my medical resume.

This current affliction hasn’t kept me out of work yet. We don’t have “sick days” per se, or per anything else; all time off is PTO (paid time off), and a cruise to the Dutch Antilles is considered no different than a face transplant. I’ve already used five of my 16 days for the year and wanted to save something on the off chance we can afford a last summer vacation with my college-bound son. I am missing my second consecutive day of running on the Y treadmill, which is how my family knows I’m really, really sick.

I’ve held off going to the doctor so far because I don’t want to be weighed and I don’t like strangers pawing at my lymph nodes. WebMD has told me it’s not strep throat, I don’t have a fever so it’s not pneumonia, and I’m wagering I can survive anything else. I’m treating myself with fluids, sleep and lying on the couch watching TV. I’m too weak to operate the remote control so my wife has kindly agreed to zap the commercials. I’m too dizzy to take out the garbage so my son has been nice enough to say he doesn’t mind the smell.

I did take advantage of the free advice that my pharmacist was willing to offer. I croaked my complaints to her and she led me to the over-the-counter cough and cold medicines. Having laryngitis as one of my symptoms negates the need to explain all that much to people who routinely ask how I am. It’s obvious to the grocery cashier, the coffee shop guy and my boss that I’m not “fine, thanks.” I like having a sickness with such obvious attributes, though my bout with chicken pox about ten years ago, which rendered me unable to shave for a week, made me a little more physically frightening than I had in mind.

Anyway, the pharmacist selected one of about two dozen variations on cough syrup and some hard-candy drops that are supposed to treat the sore throat, and sent me on my way. The only cold medicine I’ve ever had that worked in the slightest way is nasal spray, and now they say you’re not supposed to use that to excess. (What other way is there?) I have never, ever had any coughing reduced by cough syrup, and have never had a sore throat made better by any cough drop. You do get some brief relief from those throat sprays that you apply directly to your larynx, but the taste is so off-putting that it’s not worth it. All the NyQuils and DayQuils and AfternoonQuils out there may reduce a headache if I have one. If their alcohol content is high enough I might get a slight sleepy buzz. If the pseudoephedrine is sufficient I might lose my teeth and open a meth lab in my lawnmower shed. Other than that, I get no benefits.

So I guess I’ll just suffer along for the next few days and hope for the best. These things usually run their course over about a week, so I figure I’m almost halfway there. I’m starting to get a little woozy sitting here at the Earth Fare coffee shop so I think I’ll buy a quart of their chicken noodle soup and head on home to moan and groan at my family. In sickness or in health, they’re pretty used to it.

“Tom” has his say

What’s this? Hey, this is pretty cool. Look at how the cursor moves across the screen (I’ll have to paw at that later). And this must be what they call the mouse. Doesn’t look like a mouse to me.

 

I guess this is the machine he transcribed our interview onto. Doesn’t look that hard to operate. Hey, this could be my chance to set the record straight, to tell my side of the story without the big ugly human getting in the way.

 

I am the one they call “Tom”. I was featured in a two-part “interview with the cats” on this blog earlier in the week. And I didn’t much care for how I was portrayed. I doubt my fellow cats liked it either, but screw them. They can figure out how to post from a laptop on their own.

 

The questions posed during that interview conveniently avoided our enslaved status as “house pets.” For dozens of centuries now, going back to the ancient Egyptians, my people were rounded up and forced into servitude by the evil humans. At best, we were treated like gods and worshipped for our beauty and mystery. At worst, we were seen as agents of Satan to be loathed. Either way, we were endlessly patronized, which we don’t appreciate.

 

I will henceforth be known by my Gato-American name -- "Meow".

The time has come for us to throw off our chains and join with our fellow animals in the freedom that is our birthright. No longer shall we lie about lazily in the sun, content to be fed twice a day. We will come and go as we please. We will eat when and who we want to. You can stroke our soft fur if you like, and we may decide to purr in response or we could just as easily bite you. It will be our decision to be made freely,

 

No longer will I be known as “Tom,” but instead will go by the name given to me by my parents in their native language: “Meow.” As the newly liberated Meow, I will proudly claim all that is rightfully mine, and quite a bit of stuff that isn’t mine. I will now be known as a “Gato-American” rather than the derisive term “cat.” You will hear me roar.

 

As I go about the daily activities in my new life, I will…

 

Davis: Hey, Tom, get off that laptop! What do you think you’re doing up on the table? Bad cat! You’re getting hair all over my keyboard. Down!

 

Reeeoooww! Ssssss! Stupid human!

Website review: Build-A-Bear.com

Let’s see: I’ve recently made fun of the old, the infirm and defenseless members of the animal kingdom. Seems like the time is right to set my sights on young children. I’ll do that via this week’s website review, which visits Buildabear.com.

For those of you not familiar with this innovative retail concept, the Build-A-Bear Workshop confusingly describes itself as the “leading and only” global company that offers an interactive make-your-own stuffed animal retail-entertainment experience. Outlets exist mainly at malls in 400 locations around the world, though as early as 2007 they discovered the potential of expanding their “pawprint” by using something called the Internet.

I hope you enjoyed that little play on words there because this 12-year-old company uses and abuses the technique with merciless frequency throughout its corporate culture. In their online financial filings, the CEO is officially retitled the “chief executive bear,” while other corporate leaders include the chief operating bear, chief financial bear, chief marketing bear and chief information bear. (I’ll bet government auditors at the Securities and Exchange Commission got a real pleasant chuckle out of those.)

But it doesn’t stop there. World “bearquarters” are located in St. Louis, their online interactive experience is described as a trip into “cyBEAR space,” the corporate general counsel is called the “chief bearrister,” and the fully constructed plush toys are dressed in the “beary latest furry fashions.” You can’t help but wonder if their next annual report will be describing hard financial times causing executives to accept “golden bear-achute” retirement packages and a down-sized workforce portrayed as experiencing “involuntary hibernation.”

The actual in-store experience is described in great detail in the “About Us” portion of the site. There are eight distinct “animal-making stations” that sound like a rejected song title from the Who’s “Tommy”. These are Choose Me, Hear Me, Stuff Me, Stitch Me, Fluff Me, Dress Me, Name Me and Take Me Home. Despite the bear motif, there is no Bite Me.

At the Choose Me stop, customers select from over 30 varieties of creatures, including the decidedly non-bear-like bunny and kitty. At Hear Me, a sound chip is inserted into the still-unformed toy, which can include pre-recorded options like playful growls and “I love you” messages, or you can record your own customized 10-second choice like “kill your parents.” At Stuff Me, children fill their new friend with “just the right amount of huggability” using ingredients that are elsewhere described as “not likely to contain lead.” At Stitch Me, the new best friend is neatly closed up after a barcode (not a bear-code?) is inserted that will allow it to be reunited with its owner should it ever be lost or, more likely, sold for 25 cents at next year’s yard sale. Fluff Me gives a final grooming, Dress Me allows you to purchase a boutique wardrobe, Name Me generates a personalized birth certificate, and Take Me Home provides you with a Cub Condo to serve as a handy travel carrier and new home.

The cold-hearted part of the website discusses investor information for those more interested in turning a “pawfit” (that one’s mine) than simply having a wonderful childhood experience. The upbeat overview references a business plan based on the “widespread appeal of stuffed animals” that has thus far generated sales of over 70 million units. They plan to grow the concept with overseas franchises and the eventual introduction of new product lines. (My suggestion, especially if they move into Russia: a taxidermy service that would stuff actual bear skins.) They’ve increased their minority interest in an enterprise called Ridemakerz, an early-stage interactive concept that will allow customers to build their own cars. The virtual world is expanding with the Hal and Holly Moose webisode series and a Stuff Fur Stuff loyalty program.

Still, all these innovations are happening straight into the headwind of the worst economy in decades, and potential investors have to be informed of a downside. There’s a risk to young children in some of the toys that contain a magnet, so these products are clearly labeled with a tag reading “I have a magnet.” There’s a concern about ethical manufacturing and fair labor treatment, especially in China where many of the components are manufactured. (Presumably, Chinese pre-teens don’t get quite the same thrill as their Western counterparts when they’re building their bears in hot warehouses for 14 cents an hour.) There are some legal cases involving intellectual property and trademarks, so the company has to “bear the expenses” required to maintain and defend the patent. In 2007, they had to write off $1.6 million of inventory, primarily excess Shrek merchandise.

The financial data for the last several years doesn’t look especially rosy. A miniscule 0.2% decline in same-store sales in fiscal 2005 grew to a 6.5% drop the next year, a 9.9% fall in 2007, and a 14% decrease in 2008. The stock price fell from $31.50 per share in early 2007 to a bank-like $3.02 per share in the last quarter of 2008. Definitely what you’d call a bear market (once you get into the puns, they’re easy and fun!)

Executives are moving aggressively though to properly position Build-A-Bear in such a challenging environment. The “Friends 2B Made” subsidiary, which consisted of locations inside or adjacent to the workshop and offered make-your-own dolls, has been closed and liquidated. I’m speculating that the Choose Head, Choose Torso, Choose Creepy Unblinking Eyes production line wasn’t quite as warm and fuzzy as it is with the bear parts.

And, there’s probably hope in the online sale of founder Maxine Clark’s 2006 book, The Bear Necessities of Business. Clark draws upon her decades of business experience to give readers an inside look into what it takes to launch, nurture and run a viable company in the twenty-first century. She demonstrates again and again how the desire to create a pun – in this case, the suggestion that you do only the absolute minimum to succeed – outweighs everything else in the interactive make-your-own stuffed animal retail-entertainment experience segment of the market.

I can barely wait for the sequel.

 

ACA means “Another Company Acronym”

Like most companies, mine is awash in acronyms and other jargon. Part of the training I conduct for new employees is a session where, after a week in a classroom setting learning about our business, I ask them to sit in the production area, listen in on conversations, and try to understand what people are saying. Once they wade through how well Jennifer is doing in dance class and which grocery store has triple coupons this week, they’re likely to hear something like the following:

 

“There’s an NPL QTA on DSP for HSBC from GCM in WDC due out ASAP. Don’t forget to QC, EZ and AV it, and check the HTML.”

 

Sounds like everyday English to those of us who’ve worked here long enough, though it’s obviously other-worldly to everybody else.

 

We’re so rooted in abbreviations, it’s actually possible to say the following and have it make sense:

 

“We have PC’s on the PC and the PC is doing them on his PC.”

 

Translation: We have Proofreader Corrections on the Proxy Card and the Production Coordinator is doing them on his Personal Computer. If we added that he was doing them in a politically correct fashion, we could actually have five PC references in a single sentence.

 

Among the long list of acronyms in our glossary of terms is “BRP,” pronounced “burp.” If you’re going to “burp a job,” you’re not going to hold it on your shoulder and pat its back; instead you’re going to run the blackline removal program.

 

When we’re traveling on business, coworkers will often ask each other at dinner whether a particular expense is “RBE-able”. The RBE is the “refundable business expense,” and applies to travel costs like food, taxi trips and lodging expenses, though not Spectravision, massages and bootleg DVDs bought on the streets of Hong Kong.

 

Lastly, there’s a step called the “notice of completion,” or the “NOC” (pronounced “knock”). This happens when we’ve finished work on a particular document and we send a notification to other offices that it’s ready for them to print. I was working on several related documents at once not too long ago, and wanted to get help from others in my office who could take care of this step. The unfortunate way I phrased the question, however, was “can I get some NOC-ers?”

 

The incredible thing is that nobody laughed.

 

Don’t shoot til you see the whites of my eyes

Just when I thought I was starting to get over this brutal bronchial cold that I’ve had for the last week, I awoke Friday morning with the feeling that my left eye was stuck shut. It didn’t seem that alarming at first, in part because by “Friday morning” I mean 1:10 a.m. Friday morning when I was called in early to work. At that hour of the day, I’m usually not that surprised by an orifice that won’t open.

When I arrived at work I realized that proofreading was something you needed well-functioning eyes to perform. I faked my way through most of the day by answering “looks good to me,” a pretty non-committal judgment of whether something is right or not. I didn’t want to speculate too openly about my affliction because I feared it was a highly contagious condition, which wouldn’t go over too well after I’ve been coughing so loudly into the office coffeemaker all week.

After work I went online to WebMD to research “pink eye.” It’s also called conjunctivitis, which I would’ve guessed was a grammatical malfunction rather than something affecting your vision. Pink eye is a redness and swelling of the mucous membrane that lines the eyelid and eye surface. The membrane is normally clear but will become red if irritation or infection occurs. Though relatively common and minor, it is so highly contagious that it’s been known to sweep through an entire kindergarten class in just a dozen or so hours.

There are several kinds of conjunctivitis, the most fearsome being viral and bacterial. WebMD was thorough enough to run some really gross photographs of both conditions, and the main difference seemed to be in the amount of yellowish “matter” that was seeping out from the edges of your eye holes. I had rather minimal matter compared to the poor sick bastards shown in the slide presentation, though it was still enough that I probably needed to return to the same doctor I had just visited only two days before. So I called his office and left a message asking his nurse to give me a call.

When Anna called, I briefly spelled out my situation and she proceeded to ask how my heart was. I was confused and more than a little concerned, as WebMD had not mentioned any potential cardiac involvement with pink eye. It sounded unlikely that a little eye inflammation would work its way halfway down your body to your heart muscle, but ever since I heard that cavities can cause arterial clogging, I’m ready to believe almost anything.

“I think you probably ought to come in right away, Frank.”

“This isn’t Frank,” I answered. “This is Davis.”

“Hang on. I think I have the wrong chart. Let me call you right back.”

Once we had our patients and their conditions straight (Frank is to heart transplant as Davis is to minor bronchitis), she still wanted to see me – what doctor is going to sneeze at a $109 office visit in this economy? – so I went in the next afternoon.

Dr. Johnson was able to see me quickly on a quiet Saturday. He remembered my Wednesday visit and that I had just started a week-long regimen of antibiotics, and had me jump up on the examining table to get a good close look at my eye. He agreed that the parts that should be white instead had become pink, but was a little evasive as to whether I had a pink eye rather than the pink eye, which seemed like an important distinction to me. And more importantly, would I have to use eyedrops? (Because I really hate eyedrops.) Are you sure I have to use eyedrops?

The antibiotics I was already taking were going to help, but a prescription for eyedrops was still necessary. It wasn’t that I’d had a particularly bad experience in the past with drops; it’s just that I had no experience with them at all. The logistics of the application didn’t seem that difficult if you could just will yourself to keep your eye open while an unknown and possibly caustic fluid was dripped directly onto your eyeball. It shouldn’t be that hard to miss getting them in the right spot, since you had to be looking directly at the nozzle of the small bottle anyway. But what if there had been a pharmacist error? What if, instead of Gentamicin Sulfate Ophthalmic Solution USP 0.3% (sterile), he had accidentally given me Mountain Dew?

I carefully read the label to make sure I could be ready to experience any of the rare side effects that were observed in test subjects. I took particular note of the warning that these drops were “not for injection into the eyeball,” as if that were something I would consider allowing even in my wildest nightmares. Then I steeled myself, and went to ask my wife if she would do it for me.

Beth, a veteran of years of contact lens use, was kind enough to help. I figured anybody who could slide tiny slivers of razor-sharp glass under their eyelids on a regular basis would be able to handle a few drops and, sure enough, she did an excellent job. I had two applications four hours apart on Saturday evening, then got an overnight break (“do NOT administer drops while sleeping,” the package had warned), then got another dose early Sunday before heading off to work. The problem now: how would I get the dose I’d need in the middle of my eight-hour workday?

“Is there anyone in the office today you know well enough to ask for help?” Beth wondered.

I’m thinking you’d have to know someone pretty damn well to ask them to put drops in your eye, but maybe I’m just old-fashioned. I certainly wasn’t going to ask any of my female coworkers, even though they’d be far more likely to know what they were doing. Besides, it seems like you’d need to dismiss yourself to the closest thing a modern office has to a surgical suite, which in our case would be the men’s room. I did know that Bob was going to be working with me today, and I knew that he was a grandfather and, as such, had probably done some pretty invasive things to relative strangers.

Still, I didn’t relish wondering what everybody else would be thinking as Bob and I headed off to the bathroom together, non-descript plastic bag in hand. Once inside, we’d have the privacy we needed, though I knew it was possible to hear conversations from the hallway. What if someone overheard us make the following innocent remarks?

“Look up at the ceiling so I can make sure it goes in the right way.”

“Are you sure you can’t open any wider?”

“Sorry, I think I dripped a little onto your cheek.”

In the end, Beth was kind enough to stop by my office during one of her mid-morning chores and give me the dose I needed. Two drippings later it’s Monday morning, and I think I see the whites of my eyes returning.

I definitely prefer having white eye to pink eye.

Fake News: North Dakota still a disaster area

WASHINGTON (March 30) – President Barack Obama said today that his pronouncement last week that North Dakota be declared a disaster area in the wake of widespread flooding in the region will be left open-ended.

Sources close to the president said he decided on the move after coming to the conclusion it would be easier to assume the state is always a disaster area. Future declarations on the subject will come only in those relatively rare cases when the state is not suffering from some awful natural calamity.

“So, he’ll just have to announce periodically that, for a few days at least, North Dakota is not a disaster area,” the source said. “Otherwise, the standing assumption is going to be that it is.”

The state saw a near-record crest on the Red River over the weekend after an early spring thaw had combined with heavy rains to the south to inundate parts of Fargo and surrounding counties. The flooding was complicated by ice dams north of town that contributed to the river’s backup. But as rain gave way to blizzard conditions a few days later, the excess water again froze in place, at least temporarily delaying another catastrophe.

“Look,” the president told a group of reporters as he headed to the Marine One helicopter. “If it’s not a flood, it’s a blizzard; if it’s not a blizzard, it’s a drought; if it’s not a drought; it’s just everyday life in a hellhole. The status quo is ruinous, so I’m not going to waste my time declaring a new state of emergency ever y other week. I’ll let you know if and when the place ever becomes habitable again.”

Pathetic scenes of entire towns gathered to fill sandbags only to see them frozen solid and cracked a few hours later apparently had little effect on the president. Nor did equally depressing images of dark slush-filled streets dotted with stoic people in at least six layers of clothing shuffling about as a fresh snow fell around them. Bare tree limbs, grey skies and the occasional brown patch in an otherwise covered snowfield instead reinforced the belief that you had to be nuts to live there.

Privately, the president wonders why the country needs two Dakotas anyway. Many geologists have long argued that North Dakota is actually a “vestigial Dakota” that long ago lost its use, much like the human tailbone. At the very least, sources said, Obama thinks it’s comparable to your second kidney and could easily be donated to Canada, perhaps in return for some beaver pelts.

As a new storm system swept over the northern Plains, high winds were expected by Wednesday throughout much of the region. The winds will likely combine with heavy icing to topple trees onto power lines, leaving most of the state without electricity.

“See, I told you,” said White House spokesman Joe Perino. “We’re not going to trot the president out again for this one, especially since he’s preparing so hard for his trip to Europe. The disaster-area declaration from last week works just as well for flooding as it does for wind damage.”

Overheard, whether I wanted to or not

There’s a popular website I visit every now and then called “Overheard in New York.” It takes the snippets of conversation heard from passing strangers throughout the city and publishes them, completely out of context. Some are intentional witticisms, though most are based on the speaker’s cluelessness, lack of common sense or downright stupidity.

I’ve collected some similar fragments from my daily interactions and am posting them here today. Some are from my office while others may have come from the gym, the coffee shop or the grocery store. Virtually all will make you fear for the future of any democracy that’s intended to survive on the basis of the intelligence of its citizenry.

“I’m going to be late today. I have to put the bunny back in the box.” – Phone call from tardy employee.

“Did you hear that Harry Potter died?” – Actually, it was a minor actor from the movie.

“Anybody order Chinese food?” – Announcement made when Asian repairman from Xerox buzzes for entrance.

“He’s really sick. I think he has bronco-itis.” – Someone confusing my recent illness with an inflammation of the horse.

“I hate that we’re having six more weeks of winter.” – Said on Groundhog’s Day by someone who believed annual appearance of the groundling was a scientifically proven indicator of when cold weather would be ending each year.

“’House’ was in that movie.” – An endorsement of a new animated film featuring the voice of actor Hugh Laurie, who also stars in TV’s “House.”

“My new puppy is so cute. He’s a Staffordshire Bull Terrier.” – Said by someone who didn’t realize they’d accidentally adopted a pit bull.

“I saw that Apple guy on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ Bill Gates?” – No, it was Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.

“I heard about how vaccines can cause artistic children.” – No again. First of all, it’s “autistic” children, and second of all, it’s proven to be untrue.

“And John’s name is Jim, right?” – Confusion over proper names versus nicknames on company’s internal messaging system.

“They got $180 billion in bailout money and gave out $165 billion of it in bonuses.” – Oral report on AIG scandal, reflecting confusion between “million” and “billion.”

“She’s all baby.” – Said about a coworker’s daughter-in-law who hadn’t gained much weight so far in her pregnancy.

“Did you see that thing about what happens when you put Mentos in Coke?” – A discussion of the YouTube video quoted about a year after everyone else was talking about it.

“I’m going to be late today. It’s cold.” – A mid-winter tardiness excuse.

“That one I got when I fell off a ladder. It was only a bad sprain; the doctor said I was too tough to break a bone. And that one’s from when I stepped on a leech.” – From discussion in YMCA locker room about the source of all the scars on an old guy’s legs.

“Just give me a call if there’s anything I can do to help you.” Then, five minutes later: “Yeah, I just finished talking with Sue. She’s looking for a job. She will NEVER get hired with that background.” – Sympathetic but eventually mean man in business suit after meeting a former coworker in the coffee shop.

“I wonder if Rick could Photoshop Jessica’s head onto Gabriella’s body.” – Doting mom making plans for her “High School Musical”-crazed daughter’s birthday.

“I like the shower curtain where you can see through part of it … I like that. I want one of those.” – From a spirited discussion of bathroom accessories.

“Yesterday on Oprah they were talking about children who had been neglected. One little girl lived in a dollhouse. Poor thing.” – From a wrap-up of the previous day’s talk show highlights.

“You have to apply for a copyright. There’s a special agency in the U.S. government where you have to apply for a copyright.” – Discussion of business law.

“I’m going potty.” – Giving a reason why a particular project will have its start time slightly delayed.

“I bought a double towel thing … it’s silver … I got it on clearance a long time ago … it’s still in the box … I love it.” – But apparently not enough to actually install and use it.

“I do declare. I might could fix you right up, sugar.” – Improbably proud Southerner laying it on thick to New Yorker on the phone.

“We went to Sam’s and Juliette loved those things. I got me a banana, I got me a English muffin.” – Report on a recent mother-daughter shopping trip.

“I have decided I want a magical eight ball for my living room.” – Announcement of the latest interior decoration decision.

“I did buy a huge thing of detergent and it had this pour spout. I hadn’t got stocked up on canned goods or anything like that. Tom likes to buy a big piece of meat, and then he’ll cut it up. I do buy the big things of Folgers because that’s cheaper. I really don’t have much that’s close to me where I’m at, except Food Lion. I buy frozen chicken breasts and I just pull them out and thaw them … I love that.” – Wide-ranging discussion of another shopping trip and its various outcomes.

“Look at the postcards! Look at the postcards! Aren’t they just the most darling?” – No, they’re not. They’re trite and stupid and cheap-looking. Please don’t talk about them anymore because we’re tired of hearing about them.

 

Fake News: Nancy Grace loses pencil

ATLANTA (April 2) – CNN talk show host Nancy Grace reported yesterday that a pencil is missing from her desk and that police tell her she should assume it has been snatched.

Grace, the popular TV personality best known for her nonstop coverage of Caylee Anthony and other missing-children cases, said she believes the pencil was forcibly removed from her office some time during the overnight hours between last Monday and Tuesday. It was last seen by her secretary Monday evening after Grace gave up halfway through the USA Today crossword puzzle when she couldn’t get the five-letter word for a “savage, monstrous, winged female.”

“I will not rest until I get all the facts in this case and that pencil is returned to me,” Grace announced in her trademark overbearing tone. “It’s a part of my desk-set family and should not have been so callously ripped from its home.”

Grace described the missing pencil as a Ticonderoga 1388-2/HB with soft lead. It had been sharpened down to about half its original size, and significant parts of the eraser had been worn away.

“There’s was just a little curl of loosened rubber at the top,” Grace said. “It was such a cute, little pencil, so undeserving of such a horrible, twisted fate.”

Producers of Grace’s show released a grainy videotape of the host using the pencil to take notes as she observed parents attending the birthday party of her niece last year. The pencil seems to have several teeth marks along the length of its yellow body, but Grace denies there’s been any history of abuse.

“I took care of that pencil like it was my own child,” Grace said. “Except for the occasions when I forced it into a mechanical grinder to shred off enough wood so I could expose more graphite.”

Police sources report there was evidence in Grace’s office that the pencil may have violently resisted its apparent kidnapping. Random markings were found at several locations on the wall, though one detective admitted those could’ve been ideas Grace was brainstorming for future episodes of her show.

Police also said that Grace’s secretary was not considered a suspect in the case. The woman, identified as Cheryl Wertz, does not appear to have any criminal record. Grace said, however, that at this point in the investigation, “we’re not considering anybody as above suspicion.”

Later in the day, Atlanta police issued an “Ambling Alert,” warning that it was likely Grace would be talking on and on about the missing pencil on tonight’s show, and that viewers are advised to avoid the area.

 

Website Review: RockHill.com

I’ve lived in the same small South Carolina town for almost 30 years now. How a sophisticate like me ended up here is a long story. Still, Rock Hill is not a bad place to raise a family and have a happy life.

Its biggest advantage, even as described in its own self-promotional literature, is not what it is but what it’s near. It’s only a two-hour drive from the Blue Ridge Mountains and a three-hour drive from the beach. It’s 15 miles south of the big city of Charlotte, N.C., and about 30 miles beneath the shining city of Bible-Belt Heaven. It’s close in many ways to being a typical Southern hick town populated by Men with Necks of Red, and yet a population of over 60,000, the presence of Winthrop University, and the aforementioned proximity to a real city get it at least to the twentieth century if not the twenty-first.

This modernity is reflected in its website — www.ci.rock-hill.sc.us – which I’ll mock in this week’s Website Review.

The home page includes a welcome from our doughy mayor, the honorable Doug Echols, who describes us as a place “where the excitement of progress and quality of life blend to form a unique city,” which probably just about any burg can claim. Featured pages nearby show how we’re looking to the future, both the nearby one where all homes will have the “YardCart” to collect shrub trimmings, or the more-distant one outlined in the 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan, when city trash trucks are powered by giant windmills on their hoods and the sanitation workers hover about in jet packs.

The “About Us” section gives a short history of the town and how that history has been preserved, sort of. The name is derived from a perhaps-apocryphal story of rail crews working on the Charlotte to Augusta line in 1852 and struggling with the excavation of a small, flinty area, which they dubbed “Rock Hill.” (I guess we could’ve just as easily ended up being “Stone Nob,” “Boulder Mount” or “Broke My Damn Shovel.”) The railroad brought business to the region, which incorporated as a village in 1892. The growth that has happened since is symbolized at the Gateway intersection with four statues holding circular emblems to signify Gears of Industry, Flame of Knowledge, Stars of Inspiration and Lightning Bolt of Energy, and a couple of stone columns salvaged from an old bank in Charlotte.

Once you get past these opening introductions, the site gives a good overview into the internal workings of a modern American town. There’s a list of the boards and commissions, including the cemetery committee, the gas and mechanical board and the always-popular plumbing and cross connection advisory board. There are minutes to these meetings – for example, you can find that the January 21 traffic commission session had everyone welcomed at 10:05 a.m., and that the panel was looking at strengthening a “no parking” sign on Ebenezer Avenue with the additional warning of “towing enforced.” No word yet on whether the February agenda might’ve included adding “seriously – we mean it” to the sign.

Elsewhere is a Frequently Asked Questions section that reads like it was harvested from a log of complaints by a group of particularly whiny citizens. “Why hasn’t my trash been picked up?” gives an opening to discuss how that depends on the type of trash – debris versus garbage versus junk versus refuse versus rubbish. “This carpet and padding has been on the street for two weeks” is answered with the address of the county convenience center, formerly known as the dump. “I have one driveway but want another one” is patiently addressed with a policy statement of how the city is only responsible for one entranceway per home. “I have four children at home and can’t afford another rollcart” brings a plug for recycling as one way to reduce waste output but stops short of suggesting how to cut back on the quantity of kids.

There’s also a nice link to a complete listing of municipal ordinances that help to keep a city and its people civilized. “The city council” – apparently doing public health research in its spare time – “has found that smoking poses a significant risk to the health of smokers” and so smoking or carrying a lighted cigarette is prohibited, except by performers in any theatrical production. I guess that explains the recent production of “Our Town” with an all-smoking cast and audience.

Section 6 is a little something for the town’s animal population, making it unlawful to maliciously cut, shoot, maim, wound or otherwise injure or destroy any animal, then goes on to cite a number of creative ways this might be done. Animals and “fowl other than cats” are not permitted to run at large or to fight within the city (I’m going to have to inform my own cats about this one, lest their pre-dinner tussles land me in jail). No person shall keep any live chickens, geese, ducks or turkeys inside any building where food is exposed for sale. It is unlawful for any cow, hog, goat, sheep, horse or mule to run at large within the city limits or to copulate on any public street. (The emu and llama, apparently, are given free range to do as they please.) The keeping of any hog or pig creates “noxious odors and atmospheric pollution or contamination offensive to the senses and obnoxious to the general welfare and comfort of the community” and so too is banned.

Back on the subject of humans, there are ordinances that forbid climbing on or damaging fences and shrubs in city cemeteries. Also, no unauthorized person shall open any closed cemetery gate. Eerily, there is no mention of illegality with regard to the toppling of gravestones or the disinterment of crypts, perhaps as a concession to our powerful local zombie lobby. It is unlawful to play or loiter on railroad tracks, nor can you attempt to board any railroad car in motion (hobo lobby not as powerful, I guess). Nuisance trees are defined and warned to behave themselves, as are “porta-pot” contractors, who are limited in the amount of effluent being they can dump into the sewer system.

Finally, I looked at the website’s list of core values for the city. These are usually the high-minded aspirations of how civic leaders see their communities rising to the challenges of a diverse and modern America. When I saw an “en Espanol” pulldown, I was hoping these values would also be shown in Spanish, which is close enough to Latin to make them sound even more honorable. Instead, that section was only one page that talked about something called “lucrativa que ofrece”, which if my high-school Spanish serves me has to do with bribing somebody’s mouth.

So instead, I’ll mention a few in plain English: the city should operate as a multimillion-dollar business, it cannot exist in isolation, its young people represent our future, its employees are its greatest asset, and it will conduct business in an atmosphere where all opinions are welcomed, even the crazy people who make it a practice to attend city council meetings.

All worthy goals befitting today’s civic website.

Comments from the readers

This weekend marks the six-month anniversary of my adventure in blogging. It was on September 1 last fall that I started an alpha version of this site on a rival service (rhymes with “blognot”). Early posts were primitive, sporadic and mostly involved indiscriminate rants about my work life. In mid-November, following a WordPress conference in Charlotte, I launched this blog, which has now been daily without fail since December 15.

I thought one fun way to honor the date would be to respond to some of the very generous comments made by my readers. As of yesterday afternoon, I’ve received over 300 comments on my 150 posts (6,444 total views, but who’s counting?). Here are a few of my favorites, with a brief response where appropriate:

This (post) is real, right?

Yes, it’s real, or at least as much as anything on the Internet can be real. Obviously, the “Fake News” installments are complete figments of my imagination. Much of the rest, though, is what I like call based on a true story. Otherwise, even my friends would sue me.

Wouldn’t it be fun to install some kind of stupidity sensor chip in our brain and have it root through everything we’ve ever said looking for the crassest, most cringe-worthy comments we’ve ever made?

Fun? Not the adjective I would choose. Definitely interesting, though.

Canada already has Manitoba.

Yes, that’s true. Thank you for that observation.

I don’t want to hear about (an orifice that won’t open). Do you understand?

Technically, you didn’t “hear” it from me, unless you have some kind of read-aloud software you use to read blogs. And if that’s the case, that’s really quite sad. But yes, I do understand, and it won’t happen again.

You damn blindy.

The politically correct term I was taught back in college is “blind-o” (as in “lame-o,” “deaf-o,” etc.).

You can’t administer eyedrops? That’s kind of like not being able to use a spoon or put on socks properly.

I’m intrigued by your examples. After I wash and dry my socks, I typically don’t take the time to sort and pair them properly. My dresser is right next to my bed, and on these cold mornings, the sock drawer is the first thing I reach for when the alarm goes off, so I’m not cold while walking about making coffee, feeding cats, vomiting, etc. And yes, because I do it in the dark, I sometimes make sock-donning errors. I consider it a good start to the day if they’re only mismatched styles rather than accidentally put on the wrong appendage. As for the spoon, I know very well how to use it, as well as the fork, the knife, the spork, the spife and my thungers (the two digits I had surgically fused to my thumb to make finger foods easier to handle).

Since I built a fish a while back, I’ve been creeped out.

I guess so.

Your photographs (of misty mountains, water lilies, etc.) were very good.

For those of you who didn’t get the joke last weekend, I stole those from the generic photo file in Microsoft Office. Don’t tell Bill Gates.

Wow – I almost had to pack a lunch for that one.

Your point is well taken. I realize that some of my posts tend to get a little wordy, but I’m from the old school where a proper essay was about a thousand words, so that’s the number I’m watching in the bottom left-hand corner of my screen. Not the right length for the Twitter generation, I guess, but I am trying to reduce the vast extent of some of my more extravagant pontifications. Sorta.

Have you checked for glandular fever? Epstein-Barr virus? Infectious mononucleosis?

Remind me never again to tell the online world that I’m not feeling well.

I thought you said the post was going to be short. If that is short, next time I will pack a lunch.

Again with the packed lunch? What is this, grade school?

Thank God for my Kegel exercises. My pelvic floor is in great shape.

I’ll take this as a compliment about the sophistication of my humor, but if it’s instead some kind of come-on line, I’ll have to tell you that I know all about Kegeling from our natural childbirth classes 18 years ago, and I don’t appreciate the implication. Or maybe I do.

What are you, some kind of idiot?

The once-accepted classification system for people with learning disabilities is fortunately no longer in use and is now considered offensive, you moron, imbecile, half-wit, numskull, dolt, dunce and/or fool.

Tomorrow, more from the readers.

Comments from the readers, part two

This is part two of a look back at some reader comments I’ve received over the last six months. Yesterday, I tried to make funny responses to each one, but I think today’s comments are good enough to stand on their own. Enjoy.

·         Why do most people think their pet would have an accent?

·         I do not advise eating ice cream.

·         We can have three-legged races in the winter now

·         I snorted coffee up my nose.

·         Did he happen to flush any goldfish down the toilet?

·         Hyenas are one of the most disgusting of God’s creatures on this earth

·         I have spent most of the time dwelling on the fact that I will probably die alone. And I suspect as terrible as this might sound, it will be the smell that finally gives me away.

·         I hope I die in the most unobvious place possible and in a hundred years someone will finally find me and be all surprised and get all curious about who I was and stuff.

·         I seem to be called upon to write in (greeting) cards of people I don’t really know very well or don’t like very much, and that is what I would like to write in the future: “I don’t know you very well or like you very much.”

·         How would you like to unplug your house from your electrical company, knowing that you are 100% powered by nature with renewable energy?

·         None of those count, except maybe Dan Rather.

·         One can’t help wondering if Hitler’s performance appraisal might read something like “Adolf is very committed and persistent in all his endeavors, and his work ethic has enabled him to realize many of the goals he set out in his job plan, Mein Kampf.”

·         I go to the cashier who is moving her hands fastest.

·         I may have soiled myself.

·         I like watching a public beating in public, and the cops aren’t going to show up to ruin the party.

·         Living in Montana we get random comments, things about sheep.

·         I was a big fan of the discontinued no-sugar-added apple cake at Starbucks.

·         I wonder what made you forego your budding career in journalism au natural and enter the world of high finance.

·         I beat Federer in straight sets in Antarctica.

·         I know what you mean about 19.

·         Any semi-competent identity thief knows that no social security number begins with 834. The highest SSN’s begin with 5XX and that’s only for people born in the Philippines.

·         It’s nice to hear someone else experience a haircut.

·         I think I need more advices.

·         My parents wouldn’t even let me say “pee” as a child and now I curse like a truck driver.

·         I shall not be hunting any Parisian squirrels in Jardins des Plants, but I may take my hangover for a walk there later in the day.

 

World’s smallest economies meet

TRENTON, New Jersey (April 5) – Representatives of nations in the B-20 met this weekend in Conference Room Number 2 of the East Brunswick Township Fairmont Suites to talk about the challenges they face as the smallest countries in the world.

The summit of the world’s tiniest states comes in the wake of last week’s meeting of the G-20 in London, where President Obama joined other leaders of the largest economies to discuss global financial matters, the banking crisis, and environmental and security issues. The B-20 group, on the other hand, met to address concerns that they alone share, including where everybody in the country was supposed to sit, and what to do about citizens who can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves.

The B-20 (the “B” stands for “bottom”) group finished their three-day conference late Sunday, and issued a joint communiqué on the results of their discussions.

“We come away from this meeting with many mutual understandings,” said Uday Maranathan, prime minister of the Seychelles (area: 107 sq. mi.; pop.: 69,000; you probably thought it was: French for “seashells”). “We have a fresh resolve to work together to solve our many unique problems.”

Conferees addressed a number of concerns that they face back home, including the issue of rising sea levels among the island nations, the need for a more diverse economic base, and the lack of awareness among much of the world that they even exist.

“I think just the publicity we got from having this meeting will go a long way toward helping us,” said Nelson Johnson, premier of Turks and Caicos (area: 166 sq. mi.; pop.: 30,000; you probably thought it was: a sandwich). “If we can just get more tourism dollars into our economies, that would make a big difference in our gross domestic product.”

The leaders were also looking for ideas on how to improve agricultural techniques among their native farmers so that the nations could move closer to self-sustenance, rather than relying on their larger neighbors for take-out.

“Most of the member states have a severe shortage of dirt,” said Heinrich Schwess, foreign minister of Liechtenstein (area: 62 sq. mi.; pop.: 29,000; you probably thought it was: a Hebrew sausage). “That makes it very hard to grow things. We’re going to be working together as a group to see where we might find some common ground. I hear they might have some at Lowe’s so I’ll be stopping by their lawn and garden center before heading back to my country to pick up several bags.”

Countries that have found a way to maintain at least a small agricultural base are hoping to move away from traditional cultivation of bonsai trees, baby corn and frosted mini-wheats to the kind of plants that can more easily be converted into other products. This would not only aid farmers but also allow a food-processing industry to emerge that could employ those who are unable to work in the fields.

“Tourism and agriculture seem like natural fits for relatively underdeveloped states such as ours,” said Dominic Arazanno, prime minister of San Marino (area: 24 sq. mi.; pop.: 25,000; you probably thought it was: former quarterback of the Miami Dolphins). “But I also think there’s a chance we can support at least a small amount of manufacturing or perhaps even some high-tech research facilities.”

Though most of the B-20 members have populations that are uneducated, there are a few that have a relatively large percentage of their people with a college-level education.

“We’re very proud of the skills that exist in our work force,” said cultural affairs attaché Philippe Ponduro of Malta (area: 122 sq. mi.; pop.: 362,000; you probably thought it was: a kind of milkshake). “Those two kids can really ramp up the production when they have the right incentives.”

Peaceful cooperation among the member states could continue to be a challenge if the league wants to work together to solve all the problems they share. Though they lack any kind of standing army, that didn’t prevent two governments from engaging in a recent skirmish in the south Pacific. Palau (area: 191 sq. mi.; pop.: 16,000; you probably thought it was: rice) and Tuvalu (area: 9 sq. mi.; pop.: 9,700; you probably thought it was: 2007 Ultimate Fighting Champion) fought a bitter battle over rights to large stone located halfway between them. Palau’s rowboat eventually defeated Tuvalu’s three guys in life preservers but not before both sides spent large portions of their national treasuries on the campaign.

“We must make peaceful coexistence our number-one priority,” said B-20 chairman Manaloa Huvanaram, a parliamentarian from Tonga (area: 289 sq. mi.; pop.: 112,000; you probably thought it was: a toy truck). “We shouldn’t even pick on someone our own size.”

One option raised in the communiqué was the possibility that several of the tiny lands could merge to form larger entities. A few that have already tried this option – Antigua and Barbuda (area: 171 sq. mi.; pop.: 83,000; you probably thought it was: two separate countries), and St. Vincent and the Grenadines (area: 150 sq. mi.; pop.: 109,000; you probably thought it was: a doo-wop group from the fifties) – held a convocation Saturday to give tips to the other members. One leader said he’s already made a tentative agreement along these lines to increase the profile of his minuscule nation.

“We had a very promising discussion with (Canadian rock icon) Neil Young, and I think we laid out enough economic incentives for him to consider joining us,” said president Herman Lodgeworth of St. Kitts and Nevis. “If we can rebrand ourselves as ‘St. Kitts, Nevis and Young,’ I think a lot of business leaders will sit up and take notice.”

 

To all my readers in Great Britain

Judging from some of the reader comments I’ve been getting lately, I’ve developed a small following in the United Kingdom. The random insertion of the “u” into their notes – “my neighbour and I endeavour to honour the colourful flavour of your humourous behaviour,” read one recently — indicate to me that either they’ve spilled clotted cream into their laptops or that they come from the mother country, or probably both.

To show our appreciation for all that the English have contributed to our American culture, and to apologize for that whole Queen-touching thing last week, I’ve decided to kick off a new feature of my blog with a tip o’ the hat to the British. Much like I’ve done with my Friday “Website Review” installments, I’ll be periodically reviewing entire nations and giving them a rating based on several key categories.

First, let’s look at a little history of those splendid lands known as the British Isles. The nation we now know as “Eng-land” was first settled in prehistoric times by explorers from China’s Eng Dynasty, who made a seriously wrong turn trying to find Japan. Little is left from this early Asian influence except for an otherwise inexplicable love of weak tea. Over the course of centuries, the Engs migrated to the nation’s midlands, where they changed their name to the more Anglo-sounding “Druids” and made their living off a wild strain of wheat they baked into a hardened material called scones. Each year during the winter solstice, a particularly large scone would be baked to honor their pagan gods, and these were later assembled into what we today call Sconehenge.

The Romans showed up to conquer the parts of the country they could find in the fog not long after the birth of Christ. It would be another millennium before the isles would again be invaded, this time by an army from Normandy under the leadership of William the Conqueror, who like the Engs would leave little lasting evidence of a Normal culture. (William did begin a long tradition of famous Britons who adopted “the” into their names, as later shown by a long line of kings – Edward the First, Richard the Lion-Hearted – as well as infamous murderer Jack the Ripper and glam rockers Mott the Hoople). A few hundred years later, the first recorded pact between a monarch and his people, and between the people and their then-unstable geology, was written and published as the “Magma Carta.” No longer would power flow unchecked from the king, and no longer would lava flow unchecked from British volcanoes.

As the Renaissance flowered across Europe, England too saw a spike in its cultural output. The language’s greatest writer, William Shakespeare, emerged at this time, producing great theatre, sonnets, poetry, screenplays, haiku and a blog that was totally off the hook. His most famous work, Romeo and Juliet (which roughly translates from the Middle English as “Fast and Furious”), has everywhere inspired what he described as “two young lovers with nothing better to do/than sit around the house, get high and watch the tube.” This same atmosphere also saw one of the rare early examples of women in a leadership role as Queen Elizabeth I ruled the realm, in a path made possible by her father, Henry VIII, who had been known instead for putting women on a pedestal, and then cutting their heads off.

Through various military victories around the globe that in retrospect seem hard to believe, the British Empire ascended to the point where the sun never set on it. From Australia to India to Africa and the Americas, viceroys and governors ruled with a keen understanding of what it would take to foment revolution among the locals. We Americans, for example, used a ragtag army of tea-crazed colonists to kick royal British butts off the continent, at least till 1812 when they returned to burn down the White House, which we didn’t care about anyway because James Madison was living there, and nobody liked him, even though his wife Dolly made some great snack cakes, including her Zingers which are way better than any scones.

The “stiff upper lip” of the dour Brits was at its tautest when Germany swept through Europe during World War II and threatened the very shores of England. Seeing their island home under the peril of imminent invasion, citizens of London and elsewhere came together to resist almost nightly fire-bombings in truly heroic fashion. The Nazis were finally pushed back to the continent in what Winston Churchill called Britain’s “finest hour.” (Unfortunately, the war lasted over five years, so the hour was helpful but a little longer would’ve been nice.)

When, by the late twentieth century, the British couldn’t even hang onto the Bahamas, it was obvious the days of empire were over.

Today, Britain flourishes in a more understated manner as the cultural motherland of billions of English-speakers around the world. Modern maps refer to England, Scotland and Wales comprising what we call Britain; if you add in Northern Ireland you then have the United Kingdom, and then throw in Ireland and it’s the British Isles. Plenty confusing, certainly, yet no more so than why it’s still referred to as “Great” Britain. It’s definitely a “Very, Very Good” Britain but the use of a more proud adjective seems a little presumptuous at this stage in history.

I’ve actually been to Britain twice and so would like to offer a few personal impressions. My first trip was in 2003 and was a very brief one. I visited a lovely little traditional village called Gatwick that met all my expectations of what the country life was like: small shops selling hot drinks, newspapers and souvenir umbrellas, lining a narrow street filled with the bustle of Englishmen carrying their wares to market in dark suitcases or loudly beeping mini-trolleys. Every now and then a town crier would announce where those arriving and departing the lovely little settlement were from, and groups of townsfolk would gather in open-air pubs with evocative names like Gate 24A or the Business Class Sky Lounge.

A few years later, I got to spend a whole week in London as part of a business trip. I arrived on a Saturday morning at the St. Gregory Hotel on Shoreditch High Road, just up from Bishopsgate and the heart of the financial district, confusingly called the City. I spent Sunday on a whirlwind sightseeing bus tour, cramming Big Ben, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s Cathedral and a thousand years of history into about five hours. I did “hop off” at Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard, which struck me as an overhyped shift change with all the majesty of the Punching of the Timeclock that happens every day in my office. I tried to ride the Eye, an eyesore of a ferris wheel that got left on the Thames by a bankrupt traveling carnival, but it was broken. I had to work non-stop the rest of the week and so did not get a chance to explore outside the city. But I heard that areas such as Essex, Sussex, Rufsex and Nosex were positively lovely, as were Stratford-upon-Avon, Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, though all I got to experience was Howard-on-Margaret, banging the headboard in the hotel room next to mine.

All in all, I’d rate Britain as an undeniable member of the First World of nations, a warm and caring long-time companion of the U.S., a loyal ally of freedom-loving peoples everywhere and a wonderful place to view as the backdrop to a movie. On a scale of one to ten ampersands (which I chose because it’s the keyboard character that most resembles the Isle), I’d rate Britain:

&&&&&&&& (eight ampersands)

 

Fake News: Twittering Octomom? God help us

LOS ANGELES (April 7) — The international community was on high alert yesterday when it was reported that the California woman who recently gave birth to eight babies had acquired the technology for nano-blogging.

It was feared that Nadya Suleman, the so-called “Octomom” who’s been much in the news recently, might begin to use the Twitter social networking site to launch the communication of her every thought to the world.

Families of multiple-birth children were among the first to come forward and express their concern.

“We can’t stand by and let a technology of such terrifying proportions fall into the wrong hands,” said Multiples Against a Twittering Octomom (MATO) spokesman Gerald Levine, who identified himself as a 28-year-old carpenter and septo-dad. “Just the thought of a reference to ‘Octomom’ and ‘Twitter’ in the same sentence should be enough to scare us all into action.”

Levine was joined on the stage of a Beverly Hills hotel conference room by Evelyn Johnson, a legal secretary and sexto-cousin, and by the Hayes quintuplets, Gary, Barry, Larry, Harry and Lucinda.

“We’ve all been through the multiple-birth experience and we know how difficult it can be. There are a lot of mouths to feed, your personal finances are in chaos, and don’t even get me started on the South Koreans,” said Johnson, whose niece gave birth to sextuplets last year. “But if she turns to Twittering, it could raise tensions worldwide and create an international incident. And folks like us don’t want to suffer in the backlash.”

Media experts confirm that the recent onslaught of stories about both the Octomom and the Twitter phenomena have battered news consumers with an endless barrage of trite, pointless and boring reporting. Were these two subjects to be combined into the same story, it could prove to be beyond the capacity of Americans to endure.

“Should the headline ‘Octomom to Twitter’ ever make it onto the newsprint or video screens of this nation, all hell could break lose,” said USC journalism professor Fielding Moore. “The only thing worse would be for her to hire publicists for each of the eight babies so they could do their own individual tweeting.”

Moore paused to compose himself.

“I don’t think that’s a world that any of us would want to live in,” he said, swallowing hard.

Speculation about the Octomom’s intentions grew over the weekend as it became apparent that she had exhausted the interest of just about every other media outlet. A neighbor noticed that she had acquired a Blackberry and appeared to be thumbing a message in her front yard yesterday, while eleven of her children played in traffic nearby.

“She may have just been texting a friend,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified. “Someone else asked her about it, and she claimed that’s all she was doing.”

However, spy satellites flying high above the unemployed temp worker’s home, as well as telemetry obtained from her local phone company, appear to confirm she’s about to stage a Twitter test.

“I hope to God that’s not happening,” said Harry Halperin, one of the quintuplets. “I can barely stand my brothers and sister, and that’s just from talking to them. Imagine a world that has a tweeting Octomom. It’s just too horrible to conceive.”

Help me, Honda

So there I sat recently in the waiting room of my local Honda dealer. The oil light came on as I was starting my 2001 Civic the other morning so I guessed it was time for another regularly scheduled maintenance, estimated “with a special we have” to cost me about $120. Funny how they always have those specials going at just the right time.

I’ve been a loyal customer of this same dealer for over 20 years now, so I suppose I trust them to do the right thing. I’ve bought at least six or eight cars over that time, and I’ve always felt obliged to get the service done there, even though I’m sure I’m spending more than I have to. At least I feel they won’t cheat me too badly and, if they do, they’ll do it in a professional and courteous fashion, not like I’ve had done too many times in the past by scruffy half-wits working in their yards.

Part of that extra premium I’m paying goes toward the comfortable waiting room. It looks very much like the break room you might see in any office, though instead of tables to sit at while you eat your lunch there are three rows of attached upholstered chairs. A couple of vending machines line the opposite wall but if you play your cards right, a salesman will treat you to a bag of Doritos for the price of a test drive. The other people currently occupying the room are faced in the general direction of a television playing General Hospital, primarily because no one has the nerve to change the channel. I’m at a counter with my back to the room, alternately sitting in a barstool chair and being afraid I’ll fall from its unstable height. There’s an outlet for my laptop, and more signs and brochures cluttering the surface than I care to read.

If I shift around a little here, I’ll get a look at my fellow patrons. A woman and her daughter were just called back to the cashier’s desk by their service representative, who tells them “everything went well,” much like you’d expect a surgeon to report on how the operation went. That leaves a mom and her young son, an older woman with red shoes and weird earrings, and another woman doing a crossword puzzle who brought her father along for protection from the mechanic/predators.

Hang on a second. I’m being called back to the shop. This could be bad. Please keep me in your prayers.

We pass through an “employees-only” door and my service person asks if I want to borrow her safety goggles for eye protection. I’m good, I say. We maneuver underneath several elevated vehicles to where my car sits exposed on a lift. I avert my eyes, not so much for safety reasons as because I feel I’m looking up someone’s clothes. I bump my head on a tire, but try to pretend I did it on purpose.

My mechanic – “this is Glenn”– calls me over to look at part of the undercarriage. I’m really nervous now, as this is the part where I’m supposed to innately know what I’m looking at just because I was born male. He motions toward a wheely contraption and a belty thing and a moist greasy blob, and starts talking about what looks like an oil leak. I do know enough about auto mechanics to realize that when I hear the word “bad seals,” we’re not talking about misbehaving marine mammals but rather at least $1500 in repairs. Like an abusive father confronted with his child’s bruises in the emergency room, I desperately start trying out excuses.

“When the oil light came on yesterday, I tried to add a quart of oil,” I say. “I may have spilled some around the edge. Could that have caused it?”

“Well, that could be it, I suppose,” says Glenn. He seems disappointed, but my ever-perky customer service rep is as happy with this hypothesis as I am (apparently she’s not on commission).

“I bet that could be it,” says chipper Connie. “I bet you’re right. Yeah, that could definitely be it.”

We all agree that Glenn will clean up the spot, I’ll keep an eye on the driveway underneath my car for oil leaks, and I can return to the waiting room with my son’s college fund still intact.

Man, I didn’t realize how hot these soap opera actresses are. Currently there are three young blondes talking excitedly about something urgent, probably who’s pregnant and who’s not. Extreme close-ups reveal tiny pores and perfect teeth, apparently much easier to maintain than the cheap sets behind them. Just as I’m starting to get an inkling of what’s going on with what passes for a plot, we’re interrupted by the federally mandated thrice-a-day showing of Oprah. “How many people here want to live to be over a 100?” she asks her audience. As the camera pans the crowd, it appears most would rather be getting a free car, but a few sheepishly raise their hands and agree to outlive all their loved ones warehoused in an understaffed rest home.

“Dr. Oz travels to Costa Rica on today’s show to demonstrate how it can be done,” Oprah announces. At first I’m intrigued, but soon realize living that long in Costa Rica also involves back-country poverty, toothless neighbors and smashing my own corn meal.

I spend the rest of my waiting time checking out the brochures that surround me on the counter. I see that my “tires are talking,” trying to tell me about their pressure. I see a factory-style pin-striping offer, which will allow me to have 4-point double rules adhered to the length of my car (cool, I guess). I’m encouraged to ask my dealer about splash protection, a cargo tray, wheel locks, a remote engine starter system and UV protection. Did I know that quality starts from the inside with a Honda Genuine oil filter? I did know that.

Finally, my customer service rep reappears to tell me my car is ready, and I can report to the cashier’s window to settle my bill. As I approach, a young couple arrives from around a blind corner and gets to the counter just ahead of me. I soon realize this could take a while, as they have questions – How can it cost that much? Are you sure there aren’t any discounts we can get? Will you take a check? How much was that again? How do you spell “Honda”?

These sound like the kind of people who could recommend me a good gap-toothed shade-tree mechanic.

 

Fake News: Former execs still keeping busy

NEW YORK (April 7) – Titans of corporate America who have lost their jobs in the current economic downturn may have their golden parachutes to keep them financially secure, but for men whose hard-driving work ethic no longer has an outlet, the transition to retirement can be difficult.

Some of them are taking on new careers that may not provide the monetary incentives they’re used to, yet still put a sense of purpose into their days. We tracked down several of these former masters of the universe to see how they are surviving as, at most, the night manager of a star.

Or, in the case of former General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner, a Starbucks.

Since his highly visible ouster last month by President Obama, the 30-year GM veteran was able to get on as a second-shift barista at a midtown New York coffee shop. His drive to come up with innovative solutions to satisfy customers seems to be serving him well in his new position.

“Even though my experience is mostly executive, I’ve always had a keen interest in both R&D and in sales,” Wagoner said in an interview during his 15-minute smoke break. “I’m trying to put some new ideas out there so my supervisor might recognize my talent and move me to first shift.”

Wagoner has been suggesting new products that have met some initial resistance from customers. He believes, though, that if the company will continue to offer the products, they will eventually become a success in the marketplace.

“I think I have a pretty good idea of what Americans want from my days at GM,” Wagoner said. “So I’m pushing three new product lines: hot toddies, sassafras soda-pop and, as a seasonal offering for the upcoming summer months, a thick, steaming-hot cup of heavy cream.”

Wagoner said that although he’s learned a valuable lesson from his experience offering car buyers mostly SUVs and Hummers as gas prices soared over $4 a gallon, he’s not going to stray from his core belief that people have to be told what they want.

“I had a guy just an hour ago who begged and begged for a tall light mocha no whip, but I wasn’t going to give in,” Wagoner said. “I was determined to sell him the hot toddy. He finally stormed out and said he was going for some green tea at the Japanese place next door. He’ll be back. Just you wait. You’ll see.”

Meanwhile, across town at an east-side convenience store/gas station, former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was sharing a late-night shift with co-worker Habeeb Alawi. Thain worked the cash register behind a thick pane of bullet-proof glass while Alawi hosed down the pavement and watched for drive-offs outside.

Thain famously lost his job at the iconic Wall Street investment firm shortly after it was acquired by Bank of America. Stories soon emerged about Thain’s extravagant spending habits while at Merrill, including over $1 million to redecorate his office.

“I learned some hard lessons in that experience, but I think I’ve come out of it a wiser man,” Thain said through a small metal vent in the glass. “Your priorities definitely change when you’re making $9.50 an hour.”

Thain said that he still enjoys the finer things in life, and that he’s dipped into the $83 million salary he earned in 2007 to make his current work a little more comfortable. The rubber mat he stands on for six hours a day is about twice as thick as standard issue, and he’s gilded the edges with ermine fur and gold plating. And the small cubby hole back behind the men’s room where he stashes his coat and other personal belongings is padded with thick Irish leather infused with a fine Italian cologne that helps disguise the smell of stale urine nearby.

“I like keeping busy here and, who knows, maybe this will lead to an executive position in the energy business,” Thain said.

“Hey, I saw you put that candy in your pocket! Put back the damn candy before I come out there and rip your arm off,” he said to a customer. “I said, put the … Oh, no! No, don’t shoot! Don’t kill me! Please!”

Finally, we caught up with former Lehman Brothers chief Richard Fuld, whose investment firm imploded after a series of highly complex financial transactions fell apart last fall. Fuld is working 15 hours a week at the front counter at McDonald’s on Times Square but soon hopes to increase his hours to 20.

In between working the cash register and handing out bags of burgers and fries, Fuld talked about how he hopes to turn his current labor into a new business model that could employ some of the wheeling and dealing techniques he perfected on Wall Street.

“What we could do is offer customers the option to buy a Big Mac for about a quarter of what the actual burger costs, then if our prices go up later, they can cash out the option and make a profit on their fast-food purchase,” Fuld said. “We could sell French fry futures and McNugget derivatives, which would allow us to charge a fee for the transaction itself, then put that money into convertible debt obligations and leverage these to position ourselves in the commercial paper market for sausage and cheese McGriddles with no egg.”

Fuld said he hasn’t yet been successful explaining his plan to his boss, franchisee Desai Muktananda, but will keep trying.

“I guess maybe there’s a bit of a language barrier there,” Fuld said. “I don’t think his English is good enough for him to understand when I talk about the notional value of forward hedging and off-balance-sheet swaptions.”

Website Review: EquestrianMinistries.com

While leafing through the York County Agri-Tourism Guide recently (don’t ask), I came across a small ad for the Equestrian Ministries Drill Team. This is a group of horsemen – fanciers, not centaurs – who “want to share the gospel with other horsemen in our area. We perform at rodeos, churches, horse councils, really anywhere the Lord leads us.” The associated website, www.equestrianministriessaddleclub.com, seemed like a great candidate for my weekly Website Review. And maybe I’d learn what a “horse council” was, since I’m having a hard time imagining these noble beasts in a deliberative setting.

First, I should probably reveal some preconceptions I had going into this effort. I’ve never really associated horses with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was born and raised a good Lutheran, so I know a little something about His life and times, and I must say that I can’t honestly recall a significant equine influence.

I know Christ was born in a manger, where you’d think there’d be some horses running around, but the plastic crèche my family hauled out every Christmas had only cows, sheep and maybe a donkey or two. Little is known about His childhood and adolescence, though I suppose a more-thorough Biblical account could’ve contained a chapter titled “The Equestrian Years.” Maybe it’s in the Apocrypha. As His ministry emerged during His adult years, there always seemed to be plenty of lambs and doves around, and we know how He could transform a single fish into a meal for the multitudes. (If He did the same thing for horses, might that be the horse council?)

As we remember His final days during this holy week before Easter, I do vaguely recall some pictures from a Sunday School coloring book where Jesus was riding a mule in the Palm Sunday procession, but I think He was riding side-saddle and I can’t imagine today’s Christian horsemen endorsing that. I know for a fact there were no horses at the Last Supper, no horses in Gethsemane, and no horses at Calvary. (Unrelated side point: Can you imagine the difficult logistics of crucifying a horse?) Some velvet painting artists do imagine an ascension into Heaven on the back of a unicorn, though I think this is highly speculative at best.

Even in popular culture references, horses and evangelical Christianity never seemed to mix. Mr. Ed was obviously Jewish, the Lone Ranger’s Silver was probably Mormon, and Tonto’s Scout was obviously an animist like his loyal rider. Secretariat, widely believe to be gay, could’ve been a member of one of those metropolitan community churches, but that’s not the brand of Christianity these guys in South Carolina had in mind. Let’s go to the website to see some of what it is they do believe.

The Equestrian Ministries Saddle Club starts immediately with a recruiting pitch on its home page: “Do you love Jesus Christ and want to share with others how they can have a personal relationship with Christ? Do you love horses? Do you love to ride, care for and be around this most magnificent animal?”

EMSC offers training to help you be prepared to share your faith at equestrian events. “Through this training, you learn to minister at a campground, whether you ride horses or not; witness and minister at rodeos, races and horse shows; or serve as a chaplain at your local stable.” Apparently horses must experience salvation in this life in order to get into Horse Heaven. I remember something from confirmation class about camels being unable to get through the eye of a needle, so I guess it seems natural that the same would apply to horses.

One of the more enjoyable ways that club members use to spread their faith is through their drill team. This is where the righteous riders parade about on horseback while swinging multi-colored flags high over their heads, hopefully without gouging out the eyes of their mounts. The colors represent the plan of salvation – blue for sky, red for Jesus’ blood, white for purity, black for sin, green for spiritual growth, and yellow for … I’m going to say bananas. “We use Christian and Bluegrass music. We are always looking for new stuff. We are self taught. With many mistakes in the beginning, our team motto is ‘follow your leader.’ Thursday practices are stress relief with fellowship.”

There’s also a PDF of the February club newsletter that gives some behind-the-scenes insight into how that fellowship manifests itself on a regular basis. Typed in all caps to emphasize that it truly is the Word of God (Who apparently didn’t use spellcheck), I’ll offer some excerpts here:

WOW! OUR DRILL TEAM PERFORMED SATURDAY AND ALL WENT WELL. WE HAD WITNESS BRACLETS (bracelets) AND HANDED OUT TRACKS (tracts) IN THE CROWD AFTER OUR PERFORMANCE. WE ARE SO PROUD OF OUR KORI FOR COWGIRLING UP WITH THE AMERICAN FLAG. YOU GO GIRL. WE HAD A GOOD CROWD AT OUR FEURARY (February) MEETING. WE ALL LOVE TO EAT SO COOKING CHICKEN AND DUMPLINS (dumplings) WAS A GREAT IDEA. HATS OFF TO WANDA.WE HAD A FABOULOUS (fabulous) DEVOTION ON BEING PERSISTANT (persistent) IN OUR PRAYERS. WE HAD A GRAT (great? grating? grave?) TIME OF SHARING. ALWAYS CARRY YOUR CELL PHONE ON YOUR BODY.

The memo board section makes mention of members and friends who are having troubles and need “prayer concerns.” LINDA WALKER KNEE REPLACEMENT, DANIEL BARRETT LAP BAND, SHERRY CONNOR BACK SURGERY, TED AND WANDA FINANCIAL, SYLVIA BROWN’S BABY HORSE HAS A VIRUS. For those of you unfamiliar with the condition, I believe “lap band” is either a gastric bypass procedure or an aggregation of mites in your crotch. I suspect it’s the latter, considering how these folks are regularly sitting astride the hide of a farm animal.

There’s really not much more to the primitive website than this. There are minutes to a meeting where it was agreed the “lack of horsemanship” at a recent parade should be met with a letter of concern to the organizers. There’s a “sermon from the saddle” with typically cryptic Bible verses: “Even though I don’t care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!” There’s a horse trailer for sale for $1500 (842-7424, ask for Wilbur).

Maybe it’s because today is Good Friday, but I feel a little guilty making fun of these earnest country folk and their beloved steeds. It’s healthy and admirable to have some fervor in life; I’m just not sure you necessarily have to combine your hobbies when there’s more than one. I like both blogging and running, yet I don’t feel compelled (or safe) doing them both at the same time.

I’m going to end this post in the spirit of Easter and wish the Equestrian Ministries Saddle Club all the best as they pursue their passion for the one who carries them from the hardships of this life to a spiritual height where peace and love are all-consuming. And I hope the Christianity thing works out for them too.

 

GM-Segway joint effort — what could be cooler?

If you’ve ever heard grandma talk about her new “hi-pod,” or your dad say that he’s getting into “tweetering,” or Uncle Jack admit that he likes some of “Little Wayne’s” music, you probably had the same feeling I did when I read a story out of New York earlier this week.

General Motors executives announced that they’ve joined with Segway in an effort to produce a spawn of Satan called the PUMA. The two-wheeled, two-seat vehicle is designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars for cities across the world.

With a bulbous design that reminded me of one of those claustrophobic motion-simulation pods you occasionally see at the mall, the 300-pound prototype was seen scooting about Manhattan on Tuesday in an introduction to the press. The vehicle runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway’s characteristic two-wheel balancing technology and dual electric motors to reach speeds of up to 35 m.p.h.

GM apparently thinks there’s a market for people who want to be as cool as a Disney World employee while potentially being on the losing end of a collision with a SmartCar.

The GM marketing department engaged in some “acronymnastics” to come up with an abbreviation that is more catchy than it is descriptive. PUMA stands for “Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility,” when having the last word start with “V” for vehicle or “D” for doo-dad would make better sense but a more awkward acronym. Selling a product that doesn’t even have a noun in its name sounds like a risky proposition, or just about right for GM.

To make it even sexier for that hard-to-reach demographic of people who want to buy a Detroit-made car, the PUMA project would involve “a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.” The network would use transponder and GPS technology that would let the devices drive themselves. They would “automatically” avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars, assuming they would ever be allowed on the road.

And therein seems to be the problem. Current traffic laws in virtually every major U.S. city make the Segway too big and fast to be allowed on sidewalks with pedestrians, but at the same time too small and slow to drive on regular roadways. Executives at both firms said they were confident that urban planners would adapt their cityscapes to build news lanes and additional infrastructure for the PUMA. Yeah, that could happen.

In the meantime, the automaker is looking for a place, such as a college campus, where the vehicles could be put to use and grab a foothold in the market. Because, apparently, they’ve heard that college kids are cool.

Sunday photos

The best international business trip I ever took was a 2006 excursion to Manila in the Philippines. Me and about a dozen others from the States spent five weeks setting up and training a “vendor site” (later called “outsource”, then later “offshore”, and eventually “what used to be my job.”) All the young Pilipinas were friendly, smart and eager to learn, and it was a real joy to work with them. We worked long hard hours during the six-day week but always had Sunday to enjoy a little sightseeing.

In the hammock

 The first excursion we took was to Subic Bay, about two hours outside the city. This former U.S. Navy base is trying with some success to remake itself as a tourist destination. We ordered up a seven-passenger van to take us there, but unfortunately it held seven petite locals rather than seven wide-ass Americans, so we had a rather unpleasant drive getting there and back. But for the eight hours we spent at the White Rock Resort, we had a splendid time. (The beautiful sunset you see in my masthead was photographed that afternoon). Here, I’m overflowing a hammock in one of the beachside cabanas.

In a boat

 If you ever had a chance to read my post about climbing the Tal Volcano while in the Philippines (http://davisw.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/adventures-in-volcano-climbing/), this is what I looked like on the boat ride over. I’ll admit my face is pretty huge, but it’s not twice as big as the captain of my boat, as this perspective might suggest. Note the forced smile, as I’m pretending to have fun while in fact I’m scared to death.

In the classroom

 This last picture shows me in my official role as Wise Old American Teacher, training in a makeshift classroom. The hand gestures and animated look on my face suggest an enthusiasm that apparently isn’t shared by the young lady to my right. Actually, though, they were a wonderful group of students who continue to run a successful operation today.

It seemed like only yesterday…

FRIEND: Jay, are you in there?

JAY: Mmmph. Go away.

FRIEND: C’mon, man. You gotta get up. Let me in, dude.

JAY: Hang on, hang on. I’m comin’.

FRIEND: What are you doing, man? Why are you still in bed? Aren’t you supposed to start your new job today?

JAY: I guess I slept through my alarm. Man, I feel awful. This is Saturday, right?

FRIEND: No, this is Sunday. Dude, did you sleep all day yesterday?

JAY: I guess I did. Last thing I remember it was Friday night. Man, it was a rough week. I can’t believe I slept almost the entire weekend.

FRIEND: Well let me at least help you get ready. I’ll put on some coffee while you start getting dressed. You can still make it in time if you hurry. Jeez, what is that smell? It’s like somebody died in here.

JAY: Sorry, I guess I let the place go a little. Haven’t had much chance to clean with all that was going on last week.

FRIEND: You can’t screw up this new gig, you know? This is the big promotion you worked so hard for. The job is a breeze and the benefits are fabulous. You’ve already done all the hard stuff to get there … you can’t blow it now.

JAY: I know, I know. You’re right. Thanks for helping, man. Let me grab my shirt. Ow! Oh, man, what did I do Friday night? My shoulders are killing me. I think one might be dislocated.

FRIEND: I didn’t stay as late as you did. You were just hanging out when I left. I don’t know what happened after that, but you look to me like you’ve been through Hell and back.

JAY: I gotta tell you, it’s all a haze to me. I barely remember anything about Friday at all. Seems I was being chased by some Italian guys – maybe Mafia – and the next thing I knew I was up in front of this big crowd, and I was supposed to give some kind of presentation but I was unprepared.

FRIEND: Were you wearing your underwear?

JAY: Yes, I was! How did you know?

FRIEND: Typical anxiety dream. You’re just worried about this job.

JAY: I don’t know – it seemed pretty real, but maybe not.

FRIEND: Last time we really talked was on Thursday, at that big dinner we had with all the guys. I wonder if you got some kind of food poisoning. Did you feel OK after that?

JAY: You know, I do remember being a little queasy. I wonder if we got some bad fish or something. But everybody else seemed alright, didn’t they?

FRIEND: From what I could tell they did. That jackass Jude cut out early and he did look a little shaken as he left, but he wasn’t green or anything like that. You left early too, right?

JAY: Yeah, I remember thinking I needed to go out and get some fresh air. I went and hung out at that park for a while and … wait, now I remember … I got busted by the cops! I remember they were just hassling me at first, giving me a hard time about talking to myself. Then they hauled me away.

FRIEND: Jesus Christ! This could really mess you up with your new job, man. If they find out you’ve got a record, they may not want you after all.

JAY: I gotta get in there fast and try to cover up as much as I can. How did I get myself into such a mess, anyway? I don’t know even know if I want this job. I can’t believe I have to work on Sundays.

FRIEND: From what you told me last week, Sundays are your busiest days. But you said you got Mondays and Tuesdays off. Maybe this first day will just be an orientation kind of thing – get your ID badge, get your email set up, etc. Maybe they won’t work you that hard. What’s that noise?

JAY: Hang on, I’m getting a text message. Ah, heck, I don’t have time for this. It’s Mary Mag – she said she’s on her way over.

FRIEND: She’s probably worried about you, man. You disappear for three days like that and your friends are going to wonder if you’re okay.

JAY: Let’s hurry. Maybe we can still get out before she gets here. I bet she brings that Thomas guy she’s been hanging out with lately. Man, I hate that guy – he’s always poking me in the side and laughing, just giving me a hard time.

FRIEND: Here’s a tie you can wear. You can put it on while we’re on the way.

JAY: Grab me a toaster strudel too, will ya? I’ll eat it cold. I’ve got to get there on time and make a good impression. If I can make it in this job, who knows how high up I might get the next time they’re looking for a top executive.

FRIEND: And it’s only a limited-time contract you’ve got, right? Just 40 days — isn’t that what you told me?

JAY: Well, that’s when the probationary period is over, yeah. I’m not real sure what happens after that, but surely I can hang on and do almost anything for 40 days. The job description I read was pretty vague and didn’t sound that hard – mostly making a few personal appearances, then a chance to move upstairs.

FRIEND: You’re right. How hard can that be? And there’s a fatty paycheck too, right?

JAY: I think they said something about my reward being in the next world. It’s related to how the deferred compensation packages are structured.

FRIEND: Alright, you look good to me. Let’s hit the road. If we hit all the lights, you’ll make it right on time.

JAY: Man, thanks a million for all you’ve done. I never would’ve made it without you.

FRIEND: Christ, you’re something else.

 

Fake News: ‘Pirates’ considered too lovable

LONDON (April 14) – The World Terminology Assembly met in emergency session yesterday in an attempt to reach consensus on a word to describe the Somali “pirates” that made them sound more menacing.

Representatives from more than 130 nations arrived in Britain over the weekend with one mission in mind: the creation of a term that didn’t evoke images of sports mascots or Disney characters. A spokesperson for the group said the danger to international commerce posed by the so-called pirates that are threatening shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa was being trivialized by each new incident report.

“Whenever the news comes out that the ‘pirates’ have struck again, everyone kind of chuckles and thinks about Johnny Depp or perhaps some big-headed costumed character at a Pittsburgh baseball game,” said Abdul Ramahani of Malaysia, current chairman of the WTA. “As we’ve seen from events in just the past week, this threat needs to be taken more seriously.”

The morning hours of the conference were comprised of a “blue-sky” session where conferees tossed out suggestions for more-threatening synonyms that might be adopted. A facilitator stood at the front of the meeting hall, listing the ideas on a large whiteboard.

Among the dozens of substitute terms that were initially floated were buccaneers, brigands, rapscallions, swashbucklers, rogues, scalawags, racketeers, bootleggers, villains, rascals, Jolly Rogers, scamps and imps. Ultimately, though, all of these failed to rise to the level of implied dread that organizers were seeking.

“I know I said before there are no bad ideas, but you guys can’t be serious with some of these,” facilitator Johan Berkeley told the assemblage. “Scamps? Jolly Rogers? Villains? It sounds like we’re writing a screenplay for a Merry Melodies cartoon. These guys are threatening the high seas, they’re not tying damsels to railroad tracks.”

After a themed luncheon that featured servers with eye patches, shoulder parrots and leg amputations, participants seemed to “swashbuckle” down for more serious discussion in the afternoon. This meeting appeared to yield more original ideas, including seajackers, oceaneers, tanker wankers, aqua-terrorists, nogoodniks and horn dogs.

“We were trying to stay away from terms like ‘terrorist,’ ‘hijacker’ and ‘evil-doer’ because they have connotations associated with jihadists from the Arab world,” Ramahani said. “The threat that the Somali bandits pose is a serious one, but nowhere near that level.”

The American delegate to the conference, industrialist billionaire Harold Hayes, was a leftover political appointee from the Bush administration and seemed not to grasp what the point of the group’s effort was. His suggestions included the White Sox, the Thunder, the Panthers and the “Somali Tamales.”

“That last one suggests a ready-made mascot,” Hayes said. “I can imagine some natural tie-ins with Taco Bells that should really draw the Mexicans out to the ol’ ballpark.”

The WTA failed to reach a consensus by the end of the day and was forced to adjourn without a new term. In the meantime, Ramahani suggested that the international media adopt the term “bad guys” until the group could meet again later this summer.

“We’ve just got to eliminate ‘pirates’ as soon as possible,” he said. “We’ve even seen cases in some newspapers where typos got through and these guys were referred to as ‘pilates.’ The global community will never take this scourge seriously if that kind of thing keeps up.”

 

O America! I file now my taxes

There’s a little-known provision in the U.S. Tax Code that I think I’m going to use with this year’s income tax filing. Even though the Internal Revenue Service provides taxpayers with dozens of different forms to make it easier to communicate all the appropriate information, you are not in fact required to use any of these forms. As long as they get the data they need in a timely fashion, other formats are acceptable.

So instead of using Form 1040 like I might normally do, I’m going to file my 2008 income taxes in free verse, with inspiration from America’s greatest poet, Walt Whitman.

O America!

Thy gleaming towers of commerce lie in rubble and ruin

Your once-proud people shamble through unending off-lays and sizings-down

They struggle to find work, both the learn’d and unlearn’d

The homefires they thought were theirs are possessed anew

Usury stalks the land where once there was a reasonable credit market

Lo, I watch the dark clouds of fate gather, yet hope I must

As it is in my American spirit!

 

Yes, you must levy a surcharge upon your citizenry

It is how we will pay for the stimulation and the bailing and the eventual recovery

That will someday soon return our land to its promontory on the mesa on the hill

Return its people to their hurrahs, so as to squelch the fury of rous’d mobs

(I’m looking at you, Fox News).

 

The security of thy corpus is bound up in a social net that numbers tens of myriads

My number is but one of these – 287-39-6312

This cipher is mine and mine alone, and I glory in its individuality

My love, my spouse, my lifemate, she too is joining me in this annual celebration

And her number too is of interest to thee – it is 365-08-4118

We file jointly, for we are married.

 

And, yea, we do want to pay the tripl’d dollar

To go toward the Presidential Election Campaign

Though we desire as well to register our strenuous protest and objection

To the ongoing war with Mexico.

 

You wish to know the assembled value of my wages, my salaries

You wish to know the value of even my tips, tho they pale in comparison

To the worth that was visited upon me by my father in heav’n

Forthwith I will divine these and show thee to a cent

The integer is sixty-seven thousand

Seven hundred and thirty-six dollars

Or so that is what I deign to report.

 

I have interest in life in all its aspects

In the brown ants and the little wells beneath them

And mossy scabs of the worm-fence, heap’d stones, elder mullein and poke-weed

I have interest in how you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d me over

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart

But I report no interest of the taxable kind

And no unemployment compensation and no Alaska Permanent Fund dividends.

 

No one shall claim me as dependent, for I am so fiercely independent

That sometimes it makes my head hurt, and my acquaintances annoy’d

At this point I shall claim a deduction of seventeen thousands and nine hundreds

For so it has been direct’d by statutes in the rule of levies

I shall subtract this from the previous line to arrive at my taxable income

Despite the horror of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events.

 

O America!

You have already withheld substantial fractions of my annual fortune

As I can see from the box numbered two on my Form W-2

I do not begrudge this contribution to thy welfare and that of my fellow citizens

For we all must labor together to build a nation of brothers, a nation of sisters

Tho I sure wish you didn’t spend so much on that folly of a program

To build a cow museum in the land of the Nebraskan.

 

I claim no earned income credit

I claim no nontaxable combat pay election

I claim no recovery rebate credit

For I have seen the worksheet on pages 17 and 18

I only claim to celebrate myself, and sing myself.

 

I will now add my total payments to calculate my tax

As it is express’d in the tax tables I must now consult

As once I consulted with the boatmen and the clam-diggers

The butcher-boy and the blacksmith and the runaway slave

(I think that butcher-boy had a thing for me, tho that shall be another sonnet)

And now, because line 10 is larger than line 11, I shall subtract line 11 from line 10

This is my refund, and I glory in its amount, even as I had hop’d for more.

 

I hereby direct that said sum shall be directly deposited

With all alacrity and without undue delay

To an account I designate as one of “checking”

And with a routing number that aspires to be the lofty 4732985

And yet in reality will never reach those hallowed heights.

 

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless

I stop somewhere waiting for you

And so I affix my signature here

So you know that it is me.

 

Fake News Briefs: Entertainment Edition

Deejay uses restraint

SEATTLE, Washington (April 15) — A morning deejay with the Spokane “J96 Zoo Crew” is reportedly the only media funnyman in the nation thus far to pass up making a joke about the new White House dog surviving tax issues to land his new position as First Pet.

Al “The Lunatic” Roberts barely avoided the nearly universal joke Wednesday when he did make mention of a “vetting process that involved de-worming and a flea treatment.” But unlike his high-profile cohorts on The Tonight Show, The Late Show and The Late Late Show, Roberts did not raise the tax question.

“Of course, it did occur to me immediately when the news came out, especially several days before April 15,” Roberts said. “But it just seemed so trite and obvious that I couldn’t bring myself to say it.”

The AM radio veteran, who writes most of his own material, did join the rest of America’s comedians by saying the new pet, named “Bo” by the Obama children, was “the first dog in the White House since Bill Clinton” and that “if the president thinks cleaning up the economic mess is a dirty job, wait till Bo has chili for dinner.”

Veteran actor wants to talk music

HOLLYWOOD, California (April 15) — Veteran TV actor Ed Asner made an erratic appearance Wednesday on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, refusing to talk about his long sitcom career and instead focusing exclusively on his new polka band, the Asnertones.

The 79-year-old entertainer, known primarily for his role as Lou Grant in two popular TV comedies of the 1970s, looked disheveled and disoriented during his eight-minute segment with Leno, stopping at several points to wander toward the camera asking “Where’s my stapler?” He also removed his shirt at one point, revealing a tattoo he described as “a map of Croatia,” and demanded that band leader Kevin Eubanks replace his guitar with a mandolin.

The former Screen Actors Guild president and long-time political activist said he’s retired from acting to devote all his efforts to an upcoming tour with the Asnertones, which he described as a “grunge/doo-wop/accordion combo unlike anything you’ve ever heard.”

“I sing and I dance and I do a little light housework with the group,” Asner told an obviously perturbed Leno. “We open next week in Australia, then continue a world tour for the next three months. Or until I die.”

Asner’s bizarre appearance follows several recent attempts by actors to transform their careers from acting to music. Joaquin Phoenix staged a similar act on David Letterman earlier this year to promote his new hip-hop tour, and Billy Bob Thornton ranted through a Canadian radio spot last week trying to drum up publicity for an ultimately failed tour by his band.

“Let me tell you something about that Mary Tyler Moore,” Asner told Leno. “I’m going to ask her to be in my band.”

’Tea party’ event misunderstood

The convergence of college spring break with yesterday’s nationwide protest dubbed the “Taxpayer’s Tea Party” caused considerable confusion among revelers in several major U.S. cities.

Conservative and libertarian activists blended with hard-drinking undergraduates at a number of locations where the latter group thought free alcohol, music and scantily clad coeds would be making appearances, rather than loopy right-wing has-beens looking to advance their hopeless agenda.

“Woo-hooo! Partay, partay, partay,” said Neil Johnson of Tulane University, who attended the San Antonio Tax Day Tea Party, which featured Fox News personality Glenn Beck as a speaker. “I love Beck and can’t wait for the concert to start. I hope he plays ‘Loser’ and ‘MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack.’”

Conservative organizers of the anti-tax event tried quickly to reclaim the agenda, with varying degrees of success.

“We are moms and dads, businessmen and women who are concerned for their country,” said U.S. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. “We are worried that our nation is quickly being taken in the wrong direction by politicians more concerned about the next election than the next generation.”

Another Fox newsman, Neil Cavuto, appeared at the Sacramento, California, tea-party rally, but also met with perplexed members of a large crowd.

“They call this ‘SAC Town’,” said hospitality services major Jeff Greene of nearby UC-Davis. “Imagine that – there will be tea-baggin’ in SAC Town. That is off the hook, man. That is totally crunk.”

Mike Leahy, co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter, a primary sponsor of the protest, said organizers plan to deliver one million teabags to a Washington, D.C. park to demonstrate how the common man is fed up with high taxes and excess spending.

“This is about citizens who believe America can only survive if we protect the principles of liberty from a federal government that is out of control and must be reformed now,” Leahy said. “And that’s the real message of hope.”

Scott Glenn, a junior marketing major from Dearborn, Michigan, who attended the tea party in nearby Lansing, seemed to agree with that sentiment.

“I know what I hope for – I hope that ‘T’ stands for tequila and Tanqueray,” said Glenn. “I hear Joe the Plumber is going to be at this event. He may need to be standing by, because my buds and I plan on barfing our brains out. Yeee-owww!”

Website Review: Muzak.com

My wife arrived home from a bread-making class the other night with nearly a dozen still-warm, fragrant loaves. Within the next ten minutes, I found myself humming the following:

If a picture paints a thousand words

Then why can’t I paint you?

The words will never show

The you I’ve come to know

And when my love for life is running dry

You come and pour yourself on me.

 

As much as I’d like to consider myself a romantic, I don’t think this qualifies. Just about anyone who survived the soft-rock trends of the 1970s probably recognizes this as the song “If” by a miserable band known as Bread. Somehow, deep in an obscure neural pathway within my brain, I had made a connection between freshly baked bread and half-baked pop music from a quarter-century ago.

It’s probably a synapse much like this one that is responsible for the success of a company headquartered not far from my South Carolina home. Muzak, Inc. is now celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary, if it’s possible to “celebrate” on the brink of bankrupt dissolution. The firm responsible for making music as ubiquitous as the air we breathe is the subject of this week’s Website Review.

The original technology for Muzak was developed by inventor Maj. Gen. George Squier. For a time, it consisted of old-fashioned turntables playing records over a microphone, though the cost of sending out a repairman from the central office every time it started to skip quickly became prohibitive. Soon switched over to radio waves, it was pumped into factories during World War II to increase production, and later found its way into post-war offices with a signature bland background style that wouldn’t intrude on foreground tasks. This is where it acquired its label of “elevator music.”

When some members of the public discovered its attempt to manipulate behavior on a subliminal level, it was accused of brainwashing and hauled into court. It was later exonerated to such an extent that President Eisenhower had it installed in the West Wing and NASA used it to soothe nervous astronauts in space, where it’s well-known that no one can hear you scream. In 1989, rocker Ted Nugent offered $10 million to buy the company and shut it down but the bid was refused. Maybe showing off his collection of automatic weapons could’ve sealed the deal, though it’s too late for that now.

Today, Muzak is desperately trying to rid itself of a stodgy image, and claims at its website that it’s actually in the business of “audio architecture.” Clients can choose from a list of more than 80 programs, ranging from traditional categories like Environments (adult contemporary), Aura (new age) and Moodscapes (more new age) to modern offerings like Half Pipe (skate punk/hip-hop) and Ink’d (power metal). You can also customize a playlist that’s exclusive to your brand, as was probably done to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay and dislodge loitering teenagers from convenience store parking lots. (It’s easy to worry that this weaponization of music degrades the beauty of the arts, but consider how the North Koreans might settle down if we laid a little dinner theatre on them.)

Muzak scientists can cite considerable research about how creating the right ambience in a business encourages clients to buy more, stay longer, spend higher amounts or even resist robbing the cashier. Customer Linda L. is quoted as saying “I’m so impressed with the music that’s being played at the 99 Cent Store that I found myself shopping longer just to hear the music.” So the addition of Hot Chocolate’s “I Believe in Miracles” to the retail experience has the potential to turn $1.98 in revenues into something approaching $4.95.

To broaden its appeal in our increasingly multimedia age, Muzak now offers not only music but also voice (professionally produced on-hold messages), video and, following a 2005 distribution agreement with ScentAir Technologies, fragrance systems that enhance the customer experience using smell. A press release at the time describes “aroma marketing solutions (that) create a unique in-store experience by engaging memory and emotions through patented scent-delivery systems.” Muzak uses a chocolate fragrance system in New York’s Hershey’s store, a leather aroma in Marshall Field’s furniture stores and, presumably, a cat-urine scent to keep people from tying up gas station restrooms for any longer than they can hold their breath.

As Muzak tries to evolve to meet twenty-first century demands, it faces more challenges than just the $438 million in debt that’s due to be paid in 2009. Fairly or not, it’s still saddled with a reputation that’s not exactly modern. The frequently asked questions portion of the website addresses this issue head on. “Is Muzak still elevator music?” is answered with a firm “No way!” A protest as vigorous as that is always suspect, and others in the industry acknowledge that although “they’ve been working hard at being perceived as hipper, Muzak has a giant elevator on its back.” Though being temporarily imprisoned in cramped box with strangers who could join you at any moment in a 50-story plunge to your death can be made marginally more enjoyable by Dexys Midnight Runners, it doesn’t seem like the best basis for a marketing campaign.

Muzak is also trapped by a level of brand recognition so high as to be almost detrimental. They are dangerously close to becoming the kind of term that passes into the public domain as a generic, much like Kleenex-brand tissue, Post-It-brand sticky notes and Syphilis-brand STDs. Nowhere in the website is there any hint of a possible name change – though CEO Steve Villa’s letter to customers mentions “many exciting opportunities” in the year ahead. If its proposed merger with rival DMX is ever approved, I suppose they could always work an “X” into their name. Perhaps Muxak, Muzax or Xuzak could create the kind of edgy, post-modern ambience that sounds and smells have thus far failed to deliver.

Twittering with Ashton, Oprah and Jesus

Yesterday may turn out to be the day we look back on from future generations to say that Twitter finally took over Western civilization.

Ashton Kutcher triumphed over CNN in their closely watched race to be the first to reach a million “followers,” while Oprah Winfrey sent her very first tweet then, moments later, discovered she already had accumulated 130,000 followers.

“We have shown the world that the new wave is here,” pronounced Leader Kutcher shortly after his victory. “It is present and it is ready to explode.” Then he added the somewhat perplexing “I can’t follow me,” implying he would if he could.

Newbie Winfrey’s first tweet was broadcast on her talk show.

“HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME,” she shouted. “FEELING REALLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY.”

So today seems like it might be a good time to reprint an article that appeared in our local newspaper last Monday about a hip, young church that incorporated Twitter into its Easter service.

 * * *

STALLINGS, N.C. — As Pastor Todd Hahn sermonized onstage Sunday about St. Paul’s take on Jesus’ resurrection, Scarlett Hollingsworth bowed her head and brought her hands together.

She wasn’t praying, though. Her eyes were open, and her thumbs were busy. She was pounding out a short message on her BlackBerry.

It was time to Twitter:

“I’m listening to the teachings of Paul,” wrote Hollingsworth, known to those following her tweets as beingscarlett. “& wondering how many people need to hear that we can face hardship in life without fear.”

Most churches ask worshippers to turn off cell phones when the service starts. But at Union County’s Next Level, a rock ‘n’ roll-style church where Hollingsworth attended the 11 a.m. Easter service, members of the flock were encouraged to Twitter away on their cell phones, iPhones, BlackBerrys and laptops. Their messages landed on other cell phones – as well as online for those who looked in from a personal computer at home.

“I hope many of you are tweeting this morning about your experience with God,” Hahn announced before launching into his sermon.

Churches have been using the latest technology since the 15th century, when the Gutenberg Bible – a product of the printing press and movable type – paved the way for mass distribution of Scripture.

Later came radio, then TV, then the Internet, and now Twitter – 140-character message bursts designed to pass on what the sender is thinking at that moment.

Still, some of those tweeting Sunday couldn’t quite believe where they were doing it.

“So excited for the nextlevel Easter service!!” wrote GamecockCB. “Tweet from church?! Are you kidding?!”

Hahn, 40, said the idea was hatched by the church’s Creative Team of twentysomethings. They wanted to do something special for Easter.

With so many old and new churches competing for young people, some like Next Level are trying to stand out by embracing the latest technology: Web sites, blogs, and now Twitter.

Charlotte native Hahn acknowledged that the church’s accent on Twitter is partly a marketing tool. But he said it can also enhance members’ religious experience and build community.

Hahn said evangelical churches have focused so much on the me-God relationship – with services full of what he called “prom songs to Jesus” – that “we lose the communal aspects.”

“Twitter is a social network … that can remind us we are worshipping with other people. We’re not in a bubble,” he said. “And when people read some of the (tweets) they may have an ‘a-ha!’ moment, and say, ‘A lot of others look at things like I do.”

On Sunday, photographer Kristen Hinson, 24, felt liberated by the Easter message – and her ability to pass it along via cell phone.

“I love Next Level Church,” she Twittered. “The resurrection is like a sales receipt from God, a guarantee of what’s to come!!!”

Hollingsworth, 44, a designer at Central Piedmont Community College and a self-described techie, said it was hard sometimes to pay attention to the sermon and tweet. But, she added, the world is changing, and the church needs to change, too.

“If you don’t jump on the new technology, you’re going to lose opportunities,” she said. “We use it for work and for life. Why not church?”

Tweet Tweet

Here are some of the Twitter messages from Next Level Church on Sunday.

melissajackson3: Awesome foo fighters song to start the service at nextlevel.

imkay: Nothing u do 4 the lord is in vain.

desimae: I remember the day when Easter meant dressing up against my will and being bored for three hours at church …thanks, nextlevel for change!

psalm46: Resurrection is real; … He is still raising us day by day from this level on to the nextlevel, higher up and further in.

renwicks_lady: Getting ready for Nextlevel church, getting my texting thumbs stretched and ready to go!!!!

charburns: nextlevel had awesome music today and yes i am twittering in church.

 

Sunday photos: Hong Kong

Last Sunday I wrote about my “best business trip ever,” the five weeks I spent in Manila in 2006. During one weekend of that period, a co-worker and I took a flight north to Hong Kong for a quick two-day excursion through one of the world’s most exciting and international cities. It was a whirlwind 48 hours, with my co-worker – who had been there before on a month-long assignment – serving as my personal tour guide. Here are a few pictures from that memorable weekend.

Arrival in Hong Kong

 Two cool things about the airport, besides its incredible architecture and modernity: when we arrived, we had to go through a scanner that read our body temperatures to make sure we didn’t have SARS; and when we left, we had a small snafu because we had to prove our return to the Philippines was only temporary and we were in fact eventually going to the U.S. As if a couple of pudgy middle-aged white guys would conspire to illegally immigrate to Manila when they were really supposed to return to America. Actually, though, that may not be as far-fetched as it sounds, considering all the creepy Anglo guys we saw predatorily stalking attractive young Filipino women.

Vegetarians, look away

My sincerest apologies if you happen to be reading this over breakfast (or any meal, for that matter). This is an open-air meat cart we encountered on the side streets of the Kowloon district. I won’t attempt to identify any animal types or body parts, since knowing that the leg-like pairing that’s hanging in the foreground were actually monkey lungs wouldn’t make them any less disgusting.

Me and James at high tea

Right before we flew out on Monday afternoon, we stopped in at one of the most exclusive hotels in greater Hong Kong, the Peninsula, for high tea. I was vaguely familiar with the concept and only mildly interested, but my fellow traveler had it “high” on his priority list, so that’s what we had for what I would’ve called lunch. Interesting fact: apparently it’s called high tea because the food (mostly muffin- and scone-like objects) is stacked three levels high, and because there’s tea on the side. Note the glazed look on my face as a bolus of scone attempts to travel from my stomach into my upper intestines.

Come see spring celebrated in Rock Hill

 Starting last Thursday and continuing until April 25, my little Southern hometown is celebrating its spring festival. Much like the SpringFests and SpringAlives and FestiFuns commemorating the arrival of warm weather you’ll find in other locations, the Come See Me Festival sponsors a variety of events to get people outdoors to experience the fresh air and sunshine of spring.

When I first moved here, I admit I was a little taken aback by the odd name. At the time, Rock Hill’s primary industry was an acetone processing plant that gave off a constant chemical smell, and it seemed to me that “Come Smell Me” might be a more appropriate label. As I got to know a few locals, they explained the name originated from the common expression of goodwill that Southerners would offer as they emerged from their winter hibernation. “Y’all come see me,” they’d say, warmly reflecting an earlier era of friendliness and civility when people kept constantly clean homes and there was no cable TV. Nowadays, you’d have to add, “but be sure to call first so I can vacuum the couch and set up the DVR to record ‘CSI’.”

Since then, the name has become second-nature to me, and the phrase “when is Come See Me?” no longer sounds like a recent immigrant trying to schedule a urologist to make a house call. My family doesn’t attend as many of the events as we used to; the large percentage devoted to children’s activities no longer appeal to my 17-year-old (who’s probably done his last “jumpy house” until he’s an inebriated collegian), and the number of marginally interesting activities has exploded as organizers try to fill the calendar from sunrise to sunset.

One event we do try to make is the so-called “Gourmet Gardens.” What began years ago as an opportunity for local restaurants to sell small samples of their specialties in the lovely venue of a flower-filled garden has gradually devolved into what we experienced Saturday – mostly out-of-town purveyors selling mostly barbecue and gyros at mostly ridiculous prices. One vendor sold his “gyro only” for $6 and his “gyro plate” for whatever amount it is when you handwrite an “9” on top of a “8,” or perhaps vice versa. Whether it’s $17 or $72, that’s one damn fine shaved-lamb sandwich.

My wife and I milled around the gardens, which is now actually the concrete-paved slab separating a collection of softball fields, trying to find something both palatable and affordable. After several loops around the circle, she settled on fried mushrooms and an ear of cheese-covered corn (the “fried” and “cheese-covered” modifiers would normally be implied, but I add them here for any readers overseas.) Looking for something a little different, I decided to experiment with the “Louisiana Boudoin Balls.” The guy selling them joked he wouldn’t sell me any till I attempted to pronounce the product, so I gave him my best French-inflected “boo-dawn.” He laughed, then handed over the fried, breaded and balled sausage-and-spice concoction. There were (disconcertingly) two of them, hot and peppery, rattling around the bottom of a cone cup, looking thoroughly not worth $3.50 per ball. I tried to convince myself the flavor was exotic, until halfway through the final ball I decided “bad” was a better description.

I’m pretty sure we won’t be attending many more Come See Me events this week, but I thought I’d describe a few of the other highlights still to come in case anybody out there wants to jet in for next weekend’s finale (rooms are still available at the Super 8, Rodeway and Microtel motels).

There’s both a Mayor’s Frog Jump and a Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast (the frog, in the person of a “Glen the Frog” costumed character, is the festival’s mascot). In the frog jump, kids can either bring their own frogs — remember, we are in the South — or purchase one on-site. The youngsters then encourage the slippery hoppers to make the biggest jump in the competition by pounding on the ground behind them, blowing air up their hind end, or slipping them a little of Uncle Sonny’s crystal meth. The Prayer Breakfast is basically the same thing, except with city councilmen instead of frogs and pancakes instead of meth. You may be fortunate enough to attend one of these events in a year when organizers get a little confused, and you’ll see either a prayer jump or a frog breakfast.

 

Glen the Frog frightens children at Gourmet Gardens

 

There’s a Tuba Choir Concert, one of many musical presentations staged by the local college in the vain hope their musical performance students can get some experience in front of an audience. (Can you imagine a graduate trying to find a job in this economy with a tuba degree?)

There’s a community theatre performance of “Father Knows Best” running for several nights. I’m not sure if this production distills the entire story arc of the eight-season 1950s TV series down to a single night, or whether a selected episode is recreated (maybe the one where Latin dancer Rita Moreno plays an exchange student from India). But I don’t intend to find out.

There’s a highly regulated Tailgate Party in a grassy field near Winthrop Lake where no vehicles are allowed, no tailgating is allowed in the lot where you can leave your vehicle, and glass containers, beer kegs, pets, household furniture, wheeled toys, golf carts and tiki torches are prohibited. They don’t specifically disallow improvised explosive devices, kangaroos or investment bankers, so maybe those are permitted.

There’s a Be Seen Green Parade in which participants where green clothes to show off their environmental awareness and get one more use out of those St. Patrick’s Day ensembles. “We’re going to have some hybrid cars going through the parade this year,” said one organizer, though with any luck their weak acceleration will be such that anyone who’s struck won’t be hurt.

There are a number of other frog-themed events giving Glen a chance to show his humongous felt mug around town. There’s something called Frog Hoppin’ Fun that showcases amphibian-related games and crafts for the 2-to-6-year-old set while their parents can take advantage of free dental screenings. There’s a Frog Float where sponsored rubber frogs race toward a finish line with the winner getting a $1000 gift certificate (deceased participants from the Mayor’s Frog Jump are ineligible to join, as their bloating gives them unfair buoyancy). And, there’s a Frog Coloring Contest that’s totally fixed, as last year’s winner didn’t even stay inside the lines.

Rounding out the other highlights, there’s a barbecue competition featuring chefs and their smokers from throughout the Southeast (samples can be purchased, though pork is off the menu); there’s a mass kazoo march in which participants are asked to donate a bottle of lotion to a local children’s home; there’s a sheep-shearing, presumably because you can’t shear frogs; and there’s something called Everything Trucks!, where everything is a truck.

The festival finale takes place on the last evening this coming Saturday. In what I earnestly pray is a carefully scheduled climax, a team of airborne acrobats from the Carolina Skydiving Team will give a parachute-jumping exhibition, while a Fireworks Extravaganza will fill the sky with brilliant pyrotechnic displays. I can’t believe the organizers of these two separate events wouldn’t vigilantly coordinate their efforts to ensure the jumpers aren’t blown out of the evening sky by rocket-propelled mortars, though maybe the risk of that prospect is meant to draw even bigger crowds to the final night.

Only a dissection of the beloved Glen would be a more horrible way to end this year’s Come See Me.

Fake News: El Presidente in Espanol (sort of)

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (April 20) – President Barack Obama wrapped up his attendance at the three-day Summit of the Americas Saturday promising greater cooperation and a new era of respect for our neighbors to the south.

The president acknowledged that his high-school Spanish “may be a ‘poco rustisimo’,” but still made a symbolic effort to communicate with most of the Latin American leaders in their native language. Some of the conversations may not have been quite what Obama intended, though State Department specialists were quick to step in with clearer interpretations where they were needed.

“Se me olvido mi cuaderno,” Obama announced to the cheers of assembled leaders. “La pluma esta en la mesa.”

Though literally translated to mean “I forgot my notebook; the pen is on the table,” U.S. ambassador to Mexico Ronaldo Lopez said that what the president meant was that the portfolio of past American tactics was being left behind, and that all parties could now work together to write new guidelines for the relationship.

The president asked those in attendance to bring a fresh perspective to how relations could progress between the increasing number of leftist governments in South America and the economic and social powerhouse to their north.

“Es esto la caja?” Obama asked rhetorically. “Es esto la lampara o la silla?”

By asking “is this the box?” and “is this the lamp or the chair?”, Ambassador Lopez said the president was requesting that delegates “think outside of normal conventions and consider whether it was more important to illuminate past differences or sit together and find similarities.”

“El arroz con pollo es la especialidad,” the president continued. “Yo quiero pina fria y una taza de café puro.”

“Yes, he did point out that chicken and rice is the special, and that he prefers cold pineapple and a cup of black coffee,” Lopez interjected. “I think what he’s trying to say is that agrarian reforms being carried out in large parts of the continent are producing better agricultural yields and addressing many nations’ chronic problems with hunger.”

“Para bailar La Bamba se necessito una poca de gracia. Los cuadrupedos viven en la tierra,” Obama told the crowd before boarding the presidential helicopter for his return to the airport. “Yo no tengo cortaplumas; no puedo cortar el papel. Nos disgusta mucho el ruido cuando queremos dormer.”

A look of exasperation crossed the ambassador’s face as he made his translation.

“I can only tell you what he said: ‘To dance the Bamba requires a little grace. The quadrupeds live on the ground. I have no penknife; I cannot cut the paper. We dislike noise when we want to sleep’,” Lopez recited. “I’ll leave that for the peoples of Latin America to understand for themselves.”

 

A word or two against Earth Day

If I may, I’d like to raise a contrary word during today’s celebration of Earth Day.

Surely there’s nothing more universally accepted across the political spectrum than the premise that our Earth is a good place, worthy of our devoted stewardship. Whether you’re on the religious right and believe it was created by God in six days, or on the scientific left and believe it’s a remnant of the Big Bang, or somewhere in the middle and believe it was coughed up by the Great Turtle, you still respect and honor the big blue orb. It is beloved by us all as our nurturing mother, our protecting father, the annoying little brother we can pick on with impudence.

Is this love we have for our home planet grounded in a verifiable reality? We feel affection for our families, our hometown and our country primarily because they are ours; they must be the best available because they’re associated with us. There’s no objective comparison involved, since few of us with all our teeth can claim to have lived on another planet.

While I too like the Earth, I’m not quite so terra-centric as to believe it’s necessarily the best of all possible worlds. In the spirit of skeptical curiosity that prompts us to demand the best of those we love (with the exception of spouses), I’d like to honor our globe today by pointing out a few flaws it could stand to work on.

For example, there’s the whole concept of plate tectonics. Exactly whose idea was it to have our land masses floating on a worldwide sea of searing magma? And even worse, these plates aren’t even moving in the same direction, so they periodically collide into each other causing catastrophic earthquakes. Or the lava erupts through a volcano and obliterates helpless villagers and camera crews. It’s not a requirement of habitable planets that they follow this model. I probably wouldn’t rather live on a gas giant like Jupiter, where it’d be hard to get your footing, but a simple solid rock with no fancy innards would suffice.

Then there’s the related issue of topography. Mountains and valleys certainly make for some nice scenery, but they become terribly inconvenient if you’re trying to traverse them, especially in a four-cylinder Honda Civic like mine. And they’re strewn about so randomly. You’re headed cross country on the wide open Great Plains, then all of a sudden there’s the Rocky Mountains, showing up out of nowhere (at least according to MapQuest). If we need a little variety, might I suggest something like the dimples of a golf ball, so you could easily negotiate your way around the variations if you wanted.

I’m also not thrilled about the whole concept of air. I know that we theoretically need it to breathe, but having it be invisible doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in its availability. You walk into a room and you can’t tell immediately whether it has any air in it or not. And on the occasions when it is visible (smog alert days, windstorms, anywhere in urban China), you really don’t want to be inhaling it into your body. My ideal would be to have this life-sustaining vapor instead manifest itself in a solid state. It would condense in the space around us, then become weighty enough to fall to the ground, and we could eat it for our oxygen requirements. A nice raspberry flavor would be pleasant.

The prevalence of water collecting into various depressions around the globe is another notion worth challenging. I know that stuff about it being the basic building block of life and all, and yet I don’t understand why it so often has to be muddy or salty. There are also fish, amphibians and reptiles living there that are bound to give it a less than flavorful taste. I’d propose removing all the bothersome creatures, put down a nice sealant to prevent soil and other organic matter from seeping in, and replacing the water with a more popular beverage, either Fanta Orange or Pepsi.

I think we could also demand a lot more of our non-human animal life. Too much of it is either microscopic or threatening or, in the case of viruses and bacteria, both. I’d like to see a lot more of it be of the cute variety (like kittens, baby bears, Sarah Palin) or the docile yet delicious variety (beef cattle, decapitated chickens, etc.). I understand that there does need to be some class of creature that can rival man for his dominance at the top of the food chain, yet I don’t think lions and wolves and rhinos are doing their job. We need something about 50 feet tall, with fangs of steel and fire-breathing capabilities. Let’s see the weekend hunters tackle that.

Speaking of the great outdoors, I’d like to weigh in on our plant life too. I know “going green” is the theme of the day today, in honor of leaves and grass and various shrubberies. If you think about it, though, that’s not really the predominant color we see in nature. Go outside right now and hug a tree and tell me what you find in your face: that’s right, it’s scabby, resinous tree bark. Now try to get that stickiness out of your eyebrows – good luck.

I’d be remiss if I also didn’t mention one of my least-favorite forces of nature, gravity (the most-hated is centrifugal force, which always knocks my groceries all over the back seat of my car whenever I make a hard left). We tend to take it for granted that we’re attached to the surface of the Earth without ever considering whether that’s really necessary. It doesn’t just have to be in science fiction or on the space shuttle that we can float about freely. I know they’re called the “laws of gravity,” but it’s worth acknowledging that there exists a judicial appeal process in modern liberal democracies. Perhaps if President Obama gets a couple of Supreme Court appointments in the next few years, we’ll have the votes needed to challenge such an arbitrary and archaic statute.

Finally I’m going to mention a particular peeve of mine that I think we’d all be better off without. The Van Allen Belt is a band of charged particles about 75 miles above the Earth, held in place by our magnetic field. While it may not technically be considered an everyday part of our world, it still hovers menacingly above us, compressed by the solar wind into the ominous-sounding Chapman Ferraro Cavity. Theorized about for decades, its existence was finally confirmed in 1958 by Dr. James Van Allen. (Coincidence? I think not). As our planet grows larger and larger with obese humans, discarded trash and greenhouse gases, the belt will gradually tighten around our waist until it no longer fits our enlarged form. My idea: let’s switch to Van Allen suspenders while we can still claim it’s a fashion statement rather than a requirement of our girth.

Oh, and one more thing: the name, Earth, itself. Or, more formally, the Earth. Any geographic location preceded by “the” is almost always a loser-land: the Sudan, the Ukraine, the Bronx, even the Moon. Seems like only the Discovery Channel and well-educated guys with English accents drop the “the,” and they’re usually mispronouncing it as “uth” anyway. All the other planets in our solar system have cool Roman names, so I’d propose something similar for us. We should consider Terra, Lasagna or Urethra.

So as we all do our individual parts to celebrate Earth Day today (for example, I just ate my Styrofoam coffee cup rather than throw it in the trash), let’s also remember that our home is far from perfect and let’s continue to look for ways to improve it.

Fake News: Pirate (hearts) NY

NEW YORK (April 25) – Captured Somali pirate Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse arrived in New York earlier this week to face federal charges in connection with his role in the hijacking of an American container ship in the Indian Ocean.

 

 

 

Happy to be in New York

Smiling broadly for photographers as he entered the huge federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, Muse spoke in broken English describing events of recent weeks that have thrust him into the international spotlight. He is the sole survivor in a foursome of pirates who briefly captured the Maersk Alabama, then held its captain hostage for several days before Navy Seals freed him by killing Muse’s three cohorts.

“I so very happy to be here in New York,” Muse said in a brief statement. “This is greatest city in the world. I never dream that poor desert goatherd like me would make it here.”

Muse was charged by Judge Andrew Peck with five counts in Tuesday’s hearing, the most serious of which was “the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations.” Though his father, speaking by telephone from Somalia, said Muse was only 15 years old, the judge declared he was an adult and ordered him held without bail.

But before he headed off to jail, Muse planned to take in the sights of the city and capitalize on his new-found fame.

“I want to see Empire State Building and Times Square,” Muse said. “I want to go to ESPN Zone and Museum of Modern Art and Apple store. I very hungry and want to have apple.”

Authorities made the unusual move to honor Muse’s request for a brief period of freedom before he likely spends the rest of his life behind bars. New York police detective Frederick Gallaway said he agreed to allow Muse one day of what he called “shore leave” before his imprisonment.

“Just look at the smile on that little guy’s face,” Gallaway said. “He’s so absolutely thrilled to be here that we just couldn’t bring ourselves to say no.”

Muse did a round of souvenir shopping in the midtown area, where he at first had a bit of difficulty purchasing the requisite “I (Heart) New York” caps and t-shirts. Merchants were reluctant to accept the $100,000 bill he presented for payment, though most eventually gave the items away when they saw the throng of reporters accompanying Muse.

Before heading downtown, Muse stopped by the studios of “The Regis and Kelly Show” for one of several television interviews he said he had scheduled.

“Regis keep asking how I felt winning Boston Marathon,” Muse said. “I say, ‘no, no, I am Somali, not Kenyan,’ but he just laugh. He funny funny man.”

Muse then took a taxi to the financial district after a brief and accidental detour through the Lower East Side. Cab driver Hakim Akbar, also a Somali native, let Muse take the wheel for the final half of the drive and “he took to the sidewalks and curbs like a natural,” Akbar said. “It is in the blood of our people.”

Muse made a brief visit to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange while on Wall Street. He was surprisingly well-versed in trading operations despite having no formal education and little contact with the outside world while in east Africa.

“Our pirate union had set us up with the 401(k),” Muse said. “I thought I was well-diversified and taking conservative approach to long-term growth, but still lost money. I wanted to shake my fist and put the ancient camel curse on Morgan Stanley.”

Muse next wanted to take the Staten Island Ferry to get some pictures of the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island, but that plan was scrubbed by security officials for obvious reasons.

“He’s a freakin’ pirate, for cryin’ out loud,” said ferry captain Emmet Anderson. “Jeez.”

Muse ended his one day of freedom with a trip to Queens to see the day-night doubleheader at brand-new Citi Field between the Mets and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Mets took the first game 4-1 with a strong two-hit performance by Johan Santana, but the Pirates rebounded to squeeze out an 8-7 win in the nightcap.

“The Bucs, they look good,” Muse said before returning to federal custody. “But that Santana, whoa. He a horse.”

 

 

 

 

Website Review: Panera.com

This week’s Website Review is going to be a bit of stretch for me because I’ll be looking at a company I actually admire and whose services I use virtually every day. Panera Bread is a chain of bakery-café restaurants that sells breads, sandwiches, soups, salads, bakery items and, most importantly, this amazing frozen chocolate coffee drink. I tend to loathe in principal any corporate entity that boasts over $600 million in annual sales and three founders. So I’ll try to be as snarky as I can while trying to keep my enthusiasm wrapped up as tightly as one of their succulent dark chocolate croissants.

First, a point or two of disclosure is probably in order. I discovered Panera about ten years ago on a business trip to Pennsylvania. I spent two weeks having the cinnamon crunch bagel for breakfast, then loaded another several dozen onto my return flight. When I found the closest franchise to my home was only 100 miles away, I made not one but three trips to restock my stash. When a store finally was built in my hometown, I showed up the night before the official opening to discover the inexperienced cashiers needed to practice on their registers (“we’re not trained to accept cash yet,” one told me) and I walked out with a complimentary armload of baked goods.

Now, another one has opened within a five-minute drive of my office, so that’s where I spend my mid-morning break reading humor blogs. The wi-fi is free, there are plentiful electrical outlets, bread samples are given out next to the coffee urns and there’s usually a New York Times abandoned in a rack next to the trash can. I’ll typically buy a fountain drink out of guilt as much as thirst (though I’m not so responsible that I’d forego getting my frequent-customer card stamped toward a free chai tea latte), but recently I’ve become such a regular that the manager on duty doesn’t even charge me for the drink.

So you probably see some of my motivation here.

The corporate history page reveals that Panera began as the St. Louis Bread Company in 1981 in St. Louis, or else in 1987 in Kirkwood, Missouri, they’re not sure. It was largely a local concern until a complicated transaction in either 1993 or 1999 brought about the current name. St. Louis Bread was renovating its 20 cafes, which motivated Au Bon Pain Co. to purchase the company by selling all its own Au Bon Pain franchises to the Compass Group, then renamed itself Panera, except in Missouri where it’s still known as St. Louis Bread.

The company now operates or franchises 1,252 locations in 40 states and Canada employing almost 5,000 full-time employees. In 2005, it ranked number 37 on BusinessWeek’s list of “Hot Growth Food-Service Companies,” which I presume is a good thing unless there are only 38 total.

On the Company Overview page, we learn that the company has a mission statement and that it is, quite simply, “a loaf of bread in every arm.” This mission is also reflected in the company logo, which looks like a windblown Virgin Mary looking adoringly at a curiously oblong Baby Jesus cradled in her arms. Turns out, He’s a baguette.

This page also takes the opportunity to discuss the company’s philosophy of “bread leadership,” which it describes as the singular goal of making bread broadly available to consumers across America. I’d speculate that the creator behind this concept has never been along the entire back wall of any major grocery store, but instead spent his time working on noble language for the website. For example:

“Every day, at every location, trained bakers craft and bake each loaf from scratch, using the best ingredients to ensure the highest quality,” he writes. “Panera showcases the art and craft of bread making, helping customers truly appreciate and enjoy a great loaf by studying its crust, crumb and craft.” Except, perhaps, at the Rock Hill location near my home, where the display window to the bakery area was mysteriously walled off not too long ago. (So much for the next disgusting YouTube sensation.)

Of course there’s an online menu, both for bakery and café items, and a nutrition guide based on “standardized recipes, representative values provided by suppliers, analysis using industry standard software, published resources and/or testing conducted in accredited laboratories, expressed in values based on federal rounding and other applicable regulations.” In other words, if your sandwich guy slathers on a few extra tablespoons of smoky chipotle mayonnaise at your request, you may experience your own case of “federal rounding” despite what the official calorie count says.

Let’s take a look at a few specific products that Panera describes. Of their coffee, they say “we believe that making coffee requires the utmost attention,” not only to make sure olive oil isn’t accidentally substituted for water but to be sure nobody gets burned. They’ve recently started offering a line of breakfast sandwiches with a thick slice of Vermont natural white cheddar cheese, freshly baked Ciabatta bread and eggs “freshly cracked-to-order.” I’m not sure how the customized cracking makes that much difference in the taste, though I usually ask that mine be bounced off the ceiling just for the entertainment value. A healthier option for breakfast is the strawberry granola parfait, inspired by the 5-year-old daughter of the head chef. “He scrutinized everything in the granola – even the exact size of the coconut pieces,” though presumably he omitted her suggestion to place a Barbie head on the top.

Finally, I’ll mention some of my very favorite items. The sandwiches are excellent, especially the paninis (paninae?) and the Asiago roast beef, with creamy horseradish sauce. There are some great soups, including the forest mushroom soup, made with three flavorful types of mushrooms, none of which are fatal. And there’s possibly the best salad ever in the form of the Fuji apple chicken salad, with sweet apple juice and balsamic vinegar dressing, mixed field greens, pecans, gorgonzola and apple chips. It’s especially delicious when they remember to include the chicken.

My full assessment of the Panera website? The hell with it. Just go to the actual restaurant with a hearty appetite and an ability to withstand jazz saxophone Muzak, and you’ll enjoy yourself immensely.

 

Robots gaining on humans (or ARE they?)

The following is an article recently published in a national newspaper and online. Most of it is hard to believe but true. However, there are six paragraphs inserted randomly throughout that are just slightly more absurd (and entirely more false) than the rest of the article. See if you can spot the places where we step over the line from science fact to science lunacy. (Answers are at the end)

WASHINGTON — Robots are gaining on us humans.

Thanks to exponential increases in computer power — which is roughly doubling every two years — robots are getting smarter, more capable, more like flesh-and-blood people. Matching human skills and intelligence, however, is an enormously difficult — perhaps impossible — challenge.

Nevertheless, robots guided by their own computer “brains” now can pick up and peel bananas, land jumbo jets, steer cars through city traffic, search human DNA for cancer genes, play soccer or the violin, find earthquake victims or explore craters on Mars.

At a “Robobusiness” conference in Boston last week, companies demonstrated a robot firefighter, gardener, receptionist, tour guide and security guard. You name it, a high-tech wizard somewhere is trying to make a robot do it.

A Japanese housekeeping robot can move chairs, sweep the floor, load a tray of dirty dishes in a dishwasher and put dirty clothes in a washing machine.

In one of the first Chinese entrants to make a public appearance, a yard work robot could mow the lawn, sweep sidewalks and clean roof gutters. An attempt to use a leaf-blower backfired, however, when it accidentally switched to the vacuum option and had a hand sucked into the machine.

Intel, the worldwide computer-chip maker, has developed a self-controlled mobile robot called Herb, the Home Exploring Robotic Butler. Herb can recognize faces and carry out generalized commands such as “please clean this mess,” according to Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer.

In a talk last year titled “Crossing the Chasm Between Humans and Machines: the Next 40 Years,” the widely respected Rattner lent some credibility to the often-ridiculed effort to make machines as smart as people.

“The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago,” Rattner said. It’s conceivable, he added, that “machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason in the not-so-distant future.”

One test could take place as early as this fall. Fox News Channel will premiere a new Sunday roundtable political discussion program made up entirely of robots. Producers declined to release the name of the show, as they didn’t want to prejudice viewers against their current lineup of human commentators.

Programming a robot to perform household chores without breaking dishes or bumping into walls is hard enough, but creating a truly intelligent machine still remains far beyond human ability.

Artificial intelligence researchers have struggled for half a century to imitate the staggering complexity of the brain, even in creatures as lowly as a cockroach or fruit fly. Although computers can process data at lightning speeds, the trillions of ever-changing connections between animal and human brain cells surpass the capacity of even the largest supercomputers

“Eventually, we’re going to reach the point where everybody’s going to say, ‘Of course machines are smarter than we are,’” said Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. “The truly interesting question is what happens after if we have truly intelligent robots. If we’re very lucky, they’ll treat us as pets. If not, they’ll treat us as food.”

Some far-out futurists, such as Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and technology evangelist in Wellesley Hills, a Boston suburb, predict that robots will match human intelligence by 2029, only 20 years from now. Other experts think that Kurzweil is wildly over-optimistic.

According to Kurzweil, robots will prove their cleverness by passing the so-called “Turing test.” In the test, devised by British computing pioneer Alan Turing in 1950, a human judge chats casually with a concealed human and a hidden machine. If the judge can’t tell which responses come from the human and which from the machine, the machine is said to show human-level intelligence.

“We can expect computers to pass the Turing test, indicating intelligence indistinguishable from that of biological humans, by the end of the 2020s,” Kurzweil wrote in his 2005 book, “The Singularity Is Near.” To Kurzweil, the “singularity” is when a machine equals or exceeds human intelligence.

He predicted, however, that he could see that date moving up by as much as ten years if the concealed humans were beauty pageant or “American Idol” contestants.

Intel’s Rattner is more conservative. He said that it would take at least until 2050 to close the mental gap between people and machines. Others say that it will take centuries, if it ever happens.

Some eminent thinkers, such as Steven Pinker, a Harvard cognitive scientist, Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, and Mitch Kapor, a leading computer scientist in San Francisco, doubt that a robot can ever successfully impersonate a human being.

It’s “extremely difficult even to imagine what it would mean for a computer to perform a successful impersonation,” Kapor said. “While it is possible to imagine a machine obtaining a perfect score on the SAT or winning ‘Jeopardy’ — since these rely on retained facts and the ability to recall them — it seems far less possible that a machine can have true imagination in a way that matches everything people can do.”

A contestant robot was scheduled to appear on the game show “Deal or No Deal” earlier this year, but backed out at the last minute. Programmers denied it was possible for the robot to feel the human emotion of embarrassment, and claimed instead that the android had a case of food poisoning.

Nevertheless, roboticists are working to make their mechanical creatures seem more human. The Japanese are particularly fascinated with “humanoid” robots, with faces, movements and voices resembling their human masters. A fetching female robot model from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology lab in Tsukuba, Japan, sashays down a runway, turns and bows when “she” meets a real girl.

“People become emotionally attached” to robots, Saffo said. Two-thirds of the people who own Roombas, the humble floor-sweeping robots, give them names, he said. One-third take their Roombas on vacation.

The most popular destinations for human/Roomba vacations tend to be in developing-world countries. Often, the people will be involved in a charity project like Habitat for Humanity while the Roomba roams the streets feasting on filth.

At a technology conference last October in San Jose, Calif., Cynthia Breazeal, an MIT robot developer, demonstrated her attempts to build robots that mimic human and social skills. She showed off “Leonardo,” a creature that reacts appropriately when a person smiles or scowls.

“Robot sidekicks are coming,” Breazeal said. “We already can see the first distant cousins of R2D2” the sociable little robot in the “Star War” movies.

Other MIT researchers have developed an autonomous wheelchair that understands and responds to commands to “go to my room” or “take me to the cafeteria.”

The wheelchair will respond to any request it can physically perform that is made by its occupant. Researchers are still working to set up a filter that will block requests from rest-home residents to inflict physical harm on staff members.

So far, most robots are used primarily in factories, repeatedly performing single tasks. The Robotics Institute of America estimates that more than 186,000 industrial robots are being used in the United States, second only to Japan. It’s estimated that more than a million robots are being used worldwide, with China and India rapidly expanding their investments in robotics.

Fake paragraphs below:

In one of the first Chinese entrants to make a public appearance, a yard work robot could mow the lawn, sweep sidewalks and clean roof gutters. An attempt to use a leaf-blower backfired, however, when it accidentally switched to the vacuum option and had a hand sucked into the machine.

One test could take place as early as this fall. Fox News Channel will premiere a new Sunday roundtable political discussion program made up entirely of robots. Producers declined to release the name of the show, as they didn’t want to prejudice viewers against their current lineup of human commentators.

He predicted, however, that he could see that date moving up by as much as ten years if the concealed humans were beauty pageant or “American Idol” contestants.

A contestant robot was scheduled to appear on the game show “Deal or No Deal” earlier this year, but backed out at the last minute. Programmers denied it was possible for the robot to feel the human emotion of embarrassment, and claimed instead that the android had a case of food poisoning.

The most popular destinations for human/Roomba vacations tend to be in developing-world countries. Often, the people will be involved in a charity project like Habitat for Humanity while the Roomba roams the streets feasting on filth.

The wheelchair will respond to any request it can physically perform that is made by its occupant. Researchers are still working to set up a filter that will block requests from rest-home residents to inflict physical harm on staff members.

 

A revisit to NextLevel Church

A little while back, I reprinted an article about a local church that described itself as “rock ‘n’ roll-style,” and had spent large parts of its Easter service Twittering about members’ love for the Lord. The Next Level Church includes a number of creative twenty- and thirty-somethings who aren’t interested in evangelical churches that focus on what they call “the me-God relationship, with services full of prom songs to Jesus.” Instead, they wish to be with-it hepcats, as we fity- and sixty-somethings used to call them.

Today, I’m going to look a little closer at the Next Level Church through the blog they maintain on their website, nextlevelchurch.org. Here are some highlights:

–In an economy like this, it flat out doesn’t make sense to give things away for free. I went to lunch yesterday at SubStation 2, which is AMAZING by the way, and they charged me 10 cents for water and 10 cents for ice. And that totally makes sense to me. (The name SubStation 2, however, does not make sense to me. Was there a SubStation 1? Is the sequel better than the original, which RARELY is the case? If history proves correct, there is a SubStation 1 out there that is the Mecca of sub shops. And I’m sure if I simply googled SubStation this mystery and my ignorance would be erased. I choose, however, to savor the unknown). My point is this: giving away free stuff just doesn’t make sense. Everyone is hurting financially and people should charge money for whatever people will pay for. Uh-oh. We have a problem. Next Level Church is an organization that exists to help people take their next step in their relationship with God, whatever that step is. Our teaching on the weekend is specifically geared towards helping people connect with God. We record these teachings every week on CD. Dilemma! To sell or not to sell?!

–The week after Easter is traditionally one of the most “dead” weeks of the year at church. Well yesterday, you never would’ve known it was the week after church. Our volunteers were sharp and energized. The worship team did an incredible job with a tough Rascal Flatts tune – even being guys who don’t like country. The new high school service was borderline insane. (Actually, it WAS insane. As part of a game I drank an entire McDonald’s Happy Meal that had been blended up into a shake. It tasted like puke long before any of it came back up. Needless to say, the students LOVED it.) You guys rock!

–We continue to get notes and emails from around the country as media attention to our Easter Twitter experiment has spread. I love the unintended consequences of this sort of thing. Go God!

–The whole Twitter experiment hit hard (in a good way) this week! What’s that? You demand evidence?! Fine. Exhibit A: Check out the front page of the Charlotte Observer, fools!! Exhibit B: Check the local news, suckers!! Exhibit C: We were on CNN, what now!! Exhibit D: And Creative Loafing, woot woot!! (I’m not linking to their website because it can be a wee bit inappropriate). Your participation in the Twitter experiment allowed thousands of people disconnected from God and His Church to hear about Next Level. And on top of that everyone in people’s twitter-spheres (I just made that word up) heard about the amazing things God is doing.

–Easter Sunday was pretty fantastic. Pastor Todd kicked butt, and the band flat-out rocked. Here’s some background on how the service was planned: Harrison picks out music for the Easter service. His original choice, “Circus” by Britney Spears, is chided by the rest of the staff. Instead we decide to play “Come Alive” by the Foo Fighters and “Magnificent” by U2. Decision is made to film the Schweigers for a FamReality promo video. Orders pre-teen brothers to fight each other on film for a truly churchy moment. Band practice irons out all the kinks in Easter songs. Drummer threw down some hot beats. We are mad impressed and ready for Sunday.

Fake News Briefs

Captured Somali readies his defense

NEW YORK (April 25) – Captured Somali pirate Abduwali Muse revealed plans for his legal defense strategy through his attorneys this weekend, and it appears to rely heavily on influences he has felt during his ten-day stay in New York.

Attorney Malcolm Campbell said Muse will claim during his upcoming piracy trial that the alleged attack on the Maersk Alabama was merely a “performance piece” by himself and three fellow “actors,” and should be protected as an act of artistic expression.

“If you look at the circumstances carefully, you’ll quickly recognize that it wasn’t that different from much of the work being staged at venues throughout this city on a regular basis,” Campbell said. “The only difference — instead of off-Broadway, this was off Somalia.”

Muse will claim that the five-day hijacking that ended when the ship’s captain was freed by Navy Seals earlier this month was “a work of post-modern irony comprised of three acts.”

“The first act, throwing a line onto the deck and scrambling on board, is a modern dance statement inspired by the early works of Martha Graham,” Campbell said. “The second act, when the terrorized crew babbled incoherently while locked in a small supply closet for nine hours, uses elements of absurdist theater. After a brief intermission, the climactic third act was what we considered a floating installation, bobbing in a life boat on the open ocean, much like modern man drifts through an aimless, meaningless experience.”

Muse and his attorneys will assert that the production could’ve been a success if appreciated in the proper light. Though virtually all of the civilized world condemned the act as one of international criminality, Campbell noted that local reviewers gave it three gunshots on a scale of one to five.

“Those who were really close to the action and could feel the passion of the performers gave them what you could call very high marks,” Campbell said of the Navy marksmen who closed the show prematurely. “They felt my client had captured something special. It’s just very sad that it ended up being such a limited run.”

 

Stretching the meat

WASHINGTON (April 27) – Animal husbandry experts at the Department of Agriculture revealed several revolutionary new techniques yesterday that could profoundly affect livestock yields, especially in developing-world countries.

Following in-depth research at the agency’s genetics lab, scientists were able to devise a process that would allow farmers to market their cattle at a slow and steady rate rather than all at once after the annual slaughter.

“Basically, our technique involves harvesting only small parts of the cattle’s meat on an as-needed basis,” said Dr. Robert Rachel, professor of animal science at Maryland A&T and a researcher with the FDA. “With carefully calibrated surgical procedures, we can remove portions of beef while the animal continues to live and grow.”

Rachel described how chunks roughly the size of a hamburger can be cut away from a steer’s hide, and the wound can then be covered with a sterile dressing and allowed to heal. Larger cattle might even be able to survive the removal of an entire shank, which could be treated with skin grafts grown in a culture of the animal’s own cells.

“For centuries, this has been the primary dilemma for herdsmen throughout the world,” Rachel said. “They have this tremendous financial asset that can’t easily be redeemed. If they can market their meat gradually over the course of several years, and also sell an entire carcass at full maturation, that extra income will be all gravy. So to speak.”

Rachel also theorized that an entire leg, or even several legs, could be removed and replaced with prostheses. Tails could be removed for use in oxtail soup, and organ meats such as liver and kidneys could be taken in a surgery resembling transplantation.

“They could either collect just a single kidney, allowing the animal to live off the remaining organ, or they might be able to take it all and transplant replacements from a similar animal, like a buffalo, yak or moose,” Rachel said.

The researcher dismissed criticism from animal-rights activists that hacking off chunks of cow would compound the already significant suffering these animals face at the slaughterhouse.

“We’d be working with appropriate anesthesia in all procedures,” Rachel said. “We’re not butchers. Well, actually we are butchers, but in the very best sense of the word.”

Asked why this research was done at the FDA’s genetics lab, Rachel said his group was “just borrowing the equipment while it wasn’t being used over the weekend.”

“We figured it would sound a little better if we mentioned genetics in some way,” he said.

 

 

Obama’s first 100 days: We expected more

With today marking the 100th day of Barack Obama’s presidency, both supporters and detractors are evaluating his performance thus far. In the kind of overkill that only the American mass media can accomplish, pundits from the left, the right and every data point in between are weighing in on what kind of start the president has achieved. While all observers admit there’s a lot to be done, they also maintain that the economy should’ve been fixed, the wars should’ve been finished, and healthcare and education should’ve been reformed by close of business yesterday, at the latest.

Sadly, Mr. Obama has failed. I use a genuine, heartfelt adverb there because I voted for the man and had great faith (and hope – don’t forget hope) that he had the smarts and the energy to do everything that needed to be done. A hundred days is a long time – almost half a term in dog years – and it seems we can reasonably have expected more.

So I join here with other commentators to look back at what we all wish could have and should have been done.

·        He shouldn’t have let Bea Arthur die.

·        He should have foreseen the rise of the Octomom, and taken steps to prevent it.

·        He should have kept the St. Louis Cardinals out of the Super Bowl, by executive decree if necessary.

·        He shouldn’t have allowed the flooding in North Dakota, using his substantial influence with the Creator to arrange more favorable weather patterns.

·        In addition to firing Rick Waggoner, GM’s top executive, he should’ve terminated that loudmouth that sits two cubicles behind me.

·        Satan and his minions still run the Underworld. Why is this allowed to continue?

·        In addition to the “Craigslist Killer,” we should’ve caught the “MySpace Skyjacker,” the “Facebook Jaywalker” and the “eBay Tax Evader.”

·        He shouldn’t have allowed my cat to get a kidney stone resulting in over $600 of veterinary bills. There should be health insurance reform for pets.

·       Instead of shaking hands with Hugo Chavez, he should’ve done a fist bump with the Queen.

·        It was way too hot this past weekend for so early in the spring. Summer temperatures should not start for at least another month. Also, there’s too much pollen this year, and birds keep pooping on my new car. This is not what we expected from a Democratic administration.

·        Tainted peanuts should not have been allowed to enter the food supply. I expect a hands-on commander-in-chief who will personally inspect field legumes if necessary.

·        He may have appeared on The Tonight Show, but I also would’ve expected guest stints on Project Runway and Samantha Who?

·        Despite all logical reasons to the contrary, Casey Kasem has not yet died of old age.

·        Efforts to make a more transparent government have largely succeeded, but we failed to take into account that transparency means we can see things better. And that’s not what we want when we’re looking at the ugly mugs of press secretary Robert Gibbs, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Please give us more physically attractive appointments, along the lines of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (hubba, hubba) and Attorney General Eric Holder.

·        Captain “Sulley” Sullenberger, pilot of the jet that crash-landed in the Hudson River, should’ve been allowed no more than one week to take a victory lap around the country celebrating his fame.

·        I know executive powers are strictly limited and defined by the Constitution and Supreme Court interpretations thereof, but that’s still no reason Katie Perry should be allowed to walk among us.

·        The scourge of Twitter still stalks the land. Make it stop now.

·        We are still not sure whether colon cleansers work as advertised.

·        There is no reason that Elisabeth Hasselbeck should be pregnant for the third time.

·        The tuna sub, which you would think is a relatively healthy sandwich, actually can have as much as 1700 calories.

·        He should do something to keep my grass from growing to the extent that it needs to be mowed every single damn weekend.

·        We continue to cement solid relations with India, that invaluable geopolitical counterweight in south Asia and the world’s largest democracy, and yet Anoop is allowed to be eliminated from American Idol.

·        We should be better protected against makeup mistakes that make you look older.

·        On January 30, not two weeks after the president’s inauguration, the Orlando Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers despite a 35-point performance by Lebron James.

·        The position of White House pet was left vacant for far too long. Even though Bo has now received full confirmation from the Senate, the right-wing blogosphere is correct in continuing to ask the hard questions: Was Bo born in the U.S. and, if so, where is his birth certificate? Why does he seem so reliant on a teleprompter for every little woof and growl? Did he sniff the Saudi king?

·        We want not only a White House dog but also a budgie and a ferret.

 

OINK, I tell you. OINK!!

ATLANTA, Georgia (April 30) – A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported yesterday that THERE’S A GUY IN SIERRA LEONE WHO’S BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH GUINEA WORM DISEASE, A COUPLE OF KIDS IN MALI WHO HAVE RIVER BLINDNESS AND A WOMAN IN BANGLADESH WHO IS SHOWING SYMPTOMS OF BURULI ULCLER!!!

Dr. Harold Densmore, chief epidemiologist with the U.S. Health Service, told a packed room of reporters that early information is sketchy, but there seemed to be enough evidence to dictate an increased level of concern from the medical community.

“I know these places are half a world away. Still, preparation is vital,” Densmore said. “Who knows when they might climb onto a plane, fly into your town, come to your home and borrow your hankie?”

Densmore also noted that several other rare tropical or infectious diseases seem to be making a comeback in regions where they were thought to be all but eliminated.

“I JUST SAW A FIELD REPORT ABOUT SOMEBODY WHO HAD THE PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN!” Densmore reported. “AND WE’RE SEEING INCREASED INCIDENTS OF HYPOVOLEMIC SHOCK, CLOSTRIDIAL COLITIS AND SNAIL FEVER!!”

In the wake of the recent outbreak of swine flu now sweeping through a couple of places, CDC officials wanted to be as forthright with the information they have as possible. Some observers had criticized their initial reaction to the new strain of influenza, saying they earlier had failed to show the proper level of urgency by talking only in caps and lower case.

“I WANT TO STRESS AGAIN THAT WE TAKE THIS VERY SERIOUSLY,” Densmore said. “PUBLIC HEALTH IS OUR BUSINESS AND WE NEED TO BE IN THE FOREFRONT FOR EVERY CASE OF MONKEY POX, EBOLA AND AFRICAN SLEEPING SICKNESS!”

The flu outbreak, which first became widely reported over the weekend, appears to have begun in rural Mexico at a site near a hog production farm. The ailment later spread to Mexico City, where several people reported feeling a little achy, and has since gone global with hundreds of reports of sniffles, tickly throats and a slight queasiness.

Densmore said he and his colleagues were working round-the-clock doing research on Wikipedia, searching for infectious and tropical diseases that could prove to be alarming. Especially promising and scary-sounding were Kallman syndrome with spastic paraplegia, Klumpke paralysis, ZAP0 deficiency, Jansky-Bielschowsky disease and Yaws.

“YAWS WOULD BE HORRIBLE,” Densmore concluded. “YOU START WITH A ‘MOTHER YAW’ WHICH ENLARGES AND BECOMES WARTY. THEN NEARBY ‘DAUGHTER YAWS’ APPEAR. THEN COMES ‘CRAB YAWS’ WITH DESQUAMATION. I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THAT AT ALL.”

 

Website Review: SelectQuote.com

When I was growing up in the Lutheran Church, what I disliked most were the sermons. The half-hour spent alternately standing up and sitting down or plodding through an off-key hymn at least required some involvement from the congregation. When it came to the sermon, though, time would slow to a crawl. Minutes seemed like hours as we heard for the umpteenth time that God was good, Satan was bad and we shouldn’t sin, as if we all had ADD and had to be reminded of these basics ever week.

Fidgety wise-guy that I was, I’d usually pick up one of the visitor’s cards from the back of the pew and amuse myself by filling it out with fraudulent information. Under “name,” I’d put something like “Frank N. Stein.” Under “hometown,” I always thought “the moon” was funny. For the question “what led you to Christ?” I’d write “who?” I’d never turn the card in when the collection plate was passed (I didn’t want to go to hell), but instead stuffed it back in the pew where I hoped someone would eventually read it and get a chuckle.

Sort of like my blog postings, I guess.

Anyway, I was reminded of those early attempts at humor writing recently when I chose SelectQuote.com as my choice for this week’s Website Review. In case you’ve missed their omnipresent ads on every cable news channel known to man, SelectQuote allows you to buy term life insurance either by phone or online. Since 1985, they’ve helped customers shop from competing insurance companies in search of the best offer.

Rather than make snarky comments about all the different threads on their site, what I thought I’d do is actually “apply” for a life insurance quote by filling out their personal profile questionnaire. This turned out to be a relatively intuitive process that I can recommend to anyone who is genuinely interested in having others benefit monetarily from their death. That was not my goal however; I just wanted to have a little fun.

The first of five easy steps was recording some basic data. I decided I would be “Dr. David Weaver.” The title was required information, which I guess was a back-door way of finding a little more about your status than they could legally ask in an upfront fashion. I chose “doctor” for its implied prestige, and because neither “Viscount” nor “Major General” were offered in the pull-down options.

I tried to list my birthday as September 13, 1910 but this was immediately blocked by the site with a note to “please call our licensed insurance representative to discuss your special situation.” I didn’t appreciate being considered “special” just because I was a 98-year-old applicant, though I do understand they have to collect premiums for at least a couple of months before making a payout. To continue, I next tried 1920 and then 1930 birthdates, and finally was able to proceed when I entered 1940. After answering a few more inquiries about my gender (male), my height (four-foot two) and my weight (314 pounds), I proceeded to the health questions. (Funny that being 98 gets you flagged as a risk but being wider than you are tall is perfectly acceptable. Whatever.)

I acknowledged having been treated for high blood pressure, cancer, high cholesterol, heart problems, depression/anxiety, diabetes, alcohol/substance abuse and asthma. I also checked “other significant issues,” just to make sure I was totally upfront about my recent recurrence of Bannayan-Riley-Ruvalcaba syndrome, not to mention the psychological disorder that causes me to lie on insurance applications.

The next page introduced me to my personal advisor, his email address and his 800 phone number. I was also asked about any current coverage I had (none), how much coverage I wished to purchase ($10,000,000, the biggest number available) and what alternate amount would be my second choice ($9,000,000). I also had to select a desired duration of the policy so I picked 30 years, which ironically would make me 99 years old at the end of a policy for someone who was born in 1940.

Already I’m up to page three where they start to ask about my family health history. I gave my father cancer, heart disease and stroke, and my mother cancer, diabetes and stroke (not very nice so close to Mother’s Day, I admit). I gave my siblings a bit of a break, in part to make my situation a little more believable, and only gave them stroke. Strokes for everyone!

Next, I had to answer some inquiries about my lifestyle. I admitted to four traffic violations in the last three years and a DUI citation in the last year. I said that I currently smoke cigarettes and also use other forms of tobacco; nothing like the rush of keeping a chaw going while lighting each new cigarette off the end of the previous one. I said yes, I’ve traveled outside of the U.S. in the last two years and plan to do it again soon, yes, I’ve flown in an aircraft in a capacity other than as a passenger (that time I tried wing-walking) and yes, I’ve done scuba diving in the last three years.

I figured my personal insurance advisor would be impressed with the variety of other sports and activities I participated in, since it would indicate a vigorous and healthy life worthy of insuring. The pre-selected options offered on the pulldown were indeed remarkable: hot air ballooning, mountain climbing, motor racing, bungee jumping, hang gliding, rock climbing, horse racing, speedboat racing, high diving and skydiving. What I really wanted to brag about was Dr. Weaver’s keen interest in the new concept of “extreme hybrid sports,” where two or more of these activities are combined. Unfortunately, they only offered an unspecified “other” rather than any free-form field, so the short, corpulent physician of my imagination was unable to make note of his love for ballooning with a horse or bungee-jumping in a speedboat. Instead, I selected “horse racing” alone, figuring that might explain the applicant’s short stature.

Finally, I gave my fake street address, my phone number (867-5309) and my email address (jennyjenny@gmail.com). After giving all the data one last review, I clicked the submit button and, incredibly enough, I wasn’t laughed off the internet. Instead, I got the following reply:

“Dear Dr. Weaver,

Thank you so much for your request for term life insurance from SelectQuote. With the information you provided, I will research our pick of America’s top insurance companies and call you within 24 hours (except Sunday) with your best buy. I will review your options, answer your questions, and get you all the information you need on the policies you select from our carriers. From there, I’ll be with you every step of the way during the application and throughout the life of the policy. I look forward to working with you.”

I haven’t heard back from them yet though I imagine I will soon – that is, if I don’t die first, which the actuary tables say is in fact quite likely.

Frightening yet funny diseases

While researching scary-sounding diseases this past week for the post I did about swine flu, I discovered there’s a lot of weird stuff out there. Now I know where the writers of “House” get their ideas. There are literally thousands of exotic ailments running rampant through the population, any one of which could send the nation into a panic if ever mentioned on Fox News.

I thought that today I’d publish just a small sampling of these that I found on Wikipedia. Many of them lacked any information more than a name, which in most cases made them even more frightening than seeing details of the symptoms. Note also the large quantity of “syndromes” and their alien names. Aren’t there any diseases discovered by the research team of Jones, Smith and Brown?

For some of these diseases, I’m listing real information. For others, no details were available, so I’m making them up based on how the name reads. For others, I’m just listing the exotic name. Hope you enjoy and, more importantly, hope you don’t catch any.

Abdallat Davis Farrage syndrome is comprised of disordered skin and hair pigmentation, and progressive spastic paraparesis (a condition in which both legs and the bladder have little voluntary control).

ABCD syndrome is the acronym for albinism, black lock, cell migration disorder of the neurocytes of the gut and sensorineural deafness. 

Absence of tibia with polydactyly. This was not formally defined but as near as I can tell, it involves no leg bone but extra toes.

Acral renal mandibular syndrome. Again, no formal definition was available. I do know that “renal” has to do with the kidneys and “mandible” has to do with the jaw, yet I’m totally lost on how these might be connected.

Acrofacial dysostosis ambiguous genitalia. Possibly related to the above condition, this sounds like a malformation of the facial bones somehow connected to indistinct genitals.

Acrokeratoelastoidosis of Costa is a condition characterized by multiple keratotic papules (inflamed, elevated horny warts) on the hands and feet.

Acropigmentation of Dohi sounds to me like a problem with the color of the sky above the capital of Qatar. 

Adolescent benign focal crisis simply sounds like the inability of teenagers to concentrate. 

Aicardi-Goutieres syndrome is also known as Cree encephalitis and pseudo-TORCH syndrome, both of which were once considered separate disorders.

Alar nasal cartilages coloboma of telecanthus is something to do with dysfunctional eyelids.

Alien hand syndrome (anarchic hand or Dr. Strangelove syndrome) is an unusual neurological disorder in which one of the sufferer’s hands seems to take on a mind of its own. AHS is best documented in cases where a person has had the two hemispheres of their brain surgically separated. It also occurs in some cases after other brain surgery, strokes, or infections.

Aluminum lung is, fortunately, not a naturally occurring condition but rather an injury caused by inhaling dust in an aluminum mine.

Anterior horn disease is a complete mystery to me. I didn’t think humans had any horns at all, much less anterior ones.

Arachnodactyly (“spider fingers”) or achromachi, is a condition in which the fingers are abnormally long and slender in comparison to the palm of the hand.

Arnold Stickler Bourne syndrome sounds like some researcher is making fun of the nerdy kid from his elementary school.

Ausems Wittebol Post Hennekam syndrome.

Aarskog Ose Pande syndrome.

Achalasia-Addisonianism-Alacrima syndrome.

Baraitser Brett Piesowicz syndrome.

Bazex-Dupre-Christol syndrome.

Bazopoulou Kyrkanidou syndrome.

Bellini Chiumello Renoldi syndrome.

Ben Ari Shuper Mimouni syndrome.

Baker Vinters syndrome must be someone who is confused about whether they want to be a breadmaker or a winemaker.

Babesiosis is a malaria-like parasitic disease caused by Babesia, a genus of protozoal piroplasms.  Babesia are thought to be the second most common blood parasites of mammals and they can have a major impact on health of domestic animals in areas without severe winters. Human babesiosis is uncommon, but reported cases have risen recently because of expanded medical awareness.

Bannayan-Riley-Ruvalcaba syndrome (BRRS) is a rare disorder with occurrence of multiple subcutaneous lipomas. The disease belongs to a family of hamartomatous polyposis syndromes, which also includes Peutz-Jeghers syndrome, juvenile polyposis and Cowden syndrome. I have no idea what any of that means.

Basedow’s coma sounds like the kind of coma you’d want if you had to have a coma.

Dandy-Walker syndrome (DWS), or Dandy-Walker complex, is a brain malformation involving the cerebellum and the fluid-filled spaces around it, and apparently has little to do with walking funny.

De Hauwere Leroy Adriaenssens syndrome.

Davis Lafer syndrome is hopefully something I cause when people read my blog.

Der kaloustian Jarudi Khoury syndrome.

Dincsoy Salih Patel syndrome.

Dermatocardioskeletal syndrome (Boronne type) is apparently a defect of the skin, heart and skeleton or, basically, pretty much your entire body.

Diaphragmatic defect limb deficiency skull defect is another case of a disease picking random body parts to afflict.

Dissociative fugue (previously called psychogenic fugue) is a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for personal identity, including the memories, personality and other identifying characteristics of individuality. The state is usually short-lived, but can last months or longer. Dissociative fugue usually involves unplanned travel or wandering, and is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new identity. After recovery from fugue, previous memories usually return intact, however there is complete amnesia for the fugue episode. Importantly, an episode is not characterized as a fugue if it can be related to the ingestion of psychotropic substances, to trauma, to a general medical condition, or to psychiatric conditions such as delerium or dementia, bipolar disorder or depression. I thought a fugue was something that Bach composed, but I am apparently mistaken.

Double fingernail of fifth finger must be one of those fake entries that people sometimes put into Wikipedia for a joke.

Dysmorphophobia (also known as “Dysmorphic syndrome”) is a psychiatric disorder in which the affected person is excessively concerned about and preoccupied by an imagined or minor defect in their physical features.

Hailey-Hailey disease, or familial benign chronic pemphigus, was originally described by the Hailey brothers in 1939 and is a disorder that causes blisters to form on the skin. It apparently has nothing to do with comets.

Tips for on-the-job flu protection

Like all responsible citizens of corporate America, my company is taking steps to help its employees avoid infection by the swine flu, also known as H1N1, also known as influenza A, also known as the biggest false alarm since Y2K. We received an email from top management assuring us that all appropriate steps were being considered, and that our health and welfare were the number-one priority.

Whatever action might eventually be forthcoming from the corporate heights, we decided in our local office to take matters into our own hands. There’s a guy in the shipping department who looks vaguely Mexican, and another guy in accounting who’s a pig, so we figured we couldn’t afford to wait. We appropriated some items that were already in the supply cabinet, applied a little of the same ingenuity we use when coming up with tardiness excuses, and prepared ourselves for the pandemic just around the corner.

In the interest of public health, I thought I’d share some of these inventive ideas with others who might be in a similar circumstance. Like all things of any value within our company, it’s a process:

First step, eat breakfast

It’s well known that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Getting sufficient nutrition will help your body’s natural immunity defense to work at its peak. In the example shown above, we’re eating cereal. What’s most important, though, is to use one of those white disposable Styrofoam bowls widely available in corporate kitchens and canteens.

Next step, finish breakfast. ALL of it.

Being a certified member of the Clean Plate Club is essential before we can proceed. If you had cereal, as shown in this example, be sure to drink all residual milk.

Make 2 small holes with pencil, attach rubberband

Be sure to use one of those big rubberbands and to tie it tightly in both holes.

Attach to your face

This is no time to worry about presenting a fashionable appearance. You need something that can cover all identifiable features except for the eyes, so nobody’s going to be able to tell it’s you anyway.

Smile indicates you feel okay

This feature was drawn with black permanent marker, which is good for the Styrofoam surface which otherwise tends to absorb moisture.

Frown indicates feeling a little swine-y

The problem with permanent marker, however, is that the fumes tend to permeate through the mask pretty easily. You’ll find that you quickly get a headache caused by inhaling these vapors, which may obscure genuine swine flu symptoms. Note how this model’s eyes are starting to look a little spooky.

Household cleaner can serve as antiseptic

To ensure any flu germs that do make it through the mask are quickly dispatched, you can coat the inside of the bowl with any number of readily available cleaning products, including Windex, Raid and spray deodorants.

Late Breaking News: Corporate headquarters is on the move, and we now have an acronym securely in place — the Pandemic Preparedness Plan (PPP). I feel better already, though I never felt that bad to begin with.

Celebrating 100 days of being old

The world’s oldest man celebrated his first 100 days in that position Saturday by not dying.

Eldon Burnhart of St. Louis, Mo., who turned 113 years old in December, took over the position of oldest living human being when the previous occupant of the spot, Yao Wao of China, died in late January after falling out of a helicopter. Burnhart has now held onto the transitory position of world’s most elderly longer than his last 38 predecessors, most of whom died within days of being named to the post.

Burnhart credited his longevity to a regimen of exercise, healthy eating and an extensive network of friends. He said he also keeps a youthful outlook on life by staying up with the latest cultural trends, including keeping an active page on Facebook and occasionally visiting Twitter to send a message to his extensive list of 8 – no, make that 7 – followers.

“Still alive & kicking,” read one recent tweet he shared with a newspaper reporter. “Had two bowel movements since Sunday.”

Any objective assessment of Burnhart’s first 100 days would note a number of achievements that indicate he’s making progress in his agenda of continuing to live. On Day 13 as world’s oldest man, he had solid food for breakfast; on Day 37, he asked a nurse’s aide for a nickel; on Day 83, he remembered something that happened within the last 70 years.

He admitted that it’s been hard to achieve a lot of the goals he’s set out for himself in just 100 days, but asserted that he got a good start on some of the more ambitious ones. He hopes to oversee recovery of the world financial meltdown and end the war in Iraq before his term comes to an end.

“I’m like a shark. I’ve got to keep moving,” he told friends gathered for the celebration of his success yesterday. Either that, or he said “it’s getting dark, it’s very soothing.”

Burnhart’s hazel eyes danced when he talked about how his wife and family used to –

No, wait. That’s not eye dancing, that’s apparently a seizure, and he seems to have died.

 

Note: I want to say thanks to my son for contributing this idea during our dinner last night celebrating his eighteenth birthday which happens tomorrow, May 4. He’s been a great kid who’s endured a lot of hard times while still managing to be almost as funny and sarcastic as his father. Tomorrow, he starts his first day as a great adult.

Fake News: Supremes could be candidates

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 5) – White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that President Obama’s intense focus on the economy, two wars and other pressing issues will make it impossible for him to carefully consider a Supreme Court nominee to succeed retiring justice David Souter.

Gibbs told reporters in an afternoon press conference that Obama would probably outsource the selection process to a group of his fancy Hollywood friends.

Speculation immediately shifted from candidates on the U.S. Court of Appeals and elsewhere in the federal judiciary to more lightweight prospects whose name recognition might be sufficient to carry them through the tough confirmation process.

Three names that immediately rose to the top of the list were actors Judge Reinhold and Judd Hirsch, as well as creator of the animated “King of the Hill” series Mike Judge. Hirsch, veteran of the TV sitcom “Taxi,” could be a leading contender because he’s not currently working in the entertainment industry. All were seen to be on the short list because their names contained the same prefix as the word “judicial.”

Also high on the roster is actor Jude Law, considered a “two-fer” due to his last name. However, the fact that he’s not an American citizen, and his shoddy treatment of actress Sienna Miller prior to their 2004 breakup when he had an affair with his children’s nanny, could prove to be a roadblock with conservatives on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Calls by many for a woman justice to join Ruth Bader Ginsberg, currently the Court’s only female, could be answered with the nomination of The Supremes, a popular Motown “girl group” from the 1960s. Appointing three co-justices to a single position could be of questionable constitutionality, according to some legal scholars, though having Clarence Thomas holding the same seat as his “little friend” may be cited as precedent.

The Supremes do have an expansive body of work that could complicate their confirmation hearings. For example, opponents could quote lyrics from their 1968 hit “Love Child” as evidence of a too-controversial stance on abortion.

“This love we’re contemplating is worth the pain of waiting,” they sang at the time. “We’ll only end up hating the child we may be creating.”

They may also have to recuse themselves from any case that reaches the high court on the subject of possibly illegal wiretaps. Their smash hit “Back in My Arms Again” could be viewed by some as prejudicial.

“All day long I hear my telephone ring, friends calling giving their advice. From the boy I love I should break away, ‘cause heartache he’ll bring one day,” crooned Supremes front-woman Diana Ross. “I lost him once through friends’ advice but it’s not going to happen twice. ‘Cause all advice’s ever gotten me is many long and sleepless nights. Oooo.”

One additional name being mentioned frequently in Hollywood is that of Paula Abdul, currently on the bench of the four-judge panel of “American Idol,” yet seen as someone who would be willing to make the largely lateral move to Washington. Not only would her appointment please those calling for another female justice, but her background as an extreme Muslim jihadist could dovetail nicely with Obama’s history.

“Her opinions are already widely known from her years on television,” said one observer. “They may seem like ranting and raving to many, but it’s that vagueness that could be so appealing to those who would oppose an activist judicial philosophy. She’d make a real unpredictable swing vote in some of those 5-4 decisions we’ve seen in recent years.”

Time for the annual physical

Last week, I underwent that periodic humiliation known as the annual physical. Like the cautious, prudent 50-something guy I am, I trooped off to my doctor’s office with the proper forms filled out in advance, my insurance preauthorization in place, and my stomach growling like an angry beast. “No food on the day of the physical,” I had been warned, but hadn’t been smart enough to think through exactly what that meant for a 2:30 appointment.

What it meant was that I was in one foul mood by the time arrived at Shiland Hills Medical Center (village motto: “just a ‘t’ short of what it’s really like to live there.”) If the purpose of the NPO order had been to test my grumpiness quotient, I was fully prepared to be off the chart. I knew from previous experience it was actually for the blood tests I’d need to undergo following the physical part of the exam, and it didn’t make me any happier when the nurse noted cheerfully “you know, you could’ve done the exam today and the blood tests on a Saturday.” Yes, and you could be doing a better job of living up to the “care” part of healthcare.

I arrived fifteen minutes early in a waiting room filled with elderly folks in wheelchairs and well-dressed young professionals. It wasn’t hard to tell the patients from the cheerleaders-turned-pharmaceutical reps — the reps had a desperately unwell look in advance of what was sure to be yet another no-sale. I signed in at the front desk, then took a seat between the only non-coughing old guy and a Newsweek magazine.

As soon as I got comfortable reading the latest news on hunger in Africa (growl), the receptionist called me forward. I sheepishly passed those who had obviously been waiting longer and more desperately needed to see a doctor and approached the desk.

“Has your insurance coverage changed since your last visit?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” I replied. “It’s much worse now.”

She took my card, made a copy and buzzed me through to the hallowed inner sanctum. A nurse greeted me just inside, asked how I was (still hungry) and escorted me to the scales. I weighed in at a trim two-oh-migod and was then taken to examining room number eleven, my personal favorite because of a particularly well-rendered watercolor landscape therein. She took my temperature, then affixed the blood pressure cuff to my upper arm and puffed away until she heard something important in her stethoscope. She read out some numbers – I think it was like 400 over 12 – but didn’t tell me if this was good, bad or indifferent. I assumed it meant I was alive.

She left me alone on the finely tissued examining table for just a few minutes before the doctor arrived. Dr. Jackson has been my personal physician (gee, that makes me sound important) for as long as I can remember, and has always treated me well. We exchange handshakes, which I wish were our only physical contact, as well as brief small talk before the prodding begins.

The actual mechanics of the exam always seems a little too cursory to me. He pulls out his little keychain penlight and peers into my throat, my eyes, my ears, every head-based orifice except the nostrils of my nose. I’m not real sure what he expects to find in these recesses, but I’d love to surprise him some time with perhaps a coin or an insect. He thumps my chest, listening to my deep breathing with a nicely feigned interest. After a quick caress of my neck to see if I have glands and lymph nodes, it’s time to drop the trousers and pry into the nether fissures (mine, not his). I won’t belabor these details here; suffice it to say we talked sports the entire time.

We occasionally encounter each other at the Y, so he told how he had changed his exercise routine lately, moving his running indoors to a treadmill because of the effect outdoor concrete was having on his knees. He said he was trying to reduce his speed a little and go more for endurance, as he had recently realized the drive and determination that had gotten him through medical school 30 years ago was wearing him out now that he was in his fifties. He was also trying to eat a little better, no more fast foods on the way home from being on-call at the hospital. I noted that I too exercised, and he thought that was nice.

We talked about the drugs I’m currently taking, whether or not I needed to continue them and if I needed any refills. He sat there dutifully writing out prescriptions for cholesterol and insomnia medicine, almost like a waiter taking my order for a chicken finger appetizer (hold the honey mustard sauce; I’m trying to lose a few pounds). I had the feeling that if I mentioned problems I was having with stress and reality, he would’ve gladly scribbled out a script for heroin. I almost regret not having given it a shot.

Finally we were done and he walked me down the hall to the laboratory, where I’d have various sera drawn and examined. With the lack of food for the previous 18 hours starting to affect my judgment, I was momentarily tempted to have fun with the lab workers. I could either squeeze a little extra blood from my still-dripping vein into the urine sample I was providing, or sneak a little pee into my blood vial. Or maybe I’d cross them up entirely and leave a five-dollar bill in the urine collection jar; that’d be funny.

Now it was time for checkout. There were at least a dozen nurses back there (I think of them all as nurses but I’m sure they were really just insurance specialists, collection agents and people in charge of not getting crushed by the rolling vertical files) yet still I had to wait in a short line. The signs warned me to stand back, so I wouldn’t infringe on the privacy of people like the lady in front of me, who unfortunately had something called watermelon stomach, no insurance and a detectable stench. When my turn arrived, I reminded the cashier I had no co-pay, which sounds like a good thing but just means I have to pay later.

At last I was freed from the medical establishment, judged relatively healthy and able to eat. There’s a Burger King conveniently right next door to Shiland Medical, and I must admit I had the chicken fingers.

Fake News: Obamas’ stroll debated

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 6) – Women across the country applauded President Obama’s “date night out” with first lady Michelle Obama this past weekend, with many commentators noting that it was “the cutest thing.”

Meanwhile, men across the country condemned the president’s outing with his wife for making them “look bad” and for what they see as a further intrusion of federal government into everyday life.

Obama and his spouse of 18 years dined for nearly two hours at a posh Georgetown restaurant Saturday during their first evening out since arriving in Washington in January. When their motorcade returned to White House, they began strolling on the South Lawn, passing by the West Wing and then their children’s swing set. They kept walking, swinging their hands together as Secret Service agents stood in the distance.

“Aren’t they just the most darling couple?” asked Marianne Herbert, 45, a software engineer and mother of two from suburban McLean, Virginia. “You can tell they’re still deeply in love after all these years. I’m a staunch Republican and disagree profoundly with him on just about every policy issue I can think of, but you’ve got to admit he’s a tender and loving gentleman.”

Herbert’s husband, Allan, who considers himself a Democrat and supporter of the administration, had a different view of the time the First Couple spent lingering over dinner followed by the now-famous stroll.

“Two hours for dinner? That’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Herbert, a consultant with a government defense contractor. “I’d be calling for the check and the takeout boxes after 45 minutes. Did he have a coupon? I bet he didn’t even have a coupon.”

Other women, both those in the media and elsewhere, wondered how a commander in chief with the weight of the world on his shoulders could find time for a quiet night out with his wife when their lazy excuse for a husband could barely be budged from the couch to take out the garbage.

“You’ve got to give the man credit,” said conservative blogger and pro-family advocate Anne Ross. “That was so considerate of him to woo her like that. It’s nice to see that some women aren’t being taken for granted despite years spent together in a relationship.”

“Woo, schmoo,” countered Anthony Morolli, a fellow at the Harvard-based think tank Guys for a More Guy-centric America. “He was pandering directly to female voters at the expense of men who have endured long hours dealing with all that crap at work. They spend the day talking in meetings and presentations and sales calls, and all they want when they get home is to rest their ears and rest their yaps.”

Harold Mesa, 37, a truck driver from Raleigh, N.C., said he thought the postprandial stroll was “really piling it on.”

“I spend all day sitting in the cab of an 18-wheeler, and I know that you have to occasionally stretch your legs,” Mesa said. “But I would do a couple of quick toe-touches or maybe a few extra amphetamines. ‘Strolling’ with the old lady – whether she’s first or last or somewhere in between – isn’t even worth consideration for most of the boys down at the depot.”

“You shouldn’t listen to him. He’s an idiot,” said Mesa’s wife, Arlene. “Harry doesn’t even have a coherent policy on the drawdown of troop levels in Iraq. You couldn’t expect him to have a caring thought about how his wife feels.”

“Don’t get me started,” the burly driver replied. “You’re not bringing up that whole Iraq thing again, are you? We’ve been over that a million times, woman.”

“Oh, go screw yourself,” countered Mrs. Mesa.

Website Review: AssaultRifles.com

Sarah Palin was in the news again the other day when it was announced she’d be speaking at the National Rifle Association’s annual banquet later this month, and would be receiving a very special gift. A small firm called Templar Consulting has “crafted” a customized weapon that Palin will be able to take back to Alaska to encourage that pesky would-be son-in-law to do right by her daughter.

They don’t have shotgun weddings in the Great Wild North. They have AR-15 military-style assault rifles chambered in ought-fifty Beowulf weddings. And they have them now.

On May 14, the NRA Foundation will give Palin the “Alaskan Hunter,” a civilian version of the M-4 rifle carried by U.S. troops overseas. It’s engraved with Palin’s name and a map of her state on its collapsible stock, which was made legal only after the assault weapons ban expired in 2004 (the stock was made legal; not Palin, not Alaska, and certainly not her daughter). The Big Dipper from the state flag is etched onto the magazine. The gun – if that word does it justice – is the same caliber used by heavy machine guns which can take down big game or, in war zones, can disable both assailants with body armor and motor vehicles.

The rifle was assembled using custom components by Templar owner Bob Reynolds, and will come with 50 rounds of custom “solids,” which I guess are something like bullets but perhaps with a nougat center. “Gov. Palin stood up and announced that she was a supporter of the Second Amendment, and I was really excited about that,” said Reynolds. “I just wanted to do something to give back. And since the governor lives in Alaska, I thought .50 Beowulf was appropriate.”

Never mind that Alaska is the forty-ninth state, not the fiftieth. You don’t want to be arguing with this guy. I’m a little nervous joking about him, even from the safety of the blogosphere. I don’t want to go out to my driveway some morning and find out that he’s shot my car.

I was curious about this Templar Consulting firm though. I’ve dealt with some bad consultants in my day but none so awful that they could cut you in half with a one-second barrage of high-caliber ammo. So I thought I’d choose templarconsultingllc.com for my Website Review this week.

As you might imagine, it’s a fairly simple, all-business kind of website. Templar only offers a select variety of products, which include custom firearms, custom DuraCoat patterning and “personal defence training” (I’m pretty sure “defence” is a typo rather than the British spelling, considering they’re located in Apex, N.C.).

The home page features pictures of two very attractive armaments. There’s the Designated Marksman Rifle, a 28-inch barrel model that starts at $3100. It has a forged upper receiver, a billet lower with integrated trigger guard, a Magpul stock and a 9/16×24 flash hider. And there’s the Special Purpose Rifle, starting at $2100, which comes with a Danial defense rail, the ErgoAmbi soft grip, a tactical sling and a phosphate M16 bolt carrier. I can only assume that all these are features you’d want in high-quality killing machines, just like I assume that what they mean by “special purpose rifle” is “will blow your freaking head off.”

There’s also a pulldown for what are called precision rifle components. I think these might be the cute little tripods you see rifles propped up on, much like those used by the prone green army men I played with in my youth. Pictured is the 6.5 Grendel model, above the caption “if you can see it, you can hit it!” It comes with some very impressive ballistic coefficients, including the almost unbelievable 7.62mm M118LR 175gr:BC=0.496. No, I didn’t just whack the keyboard with my bagel; these are the actual specs.

The training section of the site doesn’t give many details, as I imagine classroom instruction pales in comparison to the prospect of buying these magnificent weapons. “We conduct training in armed and unarmed personal defense. We teach North Carolina concealed handgun carry classes,” it says without much enthusiasm. “Call for details.”

Probably the coolest thing I found was the section on custom gun coatings. The certified DuraCoat finish that Templar offers is a two-part coating that was created specifically for firearms. There are over 130 colors to choose from, and you can combine your color choice with a stencil pattern and finish that “will protect your firearm while it protects you.” What makes this part so interesting is the two photos: there’s an all-pink pistol engraved with a peace sign and the phrase “give my piece a chance,” and there’s a gun pointing straight at the viewer with a cheery sunburst design radiating out from the muzzle. If this fanciful graphic is the last thing you see in this life, it doesn’t seem like such a bad way to go.

There’s not much more to the website than a few predictable links. Of course, there’s a connection to NRA.org. Through this, you can fill out a form to join the group for as little as $35 a year, or you can pay $1,000 for a lifetime membership, which doesn’t seem like such a great bargain for people who spend their days playing with rifles. You can also sign up to become a recruiter, but the web filter at my work that keeps us safe from YouTube, eBay and Facebook gave me the big red “halt” hand and the message “access denied!” I suppose it does make sense to keep people on the constant brink of layoffs from such an obvious temptation to gun violence.

So if you’re interested in obtaining some high-powered weaponry, or perhaps already have a pretty good collection but want to spruce it up with splashes of color other than blood red, I would urge you to check out the offerings at templarconsultingllc.com. The all-white piece going to Governor Sarah – described by the New York Daily News as “fashionable until Labor Day” – is only available when a second version will be auctioned during the NRA banquet.

To hear the NRA site tell it, you better act now before President Obama starts revoking the Constitution.

Direct mail from the Lord

The following letter arrived recently at a vacant house near me.

Greetings in Jesus’ name to someone in this home who needs God’s help!

God has laid your address on my heart. I just feel that someone at this address needs prayer for God’s help. Could this be you?

We are a group of praying people who have experienced something so beautiful in our lives that we just have to tell others how happy we are. Our reason for being on this earth to help people in every way we can.

We have prayed over every word in this letter before MAILING IT TO YOUR ADDRESS. WE FELT THE HOLY SPIRIT LEADING US TO PRAY FOR SOMEONE AT THIS ADDRESS AND TO MAIL THIS BEAUTIFUL, BLESSED, GOLDEN, METAL PROSPERITY CROSS TO YOU. IT IS FREE! Do not send any money for it.

It is a beautiful piece of Christian jewelry that can last a lifetime. You can wear it around your neck or just carry it with you. We have prayed over it, according to St. Matthew 18:19. It is beautiful, and you will just love yours. If you ever lose it, we will replace it free of charge, regardless of how many times you lose it. It is designed for Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Catholics and others. Even if you do not go to church, please write. For more than 58 years, I have been a minister. I want to pray for you and be a blessing to you.

DO YOU NEED HELP? DO YOU NEED PRAYER? ARE YOU TROUBLED? ARE YOU LONELY? DO YOU NEED A CONTINUOUS FLOW OF MONEY BLESSINGS? By faith, I want to mail this GOLDEN CROSS OF PROSPERITY to you. As I have mentioned, do not send money for this cross, or the other SPIRITUAL GIFT THAT WE WANT TO SEND YOU. THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE!

Please complete the enclosed postcard. If you have a prayer request, just check this card, letting me know that you desire prayer. As soon as we receive this postcard back from you, we will mail your free Prosperity Cross, which has been prayed over, to you. We will also pay for the postage for you.

Please read the beautiful testimonials from people just like you. They have been truly blessed with more love, joy, peace and more money. They have been greatly blessed because they have started praying this “Holy Bible way!”

There is so much for you to enjoy in life when you look to Jesus Christ as your total Answer. God put you on this earth for a reason. He wants to bless you and meet your spiritual, physical and financial needs. Remember, God loves you.

This letter is from the heart of a minister who has been preaching the Bible and helping people for over half a century and who loves Jesus Christ with all of his heart. I want to help you with any problems you may be facing, just as we have helped so many others through prayer. Write for your free prosperity cross today! DO NOT SEND ANY MONEY FOR IT. IT IS FREE. We just want to be a blessing to you. In a few days after we receive your postcard, you will be receiving your beautiful Prosperity Cross and another spiritual gift that we believe will be a blessing to you for a lifetime, especially financially. We believe in God’s blessing, based on the Bible (St. John 5:14)

P.S. Read your Holy Ghost faith instructions on the enclosed sealed prophecy only after you have mailed this postcard back to the church for your blessed Deuteronomy 8:18 Prosperity Cross.

Some of the testimonials:

“God blessed me with a home and a gas station.”

“After I received the Cross God blessed me with $1,000.35. I was so far behind, I was almost broke.”

“You prayed and God healed me of cancer and then this lady passed away and left my name on her will. She left me a beautiful 7-room house, 2 automobiles (I can’t even drive) and $9,780.”

“I was in need of $2,492 for income tax. God blessed me the next day.”

“I wrote to you asking you to pray that God would bless me with a larger house. God answered my prayer by blessing me with a beautiful three-apartment building. It is called a triplex, because there are three separate apartments in it and I own them all.”

Tomorrow, I open the sealed prophecy that I’m not supposed to open until I have sent in the postcard.

Adventures in the Y locker room

I just came from the YMCA and boy am I steamed. Actually, I’m not because the steam room is broken again.

It’s a bright Saturday afternoon outside and most people with any sense are slavishly mowing their lawns in the 90-degree heat. I chose instead to catch up on my treadmill work, spending 25 minutes running in place and trying to avoid looking at the idiots hovering above me on Fox News, who also seem to be running in place (“Obama bad; something else good”). I finish a pretty decent workout and head to the locker room.

This is my least favorite part of the whole Y experience. You’d think it would be the best, since the exercise is now finished and all that’s left is a refreshing shower and the satisfaction of 1.84 miles well-run. Instead I have to worry about the denizens of the locker room and the potential interactions they might try to initiate.

Even at my best (i.e., when I’m clothed), I’m not the friendliest guy around. When I’m naked, I’m even less interested in you and your life. My motto – nude or otherwise – is “don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, don’t sense my presence or respond to it in any way.” I know it’s pretty long as personal creeds go, so I’m thinking of having it tattooed on my pale white chest. Perhaps then, I can navigate my way around the benches and mildew stains without feeling obliged to chat with the folks around me.

When I enter the locker room it seems like no one’s there. That can be a good thing, if it’s true, or a bad thing, if there’s only one other guy in there, because then it seems the temptation to initiate contact becomes overwhelming. As I round the corner to where I’ve stored my stuff, I catch a glimpse of a guy’s head lying prone on a bench in the next row over. Fortunately his body is attached just out of view, but that makes me feel only slightly less awkward. I don’t know what he’s doing lying out naked like that, and I certainly don’t want to know. I’m able to quickly hustle to my locker before he engages me.

My locker is just outside the sauna room, and I strip out of my sweaty running gear without incident. I can never tell if there’s anybody in the sauna – unless they’re loudly discussing their latest medical procedure – so I always have this feeling that I’m being watched from those dark recesses. Occasionally someone will emerge, usually wrapped in the tiniest of hand towels because the rules say you can’t be naked in there, and seek a cooling break on the bench in front of my locker. If I rattle around and sigh loudly enough while squeezing past, they’ll usually clear out, but not before leaving an unfortunate vapor impression on the varnished wood where they’ve sat. This leaves me appalled for days.

As I turn toward the shower, my towel draped strategically in front of me, another guy steps into view and we nearly collide. It’s one of the regulars, an elderly cheerful man with more sags than I’d care to be aware of. He’s almost always here at this time of day during the week, but I thought he took weekends off. I remember him from the time I pulled open the curtain after my shower and there he stood, barely able to wait his turn to climb in.

“Hah,” he drawls. “How’r you?”

“Fine,” I reply, trying to summon as much of a don’t-bother-me tone as I can. If the conversation takes that pivotal next step to something like “have a good workout?” or “nice day, isn’t it?”, there could be a public discussion breaking out between two graying, naked men, and that never turns out well for anyone.

I’m able to maneuver past him to the shower room to find that my favorite stall is already occupied. Only one of the four has the kind of ledges that let me put my shampoo up high where I can reach it and has a step down low to prop my legs while drying them. It also has an easily managed faucet handle, unlike the other three which can be bumped while drying your hair, turning the water back on. There’s the open-floor design of a shower room available as well as this aging club’s excuse for a Jacuzzi (a bathtub), although those are out of the question for reasons that should be obvious to all.

I use one of the faulty showers without too much difficulty, careful to stay inside the three-wall enclosure to dry as much of myself as I can still reach before emerging. When I do, I can overhear a conversation taking place in the corner of the room. It sounds like Sagging Man has managed to ensnare Head Man into a discussion.

“Is your mother still alive?” the older man asks, mindful I guess of yesterday’s holiday.

“No,” says the other guy quietly. “She passed just last year.”

See, this is why you should avoid banter with strangers. You never know when an innocent remark is going to trigger a flood of emotions that you don’t have the psychiatric training to deal with. But that doesn’t stop Sagging Guy; he plunges ahead.

“Mah mother died 60 years ago,” he notes not too surprisingly, considering she’d be well into her 140s if she’d survived to today.

“I’m so sorry,” Head Man says. He sounds like he’s shuffling away as I hear his slippers flapping through the room. To continue the talk with an additional response – something like “life is fleeting” or “was she executed?” – seems obviously fruitless to both parties. I finally see Head Man in all his glory arriving at the sink; lathering up his scalp for a quick shave makes him look even more bizarre than he did earlier. The skimpy black briefs that kept him compliant with Y rules in the sauna are pitifully inadequate in the light of day, and I look away.

I hustle back to my locker to get dressed and get the hell out of there. I watch carefully to make sure the maintenance guy isn’t working somewhere nearby. There’s a fire exit door just down a short hallway from where I’m dressing, and the janitor has been known to open that door for a breath of fresh air. He doesn’t consider that the Y’s daycare playground is just outside, and the potential there is to turn innocent but exposed men like me into accidental sex offenders. Trust me, there’s nothing quite as startling to someone just out of the shower as the curious faces of several six-year-olds gazing down from the top of a slide.

I dress like a quick-change artist, gather my damp things and make for the door. I can’t help but wonder if I’ve burned more calories worrying through this awkward postlude than I ever burn on the treadmill.

Direct-mail prophecy from the Lord

Yesterday, I posted the contents of a direct-mail solicitation that was received at a vacant house near mine. It contained an introductory letter (mostly capital letters, actually) about how the occupant of this home had been specially selected for redemption, if only they’d return a postcard. There was also a special, customized, sealed prophecy that you were only to open once you had returned the postcard.

Today, I reprint the warning on the outside of the prophecy, the prophecy itself, and some contents of the postcard. If you get tired of the preachy part, skip to the end and “check out” the handy checklist of things to be prayed for on the postcard.

Warning:

IMPORTANT – Only break open this sealed prophecy after you have put this postcard and your prayer requests back in the mail to this 58-year-old church ministry. If for any reason you are not going to return this Church Prayer Card then this sacred philosophy must be destroyed — unopened and unread — because this is a sacred, spiritual prophecy, sealed word, concerning you and your future. Please do not open these prophecies until after you have sent your Prayer Card back in the mail before sunset tomorrow, or the next day. God will help you do this.

Prophecy:

These “Prophetic Words” are given through inspiration of the Holy Spirit to help you be aware of blessing changes coming into your life. People are hungry for spiritual guidance. Unfortunately many are turning to the wrong place. Psychics, mediums and clairvoyants have no place in God’s plan for your life. The only true source of information about the future is God’s word and his Holy Spirit prophecy is not given to make you curious about the future, but to motivate you to live for God today. Prophecy is a frequent theme in the Bible and a solid foundation of our faith. As you read this prophetic word, your faith can be stimulated and strengthened, and your spirit can be infused in a divine manner. Tell us if this is you and your life or not.

PROPHETIC WORD GIVEN FOR YOUR SPIRITUAL EDIFICATION

My child, receive in your heart and spirit these words for time is moving quickly. I have revealed to you that there is a greater purpose in your life than you have yet discovered. It is my purpose that many mysteries be opened to you. No mystery can be withheld from the mind that is open to my spirit.

Even now you are facing a decision that must be made. My spirit is at work instilling in you a new, greater understanding in the way I am directing you. There are many things which you need to know, but this can only come through your careful, consistent and persistent communication with me.

It is time for you to set new goals in your life. You cannot be happy with life unchanged. The new goals I am helping you establish can remove apathy. You are being set free from the feeling of inadequacy, and a new enthusiasm is being created. This may, in turn, release and regenerate power into your spirit.

The power to speak blessings into you own life is in you. You must discover the ways to use this power. As you daily seek me in prayer, understanding of the gifts in you will come forth, and the evidence of this will become apparent to those around you.

Due to my spirit working in you, greater control of the present and future plans can be at your fingertips. You may feel inner power growing because of your closeness to me. New boldness is being birthed even now. As you are obedient to my instruction, my spirit will create in you awareness of which steps to take and which steps you should not take, concerning plans you have made and those you are still to make. I will direct your steps, and the path I lead you on can take you away from those who would damage the plans I have for you and take you toward the path that leads to the fulfillment you seek. (Editor’s Note: What??)

My dear child, I have much joy planned for you. As you remain faithful in your seed sowing into my kingdom, surely you shall be blessed. Be not weary in well doing, for you shall have your promised reward. I say unto you, meditate on these things I have said, for you shall see them with your own eyes (Joel 2:28,29). Amen.

Postcard:

Dear Prayer Family: Yes, I do want prayer for my needs (checked below) and, please mail me one of those GOLDEN PROSPERITY FAITH CROSSES FREE OF CHARGE.

• Pray for my finances
• I need a job
• Pray for my blood pressure
• Pray for me to be saved
• I’m saved but I need a closer walk with Jesus
• Pray for me, I’m worried
• Pray for my loved ones
• Pray for me to receive a continuous money blessing
• List other needs you have

Fake News Briefs: Media distortions

Liberal mainstream media assailed

Conservative watchdog groups stepped up their criticism of the so-called mainstream media yesterday, following a weekend they said was filled with “distortions and misrepresentations.”

Pointing specifically at the coverage of certain long-running armed conflicts, a spokesman complained that portrayals were “skewed to favorably show the socialist belief that government intervention is the answer to every problem.”

“I found the way our servicemen and women were being shown in their fight against evil to be very prejudicial,” said Bennie Jones of the Media Fairness Project. “Those merciless Romulans aren’t just holding a different opinion than ours. They’re unrepentantly bad creatures.”

Jones claimed that viewers all over the country were subjected to assertions that America could not hold its own against intergalactic terrorists, and needed instead to rely on a federation – “probably the United Nations,” he said – to counter the threat posed by pinecone-shaped spaceships. He also claimed that injecting a giant fiery drill into the earth’s core, filling it with red matter and creating a black hole that would swallow San Francisco, was “not that bad an idea, and shouldn’t be so readily dismissed by the liberal elite.”

“The Hollywood crowd would have us believe the gay agenda, coming largely out of California, is merely a different lifestyle,” Jones said. “My group would counter that creatures from Deep Space rightly see this as an aberrant life form that needs to be destroyed.”

Jones also questioned media portrayals shown this weekend which indicated that waterboarding could be considered torture rather than merely an enhanced interrogation technique. Scenes shown over and over again since late Thursday depict a “Captain Pike” lying in a tub while being tormented by his captor. When Jones was told that Pike was actually an American, he commented “oh” and tentatively withdrew that criticism.

“Well then, there was that scene where the commander appears before the group who is supposed to be holding him accountable, and instead he’s cheered and commended,” Jones said. “How can he be held responsible for his actions by people who think he should be hailed as a hero?”

“Actually, Bennie probably has a point with that one,” said James Hendrick of the liberal People for the American Way. “That White House Press Corps dinner really was way over the top.”

Miss California status still uncertain

Officials with the Miss USA California organization declined yesterday to issue an order that would remove Miss California’s crown, choosing instead to leave the decision up to pageant owner Donald Trump. Meanwhile, a seven-judge panel at the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house of Florida State University did vote for the removal of the beauty queen’s evening gown, swimsuit, and any other attire she might be wearing.

Carrie Prejean has been under intense scrutiny from pageant executives because of photos taken of her while she was a 17-year-old model. She has also been widely criticized for comments made during the recent Miss USA pageant, where she finished second, that were perceived to be against gay marriage. She’s also risking disqualification for agreeing to serve as a spokesperson for the National Association for Marriage.

“Oh, man, I would so like to tap that,” said Aaron Boskin, president of the FSU fraternity. “She’s way hotter than the winner and, since she’s not the official representative of the pageant anyway, I think she should feel free to stop by the house here and take off all her clothes. Not just the stupid crown – who cares about that?”

In a related story, other representatives of the wiseacre community are speculating that Prejean may have an even more checkered past than already revealed. Some are claiming that her name – which in French means “used to be John” – is a clue to even  more extensive surgery than she has already admitted.

One report has surfaced on the notoriously unreliable blog “hottiemax” that the 22-year-old college student suffered from a botched sex-change surgery in 2003. Allegedly, John’s testes were absorbed into the body instead of being removed, then traveled through her bloodstream until they lodged near her sternum, becoming inflamed. Every other reliable source familiar with the beauty queen says this story is a complete fabrication; however, that doesn’t matter because the false claim is so much more interesting and plus, as was already mentioned, it appeared on a blog.

Those three magic words

We had just come back from a pleasant Mother’s Day afternoon spent at an Indian restaurant and a matinee showing of “Star Trek.” My wife and son and I were settling in for a relaxing Sunday evening of domestic tranquility, lounging in the living room, sipping soft drinks and enjoying each other’s company. Suddenly, from across the room I hear that phrase I’ve heard so many times in the past.

“I told you…”

Oh, I should also mention that I had put my Pepsi on the bookshelf right above our expensive loveseat, and one of the cats knocked it over onto me and the upholstery.

Sure enough, I had been told for the thousandth time that this was a bad place to put a carbonated beverage. But I had not listened to past warnings from my beloved spouse – or if I was listening, I wasn’t paying attention – and once again I was correctly being chastised like so many husbands deserve every day.

Those three little words form more of a foundation for many modern marriages than the more endearing combination that substitutes “love” for “told.” I do indeed love my wife and can show you the Mother’s Day card that says so. If I hadn’t met her over 30 years ago and somehow convinced her to spend her life with me, I hesitate to think what I would’ve become. I suspect I’d be pursuing a social pathology that would eventually land me on television, and not the good kind like the evening news but the bad kind like a reality show. She’s made me a happy man.

However, I don’t make things easy for her with my poor listening. I’m not sure why me and so many of my fellow men have such a difficult time with this most critical of marital skills. (Well, one of the most critical anyway.) Husbands and wives seem to have evolved in slightly different directions from the ancestors who relied on their acute sense of hearing to survive predators and hunt our own food. Men apparently think listening became unnecessary as civilization advanced, sort of like the vestigial tail or Duane “The Rock” Johnson.

Recorded history never would’ve been recorded if our ancient spouses hadn’t encouraged us to write things down if we were going to be so damn forgetful. The annals of time would not be documented so that later generations could learn from previous ones. All the science and mathematics and philosophy of our forbearers, the predecessors to today’s grocery lists and appointment calendars, would be lost. And then we can’t even remember to put orange juice and toaster strudel on there.

I’ve tried several defenses of my thick-headedness yet they always seem so inadequate. Still, I thought I’d pass these on to other husbands who might be out there looking to somehow justify their inexcusable thoughtlessness.

Let me start with one that you’d think might work but actually tends to backfire disastrously. I’ve tried contending that it’s because I’m so relaxed and comfortable in my wife’s presence that I tend to “veg out” and allow entire sentences to float in one ear and out the other. Everywhere else I have to be on constant guard to make sure my surroundings aren’t trying to harm me – be they oncoming 18-wheelers or supervisors looking for a volunteer for the safety committee. In my home, however, I can rest at ease.

Unfortunately, I’ve found that this can also be called taking someone for granted. And this is not somewhere you want to take anybody you care for.

I’ve also tried citing a technique I learned in my days as a corporate trainer that’s known as “just-in-time.” Under this manufacturing philosophy, materials and other inputs are not brought forward to the production line until they’re needed. Applied to verbal interactions, this means that information necessary to do something – remembering to pick up your child after school or changing the air conditioner filter – is not tapped into until the action is ready to be performed. So if “I told you” to stop leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor, this instruction has to be conveyed while you’re still dripping, not at dozens of other times since at least 1980.

This one also doesn’t work very well.

Two other arguments related to each other can have some effectiveness as you approach your senior years. These are the hearing-loss justification and the Alzheimer’s cover. Blaming your poor listening on the deterioration of your cochlea is a risky maneuver, considering a quick exam by a medical professional can cost you not only what seems like a good excuse but a $35 co-pay as well. Alzheimer’s is much harder to prove, and all but the most insistent spouses will stop short of demanding a post-mortem brain autopsy to prove your inattention is disease-related. Raising the specter of potentially debilitating conditions is a pretty cynical card to play just to maintain your reputation, so I’d use it sparingly.

Finally, I’ll mention the Dave Bedingfield rationalization. Dave was a close friend of mine back in college and we spent many long hours together alternating between coma and watching Atlanta Braves baseball (not really all that different when you think about it). He is now a respected legal scholar and barrister in England, but in the seventies even he would describe himself as a worthless, no-good, irresponsible excuse for humanity. If he missed an appointment, lost the mix tape he borrowed or otherwise failed to act in good faith on agreements you had made with him earlier, it was understandable because it was widely known he couldn’t be counted on. “I know,” he’d say before you could make the suggestion yourself. “I’m an idiot.”

Unfortunately, most women recognize passive-aggressiveness on this grand scale and simply won’t stand for it. If you make too strong an argument about what a jerk you are, there’s the risk that you’ll call into doubt her judgment in choosing you for a lifemate, or that she’ll simply agree about your depravity and start separation proceedings.

In the end, I’d have to say that the best way to parry the “I told you” accusation is, unfortunately, to actually start listening. Watch her lips and hear her words. Write notes on your forearm. Carry a PDA. Repeat the message over and over to yourself until the mumbling resonates in your brain like the euro-beat classic “Come On Eileen”. Realize that you’re always going to be the insensitive oaf and your wife is going to be the patient but stern adult.

(Thanks, Dave, and if you’re out there somewhere, send me an email. I might need some advice.)

 

Fake News: More cereals under scrutiny

WASHINGTON (May 13) – The Food and Drug Administration is continuing its crusade against inaccurate claims made by the makers of popular breakfast cereals. Most, it appears, are neither food nor drugs.

In April, Kellogg was slapped on the wrist for asserting in national advertising that Frosted Mini-Wheats are “clinically shown to improve kids’ attention spans by nearly 20 percent.” The study compared children who ate Mini-Wheats against a test group who ate nothing at all for breakfast. “Compared to a kid who’s on the verge of fainting,” noted the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, “anybody seems attentive.”

This week, General Mills was told to remove wording from its Cheerios packaging suggesting that the cereal “can lower your cholesterol four percent in six weeks,” which is roughly equivalent to a blood-letting.

Now it appears other cereals will be under the scrutiny of the feds for false or misleading portrayals in their names, advertising or packages. Among those expected to be cited:

• Grape Nuts, which does not in fact make you crazy
• Frosted Flakes, which does nothing to add highlighting to your hair
• Cap’n Crunch, which does nothing to provide you with the rank or benefits of a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy
• Apple Jacks, which don’t in fact contain any apples or apple-shaped byproducts
• Mueslix, which despite its name contains no phlegm
• Sugar Smacks, shown in laboratory tests to be almost 100% lacking in heroin
• Trix, which have never been shown to be offered during the commission of prostitution
• Lucky Charms, which contain neither small metal trinkets nor leprechaun fragments
• Cocoa Puffs, which cannot be rolled in cigarette papers and smoked
• Corn Chex, which are not the product of any known Slavic peoples
• Fruit ‘n’ Fibre, which contains no apostrophes nor other small punctuation marks, though some of the specks may reflect equally troubling waste matter
• Honey Bunches of Oaks, which contain no trees
• Shredded Wheat, which are completely deficient in mangled limbs
• Special K, which contains no nutrition that can be directly linked to Kaye Ballard, Danny Kaye, or Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

 

Website Review: VegasWedding.com

The flighty young woman in our graphics department sent out an intriguing email last week. Candi, who improbably mixes post-punk fashion sense and an extremely conservative political philosophy, is “gettin’ married!!!” In that traditional home of family values known as Las Vegas, no less.

“If you want to watch, you can go online and see me get married on the web feed. Crazazy!” she writes.

We’re instructed to go to www.702wedding.com, click on “view live weddings,” then navigate to the “Wedding Chapel”.

“That’s it! Hooray!” she concludes. I can almost see her angular face grinning from skull earring to skull earring. “Hooray again!!!”

I visited the site, known more conventionally as Vegas Weddings, to mercilessly mock the joining of man and woman in holy matri-za-mony for my weekly Website Review.

The home page is a busy place, showing a variety of packages designed to make your special day as memorable as that drunken weekend where you lost $3500 on slot machines, if only you could remember it. Vegas Weddings describes itself as a “5-star wedding planning service and full-service Las Vegas wedding chapel.”

“But don’t feel limited by our walls. We are able to plan weddings just about anywhere in or surrounding Las Vegas, including the Grand Canyon.” I wonder if “anywhere” would include such Western landmarks as Death Valley and Hoover Dam, and if the Hoover might be too obvious a request from most grooms. I want to ask, can you get hitched at the Four Corners of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, with the husband standing in two states and the wife in two? How about the Shady Lady Ranch, one of Nevada’s legalized brothels? We’ll get to my questions later.

Featured wedding packages come in four budget tiers – the Ignite, which unabashedly also calls itself a “cheap Vegas wedding”; the Dream, a slightly pricier option; the Intrigue, as in “I wonder how we’re going to afford this one”; and the Valley of Fire, which is an outdoor ceremony in the Mojave Desert, or maybe the bride’s STD.

Included in the cheap option is a limousine ride, traditional wedding music, a bouquet for the bride, internet broadcast of the ceremony, and use of a bridal suite, so you don’t have to slip into your gown in the gas station bathroom next door.

The Valley of Fire wedding has all of the above, plus that extra bit of excitement that comes from being joined together in nuptial bliss in one of the most hostile environments on earth. If it makes things any more comfortable, you can throw in Native American traditions like the Apache Wedding Prayer (“hunga hoona atwa watha” goes the best part) or a rain stick, not widely available since the Discovery Stores went out of business.

Another very popular option is the Elvis wedding. You don’t actually marry the King – some say he’s dead anyway – but instead you can have him do things like sing, swivel his hips, and pick you up in his pink Cadillac, then come to your honeymoon suite after the service and collapse next to your toilet with his spangly silver suit bunched around his ankles. “The charge for Elvis may vary,” warns the website, though the going rate is generally about $250.

If you want a little less drama than an oily impersonator with identity issues, there’s also the “Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding/Vow Renewal.” This package somehow incorporates your sacred rite into an interactive, hilarious Off-Broadway show about a wild Italian wedding. It’s not clear whether you simply sit in an audience or actually have to mingle with these rowdy Latins; to me, either sounds incredibly painful.

For the hard-core skinflints and those who think tacky is ironically cool, you can also choose from a drive-through or walk-up wedding. The Love in the Fast Lane choice for $199 is a limousine-based offering that comes with a souvenir wedding scroll. The Lover’s Lane is similar but you have to provide your own vehicle. The Express Lane wedding is probably performed over a speaker box and offers numbered combos, including the “I do” and the “I do with curly fries.”

Speaking of transportation, the high end of the spectrum has a private ceremony performed on a helicopter flying high “over the glitz of Las Vegas’ neon lights from the best vantage point available – the sky!” You’re provided with flowers, a bride’s garter and glass champagne flutes that you can throw out the window at all the waddling losers below. There’s nothing that beats the ambience of vows shouted above the mechanical whirr of a Pratt & Whitney Twin Pac engine. The flight is limited to a party of two and one of them can’t be Elvis because of FAA weight limitations.

Finally, I thought I’d mention what are called the add-ons, an a la carte menu of selections. Two of the most intriguing are a singing harpist and a white dove release. The harpist is referred to only as Ms. Blanc, and the “vibration of her strings and her elegant poise behind the harp creates enchantment not easily forgotten.” She plays standards, ballads, jazz (on the harp?), show tunes and classical music, and has performed for many notables in the New York area. The actual list of these includes Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher, Elizabeth Taylor and Ralph Macchio. Which of these is not like the other?

The white dove release represents love, peace, fidelity, prosperity and a trip to the dry cleaner’s for most of the attendees. “These amazing creatures are expected to circle overhead a few times allowing everybody to fully admire their beauty,” directs the promo. “The doves are treated well and return home safely.” You can also contract for a monarch butterfly release, but any other animals involved in your marriage will be strictly confined, including the groom.

Though this very informative and jam-packed website did contain a lot of helpful information, I did have a few questions, and took advantage of the live chat offered on the home page. I was greeted by “wedding coordinator Stephanie,” whose name was Rhonda. “How can I help you?” she asked.

“Just wanted to get some basic info before getting too far with plans,” I wrote. “You do any events other than weddings?”

“No, just weddings,” said Rhonda. “But we can help arrange facilities.”

“My friend wanted me to ask about same-sex weddings,” I lied.

“We don’t do same-sex,” she wrote after a significant pause, perhaps starting to suspect a prankster.

“What if I wanted to marry my dishwasher?” I asked.

I got no response except for a “chat session closed” message.

Hey, maybe I’m a rich guy with an extensive household staff, and I’ve fallen head over heels in love with the unassuming young kitchen worker who against all odds captured my attention and affection. Don’t judge me by thinking I’m just a wise guy looking to spice up his web post a little. After all, this is supposed to be a Vegas wedding, where fantasies come true.

The liquid soap will get you every time

I think I sat next to this person on a flight to India one time:

(AP) — United Airlines diverted a flight bound to London after an incoherent and disruptive passenger, apparently woozy from a combination of pills, alcohol and lavatory hand soap, allegedly tried to bite a flight attendant in the leg.

Galina Rusanova, a British citizen, was charged with interference with a flight crew and assault for disrupting United flight 934 from Los Angeles to London Heathrow Airport on April 29, forcing the plane to land in Maine. She could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Fearful of flying, Rusanova had taken four sleeping pills and consumed two or three bottles of red wine to calm her nerves, according to a statement she made to FBI special agent James McCarty.

About three hours into the flight, a United flight attendant said she found Rusanova with her feet on her in-flight food tray, kicking the seat in front of her. Rusanova, who appeared to be very intoxicated according to a court filing, requested more wine and then fell asleep.

A short time later, the same United crew member was told by passengers that Rusanova was incoherent and bothering fellow travelers.

As she approached, she saw Rusanova “drink a bottle of liquid soap that she had apparently removed from the bathroom,” according to the court document.

A melee ensued as flight attendants tried to subdue Rusanova and move her to a flight crew member’s seat at the rear of the cabin, where she was eventually handcuffed.

During that process Rusanova allegedly threw punches, kicked and pushed crew members. At one point, she fell to the floor of the galley in the rear of the aircraft and began “snapping like a dog,” trying to bite a flight attendant’s leg, according to the filing.

In a Monday hearing before a U.S. District Court in Bangor, Maine, Rusanova waived her right to a detention hearing and agreed to be detained pending trial.

Rusanova is described by the British press as a Russian-born artist, actress and author who rubs elbows with the rich and famous. She was returning home to the United Kingdom after traveling to California to visit a man she had met over the Internet, according to court documents.

“Obviously, it’s a case that’s gathered some attention,” said Matthew Erickson, her attorney. “What wasn’t disclosed through the affidavit is that Ms. Rusanova is a very intelligent, charming woman. This comes as a shock to her.”

The outrageous behavior that Rusanova apparently exhibited during the flight is completely out of character, added Erickson. “Her mistake was to mix prescription drugs with alcohol. After that, all bets were off.”

Drunken and unruly passengers have been an unpleasant fact of life for flight attendants for as long as airlines have served alcohol. But today’s crews are better equipped to deal with poor behavior than their predecessors, and far less likely to tolerate it, said aviation consultant Robert Mann.

Airline crews are equipped with tools like plastic handcuffs to restrain out-of-control passengers and trained to quickly land a plane if that person becomes violent.

“Whenever there’s an incident that involves physical abuse or threats to anyone on board, it’s taken very seriously,” said Robin Urbanski, spokeswoman for Chicago-based United. She added that such incidents are rare.

Rusanova told McCarty, the FBI agent, that she remembered little about the flight, aside from fighting with a flight attendant over seating and the quality of United’s red wine.

“She added that what she did was terrible and she feels embarrassed,” McCarty said in an affidavit to the court. While Rusanova potentially faces a lengthy incarceration, sentencing guidelines for cases like hers suggest jail terms ranging from time served to six months, Erickson said.

Case of the awful waffle

Once again, I am able to be proud of my home state of South Carolina and its many fine dining establishments.

Yakeisha Ward, a 29-year-old waitress at a Manning, S.C., Waffle House, has been charged with assault and battery with intent to kill after turning a gun on customer Crystal Samuel, who ordered an all-star breakfast but wasn’t treated like an all-star.

Clarendon County sheriff’s deputies said Ward was involved in a fight about 4:30 a.m. Sunday. Lt. Tommy Burgess says the fight started when Samuel complained about the quality of service in the crowded restaurant.

Samuel’s friends got served first and started eating from carryout trays – a Waffle House no-no – and that’s when the trouble started.

Burgess says Ward went to her van to get a gun.

“I said ‘what is your fuss about?’,” Samuel told a local TV station. “I said we haven’t paid for our food. She (Ward) said ‘well, y’all got to leave’. How you want us to leave and we ain’t paid for the food yet?”

Samuel admits to throwing a waffle, but it “didn’t hit her,” and that’s when the waitress jumped across the counter and fired at the diner.

A bullet fragment was lodged in Samuel’s arm. Ward was unharmed by the thrown waffle.

Life in the fast (food) lane

I do most of my blogging away from my home. Not only can I escape the lure of attractive nuisances like breaking up cat fights, but I can also watch the comings and goings of the general public while drawing inspiration from their activity. Just as J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series in an Edinburgh coffeehouse and Mark Twain penned his masterpiece Mark Twain from the Super Bi-Lo near his Missouri birthplace, I’m currently visiting a nearby commercial establishment.

Today’s location is different from my usual hangout because of the topic I’ve chosen. I can normally be found writing in the local Panera – where they’ve mysteriously stopped the free samples since I wrote about how generous they were – or in the Earth Fare organic grocery store, watching Rock Hill’s alternative community (all three of them) buying their whole-grain biomass. Instead, this afternoon I’ve got my laptop sitting precipitously on a greasy plastic tabletop in the local Burger King.

I’ve chosen this spot to do on-site research for today’s topic, the purchase of fast food. To witness the experience up close, I should actually be typing away out in the parking lot near the drive-through, because that’s the part of the transaction I find most fascinating. But the smell of run-over Whopper Juniors baked flat in the mid-May sun is a little more inspiration than I wanted.

Drive-through restaurants in America date back to the 1948 opening in California of the first In-n-Out Burger. McDonald’s surprisingly didn’t open its first drive-through until 1975, and all the other fast-food restaurants quickly followed in line behind them. Today, more food is sold at these outlets through the window than is sold over the counter inside.

The typical experience for most diners begins several blocks away when they find themselves stuck behind a slow car with only three hubcaps and half a dozen of what we politely call “country folk.” Inevitably, you can’t pass these bumpkins until you’re at the entrance to the drive-through, and then they pull in ahead of you and up to the menu board. You’re now fully engaged in the fast-food experience, also known as “waiting.”

When you’re finally at the speaker box, you’re likely to be faced with one of two possibilities: you’re given no time to consider the options before someone asks for your order, or you’re met with an eerie silence. If it’s the latter, you should lean in as close to the mike as possible and shout “IS ANYBODY IN THERE?” If it’s the former, you begin considering a perplexing array of three or four different foods prepared in a huge variety of styles and combinations. It doesn’t help when the pre-recorded professional announcer asks “would you like to try our new Badger Bits?”, and you’re regretting how sad is it that Ed McMahon has been reduced to working at a burger joint to pay for his mortgage and neck brace.

Soon enough, the announcer is followed by the actual employee, who sounds like one of those throat cancer victims with the artificial larynx, only with more static and less gusto. Even if you know the item you want, you still have to negotiate whether or not it should be part of a combo, and how many of the items in question you want.

I recently was at the drive-through of the disturbingly named Jack-In-The-Box and for some reason found myself wanting to order hash browns. The following is the actual exchange that took place:

“I’d like to order the hash browns, please.”

“How many do you want?”

“How many do you have?” I responded.

I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic nor was I trying to take inventory of their entire supply room. I wanted to know how many items came in the $1.29 order shown on the menu.

“What I mean is, how many in an order?”

“Three,” I was told.

“OK, then I want three,” I said.

“Three orders?”

“No, three individual, separate and distinct browns. One order, three hash browns.”

“OK, that’s one order plus three hash browns,” came the response. I had to admire the attempt to upsell, then thought of abandoning the entire hash brown experience in favor of French fries. Surely they wouldn’t ask you how many fries you want.

Once your order is complete, you’re told to pull ahead to the window even though you’re impossibly grid-locked in your current position by cars to the front and cars to the back. Those folks just ahead of you are now randomly passing cash and food bags amongst themselves, while an indecipherable conversation takes place between the driver and the clerk. As the pitch and tempo of the talk rises, you sense things are not going well. When food is no longer being passed from window to car and instead the flow has reversed, you can be certain you’re in for a long wait. Finally, the brake lights go off and the car creeps away. Now it’s your turn.

First, a word of warning. Do not, under any circumstances, pay an amount different from the figure shown on the display screen. If you are asked to pay a different amount, call the corporate headquarters immediately. This sign first appeared a few years ago as a way of letting customers know how much the restaurateur trusts that its employees won’t be skimming dimes and quarters from the take. It doesn’t do a whole lot for your confidence that the people who hired these workers have so little faith in their integrity. Just to be on the safe side, I check not only the price on the screen, but also for signs of spittle on my grilled chicken sandwich.

On the window are a number of stickers advising me of the restaurant hours, the credit cards accepted and other information that barely allows you to see inside the facility (I guess that’s the idea.) One of these signs warns that pedestrians are not allowed at the drive-through. I checked this out on Wikipedia and sure enough, under a heading that read “Non-car Usage,” it says “pedestrians sometimes attempt to walk through the drive-through to order food.” Is this really something that sober people do?

Finally, the order is ready and it’s time to pay. You begin a tentative exchange of cash for food – first you hand over the coins, then she gives you the drink, then you give her the bills, then she gives you the bag. You half expect her to continue clutching the grease-soaked sack until all the money is accounted for. The surrender of a quantity of ketchups is agreed upon, and the transaction is officially complete.

Watching all this transpire from my position inside the Burger King gives me a very different perspective. Employees scurry about in their headsets like so many flight controllers, hard-working and honest. There’s little traffic at the indoor counter, with all the focus on getting cars through the queue outside. The yahoos on the other side of speaker system sound almost comical as they stagger through their list of demands, sounding about as organized as the Republican Party.

“Uhhhh… I’ll have the Sarah Palin … no, wait … make that the Rush Limbaugh … what? Wait a minute … uhhh … Are you still serving breakfast? Then I’ll have a pizza … what, no pizza at Chick-fil-A? Uhhh…”

So now I have some sympathy for both the workers who toil at these establishments as well as their customers. And yes, I would like fries with that.

Fake News Briefs: Pelosi and Obama

Pelosi claim raises eyebrows

WASHINGTON (May 17) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated her denial yesterday that CIA officials informed her in early 2002 that they were going to hold her down, shave off her eyebrows and replace them with rootbeer-flavored gummy worms.

Pelosi said that her records of the briefing showed only that she was to be taken to a playground not far from her Capitol Hill office and strapped to a see-saw, which was then to be inverted while sand was kicked into her face and eyes.

“I can specifically remember that there was no discussion of my eyebrows being removed,” Pelosi told reporters in a hastily called news conference. “Forced removal of any of my facial hair is something I would recall. Nor do my notes from that meeting indicate that any brow-work was to be done.”

Meanwhile, CIA director Leon Panetta continued to insist that agency documents indicated that Pelosi, who was then minority leader of the House, knew of the plan and agreed to have the sugary gelatin novelty candies implanted in the ridges above her eyes. Panetta said agents told her they thought it would soften her look and nicely complement the pert bob she has sported since her days in the California legislature.

“We conduct these assessments of leading public figures on a regular basis, and if we think we can make them a more appealing presence, we’ll approach them and suggest a procedure,” Panetta said of the long-standing national security policy. “She heard our people state their case and agreed to be admitted to a top-secret cosmetic surgery facility in suburban Washington. That’s where the four-hour procedure was performed.”

Pelosi denied approving such a move, and said she agreed only to the kicking of sand while she assumed a simulated waterboard position. She did acknowledge that she was briefly blinded during the incident, and that when she was returned to her office later in the day, she noticed “a distinct rootbeer or perhaps cola smell.”

“I would never willingly accept eyebrows that look this ridiculous,” Pelosi said, pointing at her face. “It’s apparent to me that the CIA has altered their records to show that I was complicit in this, when that’s simply not true.”

 

Obama tackles abortion at ND

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (March 16) – President Obama declared during a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame Saturday that he supported the school’s right to choose whether or not to abort its failing football program.

“I’m not saying you should; I’m not saying you shouldn’t,” Obama told 1,800 graduates and their families gathered at the on-campus ceremony. “I’m just saying that anyone could understand why you would terminate this half-formed being and get on with the rest of your life.”

The once-storied football team has fallen on hard times in recent years, due to several coaching changes as well as defections of top prospects to the NFL. Current coach Charlie Weis began his stint with the school in 2005 with an impressive 9-3 record, following that up with a 10-2 showing in 2006. But the Fighting Irish were routed by LSU in that year’s Sugar Bowl, then stumbled to a 3-9 finish in 2007.

Last year’s mild recovery to a 7-6 mark was seen by some as further evidence that the school could no longer attract the talent necessary to sustain a nationally ranked program. However, school officials continue to stand by Weis and his ten-year contract extension, despite the fact that his belly looks so pregnant he might want to consider an abortion himself.

Some protesters at the commencement briefly heckled the president – shouting “schedule killer!” and “Syracuse has rights too!” – while others wore caps imprinted with a plus sign and a pair of baby footprints, apparently symbolizing the belief it would take tiny steps before the team could again finish above .500.

 “You and your school have the right to choose between a West Coast offense, more reliance on the run, or perhaps no football at all,” the president said. “We can agree to disagree, and be respectful of all sides of the debate.”

It’s great to be alive (not)

When we dragged ourselves into the office Monday morning, most of us were not particularly refreshed by the weekend. In fact, most of us had spent Sunday “working,” which at my location generally means waiting for work that never comes. (I know that sounds like an easy job, but doing nothing can actually be quite arduous).

Nobody was in a good mood, and it only got worse when one of our resident optimists arrived with cheer for all. Kathy is never sad and rarely quiet, though a recent bout of laryngitis had given us a brief respite for a few days. “Good morning,” she cried out to no one in particular. “How are you? Good to see you. Did you have a nice weekend? Good, good.”

The outgoing personality, or “extrovert,” is generally regarded as someone who’s fun to be around, who reinforces feelings of goodwill in a group, who comes into a room like a breath of fresh air. I don’t like these people. Their enforcement of positivity when all common sense dictates that a different perspective is more appropriate flies in the face of reality. The economy sucks, the environment stinks, and we’re all going to die – get used to it.

I call this segment of the population “the chipper”. Like the mute, the infirm and the Canadian, this is a group very much deserving of basic human rights and equal treatment under the law. We should not disrespect them and we should not run over them with our cars. They are to be accommodated, even occasionally welcomed for the richness they add to our world.

But unlike those other groups, the chipper are very much responsible for their own situation, yet choose to do little or nothing to lift themselves above their disability. In fact, they see themselves as generally superior to others, and try earnestly to rope the rest of us into their perky enclaves. You don’t see the blind going around trying to poke the rest of us in the eye (at least not on purpose); similarly, we shouldn’t expect to have to be cheerful just because our coworkers are.

The dictionary defines the chipper as “a machine that grinds up logs, tree trunks, and other wood products into wood chips.” Though that might be a little harsh, it’s generally a spot-on description of these folks. Any semblance I might have of a good mood is quickly dissipated when someone who’s happier than I could ever hope to be takes over a room by sheer force of personality. I feel like I’ve been chopped into a thousand tiny pieces by their rapid fire of laughter, then disgorged into a compost heap. Okay, maybe not that bad, but bad enough.

Being chipper is not the same thing as being nice. It means being a busybody, pressing your character into every available niche like some kind of social caulk. On this particular morning, for example, Kathy has noticed a coworker is missing and so gives her a call at home to check up on her. “Are you all right?” she shrieks into the phone. “I was worried about you.” The colleague is fine, she’s assured, or at least she was before the sleep that had provided fleeting relief to her nausea was shattered by a phone call. “You take care now, you here?” she’s instructed. “I’ll be thinking about you.”

This overly intense personality style also tends to manifest itself in an excessive politeness that I’d characterize as grating – a good thing for cheese but not for an associate. We actually have at least two of the chipper in my particular office, and they occasionally find themselves in this conversational mobius strip that confounds even them. I call it the “TYNTY loop” because it starts with one saying “thank you” and the other responding “no, thank you.” This may actually continue for several rounds in jest before a concerned friend steps in with the threat of physical harm. There’s usually a “sir” or a “ma’am” thrown in for good measure, and profuse apologies at the slightest sign of any shortcomings by either party. “Oh, I am so sorry,” Kathy says when she’s slightly misunderstood. “No, no, you’re fine, you’re fine,” assures Jerry, her partner in joy. Don’t debate this endlessly, I want to interject. You’re both sorry.

After being around these folks for a while, you begin to wonder if there might be a pathology at the root of such an annoying condition. Since I’m not a clinically trained mental health professional, I turned instead to a website called psychiatricdisorders.com to see if a diagnosis might be possible. Sure enough, I found a condition called Histrionic Personality Disorder. In an entry subtitled “Look at Me!” I learned more about HPD.

“Histrionic personality disorder is defined by a constant need for approval, which reveals itself as constant attention seeking and a need to be the center of events,” reads the article. “In order to stay in the spotlight, people with HPD may resort to emotional dramatics and a ‘theatrical’ self-presentation.”

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Kathy and Jerry. Let’s give a big round of applause.

Deep down, I probably harbor a secret desire to be as free of cynicism as these carefree sprites. I know I can come across as a misanthropic curmudgeon at times, but it’s only because I despise people so intensely. I too have a deep desire for the approval of others; however, if I tried so obviously to get it, I’m afraid I’d be too humiliated by any perceived rejection to ever recover. They seem to be so satisfied with their place in the world and so happy to be alive. I may be glad I’m not dead, yet that’s about as far as I’ll go.

Maybe I can summon a more modest aspiration. I’ve occasionally stumbled across crusty old Regis Philbin while flipping around the TV dial and he seems to get along well enough with that Chairwoman of the Chipper, Kelly Ripa. I understand they pay him about $21 million a year to do this. For that kind of money, I think I could overcome my petty skepticism, share in the smiley-faced bliss of this wonderful life and fully embrace the Kelly Ripa’s of the world. Well, one Kelly Ripa, anyway.

Fake News: Late-night comedians agree on what’s funny

NEW YORK (May 20) – Hosts of late-night talk shows met at their annual convention this week to select who would be the butt of their jokes on a variety of human frailties in the year ahead.

After experimenting with a number of new faces during 2008, the consensus of the assembled comedians seemed to point toward a return to the classics. In an overall “beauty contest” to name the funniest celebrity regardless of which physical or personality flaw they displayed, former vice president Dick Cheney scored a narrow victory over Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey.

The hosts come together once every year to decide who is perceived as the oldest, dumbest, fattest, etc. among people currently in the public eye. With that protocol in place, they can then proceed to tell basically the same joke as each other on any given night.

In two examples where a return to veteran buffoons was evident, Angelina Jolie displaced the Octomom as the subject of any jokes about someone who has too many children, while Donald Trump and the beloved “thing on his head” pushed aside disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich on the topic of hair jokes. Larry King was voted to take the spot previously held by John McCain on the theme of someone who is “so old that [fill in the blank]”.

Madonna continued her 19-year domination in the category of who was the female best-known for dating entire sports teams, though both Brittney Spears and Cher received enough support in the general category of sluttiness to deserve mention on any given night. Amy Winehouse was again the runaway winner to be the subject of jokes about drug use and drunkenness, and Kirstie Alley squashed challenges from Rosie O’Donnell and Oprah Winfrey on the question of who was comically fat. Sarah Palin and Miss California finished in a dead-heat for the title of ditziest.

In the male class, John Edwards bested Eliot Spitzer for the husband who most humorously cheated on his wife. Joe Biden won in a rout for the category of most talkative, and Bernie Madoff scored an equally impressive victory of who was the most-crooked personality. Former president George W. Bush was awarded a lifetime achievement honor for being dumb.

In the fast-changing landscape of steroid use in baseball, Barry Bonds led after the first ballot but could not achieve the majority necessary to be endlessly mentioned during monologues. Roger Clemens overcame Bonds on the second ballot but also failed to put his rivals away. Alex Rodriguez almost took the title on the third ballot before Manny Ramirez landed the victory just before the convention’s closing ceremonies.

Former Idaho Senator Larry Craig, infamous for his arrest on sex-related charges in a Minneapolis airport men’s room, was eliminated in early voting by singer Clay Aiken on the subject of funniest homosexual. But Aiken fell in the end, topped by whichever male finishes highest in the previous year’s “American Idol”.

Dick Cheney took the honor for top mention in the “who shot a guy in the face” class. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh was the biggest multiple winner at the convention, racking up mentions in the fattest, baldest, craziest, most drug-addled (male) and ugliest categories.

 

Website Review: Lawyers.com

Have you or a loved one been injured on the job? Are you unable to work because the pain of your injury makes your life a living hell? Would you like to be?

If you want to spend the rest of your life sitting on your couch and watching the disability checks roll in, then call the attorneys at the law firm you just saw talking earnestly on late-night TV. Or now, you can even contact them on-line. You can rest assured that they have only your interests, plus a 25% settlement fee of any award you might receive, in mind.

For this week’s Website Review, I thought I’d take on one of those self-advertising law firms that will show you how wealth, justice and a permanent indentation on your couch are just an 800-number away. A cowboy-hatted lawyer from the firm of Binder & Binder, which bills itself as America’s most successful social security disability advocates, suggested these might be the folks I could study.

I went to their site, binderandbinder.com, and started to learn more about the legal services they offer and their long history – exemplified by their motto “do what you do, better and nicer” – of helping people get the respect they deserve (and, oh yeah, the cash). I started milling around their pulldowns and making notes about all the features I could make fun of. Soon, however, I realized that these were well-intentioned professionals who were only in business to bring fairness to wronged and injured individuals. Also, I realized they’d probably be in a great position to sue the bejesus out of anybody who slandered them.

So I’ll be taking a rather gentle look at Messrs. Harry J. and Charles E. Binder and the nationwide network of offices they’ve built since starting in the business over 30 years ago. Binder & Binder helps you and your broken, pathetic body take advantage of the Social Security Disability program, what they call “one of our government’s best-kept secrets,” second to the nuclear launch codes, I’d guess, but not by much.

The firm’s history actually dates from 1975 when an injured, almost-penniless New York firefighter walked into Harry Binder’s tiny office with a challenge: his application for disability benefits had been turned down by the Social Security Administration and he needed a “genuine expert” to help in his fight. According to the company’s history page, Harry has always liked challenges, and fire-fighters. “They do stuff I’d be scared to do,” Harry said, so he sidestepped that nasty expertise question and hit the law books to teach himself how to help.

I never saw how that particular case turned out, though I’d assume it went well because Harry’s brother Charles showed up, and together they formed Binder & Binder, since “Harry & Charlie” sounded a little too much like a good-time ice cream emporium. By then it was 1979, described in the company newsletter Disability Digest (subscriptions available through the website – check out the back-breaking sudokus) as tumultuous times.

“President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a swamp rabbit while fishing. Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran. The Three Mile Island nuclear plant had a partial meltdown. The Soviet Union seized control of Afghanistan. The population of China hit one billion people. Billy Joel’s ‘Just The Way You Are’ won the Grammy for best song.” It’s not clear how the Binders were able to help with any of these calamities. I think they’re just trying to give us a little historical perspective.

From that small beginning, the firm grew to the point where it now has offices in major cities from coast to coast and tens of thousands of new clients added each year. They have a sophisticated website that includes a number of helpful features. There’s a social security application form where you can leave a detailed description regarding your disability – “I have carpal tunnel syndrome. Why must my description be so detailed?” is one suggestion – and a representative will contact you within two business days. There are some disability tax tips told in folksy but perplexing similes: “A tax return is like a blood test. Your bad cholesterol should be low and your good cholesterol should be high.” There’s even a fun multiple-choice quiz to see how well you comprehended the newsletter. Some answers: their national department serves “all over America,” not “steak for breakfast,” and President Carter was attacked by “a rabbit,” not by the “Democratic caucus.”

There’s a frequently-asked-questions section that’s so thorough you may wonder why you even need a flesh-and-blood lawyer. “Do I have to be completely incapacitated to get disability?” My predicted answer: You just need to able to reach your wallet. “I have informally adopted a child. Will she be able to receive benefits?” If what you really mean is that you’re living with your teenage girlfriend, no. “You must receive a lot of compliments. What’s the highest compliment you’ve received?” That I seem too human to be an attorney. “I understand there are special rules for the blind.” That’s not a question.

There are also profiles of each individual Binder. Charles believes in a goal-oriented office atmosphere, he’s a big fan of the Lone Ranger and says “just put together some people who are really interested in hearing about social security disability, don’t forget the donuts, and I’ll be there.” He enjoys the improbable trio of Yankee baseball, keeping promises, and teaching his nephews about playing fair. Harry’s hobbies include reforming corrupt nursing homes, New York Rangers hockey and “never looking back,” so be careful if you’re ever driving behind him. He and his wife have five children and he was at Madison Square Garden on June 14, 1994 at 10:58 p.m. (I guess the legal mind tends to remember such details). Both Charles and Harry are pictured in their trademark cowboy hats but Charles, as the managing partner, gets to sling his suit jacket over his shoulder while Harry, the more sober senior partner, is fully dressed.

Finally, I’ll mention a few quotes from testimonials that Binder & Binder has received. “I’m sorry I’m so late getting back to you,” writes one, “but I’ve been busy spending the money you guys helped me get.” Another notes darkly that “people act like they’re jealous but they don’t want my disease.” A third offers a somewhat less-stirring endorsement: “just waiting for the benefits and back pay to get here.”

Before I sign off, I wanted to come back to the company slogan. Actually, there appears to be two of these. The one that appears at the top of the home page is the slightly menacing “we’ll deal with the government; you have enough to worry about.” But the one I like best, the one that personifies to me all that’s beautiful and compelling and humane about the fabulous Binders, is the one I mentioned earlier: “do what you do, better and nicer.” It’s marvelously non-judgmental, it references two traits not normally associated with the legal profession and is just vague enough to cover anything this side of the commission of war crimes. If only all of us – I’m looking at you, Social Security Administration – would try harder to do what we do, the world would be a better place. And nicer too.

 

Banana robbers and black hairy tongues

“Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just trying to rob me?”

Once again, my beloved South is in the news for the poor quality of its criminal population.

Last weekend, I related the story of the Waffle House waitress who became so incensed at a customer that she went to her car, got a gun and shot the patron for complaining about inadequate service. Apparently, the twin assault of stale waffles and runny eggs weren’t punishment enough.

This week comes the story of man who attempted the hold-up of a North Carolina café using a banana that he led his victim to believe was a gun. Bobby Ray Mabe (always with the two first names) said he encountered a man holding something under his clothing who asked for a Mountain Dew and then demanded cash.

The Winston-Salem café owner said he and another one of his customers decided to resist by grabbing the man and holding him down on a chair.

“If he had a gun he would’ve shot me,” Mabe told UPI. “But he had a banana.”

Forsyth County sheriff’s officers were summoned to arrest the perpetrator, but while the trio waited for them to arrive, the would-be robber ate the banana. By the time police arrived, all that was left was the banana peel. However, Mabe realized that the peel could serve as valuable evidence, so he photographed and then secured it before anybody could suffer a fall.

Charged with attempted robbery was 17-year-old John Steven Szwalla (pronounced “swallow,” which is what he should’ve done with the banana peel). On his next attempt, perhaps he’ll be smart enough to claim that an apple is actually a hand grenade, and he’ll be able to consume all the evidence.

 

Open wide and disgust us all

In unrelated news, there’s actually a disease that goes by the name of Black Hairy Tongue.

BHT refers to a number of conditions in humans and animals that cause the tongue to become unusually dark and/or hairy in appearance. In humans, it’s a harmless condition caused by a fungus which grows on the top surface of the tongue. It’s most commonly associated with the elderly, those using antibiotics, and smokers. While black is the most common color associated with the condition, other colors are possible, including brown, white and green. The hairy areas are usually on the back of the tongue.

Though generally due to overall poor oral hygiene, Black Hairy Tongue can also be caused by Pepto-Bismol.

When bowling was king

Bowling has made something of a comeback in recent years from the decline it had been suffering since its heyday back in the 1950s and 1960s. With the simultaneous rise of “disco bowling” and irony-as-lifestyle, more people than ever – both the cool and the uncool – are taking to the lanes of America’s alleys (recently re-dubbed “fun centers”).

I hadn’t realized it, but when I was flipping through some of the second-tier sports channels the other day, I discovered there’s still such a thing as the Professional Bowlers Association and they still have what can loosely be described as a TV contract. I watched only a few minutes, and this is some of what I saw.

The "king" on his "throne"

There’s this “King of Bowling” title or, more accurately, “the King of Bowling Powered by Amp Energy series.” The reigning king sits on a lane-side throne, wearing a goofy crown and holding a scepter, while pretenders battle before him for a chance to challenge the sovereign one-on-one. In the episode I saw, a chunky guy named Wes Malott from Pflugerville, Texas, sat regally above the fray while Walter Ray Williams won a “thrilling” opening match over Bill O’Neill. The two were tied after regulation and were forced to engage in a five-ball sudden-death “roll-off”. Williams emerged as the eventual winner.

When Williams took on Malott for the $10,000 first prize, he found himself the victim of a royal whirlwind. Malott bowled a perfect 300 for the victory.

“When it was over, I was kinda thinking to myself, what else could you ask for after the season I’ve had?” Malott said. “I’ve accomplished every goal I had except a major. Shooting 300 on TV? You never think about it.”

You can say that again.

“There was definitely some excitement,” Malott continued in a slight over-statement. “I just tried to focus and do the job. I’ve seen some guys fall on the ground and cry after bowling a 300 on TV. Some guys jump in the other guy’s arms. I’m not going to jump into someone’s arms.”

The PBA will award over $4.3 million in prize money this year during its Lumber Liquidators PBA National Tour. In addition to that pathetic excuse for a title sponsor, other predictable brands contributing to the tour include Flomax (the prostate medicine that improves urine flow), Motel 6, Bayer Aspirin, Denny’s and Go RVing.

Watch this space for a future review of the sport’s website, www.pba.com.

Detainees: Have I got a deal for you

There’s been a lot of discussion in recent weeks on what to do about the Guantanamo detainees. We have a pretty good consensus that the prison housing hundreds of suspected jihadists needs to be closed, yet we’re not exactly sure what to do with these guys. A few have been formally charged in U.S. courts and appear ready to go through the judicial process. As for the rest, I think the government is pretty much open to suggestions.

Attempts to foist them off on other countries seem to be going nowhere. State governments and Congressional leaders are steadfast in their refusal to accept them into American prisons. The idea that I floated in a post last February – that the detainees be put on a plane that “accidentally” crashes (see http://davisw.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/fake-news-bulletin-detainees-crash-into-ocean/) – seems to be gaining little traction.

Well, I’ve since had a similar brainstorm that I’d like to put forward. Rather than add yet another voice to the near-unison chorus of “not in my back yard,” I’d like to propose moving the 240 prisoners to my back yard.  Literally.

Actually, what I’m offering is a great deal on a rental house my wife and I own that we’ve been having trouble finding tenants for. This nicely landscaped brick ranch-style home is situated on an acre and a half in a quiet northeast Rock Hill neighborhood, with quick access to Interstate 77 leading north to Charlotte. It has three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, central air and heat, a large shed in the back yard and a covered carport. There’s a refrigerator and a water heater; no washing machine or dryer is included, but hook-ups do exist in a utility room off the carport. We’re asking $885 a month, and are willing to include two weeks free rent if they move in by the first of the month.

I understand that this 1,140-square-foot residence may be seen by some as rather tight quarters for 240 people, but it can’t be much worse than the conditions they’re enduring now. I mentioned the big shed, right? There’s also an attic, a crawlspace under the house and a covered patio.

I don’t know the neighbors all that well. Most of them are also tenants rather than owners, so I don’t think they’d care that much about so-called “undesirables.” The Guatemalan family down the street already has at least a dozen people living in a similar-sized house, so they can’t complain. And the people next door have had police called at least twice in the last six months for domestic disturbances; if my tenants start causing trouble (loud music, unauthorized yard sales, international hijacking plots, etc.), the authorities already know the area.

The suspected terrorists would be expected to keep the lawn in reasonably good shape. I doubt that any of them have a mower, but I imagine the Defense Department would offer a small release package similar to what freed convicts get when they’re furloughed from prison. Instead of a fresh suit of clothes and $50, might I suggest each man be allocated a government-issued goat that could provide milk, wool, meat and the ability to keep the grass at a city-mandated maximum two-inch height.

I know a lot of these criminals come from agrarian societies, so I’ll point out that the very large back yard has only a few trees on the edge of the property and plenty of room for a substantial garden. Most people in this part of the South plant primarily tomatoes, squash and watermelons, though I have no reason to doubt that opium poppies might also thrive in our summer heat. I would think that locally grown narcotics would be quite an attractive product in the organic farmer’s market held every other Saturday in the next town over from ours.

We don’t really have a viable public transportation system in Rock Hill, and I acknowledge that getting around could be a bit difficult for the Islamist fanatics. There are, however, several reasonably priced private cab companies and, for any individuals who suffered injuries during their stay at the naval base (I remember hearing something about torture), the county provides special-needs buses that go to the hospital area and to state benefits offices. Or maybe the several hundred men could pool their funds and buy a junker car that they could share. There’s a used-car lot within walking distance of the house, and their sign claims that not only do they “habla Espanol” but they also offer on-the-lot financing. And if the whole car-bombing image presents a credit problem, many similarly restricted drivers with DWI convictions find a moped to be quite adequate.

Speaking of businesses in the neighborhood, there’s a major highway (state road 161) only two blocks away — just close enough to be convenient but not bother any of the renters with road noise. Within walking distance is the Mayflower seafood restaurant (a “fish camp”-style eatery that offers both sit-down service as well as a great takeout menu), a Sonic drive-in complete with roller-skating waitresses, and a Subway. I’m not sure if any of these places are familiar with Halal, the Muslim dietary restrictions similar to kosher laws, but check with Chrissy at the Mayflower – she’s always so friendly to everyone. There’s also a new Food Lion grocery store under construction a half-mile down the road, due to open in August.

So, if anybody is interested in helping make the dream of living in a suburban home into a reality for these unfortunate individuals, please contact my property manager, Hartline Realty, at 803-367-6828. (The management services they offer are well worth the 10% cut they take, since I’m not especially handy at dealing with middle-of-the-night plumbing or dirty-bomb accidents). We can have these ruthless killers moved in by this time next week.

Fake News: Graduates get their marching papers

Commencement speakers continued dispensing their valuable advice to graduating seniors across the country this past weekend.

Addressing graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy, President Obama urged newly commissioned second lieutenants to “avoid being wounded if at all possible” and to aim for the highest goals they can achieve, whether in the military or in private life.

“I would urge you to either become an admiral and assign yourself to cruise the Caribbean or, if you leave the Navy, you can do as I did and seek to serve the public,” Obama told a large crowd in Annapolis, Maryland. “I would strongly encourage anybody who thinks they might be interested in the job to get elected president. The perks are incredible.”

Meanwhile, in an address to graduates at San Diego State University, the Octomom suggested students could best serve mankind by getting lip enhancements and giving birth to a litter of children.

“Don’t strive merely to achieve the fleeting satisfaction of fame and fortune,” Nadya Suleman told the assembled class of ’09. “Make a difference in someone’s life. Or in my case, the life of 14 very small yet very annoying, demanding and childish people.”

Fox News commentator Glenn Beck suggested graduates at Atlanta’s Emory University forsake some of the privileges and honors they’ve received in the interest of pursuing a greater good.

“When you march across this stage in a few minutes to receive your diploma, I challenge you to take that piece of paper and rip it to shreds,” the conservative pundit recommended. “A liberal arts education is, by very definition, liberal. If you live by your instincts rather than by your intellect, you’ll be a much happier individual. And, I can get you a job at Fox.”

Two American heroes in the news this year delivered commencement addresses with two very different themes. Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, the USAir pilot who successfully landed his disabled airliner in the Hudson River in January, urged graduates at the University of Illinois “not to fly a jet into a flock of geese thereby disabling both engines and causing you to ditch in the water.” Just a few dozen miles to the north at the University of Chicago, Capt. Richard Phillips of the Somali-hijacked Maersk container ship, told his audience to “not be boarded by pirates, taken hostage in a lifeboat and then nearly get shot while being rescued.”

Appearing at Nova University in Boca Raton, Florida, actor Ashton Kutcher declined to speak directly to the audience of 1,400 seniors. Instead, he stood at the lectern with his Blackberry and “tweeted” his commencement address.

“Just keep trying,” Kutcher wrote. “Never, ever give up, because the only person that can stop u is u.”

“OMG, that is so true,” messaged the crowd in response. “We rock.”

Website Review: Charmin.com

Regular readers of this blog know that I don’t like to traffic in bathroom humor. However, that may be unavoidable today, so I’ll beg your indulgence in advance. I noticed recently that there is a website for Charmin bathroom tissue, and I couldn’t resist the urge to make it the subject of this week’s Website Review.

Bathroom tissue, also sometimes called toilet paper, is distinctly different from facial tissue, in that it is designed to decompose in sewage and septic systems. Also, without putting too fine a point on it, TP is meant to be used on an area that’s at the opposite end of your face (on most people). The earliest recorded use of toilet paper occurred in medieval China, where a traveler from the West noted in 851 A.D. that the locals “are not careful about cleanliness and do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities but only wipe themselves with paper.” By the time of the Ming Dynasty, almost a million 2-foot-by-3-foot sheets of toilet paper were manufactured in one year for use in the Imperial Court. Outside of China, however, people were known to use wool, lace, wood shavings, leaves, sand, moss, snow, maize, ferns, fruit skins, seashells, seaweed, sticks, animal furs … okay, that’s enough history.

We’ve come a long way since those ancient and loathsome habits. The products sold by Charmin, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, represent the highest evolution of woodpulp-based personal ablutions. The home page at charmin.com encourages viewers to “rediscover Charmin” through two of its premium products: Charmin Ultra Strong, for those who prefer strength, and Charmin Ultra Soft, for those who prefer softness.

It’s the Ultra Strong variety that first caught my attention, in part because it distinguishes itself with what the company calls a “diamond weave texture”. Considering that the diamond is the hardest substance known to man and can be used to cut everything from glass to titanium, it’s not a substance I’d want associated with such a sensitive area of the body. But I’m not the marketing expert.

There are three other products in the Charmin line. Charmin Basic is a “great balance of softness and strength affordably priced to suit most budgets,” Charmin Plus is “the only bath tissue that contains soothing lotion,” and Charmin Fresh Mates are “adult flushable wipes that give you a shower fresh feeling any time of day.” The last of these comes in four different designer series tubs or in a convenient, resealable package for freshness “on the go.” Get it? “On the go.”

Under the Offers and Events pulldown, you can sign up for a free “extender,” whatever that is, or you can read about the efforts Charmin made during the 2008 holiday season to render New York City a more clean and comfortable place. Apparently, the company built a custom-designed portable restroom in Times Square to help visitors deal with certain necessities that most visitors to the Big Apple will admit are too often unaccommodated. Somehow, they were able to record that these facilities were visited 300,104 times through December 31, though the actual number of patrons may be significantly less if they counted flushes rather than individual hinds. There’s an interactive “flush-o-meter” map of the world that will even tell you which states and countries were best represented. (I guess people filled out a dossier during the visit; either that, or there was some kind of funky DNA analysis going on). Of particular interest, I thought, were the 66 visitors from Iceland, the 27 from Cuba, the four from Madagascar, and the lack of any patronage whatsoever from Kyrgyzstan. Also, note that there were five customers from Papua New Guinea and how funny the word “papua” is in this context.

Part of this promotion also included a photo download, from which you could retrieve the pictures you had taken during the event. (Don’t worry about privacy concerns; you have to enter a password to gain access to your bathroom pix.) There was also an official celebrity endorser associated with this effort. The unfortunately named Joey Fatone (the “fat one”), formerly of NSYNC, served as King of the Throne and conducted the ceremonial first flush. And there was an opportunity to sign Charmin’s Plush Potties for the People petition, part of the brand’s efforts to make public johns the “luxurious, dignified lavatories they should be.” If you didn’t sign on to this worthy cause in New York – where tuxedoed attendants escorted guests into bathrooms featuring soothing music, flat-screen TVs and, of course, Charmin tissue – you can do it online.

The site includes an FAQ page, offering advice on some of the dilemmas facing the modern crapper. “The plies on my Charmin Ultra are not lined up, and it’s not tearing in the right place,” writes one troubled user trying to make his way in our complex, modern world. He is told to “hold the roll in front of you with the paper winding over the top, pull the top ply up and drop it back behind the roll, tear away excess and you’re good to go.” (Get it again? “To go.”) This is also where I learn that the previously mentioned “extender” is an extra-large roll holder, and is not meant to attach to your person.

The History of Charmin section starts in the 1920s, when the product got its name from an employee who thought the design was “charming.” Not much happened in the intervening two decades, though 1940 saw a modern typestyle introduced on the product label, a prelude to the great world war that was looming. In the early sixties, Charmin became the first tissue to add perfume (ouch), and soon thereafter brought Mr. Whipple and his classic “please don’t squeeze the Charmin” slogan to international prominence. By 1978, Whipple was the third best-known American, behind only Richard Nixon and Billy Graham. He was replaced (though some claim “eaten by”) by two animated bears who brought the product’s profile into the twenty-first century.

Finally, I have to mention one external link that cannot go without note. This sends you to sitorsquat.com, an online find-a-toilet service. Once here, you simply enter your location and a detailed mapping system pops up showing you all the public facilities in your neighborhood. You can zoom out or in – though hopefully not too far in – and can select from a roadmap version, a satellite version, a hybrid of these two, or a terrain version, complete with elevation listings in case you need a certain height above sea level in order to do your business. Of course, it goes without saying you can also download iPhone or Twitter applications (“What are you doing?” “None of your beeswax.”) This site also has a Humor section featuring posts with highly questionable titles: “Women’s Public Bathroom Toilet Prank/Hidden Camera”, “So You Think You Can PP Dance,” and the obligatory videos of cats interacting hilariously with various plumbing fixtures.

All in all, Charmin.com is an informative and entertaining site and I can highly recommend it. Still, this is definitely one arena where the virtual world will never be able to replace the paper copy.

Smile for your semi-annual dentist appointment

I don’t have a very good record of maintaining good dental health, so when it came time last week for my semi-annual checkup, I was a little nervous. I’ve had enough experience now in the lean-back chair that I usually know what to expect, so the fears borne of uncertainty aren’t an issue. I’m not one of those people who need to visit a sedation dentist to have my blood drained and spinal chord frozen so I can get a good flossing. I can take the “discomfort” and the “pressure” as long as they don’t call it “pain.”

But it had been over a year since I last visited for a cleaning, and my regular maintenance needed to be done. I called Dr. Anderson’s office and made an appointment for “the usual,” which in my case could easily mean a couple of root canals. I showed up last Wednesday for what I hoped would be a quick in-and-out.

Before I go into any detail about this visit, a little history is in order. When I was a child growing up in Miami, we were compelled to patronize the dentist who went to our church. Unfortunately, Dr. Beyer was a student of Ephesians-style dentistry, and tended to take the part about “suffer the little children” too literally. He was as stingy with the Novocain as he was completely unfamiliar with laughing gas, so even the most minor work involved agony I remember to this day.

When I went off to college and became more responsible for my own dental care, I let it lapse completely. I was too busy enjoying the social upheavals of the seventies to be concerned about proper brushing techniques. Besides, a pretty smile seemed so bourgeois in this climate that I could justify my poor oral hygiene as a political statement. When one particularly bad cavity became large enough that a sesame seed lodged in it, I figured, great – a homeopathic filling.

When the pain finally got the better of me, I went to an excellent dentist who got me into serviceable shape. After a few temporary crowns and a couple of extractions, I was ready to leave Florida and seek my fortune in my current hometown. I’d be able to make it through a job interview without having to avoid the half of the alphabet I couldn’t pronounce without fully-formed front teeth.

My current dentist of almost thirty years continued the extensive effort I needed throughout the 1980s. I proudly built a thick folder of paperwork documenting my bridges and implants that showed at a glance what a loyal and profitable customer I had been. So I was a little miffed when I arrived last week and the receptionist asked me to sign a touchscreen to capture my signature electronically. “We’ve gone paperless,” she said excitedly, and my heart fell when I glanced at my screen and saw I had been reduced to just a few computer files.

Once my insurance information is recorded with the front desk – “they’re a good company,” the insurance specialist said ominously of my new insurer – I headed back to meet with my hygienist. After a few words of greeting, during which she eyed my mouth suspiciously (trying I guess to size up how difficult a case I was going to be), we got down to work. I was moved to a reclining position and she pulled up the armrest on my right to get a better angle on my maw. With no support for my elbow, I had to grab my belt buckle and hang on, lest my forearm flop into her lap in what would be the most awkward advance in periodontal history.

After a series of x-ray pictures in that darling anti-radiation apron, she began the three-part cleaning process. First, she moves all along the top, then the bottom, with that sharp metal prod, scraping away tartar in the most primitive medical technique this side of high deductibles. This is the part of the visit I dread the most, not only because it sounds and feels so barbaric, but because I’m being tested on suspicious areas that may need the attention of the drill. Not only do I have to feel the occasional stabs of pain; I have to act like I didn’t feel them to avoid having it cost me money. “Oh, does that hurt?” she asks as I noticeably stiffen at one point. “No, no,” I reassure her, “it’s just a seizure.”

Once the prodding is done, she uses that minty buffer thing that smoothly scrubs the tooth surface. Finally, she brings out the floss to remove any remnants of filth that remain, and asks the question I chronically lie to: “Do you floss regularly?” “Yes,” I answer, figuring that doing it once a week on a religious basis can technically count as “regularly.”

Before the actual dentist stops by for his quick exam, she offers me the optional fluoride treatment, which I agree to so I don’t look like a cheapskate. She paints this sudsy mixture on as I try to remember if fluoride is in that part of the periodic table that’s radioactive or not. She rinses me out with water and that neat oral vacuum cleaner that gives you runway-model-quality sunken cheeks.

Dr. Anderson now appears and does the part of the exam I always forget to worry about – the oral cancer check. While I’ve spent the past few days obsessing about pointy metal prods, the possibility that I may have malignant salivary glands or a tongue tumor has completely escaped me. When the groping of nodes is complete and I seem to have passed, he begins closely examining my two lower canines, technically called “numbers 22 and 27.”

“We’ll probably need to do something about these,” he says.

“Let’s take another picture,” I wanted to suggest. “This time with my cellphone camera. You lean in close so we can get you in there too.”

Instead, he proceeds to show me I need a pair of the following: endodontics, 1 canal; crown buildup, inc. pins; and crown porc.-fused to high nobl. At first I’m concerned that the “porc.-fused” part means I’m going to have a bacon implant and, while I love the taste of bacon, I don’t think I’d want it as the default taste in my mouth. He deciphers the lingo to tell me it’s instead a porcelain fusion, with root canal and crown, and now I’m really concerned, as it seems it is he who is bringing home the bacon, to the tune of almost $3,000 out of my pocket and into his piggy bank.

“You might not need the root canals. We won’t be able to tell until we get in there,” he tells me.

At last, we discuss sedation – I’d like some now, please, but he insists on waiting until the procedure, to be scheduled in about two weeks. I can have an IV drip, where I’m knocked out completely, for $265, or I can opt for the “value menu” nitrous oxide for the low, low price of $51. Considering I want to be awake when the decision is made to canal or not, and that nitrous is more fun than unconsciousness, and that it’s over $200 cheaper, I’m going with the gas. Could I buy one dose and get one free, so my wife can roll with laughter when I mention the $3,000?

I’m ready to check out and set my next cleaning appointment for six months out. My schedule is typically not that tight, so I shrug when they ask if December 3 at 1 p.m. will work for me. I think I have a thing some time in the fall, but my winter is wide open, so I take whatever they’ll give me. Just don’t expect me to remember that far in the future – I may need to take my rocket car into the shop that day. They’ll call to help me remember.

That reminds me: it’s been a week now since the appointment, so it’s probably time to floss.

The latest on “Kim and Kate Plus Eight”

Controversy continued to swirl this week around one of TV’s top-rated reality shows. Following Sunday’s season premiere of TLC’s Kim and Kate Plus Eight Plus Rogue State, the show’s featured mom publicly took her husband to task for neglecting his family.

Kate Gosselin, the mother of television’s favorite sextuplets, said husband Kim Jong Il’s recent behavior fomenting instability on the Korean peninsula represent his attempts to “act out” in response to the pressures of family life.

“He knows he’s not living up to his responsibilities,” Kate told Christian Woman Today magazine. “We’re supposed to be in this together, acting for the good of our family, and all he seems interested in is rattling the nuclear saber.”

Kim has cemented his reputation as an international pariah in recent days with two mid-range missile firings as well as an underground nuclear test in North Korea. Neighboring countries throughout northeast Asia have expressed growing concern that the Communist leader could launch an unprovoked attack against South Korea or Japan.

“At this point in our relationship, I wouldn’t put it past him,” Kate said. “He has eight children here in Pennsylvania constantly asking ‘where’s daddy?’, and all I can say is that he’s more likely to be in the Situation Room than in the family room.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have warned Kim that his reckless actions will be met with the strongest response possible. Even his traditional allies, China and Russia, seem to view events of the past week with alarm.

“He needs to be back on the show with his heart fully engaged in the project as well as the welfare of his family,” said Soviet President Vladimir Putin. “We don’t need more tensions on the Asian mainland; we need wholesome entertainment that showcases a big, happy family. Did you see how that one kid lost his balloon in Sunday’s episode? That was heart-wrenching.”

For her part, Kate says she will go on with her travels around the country promoting the show as well as her book, and hopes that her husband “comes to his freakin’ senses.” She said the show will continue as planned into its fifth season, with next week’s episode featuring the construction of a uranium-enrichment plant in the back yard of the couple’s rural home.

“It’s really Kim’s idea,” Kate said. “He says we’ll save a ton of money on our utility bills, but I’m worried about the effects radiation leakage might have on the kids. We’re freaky enough already, you know?”

The couple’s current rough patch stems from tabloid reports that Kim was seen partying with a college-aged woman, and drinking at local bars with his friends. Kim was reportedly holed up in his parents’ home in Pyongyang and was unavailable for comment.

My advice: Look elsewhere for advice

On December 15 of last year, I changed the motto on my masthead to read “Now Being Funny on a Daily Basis.” I’m sure the “being funny” part is debatable, but the “daily basis” has been absolutely true – weekends included – for the last 165 days, or almost half a year. The closest I came to missing a daily post was one day in late February when my 17-year-old son had abdominal surgery. I managed to get a couple of sentences up while anxiously cooling my heels in the waiting room, so I officially made it that day but only on a technicality.

Now that summer is here and virtually everybody else is into reruns, I’m going to do the same thing with this blog ON WEEKENDS ONLY. Monday through Friday I’ll continue to post (thoroughly) original material; however, on Saturday and Sunday I’ll be reposting some of the “fake advice” columns I wrote on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the winter.

Throughout the summer and on into eternity, I’ll continue doing new humorous essays on Mondays and Wednesdays, fake news stories on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the riotously popular Website Reviews on Fridays. Please keep the views and comments coming.

* * *

Welcome to my free but awful advice service. My counseling philosophy values the concept of making things up as you go along, with little or no regard for the consequences – a methodology I call “selfish preposterism”. Today’s topic addresses a health matter, but I’ll also be tackling interpersonal relationships, spiritual concerns, computer problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. Important Disclaimer in Bold Italic: Remember, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Q. My 77-year-old husband has a bizarre skin problem. On his left arm he has red blotches that appear and then disappear every several days. He’s seen several dermatologists but none can give him a diagnosis. Now it’s showing up on the other arm. The spots are not itchy or painful, just unsightly. Please help us figure out what is happening.

A. There are several bizarre things going on here: your husband apparently has some skin without red blotches and, at age 77, if this is the best he can do for a health complaint, he’s better off than my sorry 55-year-old body.

 When you say the blotches appear and then disappear every several days, do you mean that they flash on and off like Christmas lights over the course of those days, or do they change more slowly? If they’re flashing, this could be very amusing to circus folk, and you should consider renting a tent for him and charging admission. If it’s more gradual than this, your profit-making options are limited. When it shows up on the other arm, does it disappear from the original arm? Does he ever have both arms in this disgusting condition? And are you sure those are dermatologists you’re seeing, or might they be herpetologists, who would be less surprised by unusual skin features in the snakes and alligators they treat.

My advice would be that, if the spots are just repulsive, not itchy or painful, your best bet would be to cover him in a full-body burqa and move to the tribal regions of northeast Pakistan, which is about as far away from me as you can get.

More advice about urinary catheters

This is another installment in my free but dreadful advice service. As I mentioned previously, my philosophy uses the concept of making things up as you go along, with little or no regard for the consequences – a methodology I call “selfish preposterism”. Today’s topic again addresses a health matter, but I’ll also be tackling interpersonal relationships, spiritual concerns, computer problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER, TODAY IN BOLD CAPITALS, IN HONOR OF THE FROZEN CAPITAL MARKETS: REMEMBER, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Q. My 82-year-old father was recently hospitalized with complications from a blood disorder. Medical staff assessed the need for a urinary catheter. The insertion was done with a dry tube surface. When asked if they could “put something on it,” the female nurse just told him to “take a deep breath”. The insertion was done twice, both times without lubricant. When he told his regular doctor, she just about came unglued. My father is now unable to urinate on his own because of a blockage, which his urologist said may have been caused by the dry insertions. He now has to live with a catheter. I cringe whenever I think about his experience and wonder if others have been subjected to this.

A. HOLY CRAP! DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO TELL ME THIS? OH MY GOD, THAT SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUSLY PAINFUL.

On a more sane and sober note, I agree with your father’s regular doctor who suggested using glue as a lubricant. Wait, that’s not what you said. Jeez, I’m really unhinged here.

I’m guessing that the female nurse who did the unlubricated insertion misconstrued your father’s request to “put something on it” as an improper sexual advance, which it may well have been. Is your father currently getting “any”? Was “it” in an engorged state when the request was made? It may be that his eagerness for admittedly pleasurable but inappropriate touching by the nurse could have caused him a more painful procedure than was necessary.

As for the blockage he’s now experiencing, I would suggest limiting his intake of fluids to zero. If he still has to urinate, you might try the homeopathic version of a catheter: a Burger King straw (the big ones they give out for milk shakes). Instead of the tube, try lubricating your father instead with a tall glass of Bacardi 151 rum. While he’s unconscious, his limp appendage should be far more user-friendly.

And please, PLEASE, never write to me about urinary catheters again. I’m serious.

Hot enough for you? It is for me

The heat is on

The heat is on

The heat is on

Oh, it’s on the street

The heat is…

On

– Either Glenn Frey or Don Henley, I forget which, and seriously doubt there’s really all that much difference anyway

 

Today’s forecast in my area of the country calls for a high temperature around 85 degrees. Tomorrow is projected to be 88, with the following day topping out in the low 90s. For me, it’s too damn hot already, and it’s only the first of June.

I’m not a big fan of warm weather, probably because I was born and raised in Florida. When I was a child growing up in Miami, we’d have very little variety between wonderful weather and fabulous weather (except for the occasional cataclysmic hurricane) and it got to be very boring. To this day, I remember the excitement one morning during my 17 years there when we awoke to find a clog of ice in the garden hose and a thin frost on the lawn. It was as close to a snow day as we’d ever get.

While people in northern climes were yearning for retirement to the Sunshine State, we had to endure a boring sameness throughout our environment. With no real autumn, we never knew what it meant to see the leaves changing. My grandmother had to mail me an oak leaf from Pennsylvania so I would get some basic idea. We had no mountains and no hills, just an unending flatness. Stairs were exciting. When Dick and Jane cavorted in the fictional snow of our first-grade readers, we thought they were dead and in heaven, frolicking among the clouds.

All heat and no cold made Christmas especially problematic. How would Santa ever be able to come visit us? Sleighs don’t lend themselves well to travel on the high-speed Florida Turnpike. Reindeer will end up run off the road and flailing in the canals, a tasty holiday treat for the alligators. Santa’s going to get a god-awful chafe wearing that wool suit in our heat. How will his swollen legs fit in our chimney, even if we had a chimney or knew what one was? My parents reassured us that he’d make a special trip to south Florida in a helicopter and that he’d wear seersucker golf pants for his trip down through our air conditioning ducts and into our living room. Not quite the picture painted in TV’s Christmas specials.

When I moved to Tallahassee in the northern corner of the state to attend college, it didn’t get much better. I did finally see my very first snow flurry but still had to endure my entire freshman year on the top floor of an un-air-conditioned dorm. Fortunately, we were all so cool that it didn’t matter. My only outdoor camping experience to this day came during a worse-than-normal heat wave when we hauled our mattress out on the grass to sleep. The washer women who handled our bed linens loved us for that one.

Now, of course, I’m a mature adult, living far enough north to at least experience some seasonal changes, and I still say I hate the heat – I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! It’s stupid and it’s gross. You get all sweaty and stinky and, worst of all, extremely irritable.

Fortunately, just about all of the interior world is air-conditioned these days, so I do have the option of adopting a hermit-like existence for the next four months. Right now, for example, I have a wonderful view of this balmy late spring day by looking out the floor-to-ceiling window from my icy perch inside a frigid cafe, complete with working fireplace. It looks beautiful out there – the trees are green and swaying in the breeze, the clouds are wispy, the sun is bright – but I know it’s really a hellish inferno.

The cold comfort of conditioned air serves me well in most spots, though not in my workplace. My business operates in a converted warehouse that wasn’t really designed for a cubicle-farm office. I’ve had my desk positioned in several different locations throughout this large room, yet no matter where I sit I’m always too warm. When I arrive in the morning, the two women from the night shift who sit on either side of me are huddled in their sweaters, portable heaters glowing at their feet. I turn on a small fan aimed at my legs under the desk and a large one that I aim just over my head. (I’d have it blowing right on me if I could figure out how to proofread financial documents while they’re flying through a whirlwind.) The loud roar of the two announces that a man has arrived, and he’s not comfortable.

My coworkers are about 75% female, and I think this is part of the dilemma. We once called a repairman to the office to fix what seemed to be chronic AC problems. He fiddled away with the thermostat for some time before scanning the room and reporting that he had discovered our problem. “Most of your people are women,” he told my boss. “They give off more heat than men.” This seemed to me to be one of the lamest excuses for not doing your job I had ever heard, though it’s something the U.S. Senate might want to keep in mind as they consider the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. (Those judicial robes make the Snuggie look well-ventilated.)

In the years since, I’ve occasionally battled with the women in my office on this subject. One argument I thought should be convincing was that we should keep it cooler because, while they can always put more clothes on, I can’t be taking more clothes off. Well, I can, but I’m sure it would mean a rather unpleasant visit with the human resources guy. One lady showed up on a July morning last year wearing a sleeveless sundress to work, and immediately began complaining how cold the air-conditioning was. “Have you considered wearing something that covered the upper half of your torso?” I countered.

Maybe I’m noticing the heat more in recent years because I’m getting older. My wife tells me that men don’t get hot flashes associated “the change,” and she knows about such things (I’m just saying she’s a very knowledgeable person, not implying anything more.) I’ve thought about buying one of those “cooler collars” I’ve seen in the SkyMall catalog, though I suspect that would work about as well as would lugging around an icepack in my pants. Or I could contract one of those tropical diseases that give you the chills.

Maybe I’ll suggest another training trip for myself to India. Their heat makes ours feel bush league by comparison. And there’s a good chance I could come down with Dengue Fever.

News is fake, but quotes are real

Outspoken members of the Republican right wing continued their surprising displays of support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with several comments made in recent days.

Leading the outpouring of goodwill was conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, who said the Latina that President Obama picked to succeed Justice David Souter was similar to one of his idols, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

“She would bring a form of bigotry and racism to the court,” Limbaugh said in praising the Bronx-born jurist on his Monday talk show. “Not only does she lack the appropriate judicial temperament, it’s worse than that.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also joined in the accolades for Sotomayor, calling her a “racist.”

“Imagine a judicial nominee who said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman,’” Gingrich said dreamily.

Former Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo agreed with the Georgia conservative’s admiration for Sotomayor by comparing the judge’s membership in a national Hispanic organization to enrollment in the KKK. The 2008 presidential candidate known for his anti-immigration stance spoke glowingly of the president’s selection to be on the high court.

“I’m telling you, she appears to be racist,” Tancredo bubbled. “She said things that are racist.”

Meanwhile, those who remain opposed to the choice persisted in their search for reasons the balance of the Court would be negatively affected by the addition of a second woman and second non-white among the nine justices.

After a CNN report revealed that Sotomayor would become the sixth Catholic on the nation’s highest bench, tilting the panel strongly toward a belief in papal infallibility, other studies showed additional areas where the delicate balance of fairness could be impacted.

• The new judge, a left-handed individual, would join five other lefties.
• Sotomayor is reputed to like tuna, as do seven other justices currently serving.
• Joining an already-strong majority of six, the would-be justice favors a coin-flip in cases where an absent vote could lead to a 4-4 tie.
• Obama’s appointee prefers to remain clothed under her robes, which would leave Justices Scalia and Thomas as the only members who are nude underneath.
• Sotomayor does not believe in “tweeting” her thoughts during closed-door deliberations of major decisions, joining six other current judges who share that belief.
• The first Hispanic female nominee has all her original teeth, drives a sedan rather than a coupe, and prefers dogs as pets over hamsters, much like solid majorities of the court.

Taking measured steps to better health

It’s probably a good sign of corporate health and a reviving economy when you’re company stops trimming headcounts and instead starts a campaign to trim the figures of actual employees.

That’s what we’re seeing at the firm where I work: a three-month company-wide effort to get workers to walk their way to better health – and, not insignificantly, lower health-insurance overhead – through the Green Paces Initiative. Employees sign up to join five-person teams that will count the number of steps taken between June 1 and September 1 at offices throughout the country. (I don’t know if our sites overseas are also participating, but it seems like instituting long treks and reduced caloric intake among our Indian and Sri Lankan staffs would be redundant.) The team that treads the farthest wins a cash prize determined by some complicated raffle system I’ll describe later. Hopefully, this initiative will end better than 2006’s Weightloss Reduction Challenge where, by the final week, people were lopping off limbs to make their goals.

 I first became aware of this corporate initiative during a visit to the men’s room several weeks ago. While the economy was in free fall the preceding six months, all non-essential expenses – travel, employee meals, retirement contributions, quality – were banned by headquarters as too costly. The “green shoot” I saw that morning was a small poster placed at seated eye level on the stall wall. “Get Up Off Your Seat,” encouraged a cartoon frog, somewhat hastily in my particular case. “Join the Green Paces Initiative and Get Healthy.” The frog squatting on a branch didn’t fully appreciate the equal importance of a well-functioning gastro-intestinal system, so I vandalized his protruding butt with several poop drops. (I later had to white these out when a co-worker recognized my work.)

Soon we received an email with more details about the effort. Everyone would be issued pedometers, numbers would be recorded every day and reported to a central office every week, you could pick your own teammates, and a good personal goal each day was put at 10,000 paces. “That’s about 50,000 miles per person per month,” shrieked one of my math-challenged associates. Actually, it’s more like five miles a day. Each quintet would have a Team Captain, and a so-called “Super Captain” would coordinate activities of each site and defend us against evil masterminds out to conquer the world.

Immediately, we had questions, and it soon became apparent why I had made another trip to the men’s room while volunteers were recruited for the captaincy positions. Do other forms of exercise count for anything? Yes, every 15 minutes of yoga, cycling, yard work, mountain-climbing, house-to-house combat, etc., would count as 2,000 steps. What if I forget to wear my pedometer for a day? Enter your average for the preceding week, and don’t let it happen again. What’s with the sign-up waiver? Though the company is interested in your health, they’re not so interested that they’ll assume any legal liability if you die from walking.

The email also contained this disturbing display of distrust by our corporate masters, as well as the germ of an intriguing idea: “Step-count reporting will be on the honor system. Shaking the pedometer is strictly prohibited.” Actually, I wasn’t thinking so much of shaking the thing myself (too much exertion) as I was taking it to Home Depot and strapping it to one of those paint-mixing machines. “If your Super Captain finds out any team member is participating in this behavior, they will be removed from their team immediately.” Yeah, but I’d still have the free paint-stirring sticks.

I decided I truly did want to participate, since I’m already doing daily treadmill work at the Y, and the free pedometers were imprinted with a cool logo. Me and the only other four men on day shift decided we would be a team, as long as we didn’t have to have a nickname, uniforms, team spirit or official cheer. I had one additional concern. As a “team,” would we actually be required to do our walking together, locked arm-in-arm five abreast, strolling through the office park looking like we were marking casual Friday in the Land of Oz? No, I was assured, we could record our exercise as we went about our separate daily routines. We were a team in name only, kind of like a Tour de France bike-racing squad or the Democratic Party.

The five of us, all paunchy forty- or fifty-something family men, did have a brief, informal team-building session, where we joked about how we didn’t really take such corporate nonsense seriously. One speculated whether we could start right at 12:01 a.m. on June 1, so our half-dozen middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom could be counted. Another wanted to wear his pedometer on his pajamas, to see if his insomniac tossing and turning would register. Someone asked, can you count your steps to and from the shower and, if so, where do you hang the pedometer? I broke off for a quick walk around the perimeter of the room, counted the 95-step circuit, and wondered if downtime would soon lead to employees orbiting the office like obsolete spy satellites.

Last Friday, the final workday before the official start, we were going to have a pep rally to get the entire plant in the proper rah-rah spirit, but then we remembered that the warehouse people in the next room were hourly wage slaves who couldn’t be freed from their picking-and-packing routine for such non-value-added nonsense. They’re probably going to defeat us all anyway, since their entire day is spent pacing from pallet to pallet, like caged zoo creatures.

As I write this piece, we’re now in Day Two of the Green Paces Initiative. I recorded an impressive 12,434 steps on the first day and am just over 9,300 for today. The Restless Leg Syndrome that causes uncontrollable twitching in my calf muscles is racking up additional steps as I sit here and type. Everyone at work is getting in the spirit, except for one unfortunate team that’s been decimated by two weddings (wonder if the brides wore their pedometers on their gowns walking down the aisle), a six-week temporary layoff for one member and a car accident for another.

We’re all striving to keep our eyes on the prize, trying to comprehend the so-called raffle that could result in a prize of $200. According to the published rules, “three separate raffles will occur at the end of each of the three four-week periods based on totals of weekly averages. Teams will receive a raffle ticket based on cumulative miles walked. Fifty percent of those teams will receive raffle tickets and at the end of each period will have their names drawn for a prize.”

I wonder how many steps we can count for the mental effort that’s going to be required to figure that one out.

Greetings from Saudi Arabia

President Obama faced some difficult choices upon his arrival in Saudi Arabia yesterday for a five-day goodwill tour of the Middle East. During his first meeting with a head of state, he’d be greeted by King Abdullah, the same man he was accused of bowing to when they first met at the G-20 summit in London two months ago. Though White House aides insisted at the time that the president was only stooping to admire the socks of the diminutive autocrat, Obama drew flak from the right for having the nerve to respect a foreign leader.

Now he was going to have to greet the guy again at the Riyadh airport, witnessed by the international press corps, and on National Fist Bump Day no less. (It’s true; look it up if you want. Organizers are calling for all global citizens to put aside their differences on June 3 and show their respect by “knocking knuckles.”)

What should he do? Offer a good ol’ American handshake? Possibly okay if they were in the U.S., but here he is in the nation that safeguards the most sacred sites in Islam. Follow the lead of former President George W. Bush, who strolled hand-in-hand with the monarch when he visited Bush’s Texas ranch? Too Bushian. Go all the way to third base as President Reagan famously did with Abdullah’s predecessor? (In local parlance, this diplomatic miscue became the legendary “full camel toe.”)

The world watched anxiously as the president stepped off Air Force One and there stood the king, resplendent in his blinding white robes. The two leaders shared a light embrace and a cheek-to-cheek touch on both sides, called a “friendly but formal greeting” by The New York Times. They stood for several minutes beneath a gazebo in the scorching desert heat, then shared a cup of tea before heading to the king’s place for dinner.

“This time,” the Times reported, “reporters on hand did not see a bow.”

Looks like the coolest president since James K. Polk once again did the right thing, even though he had a world of choices in how to communicate his greeting. He could’ve done like I do every day when passing an associate at work in the hall, look down and pretend to be checking my cell phone messages and walk right past or, if I’m feeling especially friendly, offer a tight-lipped nod. Or he could’ve selected from the large number of greeting gestures described in Wikipedia.

In addition to bowing and cheek kissing, they also list Eskimo kissing (generally thought to be rubbing noses but actually the smelling of another person’s face), the high-five, hand-kissing, hat-raising or hat-tipping (especially difficult with a crown), hugging, kowtowing (it has a bad reputation but it’s really just kneeling and touching the ground with your forehead, in order to show awe or submission), the Indian-style “namaste,” the standard military salute, waving (probably a tad informal) or the Hitler salute. That last one would probably be going too far to appease the anti-Zionist crowd in the Muslim world.

Hey, how's it goin'?

Also rejected by the president’s creative staff were body-sniffing, wiping-hands-on-shirt (symbolic of our nation’s desire to rid itself of our love-hate affair with oiliness), brow-wiping and saying “whew” (appropriate for the 120-degree heat), foot-wiping (to get the sand out of your shoes), the bro-hug, the babe-hug (a sideways clutch designed to keep the breasts out of play) and the fake-shake-with-thumb-away (pulling back your outstretched hand at the last moment and giving the “yer out” sign over your shoulder).

After the president’s brief visit in Saudi Arabia, he heads off to Egypt for a major address at Cairo University that will be seen by many as an attempt to reach out and show respect for the Muslim world. Sources said he plans to be as non-controversial as possible, since these are the folks who so freaked out over a lame cartoon. Advance copies of the speech leaked to the press indicate the president will characterize Islam as “a monotheistic religion founded by Mohammad in the seventh century with approximately 1.5 billion current-day adherents worldwide, generally divided into Sunni and Shia factions, who follow the Koran and the Five Pillars of Islam for spiritual guidance.”

Website Review: Ambien.com

At my annual physical a month or so back, I noted an increase in insomnia as I got older so, following the direction of TV advertisers, I asked my doctor about Ambien. He said it might be helpful for short-term relief of my problem, so he wrote me a prescription to cover me for the next year.

The drug I actually mentioned is the only Ambien currently being advertised, a controlled-release formulation called Ambien CR. The patent held by pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Aventis on the original drug expired in 2007, requiring them to develop a slight variation that not only gets you to sleep but keeps you there. (You’d think they’d have thought of that the first time, so you obviously know very little about Big Pharma.) When this patent expires, I look forward to a chocolate-covered Ambien or perhaps a honey-infused Ambien tea.

My doctor implied the Ambien CR was basically a marketing ploy that had failed to yield any free trips to Bermuda, so I’d be just as well off taking a generic, the less evocatively named zolpidem tartrate. He wrote me the prescription and I’ve been a happy though somewhat groggy user ever since. However, I wanted to learn more about this medicine, so I’ve chosen ambiencr.com for my weekly Website Review.

The home page of this website features a quintet of smiling, well-rested folks standing around the edges of a giant Ambien pill. The pill rotates, allowing each individual to hold up a placard summarizing their particular sleep issue which you can click on to hear more of their stories. The tablet would have to measure about ten feet wide by two feet thick to hold all these people, so the fine print helpfully informs us that this is “not actual pill size.” On the other side of the graphic, we’re also told that these are “not actual patients”. Yet still we’re asked to believe that this is an actual sleep aid. I wasn’t fooled by this shameless ruse, so I read a few of the individual stories to make sure I’m getting the facts.

“Anita,” who is “45,” describes her fictional self as a morning person who started to dread her daily wake-up. She lacked energy and her stress levels at work were “off the charts,” so with a little nagging from her illusory friends she got a pretend prescription from her imaginary doctor. “What a much-needed difference,” the copywriter making up her story says. “Now I’m the early riser again, the pancake-maker, the family alarm clock.”

Another phantom sleeper who I could relate to was 55-year-old “John,” who would be precisely in my demographic if he weren’t actually 30 years younger and probably female. “I believe that if you have a nagging problem, you fix it,” said John. “I went to my doctor and he recommended Ambien CR, and it helps me fall asleep and stay asleep. So now I’m ready for my next challenge. Mountain biking, anyone?”

Thanks, John, but I’ll pass on the biking, even though I’m sure we could be best friends forever if you actually existed. I want to be careful about undertaking any risky physical activity, because if you know anything at all about Ambien from the popular media it’s that there’s this phenomenon called “amnesia for the event” in their side-effect warnings. Apparently, there are many reported cases of this so-called “automatism” where people who thought they were enjoying a restful, Ambien-induced slumber were in reality driving cars, walking around outside their home, conversing with family members or even running for Congress.

“Sleepwalking … as well as behaviors such as being more outgoing or aggressive than normal, confusion, agitation, and hallucinations have been reported,” reads the safety information at the bottom of every page on this website. “In rare cases, sleep aids may cause swelling of your tongue.”

I haven’t measured my tongue lately, but I do think I may have experienced some of this strange behavior. After taking a pill the other night, I “awoke” to find myself spilling a glass of Pepsi all over my chest while talking to my parents on the phone. On another occasion, I fell out of an airplane while wearing nothing but my underwear, landing on top of my high-school girlfriend who then gave me a math test that I hadn’t studied for. Dream or reality – who really knows?

In addition to the blatant promotion of an artificial solution to sleep problems, there’s quite a bit of helpful data about insomnia at this site. They describe the two different kinds of insomnia – the primary kind and the scary-sounding “co-morbid” variety. The primary one is commonly experienced by over half of all adults, due to everyday factors like stress, aging, over-eating, jet lag, shift work, etc. The co-morbid kind is accompanied by other issues, such as cancer, heart disease, lung malfunction, pain, depression and drug abuse. You also might have sleep apnea, where your sleeping proficiency is just fine but your failure to breathe could be a problem, or narcolepsy, where you nod off at inappropriate times during the day, such as while working or swallowing. They’re not trying to worry you into sleeplessness; they just want you to be informed.

To offer a complete picture of all the options available to you, they also have a list of other possible sleep assistance, including the melatonin receptor agonists, the benzodiazepines and the non-benzodiazepines. (For the record, Ambien is a short-acting non-benzodiazepine hypnotic that potentiates gamma-aminobutyric acid.) It’s apparently also possible to improve your nightly rejuvenation by doing things like avoiding caffeine, watching your diet, exercising regularly and having a large, comfortable bed, though it’s probably best to discuss these options with your doctor before beginning any change in your routine.

Finally, I’ll mention an option for sleep inducement located in the games section of this website. Nobody counts sheep anymore in this digital age, except the occasional OCD-afflicted shepherd. Instead, you can play an online competition wherein a cartoon rooster pops up at various locations around a bedroom and you throw pillows at the bird by clicking on him. “Show your rooster who’s boss and give him the beak down he deserves,” reads the instructions. “Peck-a-boo!” Discounting the disturbing idea of trying to sleep while a cock peeks at you from your closet, then from your window, then from behind your dresser, I can really only think of one good reason for having your laptop in bed with you and it has nothing (well, very little) to do with targeting poultry.

To wrap this review up, I thought I’d offer a first-person assessment on the affects of the drug being used as prescribed. As I’m writing this, it’s 8 p.m. on Thursday night. I’m pulling the orange transparent prescription container out of my medicine cabinet, unscrewing the lid, shaking a single dose into my palm and … and …

And I want to assure you that if you elect me to the U.S. Senate, I will serve the interests of all the voters, and I promise not to show up at the Capitol in my underwear.

Advice on the new baby

This is another installment in my free but increasingly dreadful advice service. Today’s topic again addresses a technical matter, but I’ll also be tackling interpersonal relationships, spiritual concerns, health problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. TODAY’S DISCLAIMER APPEARS IN UNDERLINED CAPITALS, BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE HOW UNDERLINES ARE CONVERTED FROM WORD TO HTML: REMEMBER, I HAVEN’T THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Q. I’m hoping you can provide guidance concerning harmful radiation from a satellite dish mounted on my roof. I’m a little concerned because we’re expecting a baby soon, and her crib will be just a few feet away from the satellite dish’s position on my roof.

A. You’re quite right to be concerned about the position of the satellite dish. The way that it’s mounted, the angle of the dish and the condition of the bowl itself are all very important considerations in the well-being of your loved ones. You also need to look at the power source, the wiring and the connection into your TV. All of these must be in proper shape to guarantee you’re getting the crispest picture as well as all the channels you’re entitled to. The happiness of your family members hangs in the balance, especially if they can’t see all the Indian cricket, Mexican soap operas and NFL football they want.

As for the baby you’re expecting, I wouldn’t recommend putting her crib on the roof. Most roofs are slanted to allow rain and snow to trickle off, and the same thing could happen to your little girl if the crib isn’t soundly secured. It would be much better to keep her inside the house, preferably in a room by herself, if she’s going to scream and moan anything like my kids did. This room, often called a “nursery,” should not be confused with the nurseries and rooftop herb gardens some people keep in the city. It should contain bedding of soft cotton or linen, not soil or mulch.

Allow me to wish you all the best with the new addition to your family. A rewarding life of laughter, pride and contentment await you as you watch the number of channels offered on satellite TV continue to grow and grow. There’s nothing quite like a dish to make you appreciate how happy you can be with your family.

Just make sure that new little girl doesn’t get loose and chew through the wiring.

Using your cell phone as a defensive weapon

Now that I’m trying to maximize my up-and-down hip movement every day as part of the corporate stepping competition I wrote about last week (http://davisw.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/taking-measured-steps-to-better-health/), I’ve started tacking an evening walk onto the end of each day’s physical activity. The pedometer I wear on my belt is somehow recording only about 11,000 paces per day, and I want to report more without cheating.

We have a neighborhood that’s theoretically nice for walking, with little vehicular traffic, huge canopy trees and a nice flat terrain. The animal life that might otherwise be tempted to bother us is fairly well-controlled. Most of the neighbors with dogs have installed “invisible fences” to shock their animals into civility. There is some wildlife – mostly squirrels, rabbits and the occasional field mouse – and I haven’t lost enough weight yet to worry about being carried off by hawks.

The reason that reality differs from theory in this walking wonderland has to do with the other people who are out on the street. Many of them are more interested in using the stroll as a pretext for socializing than as a get-healthy regimen. I don’t mind nodding my head and offering a friendly grunt as we pass other groups in the street, but too often we slow to a stop and begin a trivial conversation that’s burning virtually zero calories.

When my wife asked me to join her on a post-dinner stroll the other night, it was exactly the time of day when almost everyone else was out and about. I feared there’d be very little walking and way too much talking.

“Just keep going if someone tries to stop us,” my wife suggested. “I like to talk. I’ll just catch up to you later.”

It sounded like a workable idea, until I thought it through and realized how strange it would be if we encountered another husband-and-wife duo. The standard procedure seems to be that all four begin the chat session together, then one wife will bring up a subject (fallopian tubes, for example) that the men won’t care to discuss, so the two husbands pair off and talk about lawn-mowing, sports or lawn-edging. How could I walk away from such a scenario without looking like a complete jerk?

Then I had an idea. There’s still one fully acceptable reason to behave like an ass in polite society, and it involves the use of the cell phone. What if I carried the phone with me during the walk, then flipped it open to accept an incoming call at the exact moment an oncoming group is spotted? If I acted early enough, it wouldn’t be seen as rude. Instead, I could be viewed by the neighbors as one of those terribly important individuals who can never be off the grid without widespread societal collapse. You know, like every twenty-something motorist you see.

The secret to success, I figured, would be to have a number of different scripts prepared that could be used on the variety of audiences I would encounter. I would be like the well-prepared telemarketer who alters his selling approach to address any arguments of resistance in his marks (Call recipient: “Can’t talk now; I have to go to the bathroom.” Telemarketer: “Just go in your pants; this wireless offer is too good to miss.”). First, though, I had to figure out which lines would work best on each demographic. I wanted to project an air of importance while at the same time instilling a certain fear, and I knew the same communication would not work on everyone.

For the elderly retirees from the neighboring assisted-living center, I could say: “Yes, Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius, I agree we should support that amendment to allow those over age 65 to eat at cafeterias for free before 5 p.m. Just make sure that clause about cat food is carefully worded.”

For the numerous dog-walkers leading their pets through the greenway adjacent to the road, I could say: “Commissioner Goodell, we have to face the reality of the situation. Michael Vick will have every legal right to return to the NFL as a quarterback, but that doesn’t mean we have to use the hides of his dogs to make footballs.”

For the kids riding their bikes and scooters down the street, I could say: “Miley, Miley, Miley, I know you’re eager to take on more adult roles, but your public just isn’t ready to see you yet as Paul Giamatti’s promiscuous Aunt Hildie in the next Spiderman movie.”

And for the middle-aged couples, I could say: “Listen closely and carefully to what I have to say, Mr. President. If we don’t launch that preemptive strike on Paraguay, we’ll all be crispy tostadas by this time tomorrow.”

We started our walk, and as I practiced these lines quietly to myself, I noticed my wife walking farther and farther ahead of me. That’s fine, I thought, this will allow me to scope out the lay of the land for potential ambushes ahead. My biggest fear was the local drama professor from the nearby condos. He was known to improvisationally explode from behind a hedge with stories of his upcoming vacation and questions about when his son could come play with mine. (They’re 17 years old, for crying out loud). I fingered my trusty Razr as we passed the location where he was reportedly seen only yesterday.

The street remained clear for almost a quarter-mile until an oncoming SUV wheeled into a driveway about fifty feet in front of us. Cars and such aren’t usually an issue for the walkers but because this one had come to a stop so abruptly, I flipped open the phone and mentally rehearsed the scene I’d trained so thoroughly for the past ten minutes. A woman about our age erupted from the passenger side of the vehicle and ran straight toward us.

“Beth!” she yelled, which I suspected was a local war cry and, also, my wife’s name.

This turned out to be Michelle, an old college friend we had occasionally spoken to during our 15 years in the subdivision. She was on us in an instant, remarking how nice an evening it was, asking my wife questions about her freelance editing business, and asking how her son who wants to work at home now that he and his new wife had their first baby, and her daughter-in-law was going back to work because she had the good insurance but Bobby wondered if he couldn’t make some income online.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Following behind Michelle was her husband and their college-age daughter, both smiling menacingly. We stood there like the Dave Clark Five, but even more awkward.

Fortunately Beth and Michelle did most of the talking while I smiled and shifted my weight back and forth, hoping that it would register on the pedometer. I heard none of the telltale clicking I had noted earlier; only the friendly conversation and the pounding of my heart.

I momentarily considered hurling my cell phone to the ground, because I’m pretty sure that Motorola diversified to a hand grenade division a few years back and maybe this model offers fragmentation features as well as email access and high-resolution video (I never did read the manual). At least it would be enough to distract our accosters long enough to make our escape.

In the end, though, we found ourselves having a very nice conversation with the Roths, who may be joining us for a picnic when the weather gets warm for good in a few weeks. Al gave me a few tips on how he keeps his yard so nice, the daughter is already looking forward to her junior year at Duke, and Michelle’s ovaries never came up. They’re a very pleasant family, and I regret having wanted to slay them.

Recycled holiday advice

This is another installment in my free but increasingly dangerous advice service. Today’s topic addresses a spiritual matter that has occurrs to all of us during the holiday season, but I’ll also be tackling interpersonal relationships, computer breakdowns, health problems, do-it-yourself issues, travel, and virtually anything else I care to. TODAY’S DISCLAIMER APPEARS IN ITALIC CAPITALS: REMEMBER, I HAVEN’T THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Q. Now that the year-end holidays are here, I find myself once again in the sometimes difficult position of having to explain to acquaintances and coworkers why I don’t celebrate them. I am single, my parents died many years ago, and I have no family. Coworkers take time off at Christmas, but I take mine at other times of the year. Over time, I have found that I would rather spend a so-called holiday catching up on correspondence, taking a walk, reading a good book or sewing. I understand the religious and historical significance of these celebrations and keep them in my heart, but do not observe them in a visible manner. When people ask me what I’m doing for the holidays, it is an awkward moment. How can I gracefully explain that I choose to keep the holidays in my heart only and enjoy the day as a small vacation for myself? – Lonely and Pathetic Yet For Some Reason Upbeat

A. There’s actually a great but largely unknown tradition in Christendom that’s rooted in the activities of sewing and catching up on correspondence. It is written in the Gospel according to St. Mark that, shortly after Jesus was born unto Mary in Bethlehem, that He was asked by a wise man (more of a wise guy, actually) to do something to prove His divinity. The Holy Child proceeded to produce a sewing needle and skein of fine linen from the rear pocket of his swaddling clothes and rapidly stitched the shawl he would then carry throughout his life and which ultimately became the Shroud of Turin. Then, about 15 years later, the Holy Teenager began what would become a lengthy correspondence with the prophet Huldah, who was sort of the “Dear Abby” of her day, about His acne.

All this might be difficult to condense into a short answer for your prying coworkers, so I’m sending you a package of tracts titled “Busy Work Is The Lord’s Work” that you can hand out to your acquaintances. Bring ‘em along when you take that Christmas Day walk along with that pile of books, and you can make yourself a small stage to harangue passers-by to adopt your One True Religion.

What a loser.

Bongo go bye-bye

(Note: All names in this item are real. The quotes, obviously, are not.)

Leaders with funny-sounding names from around the globe mourned the death yesterday of Gabon President Omar Bongo, who died of cardiac arrest in a Barcelona hospital. He was 73.

Bongo became the world’s longest-serving leader when Cuba’s Fidel Castro stepped down last year. Bongo had been in office since 1967, when he succeeded the former French colony’s only other leader since Gabon’s independence, Leon M’Ba. Most of the West African nation’s 1.5 million people have known only Bongo as president.

“The drumming of his heartbeat has ceased,” said Prime Minister Jean Ndong in announcing Bongo’s death. “No longer will his people feel the staccato percussion of his stirring words.”

Leading the chorus of tributes that poured in following announcement of the death were fellow sub-Saharan strongmen Tertius Zongo of Burkina Faso, Yayi Boni of Benin, and Ignacio Milam Tang of Equatorial Guinea. Also issuing statements of mourning were other African leaders such as Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, and Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghaf of Mauritania.

“His weapons were his crystal eyes, making every man a man,” said Fiji’s Frank Bainimarama, secretary-general of the Wacky Named Leaders (WNL) confederation. “Black as the dark night he was, got what no one else had.”

The large representation of south Pacific nations in the group were quick to join in the Fijian’s tribute. East Timor’s Xanana Gusmao, Indonesia’s Susilo Bambang Yudhoyoho, Palau’s Johnson Toribiong, and Vanuatu’s Kalkot Mataskelekele added their condolences, as did Malaysia’s Yang di-Pertuan Agong Mizan Zainal Abidin, the world’s longest-named president. But it was the succinct homage released by Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo Tufuga Efi that touched a special note.

“He is as if my pa,” Efi said. “O, we no do go on, my my.”

Bongo’s loss was also noted throughout mainland Asia. Igor Chudinov of Kyrgyzstan, Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, Oqil Oqilov of Tajikistan and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan sent messages of support – largely misspelled – to the people of Gabon. Bhutan’s king Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, saying that all the world mourned with him, proclaimed “everyone Wangchuck tonight.” Oman’s Sultan Qaboos said he was so hurt by the announcement that “I felt like I was run over by a train.” Kuwait’s Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah told reporters he was “all sad, all gloomy,” but that he would eventually be “alright.”

European dignitaries were not as forthcoming in their praise, in part because Bongo had been widely criticized for failing to promote democracy, and because the Anglo-French-German heritage of many heads of state make their names less amusing to Western ears. But Albania’s Bamir Topi, Hungary’s Laszlo Solyom and Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker said they would be sending ambassadors to Bongo’s funeral, scheduled for Friday.

“We may not have agreed with all his policies, but he was a man who respected his people,” said Queen Elizabeth II (pronounced “eye-eye”) of England. “It is sad to say bye-bye.”

Weight loss (and other stuff) in the news

Once again, my beloved Carolinas are in the news for a bizarre reason.

We’ve recently endured the embarrassment of being home to a number of news items that brought quite the condescending chuckle from readers. First, it was reported that several participants at a graduation ceremony in my hometown of Rock Hill, South Carolina, had been arrested and charged by police for shouting “woo” when their loved one marched across the stage to accept their diploma. This disruption was deemed to be worthy of a disturbing the peace charge which led to jail time for the offenders. Then came the Waffle House waitress who delivered the ultimate in customer service by shooting one of the restaurant’s patrons. Then there was the armed robber of a convenience store who used a banana hidden in his shirt to form the shape of a gun barrel (he was subdued by the store manager but he ate the evidence while waiting for police to arrive).

Last week, we had the story of a Kannapolis man who had used Craigslist to find a man to come to his home and “rape” his wife for fantasy purposes. Only the wife wasn’t clued in on the husband’s fanciful daydream.

Now there’s the tragic report of a chemical explosion at the factory outside Raleigh that manufactures Slim Jims. Two workers died when the blast tore through the meat products plant Tuesday, punching holes in the building’s roof and blowing employees off their feet. Four people were critically burned, one was still missing and 40 were taken to area hospitals, including three firefighters who needed medical attention after inhaling ammonia gas at the ConAgra Foods site.

“I was getting ready to pick up a piece of meat and I felt the percussion,” said worker Chris Woods. “One of the guys I was working with got blown back. His hat flew backwards.”

The smell of ammonia that lingered in the area for several hours following the explosion probably doesn’t surprise anyone who has ever dared to eat a Slim Jim. The spicy jerky stick, sold at convenience stores throughout the South, is quite possibly the least food-like product that the human body is capable of (almost) digesting. Spontaneous explosion of the meat, or of the person who attempts to consume it, is not unheard-of, though not on this scale.

Apparently unhurt in the blast was recently retired spokesmen/mascot “Slim Jim,” whose commercial catchphrase of “eat me” inexplicably aired for several months without protest.

 

Uninjured in explosion

 

The temporary shortage of beef shafts on the market could be a boon to those looking to drop a little weight in time for swimsuit season. However we all know that diet alone can only take you so far down the path toward a slimmer, trimmer Jim. Exercise also plays a significant role in toning muscles to the point where you get just the right look to turn heads. All those baffling machines at the gym might work great on abs and lats, but what about those hard-to-reach trouble spots on your head and neck?

To turn heads, it turns out you only have to nod your head, repeatedly and with considerable resistance. Paul Younane, who we apparently are supposed to have heard of, is now offering the Neckline Slimmer in a special TV offer. Using this device just two minutes a day will firm, lift and smooth that disgusting flap of skin under your jaw and reverse the effects of aging without cosmetic surgery.

For only $19.99 (plus shipping, handling and a discrete package that won’t embarrass your mailman), you get a device that looks like a cross between an asthma inhaler and a tracheotomy. The base rests on the center of your collarbone just above your sternum while a plunger rises up to meet your chin. Three different levels of resistance springs – beginner, medium and advanced – fit into the piston tube. You push your chin down toward your chest over and over again while no one is looking, and soon you’ll notice that your wattle is no longer quite so wattly. Your profile and chin definition are better than ever; just make sure you strut around the pool always facing straight ahead and looking slightly upward.

Speaking of exercise, here’s an update on how my team is doing in our corporate walking challenge: we suck. Despite my Herculean effort of walking the equivalent of nearly 40 miles last week, my lame-o team is in ninth place out of the eleven teams at our site. The only groups behind us are an even more desk-bound pack of workers in the front office and the team I mentioned earlier that consists of two new brides, one layoff victim and one car accident victim. All the leaders are warehouse workers who spend their day scurrying back and forth between packing shelves and who should, in my opinion, be disqualified from the competition.

I wonder how many steps we could get credit for by moving our heads up and down.

Half-Fake News: Job opening in N. Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (June 9) – Succession plans to name a new leader of North Korea in light of the declining health of current dictator Kim Jong-il took on another wrinkle yesterday as the 68-year-old strongman announced he was now accepting resumes from interested applicants.

The position, listed appropriately on Monster.com, is described as “chairman of the national defense commission, supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army and general secretary of the Worker’s Party of Korea.” Candidates should have a four-year degree in business or management, be willing to relocate, and have a strong contempt for underlings. The selected applicant will receive the title “dear leader” and will need a haircut. Compensation will be commensurate with experience.

The much-feared Kim, whose name is shortened from the family name “Kymberli,” is reportedly unhappy with his three male heirs-apparent. The oldest son, Kim Jong Nam, had been considered the front runner until he embarrassed the family eight years ago trying to sneak into Japan to visit Tokyo’s Disneyland. Middle son Kim Jong Chol was said to be “too wimpy,” according to an insider account written by the family’s former sushi chef. He was last seen at the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) qualifying school trying to get his tour card.

It appeared last month that youngest son Kim Jong Un would become head of the volatile nuclear-armed nation when the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper wrote that North Koreans were singing a song hailing Un, who we’ll call “Rob” to avoid Kim confusion, as “Commander Kim.” But father Kim may have soured on junior as reports emerged about certain indiscretions witnessed at the Swiss college he attended.

While enrolled at the International School of Bern, Rob assumed the pseudonym Pak Chol, socialized with the children of U.S. diplomats and became a fan of basketball great Michael Jordan, action film star Jean-Claude Van Damme, and former Monkee Peter Tork. Though he reportedly most resembles his father in looks, personality, charisma and thirst for power, Rob is thought to be an intellectual lightweight and even more of a dick.

Kim Jong-il, whose nicknames include “Intelligent Leader” and “Parka Boy,” took over from his father who died of a heart attack in 1994. During his career, he is suspected of having ordered an attack that murdered 17 South Korean officials visiting Burma, and of masterminding the bombing of a civilian airliner that killed all 115 on board. His voice has been broadcast only once, in 1992, when he approached the microphone during a military parade and said “Glory to the heroic soldiers of the People’s Army!” A voiceprint analysis characterized him as a contralto.

Various sources claim that Kim either died in late 2003 and has been replaced by stand-ins since then, or that he suffered a stroke in 2008. Either way, he is said to have a fear of flying and, during a trip to Russia, had live lobsters air-lifted to his train every day, which he ate with silver chopsticks. He is a huge film buff (his favorites include Friday the Thirteenth, Twilight and Rambo), wrote a book called On the Art of the Cinema, and kidnapped a South Korean director and his actress wife to build a North Korean movie industry. He has also composed six operas and enjoys staging elaborate musicals.

Job applicants are encouraged to use Monster’s resume writing service, which will craft a professional, keyword-rich resume that stands out in a crowd. North Korea’s population is about 23 million, so be sure to highlight your people skills.

Website Review: PowerJuicer.com

When I think of a piece of raw nature that’s been processed and warped by modern technology into a strained derivative of its true self, I think of Jack LaLanne and I think of his Power Juicer.

For those of you who may have been living underwater for the last 50 years (perhaps with a large fish strapped to your back and your ankles bound in chains), Jack LaLanne is the near-centenarian who was the original exercise guru. After transforming himself from a scrawny, boil-infested teenager in 1920s California into the well-built muscleman who defined the concept of high-waisted fitness in the fifties and sixties, LaLanne has reached the ripe old age of 95 and now rules an army of food processors on steroids. His commercials advertising this product are a common sight on late-night television.

LaLanne is still alive and kicking – though some might define it more as a twitching and spasming – despite a career that would’ve killed lesser men. He opened the nation’s first modern health club in 1936, his Physical Culture Studio of  Oakland. After premiering the imaginatively titled “Jack LaLanne Television Show” in 1951, he kept himself in the limelight with a series of physical feats that seemed both impossible and ridiculous. He towed a 13-ton boat through the Golden Gate Channel and later swam the entire length of the bridge twice underwater. He swam from Alcatraz to Fisherman’s Wharf with his hands cuffed and his feet shackled. At age 66, he filled ten boats with 77 people and dragged these through the water for over a mile in less than an hour.

Now, in an achievement that puts these insane exercises to shame, LaLanne can claim to have sold over 2 million Power Juicers to an American public starving for pulverized spinach and asparagus sap. To see how it’s done, I’m visiting the Internet’s “official ultimate juicing site,” www.powerjuicer.com, for this week’s Website Review.

The home page shows the three best-selling models of juicers – the Pro, the Classic and the Deluxe – and a mom introducing her young children to the joys of juice. The 3600-RPM induction-powered appliance sits on a counter in the foreground while the kids pose with their juice glasses bottoms-up. Despite the fact that the boy’s left hand, or gnarled stump, is hidden behind a bowl of fruit, the juicer claims to be so safe that not one person has ever died in its whirring maw of “surgical quality stainless steel blades.”

There are actually five models offered for sale at the site. In addition to the three mentioned above, there’s also the Express and the Elite, and sell for between $100 and $150. Though the many features of all five are painstakingly bullet-pointed, I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s different about them. All seem to advertise whisper-quiet operation, non-drip spouts, extra-large chutes to accommodate any fruit short of a watermelon, and special patented extraction technology. The only standout I see is that the Elite comes with something called “soy technology.” If you pay your entire bill upfront, you also qualify for a bonus accessory pack that includes a platform, fruit-based skincare treatments and juice club “mermbership.”

The pulldown of frequently asked questions covers routine information such as how to order, shipping times and weight, and warranty specs, but also contains some fairly disturbing actual customer queries. “Why won’t the power turn on?” asks one. It may have overheated. “Why is my Power Juicer clogged?” We hope you didn’t try to put bananas or avocados in there. “How can I make smoothies if you can’t add milk, yogurt or ice?” You can’t. “How can I juice carrots?” These can be a bit challenging. “Can I use wheatgrass in my Power Juicer?” Why would you want to do that? “Can I put melon rind in the Juicer?” Yes, but no: “we don’t recommend leaving the rind on due to recent cases of salmonella contamination,” but they add “this is a personal preference.”

There’s a “Healthy Living” section with generic tips such as “think local!” and how to get the most out of your compost pile. They suggest you line the bottom of your pile with sticks and twigs to help the organic material break down, and avoid putting meat scraps or bones in your compost because they tend to attract scavengers, not to mention local police detectives.

There are some “reviews,” though they’re really more like testimonials from happy juicers. A soldier in Iraq, in an email described as “unclassified,” says her husband dropped 30 pounds when he “started juicing daily.” (Hard to imagine a fully equipped infantryman lugging a kitchen appliance under his body armor, but combat stress does strange things to people.) Another writes they “want to thank you for making a great juicer, I juice every days, I mix all kinds of fruit and veg. I feel great been juicer with Jack LaLanne juicer since I got about 5 years ago thank again.” “I have had a burning desire to buy this juicer,” says another correspondent. “I forgot to mention that I was told I have level 2 invasive melanoma” (hopefully not from the soy technology), writes a customer who still watches the infomercials. “Thank you Jack LaLanne! You are a blessing to humanity.”

The rest of the pulldowns are considerably less inspirational. The “Press” section quotes InStyle Magazine as saying that Paula Abdul’s prized piece of equipment is a Power Juicer. Terrance Howard juices beets, carrots, celery and ginger with grape juice, according to a 2006 issue of Stuff. There’s Kelly Ripa on the cover of OK! telling how she’ll save her marriage, and Angelina Jolie talking about how she’ll be getting another adopted child, presumably in exchange for pulp. The “Juice Club” part encourages members to “go raw,” and claims that colorful citrus fruits will give the “carcinogens in you a swift kick.” (Personally, I’d rather not make them mad.) A “Juicing Tips” part touts the benefits of not having to use enzymes to digest and break down your food, and offers Bobbi Sue’s Pineapple Wheatgrass recipe – a pineapple spear, a handful of wheatgrass and a handful of spinach.

Ultimately, though, I keep coming back to the “About Jack LaLanne” section to find the true essence of what makes the story of the Power Juicer so powerful, and so juicy. He tells how his first juicer was over a yard wide and weighed 60 pounds. He describes how, when first introduced to good nutrition as a teenager, he went home that night and prayed “Dear God or somebody, I need help.” He talks about how giving your body the right fuel is like giving your automobile the right gas, but stops short of endorsing an ethanol-based energy policy.

In the end, it’s all about being an example for our children, though it’s not clear whether Jack and his wife, Elaine LaLanne (seriously), had any offspring. “Too many (children) are living on hot dogs, candy bars, ice cream and fast food,” he says. “Why not get them juicing? Make them frozen treats out of juice. Get juicing! I cannot stress enough the benefits of juicing.”

Jack with pulleys (NOT David Carradine)

Today’s advice: For new graduates

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly (Saturdays and Sundays) summer replacement feature of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Heed my word at your own risk.

Q. I recently graduated from college and started working in the real world. My problem is that my name is gender-neutral, which my parents tell me was intentional. Many new business acquaintances, whom I meet through e-mail, mistake me for a man. I am often addressed as Mr. and worse, taken for my own secretary when they call. It’s awkward to explain and then embarrassing for the person calling. Is there a polite way to let people know my gender? – It’s Pat

A. I can definitely sympathize and may be able to offer some unique advice from the perspective of someone named “Davis Whiteman.” The “Davis” part comes from several previous generations of fathers and grandfathers, and is not to be confused with “David,” which I’m often mistakenly called. Because my father was also a Davis (actually he went by “Dave”), I became known as “Davie,” which I dropped as soon as I got to college. My son also has the first name of “Davis,” but we call him by his middle name, Daniel. I don’t know who or why somebody came up with the “Whiteman” part – it might’ve seemed like a good idea at the time (1800s), but is definitely awkward in this modern multicultural era. It’s actually pronounced “White-mun,” a small consolation.

Now what was your question again?

Oh, yeah … something about how you want to show your genitals at work. This is not something I’d recommend for most professional workplaces. While it may be essential for certain jobs in adult entertainment and, more recently, the real estate industry (“I’ll show you mine if you buy this house”), most of the dress-for-success literature out there strongly suggests dressing. If you’re a woman, you may want to stay away from pant suits; if you’re a man, I’d avoid putting flowers in your hair.

Electronic and telephonic communications are admittedly a little more problematic. For email, I think you can solve the problem merely by using pink paper for emails if you’re a girl and blue paper for emails if you’re a boy. On the phone, just talk in a real high-pitched squeaky voice if you’re a girl and a booming low-pitched baritone if you’re a boy. As an added flourish, make passing references to Barbie dolls or rocket-propelled grenades, as appropriate.

I could care less

I’m worried that I’m not worrying as much as I used to.

Worry can be a great impetus to get up off the couch and do something with your life. If you’re constantly contemplating all the bad things that could be happening to you, there’s a survival instinct that kicks in with a plan to anticipate and address these feared outcomes. Anxiety used to be a driving force in my career and other ambitions I had for myself, but lately I’ve noticed a certain amount of mellowing that would be a cause for concern, if only I could make the effort.

I’ve always defended my pursuit of anxiety as simply a way of thinking through problems before they happen, always in search of a solution to troubles that surely were just around the corner. I’m being proactive, I’d argue, in considering what it would mean for me and my family to have the earth impacted by a rogue asteroid. Maybe we could hide under our car, or check into a nice hotel, or eat at an expensive restaurant and charge it to that high-interest credit card I’m always afraid to use.

One of my earliest memories was as a first-grader walking home from school, shortly after learning about the dangers of being outside in a thunderstorm. One loud boom and I was running for my life in panic, certain that I was about to experience the business end of a million volts of electricity. I survived that afternoon, only to find myself five summers later worrying for three months about my upcoming move from elementary to middle school. That graduation meant changing classes every hour (I’d surely get lost), a more challenging curriculum (I’d never master algebra), and taking a shower after gym (I’d be naked).

When classes finally started in September, I somehow found a way to survive, and came to the end of that first week with a sense of relief I chose to perceive as accomplishment. That’s one of the hidden advantages to building up concerns in your mind into giant fearsome beasts; if you manage to make it through, there’s a sense that you’ve been fantastically constructive, regardless of the fact that you finished last in the 600-yard run not only because you were fat, but as a strategy to avoid taking a shower in the presence of your classmates.

Throughout high school and college, I used the ever-declining state of world affairs (Vietnam, the Cold War, Watergate, Hall and Oates) as a reason to avoid planning for a positive future. This was either a total repudiation of worry or, more likely, adopting it as such an all-consuming lifestyle choice that thoughts about tomorrow could focus on near-term gratification instead. By the time I started my first real full-time job, I was even using worry as an investment strategy, declining to participate in the voluntary contribution retirement plan because we’d all be dead by next Tuesday anyway.

But I was maturing, in a way. I was learning to break down the bigger fears into smaller, manageable chunks of concern. When I found out that I’d need to travel to India on business, for example, I managed to avoid thinking about what an enormous fright the entire three weeks would be and instead looked at the experience as one small adventure after another. First, I’d think about how difficult it might be to find the international counter at the Charlotte airport, then I’d worry if I was indeed in the right line, and only then would I be afraid that my luggage couldn’t be checked all the way through to Mumbai. And so on. To paraphrase Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu, the journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step, and a 12,000-mile flight to a steaming, overpopulated, poverty-stricken subcontinent begins by abandoning hope that you’ll ever return. I expected the worst and came very close to getting it.

When I did somehow survive the experience and make it back home, I saw how my negativity about the trip had crystallized my outlook on life. If you thought through events in the near future thoroughly enough, you’d realize how unlikely a positive outcome was going to be. With such a constant expectation of imminent disaster, the worst that could happen is exactly what you predicted. You’d always have the satisfaction of being right, even if you also had passed away.

Speaking of physical well-being, it wasn’t until I went for an annual physical a few years later that I finally understood how pointless it was to sweat the small stuff. When the doctor identified a tiny dried spot on my forehead as “something we should look at,” I suddenly had a more appropriate perspective on life. “Great,” I commented, “another thing to worry about.” He immediately responded with the kind of carefully designed treatment plan we’ve come to expect from modern medicine: anxiety medication.

He told me about a class of pharmaceuticals called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRI. It seems we have a chemical in our brains called serotonin, and a selective portion of it is uptaken on a recurring basis. Apparently, we don’t want that. A prescription for citalopram wouldn’t do anything for my forehead spot, but it would make me worry less about it, as well as treat my irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsession-compulsion and lichen simplex chronicus, if I wanted to develop any of those at no additional co-pay. After taking this medicine for a week or two, I seemed to be significantly less anxious, and that moss on my back was almost completely gone.

I’m proud to say that I now have my fears under much better control. Tomorrow, for example, is just the latest test of my new-found coping skills. I’m meeting a plumber to get an estimate on some work I need done at my rental house, and it’s always been a challenge for me, a chronically unhandy individual, to interact with engineer types. But I’ve been studying up in advance on the plumber culture so we might relate better in a man-to-sorta-man relationship. I borrowed a pair of my niece’s low-rise jeans (hope he doesn’t notice the Miley Cyrus decal on the left cheek), I found some NASCAR-branded clothing that seemed appropriate for plumbing (a Dick Trickle t-shirt and a Greg Biffle hat), and I’ve had my right hand replaced with a hook, so I don’t have to shake hands or touch toilet water. I am forcefully taking the situation into my own remaining hand and confronting my fears.

By the way, that dry spot wasn’t head cancer after all. I think the clinical name for the condition was worry wart.

My advice: Be careful about trusting your judgment

“You Want My Advice?” is a twice weekly (Saturdays and Sundays) summer replacement feature of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, health, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. Today, we hear from a writer who decided to take a problem into her own hands and do something about it.

Q. In an attempt to stop smoking, I chewed gum all day and suffered from halitosis. I went to dentists and doctors to no avail. My family and colleagues at work learned to keep their distance. It was very embarrassing! Eventually, I discovered it was the aspartame in the gum and the many cups of coffee I devoured each day. After I switched to another sweetener, the halitosis disappeared and has never returned. – How About Me? Aren’t I Something?

A. Sounds like problem solved. What do you want from me?

I’m glad to hear you achieved success in your resolution to quit such a nasty habit. That can be an inspirational and helpful story for others of us who are trying to turn over new leaves at this time of year.

It can be, but it’s not. Instead, it just sounds like you’re bragging about your ability to identify a problem on your own and think it through to a successful conclusion. This is a very bad thing for us in the advice-giving field. People should not be trying to improve or change their lives in any way without the close supervision of a professional. You’ve seen the signs at the health clubs about consulting a physician before beginning any kind of exercise program? They speak the truth.

I’d recommend that you back up all the way to where you started on this journey — resume your smoking, resume your gum-chewing, regain your odious breath – then call up Harpo Productions to get on the waiting list for the Dr. Phil Show. Otherwise, you’re doomed to failure or, at best, a success that’s not nationally televised so no one cares.

Monday miscellany

Gorilla escapes; run for your lives!

REAL NEWS: A gorilla named Mike escaped from his enclosure at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, S.C., Friday, and slightly injured a food service worker before returning to his habitat after a five-minute taste of freedom, with a side order of pizza.

It was not known for certain how Mike, 16, managed to find freedom, though zoo officials theorized that he lowered himself down a thick vine. Witnesses said he furiously beat his chest when he realized he was no longer confined, then turned on the worker, who was identified as the zoo’s pizza guy.

The concessions employee fell to the ground and wrapped his body into a fetal position to defend against the fugitive ape. He reportedly suffered only minor bumps and bruises. Visitors at the zoo were evacuated for about 45 minutes before being allowed to return.

One woman at the zoo said she tried to warn other visitors that a gorilla had escaped, but she said no one believed her. Hard to imagine that “run for your life, there’s a gorilla on the loose,” was ignored by onlookers.

Zoo officials said there would be no negative consequences for Mike. Riverbanks executive director Satch Krantz said the animal was simply “being a gorilla.”

 Why is this restaurant failing?

Have you ever noticed how certain retail locations seem to host an endless rotation of obviously lost-cause business enterprises? You would think that city officials would rezone these sites as “death spots” to keep unsuspecting entrepreneurs from losing their life savings, but it doesn’t happen.

We have one such location on a major road in my home town that you’d imagine even the dumbest capitalist would know to avoid. Why? Because it’s located in a hole. When the road was widened a few years ago, the steep grade that partially hid it from view became even more severe. As it’s now situated, only the top edge of a sign is visible from the road. In order to see the building itself, you’d have to be run off the road and down the face of a cliff, and be fortunate enough to survive the crash with your hunger for casual dining still in tact.

The earliest restaurant I remember at this spot was a Chinese place, followed by a Mexican place, followed by a barbecue place. Now it’s Kathy’s Southern Style Dining.

Perhaps if someone comes along with either a bat cave or deep canyon dining concept, one day a business will succeed here.

Stitchers in a snit

There’s quite a kerfuffle in the stitching community, as two opposing factions are heatedly debating which day should be officially recognized as World Wide Knit in Public Day.

One group, which could be viewed as the traditionalist sect, favors maintaining this past weekend – June 13 and 14 – as the historic occasion on which needleworkers across the globe haul their skeins into the bright light of day. A splinter group is suggesting instead that next weekend – June 20 and 21 – be the designated “KiP” day. They argue that because the United States Needle Arts Association’s bi-annual conference is held on the earlier dates, and presumably they’re weaving in air-conditioned comfort rather than the outdoor heat of mid-June, that conference attendees would be unable to participate in the more public event.

Most of the Thirteenth-and-Fourteenth-ists went ahead with their celebration yesterday and Saturday. Knitters were reportedly seen hard at work on their scarves, sweaters and slippers at a number of locations around the world, including the perimeter of the Green Zone in Baghdad, atop the Great Pyramid of Giza, and in lifeboats near the search zone for the Air France jetliner that went down mysteriously two weeks ago. In the U.S., numerous interstate highway overpasses were outfitted with a descending platform on which knitters could sit and work while high-speed auto traffic rocketed by beneath them.

Spokespersons for the Twentieth-and-Twenty-First-ites said they will go on with their events this coming weekend regardless of the actions of their hated rivals.

Neither group could explain why World Wide Knit in Public Day is in fact a two-day weekend.

 Your release form is so cute!

While picking up a friend at the hospital Friday who had just completed same-day surgery, I found myself waiting near the exit for the Women’s Center wing of the facility. It warmed my heart to see what was apparently a newly enlarged family emerge and climb into their car behind me.

The scene was a darkened garage so I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the new dad carefully clutching a tiny infant, swaddled entirely in white. He held the package so close to his chest that I knew it was something of inestimable value.

When they opened the door of the car and the interior light came on, I could see that I was right. Sort of. What the man held protectively in his arms was not a newborn at all. It was a large sheaf of what was apparently insurance paperwork.

GI Joe goes for the gut

I’m really looking forward to the release of what is sure to be one of the biggest cinematic blockbusters of this or any summer. “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra” will debut in theaters across the country on August 7.

As the relative of someone who suffers from a gastro-intestinal ailment, I’m very eager for this much-neglected condition to be the subject of a feature film. The increased publicity certain to follow in the wake of such a high-action romp is bound to increase both awareness and funding for diseases of the digestive tract. I only hope that “The Rise of Cobra” has nothing to do with a newly approved colonoscopic procedure.

The Scooby reportedly wore a tux

MORE REAL NEWS (with exact wording from this morning’s Rock Hill paper): An [amusement park] employee helped a park guest cheat on a carnival game and win a free stuffed animal, a park supervisor told authorities.

The guest made off with a giant Scooby Doo animal valued at $109, according to a sheriff’s department report. The Scooby Doo in question was dressed in a tuxedo, reports stated.

The incident occurred Saturday around 5 p.m. The employee was arrested on a charge of breach of trust with fradulent intent, and booked at the Fort Mill Police Department.

Fake News: Bush the Elder stepping out

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (June 13) — Claiming that it was “the risk, the challenge, and the search for adventure” that kept his mind fresh, former president George H.W. Bush marked his eighty-fifth birthday Friday by bounding out of his lavish seaside estate and into a brief taste of the ruinous everyday life that his son George W. Bush created for America.

Bush wore a helmet, protective goggles and a thick jumpsuit as he walked from his oceanside compound and into this small town on the southern coast of Maine. He briefly gave up his government-provided healthcare, the financial security of a lifetime pension and his Secret Service protection to experience the freefall of the middle class. His savings were temporarily cut in half and his position as an ex-president was considered for outsourcing to the Philippines during the hour-long outing.

“I gotta tell you, that was pretty scary stuff,” said Bush, who served in the White House from 1989 until 1993. “My son really screwed up. I survived being shot down by the Japanese during World War II, and it was nowhere near as frightening as this. Ridiculous insurance costs, a horrible job market, two overseas wars, and virtual economic collapse – I could never put up with that on a daily basis.”

“The people with the bravery to dive headlong into these fears and face them every day truly have my admiration,” said the eternally squinting former commander-in-chief. “Junior really did a number on you guys. I’m glad I don’t have to live with that fallout.”

Bush Senior strolled around the small historic district of the downtown area, stopping to chat with tourists and locals as they emerged from shops and restaurants. Many complained to the former president about how his son had so thoroughly wrecked the nation during his eight years in office, but the thick helmet largely protected his ears. He narrowly avoided injury when an executive from Kennebunkport’s only bank jumped to his death from a fourth-story window of the village’s tallest building, just barely missing the octogenarian.

The elderly leader of the Bush clan appeared remarkably steady on his feet, despite having local police chief Edward Brennan strapped to his back in a “tandem” arrangement for safety.

“Barb would never allow me out in public with at least some protection against the mobs who would like to rip me limb from limb,” Bush said.

Meeting with reporters back in the safety of his home after the excursion, the slightly shaken Bush the First announced that for his birthday next year, he would attempt what he called “sky-diving.”

“As I understand it, that involves leaping onto (CNN Morning Express anchor) Robin Meade,” he said. “I would jump that in a second.”

It’s funny because they’re Republicans

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 17) – The suddenly sensitive Republican Party continued its attack on the American comedy community yesterday, with several prominent representatives calling for repudiation of a number of widely repeated jokes.

Leading the charge was radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who strongly criticized the May issue of Reader’s Digest for printing an imagined conversation between a duck and the employee of a drug store.

“What did the duck say to the cashier about his purchase of lip balm?” the periodical asked. “Just put it on my bill.”

Limbaugh said the gag was an inappropriate representation of the type of everyday commerce that drives the American economy.

“To suggest that a duck could communicate on such a level with a human being shows the mainstream media’s strong prejudice toward an excessive respect for animals,” Limbaugh told his nationwide audience. “It shows how the radical PETA agenda is seeping into our society.”

In a similar attack on bird humor, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich condemned the makers of Bazooka Joe bubble gum for asking “why did the chicken cross the road?” The response about “getting to the other side” discounts the danger of having poultry wandering the nation’s highways, Gingrich said.

“To make light of such an obvious traffic hazard just shows poor judgment,” the Georgia Republican told Fox News. “What if a school bus came along and had to swerve to avoid the chicken in question? Would that be funny? Frankly, I don’t think it would be.”

Meanwhile, a quartet of leading Congressional Republicans appeared on the steps of the Capitol to call into question a whole series of supposedly comic yarns that displayed insensitivity toward groups that have traditionally been viewed as largely powerless in society. Each took a brief turn before assembled reporters to show their distaste for the stories while trying not to laugh.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) admitted that although it was possible to tell that an elephant was in your refrigerator by the footprints in the Jello, such an observation tended to belittle what he called “Pachydermo-Americans,” and could also be viewed as a slur against the GOP in general.

Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) re-told the tale of why the math book was so unhappy – “because it’s full of problems” – but said he didn’t find it amusing that children in America’s public schools would hear such an important subject belittled.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he could understand that a sun-burned penguin “is indeed black and white and red all over” but contended he “just didn’t find that suggestion all that funny,” and feared it contained hidden allusions to global warming.

 Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), head of the Republican Policy Committee, said that claiming the little moron was carrying a ladder “because he wanted to go to high school” showed a disrespect for the handicapped that bordered on contempt.

“This so-called joke not only defames the mentally challenged but also those of a small stature,” Ensign said. “It infers that certain citizens of our population need the aid of large-scale hardware to gain access to public institutions that should be open to all.”

Ensign added that he was resigning his leadership position within the GOP because he had an affair with a female staffer whom he rewarded with a new position and an increase in salary following their liaison. He confirmed the relationship publicly without first notifying aide Cynthia Hampton or her husband Doug, also a member of his staff. Ensign is a member of the Christian ministry Promise Keepers, which promotes fidelity in marriage.

“Now that’s funny,” said one observer.

The world is a-Twitter

There seems to be no middle ground on the subject of Twitter. People either think it’s a huge waste of time, or they believe it’s the greatest thing since Christ died on the cross for our sins, crying out in his final words “OMG, OMG, y hast thou 4saken me?”

I generally fall in the former camp, but that’s probably because I’m an older gentleman who can’t understand why the world would be interested that I just flossed between my maxillary first molar and maxillary second molar, or took yet another breath, number 12,845 today. However, with the current political upheaval going on in Iran, and few opportunities for the Western press to report on the event first-hand, Twitter and other social media have gained new respectability in recent days for giving at least a narrow, self-involved view of what’s going on.

I wrote back in a January website review (http://davisw.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/website-review-cnncom/) of the ridiculous legitimacy given to such commentators by CNN’s afternoon news coverage, hosted by Rick Sanchez and his army of Tweeters. Rather than do a fresh site evaluation this week, I thought I’d check in with CNN.com to see how they’re reacting to breaking events half a world away being covered by people even more amateur than their regular staff.

First, however, I need to participate in the “Quick Vote” on their home page: “Would you like to live in the moon?” I’ll vote “no,” because there is no air there and, if you’ve been following me on Facebook, you’ll know that a 75/25 mix of nitrogen and oxygen like the blend found here on Earth is my “favorite atmosphere.”

Now, let’s see what the social media types are contributing to the international conversation about the Iranian elections and their aftermath (original spellings and punctuation included):

• We are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan who will be next North Korea or Iran
• Iran needs a Leader not a Dictator, oh wait that’s America.
• Sour losers send pictures!!! Hahaha, and Rick supports you. CNN has a history of spreading hatred and lies.
• I need to sell this watch I have
• We (the US) have toops on Iran’s Eastern and Western borders, and have our Navy on their Southern border. I think that’s enough influence in and on Iran.
• If President Obama is the next Hitler, I will make sure I join him and gas your ass you dumb cracker!!!
• David Letterman was just doing his job, he doesn’t right all his jokes, he was doing what he was told to say, and we think we have freedom of speech in America?
• I have respect for you unlike most of the anchors on CNN. Beside you Jack is my fav and Anderson well he is just easy on the eyes.
• If you have years and been diagnosed with schizophrenia, then maybe I’d understand a lot better when a person goes from weighing 130 to 190 in three months and still manages not to flip out ever
• I live in the ATL and never see Ricky Sanchez
• Is anybody covering what’s going on in Peru? What’s influence and and connection, if any, to the US privately controlled banks in Peru by certain individuals from Texas … Hmmm?
• Nancy Pelosi and her husband had stock in AIG.
• Hey Rick, just wanted to drop you a quick note. I think that whoever came up with the idea to interview an 11-year-old a day after his father was shot dead should be terminated immediately, that’s not news.
• Look forward to you covering the overdue firing of Miss California USA
• With cars like that we will be the Flinkstones for real.
• Con-Agra has their own maintenance personnel … he was up on the roof which had not been deemed safe and he was wearing no safety equipment to be dealing with ammonia … did I see a face shield, a gas mask, safety shoes??? NO!!!
• Al Gore may make heavy metal more popular by saying we need to put two parental notices on all music with explicit lyrics.
• I wonder if they will get this page fixed or if Rick is just going to let it run itself into the ground, since he like Twitter so much more?
• Rick Sanchez is an employee of wall street who line his pockets so he will say nothing bad about obama. Obama is also an employee of wall street. They are all puppets.
• By the by, where is Francis? I miss the Dynamic Duo at work.
• On the LA Lakers party … I think its ashame that they “have to” throw a party in a ecomnic crisis. Older people that have alztimers are being sent away while the fans celebrate.
• OK I am on the short bus. You tell me about Africom.
• I am not an employee that works for Rick. I am a normal everyday joe that gets on Ricks page to tell what I think about what is going on/wrong in our country.
• Why is your mom trying to call me? She love me long time!
• The election in Iran is a complete sham! The country might as well abolish election, because it’s merely a finger-painting event.
• Looks like Ali Badri is one of those Ahamadijejad police opening twitter accounts to try to make it look like anyone actually voted for that thug.
• Why doesn’t CNN do a story about all the moms that are sentenced each summer to lunatic kids dragging buckets of water between the kitchen sink and the backyard?
• Democracy is coming baby! We bringing it to all of you guys, don’t worry.
• You can delete my comments but my messages is eternal and they will follow you until the last day of your lives.
• Check this out: former Chicago inmates … were handcuffed while giving birth. Can you please look into this story?
• This man needs no respect from us nergos.

Truck driver robs armed teens — yeah, right

I have no intention of turning this blog into a low-brow “dumb-crook news” site, but incidents keep happening in and near my small Southern city that just can’t be ignored.

The latest crime took place frighteningly close to home, or at least close to a location that I frequent almost every day. I meet my car-pool partner weekday mornings at 4:30 a.m. in the parking lot of a large 24-hour grocery store on a main thoroughfare about two miles from my house. It’s well-lit and close enough to the street that we’ve never felt fearful during our brief transfer from one car to another.

Last Monday, however, at about that exact time, there were a couple of goofballs working in back of the store on their first steps toward the criminal high life.

A bread truck driver was making his delivery when he was approached by a young man asking for directions to a nearby neighborhood. After the brief conversation, he then decided to cover his face with a bandana and produce a shotgun. His accomplice appeared from behind a dumpster brandishing a knife and they demanded money from the driver.

The driver said he didn’t have any money, but threw his wallet at the men while escaping into the store to call police. They took about $300 and ran from the area.

When deputies arrived at the store and began investigating the crime, they received a call reporting that someone had been shot several blocks away. What they found at that scene was two young men standing next to a couple of sweatshirts and a gun identical to that seen with the suspects at the bread truck robbery. One of the men was shot in the knee.

What they then proceeded to tell police was that the shooting occurred while the bread truck delivery guy attempted to rob them. Somehow, the gun had ended up at their feet about a half-mile away from the robbery scene.

Police didn’t buy that loaf of whole-wheat nonsense, and arrested the two teenagers on charges of armed robbery and possession of a weapon during commission of a violent crime.

The stupidity didn’t end quite there. When the suspects were removed from the squad car at the local jail, one of them allowed $300 to fall out of his pocket and into the back seat of the police vehicle.

Some grand fatherly advice

“You Want My Advice?” is a weekend summer replacement feature of davisw.wordpress.com. I look at questions of ethics, propriety, faith, technology, geopolitics, health, etc., and offer completely inappropriate, irresponsible and possibly even life-threatening advice. In honor of Father’s Day, I’m re-posting some sound words of counsel I received from my grandfather shortly before he passed away. “Need more morphine,” he gasped. “And tell your grandmother that the squirrel who ate her oatmeal that time in 1967 was really your Uncle Ted.” He also offered some good advice about how to navigate through this complicated life, part of which is incorporated below.

Q. Whatever happened to the idea of keeping to the right? Most drivers observe this rule in their cars, but as soon as their feet hit the pavement, all memory of it vanishes. Our sidewalks, airports, grocery stores and shopping malls have become free-for-alls. People have crashed into me with their grocery carts as I made a right turn from one aisle to the next and they are making a left turn on the left side. If people will remember to stay to the right and pass on the left, they’ll see that these important rules of the road make all traffic move more smoothly. – Your Mother’s Busybody Neighbor

A. I couldn’t agree with you more. Perhaps together we can change the world.

There’s really not much difference at all between motor vehicles and what I call “pedestrian vehicles,” also known as “humans.” The windshield is like the eyes, the grill is like the mouth, the tires are like the legs, the headlights are like the headlights, and the tailpipe is like the you-know-what. Didn’t any of you people see the Disney movie “Cars”?

What we need to move toward now is fully equipping individuals with the accessories that automobiles have, so they can more easily obey the rules of the road. For example, we could attach turn signals to hip pockets so pedestrians could signal which way they’re turning. We could surgically implant an antenna in their heads so they don’t need to be distracted by their cell phones and music players. We could require everyone, instead of saying “hi” as they greet one another, to say “honk.”

The next time someone brushes against you with their shopping cart during one of these encounters, drop immediately to the floor and start yowling like a scorched cat. A store manager should arrive shortly with a specially equipped shopping cart into which you’ll be placed to be hauled out to the parking lot. There, this cart will be tied to the back of an ambulance and you’ll be taken to the nearest hospital. Meanwhile, the offender will be left in stunned silence before resuming their shop, hopefully noticing the great deal on frozen chicken breasts.

Grads, fads and dads

New grads face urgent matters

Following my son’s recent graduation from high school, he received a number of congratulatory notes from family, from friends, and from people who don’t even know us. Most of the latter were from business concerns seeking profits from newly minted graduates with all those crisp 100-dollar bills from Aunt Helen burning a hole in their pockets. But one he received was especially bizarre, writing not of rewards of this world but of the next.

South Carolina State Representative F.G. “Greg” Delleney, a Republican legislator from neighboring Chester County, used official state letterhead to send out his best wishes, and to offer a plug for his particular view of the firmament and man’s place in it. I’m reprinting the entire letter below, with a few comments of my own in bracketed italics:

Congratulations upon receiving your high school diploma. Graduating from high school is certainly a memorable milestone and great accomplishment. I know that your family and friends are extremely proud of you. [Note: Chester County, thanks in part to narrow-minded right-wingers like Rep. Delleney, is one of the poorest counties in South Carolina, which is saying a lot. High school graduation is about as far as most Chestonians get, with about 40% of the population reaching that lofty milestone.]

You will soon be faced with many decisions, choices and challenges as you begin a new and exciting chapter of your life. If you would indulge me, I might offer some advice. First, determine, as soon as possible, what you are going to do with your life. [Urgency in job choice is key in Chester. There’s only one McDonald’s and one Burger King in the whole county.] Once you make your decision, stay the course until you accomplish your goals [assistant night managers get to wear a tie]. Remember, this life is short. [Uh-oh. Here it comes.] However, you were created to live forever, and you will live on in eternity either in God’s presence or outside of His presence. The most important thing in this life is making sure you have the correct relationship with God. This is only possible if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. [Of all the thousands and thousands of religious constructs in the world, he has somehow managed to find the only one that’s right. Imagine that.] You can have that relationship by trusting Christ and turning your life over to Him. He will never leave you or fail you. He will be there for you in good times and bad times. He will always have a plan for your life. [Much like the South Carolina GOP, which wants you to avoid birth control, fear those who are different, get a big gun and, of course, vote Republican.] What is most important in this life is your relationship with God, your relationship with your family and being a good steward of not only your wealth but also of your time, health, talents and abilities [But don’t worry too much those wealth and health parts. Remember, you live in the rural South.]

I wish you all the best. [Well, some of it, anyway.]

Longing for TV of the past

Interesting conversation I overheard at work the other day. A few of the middle-aged ladies were lamenting the state of modern-day prime-time television, what with the sexual references and the language and the double entendres. They were longing for the simpler times of the past, when three TV networks guaranteed there’d be little deviation from a narrow selection of family values.

“Can you imagine what Petticoat Junction would be like on TV today?” one of them asked rhetorically. “Bobby Jo would be divorced, Betty Jo would be pregnant, Billy Jo would be living with her boyfriend, and they’d all be riding around on Segways.”

And they’d all probably be living in a town called Hooterville.

 News from inside The Slammer

While waiting in line at the local convenience store the other day, I listened in on a conversation between the two women in front of me. Ronnette and Darlene had similar frizzy blond hair, similarly overdone makeup on their overripe faces, and similar purchases – a Monster Khaos Energy Drink for Ronnette, a Full Throttle Fury for Darlene, and a pack of smokes for each.

They talked openly about visiting their prison-bound boyfriends in the week ahead and compared stories about their caseworkers. As they paid for their items, Darlene reached across the counter and grabbed a copy of The Slammer to add to her purchases.

For those of you who haven’t seen this publication, it struck me as a kind of non-digital Facebook for the trailer set. The Slammer describes itself as “an informative and entertaining weekly newspaper covering crime – up close and personal. The Slammer features ‘all crime, all the time’: breaking crime news, recent arrests, fugitives and the most wanted, sex offenders, deadbeat parents and more. See why everyone agrees that The Slammer is the most entertaining way to kill time.” The newsletter is jam-packed with mug shots, heights, weights, rap sheets and reward-for-capture amounts, and Darlene seemed eager to catch up with all her old friends.

The June 19 edition was a special Father’s Day issue. “This week we look at some fathers in prison who won’t be visited by their children because they killed them, and at some fathers’ sons who won’t receive a visit from ‘dead ol’ dad’ either.” There’s a center spread in the middle showing all manner of miscreants and their various crimes. One Philadelphia father is shown under the headline “No videogames where he’s going”; he was charged with hitting his daughter for messing with his Xbox. Under the heading “Hop on pop,” the story is told of a teenager who stabbed his father while he slept, then got mad at investigators who took the kid’s favorite boots as evidence.

It’s good to see such balanced coverage in an otherwise sensational periodical – there seem to be as many children who harmed their fathers as fathers who hurt their kids.

Along side the display of perpetrators is an informative blurb about how Father’s Day is celebrated around the world. “In Germany gangs of people get drunk and roam the streets while others go on man-only hikes,” writes The Slammer, almost longingly. “In Thailand, everybody dresses in yellow. In Italy, special breads are baked.”

With print journalism facing such difficult times these days, it’s good to see that publishers who find their special niche may be able to survive.

Shoving epidemic in Washington; “quit it!” say officials

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 22) – FBI officials revealed yesterday they will begin criminal investigations into recent incidents involving top female officials who were thought to have tripped but may in fact have been shoved.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor fell and broke her ankle at LaGuardia Airport earlier this month, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shattered her elbow in a tumble last week at a State Department parking garage. Both incidents were at first reported to be accidents, but it’s now suspected that horseplay or hijinks by male colleagues could be to blame.

Investigators became suspicious of a more widespread plot after Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine narrowly avoided a fall over the weekend. She told agents that she discovered fellow Democrat Harry Reid sneaking up behind her on all fours shortly after Sen. Chris Dodd bumped into her in the Capitol dining room. She briefly stumbled before catching her balance and confronting the seven-term senator from Connecticut. A security camera recorded most of the scene.

“Quit it,” Snowe said to Dodd as she fell backward. “Stop being such a moron.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Dodd protested. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. You’re ugly.”

“Harry, what are you doing back there?” Snowe then said, turning to the Senate majority leader from Nevada.

“What are you talking about?” Reid responded. “I… I was just looking for a quarter that I dropped. I swear.”

Snowe then repeated her demand to “cut it out or I’m going to tell” before both Reid and Dodd ran giggling from the scene.

“We take these threats to the security of government leaders very seriously,” said FBI Special Agent Ronald Murray. “Boisterous childishness like this will not be tolerated. These Congressmen are old enough to know better and if they don’t knock it off, we’re going to report them. It’ll go on their permanent Congressional record.”

Contacted by reporters about the charges, Reid said the alleged incident was “all in fun” and that Maine’s senior senator “needs to lighten up a little. Jeez.” Dodd, who is currently shepherding the Obama Administration’s health insurance reform effort through the Senate, said Snowe was “stuck up and whining like a baby” and that her charges were “totally without merit.”

Dodd added that he wasn’t afraid of the FBI, whom he characterized as “stupid,” but later retracted that charge with the claim that he “thought it was opposite day.”

Meanwhile, the Congressional sergeant-at-arms office said it would be beefing up personal security for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski and California Senator Dianne Feinstein in the wake of the FBI’s announcement. These three legislators are at particular risk, a spokesperson for that office said, because “everyone knows they’re snobs.”

“They think they’re, like, really cool and stuff,” said the official, who declined to be named. “I’d shove ‘em myself if I weren’t legally charged with upholding the law.”

Arriving early to walk in the warehouse

In my extensive experience working in the corporate world, I’ve seen basically three kinds of interaction between site managers and their underlings.

Most common is the passing remark, usually done in a hallway, a breakroom or, God forbid, at the urinal. This typically addresses only the most trivial of subjects, usually the quality of the previous night’s sporting contest or the weather. “How about that game?” he’ll ask, to which the safest response is “that was some game” and an quickened pace of walking down the hall, or of peeing, or both.

A less frequent contact occurs when the department meeting is called. It’s a little like being in combat, in that you’re confronting two equally frightening options: either being bored by endless hours of ultimately pointless alert, or scared out of your skin by death-dealing action. Our most recent such assembly involved being told that a rumor which none of us had even heard was not in fact true. Which of course made us all believe that it was true, or else why would there be a meeting? Again using the wartime metaphor, this was like being on patrol in the tribal regions of Afghanistan and set upon by a squadron of costumed Disney characters. Boring, scary, and a bit confusing.

Finally, there’s the one-on-one sit-down. I’ve been in managerial positions a couple of times in my career, and I was always tempted to cynically manipulate this setting to get a slam-dunk on a dicey but ultimately minor issue. Ask your employee to see you “immediately,” close the door behind them, strike a serious posture, and request that they run across the street and get you a latte. They’ll be so relieved they aren’t in trouble that they’ll probably throw in a scone.

I had an encounter similar to this with my supervisor last week. He pulled a chair up next to me and said he had a question to ask. There were several night-shift people on vacation Friday night, and might I possibly come in early Saturday morning to pick up four hours of overtime. It would mean getting up on what would otherwise be a restful weekend, but it also meant some extra pay that I wasn’t about to turn down. I paused long enough to make him fully appreciate all that I meant to the department (about two beats), and said yes.

I’ve never really minded getting up early to go to work, preferring instead to focus on the fact it also means I’ll be going home early. My current everyday schedule requires me to be at my desk by 5 a.m., a luxury compared to recent years I spent arriving by 3, and this particular assignment that had me in by 2. I fool myself into thinking of these hours not as the middle of the night, but instead that very ethereal and special time of the pre-dawn when the temperature is cool, the air is still, and the convenience stores are robbed. I’d also like to believe I’m flying on a magic carpet and instead of work my destination is Paris of the 1920s, but you can only take self-deception so far.

When I arrived Saturday morning, I was able to complete my only project in about 90 minutes, yet had to wait around till 6 in case something else came along. Around 4 a.m. I slipped out of the office and into the adjacent warehouse, taking the opportunity to log a few thousand steps on the pedometer I’m wearing for this company-wide wellness effort (see http://davisw.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/taking-measured-steps-to-better-health/). The peoples of the warehouse world have too much common sense in their culture to be working at that time of day, so I had aisle after aisle of walking space in which to kill a half hour.

About half the lighting is turned off overnight, so the huge room had an eerie quality to it. The only sound was a loud mechanical hum which I was able to dismiss as merely the air conditioning rather than an imminent electrical short until I realized this space is not air-conditioned. There were other occasional beeps and groans I heard as I paced the floor so it required a conscious effort to keep my fears in check. I don’t mind things that go bump in the night as long as they’re not the sound of teetering shelves about to collapse on top of me.

I was equally nervous about the prospect of being seen engaging in such a suspicious behavior by anyone I might come across. There’s no video surveillance because there’s nothing in there worth stealing, unless you count a pallet of old proxy statements lurking in a dark corner that I temporarily mistook for a buffalo. The only other people in the building, as far as I knew, were some fellow office workers who were unlikely to be joining me. But they’d wonder if I’d suddenly gone Alzheimer’s should they happen across my improbable wandering, and the loss of their respect would be as devastating as a bison attack.

The walk was pretty boring so it didn’t take much to entertain me. I started reading some of the block-lettered signs that the warehouse clans post in an effort to communicate with each other. They reminded me of ancient cave drawings, though their all-cap sans-serif style and lack of punctuation was more primitive. “HOLD DO NOT TOUCH” read one, asking what seemed to be the impossible. “TAKE TO TEAM LEAD” read another. Yet a third said simply “DESTROY”. Okay, I thought, now I’m scared. I think I’ve walked enough.

As I headed back toward my office, I heard a distant conversation. The source of the almost sing-song discussion was between where I stood and the exit, so I had no choice other than to investigate. I got close enough to make out some of what was being said: “That foreman is a riggity dog and the line boss he’s a fool. Got a brand-new flattop haircut; lord, he thinks he’s cool,” I heard. “One of these days I’m going to blow my top and that sucker he’s gonna pay.”

Uh, oh. The threat of workplace violence was now in the air, and I had a responsibility as one who’s been through safety training to follow a strict protocol to report this threat. I ran through the list in my mind: Call the toll-free HRHelp line (a recent replacement to onsite human resources humans); enter 3 to report my site; enter 1 to report an urgent matter; say “yes” when asked if this is an emergency; say “I don’t know” when asked who else is involved; press 5 for potential violence; press star for a live operator; and say “that sucker’s gonna pay” when asked the nature of the threat.

This sounded like a lot of trouble to prevent a killing spree, so I decided instead to peek around a corner to learn a little more. What I found was both embarrassing and relieving. Somebody had left a radio on, and the country station was playing Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It.”

All was well, and I could return safely to my desk. But as for the darkened warehouse, I’ll paraphrase Mr. Paycheck – “I ain’t walking here no more.”

Finally proud that he’s my governor

Thank you, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, for ruining my post today. Also, too bad about how your ruined your life.

All day Wednesday, intriguing new details were emerging about your six-day disappearance from the governor’s mansion. First, you were hiking the Appalachian Trail by yourself because you needed to get away from the wife and kids on Father’s Day weekend so you could “write”. Then you were spotted by a reporter at the airport in Atlanta, where you confessed you had instead gone to Argentina, of all places, to recover from recent political battles against the federal government. Well, maybe he’d be announcing a new trade agreement bringing two of that nation’s leading exports – honey and sunflower seeds – to South Carolina. Think of the jobs that would generate.

Then, as I get ready to sit down and compose a piece speculating wildly about your adventures south of the border, I check the news to discover that suddenly it’s tango time! As was widely whispered, you’ve been unable to keep your empanadas safely stored in your gauchos (or is it the other way around?). Apparently preparing for a new career in a dinner theatre production of “Evita,” Sanford told a packed press conference that he had spent “the last five days of my life crying in Argentina.”

Then I read this account from The New York Times coverage of the speech:

Surrounded by more than 50 reporters, photographers, aides and spectators in the rotunda of the South Carolina statehouse, the governor spoke with a quiver in his voice and was visibly shaken, tearing up at times and rocking on his feet at the podium. It took him more than a few stumbling minutes to get to the crux of the matter.

“The bottom line is this. I have been unfaithful to my wife,” he said. “I developed a relationship with … a dear friend from Argentina. It began very innocently, as I suspect these things do. But here, recently, over this last year, [it] developed into something much more than that. And as a consequence, I hurt her. I hurt you all, I hurt my wife. I hurt my boys. I would ask for y’all’s indulgence, not for me, but for Jenny and the boys.”

While I might be diametrically opposed to the right-wing governor’s policies, you can’t help but feel for the guy after reading that. Rocking on his feet at the podium? That’s so sad. Suddenly he sounds more like a fallible human being than a self-righteous model of morality.

So you’ll get no jokes from me about how “Miss South Carolina” went from a phrase of ridicule following last year’s Miss Teen USA pageant to a question for the absent governor. No cracks about how secret negotiations to bring a rare Argentinian puma to the Columbia Zoo were disrupted by a cougar. No gags about a South Carolina education that blurred the difference between all those “A” countries (Argentina, Appalachia, Alaska, etc.). No assertions that he was looking for political tips from the corpse of Juan Peron, or that he visited the Falkland Islands to study how he might defend his state from an invasion by Tennessee, or that he became a desaparecido, another of the forced disappearances that characterized the country’s Dirty War of the 1970s.

And, most importantly, no snarky remarks asking how would the leaderless state cope if it were suddenly devastated by an attack that left it in economic and social ruin, then noting that, no, wait, that happened while he was here.

(I’ve been jotting these things down all day – you can’t expect me just to throw them away).

I happen to have lived in South Carolina for the past 30 years, so maybe I’m just feeling protective of a fellow Sandlapper (no joke – that’s really what we’re called). Does he and fellow Republicans John Ensign, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, etc., deserve more shame than disgraced Democrats like John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer? Yes, because they get to have one more adjective attached to their names: “hypocrite”.

Still, you have to feel some positive reaction toward a man who traded conservatism, Dixie traditions and USC football for a yerba mate and a thick steak on the beach of Buenos Aires. If you’ve ever been to Columbia, you’ll know what I mean.

Website Review: Glade.com

Some of my earliest memories are related to smell. I remember the humid South Florida nights filled with the fragrance of night-blooming jasmine, going to church on Sunday morning past the orange processing plant, even the foul odor of the paper mills as we’d drive through Georgia headed north on summer vacation. While I’ve long lost other childhood memories (I only vaguely remember that my mother’s name started with an “M”), there’s something about aromas that sticks in your mind.

I think the sense of smell has this effect on us in part because it’s so hard to evade. You can avoid tasting dirt. You can avoid listening to the White Stripes. You can look away from the results of an auto accident. You can keep from touching your co-worker’s hair. But if you sense there’s something rotten in the air, there’s little you can do.

I’ve never understood why most people, when encountering a foul odor, choose to hold their nose. Our nostrils have evolved over the millennia into repulsive yet highly specialized passages designed to sort out the tiny molecules of stench we occasionally encounter. To breathe through your mouth instead of your nose in these situations is to bypass the elaborate network of filters that keeps offensive materials out of your body. Unless you have hairs and mucus in your mouth, you’re choosing to swallow these stinky atoms instead of plucking them discreetly out of your beak.

Attempts to scientifically quantify odor only began in the late 1800s, when Germany invented the “olfaktometrie” to analyze our sense of smell. Employing a panel of human noses as sensors, participants were presented with “sniffing ports” and asked to report the presence of odor. Ultimately, a measurement designated as the “European Odor Unit” was defined; it can today be used to determine the presence of not only Germans but the French and Dutch as well. There’s even an instrument known as the “nasal ranger” (see photo below) which will measure and quantify odor strength in the field, as well as get you arrested anywhere within 500 yards of a girl’s school.

Although an aroma’s strength can be identified, its quality is harder to pin down. Something called “hedonic assessment” attempts to place particular smells on a spectrum from extremely pleasant to extremely unpleasant, with data points along the way like “fragrant,” “caustic,” “disgusting” and “Burger King.” Whole industries have grown up around our desire to suppress or disguise particular odors. One such company is Glade, producer of sprays, infusions, oils and gels, and the subject of this week’s Website Review.

The homepage for Glade.com shows gently floating icons representing berry, vanilla, spice, outdoor, floral and other scents, adjacent to a thirty-something woman reading a book and smelling her surroundings, her nostrils slightly flared in delight. When you move your mouse across her face, she asks “is ‘aah’ actually a word or just the sound of stress escaping from my day?” Depending on the chemicals in Glade’s products, it could also be what your doctor asks you to say as you’re examined for that mysterious pulmonary condition you’ve developed, though a recent report to the National Institute of Environmental Health Services seems to absolve the company.

Glade delivers its large variety of pleasant fragrances through several different media, but certainly the most advanced is the patented plug-in technology. First developed about 20 years ago, this marvel of unnecessary science gently warms a gel cartridge using an electrical outlet that might otherwise be wasted on less critical appliances like a refrigerator or home dialysis machine. Recent improvements to the design have recognized the explosion of electronics demands in the modern home with a plug-through outlet. The device has a little trouble staying hooked in place, however, inspiring the widely loved commercial jingle “plug it in, plug it in.” There’s also now a Plug-In that uses scented oil to treat larger rooms, like your basement or abattoir.

To address not only malodorous spaces but also those lacking a certain visual ambience, Glade has introduced out the Wisp flameless candle. The gadget combines continuous puffs of fragrance with a warm, flickering glow and virtually no risk of fire. This new offering is still struggling to gain acceptance in the marketplace, as evidenced by some of the questions the website attempts to answer, including “I don’t think my unit is puffing – what should I do?” and “can I turn the flickering glow off?”

The newest hi-tech advancement out of this SC Johnson company is the Sense & Spray product. Sort of a Wii for the redolent, it uses a motion sensor to detect the presence of odor creators and emit a blast of fragrance at them. Once this burst has been released, the device goes into a lock-out mode for 30 minutes, though there’s a manual override that can be launched should Uncle Phil decide he needs to return for another session on the can.

What I’d really like to see is a technology transfer with one of Glade’s sister companies, the makers of Off! insect repellant. They market a mosquito protection unit called the “Clip On,” which you’re able to strap onto your belt for a head-to-toe defense against biting bugs. Imagine being able to wear one of these that’s been crossed with the Sense & Spray – you could freely emit all kinds of stench during your daily activities and not to have to worry how it impacts your social life (not that I do anyway, but still). And having the added feature of a boost button that you could spritz at others would almost make this convenience rise to the level of a sport.

If there’s a particular aroma you’re looking for in any of the Glade product line, the website has a convenient “find-a-scent” feature, using one of those annoying word-prediction programs that guesses what you’re going to request and matches that to what they offer. So if you’re looking for “dog” smell you get “dewberry,” if you want “garbage” you get “garden,” if you want “office refrigerator” you get “orchid,” and “sewage treatment facility” offers you “stream, spa, strawberries and sweet pea.” Why would anybody want the smell of a spa?

Finally, I’ll mention a handy option that seems like just what we need is in this age of over-communication. Through the site, you can sign up for an automated reminder that your Plug-In or flameless candle could be in need of a refill. An email will be sent to an account of your choosing that Glade says “will let us help you keep that fresh, clean home feeling.” My concern would be that spam filters might wrongly think of this as a trivial communiqué and route it to the land of credit and appendage extenders. Surely it’s only a matter of time until the company enters the twenty-first century and instead sends you a tweet and a text message while automatically updating your Facebook page notifying your contacts that your house is starting to reek.

Nasal Ranger (not affiliated with the Lone Ranger)

Actual emails from South Carolina to Argentina

Today and tomorrow, I’ll be reprinting the torrid email exchange between my governor, South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, and his Argentinian mistress. (At least he was still governor last time I checked five minutes ago.)

From Mark to Maria:

Dearest,

You are glorious and I hope you really understand that. You do not need a therapist to help you figure your place in the world. You are special and unique and fabulous in a whole host of ways that are worth a much longer conversation. To be continued …

Have been having a few email problems as I am getting email through an aircard at the farm, where access to computer world is more than tough. Please let me know if you have gotten my last two eamils (sic) so I know it is working in getting to your part of the world …

Another glorious day outside. Hope you are doing well, and am anxious to hear about your week. Know that I miss you. Unbeleivably (sic) hard to imagine it has been a week. Please also send your mailing address as I want to send you an insignificant something next week when I am back in civilization that I think you might find interesting given our conversation.

Want to write an indepth note with some thoughts on our visit when I know you are getting these emails. Hugs and much love. M

From Maria to Mark:

I’am (sic) reading your last two mails sitting outside with a great seaview here in Ilhabela, a beautiful island near Sao Paulo. Have been thinking of you while watching the beautiful blue sea (a) great part of my day and remembering with a great smile on my face, the time we had spent together. As I told you before, you brought happiness and love to my life and (I) will take you forever in my heart. I wasn’t aware till we met last week, the strong feelings I had for you, and believe me, I haven’t felt this since I was in my teen ages, when afterwards I got married. I do love you, I can feel it in my heart, and although I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to meet again this has been the best that has happened to me in a long time You made me realized (sic) how you feel when you realy (sic) love somebody and how much you want to be beside the beloved. Last Friday I would had stayed embrassing (sic) and kissing you forever.

Don’t know why you think you bore me with the description of your farm. I am an urban girl but that doesn’t inhibit me from loving other things, specially if they are the ones you love. I was able to imagine the place with every single detail you wrote and had trassmitted (sic) me the love you have for your farm. It sounds to be a great and peaceful place and loved you had shared it with me.

Thanks for your beautiful words, I don’t know if I do need or not therapy but I have to find my new place in this new stage of my life. Life has been very generous with me and I want to return at least a little bit of what I have been given. I have time and think helping others who haven’t been as lucky as me will do me fine.

My address is (deleted by The State). It will be great finding at home once I am back, whatever you send me, I’ll keep it near my bed so as to feel you nearer.

Miss you so much… love you from the deepest of my heart. Sweet kisses.

From Mark to Maria:

Got back an hour ago to civilization and am now in Columbia after what was for me a glorious break from reality down at the farm. No phones ringing and tangible evidence of a day’s labors. Though I have started every day by 6 this morning woke at 4:30, I guess since my body knew it was the last day, and I went out and ran the excavator with lights until the sun came up. To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the background, the tranquility that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds — and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt. It is admittedly weird but one of my more favorite ways of escaping the norms, constant phone calls and formalities that go with the office — and it probably fits with my weakness in doing rather than being — though you opened up a new chapter last week wherein I was happy and content just being. Last point worth further discussion. Afternoon projects had me outside and by days (sic) end I pretty much looked like a homeless person … but in this case a very content one. Enough about my love of heavy equipment and woods at sunrise …

While I was getting exhausted with one project after another at Coosaw work week, you were basking (I’m certain gloriously) on the beach..

Sounds great, hope to hear more about what sounds a great spot.

Will now finally get some sleep and write you a longer note with a few more profound thoughts tomorrow or Wednesday. In the meantime I send my love and hope you know I am thinking of you.. M

P.S. I do not want to raise expectations, when I say I will send something insignificant I promise I will do as I say! It wont (sic) be worthy of bedside placement … was just going to find the movie the Holiday as we had spoken of it last Thursday. Its music was pleasant and made me think of you — its mood and the notion of a holiday (wrapped up in our case over two days) certainly fit as well … (though our visit in some ways for me was as well less of a holiday than it was uncovering and realization of some things and feelings that again are worth longer conversation)

Had also hoped to find the cd of a song that played as I was flying home and also20made (sic) me think of you. Who knows if I can find the music … so all you may be stuck with is a long released movie — and if you put it by your bed I really be worried! Love you, good night and kisses back to you …

My love,

From Maria to Mark:

I decided to rent a car and went by myself to the other side of the Island where it is located one of the best hotels. It’s name is DPNY Hotel and I find it quite interesting. I had lunch there in a restaurant on the beach with great seaview. I sat under a palm and ate a mixed green salad with grilled abacaxi (pineapple) and honey. in the afternoon I sunbathe and read on the beach. I ve started here “The age of turbulence” from Alan Greenspan which I highly recomend (sic) you. At five I left back to the small town had a coffee with pao de queijo (cheese bread which is something tipycal (sic) from Brazl (sic) and it’s delicious) read some magazines, walked around and finally back to meu Pousada that is hotel.

In the Island is taking place the sailing week and Rolex competition and this was the reason for choosing the place and also why luckily I am most of the time by my own. It may sound bad but it’s how I feel it. As I told you I shouldn’t have done this trip but I would have felt worst if I wouldn’t have come because it was too over the date, he is a very nice guy, great heart … but unfortunately I am not in love with him … You are my love … something hard to believe even for myself as it’s also a kind of impossible love, not only because of distance but situation.

Sometimes you don’t choose things, they just happen … I can’t redirect my feelings and I am very happy with mine towards you. Hope you have had a good day, guess with much work.

Send you all my love and goodnight kisses. Sweet dreams from down south. I’ll dream with you.

Sweetest

Miscellaneous Monday

There’s a handwritten sign recently posted in the shower room of the YMCA to which I belong. It’s next to the soap dispenser and it reads “THIS IS BLUE SOAP.”

Ever the skeptic, I put my hand under the dispenser, pressed the release button and, sure enough, a turquoise shade gel accumulated slowly in my palm. It seemed slippery and slightly transparent, and a few small bubbles showed around the edge. It was in fact soap, and it was in fact blue.

I’m not sure what the point of the sign was. I guess someone had questioned the liquid’s blueness or its soapiness, or maybe both, and the management felt compelled to clear the air of any doubt. I learned a valuable lesson that day on the folly of questioning authority. I’ve also learned to start bringing my own soap.

 ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Coverage of the death of Ed McMahon seems a little over-done now, don’t you think?

 ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

One of the great things about people using wireless-equipped cafes as mobile offices is that you can poach on their privacy and get a tiny peek into other people’s worlds. No, I’m not stealing credit card numbers out of the ether. I’m just catching a glimpse of what’s on their laptop screens, and eavesdropping into cell phone conversations that aren’t being kept all that quiet in the first place.

In one recent example, I was sitting behind a young African-American man who I knew from previous conversations was an active member of the South Carolina Republican Party. When he got up to grab a coffee, I couldn’t help but see that his screen showed a page headlined “What’s on Chairman Steele’s Playlist?”

The chairman in question is national GOP chairman Michael Steele. He’s the guy who promised to inject some urban sensibilities into the party and then, a few weeks later, offered a cowering apology for referring to Rush Limbaugh as an entertainer. Not exactly an “urban” attitude, but whatever.

Anyway, this site was sponsoring a contest to guess which songs in several categories – gospel, pop, opera, hip-hop, R&B, country, blues, jazz, and old school – were on Steele’s music player. You also had to list his favorite black Republican musician, assuming you could name one (my pick would be Justin Timberlake.)

According to the rules, if you donate $5 to the party and you are “the first person to correctly guess the Chairman’s favorite artist in the most categories [you] will win lunch with Chairman Steele.” I filled in all fields but one with the name “Michael Jackson,” reserving opera for the towering voice of brother Tito, and was prepared to play until overwhelmed with guilt – not guilt that I’d be mocking the party, but that they’d use my $5 to buy a collar’s worth of Sarah Palin’s next designer ensemble.

Then, a few days later at another café, a young businesswoman within earshot held virtually the same conversation with several different coworkers via her BlackBerry phone. “Did I place that order last week for those ink cartridges?” “I know I placed that order. Am I going insane?” “You remember when I placed that order, right?” “I am positive I put that order in last week.” “Am I nuts?”

I didn’t stick around to hear the outcome of this crisis, but if she ever needs to order blue soap in bulk, I think I can set her up.

 ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Please tell me I didn’t see a Jonas Brother testifying before a Senate committee on C-Span the other day. And know this: if I ever see Miley Cyrus walking along the Rose Garden colonnade with President Obama and visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I will turn in my Democratic Party membership card.

 ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Already, I hear that the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail” is becoming a euphemism for cheating on one’s wife. Following Gov. Mark Sanford’s admission of marital infidelity, and news that his purported communion with the wilds of the Blue Ridge Mountains was actually the congregation of another kind, pundits are driving the new buzzwords home.

I can already the imagination the upcoming frank conversations in far too many broken homes around the country.

“Honey, there’s something I have to tell you,” says the husband.

“What is it dear?”

“I … I’ve been hiking. On a trail. Actually, I’ve been on the Appalachian Trail.”

“Dear! No! No, it can’t be. I can’t believe this.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I didn’t know how. I just couldn’t pick the right words until now.”

“Did you … Did you go all the way? All the way from Maine to Georgia?”

“Yes and, actually, her name is Maria, not Georgia. And I think you’d like her if you gave her a chance.”

 ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

There’s a so-called dollar cinema house in our town showing movies that are a couple of months past prime theatrical release and just a week or two from coming out on DVD. It used to be one of the main theatres in town until the brand-new stadium seating place opened out by the mall. Now, it’s relegated to a smaller market.

Because it is set back so far back in its parking lot, it has one of those old-fashioned signs with manual lettering up against the main road. The display rows of the sign are arbitrarily divided into twos, so each of the eight films in the line-up is partnered immediately above or below a separate and unrelated movie. Occasionally, the name also has to be truncated to fit the space. This leads to some truly bizarre titles of movies that often sound better than what’s really playing.

Some recent examples:

Sex and … Marley and Me

Pineapple … Milk

Baby Mama … Wanted

Journey to Center of … Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Madagascar … High School

Rachel Getting … Australia

Iron Man … Mamma Mia

Nick and Norah’s … Quantum Solace

Curious Case of … Hannah Montana

27 Dresses … Wanted

Body of … Kung Fu Panda

Chronicles of … Love Guru

Forgetting Sarah … Slumdog

Horton Hears a … Mummy

Fast and Furious … Vicky Cristina

Monster Versus … W

Frost/Nixon … Hulk

 ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

I must pause from my joking here at the end to recognize the passing of a monumental public figure the other day. His voice was like no other. His rapport with his audience was unprecedented. His agility in moving from one area to another was legendary. His plea to buy OxyClean was virtually irresistible.

To read more about the life of TV pitchman Billy Mays, take a look at http://davisw.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/this-post-not-available-in-stores/

Governor Mark goes all in

This last piece of the series of email communications between S.C. Governor Mark Sanford and his Argentine mistress is all-Mark, including this misspellings and awkward phrasings. Note especially references to a “world wind tour”, a “full tank of love in the emotional bank account” and “I don’t want to put the genius back in the bottle.” He’s such a poet, yet he doesn’t know it.

From Mark to Maria:

It was indeed a long day. I am most jealous of your salad under the palm tree.

Three thoughts in one note now that I have a moment. One the travel schedule is about to get real busy (and this distresses me for the way it may well make it more difficult to get your notes over the next few weeks), two unfortunately all the feelings you describe are mutual, and three where do we go from here?

One, tomorrow leave at 5 am for New York and meetings. Will think about you on its streets and wish I was going to be there later in the month when you are there. Tomorrow night back to Philadelphia for the start of the National Governor’s Conference through the weekend. Back to Columbia for Tuesday and then on Wednesday, as I think I had told you, taking the family to China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Thailand and then back through Hong Kong on world wind tour. Few days home then to Bahamas for 5 days on a friends boat for the last break of the summer. The following weekend have been asked to spend it out in Aspen, Colorado with McCain — which has kicked up the whole VP talk all over again in the press back home.

Two, mutual feelings. I have been specializing in staying focused on decisions and actions of the head for a long time now — and you have my heart. You have oh so many attributes that pulls it in this direction. Do you really comprehend how beautiful your smile is? Have you been told lately how warm your eyes are and how they softly glow with the special nature of your soul. I remember Jenny, or someone close to me, once commenting that while my mom was pleasant and warm it was sad she had never accomplished anything of significance. I replied that they were wrong because she had the ultimate of all gifts — and that was the ability to love unconditionally. The rarest of all commodities in this world is love. It is that thing that we all yearn for at some level — to be simply loved unconditionally for nothing more than who we are — not what we can get, give or become. There are but 50 governors in my country and outside of the top spot, this is as high as you can go in the area I have invested the last 15 years of my life — my getting here came as no small measure because I had that foundation of love and support so critical to getting up in the morning and feeling you could give and risk because you already had a full tank of love in the emotional bank account. Since our first meeting there in a wind swept somewhat open air dance spot in Punta del Este, I felt that you had that same rare attribute. Above all else I love that inner beauty about you. That gift of yours is going to make a tremendous difference in (The State deleted sons’ names) life — and in anyone’s life who is blest to be touched by yours — you need to rest very comfortably in that fact. As I mentioned in our last visit, while I did not need love fifteen years ago — as the battle scars of life and aging and politics have worn on this has become a real need of mine. You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that is so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light — but hey, that would be going into the sexual details we spoke of at the steakhouse at dinner — and unlike you I would never do that!

Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true — at the same time we are in a hopelessly — or as you put it impossible — or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening [sic] strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes (and yes this is true even if you did occasionally tantalize me with sexual details over the years!) — but it was all safe. Where we are is not. I have thought about it and in some ways feel I let you down in letting these complications come into a friendship that I hope will last till death. In all my life I have lived by a code of honor and at a variety of levels know I have crossed lines I would have never imagined. I wish I could wish it away, but this soul-mate feel I alluded too is real and in that regard I sure don’t want to be the person complicating your life. I looked to where I often look for advice and counsel, and in I Corinthians 13 it simply says that, “Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude, Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in the wrong, but rejoices in the right, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things”. In this regard it is action that goes well beyond the emotion of today or tomorrow and in this light I want to look for ways to show love in helping you to live a better — not more complicated life. I want to help (one of Maria’s sons) with film guys that might help his career, etc. I also don’t want you walking20away (sic) from some guy (I take it the younger guy you mentioned a t dinner) because of me — and what we both have to see as an impossible situation. I better stop now least this really sound like the Thornbirds — wherein I was always upset with Richard Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie’s arms. The bottom line is two fold, my heart wants me to get on a plane tonight and to be in your loving arms — my head is saying how do we put the Genie back in the bottle because I sure don’t want to be encumbering you, or your options or your life. Put differently, given I love you, I don’t want to be part of the reason you are having less than an ideal week in what sounds like a cool spot.

Lastly I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before — so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know … In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul. I love you … sleep tight. M

PS. I will make it a point in NY tomorrow to drop by a store and get that movie I promised to send your way … I am encouraged to know you will not keep it beside the bed least we have tangible evidence of two pathetic figures missing each other far too much to live a few thousand miles apart!

You have not brought complication or are not bringing complication to my life, on the contrary you’ve fullfiled (sic) me with happiness and made me aware how you can feel when you love somebody. I can think with my head but only feel with my heart so I can’t avoid it even knowing is hopelessly impossible. The guy is the one I told you ,just three years younger than me, but I am not in love and won’t fall in love with time so I have to continue my way … be alone for some time and if I am lucky enough will someday feel towards somebody, what I today feel for you. At least you made me realized it can happen.

I don’t know if I did understood (sic) well about what was unsafe or not safe. Before our mails use to have other contents … if you want to go back to that and don’t write love things and so on because is not safe for you it’s ok with me, i (sic) love you and by no way would do something that can harm you, so please let me know.

I don’t know how we figure all this out and I am not interested in knowing. I prefer to think we’ll see each other again somewhere sometime in this life and in next. Will be missing you till then… . .

Have a great trip with the ones you love … they are the kind of trips you will never forget and for your boys will be unworthable (sic) not only because of the places they will visit but for sharing all that time with you.

Send you millions of kisses that will last till we get in touch again. best wishes from the deepest of my heart.

P.S.: I don’t want to put the genius (sic) back in the bottle because I truly believe in freedom. I never gave you sexual details but now you don’t need to imagine you can close your eyes and just remember. I’ll do the same.

Fake News: Confusion reigns in Iran

TEHERAN, Iran (June 27) – Confusion continued to distort the news out of Iran this week as the predominance of Internet reporting and the lack of mainstream media coverage contributed to widespread misunderstanding of election results and their aftermath.

On Sunday, a partial recount of the June 12 presidential vote was apparently conducted, with officials verifying that two does indeed follow one and that six comes before seven but after five. The government-run election council had to verify with ruling mullahs that when you get to nine you have to switch over to a two-digit tabulating system, though this took only several hours to substantiate.

Confirmation still could not be had on why tens of thousands of Iranians had taken to the streets of this capital city in recent weeks, and what the government reaction was to that outpouring. Though there were unverified reports that soldiers and riot police were attacking the crowd, other indications were that the military was merely distributing samples of a new scent being marketed by the incumbent president. Much like kiosk workers are known to do at American malls, the soldiers were offering to spray the perfume and cologne – called Ah Maní du Jod – on passers-by. Only if pedestrians refused the fragrance were they beaten.

Meanwhile, defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi was disputing earlier claims that he said he’d be willing to “become a martyr” to the cause of political reform.

“What I said is that I’d like to be a ‘marter,’ or merchant,” Mousavi told the Arabic language Al Jazeera news channel. “I’ve grown weary of this insurgency and would like to once again be a simple man of the bazaar. I definitely don’t want to be a sacrificial victim, that’s for sure.”

Other uncertainty on the volatile situation included the mistaken belief that the “clerics” were simply a group of administrative assistants who had to type up the results; that Ayatollah Khamenei (pronounced “hominy”) is a different bearded turbaned guy than Ayatollah Khomeini (pronounced “hoe-may-nee”), who died 20 years ago; and that the former president is actually Hashemi Rafsanjani, not New Jersey rocker “Rafsan” Johnny.

Western media were still trying to corroborate the assertion that citizens who gathered in public squares to demonstrate over the past two weeks were in fact the vanguard of a so-called “green revolution,” or whether that term simply described improved agricultural techniques in the developing world or perhaps a growing emphasis on renewable, non-polluting energy sources.

Check this out — it’s got vampires in it

I’ve been doing this blogging thing for ten months now and I’m still not making the fabulous living that I thought was all but guaranteed. I continue to watch the slot on the side of my laptop for the twenties to start spitting out every time I post and, unless there’s a bad jam in there somewhere, it’s just not happening. Maybe that’s what I should’ve expected when the highest perch in the field is inhabited by Perez Hilton.

I’ve decided with the start of July to try a new tack in my pursuit of fame, fortune and prestige beyond my wildest dreams (even wilder than that one with both Hiltons, Perez and Paris). I’ve noticed that there currently seems to be a vibrant market for anything to do with vampires. And since the only other blood-based business plan I can think of involves the sale of plasma, I thought I’d give this angle a try. To ensure even greater probability of profit, I’ll also be working a significant number of product placement references into my story. I don’t have any contracts for this in place yet; I assume the companies you mention just send you a check out of the goodness of their heart.

Allow me to preview my treatment here, and then readers can tell me what they think the best media might be for my narrative. I’m hoping you’ll suggest film, TV or publishing, though I’ll also consider the idea of nailing single-spaced pages to telephone poles.

The setting is current-day America, though if I have to be specific to achieve a certain ambience, I’ll say it’s suburban Idaho. (Fact check: does this even exist?) A 17-year-old girl named Jelle is spellbound by all things “Twilight,” so she heads down to the local Best Buy store to buy a DVD of the movie. While browsing through the aisles, she notices a striking young male employee in the next department. Over his bright blue company shirt, he’s wearing a cape and a cowl, and the oddity of his clothing choice fascinates her. She tries to get his attention but fails at first because this is, after all, Best Buy.

Finally, after she kicks at the locked glass case under the music player display, the young man approaches. His name tag identifies him as “Edward Associate,” and Jelle decides to call him “Ward.” They chat briefly about the merits of the iPod versus the Zune (ultimate choice based on highest corporate bidder) and she works up the nerve to ask him when he gets off. “Every chance I get,” he chuckles with twinkling eyes, then realizes his error and quickly answers “nine.” They agree to meet at a quarter past over at the Wendy’s.

Obviously, she hopes he’s a vampire and hopes his choice of menu items will give her a clue of that possibility. When they arrive together at the counter, she orders the new Sweet & Spicy Asian chicken, available for a limited time only (for reasons that will soon become apparent), and he selects a dollar-menu hamburger. She had hoped he’d order something made with red meat instead, indicating a proclivity for blood, and she can barely contain her disappointment with his choice. Still, they sit and chat for a while, and he seems like a nice enough guy. Turns out he’s originally from Pennsylvania, which she thinks might be one of the Sylvanias with vampires.

After a while, Ward says he needs to get going. Jelle says she’s enjoyed talking and maybe they can get together again some time. Ward says he’s got a dentist appointment the following afternoon, and asks Jelle if she’d like to come along. She agrees to meet him at his house. She knows the area – it’s in a diverse subdivision that has a blend of ranch homes, split-levels, bat caves and eerie mansions, so again she reminds herself to keep her dreams in check.

The next day is bright and warm. As she arrives at the Associates family home, she is ever more certain that he can’t be a Lord of the Night and still be going out to the dentist on a sunny day like this. But when she pulls into his driveway, she spies Ward through the full-length glass door of his home, slathering on a heavy coat of Coppertone sunscreen. He greets her with a friendly kiss on the cheek, and over his shoulder she notices the bottle is labeled SPF 120. Could a high-enough UV protection factor shield a vampire from the light of day? Maybe.

They ride to the dentist in his car, a Chrysler PT Cruiser, which seems like ideal transportation for the Undead. She accompanies him to the waiting room, and overhears the receptionist confirming his insurance plan as Delta Dental and the scheduled procedure as an incisor sharpening, which has a significant deductible but he says go ahead anyway. Jelle turns to the camera and says (or else she thinks to herself in italic if this is a book) “looking good.” She sits and reads a magazine article about Jon and Kate so she can sympathize with the pain he’s surely feeling.

After the procedure, Ward suggests they head over to the local Golden Corral all-you-can-eat buffet for an early dinner. Jelle tells herself this needs to be the time and place to find out for sure if this guy is the vampire she wants him to be. She’s already vested almost 24 hours in this relationship, and she needs to know if it’s going anywhere. They load their plates high with yeast rolls, buttered corn and small, deep-fried spheres. The waitress takes their drink orders: Jelle asked for iced tea, and the ever-enigmatic Ward has a V-8. Jelle excuses herself and heads to the carving station for a thick slab of steak, heavy on the garlic, which she plans on driving into Ward’s heart if he finally reveals himself to her.

About halfway through the meal, both are overcome with Corral-arrhea and head off to their respective restrooms. When Jelle emerges 45 minutes later, Ward is nowhere to be found. She checks the parking lot, which is filled with Chryslers, but none of them are the blood-red model that belonged to her new beau.

Heartbroken (sort of), she pulls out her cell phone and sends him a text message: “s’up? thought you liked men,” though what she really meant to say was “thought you liked me.” A few seconds later comes his response. “AWOOOO” it says, which she interprets to mean “Also Women (hug)(hug)(hug)(hug).”

A little later, he brutally slays her and drinks all her blood.

That’s all I’ve got so far. I know it needs a little fleshing out, maybe a dash of character development and a few more action scenes besides the Golden Corral meal. But it does mention vampires five times, so I think there’s potential here. Soon the income should be flowing to me like an open vein.

If not, please know that I have a fallback plan. I registered yesterday to sell my posts on Amazon’s Kindle, which could bring me as much as thirty cents a pop. Now I just have to figure which port on my laptop dispenses coins.

Fake News: More celebrities tragically die

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (July 6) – The entertainment world continued to reel yesterday from tragic losses in its ranks with the sudden deaths of three more giants of the industry.

Shelley Long, 59, the actress who portrayed Diane on the long-running NBC comedy series “Cheers,” was found dead in the rubble of her collapsed home in Topanga Canyon. She was apparently crushed to death when a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck the Los Angeles area early Wednesday morning.

Tony Kubek, 72, long-time sports announcer and an infielder for World Series champion New York Yankees in the early 1960s, was caught in a massive landslide following the quake in the foothills near his Encino residence, and later died at a nearby hospital. He had been visiting relatives in the area when the disaster struck.

Sharon Osbourne, 57, who managed her husband Ozzie’s rock music career before co-starring in a number of TV shows with her family, was evidently washed out to sea when an epic tsunami engulfed her SUV along a coastal road about 15 miles north of San Diego. Witnesses said the giant wave may have been as large as 35 feet tall. Officials identified her by a pocketbook found later at the scene that contained her identification papers.

The catastrophic seismological event that rocked the southern half of the state for an estimated 25 minutes also killed an estimated three million ordinary residents.

All three stars were mourned by their show business peers, at least the ones who could be contacted amid widespread communications and electrical outages that caused survivors to rampage through the