step one

I walked half a block today for the first time sans crutches. I'm sure all the granny mall walkers could lap me but I'm coming for them. Eye of the Tiger ladies, Eye of the Tiger.

Apple Tango Scent ?

Am I wrong for not wanting my clothes to smell like a fruit salad? "Mmmmm laundry, I'm suddenly hungry."

Has the marketing of detergent really gotten so out of hand that they sell a product line called Joyful Expressions? What was that meeting like?

"Oh yeah, I worked on the Gain account, Joyful Expressions. Man, a lot of long nights on that one."

Tidal Wave

I thought I'd seen all the 70's disaster flicks but my education is incomplete, my degree worthless. It appears I may have missed a significant corner stone; Tidal Wave, starring none other than Lorne Green, Pa Cartright! Yes comic book guy, Commander Adama as well.



According to one review Roger Corman recut the Japanese flick, Nippon chinbotsu, added Lorne Greene's character and released it under the name of Tidal wave.

The movie has yet to find it's way to dvd and will probably never receive the midnight screening it deserves, which in light of the tragic Indian Ocean tusnami could be viewed as being in enormously bad taste.

John Soli, who painted the movie poster deserves some press. I'm surprised his posters haven't become hipster wall art.

From his website:

"John Solie has become famous for the incredible images he has captured on canvas, images renowned for their ability to reflect the very essence of the subject. Much of his career in the commercial illustration field has been in painting portraits and sculpting famous people. He has also been in demand for book covers and book illustrations and has painted over 200 movie posters over the years."

Including:







Yes, Big Bad Momma, stars Angie Dickinson, Tom Skeritt & William Shatner!

Solie also painted, er um uh, romance novel covers; babies gotta eat. The covers do nothing for me but their titles are priceless; A Cowboy s Forever, Bachelor Dad, That Boy from Trash Town & The Parson's Waiting.

nothing's gonna stop the flow

(title key ~ think folk implosion)



Sorry, that's not my fan mail. They're leg bills. I receive a small stack each week. I used to open them and sort them by procedure, doctor or hospital. I even called every time I got a bill to inform them that my Medi Cal benefits were pending. Now I just sort them by size and color.

Choose your own metaphor.

a ton of bricks


a tidal wave


County Patient Billing Inquiry Unit:

"If you have received a bill & have Medi Cal benefits or have applied for Medi Cal benefits and not yet been approved press one now?"

doot

"If you have applied for Medi Cal benefits but your case has not yet been approved we are unable to stop any bills you may be receiving. As soon as your case is approved and your Medi Cal benefits identification card received, please provide the identification card number and issue date to the hospital staff. You will continue to receive bills until that information is received."

Until then, my box of redundancy will continue to grow.

The sheer volume of paper this place must generate on a monthly basis is staggering. No wonder I see an industrial shredder truck outside the hospital all the time. I only pray the envelope stuffing is automated. No man or beast deserves that fate.

"Mail Room Orienter: You punch in at 8:30 every morning, except you punch in at 7:30 following a business holiday, unless it's a Monday, then you punch in at 8 o'clock. Punch in late and they dock you. Incoming articles get a voucher, outgoing articles provide a voucher. Move any article without a voucher and they dock you. Letter size a green voucher, oversize a yellow voucher, parcel size a maroon voucher. Wrong color voucher and they dock you! 6787049A/6. That is your employee number. It will not be repeated! Without your employee number you cannot get your paycheck. Inter-office mail is code 37, intra-office mail 37-3, outside mail is 3-37. Code it wrong and they dock you! This has been your orientation. Is there anything you do not understand, is there anything you understand only partially? If you have not been fully oriented, you must file a complaint with personnel. File a faulty complaint and they dock you!"
~ Hudsucker Proxy

80's television

Tales of the Golden Monkey



Cover Up




The Museum of Radio & Television has a massive catalog of television & radio programs that you can watch or listen to in private. Unfortunately, the museum's database is not searchable online. You have to call or email the museum to see if they have a program. Why not cut out a step & make the database available online?

What do you think? Does the museum have either of these shows?

From the MT&R:

Do you have everything ever broadcast?

No. It is a curated collection. Programs have been selected on the basis of artistic achievement, social impact, or historic significance.

heroes or cannibals?

First, Lost at Sea -- Now the Squall
Were they smugglers? Did they eat their two comrades? What about those fingernails? Three Mexican fishermen get the media's third degree.
By Héctor Tobar, Times Staff Writer
August 26, 2006

MEXICO CITY — When three fishermen returned home Friday after a miraculous ordeal at sea, the questions from this city's boisterous press corps didn't focus on the Hemingway-like details of their nine months adrift, an accidental 5,000-mile journey from the Mexican port of San Blas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Were they smugglers? Who cares? Were they fishing illegally? Again, who cares. Did they eat their buddies? This requires some unpacking a) Did you eat them, yes or no? b) Were they deceased prior to your decision to eat them; i.e. did you kill them to eat them? c) Did they taste like chicken or beef?

Although distasteful, necessary canibalism is a historic reality; the Donner Party, Alive, John Franklin's failed arctic expedition & possibly the Siege of Leningrad.

If I go first and can provide sustenance have at the "CF steaks".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more on eating one's shipmates read, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick.



The inspiration for Moby Dick, marrow in the bone, forgotten history.

"The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents-including a long-lost account written by the ship's cabin boy-and penetrating details about whaling and the Nantucket community to reveal the chilling events surrounding this epic maritime disaster. An intense and mesmerizing read, In the Heart of the Sea is a monumental work of history forever placing the Essex tragedy in the American historical canon." -Penguin USA

hog-dog rodeos

I am constantly amazed @ the diversity in the US. Sometimes I can't believe that it's one nation.

Hog Wild
Feral pigs are ugly, destructive and mean. Some people in Texas just love to trap, stab or shoot them. Or put them in rodeos. With dogs.
Todd Spivak ~ Houston Press, Aug 24, 2006

Jason Schooley is a self-described hawg-dawg fanatic. "I love those frickin' hogs," he says. "I don't know what I'd do without 'em." "My daughter was five when she stuck her first hog," he says, beaming.

Domestic hogs become feral after as few as three generations spent in the wild, during which they undergo a werewolf-like transformation. They grow bristly hair and curling tusks, become almost exclusively nocturnal when hunted hard, and develop a thick plate of gristle on their shoulders and sides tough enough to deflect small-caliber bullets.

Nationwide, since 1990, the wild hog population has more than doubled and spread from 19 to 35 states. Every year they cause more than $50 million in damages across Texas.

Feral hogs are said to have a lean, mildly gamy flavor and are considered a delicacy in high-end restaurants on the east and west coasts as well as overseas.

Once, Schooley says, while on a hunt, his dogs caught a hog several miles away. By the time he got to the scene, the dogs had eaten so much of the hog, they were passed out next to it. The hog was still breathing, though its face was completely chewed off from behind its ears to the tip of its snout.

Louisiana, one of just two states that still allow cockfighting, in 2004 became the first to ban hog-catch trials. Leading up to the vote, legislators engaged in "a boisterous hourlong House debate in which one lawmaker wore a hog nose and scores of others squealed and clucked animal noises," according to the Times-Picayune.

Unrepentant, Luther says she continues to organize hog-dog rodeos across the South. Luther can't understand why hogs are being singled out for sympathy. She also organizes fights that pit dogs against raccoons and foxes in pens. "The dogs shred the foxes to pieces, but nobody cares about that," she says. "It's silly to care about hogs but not foxes and coons."

Nearby Nixon is home to Dan Moody, a commercial hunter who claims his Texas Dogs on Hogs video series -- which depicts actual feral hog hunts edited with slow-motion effects and classic-guitar riffs -- has sold 20,000 copies worldwide.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bayed Solid - the only magazine exclusively for Bay Dog Hunters

we have cracklin'

My culinary inquiry made the LA weekly.

Ask Mr. Gold: Cracklin’
By Jonathan Gold
Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 12:00 pm

Dear Mr. Gold:

Where can I find cracklin’ in Los Angeles?
—Carl Ferry

Dear Mr. Ferry:

My arteries begin to constrict at the thought of the pork rinds fried in giant iron kettles of bubbling lard at the Jazz and Heritage Fest in New Orleans; of the translucent paper bags of happiness available in certain Breaux Bridge butcher shops; of the bubbly sheets of roasted porchetta skin snatched from trucks parked at Umbrian crossroads. Locally, not so much. But the freshly fried pork rinds at the Northern Thai restaurant Top in Reseda have rarely been the source of complaints, especially when the pork rinds in question are laden with the house’s roasted green-chile dip. If you don’t mind your cracklin’ sodden with sauce, the chicharrones at La Luz del Dia at the foot of Olvera Street are pretty great. And my own favorite pigskin is at the venerable Antojitos Denise’s on the Eastside, where you can get the wondrous substance fried into massive sheets, stewed into saucy succulence, or — my hangman’s noose of choice — fried with generous slabs of meat still attached into prisms the density of concrete blocks. Be still my heart.

4060 E. Olympic Blvd., L.A., (323) 264-8199.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the, I'm not making this up department:


Sugar Free Belgian Milk Chocolate Pork Rind & Caramel Candy Bars

Product Description
Following hot on the heels of our very popular chocolate dipped pork rinds comes our latest mouthwatering creation....the Sugar Free Milk Chocolate Pork Rind Caramel Bar. Each bar is carefully hand-poured with Callebaut Sugar Free Belgian Chocolate, which is sweetened with Maltitol, we pack it full of crunchy fresh pork rinds and flood it with a layer of creamy Sugar Free Caramel and smother it with more chocolate. Sugar Free Low Carb treats never tasted sooooooooo good!

They are low carb & Atkins Diet friendly but they need a better name how about ChocoRinds?

service monkeys

"Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled is a national nonprofit serving quadriplegic and other people with severe spinal cord injuries or mobility-impairments by providing highly trained monkeys to assist with daily activities. As live-in companions, our monkey helpers provide 20-30 years of service, bringing the gifts of independence, companionship, dignity and hope to the people they help."

Be sure to watch gizmo in action.

coming to a bedside near you

More like, When you didn't have a plan.

So you can get the morning after pill over the counter but you still have to get a perscription for regular birth control pills?

here birdie birdie

I'm not gonna tell you where to get your food but these scenes are straight out of a sci fi movie. I'm not sure why this macabre field has me so fascinated.




"Someone else puts the giblets in a handy white pouch and I stuff them back in there. No, I've never seen the person that stuffs the pouches. Well, I can't assure you that the giblets go back into the chicken they came out of. We just make sure every bird gets some giblets. No, sorry I don't know the origin of the word giblets."


Do they pipe music (symphony of course) into the factory or is it the clack clack of the chicken conveyer all day?


Are they pumpin' amyl nitrates into the ventilation system? Why is this woman so happy to be surrounded by dressed hens.


Please, tell me he is not communicating with the foul.

We dig chickens.


The UConn Poultry Science Club is an Eggcelent choice for anyone who has an interest in Poultry.

The club sells omelets at agricultural expos & hosts a spring bbq, which I imagine features chicken.

These club members seem way to excited to be slaughtering turkeys.

keep out!

Traditional No trespassing signs might just provoke the local hooligans & then you'll spend all of your time in the woods picking up empty cans of nascar beer.

Slap a couple of these up. Make sure the neighbors see you in your bunny suit hanging the signs.



Not this kind of bunny suit.



Here's what you want.



This would send an entirely different message.



Again, the wrong message.



Scatter a few red medical waste bags filled with innocuous material throughout the property.



Maybe record the sound of a bleating sheep and play it over the PA just below the legal decibel limit. The neighbors will give you a wide birth and it's pretty much guaranteed you won't have to bring a casserole to the pot luck.

gas blowers & weed wackers

Ahhhh the weed wacker is at it again. We have no grass on/at the complex, so I'm not sure what he wacks every monday for an hour. Next his partner will blow, well again I'm not sure what but he'll run the blower around underneath the carport while the third and final member of the troupe will hose down the deck.

All they suceed in doing is blowing dust from the ground onto the cars. One afternoon I returned home to find my freshly washed motorcycle glazed in particulate matter.



L.A. Looks to Cut Smog with Leaf Blower Trade-In
Rob Schmitz
NPR

Day to Day, May 12, 2006 · Cars tend to be the usual suspects when it comes to the ubiquitous smog in Los Angeles. But another sneaky contributor is quietly doing its damage, too: leaf blowers. Now the regional pollution control agency is offering newer, cleaner and quieter leaf blowers to anyone who wants to trade in their old one.

Factoids:

One gas blower expells as much pollution as eighty, one & a half ton automobiles

The trade in program will reduce an estimated 114 tons of pollutants

The new blowers are 14% quieter and 5 times cleaner than older 2 stroke engines

eternal life?

University Cathedral


"Dr. Gene Scott ® (You can copyright your name?) is the Pastoring Teacher of the University Cathedral in Los Angeles, California. He teaches on subjects ranging from Basic Christianity, to Atlantis, to the Pyramids."

I am absolutely baffled. I thought Dr. Scott was dead but apparently I can get a message to him. I'm not sure if this is proof of eternal life or if there is some sort of unholy communion is going on down at the University Cathedral.

According to Dr. Scott's website, which refers to him only in the present tense:

Dr. Scott does not receive e-Mail (and boy is he angry about it). If you want to get a message to Dr. Scott, you'll have to get in line. You can call and leave a message by calling the Voice of Faith lines or writing him a letter!

It has been an unfufilled dream to see Dr. Scott ranting, urr umm, I mean preaching with his dry erase board full of ancient aremeic. "It's all there I wrote it down for you." I especially wanted to hear Dr. Scott lecture on the lost city.

So if the man is in fact dead, what exactly am I going to see when I go to the Cathedral? Reruns on the bigscreen TV the Dr. always has/had on stage? The TV has always baffled me, it projects his image yet it's smaller than his actual silhouettee, so I'm not sure why it was ever there unless it contained the hypno ray. I'm sorry, that's no way to talk about a doctor of theology, Standford University thank you very much.


Hypno Ray glasses

When I picture my day of prayer in Los Angeles' Jerusalemm the University Cathedral, I see myself sitting in a dark auditorium with horrible acoustics illuminated by the blue light of the television.

The rage that flows out of the reverend scares me. As evil wizard go, Saruman has nothing on this guy. Cigars & liver spots. Spread the love doc.

grow!

Dr: "You can put weight on it (lego's leg). Come back in four, ummm I won't be here then, make it five weeks"

"There is no growth yet. We usually see growth 4-6 weeks out from surgery. So, hopefully by the next time we'll see some growth."

Lego: Recovery time?

Dr: "2 to 6 months"

"If it doesn't grow we'll try something else."

Lego: Something else?

Dr: "Graft it in a different spot, use more expensive stuff."

So, cage removal is slated for sometime between the end of Oct and the end of Feb. It appears the cage will have to be incorporated into this year's halloween garb. The front runners are the Tower of Pisa or a shark (paper mache) biting the leg.




Substitute a caged leg for the house. I don't recommend googling "shark bite".

more toilet news

Malaysia holds exposition on toilets
By Pauline Jasudason, Associated Press Writer | August 24, 2006

"I'm sorry to say it, but we Malaysians are not very hygienic when it comes to public toilets," said one visitor, Doreen Lee, 32, referring to how some users don't flush, or squat on toilet seats, leaving dirty shoe prints.

Additionally, Kuala Lumpur city authorities announced on Wednesday it would be setting up 20 modern self-cleaning public toilets near popular shopping districts in the city, starting this month.

The air-conditioned units have an automatic seat cleaner that will wash, scrub and dry the pan after every use. The entire toilet will be cleaned in a similar manner after every five users.

I've hovered & I've built TP barriers but I've never thought of balancing on the seat. I'm not sure I could get up on the bowl and even if I was able to perch upon it, I'd be too worried about slipping.

"How'd you break your ankle and end up covered in filth?"

"Um, uh, I was perched on a toilet and took a bit of a spill."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was delighted to discover that the toilets at Chicago's O'Hare international Airport feature automatic toilet seat covers.

I almost missed my flight watching the cover round the bowl over & over.

Genius!

I thought hooks on in the stalls were innovative. Their frequent absence is mind boggling. "Great where do I put my backpack; in the hepatitis puddle, on my lap or just keep it on?"


Oddly, unlike the photo, my seat covers flowed clockwise. The hyglot must be available in both left & right hand drive.

As everyone is dying to know:

"What is the history of the hygolet toilet seat?"

"The hygolet seat is a product of Swiss technology. First used in Europe in 1978, a US patent was awarded in 1980. It has been available in the US since 1983, and is used in a number of US international airports as well as a variety of other facilities. The hygolet toilet system has won four international awards. Parts are manufactured in Switzerland and the US, and assembly is completed in the US."

I can't believe the hygolet is 23 years old.

Bum Cribs

Via James

prison rodeo

Worth the trip!



"Founded in 1940, the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo is the world's only rodeo held completely behind prison walls. Normal joes can get a behind-the-scenes glimpse inside a maximum security correctional facility while watching some real men-in-black teach cows and horses who is king. While watching your back to make sure you don't get shivved makes for an intense rodeo-watching experience, the crowd seems to enjoy it more when the inmates are all on the rodeo floor competing in an event called Money the Hard Way. Every year, rodeo organizers let a Brahma bull loose in the arena with a $100 bill tied to one of his horns. Since $100 is worth about 4 months pay to these hardened criminals, be ready for one hell of a scrap for that c-note. Almost 15,000 show up for this two-night, September event. Ticket range from $6 to $15."
-2camels.com

A trip to the Angola Prison Rodeo(Angola, LA) would also seem to be in order. Angola claims to be the oldest prison rodeo in the nation though the Oklahoma Rodeo predates it by 25 years. "The Greatest Show in the South," is only about half the size of Oklahoma's rodeo but Angola features:

Wild Cow Milking - Teams of inmate cowboys chase the animals around the arena trying to extract a little milk. The first team to bring milk to the judge wins the prize.

A game I like to call, Christians & Lions or . . .

Convict Poker - It's the ultimate poker game, and even winning has a price. Four inmate cowboys sit at a table in the middle of the arena playing a friendly game of poker. Suddenly, a wild bull is released with the sole purpose of unseating the poker play

And Angola's take on the Brahma game:

Guts & Glory - A chit (poker chip) is tied to the meanest, toughest Brahma bull available. The object here is to get close enough to the bull in order to snatch the chit. This is the last event of the day, and perhaps the most exciting.

The Angola Prison Musuem store has quite an assortment of bizare memorabila. Golf towels, shot glasses and blood hound stuffed animals. I mean, honestly, are you kidding me.



The oldest prison rodeo appears to be the Texas Prison Rodeo. Bud & Sissy take in the rodeo, in the Urban Cowboy. I'll never understand why Wes Hightower (former prison cowoy) decided to rob the Gilley's cash room after he lost the machanical bull showdown.

"The Texas Prison Rodeo was launched in 1931 during the depression years, being first held at the baseball park outside the "Walls" Unit. The baseball park, located on the east side of the prison, was normally home to the Walls Tigers baseball team. The rodeo was the brainchild of Lee Simmons, General Manager of the Texas Prison System. Simmons envisioned it as entertainment for employees and inmates. Welfare Director Albert Moore headed up the organization and planning for the early rodeos along with Warden Walter Waid and livestock supervisor, R. O. McFarland. The attendants included a small crowd of local citizens and prison. Simmons realized he had a winner on his hands. Two years later, over l5,000 fans traveled to Huntsville for the show. Soon, the Texas Prison Rodeo was drawing the largest crowds for a sporting event in the state of Texas. With a lifespan of more than 50 years, the Prison Rodeo became a Texas tradition, held every Sunday in October. Crowds grew to exceed 100,000 in some years."

"A favorite event unique to the Texas Prison Rodeo was the Hard Money Event. Forty Inmates with red shirts were turned into the arena with a raging wild bull with a Bull Durham tobacco sack tied between its horns. The object was for some brave inmate to get the sack and take it to the Judge. Fifty dollars had been placed in the sack but donations often ran the pay up, sometimes to $1500. This became a very popular event for the inmates due to the amount of money involved and was one of the most dangerous ones as well. The fast action kept fans on the edge of their seats throughout the event."

"Due to costly renovations that the prison system said were necessary to the arena stands, the rodeo was shut down after 1986."
-txprisonmuseum.org

"million solar roofs plan"

"Maria, it's bright out here. We need more POWER!"

Bill signing completes governor's solar plan
More panels, cleaner power goal of project
By Ed Mendel
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 22, 2006

The bill and action by the state Public Utilities Commission in January use a rate increase, about $15 a year for the average residential customer, to provide rebates lowering the cost of installing solar panels.

The goal of the $3.2 billion program is to create 3,000 megawatts of clean solar power – or 5 percent of the state's total need – during the next decade, avoid constructing six fossil-fuel power plants and the greenhouse gases they would emit and lower solar costs through mass production.

At the bill signing event, Schwarzenegger took a larger view: “I want to prove to the rest of the world that you can protect the environment and also have an economic expansion and boom.”

If successful, the new plan will result in a million homes with 3,000 megawatts of solar power by 2017.

Current law requires investor-owned utilities to obtain 20 percent of their power from renewable sources – such as solar, wind, water and thermal – by 2017, increasing at the rate of at least 1 percent of sales a year.

get fit america!

We are assembling the finest home gym that late night tv can by.

Here's a look at what we have so far.


Tony Little's amazing Gazelle. I would have sworn his ponytail was fake until I saw him in person. Seriously, Tony, the singlet is too much and take it down a notch. Maybe lay off the blue betties before taping the informericals. This is the Power Plus model. We had a hard time deciding between it and the Freestyle. In the end I think we'll be happy with the Power.


A Thigh Master, thank you Suze.


We spent a little extra and went with the Ab Lounger instead of the Abdominizer.


The Bowflex Power Pro XT, for maximum pump and because I dream of flight.

God no long requires your services

Pink slip from above



"Can I still go to heaven?"

Fired Sunday School teacher: parishioner meeting planned
Newswatch 50 WWTI ABC
Watertown, NY
8/17/06

"Eighty-one year old Mary Lambert was dismissed as Sunday School teacher at Watertown's First Baptist Church because she is a woman."

fak you!

It's 2006, how about a digital display. I shouldn't need instructions on how to read the meter. While you're at it, maybe you could give me a detailed useage report that lets me know when I'm using your smack.