Rainy Season Thoughts

Well, the wind stopped a bit.. but it still is sputtering rain.  Our yellow flowers with pink insides are blooming in spite of the lousy weather.  As is usual, regardless of the weather, I have a compulsion to share news, jokes and "Crankshaft" type observations with anyone nearby.  So, if you have anything else to do with your time, avoid this blog entry.  Remember.. you've been warned.

01.  Car Talk

At the opening of today's Car Talk show, the Massachusetts guys posed some scientific type questions.  I don't think they would mind if I mention them here. (By the way, if you have not listened to that NPR show, you are missing a great experience.)

Q. What do you call a really small bottle of mouthwash?  
A.  Microscope.

Q. What is the mathematical ratio used in constructing an igloo?
A. Eskimo pie.

Q.  What is the shortest distance between 2 jokes.
A.  A straight line.

Q.  What is the term for the time between the stepping on a banana peel and falling on the ground?
A.  A bananasecond.

02.  More names.

Every so often, I mention people's names that I have collected over the years.  I apologize to those who own these names, but I think they are humorous.  If you know these people, please don't tell them, because I don't want to get a punch in the nose.

ALCOHOL:
Zula Z. Boozer
Martin I. Sober

FAMOUS NAMES:
Willie Huckleberry Finn
Mona Lisa Guess

FEATHERED FRIENDS:
Birdie Berryhill
Cola Chick
Russell Feathers
Canary Sires

FOOD:
Mr. Sizzleberger

JEWELS:
Opal Galightly
Fairest Ruby Klepfer

MEDICAL CONDITIONS:
Round Barnes
Bland Butts
Ether Boyant Horn
A. Reck
Rena Sweat
Sinus Wilzy

MEN AND WOMEN:
Mrs. Husband
William Sex Pattern

MISCELLANEOUS:
Other Bradshaw
Blueford Corsey
Mr. Richendollar

03.  What happened?

Last December, police in Ransom, Illinois, (population: 409) were looking for a woman who walked away from an automobile crash that left her husband dead.  The only clues were some footprints in the snow and a slipper. Dressed in a red party dress and one slipper, she should not have been that difficult to find.  Perhaps her bright dress in the white snow caught the attention of the pilot of an alien craft and she has been abducted and held for ransom.  I haven't seen any more news about this incident on the Internet.  I hope she was found in time for Christmas.

04.  What happened?

In August of 2009, it was reported that Michael Jackson's artificial nose had disappeared from his body in the morgue.  I'm not sure if that report was true or not.  Michael is supposed to have had a bottle full of fake noses.  I read where his real nose had collapsed after excessive plastic surgeries.  If someone had stolen the nose, it probably will show up years hence as a "holy relic."

05.  Survival equipment.

Transportation officials in one of China's provinces have outfitted buses with large orange bricks attached with long strings.  These are supposed to be used by passengers in  emergency situations, so they can break a window and escape.

06.  Negligence case.

A Chicago woman got drunk and fell through the window of a hair salon.  She later sued the owner because he should have had safety glass installed.. lots of drunks apparently walk by his shop, and he should have been prepared for one of them to fall through.   I wonder if she won her suit.

07.  No global warming?

The huge glacier on Mount Margherita in Uganda has cracked and is now blocking access by mountain climbers to the summit.  The glacier has reportedly ruptured because of excessive melting.  It is one of the very few places near the equator that has ice; the glacier has shrunk by 75% in the recent past and may completely disappear by 2030.

08.  Call my brother: ISHMAEL.  Call me: AHAB.*

Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer have created the opera: Moby-Dick.  It is a three hour creation that I am anxious to see and hear.  There are lots of reviews out on the Internet.. I personally don't want to read any because I feel they might affect my own considerations when I finally see the opera. 

*(If you are a member of the National Puzzlers League, you will recognise me and my brother by these noms.)

09.  We know where you are!

For a long time, I have wondered why my DROID always knows exactly where I am.  Now the word is out. I wonder if Bin Laden has an IPHONE or a DROID?  I guess not.. so, let's send him one.

10.  Baltimore event.

The Wait Wait Don't Tell Me show was taped and broadcast this week at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore's own John Waters, was the celebrity guest. (John's book: Role Models comes out this week in paperback.)

http://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/


11.  Shazam!

I just realized that there is a big problem now that phone booths have all but disappeared.  Where will Clark Kent change into his Superman suit?  Evildoers are rejoicing everywhere.  (When I was a small kid and owned Superman comic book number one.. I actually wondered what would happen if Clark couldn't find a phone booth that was unoccupied.) I don't think that Captain Marvel needed a phone booth.  Neither did the Green Hornet or Batman.

12.  Are you handy?

A Neurologist from Newton, Massachusetts says that right-handed people are mostly boring and left-handed people are mostly interesting.  I'm ambidextrous.. what about me?  (Don't answer that!)

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Happy New Year! 2011! Gasp!

I'm quite pleased with myself. Elaine and I pigged out on pizza and shrimp while we watched the ball drop at Times Square. In spite of that, I only went 173 calories over my daily allotment.

I'm trying to lose 30 pounds and I am using an online program to monitor what I eat and how much exercise I use. So far, I have found it very easy to use and it has a lot of features that I like. If you are interested, take a look at:

http://www.loseit.com/

Based on my diet program, I will reach my goal on July 11, 2011. Hopefully, I am motivated enough to avoid my version of the famous Allen Curve, which I call the Alden Curve, named after a famous Pilgrim relative of mine.

(This Alden Curve works well to show how Gyms make their money ... because most people never follow through with their gym visits.. it also works especially well with diet plans. For instance, when you start, a daily motivation graph line leans upward from zero for about a month. At the end of the month, when it dawns on you that you don't want to diet quite as much, your daily motivation graph line starts to work its way back down to the zero point. When you finally quit your diet, a median line drawn across the graph creates an A. This is the Alden Curve.)

Now, to talk about other stuff.

01. Arachnid Statistic? Somebody has reported that 20% of people engaging in sexual activity, maintain an open contact with the Web at the same time. (How did they get that statistic?)

02. Car Talk: If you visit the Car Talk website, you can see all of the famous staff names that you have heard mentioned over the lifetime of the radio show. Here are a dozen of those names that I thought were interesting:

Ulanda U. Lucky - Air Traffic Controller

Turner Luce - Animal Control Officer

Dot Matrix - Director of Computer Services

Collette O'Day - Clock Watcher

Phyllis Steen - Art Critic

Dot Snice - Art Critic II

Hugh Jass - Clothing Designer

Ed Amame - Bean Counter

Bud Uronner - Appeals Specialist

Hugo First - Bunji Jumper Instructor

Orson Buggy - Assistant Transportation Coordinator

Eureka Garlic - Breathalyzer Administrator

See them all at http://www.cartalk.com/

03. Litigation. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me reports that the mayor of Batman, Turkey is suing the makers of the Batman movie because they have not paid royalties for using the town name.

04. Fishy: Connecticut now has a State fish: the shad. (I wonder what ever happened to an SSA worker named Fred Shad?) Is Massachusetts State fish the scrod? (Check out the words to that famous song: Crabs for Christmas.. my favorite song of the season.)

05. Pay Scale: I may have mentioned this before. Mayor Bloomberg of New York City gets a yearly salary of just $1. However, he only gets 93 cents because 7 cents gets deducted for Social Security.

06. Conspiracy Theory: Carroll County Times (Maryland) columnist Tom Zirpoli says that one of the candidates for Governor of Colorado wants to end the city-wide bicycle rental program in Denver because it is a first step in bringing the US under UN control.

07. Necessity: While the Carnival Cruise Line's Splendor was stranded off of Mexico. The U. S. Navy airlifted a supply of Spam so that the strandees could have some protein.

For those of you young folks who have only heard of one kind of spam, check out this site:

http://www.spam.com/

08. Ailurophiles vs. caninophiles: Fellow Mensan, Richard Lederer, writes:

"Cats are smarter than dogs. (This must be true. Tests conducted by the University of Michigan concluded that while a dog's memory lasts no more than five minutes, a cat's can last as long as sixteen hours, exceeding even that of monkeys and orangutans. And you never see eight cats pulling a sled.)"

"Dogs drool; cats rule."

"If you command your dog to 'Come here', he runs right over with a 'Yes, what can I do for you?' The cat's response is, 'Put it in writing, and I'll get back to you later.' This is why dogs have masters, and cats have staff."

09. True adventure: A new biography by Geoffrey Wolff called: The Hard Way Around outlines the life of Joshua Slocum. Joshua was a young ship's captain who had many adventures, such as violent storms and mutinies even before he left Fairhaven, Massachusetts in 1898, and sailed alone around the world for three years. (Fairhaven is across the Acushnet River from New Bedford (my hometown) and there is a little park with a monument to his voyage next to the river and right near a wonderful Bed and Breakfast, which commands a marvelous view of the New Bedford harbor right out of the bedroom windows.)

10. Reward for speeding: A Massachusetts woman was arrested for throwing a bag of dog poop at a speeding car. It went through his open window and hit him in the face. She has been charged with assault.

I may have mentioned this before, but when I was about ten years old, a nasty guy working at cleaning up a yard, flipped dog poop at me as I rode by on my bicycle. This gave him a marvelous laugh. (I wonder if he was still laughing as he surveyed the flat tires on his truck.)

11. Hard to believe, but true: Google has logged almost 1,000 miles on their self-driving Toyota Priuses in California. Robot cars don't drive drunk, distracted or sleepy. (What happens when a State Trooper tries to pull them over for an equipment violation?)

12. Religious knowledge: According to Tom Harbold in the Carroll County (Maryland) Times.. The Pew Forum on religion and public life conducted a quiz of 32 questions given to a random sampling of over 3,000 people. The persons getting the highest number of questions right were Atheists, Agnostics, Jews and Mormons.

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Have a great time in 2011!

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Saturday Mornings

Because I am no longer an early riser, I miss the yard sales that I used to love. Instead, I get to enjoy two radio programs on NPR: Car Talk and Wait, Wail, Don't Tell Me. Sometimes, the only time I get to hear familiar Massachusett accents is by listening to Click and Clack give out their automotive advice. Most of the problems that people have with their cars, I have experienced at some time or other myself.. I think that if I had had the good fortune to hear their show years ago, I would have probably saved myself a lot of money.



But, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is my favorite radio show. If you haven't heard it, you are in for a treat. Before you do, a trip to their internet site will fill you in on what its all about. Just google search for it and you will find a nice website with a video that shows you how the show is put together and what Peter and Carl and the other folks look like. Either there or at the NPR site, you can download copies of the show for free to put on your IPOD or listen to right from your computer.

I always learn a lot from the show. For instance, today I learned the following:

01. Way out in our galaxy, they have found evidence of ethel fornate, which is a chemical that allows us to smell raspberries. (Roy Blunt says that he went to school with a girl named Ethel Fornate, ... guess what else he said.)

02. Researchers have been working for months to try to find some kind of clothing item to take the place of the open-back gowns that hospitals subject you to. Besides being embarrassing, its gross-out time to see an old man in a gown doing rehab. During my recent bout at Mercy Hospital, I was pleased to see that they gave me 2 gowns, 1 to put on one way, and the other one the other way. That was very nice of them, but then again, I don't think that the Sisters of Mercy would have it any other way.

03. Tom Blunt said (relating to the statements that even though the torture methods may have been not exactly kosher, we did get good information from the practise.) .. that sounds like a person being accused of being a shoplifter saying: "call it what you will, but look at the great stuff I got."

04. There is an intersting story out of Stutgart, Germany, about sterility.

05. A researcher took fish on a plane trip to find that strong wave-like motion cause some of them to get seasick.. "they looked like they were getting ready to vomit."

06. Nazi-bred cow stock is being revived in Great Britain. "Someone saw these giant cows goose-stepping through the pasture."

07. An airline devoted to carrying animals is talking about its "pawsengers."

08. Susan Boyle says that she really has been kissed.

09. The Guinness brewery building, through the foresight of their founder 250 years ago, enjoys a 6,000 year lease.

10. Some people say that fish bladders are an ingredient in Guinness beer because the "fining agent" that makes it clear is made from those things. (I used it when I made beer and it didn't affect the taste in any way.)

11. In hearing the "strip search" case before the Supreme Court, one of the Justices mentioned that somebody had "put something" in his underwear when he was a kid.. "or not."

I hope that you are now interested enough to download today's program and listen to it.. I know you will like this classic show.

BTW: I forgot.. at one point a song was played and I finally learned the right English words to a song that I liked to sing at German and Polish functions:

In heaven there is no beer,
That is why we drink it here.
And when we're gone from here,
Our friends will be drinking all the beer.

Prosit! Salut! Cheers!