I Actually Saw These At The Time

Last year, Chancy at Driftwood Inspiration posted this lovely story about Exotic Gardening which mentioned a BBC broadcast I had seen when it was first aired in 1957 about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.


When I was in Philadelphia, the year Maya was born, the local paper ran an ad for The Taco Liberty Bell claiming the federal government, in an attempt to reduce the national debt, had sold the Liberty Bell to Taco Bell.

The full text of the ad read as follows:

Taco Bell Buys The Liberty Bell
In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country's most historic treasures. It will now be called the "Taco Liberty Bell" and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country's debt.

In a related release, the company explained that people and corporations had been adopting highways for years, and that Taco Bell was simply "going one step further by purchasing one of the country's greatest historic treasures."

I got this ready for April Fool months ago. This computer doesn't show the pictures, so I can only hope.

Zits

I love Jeremy. He is so funny. And touching. There is simply something so coltish about teen aged boys. So worthy of admiration and yet in need of protecting. Just the best of the best.

Teen aged girls, too. They are so close to being adults, but not yet. So close to being children, but no longer. They make me go all protective and want to cheer them on at the same time.

Zitsby Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman

I love Jeremy, the teen hero of Zits. He is such a teen! Ackward physically and socially. Trying to be grown up, still needing his parents, confused by the changes happening to him and horrified that someone will find out that he isn't as cool as he wants to appear. This series was run a week or so ago, and I had to share it with you.

Not My Job

For anyone who would like to go directly to Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald's appearance on Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me and listen to him tell the tale of the "big-assed" spider as well as the rest of his very funny appearance on the Not My Job segment, just follow the link.

Photo courtesy of Dogdayrun.org

Gasp!

I first heard about NPR's Wait, Wait. . .Don't Tell Me from Julie. She downloads it to her Ipod and listens to it while she walks the dog. She says that sometimes she laughs out loud and hopes other people walking along don't think she's nuts.

I thought about that as I was listening to The August 11, 2007 broadcast. The guest was Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald, of Animal Planet's "Emergency Vets: Interns" and he reported the following bit of nonsense. I have seldom laughed so hard in my life. It was so unexpected and told in such a droll voice. Follow the link and listen for yourself. Picture Julie walking Genevieve and the reactions other pedestrians might have to her reaction.

Dr. Fitzgerald reported that a man brought him a tarantula, and although he knows that a good vet isn't afraid of a patient, big spiders creep him out since they move funny, and it is worse when they have hair. He avoided the temptation to demand a phone book and squash the thing, but he was uncomfortable with it. When he asked what was wrong with the spider, he was told that he wasn't acting like himself -- he hadn't eaten for a couple of weeks and one of his legs had fallen off. Fitzgerald said that in his experience, when a spider's legs started to fall off, it was pretty sick. He referred the man to the Museum of Natural History to see Dr. Lick.

Before long, he got a call from Dr. Lick, "Did you send me this man with the big-assed spider? And did you tell him that in your experience when their legs start to fall off they are pretty sick? Well, if you had taken the time to examine him, you would have seen that he was, in fact, dead."

Image courtesy of villagewiki.pbwike.com

Helping a Neighbor

Being down about Edwards dropping out of the race, I decided to post something to cheer us all up. This is from one of my favorite The Big Bang Theory episodes. Enjoy.

And here we have, Is Sheldon a Robot?

Non Sequitur

Sometimes the truth of something is so incredibly obvious that it just jumps out at me and yells, "Share this!"

And so, I do.

Click to enlarge.

Bound & Gagged

True friendship

Click to enlarge..

Happy New Year

Click to enlarge
Glad to be done with 2007. Hoping 2008 will be better all round. Election magic would be nice.

& Christmas Morning

As promised, the rest of the SFGate.com animal pictures I liked. Gentle moments with wild wonders.

Here we have a tiger with a donkey pinata all his own.


And a white tiger with cubs. Including the one who thinks climbing Mom's head is fun.





And a lovely green snakes.






Ah, Mama Tiger and Baby Pig.






And several baby pandas. These are the result of an artificial insemination breeding program. It seems to be working.





Mama cat has adopted some chicks to raise with her kittens.





It doesn't matter how big they get, a cat is a cat and a cub is a kitten.






Baby lemur holds on tight to his stuffed toy, just like any child.





Here we have a lamb being carried by a donkey.






And a little bear caught in the folding chair.





Knut's first public appearance.






Friendship between a kitten and a puppy.






A zebra and a dolphin contemplating each other through the glass.







Tiger cubs and orangutan babies playing.

T'was The Night Before Christmas

And Maya's Granny wanted to give you something nice, so here we are.

SFGate.com has posted its Day In Pictures annual archives.

All of the ones I chose are animal themes. I love animals. You love animals. All God's chil'ren love animals.





Here are a few of the ones I really like. Upper - bee and hummingbird.

Then, gosling and child.

Goslings hiding under Mama's wing.



Crane chick being fed by artificial Mom so it won't imprint on humans.



A dog taking a balloon ride.







These bunnies entered the cage of the tiger cubs. The cubs played with them. No one was hurt.




A bear after my own heart. Going for the Pepsi.





An alligator climbing a wall. Perhaps he will turn off the circuit breaker and a householder will come out and feed him.

There are more wonderful animal shots, and I will post them another day. I'm currently working on a post that requires thought, so this makes today's post easy.

Do click to enlarge.

Six Pack Abs Can't Shake Like A Bowlful of Jelly*

Go to Keep Santa Fat and sign the petition to stop this nonsense and let Santa get on with the season. Remember, as the campaign says, "It's not Xmas if he's not XL."

The Keep Santa Fat campaign will donate one pound of food to Second Harvest for every signature on the petition.

* Keep Santa Fat.com

Portrait of Saint Nick courtesy of Keep Santa Fat.com

Send The Marines

Vatican Rag

I think this is funnier if you have actually spent some time in the Catholic church. Which, you may remember, I did. I went to a Catholic girls' boarding school after my father died, and then when Mama remarried and we moved to Puerto Rico, the Catholic school was the only one where classes were taught in English.

Except arithmetic and geography. Since that was the year we did multiplication tables, that gave me a brief hitch in my math. On paper it was no problem, Spanish numerals and English numerals look the same. But, if someone asked me a multiplication problem and I had to answer verbally, I had to translate the English number to Spanish, work the problem, then translate the answer to English. Slowed me down considerably. I don't recall there being any problem with geography because of it -- perhaps we did Puerto Rican geography that year, and I've not needed it in any of the other places I've ever lived.

And then, decades later, I was the resident secular humanist working for Catholic Community Service for 12 years. That worked out pretty well -- the courts would assign parents to take my parenting class and sometimes the person would object because she/he wasn't Catholic, and the judge would respond, "The instructor is an atheist. I doubt she will try to convert you."

Anyway, here it is Sunday, and here is a post that touches, however lightly, on religion.

Poisoning Pigeons In The Park

National Brotherhood Week

Having published a long post with a lot of serious food for thought yesterday, and being mid-work on a couple of subjects I want to talk about, I thought I'd give you a light hearted Tom Lerhrer YouTube to enjoy today.

Pollution

Who would think that after all this time, the problem would still be with us? And yet, it is. Some gifts just keep on giving.

Life of Crime

I thought I would post this today, partly in honor of my having spent Friday as part of the grand jury. It is amazing to me how blatant crime is. Nothing subtle about it at all. We had a DUI where the guy drove off at 70 mph with a cop after him -- in a community where the longest road is 45 miles and there is no road out. We had two shop lifters who were watched in the store because they were recognized by staff as having done it before. And the technique! Pile the cart full of expensive stuff and shove it out into the parking lot! I mean, when I was shoplifting* we had the sense to distract people.**

So, that was my day. Helping law enforcement and realizing that it's a good thing I didn't become a criminal, because I was all too good at the brief foray I took into the life.

* When I was at my first high school; I reformed when I went to live with Auntie***.
** There was the time Kate and I wore our Girl Scout uniforms into the store and Sissy wore her slut outfit. Sissy picked things up, acted like she was going to put them in her pocket, put them back. And while everyone was watching Sissy, Kate and I did it. There was the time I asked the clerk for help finding pork blintzes, on the theory that no one would be watching anyone who called that kind of attention to themselves. Oh, and those were the times I didn't get caught, either.
*** At least temporarily. A few years later, I took it up again briefly, and then gave it up permanently.

ly

Again, from The Electric Company, vintage Tom Lehrer.

Snurg, Piffle, Burst