The Occasional Joke


Nurse: Patient's name?

Centurion: Marcus Licinius Crassus

Nurse: And his date of birth?

Centurion: 115 BC.

Nurse: All right. And what is he here for?

Centurion: Cataphract surgery.


Saturday, May 26, 2007

Rumor Control and Status Check

2007 06 04: Ok - so I had the surgery. Here's what they stuck in my hip - a "gamma nail," as it's called, for some reason. We're home (poor Linda stayed with me for two nights, in a barca-lounger in the hospital room -- not a great sleeping experience), and I'm gimping around and complaining. Painful, but looking at this picture, I'm surprised it isn't more so, I guess.


Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Didn't you always sort of suspect?

If you get the Sunday NY Times, have a look at the "Fashion Magazine," and in particular, the ad for Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, in Atlantic city. It features a woman doing something with nautical decor, but it's about their restaurant, Sea Blue, "by Michael Mina."

The tag line is, "When food becomes an art, an appetite is entirely optional."

So if the chef uses enough silly prep techniques (liquid nitrogen) or chemistry class ingredients (Methylcellulose) or wierd presentation (savory lollipops), it won't matter if you're hungry? You'll still pay top whack just to say you were there, whether the food tasted like anything or not? I guess that's what it takes to compete in casino towns or no-class towns (Atlanta and Houston come to mind). But it still seems strange to admit it in your promotional material.

By the way, if you look at the Michael Mina link, you'll find him in a number of no-class towns, mostly Las Vegas, but also, strangely, San Francisco. Wonder if his ads for that place focus just a bit more on taste and less on "art?"

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Joe's Chemo Crunch

So I'm not much of a breakfast guy, but these days, I need to quickly gobble something fairly substantial along with the steroids. Later on, Hobbit-like, I tend to have second breakfast, but in case you have any interest, here's the formulary for a bowl of gunk that seems to buffer Dexamethasone pretty effectively.

  • 1 cup of some kind of sugar-free oat Os. Doesn't matter which one.
  • 1 handful dark raisins
  • 2 dried apricots, chopped
  • 2 tbsp salted cashews
  • 1 or 2 large strawberries, chopped
  • 1/2 banana, sliced
  • milk to taste

Mix; share bites with dog. Drink most of remaining milk. Allow dog to lick bowl.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Color me psychic

Just found this, from (apparently) 1998. Could things really have been this predictable? If so, how sad.



1998 01 07

FORD, GM SEEK NEXT BIG THING

Ann Arbor: The US automakers, still riding the crest of the light truck wave, are already beginning to cast about for the next major vehicle category. Few in the industry will claim to have foreseen the popularity of small pickup trucks, built on an automobile chassis; and fewer still would assert that building what are essentially four-wheel- drive station wagons on heavy pickup frames was a rational, logically- arrived-at marketing strategy. Instead, most analysts see the industry as taking a "products happen" approach -- people want "safe" because they've allowed themselves to be sold on the need to procreate while still working time and a half with both hands, just to make the payments on a 4500 square foot esthetic nightmare, built in what was a cornfield until twenty minutes ago -- so they carry a big wad of guilt around concerning their parenting skills -- hell, they even invented the word "parenting" to describe what they're being told they ain't got -- and so they're susceptible to a sales pitch about safety on the road. Jeep, stuck with a low-quality, retro-looking lump that mostly appealed to the flannel-shirt and deer rifle segment of the pasty-white- male market category, decided to invent a reputation for reliability and flog it to the wrong-way-down-Ashley set -- the sub-segment of the minivan or deeply confused grouping who not only drive around with fourteen children and a basset hound in the car but who worry about "safety" while they're doing it. Voila, le sport-futility vehicle.

Next, the economy stumbles into good times and gas prices are still low, so the sport-ute buyers allow themselves to be sold "big." Safe and big. So the automakers stumble onto the tactic of recreating the Chevy Suburban with leather seats and cup holders. Like the German Navy after Fisher unveiled the Dreadnought, other drivers, in self - defense, are forced to follow suit or be run off the road by people sitting so high up, they're suffering from hypoxia. Your neighbor's 1997 defense budget includes two "Indefatigable"-class battlecruiser - size Cadillac Life Activity Vehicles, so you lobby your Reichstag for Ford's dee-luxe "Enterprise" offspring carrier and a squadron of Chrysler's new Somali Warlord Signature Technicals (remember technicals? Pickup trucks with pintle-mounted light automatic weapons in the back?) for the kids to kommute to kommunity kollege in.

Oops. But what about the small but well-heeled segment of society whose members don't actually need to (or have been able to stick the wife and/or nanny with) toting around the yard apes? What about the mature gentleman with the hair plugs? What about all those post- thirty guys who are making a mint marketing Rosa Parks collectibles or running internet porn sites? Relax, boys. Detroit has you covered, too. This year's big in-car accessory is -- yes, you guessed it -- a humidor. Now let's see -- that's one hand to use the cell phone, one to work the cigar cutter, one eye on the Windows CE-based real-time portfolio management system ... got a good estate lawyer?

Right. As you can see, all of this is evolutionary, not revolutionary (the new VW Beetle to the contrary -- it looks like a slightly squashed Neon and sports a built-in flower vase. Venceramos!) What Detroit needs is some really breakthrough marketing ideas before one of them sneaky third-world outfits -- Japan or one of them -- eats our Big Mac again. Well, fear not. We hear that the big three have actually agreed to form a joint brain trust. In our relentless pursuit of something we can pass off as truth, we've managed to obtain the following time lines, presented earlier this week to top Ford and GM management.

1999 model year: Ford announces new line of touring motorcycles, based on the F-150. GM goes after a World Superbike win with Carl Fogarty riding an inline-four-powered machine, built up on a Catera frame, split lengthwise with a Sawzall (the frame, not Fogarty). Chrysler adds more cup holders to the Dodge Ram.

2000: Ford debuts the Millenium Falcon, a retro-styled economy car to appeal to aging boomers (based on the Escort chassis) with built-in hash pipe holders. GM rolls out the Akwarius, a Chevy Citation with special flower and paisley interior and exterior treatment and in-dash, aroma-tight "humidor." Chrysler adds under-seat air bags to its minivan lineup.

2001: Ford re-launches the Thunderbird as a retro-styled two-seater with 6.5 liter v-10 engine, available full-time four wheel drive, and burled walnut in-dash handgun holder (based on the F-150). GM announces acquisition of Perot Systems. Chrysler announces layoffs.

2002: Ford, GM announce joint acquisition of Chrysler, Jeeps to be built in UK Jaguar plants, Dodge Ram to be re-engineered onto the Catera chassis. Hyundai announces acquisition of Ford, GM.

--

The Wood-Charles Auto Industry Alert is brought to you by your caring, servicing, selling hall-of-fame master tavern, the Odd Town, proud to be doing business in the magnificent community of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where we can show you more drunks in half an hour than you'd see in a week of shopping other taverns. So come on down, bring your wallet, name your poison, and we'll make you a deal you'll be happy to stumble away with or from.

-30-

Monday, May 14, 2007

How to Waste Time

So I have some time on my hands, as you can imagine. If you should find yourself in similar straights, I can heartily recommend the "50 Movie Pack" series shown below, as outstanding examples of what I believe Ed Vielmetti used to call shovel ware. There are more genres than just the two shown here, and the price-performance ratio is astounding, as long as your only requirement is "entertain me while I stare mindlessly at the TV."





To see the whole, sordid collection, do a search on
50 Movie Pack
on Amazon, and marvel at the amount of content a few bucks will buy you.

The urban dictionary reference for shovel ware is incomplete, by the way, since the original usage was applied to those paperback "guides to the internet" that you used to see. Someone should submit an update.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Lots of UK News This Period

What with Blair calling it quits and the Queen visiting the US, this old WCA article seemed like a natural to resurrect. It appears to be from sometime in 1998.


WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE ENGLAND TO KICK AROUND

Ann Arbor: Ok, look; I know some of you think I'm soft on Clinton, and the Dexter Chapter of Hell's Dentists has issued death threats in retaliation for my scorning of Harley's Motorclothing Booteek. And I realize that occasionally my critical review of jurisprudence in the Detroit Suburbs ("Prosecutor Donates Brain to Science: 'I never use it anyway,' says Patterson" WCA News, March 12, 1994) may appear harsh. But I'm really not all that much of an extremist. For example, I've never (publically) suggested that the world's oldest continually-running musical comedy -- I mean, democracy might be in need of a lube and oil job. I (usually) refrain from taking shots at the British Government, per se, because:

* a) Its individual members are so much funnier than the body politic in general.
* b) Most of WCAs readership consists of Amerikun geeks, a group notoriously unconcerned with foreign affairs other than the giant sucking sound caused by US web page owners farming out development work to starving Bosnian COBOL programmers.
* c) Our own gummint has enough of its own little ways to occupy three or four of me (what a frightening thought that is).

However (you could see that word coming a mile off, couldn't you?), I'm not above straight reportage when Her Majesty's Finest start tweaking things. And so (really, I couldn't make this up), I bring you the news that Blair's Labour Government is seriously talking about bringing to an end the current algorithm for being a member of the House of Lords (which approximates P(LsubS) where L is your antecedent who sucked up succesfully to a deceased monarch and S is you, whether you are clinically conscious or not). Instead, "The Independent" tells us, under a story datelined April First, the plan is to replace heriditary peerages with randomly-selected, rotating "People's Lords."

The story cites "leaked" documents that say, in part, that "The committee looks forward to the Lords eventually becoming "a statistically perfect and genuinely inclusive sample" of the British population. It will then function as 'the ideal national focus group for test-bedding new legislative initiatives'."

It also reports on opposition to the change, including a claim that Blair "... has been spending too much time on the phone to Clinton ...", and a warning from Professor Pamella Benlott that "The British constitution is fragile. Hereditary peers have centuries of in-breeding in their blood. The fact that many Lords are congenital idiots is a subtle and unique part of the constitutional settlement with which Tony will tinker at his peril." It quotes a peer, The 27th Earl of Thanet, as threatening violence in the form of a mass uprising of the landed gentry and their "supporters" if the measure is adopted.

Is the date of the story significant? Who knows? But if not, if this plan is really under consideration, then it represents an exciting departure from hidebound convention, and one that we here in the colonies should consider very carefully. How'd you like to be, say, the Senator from North Carolina for a day?

--

The WCA News Service is brought to you by the House of Drunks at the Odd Town Tavern where "peerage" is usually taken to mean the act of peering closely at your plate, trying to identify the ingredients of your tempeh burger.

-- 30 --

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Sample Issue of Sea Power Magazine On Line

The folks at Defense Tech have posted a link to a sample of the electronic version of Sea Power Magazine, if you're at all interested. See it here. Some intriguing stuff.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

MS's Euro Issues Still Not Solved

As Microsoft continues to argue with the EU over various issues too boring to contemplate, we were reminded that way back in the nineties, Bill Gates got pied while banging the PR drum on the continent. Our J. Francis McLuggage talked about the holes in Gates' security measures.


GATES PASTRY ATTACK SPURS NEW CONCERNS

Ann Arbor: In the wake of a Belgian cream cake attack on Microsoft Mogul Bill Gates, industrial security experts are openly talking about a whole new level of threat from terrorists, criminals, the deranged, and consumer advocates. That Gates was sufficiently vulnerable to be hit, not once but three times, with potentially lethal doses of sugar and dairy products just points up the extent to which corporate executives are leaving themselves open to assault. But what measures can a CEO take? Wood-Charles News Service talked to our own J. Francis McLuggage, chairman of the vast WCA holdings.

WCNS: What did you think of the attack on Gates?

McL: The man has no moves. If you watch the footage -- which I have, over and over -- you'll note that his right hand moves in the direction of the incoming custard. Classic panic response, trying to ward off the projectile rather than carrying out his training.

WCNS: Training?

McL: Sure. All Microsoft execs go through extensive threat-reduction training, and they all carry. I happen to know that Bill packs a hand- made black forest torte, plus a holdout eclair in an ankle holster. But in the clinch, instead of trying a combat draw on the cake -- which has a US-made counter-ballistic pastry sight -- tracks the incoming calories with millimeter-wave radar and plots a trajectory right back at the flinger -- all he could do was cringe and get sticky. Wimp.

WCNS: What about his aides and bodyguards?

McL: They panicked, too. You can see one of them trying to hold a portfolio between Bill and the tart boys -- of course, it's one of those useless kevlar-panel things. Sure, it'll stop a nine millimeter, but Jell-O will make a mess out of it, flow around the edges, and keep right on going. I've seen it happen. No, proper doctrine calls for taking out as many of the threat personnel as possible, and for my money, there's only one way to do that.

WCNS: What?

McL: Seltzer bottles. All my direct reports have 'em. Hey, you don't think they all wear those rubber noses for FUN, do you?

WCNS: So you'd really advocate turning a public location into a shootout?

McL: A groceried society is a polite society. Nobody has ever tried that kind of funny business with me, precisely because they know what would happen.

WNCS: What, exactly?

McL: Well, first, you open your eyes really wide, wipe away some of the goop, and say, "Oh, a wise guy, eh?" That freezes their blood -- lets 'em know they're dealing with a pro. Then you grab a seltzer bottle, shout "Front sight!" and let 'em have it. Meanwhile, your protection unit is piling out of their Volkswagen, tripping over each other, and waving their rubber nightsticks around -- that gets the media's attention -- in the ensuing chaos, you pick out a large woman in a formal gown -- there's always one or two around, at affairs like this -- and you duck down behind her so she gets the next pie. If you can't find a woman in a formal, try a guy in a silk top hat. It's almost as good.

WCNS: And then what?

McL: Oh, by then, every body's covered in shaving cream, fighting, and screaming, and you can sneak quietly away and bundle a few browsers in your operating system.

--

Monday, May 7, 2007

About Comments on this blog

To post comments, click "comment" at the bottom of any posting. I have it set to "moderate," which means that before your comment shows up, it gets emailed to me for "approval." Comments from people I know get approved -- comments from others don't. Simple as that.

New Restaurant Listings in Culintel Database

The Culinary Intelligence DB has been updated with a couple two-three restaurant recommendations from our Chicago weekend. We particularly liked BOKA. Just search on "IL" as the state and you'll see 'em.