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July 29, 2010

God is everywhere

Or some people would have you believe. It's true - some people see the divine in a beautiful nature scene, or a transcendent experience, or another person. Others find it in more pedestrian things. Like, say, a potato chip:

Amanda Biezad contacted ABC 23 after she found what she described as a cross seared into a potato chip she was about to eat.
The cross has been the symbol of hope for Christians around the world for more than 2,000 years. From church steeples to the message of Calvary, now a bag of Lay's potato chips could be added to the list for one Bakersfield woman.
Biezad said she has never seen anything quite like this before but is not ready to call it a miracle just yet.
"I don't know, it's either divine inspiration or some random rouge person that decided to stick it into the bag of chips, I don't know, but I think it's cool," said Biezad.
Biezda added that she usually pays attention to what she eats and is glad that she didn't take the next bite.

If you were to click on that story, you'd see that yep, there is definitely a cross in that potato chip. A malformed, wobbly cross; really more of a cross-like shape. To her credit, the woman is not declaring it a miracle, but I am still skeptical.

Did God will that potato chip to have a cross in it? Or, does God will all things, and therefore this chip is just in the natural order of things? I, of course, am more of the school that the chip is a coincidence - billions of chips are made every year, and very few have religious symbols cooked into them. So, it would be expected that a cross-shaped chip would show up every now and then.

I, personally, am way more impressed by that world's longest french fry I wrote about last week.

Posted at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2010

That is one mad cow

When I was 10 or 11, I came home from dinner with my family, and as we pulled up the driveway, the headlights reflected the yellow eyes of an animal. As we got closer, the lights shone on the animal: it was Sam, my cat, and he was entertaining himself by juggling a half-dead mouse. Then he ate the mouse. I was somewhat disgusted and somewhat amused, and although it wasn't the most terrible thing he ever did, it was fairly brutal to see my beloved pet doing that. But, at the same time, I understood the order of nature and didn't think lesser of Sam for it.

So, I can only imagine how fair-goers in Sacramento (where they call speed bumps speed lumps, by the way), felt when an agitated, pregnant cow escaped from a "pregnant cow exhibit" (wtf?), ran around for a bit, and well... This happened:

Cal Expo police corralled the animal and tried to get it into a trailer, fair spokesman Corey Egel said, but the cow freed itself again and dashed toward the Golden 1 Stage.
May said the veterinarians from UC Davis tried tranquilizing the cow, but the gun didn't fire.
"The cow was breaking free again from the barriers, and at that point it became a public safety matter, and our police shot and killed the cow, and the calf did not survive," May said.
The supervising veterinarian at the fair said the animal was angry and upset.
"I think she's a nutcase," Dr. Ben Norman said. "She doesn't respond too well."
The veterinarian, who observed the incident, gave the permission to shoot the cow.
"My decision was, because I didn't want to cause any problems with the people here at the fair," Norman said. "She wasn't predictable … also, she's a little mean."
The animal was shot multiple times in its side, killing the calf. Norman said the officers didn't know how to properly euthanize the cow.

To quote that double rainbow guy: whooaaah. This sounds like a major screw-up all the way. What genius thought having pregnant cows around would be a good idea? Pregnant humans are crazy, and they are nominally rational!

Furthermore, I don't think shooting the cow was necessary. Yes, it was an angry cow, and it kept breaking loose, but shooting it seemed excessive. I understand that sometimes an animal needs to be killed, but this didn't seem like such a case.

I think it's obvious: this veterinarian, Dr. Norman, had a grudge against that cow. Perhaps the cow knew a secret? Perhaps, like Warden Norton and Gil Bellows in Shawshank Redemption, this vet had to shut that cow up, lest his evil plan be exposed. I'm onto you, Warden, I mean Doctor Norman.

Posted at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)

Oh Southwest

Back when I had my last job, I flew all the time. I basically flew for a living. Four cities in five days was not uncommon, and so I got to know airlines pretty well. I flew Southwest so much, I actually qualified for a pass that lets me take someone with me, for free, for a whole year. You believe that shit?

And do you know how often I had a problem with Southwest? Never. So that's why it puzzles me when people have problems with this airline. To wit, the airline is in some doo-doo again, over an obese passenger. This time, however, it's because a skinny girl was asked to leave so a big teenager could take two seats :

The latest incident happened earlier this month on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Sacramento. A thin woman bought a full-price standby ticket. It was the last seat on the flight. She sat down, then the obese passenger walked on board. After weighing their options, the flight crew asked the thin passenger to leave so the obese passenger could have a second seat.

Southwest Airlines stresses it was a very difficult situation.

Southwest Airlines spokesperson Paul Flannigan told The 33 News, "The passenger in question was a minor who was traveling alone. Normally, if the passenger were an adult, she would be required to purchase an extra ticket, but we did not want to leave the 14-year-old stranded."

*Shakes head*. Now, as an attorney commented later in that story, it would have made much more sense to ask for volunteers to leave the plane, rather than kicking off the last person. I also think it's reasonable that a 14 year old shouldn't be getting forced off airplanes, even if it's at the expense of others. There has to be a middle ground, in that people who take up two seats have a right to fly, but not to the point where they can freely take up two seats when all seats on an airplane are supposed to be occupied. It turns out the Southwest personnel who handled this incident did so in a way that made sense (put the last person to buy a ticket on a later flight), but unfortunately also managed to stir up outrage because the person who was removed happened to be "skinny," although there really is no indication of how skinny this person is. If she was 100 lbs and 4'11", would she rather sit in the seat the teenager was spilling into? Possibly.

This reminds me of the last time I went down to Florida. My Southwest flight was fairly full, but I do not believe it was completely full. I take up my usual window seat, and am feeling fairly decent about my chances of having an empty middle seat. Then, a large man and his gangly teen-aged son walk in and take up the two seats next to me. The man must have been close to 300 lbs, the son the smaller side of 150. For whatever reason, the large man takes the middle seat, with his elbows and stomach spilling over to my seat, while the son curls up in the aisle seat. He may as well have been sitting in a bean-bag chair at home, that's how spacious it was. Thus, I spent the next 2 and a half hours pressed against the window as this man struggled to buckle his seatbelt. I wasn't as much annoyed that he sat next to me as that he clearly had an option to sit in the aisle, yet somehow decided it was preferable to jam himself into the middle seat, where he could get fresh with a complete stranger. Humpfh.

Posted at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

July 27, 2010

Octopus danger

Paul the Octopus is an octopus living at an aquarium in Germany, who made a name for himself by "predicting" Germany's World Cup matches this summer. His method was simple: staff would place two food containers in his tank, one with a German flag and the other with the flag of Germany's opponent. Whichever one he ate from would be his "winner." It worked, as Paul correctly predicted all of Germany's victories, and all of Germany's defeats.

Mass celebrity ensued, including multiple bids from other institutes wishing to buy Paul. Most absurdly, a Spanish aquarium, much like Spanish soccer teams, has engaged in a public effort to purchase Paul for a whole lot of euros. The German aquarium has said no, and plans to retire Paul from predicting any more games.

Well, if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had his way, Paul would be retired, from living. He sees Paul as a symbol of Western excess:

However, the Iranian president accused the octopus of spreading "western propaganda and superstition." Paul was mentioned by Mr Ahmadinejad on various occasions during a speech in Tehran at the weekend.
"Those who believe in this type of thing cannot be the leaders of the global nations that aspire, like Iran, to human perfection, basing themselves in the love of all sacred values," he said.

Insert your own Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joke here.

Ah hell, here's one: After this speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad finished up another letter to Blago judge James B. Zagel. Boom!

Posted at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2010

All teen-aged girls soon to be banned from Elmhurst

What the heck is it with some city governments these days? For example, Elmhurst, a perfectly nice suburb right by 290, is looking pretty dumb because it ejected a woman from a City Council meeting after she sighed and rolled her eyes. As this Tribune editorial notes, it's all a bit loony:

"Making faces behind the mayor's back is disruptive, in my opinion," said committee chairman Stephen Hipskind, who told Heslop to leave. (Wait — the mayor didn't even see it? Facepalm.) Other aldermen objected to the eviction, and two of them got up and left, ending the meeting for lack of a quorum. (Silent applause.)

Now the city attorney has been directed to research the legal definitions of disorderly conduct and disruptive behavior (we're shaking our heads here), with an eye to drafting an ordinance to curb non-verbal outbursts. His work should begin and end with state law, which defines disorderly conduct as "an act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another, or to provoke a breach of the peace."

Now, I would suppose there is more to this than is being reported. For example, a gentleman in Joliet got throwed in jail for an ill-advised yawn. So, being removed from a meeting could be seen as not-so-bad.

However, supposing all she did was sigh and yawn, how is it disruptive? How does it interfere with the democratic process? City Council meetings can be raucous and boisterous affairs, and I think it is quite absurd to call an eye-roll disruptive.

Now, this one time, I was sitting in court when my boss was giving an argument. He asserted the other party had done some really uncool things, and that lady happened to be sitting in court. She emitted the loudest sigh I had ever heard - it wasn't as if she was screaming, but it was quite the noticeable sigh. I'm sure the judge heard it. But was it disruptive? Not especially. It was more amusing, really, than anything.

Posted at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2010

A bear. In a car.

I think somebody could start an entire blog about bears and the various shenanigans they get themselves involved in. Today, I've learned about a bear in Colorado that smelled a sandwich, went to investigate, and got himself stuck in a car. Classic.

"At 3:28 this morning a neighbor called in a suspicious vehicle because a horn had been honking for 45 minutes. Deputies responded and discovered a bear in the car," said Deputy Michelle Rademacher.
...
Ben's father, Ralph, said the bear hit the shifter and the car rolled backward about 125 feet, off the driveway, down an embankment and into some trees on Eagle Road near Tenderfoot Drive.
"So this bear opened the door on his own. Somehow the door closed behind him. He panicked and started thrashing around, hit the shifter and put the car, took it out of park," Ralph said. "It rolled back, down over the hill, and down into here, and stopped. The four way flashers were on. It's like he knew what was going on, and kept hitting the horn."
Ben told 7NEWS he had left a sandwich in the car and that may have attracted the big bear.
...
"When the cop came up to the car, he thought it was a bunch of kids goofing around. He put a flashlight on it. And he saw this bear turn around, in the driver's seat, and he turned around and looked at him. And when the cop saw that he said he never ran so fast in his life," Ralph said.
Ralph said sheriff's deputies eventually got the bear out of the car by tying a long rope to the door handle to open it. Eventually the bear wandered off back into the woods around 5 a.m.

Man, when I leave food in the car, all I have to worry about is the stench if it stays in there too long. I wouldn't last one second in Colorado. Or anywhere there's bears, like New Jersey. Well, I wouldn't last in New Jersey either, but for other reasons.

Posted at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2010

Police follies

The other night I was walking down Clark Street outside Wrigley Field at about 11 pm. I was being a good boy - I had just been over at my friends' house, watching, of all things, Romancing the Stone, which was a pretty good movie if you don't mind corny 80's soundtracks and shoulder pads. Anyway, that stretch of Clark Street has several dozen bars on it, replete with thousands of people who are well on their way to being intoxicated. So, the Chicago Police usually have a few officers out there to make sure nothing crazy happens, and the occasional reveler will ask to get a picture with the officers. The officers will usually oblige, especially if the reveler is young and female.

I don't think it's a big deal, nor should it be, unless the cops are being kept from doing their jobs. However, it doesn't work that way in some places, such as the case of an officer in Massachusetts. He has had to resign his job after, oops, leaving his squad car to go into a strip club for a photo op with a stripper, "Bridget the Midget."

According to Police Chief Paul Shastany, the officer didn't break any laws, but his curiosity got the best of him.

“There was information that just by nature of her stature that he wanted to see her,” said Stoughton Police Chief Paul Shastany.

The 3-foot, 9-inch woman, who worked at the gentleman's club Alex's, calls herself "Bridget the Midget."

“He went and had a photograph taken with himself and this performer while he was in uniform. He didn’t enter the club, but what that did is it portrayed the police department in a very poor position,” said Shastany.

Bennett was turned in by other officers and allegedly lied to internal investigators when he was confronted on the incident.

“He attended a resignation and admitted there was some fabrications and lies, it was a severe case of bad judgment,” said Shastany.

The Patrolman had only been with the department a little over two years.

Oh lordy lordy lordy. That's a hell of a way to lose one's job. I personally don't have much of a fascination with midgets, stripper or otherwise. They're just people to me - but, well, if some people get their jollies that way, more power to them, I suppose. On the other hand, I suppose if I had to pick something like that to see, it would be the stripper from Total Recall. You know what I mean.

Posted at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2010

A worthy world record

I love curly fries. The way they crinkle, the way you can dunk one in a cup of ketchup and get a big dab of the red stuff, like a paint brush. It's magnificent.

I especially love getting the long ones, when the curl goes for ever, and I have to tilt my head to the side and hold the fry from above to get it into my mouth. Those are the best, but as any seasoned french fry consumer knows, those are hard to come by.

However, a hot dog stand in dear old Buffalo has outdone itself. That's right, it may have unintentionally produced the world's longest french fry:

John Benbenek was eating lunch at Taffy's Hot Dog Stand the other day when he grabbed a french fry from a pile of curly fries and pulled.

And pulled. And pulled some more.

When he was done, Benbenek had a 34-inch french fry — nearly 3 feet of golden, crispy tastiness — that he believes sets the record for longest fry.

“I’m pulling it out, and it’s half the size of me,” Benbenek said.

Benbenek and co-worker Ryan Vedder, who was also at Taffy’s, want to sell the fry on eBay, and they say Guinness World Records wants to verify its length.

And the two men say Jay Leno plans to talk to them via satellite from Taffy’s for Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”

“It’s crazy,” said Richard Eliah, Taffy’s owner.

This is worthy of a Keanu Reeves style "whoaaah." I am heartily impressed these people were able to resist doing what I would have done, which is eating that damn french fry right then and there. However, as the article describes, they instead smuggled the fry out of the restaurant - because it is now a valuable commodity, which they expect to sell on eBay for "thousands of dollars."

Now this thing is really cool, I have to say. It's nice for Buffalo to get some recognition. But who would pay thousands of dollars, let alone a hundred bucks, for this? I could see this fry winding up on Pawn Stars, where the old man offers to buy it for 50 cents and a ticket to the buffet at Sam's Town.

Posted at 03:48 PM | Comments (2)

July 19, 2010

Amish hijinks

I grew up in sort of Amish country. It wasn't a rare sight to see a horse and buggy meandering through town, often with a procession of cars behind it. But I always thought it was interesting, and I cannot begrudge the Amish their right to use the roads too. Of course, Amish people are people too, and sometimes Amish people do dumb stuff. Like get involved in police chases:

The teen was observed running a stop sign in his horse and buggy. Sheriff's deputies tried to stop him, but he refused to stop and a chase ensued for almost a mile. After making an unsafe turn, the teen crashed the horse and buggy and took off on foot.

He was later found, arrested and charged with underage possession of alcohol, overdriving and animal, reckless endangerment, failure to stop at a stop sign and failure to yield to a emergency vehicle.

Oh dear me. I can only assume this fellow is in for a tough time as soon as his parents find out about it. Now, I know Amish young adults have a period where they can go experience the outside world, and then return to being Amish if they want, but this seems overboard. Maybe he was playing too much Grand Theft Auto?

Posted at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2010

Get gatored up

So as some of you know, I've been seeing a lady who lives in Florida. It's a nice change for me, and I have come to appreciate exactly how pleasant a typical Chicago summer is. Why, in Florida, you can't even go outside at 10 pm without breaking a sweat. Wtf!

On the plus side, Florida has a lot of interesting things we don't have in Chicago, like all sorts of outdoorsy things. (Not that Illinois doesn't have that, but you catch my drift.) So, last time I was there we went to this park called Merritt Island, where the water contains microscopic organisms that actually give off faint light when disturbed. They quite literally glow in the dark! I'd never seen anything quite like this before.

Now, another great thing they have in Florida is alligators. Apparently they are sort of like raccoons are in Ohio. They're everywhere, and you never know when one is going to pop up. One minute you're drifting down the lake in an inner tube, next minute you're thrashing in the water wondering what Mick Dundee would do. (Yeah he was crocodiles, but I think it's still applicable.)

So, Florida has its share of fools who think alligators are big cuddly pets. If I saw a gator, and he was anywhere near me, I would run as fast as I could as soon as I was done peeing my pants. But not this guy. Nope:

Wildlife officials said Dirk Willms, 44, appeared to be drunk when he decided to try to catch a 45-inch alligator Sunday night.
The alligator bit Willms and ran into some nearby bushes, but Willms chased it again and grabbed it, resulting in another bite, wildlife officials said.
Willms subdued the gator and took it home, but someone saw him and called the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, the FWC said.
...
Wildlife officials issued Willms a ticket for possessing an alligator and an officer released the reptile in nearby Lake Jesup. The maximum penalty for the citation is 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Bra...vo.

Posted at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2010

Fine dining, brought to you by a tire company

It's a little known fact, but we here in Chicago have some of the finest restaurants in the nation. I'm not talking just about hot dog stands and deep-dish joints, but fancy, avant-garde stuff. You could go to a different restaurant every day for a year and still have enough left over for another two or three years. This has been great for my taste buds, but murder for my waistline.

So, it's no surprise to me that Michelin has decided to publish a restaurant guide to Chicago. It's only the third US city to get such an honor, after New York and San Francisco. To get a star rating by Michelin is, I am told, quite prestigious.

However prestigious recognition from Michelin is, I can't separate it from one simple fact: these are the guys who make tires, and have the goofy yet adorable Michelin Man as a mascot. Whenever I think about a fancy, white table cloth restaurant undergoing a Michelin review, all I can think is that how come nobody recognizes the Michelin Man sitting there? I mean look at him!

It creates a disconnect. Cognitive dissonance, even. But, I suppose I will learn the true meaning of Michelin and its rankings soon. Even if their mascot looks like the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.

Posted at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)

July 09, 2010

The King is dead

As probably the whole world knows, LeBron James, after seven years without a championship in Cleveland, is jetting off to join the Miami Heat. The above picture is of the LeBron mural in downtown Cleveland, with a sizable police presence to avoid vandalism.

I have a few thoughts on this, not all of which are coherent.

First, I can't begrudge the guy wanting to move on. He's from NE Ohio, grew up there, and by an incredible stroke of luck became a Cleveland Cavalier. I think he's 26 years old, and has basically spent his entire life in Ohio. Back when I was that age, I knew I didn't want to be a lifelong Ohioan, so I packed up and moved to Chicago. It's nothing against Ohio, but sometimes a person wants to go different places, and I don't think it's wrong that LeBron didn't want to spend his entire youth in Cleveland.

That said, I'm not LeBron James. Like it or not, he was Cleveland's messiah, who was going to bring them to the sports promised land of a championship that they had not known in generations. It didn't happen. Now, if I had a comparable level of skill to LeBron James - say I was one of the best quarterbacks of all time, and I had the chance to win the Super Bowl with the Buffalo Bills, would I forsake the glamorous life in New York or Miami to accomplish it, knowing what it would mean to Buffalonians and myself in particular? I like to think I would, but then I don't see someone like Patrick Kane demanding a trade from the Blackhawks to the Sabres to help Buffalo win the Stanley Cup. In fact, I can't think of any professional athlete who "came home" to help his boyhood team to glory.

Unfortunately for LeBron, he bore the weight of the expectations, and he failed miserably. Cleveland tanked in the playoffs the past few years, and LeBron performed poorly. In his final games for the Cavaliers, he looked distracted, selfish and uncommitted. That is not the way to win championships. It seems to be a theme with him.

So, like I said, I can't blame LeBron for wanting to play somewhere else. It's his life, and he can do what he wants. However, it is completely unforgivable the way he did it, with a live TV announcement entitled "The Decision." So, not only did he decide to leave Cleveland, he did so on live national TV, like a cat refusing to finish off a dying mouse. It's like he told his wife he was divorcing her in front of all her friends. It just wasn't right, to allow all the narcissism and selfishness overtake a decision which could have been made with a simple press conference. He knew he was going to publicly humiliate his former employers, and he did so with a sheepish grin that was nothing but cowardly. He should be villified for that more than anything.

One plus to all this is the ridiculously angry letter penned by Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert in the aftermath of this. The first thing that grabbed me is that it was written in Comic Sans! Otherwise, follow this link for an excellent analysis about how Gilbert's letter is exactly like one that a 16 year old girl might write.

Posted at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2010

Feeling Kinky

Many moons ago - two years, actually - I was studying for the bar exam. Like pretty much every prospective lawyer, I signed up for Bar/Bri, which is an exam preparation service that costs over a thousand dollars but boasts some kind of success rate like 99%. (Although apparently 13% of Illinois bar takers fail the exam, I personally have no clue how a person who made it through law school could manage to do that. Mayor Daley, by the way, apparently failed it twice. He still made it all the way to Cook County States' Attorney, which shows you what hard work - snicker - can do for a man.)

Bar-Bri was founded by this law professor, who is apparently now filthy rich. It is a month-long course, and consists of daily three-hour lectures by law professors who have expertise in the various subjects on the bar exam. Some of these professors were good, some kind of sucked.

For contracts, our lecturer was a professor who quite clearly came from Texas. He was a stereotypical Texan, with a certain folksy charm and sense of humor. He was one of the good profs.

Now, law professors love hypotheticals. It's not really enough for them to propose scenarios that might actually happen in real life, but crazy-ass hypotheticals that exist only in their mind. Oftentimes, they'll use these to demonstrate how cool they are by giving names from TV shows and movies to the characters in these hypotheticals. "Suppose Jerry agreed to give Elaine a bag of feathers in exchange for Elaine helping Jerry move his couch." It screams, look at me, I'm cool, even though Seinfeld had been off the air for nearly a decade when I was in law school. God I'm old. I'd be willing to bet a million dollars there is some law professor out there whose contract exam contains a hypothetical about Edward, Bella, and whether or not she has to return his engagement ring.

Anyway, this Texan professor almost always based his hypotheticals on the career of Kinky Friedman, the outlaw country musician/politician. This was always in the form of "Kinky Friedman agreed to a contract to perform 'Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns Into Bed' on Channel 6," or some other scenario where he got to namedrop Kinky Friendman and one of his goofy song titles.

I didn't believe a person named Kinky Friedman actually existed, so I had to look him up. Sure enough, he is real, and not only is he a musician, he also ran for governor of Texas. Not surprisingly, he didn't win. Good try, though.

So now that it's almost time to elect a new governor in Texas, Kinky is back at it. He isn't running for governor this time, but he has endorsed Woodrow. No last name for Woodrow, because Woodrow is a dog:

Woodrow the Dog wants to be governor.
Tuesday, he received the endorsement of former gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman.

The dog's campaign slogan is "How Ruff Could It Be?" It was inspired by Kinky's former campaign slogan, "How hard can it be?"

"Woodrow is not an incumbent, and he hasn't even been indicted yet, and I don't think I'm going to regret this endorsement one bit,” Friedman said at a press conference Tuesday.
Woodrow's campaign is a fundraising and public awareness project for Austin Pets Alive! The organization helps homeless pets find homes.

Sadly, it didn't say what party he belongs to. Is he a Repub-lick-an, or a Dem-arooooo-crat? Thanks, I'll be here all week.

Posted at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2010

Why God, why?

I'm fairly obsessed with keeping my fingernails nice and trimmed. I hate the feeling of long nails, and how grime gets under them. Yes, it occasionally impedes my ability to open a can of beer or maybe do some hardcore guitar pickin, but I think it's worth it.

So, I'm kind of grossed out whenever I read about someone who decides she is going to grow her nails as long as she can. Like this lady, in a story that reads like it was written for a British tabloid:

Sondra Woods has been letting her fingernails grow out for nearly nine months. They're about 6.5 inches long, and she just cut them! She says she wants to see how long they will grow.

She soaks them in lemon juice a few times a week, which she says makes them grow and harden.

People stop her on the street and want to take her picture, but that's OK with her. Sondra hopes to fulfill her dream of modeling her nails one day.

Sondra says her long nails don't stop her from doing everyday activities.

Wtf, lady? You want to grow them to see how long they'll get? That sounds like something a 16 year old boy does, as in, I'll see how many slices of pizza I can eat, or I'll see how far I can ride my bike on one wheel. In other words, dumb things.

I also am not certain how having 6 inch nails doesn't interfere with daily living activities. How are you going to dial a phone, or send a text message, or drive a car? It seems unwieldly to me.

I'll never forget when I was in the Walgreen's at State and Jackson, and my cashier had three-inch press-on nails. All I could remember was how it took her twice as long to ring up my purchase, because she had to jab the cash register instead of using the tips of her fingers. It's like a permanent state of pressing buttons with a pencil, if the pencil was superglued to your finger.

Of course, this brings into play my nail hypothesis: as fingernail length goes up, job prestige goes down. You see plenty of cashiers with long nails, but not CEO's. I don't think it's a coincidence. Please note, Lil Kim is an exception to this rule.

Also, in searching Flickr for a picture for this post, I cam across a group called Long Fingernails and Really White Teeth. I am not sure how these are related, but apparently they are.

Posted at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

July 02, 2010

Happy Birthday, America

Happy July 4, everyone. Be sure to celebrate your freedom by drinking lots of beer and blowing stuff up. It's what the Founding Fathers would have wanted.

Posted at 02:41 PM | Comments (1)

July 01, 2010

The moose is loose

Every now and then, you'll hear about a wild animal loose in the city. Here in Chicago, a coyote may find himself wandering the Loop, or a raccoon might take up residence at the Sears - excuse me, Willis - Tower. When I was in college, there was a famous lion which was supposedly running around Columbus. All these animals, of course, have reputations for being sly operators. Quick. Hard to catch. Wily, even. (Wham!) So, it seems kind of odd that a moose is wreaking havoc in Portland, Maine:

Portland police have been chasing a moose around the city Thursday.
The moose was seen taking a dip in a pond at Deering Oaks Park.
A News 8 viewer sent the station video of the animal cooling off.
The moose was last seen in Evergreen Cemetery, looking tired with its tongue hanging out, Portland police said. It headed into a wooded area.
State game wardens and state biologists followed the moose with police. The biologist tried to tranquilize the moose but was unsuccessful before it headed into the woods.

Whoah, this is one dangerous animal. Dipping into a pond? Having its tongue hanging out? Are you sure this is a moose and not a vampire?

How hard is it to catch a moose, anyway? Wikipedia offers no data about how fast a moose can run, but I can't imagine they're as nimble as their relatives, the deer.

Posted at 05:02 PM | Comments (1)