2/29

So here we are, landing on the day that only occurs every four years, because it takes Earth 365 ¼ days to rotate, but our calendar year is too full of pictures of cute little ducks and majestic waterfalls and purple mountain majesties, so we collect these 1/4 days for four years and have a big to-do on the end of February. 

Traditionally, this day used to be "Sadie Hawkins Day," after a character in the uncomic strip "Lil' Abner." Back in the pre-equality days, it was unthinkable for a woman to ask a man to get married, except on this special day, when Sadie's father rounded up all the eligible men for his single daughter to take a run at.

It's not true, anyway. Before I met the love of my life, lots of women asked me to get married. They were my mother, my grandmother, my sister, and two ladies who lived up the street. (Pause for laughter).

I had an Aunt Sadie, and she never mentioned it to me, probably because I was about 10 the last time I saw her, and also because she called ice cream "cream" like they did in the old movies.

In Scotland, today is Bachelors' Day, and women are encouraged to wear red petticoats. You'd have to ask a Scot why.

You can ask someone from Anthony, New Mexico, the town that claims to be the Leap Year Capital of the World. Today, Leapers with 2/29 birthdays will gather today from as far away as Australia and Europe for a ‘Mix and Mingle’ at the Sombra Antigua Vineyard and Winery.

Happy day to all those people born today with a built-in conversation piece!

Flushed with excitement

My grandparents had one of these down in the basement, but I didn't know that basement toilets were known as "Pittsburgh potties." They tend to be freestanding latrines on the lower level, and the practical thing was that people coming home from factory jobs needed a place to enter the home after a tough, dirty day at the steel mill, drop their dirty clothes near the washing machine, stop off at Tinkletown, and wash up for supper.

Remember when I promised to keep this blog on the highest, most elegant tone? Neither do I.

I'm sure lots of houses in Baltimore have this convenience; they are not limited to the Steel City. In fact, I stumbled over further information while looking for something totally different (believe me!) in the San Francisco newspaper. They have them out there in the city by the Baaaaaaaaaaaay, and real estate agent Ciara Piron is speaking up about her theory behind them.

It has to do with home construction, back in the 1920s when, for instance, 26 houses went up on one block very quickly. There were no Port-A-Potties then, so Ms Piron deduces that the builders put in the extra commodes for the convenience of the carpenters, masons, all the workers on the site. 

I dunno about that, seems a little farfetched, but Piron says a lot of homebuyers on tours see the lonely loos and wonder what they are. 

Uh, it's a toilet. 

She says that a lot of people will buy an old house with one of these conveniences and plan to build a whole little basement comfort station out of it, and some are happy to have a place that allow them to save a trip upstairs.

Because all through history, no matter where you live, when you gotta go...

 

 

"Hey, look! There's Bobi!"

At the height of my teenage indolence, I had a wager with my friend over which of us was the lazier, since his father had told him he was the laziest kid in America. 

I said nothing, and so I won, because the laziest thing in the world is not to defend yourself over charges of laziness.

Similarly, if I ever live long enough to be the oldest man in the world, I will accept, because I already know how it feels to be the oldest man in the world. Anyone who has ever seen me get out of the sack and head for the water closet will agree.

But let's take a minute to feel sorry for Bobi, until recently the titleholder of the coveted "Oldest Dog in History" crown. The good people over at Guinness World Records are now saying that they do "not have the evidence to support Bobi's claim as the record holder.”

The late, great Bobi

Bobi was 31 at the time of his passing last October. He was a guard dog on a farm in Conqueiros, Portugal, where he lived with his owner, Leonel Costa.  The "oldest dog" prize was added to his kibble in February, 2023, because Costa said Bobi was born on May 11, 1992.

Veterinarians and other experts raised both doubts and their eyebrows over this longevity claim.  

“We take tremendous pride in ensuring to the best of our ability the accuracy and integrity of all our record titles,” said Mark McKinley,  director of records at Guinness.  “Of course, we require evidence for all Guinness World Records titles we oversee, often a minimum of two statements from witnesses and subject matter experts,” McKinley said.

Bobi's microchip data was inconclusive as to the date of his birth, and of course, the photos of him reading a newspaper dated May 12, 1992 could have been faked. 

And he was a purebred Rafeiro do Alentejo. That breed has an average life expectancy of 10 - 14 years, which is how long I expect a wallet to last, too.

 

 

Hope against allergies

Just after my father's funeral years ago, I had to stop back at the funeral home to handle some sort of business, and the place was packed that afternoon for the viewing of a high school senior who had died eating a cookie at a Christmas party. The cookie had peanut butter in it, although it looked like another type of cookie, so he felt safe in eating it...

I am sure that everyone knows this sort of peanut-allergy story. It's a tragic situation, but it looks like there might be hope on the proverbial horizon.

The US Food and Drug Administration has okayed the use of the drug known as Xolair, an injectable drug for treating asthma, for people who live with dangerous food allergies.

Doctors at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, here in Baltimore, says Xolair counteracts the body’s natural response to allergens. It's been used since 2003 for people with asthma, hives, and nasal polyps. 

The doctors add that this will not give people with peanut allergies the ability to start enjoying those goober peas, but it will alleviate the most serious effects. In other words, people allergic to nuts, milk, eggs, or what-have-you will still need to avoid those foods, but regular injections of Xolair will make accidental exposure less lethal, and that's a big plus.

As always, trust in science.

 

 

Sunday Rerun: Highway Havoc

 One interesting thing about working Saturdays and Sundays back in the day was seeing people moving their belongings, with sofas and chairs and bedframes and dining room sets piled high atop their buddy's pickup truck (hint: if you own a pickup, don't answer your phone on Fridays). If not a pickup, people would pile all their earthly belongings on station wagons, SUVs, four-door Impalas and I don't know what-all else.

A sure sign of moving day was coming home on Saturday afternoon and seeing sofa bolsters and cushions, cabinet drawers, and, occasionally, an entire portable wardrobe strewn alongside the roadway. Hint: if you think you've tied the load adequately, grab more rope and tighten it up some more. Nothing is worse that setting up the couch in your all-new domicile, only to find that it's short one cushion.

If you do this...

...you won't have this...

But meanwhile, out in Washington State, someone didn't get the "how to pack" message, and a state trooper pulled a U-Haul truck over because of...well, because of this... 

Trooper Cunningham pulled over a guy (of course) driving a truck with an SUV hanging out of its back end not long ago on Highway 97 north of Okanogan.

"I suppose it's moving season," said the trooper.

One single packing strap was embracing the SUV, the kind of strap that might hold a bureau, but not a car.  The unidentified driver got a ticket for failing to secure a load and fined $139, KXLY-TV reported.

And, to no one's surprise, the driver didn’t have a valid license. And the rented U-Haul was overdue for return. Both vehicles were impounded.

If you're going to be dumb, don't be stupid about it.

The Saturday Picture Show, February 24, 2024

 

Ah, mid-February, when all our world turns Orange, and the Orioles are back in spring training, ready for another great year! Can't wait for the season to begin!

I'll tell you, if I had known this movie - The Holdovers - runs for 2 hours and 13 minutes, I might not have wanted to try it. And that would have been a shame, because the minutes flew by. This might be the only time you see these two names in the same sentence, but Paul Giamatti is like Marky Mark Wahlberg to me, in that neither ever made a movie we didn't love.

This is the woodpecker known as the Northern Flicker. It's easy to tell it from the Southern Flicker, which is always seen drinking a Dr Pepper and eating a Moon Pie.

And what have we here? This is the only Danish Butter Cookie can that was NOT turned into a sewing kit. It's someone's first gee-tar!

I just don't trust this expiration date. Dates that someone made up never work well.

I mean, is it not hard enough to be cop in crime-ridden New York, without having to deal with people who keep huge pets, in this case, a 350-lb tiger named "Ming," in their apartment? 

I didn't plan to have two bird pictures this week, but I came across two good ones and here is the other one.

From the days of smoke-filled everything, it's the Casio Calculiter, the perfect thing to pull out of your pants when someone needs a light for their Marlboro Light and also to know the square root of 31741956. (It's 5634, according to my non-lighter phone.)

Trivia time: It was not in the script of The Godfather for Don Corleone to nuzzle a cat while hearing the undertaker Bonasera beg for justice for his daughter. The cat just wandered onto the set and Marlon Brando idly stroked it while reproaching the mortician for lack of respect. 

They say when something is made well, it should last forever. The Rolling Stones' song "Tumblin' Dice" has passed the half-century mark and still sounds like it was recorded yesterday. We all need a little fever in the funkhouse, I tells ya!

Keep it current

During the football playoff season, we saw this commercial several dozen times, promoting some betting operation and using a parody of a famous tirade by former Indianapolis NFL Coach Jim Mora. Mora has been a punchline since November 25, 2001, after the Indianapolis NFL Team blew a game against the San Francisco 49ers, leaving them with a record of 4-6.  In the postgame press conference, a reporter asked the volatile Mora about the chances his team would make the playoffs.

The sputtered answer: "Playoffs? Don't talk about—playoffs?! You kidding me? Playoffs?! I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"

So it was an great idea to have Mora do that spot, now that the NFL has come to embrace gambling on their games, an activity they previously banned. BUT the success of the commercial rode on the likelihood that people of 2024 were aware of the 2001 fulminations of Jim Mora, and I'm not sure that was a sure shot.

AND I see that Saturday Night Live recently brought on Jimmy Fallon to do his "Barry Gibb Talk Show" with Justin Timberlake playing Robin Gibb, trying to keep up with his older brother as he descends into madness. Ten, twenty years ago, they brought the house down with that sketch, but when they tried it this year, I didn't hear the audience gasping for air between guffaws (I was!) Maybe people don't even know who Barry Gibb even is, as the sole remaining living Bee Gee. 

AND while I'm on this podium, what's with this urge to call the District of Columbia/Maryland/Virginia "The DMV"? Here's the problem with that: there is a state agency that used to be called The DMV - The Department of Motor Vehicles. It changed its name years ago to the MVA - the Motor Vehicle Administration - but the old name is so ingrained in Marylanders that if you google DMV, you are taken directly to the MVA website.

Add to that the fact that Washington, D.C, just a forty-five minute ride from here down highways nicely maintained by the good folks at the DMV MVA, might as well be a suburb of Hong Kong for all most Baltimoreans care. If we have to have an acronym to name our little segment of the American East Coast, I suggest calling it the "MVD," as in Maryland, Virginia, and the District.

I will wait to hear from state and DC officials about my idea to call our area "The Muvved." 

Get Back

Observers of early Beatles performances noticed two things about Paul McCartney's bass guitar - he was playing it lefthanded, and it looked like a big violin.

A lot of guitarists play(ed) lefty  - Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and surf guitar king Dick Dale among them - but McCartney must be the most famous. On Beatle hits such as "Love Me Do" and "Twist and Shout," McCartney used his Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, and of course it was on his hip as the band toured America and appeared on the "Ed Sullivan Show."

A person or persons unknown ripped off the instrument from a van in Notting Hill, London, in October, 1972. Subsequently, it was sold to Ronald Guest, proprietor of a pub in London, and over the past half-century, was passed around the members of his family.

Not until last autumn, when English journalist Scott Jones wrote an newspaper article about the legend of the missing bass, did anyone think it might be recovered, but when attention came to the instrument, a group called The Lost Bass Project suddenly was flooded with clues, and last week, the guitar turned up, needing a tuneup but no serious repair. Even the original case was intact.

Jones says all this is “an incredible moment” and that he's been told that McCartney is "thrilled" to get the relic back.

Science and history now resume their quest for Nefertiti's tomb. 

 

Swan Song

We are enjoying watching the "Capote vs The Swans" series on TV, a fairly complicated look at the lives of the Fabulous People of Manhattan fifty years ago, and how many of the rich women in that group gravitated to Truman Capote for friendship and to have someone to drink with all afternoon while they waited for their cheating husbands to come home and have dinner as prepared by a chef. Not that the women didn't have affairs of their own, although certainly not with Capote.

Capote and his glam squad 

Capote was paid $25,000 for an article (“La Côte Basque, 1965”) that he wrote for Esquire magazine, and the frankness with which he detailed the sordid secrets of his coterie cost him his friendships with these women he called his "swans" for their slim elegance.  He only lived nine more years after his swift fall from grace. The man who revolutionized the world of writing by turning a Kansas mass murder into the first "fact as fiction" book, "In Cold Blood," and whose "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and other short stories were admired widely and emulated often managed but sparse written output after his social status was yanked out from under him. 

Gore Vidal said, "Truman Capote has tried, with some success, to get into a world that I have tried, with some success, to get out of." Vidal settled into a productive lifestyle by stepping away from the glare with attracted Capote like a moth. Such a shame. 

But I wanted to say that the show shows these rich, rich people leading poor, poor lives.  All the drinking and carousing and infidelity and feuding and fussing is no way to live. One scene shows Babe Paley, wife of CBS boss Bill Paley, being helped into her pajamas and bathrobe by one of her maids. Imagine being so effete that you no longer perform basic, really basic, functions like that for yourself. No wonder these people turned to alcohol, gossip, and nattering on all the day with Truman Capote, while HE should have been researching and writing another great book and THEY should have been doing something worthwhile with their time, money, and influence.

Where's That Girl

You know what some people hate, is going to a concert that starts late. What I  hate is going to a concert, no matter how promptly it begins. So I don't go, and I'm happy.

But in New York, here are two fans, suing Madonna Louise Ciccone for damages.  They want money because they went to her concert and it started two hours late. The litigants call this "flippant difficulty."

These fellows are named Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden, and they are hauling Madonna, and concert promoters LiveNation, and concert hall the Barclays Center into court, because in December 2023, her "Celebration Tour" show happened late.

Not hearing Madonna for two hours should be considered a bonus, but that's me.

"The concerts at the Barclays Center were advertised to start at 8:30 pm, but Madonna did not take the stage until after 10:30 pm on all three nights, with most concert attendees leaving the Barclays Center after 1:00 am," said the court documents.

And it said, "Madonna had demonstrated flippant difficulty in ensuring a timely or complete performance... (that) resulted in the ticketholders waiting for hours for the Concerts to begin. Others were left stranded in the middle of the night because they missed their arranged ride home or public transportation."

And this bombshell was in the court papers: "Madonna has a long history of arriving and starting her concerts late, sometimes several hours late."

No surprise, Barclays Center, LiveNation, and Madonna's representative all had no reply.

Madonna has had medical problems of late, as have many people of 65 summers. 

No one is saying that physical problems have anything to do with her not starting to work on time, but I am past her age, and I attest that there are days when I just don't feel like a virgin. 

It's a Holiday!

 The Castles Made of Sand offices are closed today in observance of Presidents Day. 

We'll be back tomorrow at the same crazy time. I like to think about my family connection to the presidency, which is that Warren G. Harding patted my father on the top of his 7-year-old head during a 1920 campaign parade in Baltimore.

There was no space atop Mt Rushmore for Harding, a president (1921-1923) who presided over a lackluster, scandal-ridden administration. But it is said that on a clear day, at the very mention of the 29th president, Lincoln's head (above) can be seen shaking vigorously.

Sunday Rerun: Everyone's a judge

 Mike Nudelman and Shana Lebowitz wrote an interesting article in the Business Insider website called "9 small things you do that people use to judge your personality."

So, since I didn't already have enough to worry over, I read it. And now I am sizing myself up in 9 new ways. Let's look over the list! By the way, Nudelman and Lebowitz got a lot of research from Quora, an interesting site to pose and answer questions.  

The list:

1. Your handshake.

Everyone knows a person with a weak "wet fish" handshake tends to be wimpish and feeble.  As soon as you clasp their paw, you can't wait to get it back so you can apologize to your own.  

But the bruiser who habitually crushes walnuts in his hand and then shakes yours is not so great either.  With him, you want to get your hand back ASAP so you can wrap an icepack around it.

Good advice is to go for a handshake right in the middle of those two.  Best advice is to forgo the shake and do the fist bump.

2. Your punctuality.

When I was a supervisor, I used to shake my melon in surprise at how many people would show up late - not just for work, but for the job interview in the first place! Many of us seem to take a very casual approach to showing up on time. Most people who are in charge of things don't. If you catch my drift...

3. Your handwriting.

My father would leave me notes listing chores, etc, and the notes themselves should be in the Calligraphy Museum, so precise were the letters.  My mother won handwriting awards for the Palmer Method all through high school.  My handwriting looks like when you're trying out a new cheap ballpoint pen. I know I lose points on this score.  

4. Your favorite color.

Mine is brown, plain brown, like the color of a suede jacket, or a brownie (so THAT'S why them call them that!) and while that marks me (so THAT'S why they call me that!) as hopelessly dull and square, at least I don't have to explain liking "wenge," "celedon," or "sarcoline."  Runner-up for me is fuchsia, because it's just one typo away from being hilarious.

5. Your taste in music.

Hank Snow (1914- 1999)

Again, I'm in trouble here.  It would be better if I could say that my favorite tune was "Pachelbel's Canon in D" or that other song with the cannons. But if you're sizing me up and I tell you my favorite songs include "90 Miles an Hour (Down a Dead-end Street") by Hank Snow and the Rainbow Ranch Boys and "Meet Mister Callaghan" by Les Paul and Mary Ford, you might walk away shaking your head, as have thousands before you.

Would liking "They All Laughed" by Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra help any?

6. Your eye contact.

Do you look people in the eye when you speak to them? People think you are weak-willed and unlikely to follow through on assignments in a dependable manner if your gaze wanders to their shoulders or down the street. And for heaven's sake, don't ever get caught being told, "My EYES are UP HERE!"

7. Your choice of pet.

Where you come down on this issue says a lot. Some love dogs and dislike cats, or vice versa. Some like fish, hermit crabs, parakeets, or ferrets. Safest way to have people really like you is to have two of everything and change your name to Noah.

8. Whether you bite your nails.

Let's consider a person's overall grooming and appearance.  He or she can be well-dressed, well-coiffed, well-shod and well, nice to look at, but if you see their fingernails all chewed like the ends of #2B pencils during a math test, it takes away points.  

9. How you ask a question.

I was in one of those sensitivity training classes many years ago when the "facilitator" (that's the term they use to mean "person who makes you feel inadequate until it's time to go home, and then asks how to find their way back to the parking garage") said that any time one asks a question that starts with the word "Why," it "automatically puts the other person on the defensive and is a sure-fire way to get them to stop sharing."

I raised my hand and said, "Why?"

The Saturday Picture Show, February 17, 2024

Centuries from now, people digging through the detritus and rubble we leave behind will notice that we downplayed our natural fear of giant reptiles that could eat us alive by portraying them as small smiling animals playing the accordion while wearing silly hats.

When the Beatles came along, it was a free-for-all among sellers of schlock merchandise. Before entertainment attorneys got smart enough to stick copyrights all over their stars, anyone could make and sell "Authentic Beatle Toothpaste" or whatever. I'm sure these crummy shirts were less than satisfying to those who sent their money to P.O. Box 2948, Des Moines, Iowa.

Movie producers slapped together all sorts of films with that popular juvenile delinquency theme, starring Corey Allen, so memorable as "Buzz" in "Rebel Without a Cause" and more people you don't know. Anne Whitfield is known to me for playing Phil Harris's daughter Phyllis on the radio, though. 

Barron Trump had a great time at the annual Trump family picnic this year, easily winning the "shortest tie" competition.

It's almost a miracle these days if you see people even slowing down at a stop sign. And then when they get popped for a moving violation, they claim the police ought to be out catching bank robbers.

Someone ordered their burrito to go and specified "No Olives." They received this artwork on the go-box.

As we say goodbye to football for the year and prepare for baseball, let's have a look at my favorite college player ever, #14 in your program but #1 in your heart, Jack Kerouac.

I have never met anyone who saw this and was disappointed! It has everything for everyone, plus Markie Mark!

The Hand Jive dance was invented by English teenagers who crowded into a malt shop that had a jukebox but not enough room to dance. So they stood still and danced with their hands. With these instructions, you can join the fun, as soon as you put on some pink socks.

Our Salute To Celebrity Drivers' Licenses rolls right along, with Jackass Johnny Knoxville's recent renewal, under his real name of P.J. Clapp, which, to me, is almost as funny as "Johnny Knoxville." Would that we all dressed like Chippendale dancers to get our photos.
 

Sign here

I'm a bit of an autograph hound; I have signed baseballs and photos and other bits of memorabilia around because I am a sentimental soul, and looking back at a baseball where Brooks Robinson or Cal Ripken, Jr, signed their name for me brings back a wonderful flood of memories.

I have no such attachment to my liver, and I only use it for the standard blood-filtration purposes. I would have no interest in having it autographed. What am I, gonna pull it out and show it around?

But there's this English dude - former Dr Simon Bramhall - who admitted using an argon beam machine - a teeny sort of gas torch - to autograph patients' organs with his initials while practicing surgery at Birmingham, England's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Perhaps he needed more practice time.

England's Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service called this "an act borne out of a degree of professional arrogance" and said  said his actions "undermined" public trust in the medical profession.

On Monday, after several years of suspensions, Bramhall was struck off the list of physicians allowed to practice.  

Former Dr Bramhall really looks like a character in a Ricky Gervais show

It was the decision of that MPTS board that Bramhall's actions "breached" the trust between patient and doctor, and he was shown the door.

Yes, it's true, the tribunal "accepted that no lasting physical damage was caused to either patient," but Bramhall's actions had left one of them with "significant emotional harm," knowing he carried his initials around on a vital organ. They called the whole thing a "gross violation of his patients' dignity and autonomy".

The whole thing came up during a routine checkup when initial reports said his...initials...were tatted inside his patients.

Initial reports, get it?

Ask me anything

So the question came up on Facebook, that font of all wisdom: "What song was #1 on your seventh birthday? That song will define your 2024."

Hallelujah, I am lucky, because the #1 song when this old boy hit the 0-7 mark was "Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley, and that gives me a chance to tell you about one of the most interesting men ever in the show business world. 

F'rinstance:

• Sheb was born Shelby Frederick Wooley in 1921.
• He was married at age 19 to the cousin of Roger Miller, the great songwriter and singer who wrote "King Of The Road" and "England Swings" and dozens more hits.
• Sheb had novelty hits in the rock 'n' roll field ("Purple People Eater") and in country songs as well ("Almost Persuaded #2) under the name Ben Colder.
• Sheb was an actor of some renown, playing in "Rawhide" on TV and in movies such as "High Noon," "The Outlaw Josey Wales," and "Hoosiers," where he played the inebriated assistant coach.
• Have you ever been watching a western movie where a guy gets shot by an arrow, or the original "Star Wars" movies? You have heard this sound effect a million times and just now you're reading it was the original recording by Sheb!
  
  
  

Sheb passed away in Nashville at the age of 82, but what a good time he had along the way!

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

What the world needs now is love, sweet love 

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

No not just for some, but for everyone

Lord, we don't need another mountain

There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb

There are oceans and rivers enough to cross

Enough to last 'til the end of time

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

No, not just for some, but for everyone

Lord, we don't need another meadow

There are cornfields and wheatfields enough to grow

There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine

Oh listen, Lord, if you want to know

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

No, not just for some, oh, but just for every, every, everyone

 - lyrics by Hal David

Ya gotta play

Do you play the lottery, scratch the scratchers? You gotta play to win, that's the lotto motto. Those of us who sit home and make a pillow out of our money are never going to win a boatload of it and stuff a sofa with long green.

I'm thinking the reason I don't gamble my money on lottery balls is that I don't get messages from beyond the grave, or even on Instagram, reminding me to get to the gas station and plunk down a ten spot.

But now comes word that a woman from our delightful Maryland won a $50,000 prize after receiving a message from her aunt!

Don't look for anything wild here. The message from her auntie was, "Don't forget to buy tickets for the 50X The Cash scratcher game!

And she ran on down to the gas station, plunked down a sawbuck. and now she's in for $50,000

"I became weak and pale, and almost passed out," she recalled. One can imagine. But she says she is going to take the pile and buy a new car, so she can keep going to the gas station!

Hey, you never know, you know?

 

The original title of The Beatles movie "A Hard Day's Night" was "8 Arms To Hold You."

I knew a guy who found amusement by opening two random pages in a dictionary and pointing to two words. The goal was to use them both in a sentence. I think that was what Steve Martin was doing all those years ago when he said, "I just can't shake this feeling that robots are stealing my luggage."

Things that don't go together...such as, let's say, an octopus stealing your camera.

From Jervis Bay, on the coast of New South Wales in southeastern Australia, comes word that a diver there had to fight with an octopus over his GoPro camera.

Apparently, you can go to the "Jervis Bay Through My Eyes" Facebook page, run by Maree Clout, and in so doing, join the 1.2 million people who have seen this underwater drama spool out.

Clout and her squad were tooling around, snorkeling in the Bay, when an "unusual" event occured:  

"A young guy appeared next to us and when I asked him if he was OK, he replied that he needed our help. I had all sorts of dilemmas go through my mind. I asked him what was wrong and his reply was, 'An octopus took my camera.' He took us to where he last saw his camera and sure enough...there was the eight-armed 'robber' with each of them tightly wrapped around the GoPro," Clout said.

Good Samaritan Cloud dove down and tried to grab the handle of the camera as a friend rolled video of the struggle. But the octopus was not going to make it easy.

"He really didn't want to let it go, so I had no choice to lift the GoPro up.. with [the octopus] on it. Man, he was heavy! I wiggled the camera sideways a few times and he reluctantly let go," Clout said. "Poor occy made his way back to his girlfriend on the rock and sulked lol."

Here I have lived all these years, never knowing that octopuses are nicknamed "occys." 

Anyhow, Clout says she loves those eight-armed critters and was not fearful of not getting the camera back, because, "If we give them a little gift, usually a shell, they will immediately reach out their tentacles to grab it."

Now back to life on dry land!

  

Sunday Rerun: Hannah is a palindrome, as is Kayak

 I don't get too deep in theological matters here, as I have this belief that everyone is entitled to believe as they do.  But I would like to share this aspect of my belief in God.

I think He has the greatest sense of humor in the world, since He invented humor.  This is why he gives us eczema in places just beyond where we can reach to scratch.

I think He loves sports and happily watches men and women on His earth who can run and throw and catch and do things the average person can only dream of doing.  I do not believe that he takes such an avid interest in the outcome of a game between two last-place teams in mid-August that he adversely affects the outcome of that game, so please, losing pitchers, spare us the "It was God's will that I give up a three-run homer in the ninth inning" piety.  By August, He is already focusing on college football, anyway.

And I don't think He ever told anyone to be stupid.  Which leads us to the story of the Gastonguay family,  a sun-baked group from Arizona.  Sean Gastonguay,30, and his wife Hannah, 26, just couldn't stay here in America any longer, what with all the horrible things that go on.  Abortion, taxes, homosexuality, and what they call the "state-controlled church" (?) pushed them over the line and onto a barely-seaworthy sailboat.  They took Sean's father and their two daughters, one three, one but an infant.

Hannah told the AP that they decided to take a leap of faith and see where God led them.  Experienced sailors will tell you, the first thing NOT to do when boarding a sailboat is to take a leap of faith onto it, especially if your destination is the archipelago nation of Kiribati, best known until now for their basketball team's stunning upset of Belize in the 2008 Olympic basketball semifinals.

They spent 91 days at sea, 90 of them harrowing.  They encountered rough seas, which you have to count on, if you're leaving Arizona by sailboat.  The Gastonguays were down to just a little bit of honey and water, and were eating whatever fish they could find in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (which is where vast schools of breaded stickfish, all headless, measuring one inch by five, swim past the Gorton and Van de Kamp Islands, easy prey for the hungry).   There's an app for that sort of angling!  Fish.net!

Destination: Kiribati
Arrival: Chile
Missed it by: That much

The mariners were eventually picked up by a Japanese cargo ship and dropped off in Chile, where a police official said, "They were looking for a kind of adventure; they wanted to live on a Polynesian island but they didn't have sufficient expertise to navigate adequately."

I don't presume to tell God what to do (who am I? A televangelist with bad hair or something?) but my hunch is, the next time He tells the Gastonguays to do something, he will add a little lecture about not being so dumb.

The Saturday Picture Show, February 10, 2024

 

Feeling blue on this Saturday morning? Well, just get yourself on over to the parking lot at Home Depot or Lowe's or Mister Lumber, or whatever they call it in your town. The methods people (men) will resort to in an effort to get their new purchases back to the castle will stun you, make you grin, maybe shed a tear for humanity. For even more thrills, head back in April, when that goofball up your street will be trying to bring home a 6' balled and bundled pine tree and six tons of peat moss in his Dodge Challenger.

This bird was actually held for several weeks, accused of being a spy. They frisked him and he was clean, but he refused to be anyone's stool pigeon.

Here in the rolling hills of Maryland, we are not used to flat topography, but here's a motel room in Idaho with a 50-mile view.

The USA is not the only country where malls have fallen out of favor so suddenly. This abandoned mall is in China, and you have to figure that someone somewhere will have a good use for a former Auntie Anne's Pretzels.

Oh sure, it's so cute for this kitten to suck on his thumb, but just wait til he gets out of Grade 6 with a severe malocclusion. Who's gonna pay for his braces?

If you have the Best Quality Daughter, feel free to copy this and make a salute to your girl.  She will appreciate it!

Ask me to describe Baltimore summers in one photo, and here it is!

Brand new Topsiders, hot pink sox, matching polo. Preppies are in spring training mode already, predicting a big season ahead.

When the president attends an Alabama football game, there is security far beyond the beefy state troopers you see around his seat. 

Field-testing desert camo gear. They got the color match just right!