Rerun: Aisle Be Damned

 We grocery shoppers just took another step closer to the Brave New World that has been predicted for so long. First came the coin-counting machines in the lobby, and then it was the check-yourself-out lane instead of a human cashier, and then it was the self-scanner that you carry around and tote up all the UPC codes on your curds and whey and now...

Now, Giant Food Stores are going to have a whole cadre of new employees running (stalking) around their stores.

They are all named "Marty," if you wanted to know.

New Marty

                                      Old Marty

The Martys just started working there, but they are gray already. They have big googly eyes. They are not in the union, so they will work all sorts of crazy hours without a break.  Or a paycheck.

Marty is a robot.

All the Martys have a sign reading "This store is monitored by Marty for your safety. Marty is an autonomous robot that uses image capturing technology to report spills, debris and other potential hazards to store employees to improve your shopping experience.”

Giant Food announced earlier this week that they will put Martys to work in all of their 172 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

“Bringing robotics and A.I. from a research lab to the sales floor has been a very exciting journey, and we were thrilled by the customer response in our pilot stores,” Nicholas Bertram, president of Giant Food Stores, said in a statement. “Our associates have worked hard to bring this innovation to life with amazing partners.”

Here's the company line: the robots parade around the store autonomously, keeping their goofy eyes peeled for spills and trip hazards. If the RoboClerk sees some water or spilled soda on the floor, or the classic banana peel, it will bark out "Danger, Will Robinson!"  "Caution, hazard detected!” and also notify a human with a mop and bucket.

Continuing his peripatetic journey, Marty will do price checks, verifying the price of a can of peas against the store's computerized pea-pricing system.

Deep down toward the end of the press release trumpeting Marty's arrival, they tell us that Marty has onboard scanners so he won't run into you or your cart, that he is "powered by rechargeable lithium batteries," and that he has "has multiple cameras."

So the ceiling mounted cameras aren't enough, and now furtive-looking people will have this robot dogging their two paces behind all through the store.

Hello, 2019? 1984 calling!

Tuesday Rerun (from 2021): Poppa Woody

 

As hilariously related by CB songster Cledus Maggard in the 70s, there is nothing on earth funnier than a kid with weak kidneys having to stop at every Texaco while Dad's trying to get the family on a vacation in their Oldsmobile.

Who remembers CB radios? Cledus Maggard? The 70s? Oldsmobiles? Vacations?

Everyone knows, a big iced tea for lunch and a bumpy stretch of road equals agony...but there is a creature who has no problems in that area!

They never have to go to Tinkle Town! Say hi to the Alaskan Wood Frog! They can hold their urine for up to eight months.

Part of it is, they have no indoor plumbing, so they have to choose between leaving their hiding places and getting cold, or just rolling over and waiting 'til May.

They do what many of us felt as if we did for the last 12 months: they hibernate. And for these frogs, it's good to do so. They get energy from not going #1.They have special belly enzymes that turn the urea in their liquid waste to nitrogen.

And not only do they "hold it in," they actually freeze, inside and out, the entire time! Science believes this is because LL Bean does not make a down jacket small enough to fit them, so they just thaw out after winter ends.

Nature sure knows what she's doing! 

Monday Rerun (from 2020): Everybody Must Get in "Rolling Stone"

 I have to tell you, there was a day and time when the news that a new Bob Dylan album was coming out was even more exciting to me than when someone calls to say they are bringing me a raspberry pie. As America's Greatest Living Poet has faded into mumbled obscurities, my interest has waned, but seeing that his new "Rough And Rowdy Ways" album is coming out on June 19 still gives me at least one goosebump.

I can't even say that the people on the album cover even look either rough or rowdy, but that's not up to me. It is interesting, though, that this picture is 56 years old.

The photographer is an English guy, Ian Berry, 86 now, from Salisbury, England. He told Rolling Stone magazine that he's more a visual guy than a musical one, but adds, "I have, though, spent quite a lot of time with people like Miriam Makeba, but most of the profiles I’ve done on musicians have been more classical, people like [David] Ashkenazi.”

He was happy to be asked if Dylan could use the photo on his new album: “I was delighted,” he says. “A record cover for Dylan is a great compliment.” Oh! By the way, Dylan has not put his own mug on one his albums of new music since 2001’s "Love and Theft."

Rolling Stone says the image, taken in 1964 at a club on Cable Street in Whitechapel, London, "crackles with intrigue and romance." Well, now. The one guy is checking the selections on a jukebox, and that was always a lot of fun when you had a fistful of dimes, and the couple seem to care about each other. That's romantic. They're doing the kind of dancing where holding hands is part of the fun!

Berry says he had not asked for permission to shoot photographs in the club, and after 20 minutes or so, the pub's habitues were indicating that they wished for him to leave. They did this by throwing empty beer bottles at him, which is the universal signal that it's time to haul ass.

He's not one of those sensitive artists, clearly. This was originally a black-and-white photo and he had no problem when Dylan's people asked for permission to tint it. "I didn't mind at all," he said. Being 86 will do that to a person, make them a little more practical and less artistically stringent.

Berry even admits that he's not a huge Dylan fan. "I like the sort of singers where I can actually hear the words, people like Joan Armatrading or Joan Baez.”

He shouldn't think twice. It's all right.

Sunday rerun: Crabshell batteries

 Listen, I know that California is not going to allow the sale of gas-powered cars after 2035, at which point I will be 84, and not even being mentioned as a host for any game show or a lead part on a soap opera. I probably won't be driving anyway, and if I can't buy a new internal combustion car, I'll get a beater somewhere and drive it around.

And in other news, science has figured out that they can make batteries out of old crab shells. (The ones filled with crabmeat are way too expensive).

And one of my great cultural shortcomings is a total lack of familiarity with the show "Sponge Bob," beyond the name. Apparently it involves sea creatures running around doing things we all do, but the cartoon that I most relate to is "Top Cat," and I don't want to start a new show.

So I can't draw the connection between this dream of crab batteries and Sponge Bob, but it seems that the fact is, the journal called "Matter" (I guess I should subscribe, but it doesn't matter), they write that researchers claim to have made a biodegradable battery with something found in crab and lobster shells - a great use for empty crustaceans!

In any battery, there has to be an electrolyte between the two terminals at either end. That's how they work: they send ions racing between the positive and negative terminals, and that's how they make electricity to power your phone or flashlight or whatever.

Regular "conventional" batteries - known as lead or lithium batteries  - have been the standards for years, but they come with issues. We will need to make great batteries to run electric cars, but the traditional electrolytes have problems:

•  Recycling them is a gigantic hassle
•  Electrolytes are not biodegradable, so they will be around   forever
•  They can explode or start fires.
•  There are problems with the mining process we use to get lithium out of the ground. 

So how do crabs and lobsters fit in? They have a material in their exoskeletons called chitin. That's what makes the shells hard and tough. With chitin, science can make a derivative called chitosan. Combine chitosan with zinc, and you have a new electrolyte that can run your Walkman for 400 hours.

Or your cell phone, or your game machine.

And what's more, this gunk will break down in five months, leaving just the zinc, which can be recycled and used again!

“In the future, I hope all components in batteries are biodegradable,” says lead author Liangbing Hu, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Materials Innovation. “Not only the material itself but also the fabrication process of biomaterials.”

This sounds like something to make us hopeful. And don't worry about your crab platter becoming even more expensive...we can also extract that precious chitin from fungi and squid.

So, maybe soon we will be driving to the seafood restaurant and already have the scent of Old Bay Seasoning in the car!

 

 

 

Rerun Saturday Picture Show from 2021

 

Merry Christmas from our hearth to yours! 

Freshly roasted on a open fire...tell Jack Frost to come on in and nip at my nose!

How the library improvised a tree!

If you don't have a tree handy, just easel your way on down the Christmas road...

Christmas tins once held cookies! Tasty treats you can't forget...But don't reach in for a snickerdoodle, and come away with Mabel's sewing set!

More than just a pickup, this is a parade float!

If your inlaws and outlaws are dragging you, claiming that your house just ain't posh enough, feel free to send them this picture and ask them if they think you might have overdone it this year...

To a cat, a Christmas tree is more than just a beautiful decoration: it's a challenge!

This apartment combines the best of classic old days and new.

Baltimore's Washington Monument predates the obelisk in Washington. And it gets decorated every year!

 

Rerun: Complaint Dept.

  I'm not extremely fond of the NextDoor app; I see it as the whine aisle of the internet. Now, if you want to have your neighbors keep an eye out for your missing feline or Ferrari, it's great, and if you lost that recipe for Chex Mix* that Jack's first wife told you about, it's the place to go.

But...even though Joe Citizen speaking his mind while standing on a soap box is a fundamental part of our society, it's not good for society when Joe spreads misinformation, or just pure dumb stuff, as with the person I saw howling because her daughter got a $45 parking ticket just because she parked in the fire lane at a townhouse complex while attending an overnight sleepover.

She was mad as a hornet, probably because there were no fires that night. Maybe Irate Mom should have thought about what would have happened had someone knocked over a Yankee Candle during the evening, causing a fire.

It happens.  We wish it didn't, but it does, and when it does, we want firefighters and their apparatus to have unfettered access to the house.

And if they can't get there, well, just go on NextDoor and talk about it. 

* chex mix recipe 

Ingredients

• 3 cups Corn Chex™ cereal
• 3 cups Rice Chex™ cereal
• 3 cups Wheat Chex™ cereal
• 1 cup mixed nuts
• 1 cup bite-size pretzels
• 1 cup garlic-flavor bite-size bagel chips or regular-size bagel chips, broken into 1-inch pieces
• 6 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt
• 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Preparation

1. In large microwavable bowl, mix cereals, nuts, pretzels and bagel chips; set aside. In small microwavable bowl, microwave butter uncovered on High about 40 seconds or until melted. Stir in seasonings. Pour over cereal mixture; stir until evenly coated.
2. Microwave uncovered on High 5 to 6 minutes, thoroughly stirring every 2 minutes. Spread on paper towels to cool. Store in airtight container.

 

Perhaps you'll have a few minutes to spend in a happy memory on this Christmas. This is the text of Truman Capote's short story "A Christmas Memory," and it always takes me to a happy place to read it, so I thought I'd share it with you. If you're too busy today, save the link to read it later, and Merry Christmas to you!

 https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/articles/a-christmas-memory-by-truman-capote-short-story

 

 

Wednesday reruns: All About That Song

 Rerun Week saunters on...this one is from 2009...

 It's Guest Editor day - because I got this information about one of my favorite carols from a friend online, so I thought I'd pass it along...while you read what Pat sent to me, click on this link and you can see/hear the 12 Days of Christmas on YouTube!

There is one Christmas Carol that has always baffled me.

What in the world do leaping lords, French hens,

swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas?

This week, I found out.

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were

not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone

during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics.

It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning

plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.

-Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.

-Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.

-The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

-The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

-Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

-The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

-Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.

-The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

-The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

Again, this is all new to me - hope you liked it!

Tuesday Rerun: Longtime mystery solved

I've been a fan of "A Christmas Carol" since I was a tiny little tim myself (and that's been a while). But I have always wondered about something...something at the very end of the story, where now-giddy Scrooge is running around his bedroom and hollers out at a little boy passing by in the snow.

He asks the boy if he knows the poulterer's shop around the corner with the big prize turkey hanging in the window, and when the lad says he should hope he did, Scrooge tells him to go buy it.

In the original story:

“It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.

“Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.”

“Walk-ER!” exclaimed the boy. 

I've wondered ever since what "Walk-ER!" meant. I used the closed captioning on the tv when I watch the 1951 version of the story, and that says the kid says "What cor?" and on my second-favorite version, "Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol," the closed captioner typed "Wha cur?" and none of that makes sense. The dictionary says a cur is a poorly-behaved mongrel, and up until that Christmas morning, Scrooge was too cheap to keep a pet around, so that wasn't it.

The little turkey-fetcher, from the movie

Recently, though, someone invented Google, and it finally dawned on me to look it up! And the Oxford English Dictionary, a walloping hearty meatloaf of a book if ever there was such a thing, defines it for us:

"WALKER" "More fully, Hookey Walker.  An exclamation expressive of incredulity,  as in 'That is all Walker.'

and then Eric Partridge, in his book "A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949) p 403, says "Hooky Walker! A phrase signifying that something either is not true or will not occur."

Digging into the matter more deeply (what else do I have to do all day?) it turns out that "John Walker" was the name of an untrustworthy spy in literature of the 1830s, a bad guy with a hooked nose. So, saying "Hooky Walker!" became a way to damn something as untrue, and that was shortened to just using "Walker!"

Now, with that mystery out of the way, I can spend some time figuring out why people will spend money for coffee at BigBucks when they can make it at home better, for less.

RERUN: Santa Jimi

  

In December, 1969, Jimi Hendrix continued to defy other guitarists, who to this day are unable to duplicate what he could do on an electric guitar, and spelling purists who insisted his name was "Jimmy.".  He accomplished the latter by naming his new band, which was to replace The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Band of Gypsys.  The more conventional spelling would be Gypsies, of course, but then, Jimi never did anything the conventional way.

He had hired veteran drummer Buddy Miles to slam the skins, and Billy Cox (not to be confused with the old Dodger third baseman) to play bass. Cox and Jimi had become friends while serving in the US Army together in 1961 at Fort Campbell, KY.

Jimi and the band were booked for the holidays of '69-'70 at the Fillmore East, the legendary rock concert hall in New York.  There were new songs ready for the band - most notably "Machine Gun" - but Jimi wanted to do something special. 

While rehearsing for the shows at Baggy's Studios in Manhattan, the band wove together the melodies (melodys?) of The Little Drummer Boy, Silent Night, and Auld Lang Syne.  Someone wisely hit the "record" button, and we are left with these holiday treasures to enjoy, 43 years later.  At the concerts on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, The Little Drummer Boy and Auld Lang Syne wound up as parts of medleys with other songs.

If you'd like to hear this tripartite medley, YouTube is standing by.  Just go here and enjoy! 

The album of the concerts was released in March of 1970, the last to come out during Hendrix's life, which ended that September.  


We don't have any way to know which direction his career might have taken, but it's good to hear his music again.

Sunday rerun: The Sound of a Fury

 The past few Septembers have been dotted with a non-specific sort of agitation, as if something somewhere were missing in my life.  I took inventory of my emotions (confusion, mild rage, skepticism, scorn, delight, joy, happiness and pure bliss) and found them all intact, and then it hit me.

September used to mean new TV shows and new cars.  And not any more, for the most part.

Man, I'm telling you, the time was that TV networks would show promos for new shows coming on right after Labor Day and excitement reigned.  "They're making a 'Dennis The Menace' situation comedy," people screamed! "How many more days must I survive until the premiere of 'CPO Sharkey,' starring Don Rickles?" pondered many.  "I can't wait until that new 'Maury' show comes on!" cried many.  And then it came on, and many more cried.

Now, instead of three networks with new shows that no one wishes to watch, there are 237 networks, and the only shows that people are looking at feature poorly-educated, un-shaven-and-shorn rustics.  We revere televised individuals from whom we would move away, were they to sit next to us in a diner.

And, even worse, do you remember the tiny thrill you got when the new cars came out!  "The new Plymouths have tail fins the size of half a cow!"  "Dad wants to go down to Rustee Ford to look over the new Galaxie 500 XL!" "Is it a Falcon or is it a pickup?"  All these huzzahs rang out every September, in a country not that far away, not that long ago.

Today, the Toyota Camry changes the door on the gas cap every couple of years, and that's about it.  The NASCAR cars all look like the same non-NASCAR cars.  And can you tell me three differences between a Corolla and a Civic?  What in the devil is a Passat, a Tiguan or a Touareg?

Every kid could tell you the difference between the Chevies..the el cheapo Biscayne, the moderately-priced BelAir, the top of the line Impala, and the top of the Impala line, the Impala Super Sport.  Ford, Mercury, Plymouth, Dodge, and the rest of the GM line (Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac) of cars all had major changes from year to year, and the new models all came out every September, while Liberace never did.

The Saturday Picture Show, December 20, 2025

 

"As the twig is bent, so grows the tree." Unless you think that one Christmas ornament is enough to cause that bough to bow...

Now this is what I'm talking about when I talk about Christmas lights. Put eight or nine strands of these colorful dudes around the house, and bedeck the tree with almost that many of these, only in white, and you have the sort of house where Bing Crosby would come and tap dance with Danny F. Kaye!

This might be Dasher or Dancer checking out the neighborhood lights.

We were so lucky around here to have a night pre-Christmas snow last weekend. first time in forever, it seemed. Not enough to snarl the roads or keep the Amazon trucks from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, just enough to make everything Christmas-pretty!

Someone needs to write a song about how pretty outdoor Christmas light decorations are when snow-covered.

Used to see these on house after house, front doors with giant Santa heads, all pink-cheeked and merry. I always wondered where people stored these Brobdingnagian faces. I guess the attic?

Just before returning home from a really long with, ole Santa stops for a dozen honeydips to share with the Mrs.

Do you have your special Christmas glasses and mugs and plates and dishes all set?

I must be the last person on earth to see this. You don't really need ribbon anymore to decorate your packages. Grab that wide Sharpie!

And is this not the cutest thing you've seen today, a homemade Stocking!? 

Whaddya think?

The great American wit Will Rogers is quoted as having said, "Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects."

To me, he made a great point, and you can look at it upside down and say everyone knows something no one else knows. Take a room and fill it with, I don't know, 500 people chosen randomly. Out of that group, you would probably find at least one person who could tell you how to re-tile your bathroom, cook a gourmet meal, or drive a race car. It's often surprising to find you're talking to someone who set out to sea as a cabin boy at 12, and now runs a chain of seafood restaurants.

However, this expertise is limited. You won't find a score of people who run chains of fish eateries.  And that brings up this point.

As you may know, The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, a 1.6 mile bridge that crossed the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor/Port, connecting southeastern Baltimore County to Anne Arundel County, was knocked down in 2024 by a container vessel. The bridge was built in the 1970s and opened in 1977 to relieve the congestion in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.

The collapse. Horribly, six men who were working on re-paving the bridge surface were killed in the accident.

That congestion didn't just go away when the Bridge did, and the process of rebuilding is just getting underway. Initial estimates said the replacement bridge could open in 2028, but that does not seem possible now. The latest estimate is for sometime in 2030, and at a much higher price than initial estimates forecast.

I'm not counting on getting to AA County quickly anytime soon. But, here's what interests me. TV stations like to have these poll questions going on, like "How do you think the Orioles will do this year?" and people text in their answers and feel like they are part of the story, I don't know.

But today, I heard one of the stations asking the public "When do you think the new Key Bridge will be finished?"  And even if you're an expert on bridge building, and on governmental appropriations for funding these jumbo projects, there are so many variables at work here, one can only reply, "How the hell do I know?"

But I will say, if you are a bridge-building expert with a deep knowledge of how to turn on the fiscal sluice gates, please get in touch with our Governor Moore. He needs your help!

 

It Did Happen To Him

Welcome back to all my friends who love the movie "It Could Happen To You" with Nicolas Cage and where-have-you-gone Bridget Fonda. Here's a story sort of close, but with a Maryland twist. 

A guy from down in Silver Spring did a favor for a relative. (Yes, it happens!) He had been lending a hand to his kin, and when the relative pulled off for gas, he decided to treat the guy right...

"I was on the phone with him when he pulled into a gas station," the man recalled. "He told me that, while he was there, he would buy me a scratch ticket as a 'thank you' for the help I'd been to him."

It was a $10 Double Your Money scratcher. The helpful guy told the relation to go ahead and peel back the numbers.

At first the guy said it looked like a $100 winner, but then he said he might have looked at it wrong, so he would go home and check it out. Yes. Please don't try to read your lottos while driving away from the Exxon on Viers Mill Rd.

Well. great gosh a-mighty and praise Nicolas Cage: the ticket was a $100,000 winner.

"It was impossible to believe. I never win anything," the winner said.

Well, first time for errthang, and go find that movie online. It has Isaac Hayes and that spells movie magic!

 

Spitting Image

It's not just in the US of A that people have to deal with overly zealous officials. 

Take Roy Marsh. Roy is 86 over there in Lincolnshire, England. I once considered that age to be entirely too old, but now, it seems like he's just hitting his stride.

Anyway, there was Roy, out in the fresh Lincolnshire air, and a leaf blew into his mouth. 

Let him tell it: "As I was sitting there, a gale blew a big reed into my mouth," he recalled to the BBC, referring to the plant part of the grass family. "I spat it out, and just as I got up to walk away, two [enforcement officers] came up to me."

You with us so far? A piece of grass flies into his mouth, he loogs it out, and two environmental enforcers show up. They told him they saw him spitting, and he called the enforcer a "silly boy."

"It was all unnecessary and all out of proportion," Marsh told the BBC.

He was taken to court and fined $334.50, although he was able to appeal it down to $200.70. 

Roy Marsh, dangerous criminal

Enter Adrian Findley, a county councillor who works as a representative for Reform on Lincolnshire County Council. He told the BBC he had heard of other complaints from the area.

"[Enforcement officers] are taking it too far. ... There needs to be discretion about how they [enforcement officers] issue fines," he told the news.  "If it looks like a genuine accident, then give people the opportunity to apologize and pick it up."

East Lindsey District Council (ELDC) told the BBC, however, that enforcement officers would "only approach individuals who have been seen committing environmental crime offenses."

They went on to say that the keep a close eye on their enforcement people. and that patrols are not targeted at any specific demographic.

In other words, "We'll issue citations to anyone for any silly thing."

I hope to hear from English friends that this is an aberration, and that if an old man accidentally inhales a piece of leaf, he is not headed for the Ironbar Hilton. If so, cancel my plans for lunch with Charlie and Camilla!

Easy as ABC

Down in Virginia, you have to buy hard liquor at a "state" store, called ABC.  I don't mean to imply that one HAS to buy liquor, just that if you're of a mind to indulge in spirits, you can't get it anywhere else but at a store meant to enrich the state from your consumption of Old Grandad.

As you might have heard, a raccoon gained entry to one of these stores in Ashland, VA, and helped himself to a good deal of hooch from the broken bottles it knocked to the floor.

And the next day, Rocky was found drunk as a lemur, in the men's room.

 

Virginia ABC, always looking to sell more firewater to all, whether they be two-legged or four, is now promoting three new cocktails in honor of the crapulous critter.

It took no time at all for the ABC people to come up with

•  Rye Rascal Sour 
•  Trash Panda Old Fashioned 
•  and Midnight Gin Fizz

Special recipes are published on the VA ABC website, along with fanciful pictures of a raccoon sampling each tipple.

I feel bad for the raccoon, although I figure he's over his hangover now and back to eating whatever the local trash cans yield. He did not deserve this embarrassment. 

Dinner and a show

I can't stand people who are lousy tippers, and the way they contort themselves into knots to justify their parsimony is revolting. If you can't afford to leave a decent (20%) tip, then go to Checker's and take your dinner home in a bag. Dining in a restaurant means you will be served, and for that privilege, one pays the server. 

So don't break my back with "well, in Europe they don't tip!" or "I would have left a tip, but you should see the way she handed me the menu - upside down! Whatzat s'posed to mean, huh?"

Just do the right thing and leave a kind tip and help keep Jordyn Hale out of the clink, because this was not her fault, sort of.

The scene is the Steel City Smokehouse in Pittsburgh, where 27-year-old Jordyn has been slinging steaks and ribs, until the night last month when a party of four ran her a hard way to go at dinner.

This is right out of the non-tipper playbook, to drive a server crazy with 118 demands and then say, "Well, look, she didn't bring me hot sauce right away, so, no tip! The line must be drawn somewhere!"

This party was no party. Twice, they sent their ribs back for being "too rib-like." They wanted drink refills...eight times. They made Jordan recite the specials again and again "with more enthusiasm." And they whined that the barbecue sauce "wasn't spiritually resonating."

You get the picture. These cheap bastardos were looking for trouble, and they found it right after Jordyn dropped off the check for $168 and they put down $168 and not a penny more. They wrote on the check, "You didn't uplift our dining experience."

(You want uplifting? That's in foundation garments, third floor.)

Jordyn's mug shot

Jordyn responded to this insult with a nod, and then she walked back to the cupboard where the restaurant's cleaning equipment was stored.

She returned holding a leaf blower.

As the four deadbeats stared in disbelief, she plugged in the blower, pointed it at them, and yelled, "GET UPLIFTED, THEN!" And the she turned the thing on, full blast.

The mighty wind sent napkins, menus, and those little cups that hold non-resonating sauce up in a vortex of rage. The group, aghast, shrieked, and one man had to grab his airborne toupee in midair.  One of the women saw her scarf take flight, and light in the next booth over.

Someone yelled, “SHE’S AIR-FRYING THE CUSTOMERS!”

And Jordyn said, "THIS IS WHAT UNDERAPPRECIATION FEELS LIKE — HIGH VELOCITY!”

She even had enough power cord to herd the crowd like a pack of sheep toward the exit. This must have been the funniest night ever at Steel City Smokehouse.

And then the cops showed up. Jordyn took a pinch for harassment and creating a hazard.

And as they led her to their car to be taken down for booking, Jordyn shrieked, "YOU WANT UPLIFTING? TIP NEXT TIME!"

I don't suppose she will get to keep her job, and who knows where she's going to work next. But I will tell you this: if I had been there, I would have been her backup.

I can't stand people who are lousy tippers.

Sunday Rerun: Feliz Navidad

 I know a lot of people who will relate to this. Meditation, calming down exercises, soothing ethereal music, chai lattes, and on-duty stress counselors can only go so far. Some people just have an unquenchable need to slug someone.

In Peru, they have Takanakuy. It sounds like fun, but what it is, is a fighting festival in the small town of Santo Tomas.  

It takes place on Christmas every year.

People of all ages, including children, have the chance to settle grudges, close out on old differences, and basically clean each other's clocks before getting on with the holiday hi-jinx.

Takanakuy means "to hit each other," so there's no effort made to pretty this thing up. It's an old-fashioned slugfest for all!

Before the festival, there is lots of drinking and dancing in traditional Andean horse-riding costumes.  That's just the warmup.  On Christmas morning, everybody who's been mad at anybody since last Christmas parades on down to the local bullfighting ring and starts the smacking. 

According to tradition, most people are inebriated, not to mention drunk. Custom means they hug warmly and then start punching their opponents in the face. There is a referee, who walks around with a whip, lashing out when a fight becomes one-sided. This also serves as a deterrent, lest spectators decide to leave the seating area and join the melee.

They say that this brutality helps to steel the residents for their struggles, living in extreme conditions.  

For one thing, they live above 8000 feet altitude, and that can induce a lot of sickness. Santo Tomas is actually way up there at 12,000 feet. The local diet consists of potatoes and whatever animals wander onto the jagged slope of their town.  Santo Tomas is the capital of Chumbivilcas, one of the poorest states in Peru. They are all but cut off from civilization and government services, With only three officers on the entire Chumbivilcas police force, and the nearest courthouse 12 hours away by car, it's easy to see why Law & Order is carried out on a more personal level. Someone steals your goat, don't call the cops, smack him around on Christmas Day!

With no formal legal system in place, these people have allowed hand-to-hand pugilism to replace police, and the fighting allows for the settlement of wrongs.

"The average villager in this region has basically no access to lawyers or courts, and even if they travel to a place where they do, odds are the ultimate judgment will not be in their favor," according to a law student from Lima who came to observe the goings-on.  "Using violence as a means of solving disputes may seem barbaric to people in the cities, but as you can see, the fighting here is all carefully controlled and the people involved get an immediate and cathartic result."

And when the fights are over, they all have a drink and go on their merry way.

Don't laugh too quickly. Ask any police about how many family gatherings around the holidays here start to look like the final scene of "Rocky" after the egg nog runs out.

The Saturday Picture Show, December 13, 2025

This is the most non-committal look yet on a gingerbread man. Maybe it was the first one of the batch...

The gecko is on vacation in some tropical paradise, but he didn't drive to get there!

Here stands the majestic nuthatch displays his autumn plumage. Of all the birds we can see hanging around the backyard feeders, nuthatches are known to be the most ardent fans of country music, owing to their large heads, short tails and powerful bills and feet, and their tendency to advertise their territory using loud, simple songs.

This is the kind of corn on the cob that saves calories. You only use half as much butter because it's only half the size of regular corn.

This is the very definition of what Simon and Garfunkel meant by "a hazy shade of winter." My favorite scenery all year long!

They must be doing some sort of construction down the street. They were bringing in some cranes the other day.

They don't make pennies any more, and here are some wheat pennies. They haven't made these since Hector was a pup.

Should we even ask what Santa is so happy about?

It's hard to describe snow to people who have never seen it, and they have a hard time, after seeing lovely pictures of freshly fallen "silent shrouds" of it, believing that after a couple of days, snow gets dirty and grungy!

Oh wait! Here's the construction crane, all red and green and wishing Merry Christmas to you and yours!