Monday Rerun: Pedro wanted a hippopotamus for Christmas, only a hippopotamus would do

 I know the name "Pablo Escobar" sounds like something from a "Miami Vice" rerun, but Pablo was the prototypical South American drug kingpin in his day, which ended in 1993 when he was killed by the Colombian National Police. Before that, he amassed a fortune estimated at around $70 Billion with a B, and so naturally, he had enough loose change from the sale of drugs to entertain himself with a private menagerie of hippopotami.

The current head count is 70 hippos needing to be moved out, because who is about to stop the herd from procreating? Actually, they tried to stop them from reproducing. Methods employed included castrations, shooting them with contraceptive darts, and forcing them to watch Julia Roberts movies. 

It's going to cost approximately $3.5 million to farm them out to other sanctuaries, with 10 of them destined for the Ostok Sanctuary in Mexico; the other 60 will find a home in India. There's no way to take them to Africa, where the herd originated; that would upset the local ecosystem. 

 

 

Escobar originally imported one male and three females, and now look. They are spreading all over Colombia from their original home at Escobar’s former ranch of Hacienda Napoles, which is now some sort of theme park in the country where he is still regarded as sort of a Robin Hood for his habit of providing basic needs to the poor with a fortune derived from selling enough cocaine around the world to alter and/or end millions of lives.

Not to get all gross, but the Colombians need these beasts removed because, with no natural predators, they are running rampant on the countryside, and their waste is having deleterious effects on oxygen levels in the waters, reducing water quality and killing many fish in the Magdalena River basin.

Say it with me now: ewwwwwwwwww. 

 Easter 2026:  We wish you all a Happy Easter!

The Saturday Picture Show, April 4, 2026

I admit to having no Midwestern blood, but, by cracky, I am not about to cook, serve, or eat a side dish known as "Funeral Potatoes." Since God has the ultimate sense of humor (after all, He invented it!) I'm sure there would be news stories headlined "Local Man Dies Eating Funeral Potatoes." So, no thanks. 

Someone posted this as a reminder that it was just six years ago that people had to be encouraged to be decent individuals while getting a shot that could save their life. 

As you know, walnuts divide into hemispheres. But this one went nuts.

Now, you're talking side dishes, and this old boy with roots in Macon, GA, will talk to you about red beans and rice. Hot-a'mighty!

It's well-known among ornithophiles, and bird fanciers, that ospreys like to build their nests atop telephone poles to take advantage of the lower long-distance rates they can get just by being on the wire.

A schoolchild drew this picture of John F. Kennedy, and something tells me that president #35 would have enjoyed the image. That was when people had senses of humor.  And sense.

Someone found this in their raisin bran the other morning. I think it's some sort of compressed, freeze-dried raisin thing, but I don't think I'd eat it! It might be part of a solid gold bar, for all I know.

Remember when you wouldn't dream of having a wedding without personalized matches to hand out? That was when "Light My Fire" was a popular dance number at receptions.

As I watched Artemis II take off the other night, I remember the summer, thirty-some years ago, when its commander, Reid Wiseman, was a summer IT employee with 911, where I worked. He was a quiet, unassuming young man, smart and polite, and patient enough to show Baby Boomers how to get their printers back on line or whatever. We knew he was headed for higher things!

Panera is quietly covering up the electric outlets in their dining areas, no longer wishing to have real estate salespeople and folklore trackers plugging in their devices and soaking up free watts all afternoon. You can't get a charge out of them any longer.
 

Search for love continues...

I haven't the slightest idea how people are supposed to find their dream spouse or significant other these days. I mean, do people even go on dates anymore? Do they ask co-workers if they want to see a movie? Do they wait for someone to ankle up to them at Starbux and strike up a convo? Do they swipe on dating apps? 

They're trying something new in the London pubs, something new and old. Over there, they're using a PowerPoint presentation about the friend they wish to see matched up, and everyone gets to look over the available one.

The young people are good with that stuff, those computer programs, so putting together a slide deck is the new version of plastic sheets on an overhead projector.

They call it "Date My Mate," but in the cockney part of London, you say "Dite me Mite"!  It's all slides and no swiping...

"I hate the swiping," said Annie, 27, who was hoping that her friend's two-minute presentation would find her a guy to hang with.

People are saying they have had bad experiences with apps like Tinder and Hinge, so they are willing to look at something new for someone new.

And it's a good way for a couple to help a single friend turn three into a foursome.

"It's just ‌so much fun," one woman told the news, adding that it was a way to avoid "horrible dating ​stories."

We want happy stories! And if computer science can bring them to you, I say, log on!

 

 

Is this what they mean by "chiseled good looks"?

Everyone seems to want to be better looking. Even good looking people report regularly for plastic surgery to get those cheekbones raised, those eye bags hemmed, and those crows' feet around the eyes taken to the woodshed.

Plastic surgery is expensive. The way people mistake me at the liquor store or Dollar Tree for Colin Firth or Keanu Reeves is gratifying, and they often pay me the compliment of subtly, indirectly, asking how I achieve this look of steely manliness combined with youthful exuberance. 

What they do, these strangers, is to inquire, "What the hell happened to your face?"

I know, you can take that two ways. Well, this old face is what you have when you have spent almost 75 years laughing all the time. The smirk might as well be tattooed on me. And as Shel Silverstein wrote in "The Winner," "my eyes still see and my nose still works and my teeth are still in my mouth.  And you know, that makes me, the winner!"

Or maybe, I am a winner of sorts because I have not resorted to doing a doggone thing to my face except for whittling off whiskers a couple of times a week and splashing on the Bay Rum. My face is not my fortune, Cookie.

And that makes me sad to see young people ( and a few who should know better) resorting to bone smashing to improve the lines on their countenances. I looked it up. 

 Bone smashing" is a dangerous, trending social media practice within "looksmaxxing" subcultures where individuals intentionally hit their facial bones with blunt objects (such as hammers, bottles, or massage guns) to induce microfractures. Proponents falsely believe that as the bones heal, they will become thicker and more chiseled, resulting in a more attractive, structured face. 

If you know someone so hung up on their appearance as to smash their face with whatever, please point them in the general direction of help for the rest of their head.  

April First Rerun: April the Onest

 Oh yeah, look at the calendar today before you believe anything anyone tells you, except for me, because I will never lie to you, cheat you, deceive you, or fool you.

It's April Fool's Day, commonly celebrated as the day that radio DJs do each other's shows under the other person's name, kids turn off their parents' alarm clocks, swap sugar for salt, call someone's spouse and tell them lurid tales...

We don't know where April Fool's Day, or All Fools' Day, even began. I guess even the cavemen tied each other's shoelaces together or sent each other on an errand to get a left-handed monkey wrench, although how did cavemen know the date was April 1? We know that insurance companies didn't even start handing out calendars until Columbus's day.

You ancient Romans just missed your big day: they call it Hilaria, and it's every March 25. There is also the Holi celebration in India, which was held from sundown on March 17 through sundown the next day. It's also called the festival of sharing and love, or the festival of colors. Put it on your 2023 calendar for March 7.

I didn't know this, but it used to be that Christendom started their New Year on Easter Sunday, until Edict of Roussillon (August 1564). That's when King Charles IX said, "Let's start the new year on January 1, while the kids are out of school for Christmas break anyway." But notice: Easter was a lunar festival, not set in stone on a calendar. It's a moveable date, and those who insisted on clinging to the old ways were the “April Fools.”

There is also speculation that the oldtimers chose April 1 because it's right around the time of the vernal equinox, and many people are fooled by changes in the weather at this time of the year. Take this week, for example.

We don't know if this is Charles IX's fault, but to this day, a victim of April Foolery in France is called "poisson d’avril" or “April fish.” French children go around pinning or taping paper fish to the backs of friends.

I went to a tough school.  We taped real fish to the backs of unsuspecting pianists while they practiced their scales.

Hot Chocolate

Here is a crime in which I can prove my innocence from far, far away:  Nestle said that twelve tons of KitKat chocolate bars were ripped off in Europe last week. Thieves got away with a truckload of KitKat and the KitKat truck as well.

A truck carrying 413,793 ‌of the candy bars left central Italy to satisfy the cravings of KitKat lovers throughout Europe. The truck was supposed to arrive in Poland, but never showed up. And no one knows a darn thing about it.

KitKat announced that the purloined sweets all have a unique batch code, so anyone who scans the batch numbers of the missing bars will receive instructions on how to get in touch with KitKat headquarters.

And they addressed the thieves with words that are at least partly conciliatory: "Whilst ​we appreciate ​the criminals' exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is ​an escalating ‌issue for businesses of all sizes."

My original point is that no one can pin this on me, because no one has ever seen me with a KitKat in my hand. Never will, as long as they keep making Snickers and Milky Way!