I saw this today and thought, just what any self respecting Star Wars geek should have in his office!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
This seemed like just the ticket for you...
I saw this today and thought, just what any self respecting Star Wars geek should have in his office!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Fearless Fosdick...
So the other day when we were doing our big family iChat with most everyone, my daughter was talking about her hole in her tummy and I mentioned it probably made her feel like Fearless Fosdick and she said, "Who?" and I tried to explain a little, but then there were too many people and no-one had a clue what I was talking about anyway, so I thought I'd take a minute to tell you while I was thinking about it.
Al Capp was the cartoonist who created "Lil' Abner."
All about the hillbilly Yokum family in Dogpatch, Kentucky.
It was huge in the 1930's, 40's, 50's, and 60's. His artwork was legendary as were his characters. He filled his strip with social and political commentary long before Pogo or Doonesberry were created.
Some of his creations made it into the lexicon.
Dogpatch, Kickapoo Joy Juice, Sadie Hawkins Day, Shmoos, Mammy Yokum, double whammy, and skunk works.
According to Wikipedia the word "shmoo" gets some serious scientific play:
The term shmoo has also entered the lexicon, defining highly technical concepts in no less than four separate fields of science, including the variations shmooing (a microbiological term for the "budding" process in yeast reproduction), and shmoo plot (a technical term in the field of electrical engineering). In socioeconomics, a "shmoo" refers to any generic kind of good that reproduces itself, (as opposed to "widgets" which require resources and active production.) In the field of particle physics, "shmoo" refers to a high energy survey instrument, as utilized at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to capture subatomic cosmic rayparticles emitted from the Cygnus X-3 constellation.
He resigned from the National Cartoonist Society over their refusal to permit women cartoonists to join. They capitulated.
Anyway, among his many creations were satires of other familiar and popular comic characters. One was Lil Abner's "ideel" hero, Fearless Fosdick, a hapless and mostly inept, detective, modeled after Dick Tracy and looking just like him except that he wore a bowler, had a pencil thin mustache, and when he got shot, had a huge hole through his abdomen. Hence the reference to my daughter's hole in her tummy. He was also the pitchman for Wilderoot Cream Oil for years if not still.
And that, my friends is the story of Fearless Fosdick, and, I fear, a bit more.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday morning blizzard report...
So we were on full blizzard alert from yesterday around 2 pm until today sometime.
We had a few flakes early in the morning but didn't start getting any or much snow until late afternoon.
We were in the 18 inch plus area, but didn't get that much.
Channel 5 and 7 had Townsend and Pepperell at around 7 inches each.
James thought we might have gotten ten total. He shoveled it out last night just in case the Peach wanted to come on a snowy blizzardy night!
(Snow blower wouldn't start. We didn't check it before the snow. Sigh.) But the good news is that it was light and fluffy up here!
Heavy and wet near the coast and on the Cape.
A good part of the blizzardy problem was the howling wind -- it's still pretty windy -- which has put the power out in a lot of places but not here.
A lot of coastal areas are flooded on top of everything.
So the wind blew a lot of the light, fluffy snow away and made it hard to do accurate measurements.
Jamie didn't have to go into work but they didn't call him, he called William and asked. He said the Manpower people were supposed to call the new people.
Pity the poor people who didn't have William's phone number!
More details as they become available! (Or, we could do like they do on the tv. Suspend ALL regular broadcasting just to do the storm all morning.)
"And now Natalie, how's the storm in Cohasset?"
"Well, Chet, as you can see, it's still snowing here. Yup. There goes a snow plow. He's plowing the snow. Let me see if we can talk to some of the people affected by the storm. Sir, what do you think of the storm?" "Well, it's snowing all right. Not as big as the Blizzard of '78 though."
"And that seems to be the consensus, Chet, that this storm doesn't measure up to the Blizzard of '78. Back to you, Chet."
"Thanks, Natalie, now let's go out to New Bedford where Cynthia is standing by, Cynthia how's the situation there?"
"Well, Chet, as you can see, it's still snowing. There goes a snow plow..."
and so on, hour after hour.
We had a few flakes early in the morning but didn't start getting any or much snow until late afternoon.
We were in the 18 inch plus area, but didn't get that much.
Channel 5 and 7 had Townsend and Pepperell at around 7 inches each.
James thought we might have gotten ten total. He shoveled it out last night just in case the Peach wanted to come on a snowy blizzardy night!
(Snow blower wouldn't start. We didn't check it before the snow. Sigh.) But the good news is that it was light and fluffy up here!
Heavy and wet near the coast and on the Cape.
A good part of the blizzardy problem was the howling wind -- it's still pretty windy -- which has put the power out in a lot of places but not here.
A lot of coastal areas are flooded on top of everything.
So the wind blew a lot of the light, fluffy snow away and made it hard to do accurate measurements.
Jamie didn't have to go into work but they didn't call him, he called William and asked. He said the Manpower people were supposed to call the new people.
Pity the poor people who didn't have William's phone number!
More details as they become available! (Or, we could do like they do on the tv. Suspend ALL regular broadcasting just to do the storm all morning.)
"And now Natalie, how's the storm in Cohasset?"
"Well, Chet, as you can see, it's still snowing here. Yup. There goes a snow plow. He's plowing the snow. Let me see if we can talk to some of the people affected by the storm. Sir, what do you think of the storm?" "Well, it's snowing all right. Not as big as the Blizzard of '78 though."
"And that seems to be the consensus, Chet, that this storm doesn't measure up to the Blizzard of '78. Back to you, Chet."
"Thanks, Natalie, now let's go out to New Bedford where Cynthia is standing by, Cynthia how's the situation there?"
"Well, Chet, as you can see, it's still snowing. There goes a snow plow..."
and so on, hour after hour.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Okay
Oh boy!
But, wait a minute, wait a minute. Only ONE of those is green. The other one is clearly red and yellow.
Somebody is trying to pull something over on you guys!
Glad I caught it in time. Did you keep the receipt?
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Public service announcement...
For any of you who happen to have any old, unprocessed Kodachrome films sitting around:
As you may know, Kodachrome – the best color positive film ever made – is no longer made. Kodak even discontinued processing it some time last year or the year before. There is only one place on the planet that can still process it and it will discontinue doing so on December 30, 2010.
So if you have any unprocessed films, get them out and send them off or lose them.
They have to be in to Dwayne's Photo by 12 noon on Dec. 30. (http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/)
We have some old sound movies and slides we will be sending off.
We knew about this early in the year and forgot about it. Now it's crunch time.
As you may know, Kodachrome – the best color positive film ever made – is no longer made. Kodak even discontinued processing it some time last year or the year before. There is only one place on the planet that can still process it and it will discontinue doing so on December 30, 2010.
So if you have any unprocessed films, get them out and send them off or lose them.
They have to be in to Dwayne's Photo by 12 noon on Dec. 30. (http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/)
We have some old sound movies and slides we will be sending off.
We knew about this early in the year and forgot about it. Now it's crunch time.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Morning After...
No, seriously, you folks on the West Coast actually put Jerry Brown back in the State House?
Really?
I guess I've been out of touch. I didn't even take his candidacy seriously.
What can I say. Massachusetts kept Barney Frank!
Almost, not quite, but almost single handedly responsible (in the House) for the mortgage collapse, et al.
(But he was scared.)
Was he a gracious winner? No. He was cranky that he had to run. Still defending his record. Still attacking his opponent in his acceptance speech!
We returned our governor.
I didn't like him when he started but he got better with age. The other candidates didn't offer much. The Republican was a big time business guy with lots of money but didn't come to the table with much to offer. The main Independent had broken from the governor. I kind of liked him because he had four daughters who he used in his ads and he marched in Pepperell's parade but that isn't enough reason to vote for someone. But even when things went south he still decided to spend another 4 million dollars on a losing cause. That doesn't sound fiscally responsible.
We elected the first female State Auditor in state history. But we elected the one supported by the unions, action commmittees, and lobbyists over the one who refused donations from those groups and said the auditor should be the eyes of the people and not beholding to any group or organization. Of course we did. Every newspaper in the state endorsed the candidate who lost because she was the better candidate, had the better record, had the better qualifications. She just wasn't part of the political machine in this state.
The state of Massachusetts REPEALED the sales tax on liquor! Moses.
100 million plus, gone!
Guess where that's going to come from.
(If you guessed, out of the corrupt pensions and spending on Beacon Hill, guess again.)
We apparently voted to get keep the law that makes it easier for developers to build what they want, where they want, under the guise of sticking a few "low income" housing units in for show, without having to go through the permit-by-permit review process that provided checks and balances. Goodbye wetlands.
And they voted not to reduce the sales tax. Well of course they did, because the idiots who proposed the bill wanted to reduce it from 6.25% to 3%! If they had proposed going from 6.25% back to 5%, where it was until last year, it probably would have passed. Beacon Hill, of course, will see this as a mandate to spend more, and that the people support higher taxes so they can.
I was ready to get rid of our Congressman, Olver. He seems nice enough, but he's been in too long and doesn't do much of anything (probably the secret of keeping his job!). For that matter, Pepperell was ready for a change too, but he represents more than Pepperell and was returned yet again. I don't hate him, I was just ready for a change.
In Idaho, a fellow that Stephie used to baby sit his kids for, Keith Allred, came in second place, in the governor's race, with 31% of the vote.
And that's the election update!
Really?
I guess I've been out of touch. I didn't even take his candidacy seriously.
What can I say. Massachusetts kept Barney Frank!
Almost, not quite, but almost single handedly responsible (in the House) for the mortgage collapse, et al.
(But he was scared.)
Was he a gracious winner? No. He was cranky that he had to run. Still defending his record. Still attacking his opponent in his acceptance speech!
We returned our governor.
I didn't like him when he started but he got better with age. The other candidates didn't offer much. The Republican was a big time business guy with lots of money but didn't come to the table with much to offer. The main Independent had broken from the governor. I kind of liked him because he had four daughters who he used in his ads and he marched in Pepperell's parade but that isn't enough reason to vote for someone. But even when things went south he still decided to spend another 4 million dollars on a losing cause. That doesn't sound fiscally responsible.
We elected the first female State Auditor in state history. But we elected the one supported by the unions, action commmittees, and lobbyists over the one who refused donations from those groups and said the auditor should be the eyes of the people and not beholding to any group or organization. Of course we did. Every newspaper in the state endorsed the candidate who lost because she was the better candidate, had the better record, had the better qualifications. She just wasn't part of the political machine in this state.
The state of Massachusetts REPEALED the sales tax on liquor! Moses.
100 million plus, gone!
Guess where that's going to come from.
(If you guessed, out of the corrupt pensions and spending on Beacon Hill, guess again.)
We apparently voted to get keep the law that makes it easier for developers to build what they want, where they want, under the guise of sticking a few "low income" housing units in for show, without having to go through the permit-by-permit review process that provided checks and balances. Goodbye wetlands.
And they voted not to reduce the sales tax. Well of course they did, because the idiots who proposed the bill wanted to reduce it from 6.25% to 3%! If they had proposed going from 6.25% back to 5%, where it was until last year, it probably would have passed. Beacon Hill, of course, will see this as a mandate to spend more, and that the people support higher taxes so they can.
I was ready to get rid of our Congressman, Olver. He seems nice enough, but he's been in too long and doesn't do much of anything (probably the secret of keeping his job!). For that matter, Pepperell was ready for a change too, but he represents more than Pepperell and was returned yet again. I don't hate him, I was just ready for a change.
In Idaho, a fellow that Stephie used to baby sit his kids for, Keith Allred, came in second place, in the governor's race, with 31% of the vote.
And that's the election update!
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