Mark Byron

It's All in the Spices

Here's an odd story about a Cleveland mass-murderer; the mayor's niece and he were an item.

Residents of the area near the home said they had noted a smell in the neighborhood, but assumed it was from nearby Ray's Sausage Company.

Asked whether she had noticed a foul odor, [Lori] Frazier told WOIO, "Yeah, I smelled stuff, but he always told me that -- at first he said it was his stepmother downstairs. And then I guess after she left, he told me that it was Ray's Sausage."

In Fried Green Tomatoes, it was "all in the sauce." Next door, it must be all in the spices, since you don't want to know what goes into either sausages and laws.

Elmo's a Girl!

Here's an interesting piece on the young lady, Jessica Miller, who plays Elmo in the touring Sesame Street Live, which is hitting Rupp Arena this weekend. She doesn't get to talk, since they use pre-recorded voices they lip-synch to on stage and are supposed to be mute when they're off-stage but in costume-

But even in personal meet-and-greets, the kids don't seem to mind an uncharacteristically silent Elmo. Miller said they never seemed to question when they are told that Elmo is resting his voice in preparation for the big show.

However, her cheerleading background might come in handy, as Elmo loves to bounce, as anyone who has dealt with a Tickle Me Elmo knows.

She might need to be careful about not going to the bathroom while in character. One of my female church friends from Akron used to do Barney for kid's parties. When she went into the woman's room in costume, a crushed young boy exclaimed "Barney's a GIRL!"

Three or Four Degrees of Seperation

Two odd little stories from today. One was from lunch; the waitress was the granddaughter of my 7th grade geography teacher... in Midland. We're in Lexington, KY, a good 500 miles away, but the young lady is going to UK after growing up in Lansing.

Another interesting story was Eileen asking me to look into a horse that a friend's family owns; this being horsey country, it's not that odd to be a person or two removed from the racing industry. The horse in question was a filly named Dr. Zic who was supposed to be running at Keeneland (Lexington's race track) during their fall meet.

I find that she's riding in the 8th race on the 14th, ridden by a C H Borel.... is that the Calvin Borel of Triple Crown fame? It seems so, since H is his middle initial and it's unlikely that two CH Borels are floating around horse racing.

One step away from my old Geography teacher (who passed on in the 90s as it turns out) and four steps away from Bo-Rail. Interesting

Side Effects of Tourism

This ad aired during the UK-Louisville game last Saturday and is worth a watch; it's from Louisville's tourism people and is a great spoof on those ED ads. Even if it is enemy territory from a UK fan's perspective, it's a great ad.

If that doesn't give you a chuckle, you haven't waded through all those WTMI ED ads that plaster the airways.

#1 in Lusaka

I have in-laws in Zambia, so any Zambian story catches my attention.

It seems that their president, Rupiah Banda, was having a press conference on the grounds of their State House under some shady trees that monkeys inhabited. One of those monkeys was, ahem, very relieved to have the president serving under him.

Well, that's not going to happen again, at least not with monkeys; they've been banned by Banda and humanely moved elsewhere.

"It's a bird, it's a plane... splat... it's a bird... no, it's a monkey."

Faculty Center Humor

The knee-replacement surgeon asked "What's a nice joint like you doing in a guy like this?"

_____________

Overheard in the math teacher's lounge.

"What's the square route of -1 divided by the square root of 64?"
" i over 8."
"Well, don't go back for seconds next time."

From the "You're Growing Old" File

I was thumbing through this Detroit Free Press story on Central Michigan football recruits, and found the name of a defensive back the Chips have been courting named Shaquille Jefferson.

Shaq is now old enough to have college recruits named after him. He started his NBA career in 1992, seventeen years ago, long enough to have a sport-savvy family name a kid after him and grow to be a high school senior.

Time does fly.

A Mile North of 8 Mile

Here's an interesting passage on a AP story on a gas tanker catching fire on I-75 in Hazel Park north of Detroit.

The tanker was on Interstate 75 about 10 miles north of downtown Detroit when it exploded beneath the 9 Mile Road overpass about 8 p.m., [State Police Lt. Shannon] Sims said.

Given that 9 Mile is nine miles from downtown by definition, they would be exactly nine miles from downtown Detroit. That is "about 10 miles" but when the name of the street you're mentioning provides a more detailed description, go with it.

By the way, for Enimem fans, that's a mile north of 8 Mile. 

 

Riding Bareback

Here's a hyperlink from Drudge-of-the-North Bourque; for my readers in Wachula, PC stands for Progressive Conservative (the Ontario party still uses the Progressive modifier) and a riding is a Parliament district:

SHOCKER: BARRIE ONT PC RIDING ASS.
DISSOLVED AFTER GANG SEX ASSAULT CHARGES

Well, that's one way to describe what they were doing.

Fractured Sports Tales

"Thumb Injury Forces Creamer out of Jamie Farr." That has to be messy, hacking up stuff all over the table. My questions is how the coffee stayed down and the creamer came up. Maybe Klinger likes to drink creamer straight.

"Sources: Mavs, Knicks ready offers for Kidd." I'm having Blues Brothers flashbacks-"How much for ze women? How much for just ze kid?"

Ms. Car Loan Will Be His Assistant

"Van Loan mulling Ontario PC leadership bid." Of course the provincial Liberals will consider this Van Loan sub-prime.

Mr. Van Loan declined to comment yesterday, and instead expressed his disappointment that Mr. Tory is leaving politics.

Hey, the Conservatives literally had Mr. Tory (John Tory leading the Tories, straight up), now they can get the personification of modern consumer culture. Had he come a couple of generations sooner, you could have seen Social Credit headed by Mr. Van Loan.

Canada Beats Up on Yankees

Yes, 6-0 in a World Baseball Classic tune-up. After the whole country ganged up on Toronto, they flooded south of the border and took on New York. At least the Jays put up a better fight; the Canucks lit up Joba Chamberlain like a Christmas tree, chasing him without his recording an out.

The US just beat New York the other day; Canada was merely following their lead.

"Here I Sit, Brokenhearted...."

... paid my dime and only farted." was the childhood ditty from the pay toilet era in the US. Yes, there were more off color versions that substituted something more scatological for "paid my dime", but a reference of the silent-but-deadlies maxes out my poor-taste quota for the day. However, pay toilets were phased out in the US in the 70s, making the old ditty anachronistic.

Until now, that is. European budget airline Ryanair is playing with the idea of bringing back the pay toilet-

"One thing we have looked at in the past, and are looking at again, is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door, so that people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny in future," [Ryan CEO Michael O'Leary] told the BBC.

I had my Britishism list expanded by one; "spend a penny" is a Britishism for what COBOL programmers call "performing Subroutine Potty" (since they can't use Go To statements).

The Church Closing List

We're getting a bit of snow this morning here in Lexington; not enough to scare off this expatriate Michigander from bopping down the road to church, but enough to make life difficult for some folks in smaller towns, where hilly rural roads can be hard to move around in winter weather. Thus, I was thumbing through the closing list from our CBS TV station and making a few comments in my mind about some church names.

Dry Run Baptist-You talk about practicing Catholics; some Baptists need practice, too.
Gentile Baptist Winchester-We'd really start to freak if we saw Jewish Baptist
Happy Freewill Baptist-Hazard-As opposed to all those glum ones who are still looking to get poor William sprung from prison.
Lick Fork Missionary Baptist-The food must be good at the potlucks. Not quite finger-lickin' good, but close.
Midway United Methodist-One of the few mainliners that are upfront about being mugwumps on the issues of the day. (FYI-Midway is a Lexington exurb)
Mud Lick Church of God- Really down-to-earth folks
Republican Christian - Harrison Co. - Good that they're upfront about their politics.

Woodstock Baptist-Somerset -Well, if it gets the aging boomers into church, so be it. However, they might have a different take on what pot luck is.

[Update 1:42-Republican Christian has an interesting history as it turns out-

Republican Christian Church was originally organized by Elder Barton W. Stone, about the year 1814-15.  A log church was built in 1816 on the ground where Republican Church now stands.  The New-Lights, as they were called, met there to worship occasionally until 1835, when the Christian Church proper was organized by Elder John Robards[.]

If you know church history, Barton Stone's name rings a bell, for he was one of the founders of the movement that gave us the Disciples of Christ and non-instrumental Churches of Christ. I didn't realize until now that the Cane Ridge revival that Stone led that kicked off the movement was not too far NE of Lexington or from Republican Christian.]

20-F Wheelchair Basketball and McDonalds Barge

A couple of semi-random thoughts from my FIN 510 class tonight.

The main annual report companies have to file with the SEC is the 10-K form. However, foreign companies whose stocks are trading in the US file a 20-F form. When one of my students drew a blank when she was looking for Frontline's 10-K, I had to introduce her to 20-F, but wasn't 100% sure I had the alphanumeric right.

20-F mnemonic- wheelchair basketball team. Five 4-F guys=20-F. Thank you, thank you; I'll be here all quarter.

_________________

The other vignette that came out was a story told by one of my older students; McDonalds was one of the companies that got the five-forces model treatment in tonight's class and he had a story about a McDonalds barge that was moored on the Mississippi in St. Louis near the Gateway Arch. His son thought that the arch was there to mark where the McDonalds was, as did a good hunk of the church youth group the student was in charge of. That's the kind of marketing clout Ronald and the gage have.

Yes, there was such a critter, from 1980-2000. Take Tatoo to eat there, and he'd say "De Barge, De Barge."

Under the Grandstands by Seymore Butts

Who says they don't read the classics in Kentucky?

Police in Mayfield have arrested a middle school teacher after he was seen under some bleachers allegedly photographing beneath cheerleaders' skirts.

The Paducah Sun reported 51-year-old Steve L. McCuiston of Murray was charged with voyeurism, eavesdropping, disorderly conduct and evidence tampering.

When Googling for the title, I noted an "adult" movie director took on SB as his nom-de-guerre; I won't dignify it with a link.

Next on the reading list, Race to the Outhouse by Willie Makit, illustrated by Betty Wondt and the Asian classic Brown Spots on the Wall by Hu Flung Dung.

Bong County

It only seems like that's what Washtenaw County (home of Ann Arbor) should be called. An old EMU joke was "Why are folks in Ypsilanti so happy? They get a contact high from being downwind from Ann Arbor." Michael Phelps used to train there, so some of that culture may well have rubbed off.

However, the title comes from a part of Liberia which is getting overrun by caterpillars. The country is just recovering from a nasty civil war and doesn't need this, to be sure.

Fly By Night

We're back in Lexington; I'm still recovering from bronchitis and have to start back teaching this evening.

We spent the Sunday morning before Christmas visiting at NE Houston Baptist just down the street from my in-laws house. Like Pastor Dave at Victory Baptist, NEHBC's pastor is a blogger as well. I can't vouch for his preaching (he was gone the day we were there), but he seems to blog well at least.

He's doing the story of the Ark with his young kids here...

Me: Campbell, what is an example of a kind of a bird that could have gone into the ark? 

Campbell: 7 hawks

Me: What else? maybe 7 falcons, 7 cardinals, . . .

Colton: 7 Raiders

Tonight, I was the one that learned the lesson: don't do family devotions during halftime of the Falcons-Cardinals playoff game.

Especially if you wind up getting an eye-wig (would that be a visual ear-wig?) of those Capital One barbarians, pick-axes and shields in tow, trooping up Noah's ramp.

We're #1 in #2

I had a stoner wander into my apartment earlier in the year at 6AM on a Sunday via an unlocked front door. This story is almost as weird; a 4-year-old gets up in the middle of the night, breaks containment at home, walks across the street to a Family Dollar, finds an unlocked door and starts playing with toys inside.

The perp was released to relatives. My mind is running the faux Law and Order episode on this one, maybe as a SNL skit with the cast coming along to do the case in person.

____________________

I wasn't able to Google it, but I recall a George Carlin skit about a drug buy gone sour, where the seller has "the s**t" and the slang-challenged would-be buyer is puzzled and intrigued at the package of high-quality manure: "That must be some really good s**t."

Fast forward to the news page, where a shipment of Peruvian guano to Spain is busted; it included three tons of cocaine. A crack Peruvian investigative unit did it job well.

Cocaine is arguably Columbia's #1 export, but it's clearly Peru's #2 export.

Santa Humor

A few groaners I conjured up at an office Christmas party this afternoon.

What's Santa's native language? North Polish

What's Santa's favorite basketball team? The Nicks

What's Santa's favorite Kentucky town? Nicholasville.

What's Santa's favorite part of the Constitution? The Elastic Clause, especially after all those cookies.... and cheese.

Hitler and the Average American

Two statistical truths
(1) roughly half of Americans have IQs below the median
(2) the average American has 1.0 testicles, as did Hitler per this article.

Smoothies

Growing up, a standard put down for a klutzy act was "Smooth move, Ex-Lax. What do you do for an encore?"

Given that, I had to LOL in the aisle of Meijer when I saw an actual Smooth Move laxative tea. This isn't April 1st, folks.

Organic Smooth Move® Senna provides gentle, overnight relief from occasional constipation. Senna leaf promotes bowel movement by direct action on the intestine.* A single serving provides an effective dose of sennosides from senna leaf, which have proven stimulant laxative action. We include additional digestive support with fennel, orange peel, cinnamon, coriander and ginger to ease discomfort and reduce cramping.

Everybody sing the jingle for radio station WTMI. Well, unless you're a 12-year-old of various ages.

Bad Career Move in 3, 2, 1 ......

This picture reminds me of my post on spiritual warfare from last year. Only the young and foolish believers will look to mess with the Devil.

We generally have enough problems that we don't need to pick up extra fights. We'll encounter Ol' Sloughfoot enough naturally where we don't need to egg him on. Don't mess with Sasquatch or Basement Cat.

Canada isn't Canadian

"Canada Stunned by trade to TiCats." Did they give up New Zealand and a colony to be named later?

The headline makes since once you know that it is defensive lineman Tom Canada getting sent to Hamilton.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers' import defensive end was left shaken and confused after being traded to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for import middle linebacker Zeke Moreno, the CFL's leading tackler.

Here's a funny part. "Import" in CFL-ese technically means folks who've played football outside of Canada pre-age-17, but that effectively translates to "American;" teams are limited as to how many imports they can have, currently 20 plus any QBs.

That means that Canada isn't Canadian.

Ethnic Frictions in the Northeast

Here's an interesting story out of Boston.

Two days of rioting between Polish and Brazilian ethnic groups finally came to a halt after the triggering misunderstanding at a local meat market was resolved. The violence started when a gang of Brazilian youths shouting "Death to Polka!" and "Viva Bossa Nova!" attacked a patron of Polish descent.

One of the youths had come into the market earlier as the victim was ordering some Polish sausage. The youth hollered at the patron, turned around, and got four of his friends.

The manager of the meat market, Steve Chickowski, said "I hollered to the guy, 'What do you want?' He said 'Kielbasa!' Then that Brazilian kid hollers 'You'll pay for that' and storms out."

Seven stores were damaged and twelve people were hospitalized before local Catholic priests were able to calm the passions of both communities down.

There no telling what a soccer mom would do if she brought her kid in while he was ordering a bratwurst.

Kyoto the Dog

I didn't know this until today; Liberal party boss Stephane Dion has a husky named Kyoto; here's a Montreal Gazette piece from 2006 with a picture of Dion and Kyoto; "On this day, Kyoto is so excited to see his master he refuses to sit still for a Gazette photographer." Dion was the environment minister under the last Liberal government and has tried to tap into that issue with a "Green Shift" energy tax plan.

Kyoto the Dog......that's a straight line dying to be used. Any suggestions from the Peanut Gallery?

[Update 9/16-The Tories have beat me to it. Kyoto has a faux-blog up on their Dion-bashing page. They no longer have the puffin leaving his calling card on Dion's shoulder.]

Cashing In

We're already seeing the ads roll in for the Olympic stars; Michael Phelps is doing Frosted Flakes, much to the chagrin of the food police, gymnastics all-around champ Nastia Liukin is doing Wheaties, and US Track and Field gets a new sponsor, Butterfinger.

Nosing Around

I remember a scene from the first Crocodile Dundee movie, where Mick finds a guy snorting a line of coke in the kitchen of the restaurant; he proceeds to "help" the guy and get a bowl of hot water and a big towel and pour the smack into the bowl as a family remedy. He then instructs the flabbergasted waiter to breathe in the vapors.

On a more serious note .... Salt water nose drops are an old-school antibiotic; both bacteria and viruses hate a saline environment and get killed off if they're soaking in really salty water. It's one of the few things that a virus will respond to, since they don't respond to antibiotics and antivirals are usually saved for pneumonia-type life-of-death infections, since antivirals often have a lot of side-effects.

That's been a family remedy in my family for decades. You can get sophisticated and buy packaged saline solution with a mini-baster from the drug store, or just grab a handful of Morton's best, stir it into a glass of hot tap water, put a representative amount in the palm of your hand, place under nose and snort. It's not elegant, but it's effective.

Bono's getting ripped for using that "strange" salt-water solution here, per singer Danny O'Donoghue-

"Myself and Bono share a vocal coach. Whenever the high notes aren't feeling that high or in the morning you're groggy, you snort salt water up your nose.

"It cleans out cavities, it's a natural antiseptic for your throat."

It may not clean out dental cavities, but it will clean out your sinuses. I'm not a singer, but I know if I have too much phlegm in my system, I do a great Barry White imitation.

Three Questions

What's the difference between Smokey Robinson, the housing bill and Todd Bentley? Smokey was a performing Miracle, the housing bill "won't perform miracles" per Chris Dodd and .... Bentley .... well, .... is at least more entertaining than the housing bill.

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Why do Brett Farve's cars always wind up getting flats? They never quite get re-tired. However, it could prove to be a blessing in disguise for the Packers if they can weasel a draft pick or two out of Tampa Bay or the Jets.

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What's the difference between selling your opponent Park Place when he owns Boardwalk and the FCC actions today allowing the Sirius-XM merger? One is a dumb move that will be regretted later and the other just creates a monopoly, although I can't quite tell which is which.

Eats Shoots, Leaves and Grills

I recall a scene from National Lampoon's Vacation, where the family dog is tied to the back of the car for a picnic stop, then they forget to untie him as the go back on the highway. A state trooper tracks them down to let them know what they did, "Poor little guy. Must have kept up with you for a mile or so." I'll use that line during March Madness when a high seed manages to hang with the national power for five or ten minutes before things revert to form and the blowout ensues.

We have a more interesting story from Down Under, where a koala got caught in the front grill of a car. The little feller is OK.

Well, the front part of a locomotive is called the cow-catcher; shall we rechristen the front car grill as the koala-catcher?