A Secret Revealed

Mr. Possum has an alter ego

I'm surprised it wasn't grilled squirrel, but a secret ID isn't worth much if you can't throw them off the scent.

Busy Busy Busy

Not cleaning for Passover, of course. That's for last minuting like usual. I do, however, have the perfect retelling of the Passover experience for this modern age:

The 2010 Facebook Haggadah

Enjoy whilst you eat your leavened or unleavened bread!

Project Management

I'm posting this everywhere. Courtesy of Rick Brookhiser over at National Review:

The Six Stages of a Project

1. Enthusiasm

2. Disillusionment

3. Panic

4. The Search for the Guilty

5. The Punishment of the Innocent

6. Praise and Honor to Non-Participants

This describes so many, many of the projects I have been involved with. I'm thinking I should add it to the planning documents of every project I am part of.

In other news

I saw this headline on ESPN.com

Top two females are sole Horse of Year finalists

and couldn't help thinking it was about time Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker got the recognition they deserve.

I have a question

about this photo:

Swiss daredevil Yves Rossy...

The caption reads:

Swiss daredevil Yves Rossy, seen here flying in May 2008, will attempt to cross the English Channel next week, propelled by a jet-powered wing strapped to his back, an aide said.

Since when do daredevils need Aides? This whole seat-of-the-pants thing has gotten more corporate than I ever expected.

Soviet Jokes

Apparently a running theme was going on in one of the blogs over at National Review - old Commie jokes. I liked this one:

The express train is running from Warsaw to Legnica (site of a big Soviet Airforce Base in the communist years) when it suddenly jumps the tracks and runs off into the woods. After a while going through the woods, it returns to the tracks and somehow gets back on. The conductor goes up to the engineer and says, "What are you, nuts? Running off into the woods like that." The engineer replies, "There was a Russian general standing on the tracks." The conductor berates him, "Then why didn't you just run the #%$$^%$ over?" to which the engineer replies, "That's just it, he ran into the woods."

I sense a whole area of humor I need to get familiar with.

Word Invention

Terry sent me this link from Iowahawk the other day, where the good Raptor describes his brief visit to Postville, IA and the surprising accumulation of Orthodox Jews floating around that end of Flyover Country. I've known about this group for a while - they've established a major kosher meatpacking plant out there, presumably to be closer to the cows.



In any event, I mentioned to Terry that there's a book out called Boychicks in the Hood, in which author Robert Eisenberg describes his visit out there to see the Jews in Iowa. Which led me to coin what I think is a new term to describe noticeably Orthodox Jews living in rural parts of America:



Hayseedic: adj. - pertaining to or describing an ultra-Orthodox person living and working in traditionally rural, non-Jewish areas of the United States. cf. RebNeck, Yankel Reb.

In Honor of the Day

A classic. One I'd never seen, actually.

Just as I was thinking

there wasn't anything to blog about, a gift from the fourth estate:



Fox reality show roils Texas town



Here's what I consider the critical part of the story:

"One of the last sacred grounds of integrity in local television is the local newsroom, so I guess I would say I'm disappointed to see a station, much less one in our own community, that has evidently sold its integrity," said Brad Streit, vp and GM for KLTV-TV, the ABC affiliate in Tyler.



Adds KETK-TV GM Mike DeLier of the NBC affiliate: "I see this as a stunt, and it's a self-admitted stunt and not a journalistic endeavor."



Al Tompkins, broadcast group leader for the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., is more blunt: "It devalues the work of real journalists who are trying to do real work. It doesn't do anything to help the reputation of journalists there and around the world."

No one, I repeat no one, but a group of journalists could refer to integrity, selling out, and journalism in the same breath without laughing hysterically. I give the GM of the participating station credit - he acknowledges the tawdriness of his profession, and is being honest. The rest of them just demonstrate the hackdom that is now their bread & butter. I suspect the other GMs are just mad they didn't think of it first.



In its own peculiar way, this restores my faith in America just a little.

Purim Roundup

I finally have some time to talk about what was a truly spectacular success with Mishloach Manot this year. Mrs. says the idea was hers, but I don't think she's entirely correct. Both of us certainly contributed to the execution, so either way we both deserve credit.

It was truly a fabulous idea, and it all began simply enough two and a half years ago with a brief conversation with our then new neighbor...

Neighbor, you see, works for the Orthodox Union - one of the main kashruth supervising agencies in the world, certainly in North America. As one of their food

supervisors, he goes around certifying various products and manufacturing facilities. One of the tiny perks of his position are many rolls of kosher tape - like the big rolls of "caution" or "police line tape, only it's sticky and it says "the enclosed product is kosher unless the seal is tampered."

Now, whichever of us thought of it asked neighbor for a roll of the tape (which they had used to seal moving boxes) for some Purim deviltry. The idea was to apply kosher tape to a food product, or simulation of one, that would not normally be kosher.

Like, say, a McDonald's bag with a cheeseburger inside?

Indeed.

So was born an idea that it took us two years to execute - we just couldn't get it together in time for Purim before. But this year, Mrs. happens to have a cake decorating magazine with directions for something called candy clay. You take candy melts, add corn syrup, and Presto! - a moldable hunk of chocolate. Said magazine also contained instructions for? A BBQ grill, including burgers and hot dogs, made entirely out of candy.

How fortuitous.

Add the idea of yellow-chocolate dipped pretzels, Drake's apple pies, and a visit to a faraway Golden Arches to secure the bags and...

Well, look at the pictures and you'll see the results:

The Burger, assembled
Y'want fries with that?
Three essential food groups
Open bag, with press release visible
And the deal, sealed

So, that's the deal. There were several pieces that would have put this into the stratosphere of legendary Shalach Manot - a happy meal toy inside (considered from Oriental Trading, but shipping would have been more than the toy itself), and as a friend pointed out, me in a visor & MickeyD's shirt delivering it, but I think we did pretty well all considered.

No, I will not try & top this next year. We're going back to simple, I think.

Oh, this is comical

for so many reasons.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Bishop Lord Daniel the Infinite of Tempting St Mary Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I'd be concerned for the theological implications, except for the fact that the C of E doesn't really believe in God any more, does it?

Many thanks to Jordana for the link.

Fun with Headlines

How easy can they make these? A nice fat one down the middle of the plate:

Georgia accuses 4 Russians of spying

What do you suppose they were spying on? The Coke museum? Peach Production? Silly peanut farmers? Surely not the UGA Cheerleaders page, which is sadly underpictured?

I don't normally

participate in these sorts of things, but this one seemed too good to pass up:

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Your fate has been decided....
You are one of the lucky ones! Because of your virtue and beliefs, you have escaped eternal punishment. You are sent to Purgatory!

Purgatory

You have escaped damnation and made it to Purgatory, a place where the dew of repentance washes off the stain of sin and girds the spirit with humility. Through contrition, confession, and satisfaction by works of righteousness, you must make your way up the mountain. As the sins are cleansed from your soul, you will be illuminated by the Sun of Divine Grace, and you will join other souls, smiling and happy, upon the summit of this mountain. Before long you will know the joys of Paradise as you ascend to the ethereal realm of Heaven.

Well, that's one less thing to worry about.

AVAST AND BELAY YE!

For sure, t'isn't it Talk Like a Pirate Day, ye bilge rat and barnacle scraper!



Hoist your main sail or be scuppered, ye scurvy dog!

Even if

you're not much of a fan of South Park, I highly recommend the episode they re-aired last night on Comedy Central, ManBearPig. (Wikipedia description here.)

Aside from the usual gross ending (which as a guy I found pretty funny anyway), the episode was a lovely, beautiful, entertaining skewer of Al Gore. I enjoyed myself immensely.

Mr. Possum notes

over on his own blog-type place that ABC (All BS Communication) is asking viewers and computer surfers to tell them stories of how Global Warming is affecting them directly. Leaving aside the scientific problems with ABC's perception, well handled by Terry, it made me think of how beings actually affected by our planet's horrid downward spiral towards fiery destruction might respond.

So I present...

GLOBAL WARMING HORROR STORIES!!!!*

"Yeah, umm, hi, am I on? Yeah, so, I was just wandering along, minding my own business, y'know, eating a few prey, stomping around. I mean, y'know, dinosaur things, right? Then, outta nowhere, WHAM! this huge freakin' meteor comes flying down and BOOOOOM!, there's like clouds and dust and ash and stuff everywhere, right? So, like, overnight, there's no sun, the plants are dyin', and there's less things around to eat. And now, like, the government is turning ME into fossil fuel. Can you believe it? They're like, we all have to evolve, there's no problem, meantime all my cousins are lying in tar pits waiting to get found by Multinational bloodsucking Exxon or whatever. There's no justice."

Alternatively:

"Hi, I'm Gus, I'm a woolly Mammoth. I used to be able to wander around, stomp a few neanderthals, roll around in the mud, that kind of thing. Now, I'm just hot all the time. The humans want me to think it's just the natural cycle of our planet's existence, but I know this is all because Grak is in the pocket of the business interests. They just want to sell more animal pelts, and who cares what happens to the rest of us."

So there you have it. Global warming from those who know.

* All content is the exclusive property of ABC Cretacious Associates; no compensation will be provided to subjects we edit beyond recognition who never said what we make them say. Nyah Nyah Nyah.