Not All of Us

Another recent Overheard in New York where a Minnesotan causes everyone to wonder what's in the water up here.

Waiter from Minnesota: Yeah, check it out! Minnesota is the 2nd healthiest-eating state!
Bartender from Brooklyn: What do you eat in Minnesota?
Waiter: Well, there are a lot of Scandinavians there so we eat like, you know, sandwiches.
Bartender: (silence)
Waiter: What?
Bartender: You're actually serious, aren't you?

--Greenwich Ave & 7th Ave

Well, I am sure it isn't the lutefisk that makes us healthy.

My standard disclaimer: Some language on the ONY site can be offensive and may be blocked by some public WiFi sites, like the one I am working at right now.

Great Comeback

I've been saving this from Overheard in New York until I needed something and couldn't think of anything. I found this a quick and to the point comeback...

Rude famous guy: Do you know who I am?!
Waitress: No... But I know your type...

--Blue Water Grill, Union Square

Note: Just a warning. Some public WiFi setups (like the one where I am now,) do not allow viewing of Overheard in New York. Sometimes X-rated for language.

Election Year Fun

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

It makes scary sense- which I guess is what satire is supposed to do.

News Check

Finally. I've been on the edge of my seat waiting for this one:

GENEVA (AFP) - An international standard for tomatoes has been adopted, ending about seven years of intense debates between countries on what qualifies as a proper tomato.

According to the new standard, tomatoes may come in one of four varieties: round, ribbed, oblong or elongated, or cherry tomatoes and cocktail tomatoes.

They must be whole, clean, free from foreign smell, free of pests and fresh in appearance.

I'm surprised this one isn't from Wisconsin:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A sculpture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence made from a one-tonne block of cheddar cheese glistened on the sidewalk of Times Square in New York on Thursday as an artist's tribute to the Fourth of July.

And I'm on this guy's side. He has a good idea going. (It may be a surprise to many who know me, but in my current job the coat and tie are standard dress.)

MADRID (AFP) - A revolt was brewing in Spain's cabinet Thursday as members refused to wear ties in parliament, aiming to save energy and fight global warming by removing the need for the air conditioning to be turned up.

And finally, this bit of musical news. Actually it shouldn't comes as a surprise. They didn't have showers in those days that do the same thing with our singing today.

Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests.

Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there.

Been There- Got the T-Shirt

As an alumnus of Cornerstone Music Festivals for several years in the heat of central Illinois I felt the pain of this from Jessica at Indexed.com.

Joe Cocker Translated

One of the great performances at the original Woodstock was Joe Cocker's rendition of With a Little Help From My Friends. Well some people have had difficulty understanding what Joe was singing. Fortunately someone has now given us a sub-titled translation. It is FUN.

You Can't Make These Up

Once again proving the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Amsterdam police say 15 camels, two zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied swine briefly escaped from a traveling Dutch circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage.

I have always known there was something anti-social about an animal that kept its head so far up in the air.

Link to Live Science

Nerds Fighting Back?

Well, sometimes T-shirts are almost as good as bumper stickers. Saw one the other night. On the front it announced that the wearer was a member of the National Honor Society at their school. We all know what that means. The person is smart, has a high school GPA in the B+/A- range, and is involved in all kinds of activities. And did I say they were smart?

Which, in our prejudicial way would mean that the person is probably a nerd of some type or another. Maybe even a musician- a band geek? But we know the type. Spending Friday and Saturday nights studying or reading or some such nerdy activity.

Then you look at the back of the T-shirt as they walk by. There you read:

If there was a GPA for cool, we'd have a 4.1

Cool.

(Disclaimer: I was a member of NHS in high school a generation ago. No GPA reported.)

I Can Hardly Wait

The Great Minnesota Get-Together, aka the State Fair, is known for its large number of foods on a stick menu. Every year they seek to outdo themselves. So, are you ready for this?...?...?

Pig Lickers.-- Chocolate covered bacon with added (!) sea salt.

If that is too, how shall we say, over the top, then try just plain old....

Big Fat Bacon.-- One-third pound of bacon, fried and caramelized with maple syrup. Needless to say it is served on a stick.

If you aren't into bacon there's always...

A Pickle Pop.-- Nothing more than good old frozen pickle juice frozen in a push-up sleeve.

Anybody for seconds?

Hey, You. Read This!

From Live Science last week:

Humans are fundamentally social animals. Our social nature means that we interact with each other in positive, friendly ways, and it also means we know how to manipulate others in a very negative way.

Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.

So, you finally realized it? It's about time. I've known this since you were too young to know anything. And now you make me think it's something new?

Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn’t get your snide remarks.

Finally I can point to a socially relevant reason for being a jerk.

For Help in Translations

In case you've ever wondered how animal sounds are different in foreign languages, I have just the link for you...Derek Abbott's Animal Noise Page.

Go there and you will discover that

• chickens in Spain don't go "cluck-cluck" they go caca-racá
• frogs in Russia don't croak (or ribbitt) they go kva-kva and
• pigs don't oink in Dutch they knor-knor.

Amazing, isn't it, how animals in different parts of the world learn different languages when I have enough trouble with English. ;)

What Are We? Swiss Cheese?

Overheard in New York has not been all that interesting in the past number of months. It has become an almost constant stream of sex-related stuff with people saying stupid and raunchy stuff. But every now and then one or two come along. As a Wisconsinite living in Minnesota now this one was fun. They must have seen the Packer fans on the frozen tundra....

Male cashier: "WI"? Which state is "WI"?
Female cashier: West Indies?
Male cashier: Okay. That makes sense.
Female cashier: No, wait, is it Wisconsin? Ha, it's totally Wisconsin.
Male cashier: Who cares, they're both really far away. Isn't Wisconsin on, like, the other side of the world?
Female cashier: No, dummy, Wisconsin is in this country.
Male cashier: Oh. I was never good at geography.

But don't worry. Local geography can get quite confusing as well. Just overhear this one...

Meter maid cop: Excuse me, can you tell me what street this is?
Woman: It's 25th... Aren't you supposed to know?!
Meter maid cop: Yeah, but sometimes we get lost.

But geography isn't the only problem. I was going to post this one in March but I missed it...

HS girl #1: What's that Friday right before Easter? I think it's Passover, right?
HS girl #2: Yo, you know Easter was created by the Easter Orthodox Church?

But, as always, the tourists are always the most fun. So we end on the Left Bank, or somewhere like that.

College girl #1: Which way to the Eiffel Tower?
Suit, puzzled, pointing East: That way?
College girl #2: How far is it?
Suit: ... About three thousand miles.
College girl #1: No! No! [Makes peak with fingertips of both hands.] The... Eiffel... Tower!
Suit: Yeah, that way about three thousand miles -- across the Atlantic Ocean -- in Paris.
College girl #2, also making peak with hands: No! No! It's a... It's a... The Empire State Building!
Suit, pointing at looming Empire State Building: The Empire State Building is right there.
College girl #2: You have to excuse us -- we're from Oregon.

• Just a quick note: The public WiFi at my coffee shop doesn't allow me to go to Overheard in New York. Which may only go to prove that they have become raunchy. Either that or the tourism board doesn't want to scare the tourists away with the fact that people listen in on conversations.

"News" You Probably Missed

The Lark News does for religious news what The Onion does for the rest of the information world. Without it we would never know about:

• After arguing with his brother for the third straight day during class time, Jared Francis, 10, was suspended from homeschool and banished to a backyard tent.


• Connection Metro Church, which used its foyer coffee bars to attract visitors to its eight satellite churches in the Denver area, has decided to abandon ministry altogether to focus on coffee. Many in the congregation seem downright relieved. "The sermons were okay, but the vanilla frappes were dynamite," says one woman who regularly attended the church for two years so she could enjoy the special brews.


• Minn. man found to be God’s favorite :: OWATONNA, Minn — Bill Halberstam, a 33-year-old human resources manager, has been identified by theologians as God’s new favorite person on the planet, the latest in a line that reaches all the way back to John the Beloved.

But lest you think it is all news, there are practical tools there are well including the beta version of their Lark News Lot Caster for those decisions that only God can make for you and for those busy Sunday mornings at church they have their exclusive Pew and Parking Reservations maker.

Now all they need is the menu for the coffee bar at your local church.

Warning! Warning!

Are you a paraskevidekatriaphobic?


If so you should have stayed in bed this morning. It means you are a person having a morbid, irrational, and otherwise wholly understandable fear of Friday the 13th.

No, not that Friday the 13th.

Today. The 13th day of the month, falling on a Friday.

Another Numerology Day

At least in these parts of the world where we do it month/day/year today is one of those days that happen in only 12% of the years of a century.

06/07/08

It won't happen for another 13 months and a day.

(Unless you use the European style of day/month/year when it isn't happening today but will in 29 days.)

Anyway, have a happy 06/07/08.

Moon Over the Netherlands

So as not to have anything serious posted today as we await the news later tonight or tomorrow, this one struck me as worthy of a few laughs. It seems like there were these three young gentlemen in Utrecht the Netherlands who were out for a few laughs. Oe of them is now recovering from his adventures.

Here's from Yahoo! News:

the man and two others had run down a street in Utrecht with their pants pulled down in the back "for a joke."

It says that at one point the 21-year-old "pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant" that broke and resulted in "deep wounds to his derriere."

As difficult as this may be to believe, I have nothing worth saying. In fact I can't even think of anything that wouldn't make me look like a bag of gas or, worse, have me make of myself an...

Or perhaps even a politician.

Now for Some News

Having soothed our thoughts with the quotes, I feel safer about moving into the news.

We start in Colorado where two unarmed robbers were photographed by a surveillance camera. They were well disguised wearing women's thongs and putting their loot into a pink backpack. The nose, mouth and chin were covered but the rest of their faces were not hidden at all.

Picture can be found at The Denver Post

Since I hope this is a family-friendly blog I will leave all snide, cynical, or other remarks for the privacy of your own mind. Oh yes, they were fully dressed from the neck down.

Oh, they even have a video of the bandits at work on the same page. Link.

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The following from Yahoo! News makes me wonder if Condi Rice is running for something. She is showing a new side to her.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The Kiss Army fan club has an enthusiastic new recruit: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In a departure from her normally staid diplomatic duties, Rice met the legendary glam rock quartet when they happened to share a hotel in the Swedish capital. Rice was in Stockholm on Thursday for an international conference on Iraq. Kiss had a sold-out gig to play on Friday.

And in case you think this is a Colbert-type story here is a picture from Wired to "prove" it.

--Wired
That is a scary picture, though. Not because of Condi Rice being there, but look at the band. No wonder they have to wear make-up.

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Over in the Middle East the Israeli's may have stirred up something new to worry about. For the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel they decided to name a national bird.

--Wikipedia
They chose theHoopoe or "Duchifat" in Hebrew. Well, according to Reuters:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The [bird] is listed in the Old Testament as unclean and forbidden food for Jews.

President Shimon Peres declared the pink, black and white-crested bird the winner of a competition timed to coincide with Israel's 60th anniversary. It beat out rivals such as the Yellow-vented Bulbul and the Palestine Sunbird.

Yellow-Vented Bulbul
Palestinian Sunbird

I can see why they chose the Hoopoe. It is a far more interesting looking bird, if nothing else.

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I have a hunch that office pools, or their non-office equivalents have been around a long time. I remember my parents talking about the World Series pool they would participate with friends at a local store. Well, it isn't just the wallet that's affected. It seems we don't like to be wrong in front of our peers so it's more than money at stake.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Office pools betting on who will win "American Idol" or the NCAA basketball tournament can be bad for your health and happiness, according to a new study.

Researchers from Arizona State University carried out four experiments involving about 850 students. They found that betting on the outcome actually reduced people's enjoyment of the event and could make them stressed.

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And finally, a bit of news for those of us approaching some over-the-hill milestone (or have already passed it) here is news that should give us a new example of a Senior Prom:

LiveScience.com

A swingin' social scene staves off memory loss in older people, a new study suggests.

One of the features of aging is memory loss, which can have devastating effects on the quality of life among older people.

Harvard School of Public Health researchers now have found evidence that elderly people in the United States with active social lives may have a slower rate of memory decline.

And the good news is we can do the same thing every time and not get bored.

Well, excuse me. My social life is calling.

Or is that my alarm to remind me to take my medications?

Just 4 Fun

Ads from foreign countries are always a joy to watch. Thanks to Jeffrey at 52 Projects for the link to a site called Illegal Advertising. This one tickled me. It is a video for Video for a new product from a Dutch brand called Bolletje.



Yes, friends, they labeled it "Cereal Killer."

Now for Some News

Let's get the serious news first. This one deserves no funny remarks or snide insights. This one represents one of those left-over 60s paranoid fears of the government and secret plans. I hope it is just idle political gossip. Please, let it be just idle political gossip.

WASHINGTON - The White House on Tuesday denied a published report in Israel that said President Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term in January. A story in the Jerusalem Post quoted a "senior official" there as saying that Bush plans to attack Iran in the coming months. The story says the unidentified official claimed that a "senior member" of Bush's traveling entourage made the statement about attacking Iran in a closed meeting. Bush was in Israel last week.

The article also says the unnamed Bush official said that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "were of the opinion that military action were called for."

Now that we have sufficiently worried ourselves and given a reason for all those sleepless nights until 01-20-09, on to the normal levels of news that attract my attention.

Someone will call this activist judges at work. Others will shake their heads in dismay. Not being (physically) blind I don't know about the feeling of those who are. So I will let the merits of the case determine the outcome. (Wow. Is it hard not to make bad puns about vision and insight. But fortunately, I am restraining myself.)

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court says paper money discriminates against blind people. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld a ruling that could force the U.S. to redesign its money so blind people can distinguish between values. Such changes could include making bills different sizes, including raised markings or printing oversized numbers for people who see poorly.

The next one brings back memories of some trips as a chaperone for my daughter's high school band. The band director, my best friend, always played favorites in his assignment of chaperones to groups of students. (it was a 250+ member band.) Since I am a drug counselor, he gave me the students that might be considered the most likely candidates for my services at some time in the future. I don't know if he figured I would know their secrets and catch them at it or what.

In any case the temptation to find a way to "lock" the students in their rooms is quite strong. But, and here's the problem with the concern of the students, most hotel/motel room doors open inward which means it would be quite difficult to actually duct tape their door closed. That would be a LOT of tape. But, since I wasn't there, I will defer judgment.

MILLBURY, Ohio - Parents have complained to a northwest Ohio school board that a chaperone sealed students in their hotel rooms with duct tape during a high school choir field trip.

At a heated meeting Monday, Michelle Mata told the Lake Local school board in Millbury that the tactic panicked her son during a recent weekend trip to Chicago.
Sylvia Keeler said she may file charges. Her son, Mark Hummel, said he worried he could be trapped during a fire. School board president Timothy Krugh told parents the tape was meant to keep students safe. Schools Superintendent Jim Witt said the tape would show if students violated curfew but wouldn't have kept them from escaping in an emergency.

And the BIG news of the week. American Airlines is NOT, repeat NOT raising fares. The BIGGER news of the week is that you have to pay for the unnecessary convenience of bringing luggage along and having them store it for you in the belly of the plane. What chutzpah for passengers to think they should have the right to bring along changes of clothes. Imagine that.

NEW YORK- Under a plan announced Wednesday by American Airlines, passengers already forced to pay extra for amenities like earphones, meals and even snacks will have to pay $15 to check a basic piece of baggage.

Maybe they should charge people for getting off the plane. Or as the Star-Trib headlined it:

What next? Pay Toilets?

Don't worry. I don't think American Airlines reads this blog so these ideas are safe just among us.

Overheard

It's been a long time since I have posted anything from Overheard in New York. It has actually been because they got into a rut of a lot of off-color stuff that didn't particularly interest me.

[Note: When I just tried to go to the site from here at my favorite Caribou, it wouldn't let me go there. I guess it may have gotten too off-color for the server.]

Anyway, here are some from today and a couple from the past months that made me chuckle:

Teen boy, with a sigh: Sometimes the world just isn't as shiny as you want it to be.
--42nd St

Eight-year-old to uncle: Please don't move to Connecticut... It's too hard to spell!
--38th & 2nd Ave


Girl on cell: You live in Staten Island, that's too close to the wilderness, near the border. I am not emotionally ready to meet you in Staten Island.
--LIRR


Teen girl: Of course there were credit cards in the '50s. How else would they have gotten their money from the ATMs?
--Starbucks


Conductor: To the person who lost a roll of cash held together with a rubber band, come see me. I found the rubber band.
--A train, 59th St