More Keeping Austin Weird

The word is that Jimmy Kimmel, the newly-crowned king of late night TV, is coming to Austin during SXSW (along with a few hundred thousand of his closest friends) in search of... weirdness.

Never mind that SXSW itself stands as a beacon of weirdness, Jimmy plans to seek out and immortalize those individuals and events that keep Austin on the edge, so folks have been coming up with suggestions for him.

I've mentioned a few of those folks in this blog;  The Running Man who performs on the street corner by an HEB, the Thong Guy who rides his bike wearing only a thong (actually, I hear there are two of them now. I refuse to look that closely). Or the Protest Guy who has a thing for lawyers.

Others have mentioned weirdness of which I am not yet personally acquainted. Like the guy who turns rejection into an art form.  In an effort to immunize himself to rejection, Jia Jiang spent 100 days making wacky requests, expecting to be crushed. Who knew a flight attendant would allow him to make an announcement on a plane's intercom system, a Sonic manager would lend him roller skates or a software company executive would accept his challenge to a staring contest?

How about Dowser Dan? For 18 years, Evan Kelley has been going to local elementary schools to sing about water conservation. He's a one-man show with a water gun, an inflatable globe and a (clean) plunger.

Or CLAWstin. The gals of Austin's Collective of Lady Arm Wrestlers annually flex their muscles to raise money for charity. Think theater mixed with sport.

Boyce Cabaniss. This lawyer knows by heart every member of the British monarchy (from the beginning) and every American president. He can also list most Russian czars, French kings, Roman emperors and Chinese dynasties. I can't remember how many kids I have.

Sofia Dyer, aka, The Girl Who Knows. She may just 18, but this Austin girl has got it going on. You can usually catch this mentalist reading minds and identifying objects while blindfolded on South Congress Ave.  Sorry, the only link I could find is behind a paywall.

I'm just sorry that Kimmel is to late too catch up with Lezlie.  I love this town.

Monday Meanderings - 2.24.2014

Well, the 2014 Olympics have come and gone. Enjoyed much of it, had a lot of fun joking about the Uzbekistans and the curling, but have to say that I'm ready to get back to other things in my life. Like waiting for the World Cup to begin.

Early on in the closing ceremonies, the orchestra was playing a melody that was familiar to me. I found myself supplying some words to the music and realized that I was singing the Breckenridge Buckaroo fight song - the adaptation of the theme from the movie Giant that Ida Jo Waller, Jimmy Browning and I back-doored into the official fight song so many years ago.

I was puzzled about that until I remembered that the composer was Russian-born Dimitri Tiomkin, who wrote the music for that movie and a dozen or so more, winning four Oscars in the process. Who, by the way, I once spoke to on the phone the day after he had won one of those awards.

We were watching the ice skaters the other evening and Barb commented that if she tried some of those jumps she would end up cutting her leg off. I said not to worry; neither of us could manage to get the skates off the ice far enough to expose the edge.

Things are starting to green up around here. There are some over-anxious trees starting to leaf out, and I noticed several "illegitimate" cabbage plants flowering along the roadside. These early starters might regret it, but the past couple of weeks of 80 degree weather will make you believe that winter is over.

Except for the folks in the Northeast. I think about them some as I sit out on the patio enjoying the balmy breezes, wondering if I should feel bad about enjoying the nice weather while they are still buried in snow. But then I decide that they made their choice. And I made mine.

Barb got one of these Groupon-type deals for a complete window cleaning the other day. It was a good price, so she had the company come out and clean our windows. We were astounded! We discovered that there are houses across the street, and we can see cars driving up and down the road. It's made such a difference that we have to wear shades inside our house now! Amazing.

Now that I'm older here's what I've discovered:

1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

2. My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.

3. I finally got my head together, and now my body is falling apart.

4. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.

5. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.

6. If all is not lost, then where the heck is it?

7. It was a whole lot easier to get older, than to get wiser.

8. Some days, you're the top dog; some days you're the hydrant.

9. I wish the buck really did stop here; I sure could use a few of them.

10. It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.

11. The world only beats a path to your door when you're in the bathroom.

12. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he'd have put them on my knees.

13. When I'm finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.

14. It's not hard to meet expenses . . . They're everywhere.

15. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

16. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter . . .. I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I'm "here after".

Monday Meanderings - 2.17.2014

If you didn't make your Valentine purchases prior to Valentine's Day itself you were out of luck if you went shopping at WalMart. By 10AM the shelves were stripped of cards, candy and stuffed bears; got to make room for Easter merchandise. Time's a wasting!

I noticed all that on one of the rare times that I was not glued to the TV this past week, soaking in every moment of the Olympics. The 10 hour time difference sure makes it difficult! However, since NBC only shows the highlights (and mainly the USA highlights, at that) during prime time, you have to stay up all night to see the rest of the action - like the figure skaters from Uzbekistan.

  For this triple throw, the judges gave the pair a 9.5 for originality, but deducted style points because she did not stick her landing.

I've been following the Uzbekistan team very closely, all three members. Bless their hearts, they have not won a medal since Lillehammer in 1994; their first and last.  Here, the ski-jumping competitor (who is also the team chaplain) didn't place, but he did get a nifty illustration for his sermon on "The Slippery Slope."

And then there's Curling, my favorite sport. I could doze for hours during the interminable Curling matches or "Ends" to use the vernacular of the sport. Except all the screaming keeps waking me. I've decided that "Whoa!" has the same meaning in every language.

It may look very low tech, but I found out that there are electronics embedded in those stones; if the "Thrower" does not release the stone before it crosses the "Hog Line" little red lights show up on the handle of the "Rock." Man, I love those terms, and I haven't even gotten around to the "Hammer" yet (which simply means that it is the last stone thrown).

And if you thought curling was a risk-free sport, here's the Russian "Skip" down for the count after being bowled over.

I know this video was from Torino - thus far Vladimir Putin has blocked all coverage of Cat Curling in Sochi. Something about, "Nyet! Too much grief about the stray dogs. Mother Russia loves all pets, cats and dogs alike!"

Only 700 more hours to view. Go Uzbekistan!

Monday Meanderings- 2.10.2014

Wow! Talk about good timing! Football ends and the Winter Olympics begin! And as I have stated many time before, I'm a pushover for any kind of Olympics, and this year there's some 1,500 hours of coverage, counting streaming internet. Let's see - 16 days divided by... hey, that's only 93 hours of coverage a day. I may have to tape some of it.

What's your earliest Olympics memory? I can remember when Bobby Morrow won gold in Melbourne in 1956 but I probably didn't see any of that. However, I do remember watching - along with most of the residents of Mabee dorm - when class-mate Earl Young won gold in the 1960 games in Rome. Haven't missed one since.

Checked in with my CPAP doctor this past week. You will recall that a CPAP, or Constant Positive Air Pressure machine pumps air into a nasal mask while you sleep and prevents the soft tissue from closing and stopping the air flow, thereby preventing snoring and heading off a plethora of dread conditions and diseases, such as dandruff, fallen arches, and the heartbreak of psoriasis, to mention just a few.

I told my doc that when I sleep on my back, there will still sometimes be a little glottal stop, which wakes me up. His solution was to set the air pressure higher on the CPAP machine. Much higher. Did you know that at some point the pressure can be so high that you have difficulty overcoming the airflow coming in and you feel that you can't exhale? And did you know that if you leave the setting that high, all night you dream that you are a balloon float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade?

Okay bacon lovers. Here's the ultimate distribution method.

Yep. Squeez Bacon. Real bacon (well, once upon a time) in a form that requires no preparation and no refrigeration.  Just grab the bottle and squeeze out a few slices. Or a few strips. Or a glob or two of re-constituted, homogenized, pureed bacon goop. Yum!

For my English teacher friends and relatives...

The 25 Funniest Analogies (Collected by High School English Teachers)

These “funniest analogies” have been around for a while and there are allegations that these were actually taken from other sources, or made up and not written by high school kids at all. I came across a link that establishes that they are actually from the winning entries in a 1999 Washington Post humor contest, and there are more than 25 (and they include the student writer's names). If you are interested, here's the link.


1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Monday Meanderings - 2.3.2014

So, how about that SuperBowl? I personally think the problem with Denver was Payton didn't say "Omaha" nearly enough. That seemed to do the trick in other games. And then there were the commercials. Greatest year yet for commercials, didn't you think? Me neither. Boring. Well, surely the half-time show won you over. Barb and I decided we are not the demographic target for the half-time entertainment. And the very worse thing of all is -- no more football for six months!

Let me check off a few weather facts for you. In Austin this January, the lows for Tuesday nights were 22, 37, 38, and 27 degrees.  The highs for Fridays in January? Those would be 71, 75,  70,  and 77! The low expected tomorrow, Tuesday February 4th? You got it -- 27 degrees. One could get dizzy on this schedule.

Speaking of getting dizzy. I mentioned a couple of years ago about a visit to the audiologist when I could hear someone in the adjacent office in obvious distress. When pressed, the audiologist admitted that they were inducing dizziness in some poor soul by alternately blowing hot and cold air in their ears, and sometimes that dizziness brought on other less pleasant symptoms that involve hugging a porcelain convenience. Well, last week I got to be that person.

Not only did I fail the DWI perp walk - a straight line placing one foot in front of the other - I failed this Hot/Cold barf test, too. It didn't phase me in the least. In fact, the warm air portion is quite pleasant. Turns out that not getting dizzy is somewhat of a bad thing. The tester told me my inner ears "lacked some robustness." Excuse me? Are there special exercises for inner ears?  "Drop and give me 20 listens?"

Part of the Hot/Cold test requires being "distracted" several times for a couple of minutes duration. I am not making this up. So, to distract me, the audiologist had me first list men's names, starting with A, then B, and so forth. Next it was to list women's names, A then B, etc. Another distraction was to name food items: A - apple, B - Bananna, etc. Seems easy enough, right? Try it. Name 25 fruits, vegetables, dishes, etc. (you can skip "X"). Go ahead. I dare you.