Nice review of the user experience and product limitations of Band-Aid Liquid Bandage

So it was with a distinct sense of anticipation that I paid $8.99 for ten applications, at a CVS drugstore in Princeton, NJ

Since 1987 Lewis Baumgartne AKA, the World’s Worst Farmer has traveled the circuit entertaining at meetings and conventions all over the US and much of Canada. His self deprecating humor and his hilarious tales of predicaments encountered on his beloved farm, “Ragweed Ranch” have been a hit with audiences all over the country! His main audiences have been farm or farm related groups but he has also had success with non-farm groups as well. His program usually runs about 35 -40 minutes and is guaranteed clean, he does not tell dirty jokes or use offensive language! Lewis says, ” When people ask me if my program is clean I tell them, Yes, I could do it for a room full of preachers. After almost every performance someone will tell me how they appreciate the fact that my program was clean and funny!”
The World’s Worst Farmer program is mostly humor but it does have its serious side as Lewis relates the poignant story of Old Bill. Old Bill is an original poem by Lewis Baumgartner about a neighbor that was looked up to by the author as a small boy, but was more or less forgotten when the boy became a man. Many in the audience recall their own ‘Old Bill’ and can relate to the regrets of, “THE THINGS I FAILED TO SAY.” Lewis says, “This poem hits pretty close to home with lots of folks and I can almost bet that after every show, someone is going to tell me about their own ‘Old Bill’. I appreciate this response and knowing I’ve touched someone makes me feel as though in some small way I’m saying a belated thank you to my, Old Bill.”

STAR WARS in animated ASCII. Very cool. And you can fast-forward as well.

Last weekend we went to Portland, OR for a little vacation. It was a great and relaxing trip. I’ve been to Portland on business dozens of times, but it has been several years since I went purely for fun. It was depressing to have the boring conservatism of my community thrust in my face. There’s just no cool stuff where I live like I found in Portland. Powell’s books, of course was a destination, and the excellent stores nearby (Reading Frenzy, Palookvaille, and others). Besaw’s for brunch, Il Piattoand Thai Orchid for dinner.

And, we got to see a great deal of public access cable programming in the late evening, good for a laugh. And, I got to see once again, the horrific Jim Spagg show. He’s this dude who tries really hard to provoke and annoy, and then of course, tries to use your reactions to justify his point….whatever that is. The most bothersome part of the show is just how dumb he acts. I mean, the show makes no sense, whatsoever. At one point, he is standing next to a toy crocodile that is talking. He is looking at the camera with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape, in an attempt to look astonished (he looks like someone who can’t act but doesn’t know it, trying hard to overact). The scene continues for a very very long and uncomfortable time period. He looks at the crocodile and back at the camera. You can’t tell what it is saying. Or why he is reacting so. And he’s just so overdoing it, that it’s annoying.

Of course, the provocation on the show supposedly comes from the sexual or nudity content. A theme seems to be that nudity is not dirty, and that if you are offended, it says something about you. Yet this dude has exotic dancers (i.e., strippers) come in to the set and dance in their fashion. So we’re not talking about playing frisbee naked, we’re talking about bump and grind. Meanwhile, the host, with that same look plastered on his face, strips off his clothes and flaps his arms as he runs around the set. It’s not really dancing. And we still don’t know why he is astonished.

Meanwhile, various slogans that seem to come from an R. Crumb-type mindset, with an ogling focus, are plopped on the screen.

In another scene, the camera plays about his naked body, looking up at him from the ground, between his legs. Cut, to an extreme closeup of the details (and manipulative possibilities) of an uncircumcised male.

It’s visually gross to me, and I can handle that. It’s really the annoying cheesy overacting stuff and the ridiculous attempt to have this self-indulgent exercise be “about” something that bugs me.

But enough soapboxing, a great place to spend a little time if you have the chance (Portland, not Jim Spagg’s scrotum).

Update: Jim Spagg passed away in 2004.

Arby’s Tries a Talking Mitt

Arby’s is turning to a cartoonish kitchen implement to help rescue its sagging brand recognition. The chain’s new animated character is named Oven Mitt. Goofy, assertive and a bit of a ham – much like Tom Arnold, the celebrity who is providing its voice – Mr. Mitt is Arby’s new spokesthing and will appear in an $85 million national advertising campaign, beginning Sunday. Turning over a brand identity to a nonhuman object, however, can be a risky marketing move in the fast-food business. The public may not warm up to Oven Mitt, just as they did not cotton to KFC’s trash-talking cartoon colonel and Domino’s Bad Andy, a puppet that was quickly relieved of his assignment.

Tags: advertising, arby's, mascot, puppet, tom arnold

Floating Nikes

A ship bound from Los Angeles to Tacoma lost cargo Dec. 15 during a storm off northern California. Among the lost cargo: three 40-foot containers carrying an estimated 5,500 pairs of shoes each. Now the drifting shoes are heading for Alaska, but besides being soggy, the shoes are not matched pairs.

Okay, did they change the recipe to Post Golden Crisp (formerly Sugar Crisp and formerly Super Sugar Crisp)? It no longer comes in the special tinfoil bag, just plain old translucent plastic, just like mortal cereals, and it seems to have lost a certain zip in the taste. It still affects the way one’s urine smells (in a good way) as it always did, but the bag and the taste have shifted.

I wrote them and asked about both these things, and they didn’t address the packaging question – but they said the recipe hadn’t changed. I suppose the packaging change could have affected the taste, but then you’d think they’d have tested that and wouldn’t have proceeded. I don’t know. I need answers!

Thanks for visiting our Web-site!

Have you recently changed the recipe to Golden Crisp? The packaging has changed from the
tinfoil bag, and the taste just seems less — intense —

A common octopus in a German zoo has learned to open jars of shrimp by watching zoo attendants perform the act underwater. full story

Meet Dolly Downs

the doll with the lovable difference! Created in the image of a child with Down Syndrome, each of these adorable, soft dolls comes with her own tiny backpack and audiocassette. On the cassette, Dolly sings a song and tells the story of Donna, the real life inspiration for Dolly Downs.

My friend and colleague Jim Faris has a commentary about rain and Thailand on KQED radio (link no longer available).

Rain flows as an unspoken but universally understood language. For commentator Jim Faris, the downpour at his home floods him with memories of waters far away in Thailand.

(from How Stuff Works)

I received this by email yesterday. I believe they want to purchase some of the contents of my Museum of Foreign Groceries. Hmm.

Subject: I Have some Quations………
Hello My Name Is Alexander,

And I would Like to Try Some of the candy,
With A major cradit card
I live IN Tennessee………

Thanks !

A fantastic NYT magazine article by Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disability rights activist.

The peculiar drama of my life has placed me in a world that by and large thinks it would be better if people like me did not exist. My fight has been for accommodation, the world to me and me to the world.
As a disability pariah, I must struggle for a place, for kinship, for community, for connection

L.A. Woman Chased by Fake Alien Sues Reality Show

Kara Blanc thought she was being chased by a space alien on her way to a posh Hollywood party and was terrified. But the alien turned out to be an actor in a monster suit and the party was phony as well.

So now the Los Angeles grade school teacher and aspiring actress is fighting back, suing the new reality TV series “Scare Tactics,” claiming she suffered severe emotional damage, court papers said on Tuesday.