Does a Good Steak and Kidney Pie Make One Stupid?

I was most disappointed when I followed a link on the BBC entitled "High IQ link to being Vegetarian" and discovered to my chagrin that intelligence begets vegetarianism, not the other way around.

I have long held to the theory that vegetarians are cleverer than the average bod, you see. In my mind, it had something to do with having more time to read encyclopaedias thanks to the lack of meat comas brought on by a plate of chops and a quart of port. If they were intelligent before eschewing sausages, I'll have to revise my whole theory.

There lies the rub: I eat all manner of animal parts and am thus as thick as a hippy's beard. How on earth will I summon up the brain power to make the needed revisions?

A Real Toe Tapper

I have been following the story of Republican Senator Larry Craig with a degree of incredulity. Hanging out in public bathrooms, tapping the feet of an undercover cop, pleading guilty in a vain attempt to keep his subsequent arrest for lewd and disorderly conduct under wraps, and then claiming it was all an innocent mistake when the story breaks? You can't beat politicians for hanging on to the cover story just long enough to make themselves seem like tortured self-loathing psychiatric cases, can you?

I offer up the following as an object lesson to any elected official looking to carry off the deep scandal photo op:

Around The Houses

I keep meaning to write something about the awesome horror that is NESN's "Sox Appeal" Fenway Park dating show before it is put out of its misery, but everytime I start my hands begin to tremble uncontrollably. Therefore I will content myself by refering all and sundry to three newish-to-me blogs I rather enjoy:

Knut Albert's Beer Blog
The adventures of a Norwegian beer fanatic who writes about the suds with such glee it makes me want to trundle to the nearest pub and slump in an easy chair with brew in hand. Maniac Muser and retired spousal unit: pick your poison next time you are up...

Growning Up In Maine
Ed moved away, but he's still a Mainer in his soul and has the childhood spruce-inflicted bruises to prove it.

From Here to Paternity
Scout's chum Hazel's dad: a much more eloquent take on Rock-around-the-clock-land based fatherhood than I have so far been able to muster.

A Little Amuse Bouche For Y'All

To quote one of my foul mouthed yet poetic Bar Harbor acquaintances, it is hotter than balls here today. Too hot for considered posting; too hot for invective; too hot even for a snarky comment appended to a story lifted wholesale from the BBC. Instead I offer you David Hasselhoff apparently herniating himself while singing on a prime time reality/game show:



I never thought I would hear former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan willingly prostitute himself by saying "I love the Hoff" on camera.

If People Only Knew

When I was a lad I used to accompany my mother to the Key Market in Sprowston for the weekly grocery shop. This was for fresh and tinned only, as frozen food required a separate monthly trip to Bejams and then a mad dash back the 100 yards to the Ford Cortina lest the half hundredweight of deep frozen peas and meat "defrost", but it was still a significant provisioning mission.

Influenced by the pernicious ways of advertising, I would trail the shopping trolley begging my mum to buy me McVities chocolate digestives (here's a picture showing the proper deployment thereof). I was fed up with the manky store brand and wanted- as had been suggested in the advertisments- to like high on the hog like some crumb and chocolate covered scion of the landed gentry. Mum always said no, citing a friend of a friend who worked for McVities who claimed that store brand biscuits were made on the same production line by the same company with the same ingredients.

"Bollocks" I thought each time. I continued to believe that this was just another piece of older relative propaganda (like the time my grandfather told me less bubble bath made for more bubbles) until I saw an educational film on United Biscuits* while in secondary school. The film did indeed confirm that biscuits for UBs various brands and for the brands of its nominal competitors (the supermarket own brands) were run off on the same production lines. Well, bugger me!

This all returned to me this morning over breakfast as I was reading a story on the woes of China's manufacturing industry in The Economist. This passage in particular stood out:

"It would undermine the brands that Adidas, Puma, and Nike have spent so much to promote if their customers knew that a Taiwanese contractor called Yue Yuen produced shoes for all of them in China."

This might be the angle to take. People (sadly) will only have so much empathy for the sweatshop workers and slave laborers who make their footwear (and such ridiculous profit margins for Big Shoe). But tell them that the Nike on their foot is almost identical to the Puma on yours and that you both got scammed and you might be able put a new crack in the lifestyle sales pitch these hucksters rely on.

(*An deep understanding of biscuits and confectionery being a mandatory British educational requirement)

This Is Not A Baseball Blog 17

One has a lot of time to think while waiting for customers at a yard sale. I sat on my porch yesterday morning, feeling the first chill of autumn brush Maine and thinking about the splendid game of baseball. In particular I was musing on our Boston Red Sox, the pride of New England, and how allegedly fearsome bat JD Drew has the look of one of the club house God Botherers. I know nothing of his religious learnings but he has a youth pastor goatee and eerie calm in the midst of a long season of suckitude; prime signs of one who will kneel beside Schilling, Varitek, and Wakefield to welcome their personal savior while Manny Ramirez spits sunflower seeds at them.

"Uncle Terry's Traveling Revival Show" I thought to myself, pausing to ponder how famously lumpen yet optimistic Red Sox manager Terry Francona dealt with brazen displays of Christian humbug from these men playing a child's game for a living. Then it hit me: Terry Francona IS Wallace, of Wallace & Grommit fame. To whit:

Wallace

Francona

I can easily see Francona padding about in his pajamas with a big mug of cocoa (that has "Cocoa" written on it), being pleasantly surprised at finding an unexpected cracker in a packet he thought was empty and hitting the sack with a copy of Popular Mechanics and his teddy bear no later than 10pm in the off season. He is no more troubled by the impact of overt religiosity on team dynamics than he is by global warming: such things are beyond his purview and have yet to penetrate his fuzzy and cheerful little world.

For some reason, this image warms my heart.

This Has a Crushing Inevitability About It

When one reads the words "sheep act" in connection with my spiritual homeland of Norfolk one fears the worst. Luckily this story is not about a bunch of perverted Jethros doing some illicit smock-lifting around some ovine hindparts, but rather about Farmer Barnes's performing sheep:

Disease alert leaves farmer stuck
A Norfolk farmer whose performing sheep were to appear at an Aberdeenshire show has been stranded miles from home due to the foot-and-mouth disease alert..... The 35-year-old, who tours the UK with his Sheep Show, is living out of his lorry while his sheep graze nearby.

he Sheep Show - an act which introduces nine different breeds to the audience and finishes in a "sheep shuffle" dance - had been due to perform at Turriff's agricultural show on 4 and 5 August. However, Mr Barnes arrived on the same day that foot-and-mouth was discovered on a farm near Guildford in Surrey.

He and his flock were moved away from the public and the show went ahead without live stock....(the full BBC story)

The only thing Norfolk people like better than performing sheep is juggling turkeys. Or perhaps formation motorcycling sugar beets, at a pinch. I am glad to read that our passion for theatrical live stock and produce appears to be catching on across Britain.

Something Smells in the Rose Garden

The bloom has gone off the turd.

For old time's sake, here's the shit head making an arse of himself:



He couldn't even get the name of the prosecutor who was investigating him right, and yet he is painted as some sort of genius. Genius? More like an idiot savant who, by the look of that video, has serious bowel control issues.

World Facts

This weekend I have learned that North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il claims to have completed 18 holes of golf in 19 strokes (because 17 holes-in-one are more believable than 18 holes-in-one?). This is an improvement over his own record set in 2004, the first ever time he played, of 11 holes-in-one over 18. Good show, Kim Jong Il.

I have also learned that there is an insurgent group in the Philippines called the MILFs. This fact has turned me into the chap pictured below.

Behold, a Pale Horse

I have stumbled across some information that sheds light on the the ongoing tide of apparent larceny in Iraq (where oil, money, guns and munitions have been disappearing at an alarming rate). This information is red hot and could blow the roof off our systems of government, banking, law, and celebrity. I dare not write of it out loud, lest I draw the ire of the Reptilians who really run the planet. I can however offer you pictoral clues that tell the tale. The rest is up to you, but if you figure it out be careful: they shall not rest until the holders of this knowledge are swept from the chess board of life. Consider yourself forewarned, but if you can grasp the meaning of this sequence you will know where the missing weapons are and why we really went to war in Iraq:













On top of all of this, I also learned that Kenny Loggins is a threat to pygmy elephants.

Maptastic

"The United Countries of Baseball" from Strange Maps

I've long had a thing for maps. Relatives can attest to my sitting on the floor reading atlases, or whiling away long car trips with the road map on my lap oblivious to the view outside. I reacted with great pleasure therefore when I stumbled across Strange Maps.

I have no idea who is behind this garden of cartographic delights. I'm just glad they are taking the time to post.

Things That Could Kill You at The Bug Party

There now follows a photographic selection of potential hazards to health or shipping, as encountered at the Rockland Lobster Festival:

Deep fried haddock

Blackbeard the Pirate (aka Brian the toboggan racer)

Country & Eastern music

Carnies

Seemingly home made rides...

...rides that might have seen better days...

...and large rides that fold up into a truck, like a low-rent Transformer. Optimus Sub-Prime, if you will.

And finally, monkfish. Ugly, tasty buggers.

I swore blind I wasn't going to attend this year and still found myself on the festival grounds 3 out of 5 days this year- one day volunteering to talk about seaweed in the Marine Industries Tent (a subject about which I know very little). Such is life, I suppose.

Bug Party March

Today is the Rock-around-the-clock-land Lobster Festival parade. I am laying low about a mile from the parade route, but I hear Shriners. After marching in a multitude of 4th of July and Lobster Festival parades, that backfiring go-kart sound will haunt me the way fireworks haut military veterans.

My wife once made a Shriner cry. That's real power.

Hunchbacks- No Longer as Fearsome & Now Lacking in Imagination

From the BBC-
Mystery over severed bell ropes
The bells at an ancient Dorset church were silenced for the first time in nearly 200 years after the ropes were severed by a mystery vandal.

The sabotage came to light during an open day at St Peter's Church in the village of Long Bredy near Dorchester. Three of the ropes snapped as the ringers pulled at them - but nobody was injured.

A fourth rope had also been severed and the ringers said the evidence suggests the culprit was an insider.

Gwen Kinghorn, 53, a regular bell ringer at the 13th Century church told the BBC she was completely baffled and said she had no idea of who could have done it.

"I was pulling the rope and it just fell on my head. Then the other ropes started to fall too, on the heads of the others," she said. (the rest...)"

That's it? That's the best the mystery vandal can do? In the old days it would have been up the parapet with one's hot gypsy lover under one arm and a gargoyle for chucking at pursuers under the other, while a slavering horde waited impatiently below with nooses, pitchforks, and burning torches. I don't know- what is the world coming to?