Handkerchiefs -- the wave of the future

You might be surprised at the number of people out there willing to pay top dollar for a 12 inch square piece of linen. I speak, of course, about vintage handkerchiefs. I started looking for vintage hankies at estate sales after I poked around on eBay and discovered the slightly inscrutable world of handkerchief collecting. Back in the day, hankies were sold as souveniers right next to collectible spoons, thimbles, and shot glasses. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why the spoons are still around, but hankies aren't. At least you can use a handkerchief, while a small metal spoon with an enamel rendering of the Empire State Building is not as handy.



At any rate, hankies from specific states and tourist attractions, as well as those that pin down a specific point in the distant past, are hot sellers on eBay. If you'd like to get involved in the exciting, gut-wrenching action of handkerchief collecting, check out my stuff for sale. Or just scroll down and look at my hankies that will hopefully end up selling for $10 a piece.

Worst shameless plug. Ever.

By now you've probably read about the massive shooting at Virginia Tech, where some guy killed 32 people or so. The ensuing media frenzy has been swift and all-encompassing, reaching its dizzying zenith with an article on CNN.com (I know, I shouldn't bother but where else to get material like this?) entitled "Student Shot Video of Campus Shooting."

First of all, that's an incredibly uninspired headline. Using two entirely different meanings of the verb "to shoot"? CNN = lame. The body of the article went on to describe how one of the students on campus captured footage of the events on his cell phone.

The last sentence is, of course, the punchline:

"I knew it was something way more serious than [a bomb threat], so I started taking the video," he said, adding that he often visited CNN.com and knew he could send his video to I-Report.

Oh my god. Really? I-Report is this stupid format they've been pushing for several months on CNN wherein readers can send in their homemade footage and have it shown on the news site. I like to call it "Current Events' Funniest Home Videos." It's just about the laziest form of news reporting I've ever seen. How much lazier can CNN get? The answer is none. None more lazy.*


*This was a Spinal Tap joke. Please be laughing, because I am.

Definition of Irony -- One of a Series

Amusing (at least to me, and the rest of you geeks [you know who you are]): A car with a university-style sticker on it that reads "Vulcan Science Academy."

Ironic: The sticker is crooked, and placed about six inches left of center.

End of lesson. Thank you.

Pimp That Snack -- Easter edition

Happy fertility festival Easter, people. I dutifully purchased my Peeps yesterday and will be entertaining y'all with some Peep jousting goodness tomorrow later. In the meantime, I've got to share what has to be one of the most awe-inspiring DIY websites ever -- Pimp That Snack. I still haven't explored it to its depths, but the general idea seems to be that there's an incredibly gifted person out there whose mission is to make food... bigger. For example, this Cadbury Creme Egg (my favorite of all Easter foodstuffs) weighs over 6 pounds, and was made with large amounts of melted chocolate, sugar, and liquid glucose, all painstakingly assembled in a giant mold.

That wrapper is handpainted acrylic on aluminum foil. I am beside myself and a little bit frightened at this individual's attention to detail. You know that serial killer on CSI who makes the perfect miniature replicas of his crime scene? It's that level.

The best part is that step by step instructions are included in text and pictures, so I could actually have a go at making some of this stuff myself. I can't wait for the next birthday among my friends!

Peep season is here!

Nothing says "death and subsequent resurrection of our lord and savior Jesus Christ" like sugary baby animals, people. I'm talking about Peeps, the best part of every Easter season*. Of course, I don't eat them during Easter -- I just buy them, then stash them in a cupboard until they're suitably stale. If there was a way to maintain a fresh Peep's supple marshmallow interior, yet give it the unrelenting crusty shell of a 2-month-old Peep, I think we'd be well on the way to a cure for cancer. For now, though, I just have to accept the relative perfection of a gracefully aged Peep.

Today, I was given a reason to buy twice as many Peeps and enjoy some of them straight out of the box.

Peep jousting.

Watch for it to become the world's next Olympic sport -- it's that good. Here's how it works. Take two Peeps, both alike in dignity, and stick a toothpick into each one's chest. Set them facing each other in the microwave, a few inches apart, and set phasers to stun. As the Peeps inflate, one will inevitably become impaled on the other's toothpick. Instant deflation and defeat are the twin results.

Repeat the process, because Peeps are cheap and this is fun. For best results, invite friends over, become mildly inebriated, and place wagers. Happy Easter.


*And not the retarded flattened rabbit Peeps, either. I want the original pillowy chick Peeps.

Hot Buttered Grapefruit

Look into it. It's a surprisingly delicious smell, especiallly when the "butter" portion of the aroma is derived from fake butter powder used to flavor popcorn, and the "grapefruit" end of it comes from the dishwashing liquid used to clean out the bowl that held aforementioned popcorn. It's two chemically manufactured smells that combine in a surprisingly pleasing way.

"Hot Buttered Grapefruit" is also available for purchase should your punk, funk, or reggae band need a new name.

Is it possible to access the internet from the past?

Several of the venues I've investigated for our wedding have committed the heinous, yet curious crime of posting pictures that really should not have seen the light of day after 1985. Seeing as how the internet tubes were only connected to private homes in the mid-90s, this leaves me with the uncomfortable realization that someone not only intentionally kept these godawful pictures but proceeded to digitize and display them for the purpose of promoting their business.

It doesn't help that the majority of offenders are venues in California's Inland Empire, lovingly referred to as "the 909" even after they changed most of the area codes. Redneck is a state of mind, not just a telephone number, people. Stereotypes exist for a reason, and here's the photographic evidence, brought to you today by the Edwards Mansion. This house appears to be a beautiful Victorian-era mansion that has been mercilessly abused through unabashed installations of endless white garden lattice, gobs of tulle, and featureless stone cherubs that are meant to evoke Ye Olde Englande but instead remind you that there's a cut-rate landscaping store just down the street that was obviously having a sale on poorly formed molded concrete babies.

It's body-double time! Ready? Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

For their next crime against humanity, the Edwards Mansion has chosen to continue the theme of "Perhaps You Have Glaucoma." Really, if you're going to sell me on the beauty of your site, wipe the vaseline off your camera lens.

I'd like to close this post out with possibly the worst wedding decorations I've ever seen. Ever. I don't even have anything clever to say about this. I just hope the marriage didn't last long enough to produce children who would have to go through life knowing they were the product of this sad mess.

Maggie's old job

At the St. Patrick's Day parade on Saturday, we happened to run into the lady who fostered Maggie before we adopted her. She loved Maggie so much she was going to adopt her after she got back from a long business trip. Well, we met Maggie while this lady was gone and adopted her instead. She was very happy to see that Maggie was doing so well and growing so much hair.
She was kind enough to send us a picture of the day she took Maggie to race against other retired racers. Apparently, Maggie won the first heat, and was only knocked out of the running when she came in second during the second heat. This is so exciting -- it's the only race she's ever (kind of) won! Anyway, we were very proud to see her in her pretty racing outfit, and we'll be looking into taking her to another race this summer.


Prettiest dog ever!

More Paddy's Parade Pictures

If you look close, you can see where Maggie's stitches are. The vet really did a good job -- once that hair grows back, the scar won't be too noticeable at all. Yay!

Making friends.

And here we are in the parade proper. If you've ever wondered what downtown Denver looks like, here it is. It's a cute little city with beautiful old architecture next to recently built lofts, tons of cool bars, a long pedestrian mall, and pretty good public transport. It's high on my list of livable downtowns in America. Unfortunately, it costs a mint to live downtown. So we don't.

Given my druthers, I would have worn one of the 17 other green shirts I own that are more flattering. I was trying to go with the theme, though, so I'm due partial credit.

Denver St. Patrick's Day Parade

Widely billed as America's largest St. Patrick's Day parade outside of New York, Denver's parade was graced by beautiful 70 degree weather this year. Chris, Maggie, and I headed downtown to march with the rest of the greyhound adoption group and generally soak up some sunshine. We did get a couple funny photos from the staging area:

This was an entire group of Star Wars type people, obviously. Mostly storm troopers, probably because they look good in large numbers, but also an overweight Sand Person, a Leia with real hair buns, and an impressively tall Darth Vader. No, I'm not sure what they were doing in our St. Patrick's Day parade, but...

At least this guy got into the spirit of it.

Chris pointed out these kids from Wyoming and proclaimed them to be the "laziest marching band on earth." Can't say I disagree.

Here's our Maggie at home, before we left for the parade. She was rechristened Maggie McGee for the day, and was oh-so-pretty.

There were about 20 greyhounds at the parade, most of whom were dressed up or decorated somehow. The theme of the parade (why one needs a theme beyond "green stuff and Irish crap" is beyond me) was "Irish Roots and Cowboy Boots." So, yeah. I wore my hat.

Birthday flowers

As you can tell from my last few posts, I'm only just now pulling photos off my phone-based CrapCam. I thought I'd share a picture of the beautiful tulips that Chris sent to my office on my birthday. Yay! They were so pretty.

Naked is the new clothed

A couple of weeks ago, Chris and I were in Ann Taylor, where I was looking at clothes that I'll be able to afford someday. Chris' attention was piqued by a naked mannequin (womannequin?).

Now, I worked clothing retail long enough to know that someone had probably just bought the dress or whatever right off the dummy. However, I was also a register jockey long enough to know that when one denudes a mannequin, one should probably grab all the accessories as well, lest the nudity look shockingly intentional.

We were back in the mall this weekend, and walking past the Ann Taylor storefront, we saw that they were up to their old tricks.

I'm not sure if it's just lazy employees at this particular store, or if there's a new look in Paris this spring that I just haven't heard about yet. I will keep you posted.

And this was a surprise?

On one of our recent trips to our favorite liquor store, we saw a hastily-scrawled notice on a box of wine that had obviously been returned. The CrapCam was there to document its unintentional hilarity:



I suppose it's possible that there are a couple of box wines out there that don't taste like ass, but overall, I think their reputation is generally deserved. If you're buying a box of wine, I hope you're not expecting much -- as a result, I wonder how bad, exactly, this wine had to be for the undiscerning buyer to return it. Yick.

Snorkeling dog

Every night, when we get ready to go to bed, our dog is inevitably laying on our bedroom floor looking like a canine corpse in the Calcutta marketplace. It's just her way. Eventually, we shoo her out where she has her choice of two dog beds and two couches to sleep on. Usually, she ambles over to her upstairs bed, takes a drink of water, and sets herself down for the night. If it's cold, I cover her with a little fleece blanket. She's a purebred, you know? She's delicate. Or something.

Last night, as I was watching her bed down for the evening, I noticed that there was a piece of dog kibble lurking at the bottom of her water dish. This probably came about when Maggie ate too fast and horked most of it back up. Tastes better the second time, I guess, because she does it all the time.

I was about to grab the bowl and refill it, when she made a move towards it and began to drink. It only took a couple seconds before she realized there was food, a precious piece of food, at the bottom of the dish, so she had better retrieve it. Now, you understand, right next to the water dish in question there was a bowl full to the brim of fresh, dry kibble. Nope, she had to rescue this one piece from its watery grave. She stuck her nose into the dish in an exploratory fashion, then plunged her entire snout a good three inches below the water. While fishing around for the food, she was constantly blowing bubbles to keep the water from going up her nose. Folks, I don't know if you've ever seen a large dog blowing bubbles in a water dish while digging around for one piece of kibble, but I assure you it's the most fun you can have in your kitchen with the curtains open.

She got it, by the way. I went to bed with a vicarious sense of accomplishment. Good girl.

Doppler conversation

You know when you walk past a couple of people who are talking, and you really only hear the middle bit, with sometimes hilarious effect? Today was one of those days, but I was standing very near the two people talking, and there was no middle bit because it was just the one woman talking.

Today was cloudy and gray, which I'm fine with because yesterday was beautiful and tomorrow will be beautiful so that's all that matters. Besides, nothing at all is wrong with cloudy and gray. I happen to like it, especially when there's a soft drizzle to go along with it. Anyway, the woman in question was attempting to engage her cube neighbor in conversation about the weather. "Look, it's breaking up a little," she said. "Look, have you seen it? It's so cool!" Now I've seen clouds break up dramatically and in a cool fashion, and this particular meteorological event didn't quite hold up to her cooing. I was about to turn away and return to my business when I heard,

"Isn't that cool, that the sky is breaking up and you can see blue sky? .....I mean, for people who like blue sky."

What went through this woman's mind in that moment that she had to tack on the last bit? Being "into" blue sky is not exactly the vaguely deviant passion of society's fringe that you'd think would require that kind of backpedaling. My coworkers are disturbing.

Funny copy of the day award

I don't really have copy any more that qualifies for the Bad Copy of the Day award, but I do have some funny things cross my desk. Here's the bestest thing to grace my inbox in a while:

"Revision 2: Can you please .pdf this and save it in the same place? When I try to .pdf it, I get all sorts of Jesus-symbols, which I'm afraid my markets may not understand. Thanks!"

Four cool things

A'ight, I've been saving up cool things since last night. Because they are all non sequiturs, I shall post them separately.

I had first titled this post "Three cool things" but then I thought of a fourth, so I changed it to "Four cool things" and wondered if anyone, back in the day, ever did expect the Spanish Inquisition.

The first cool thing actually falls under the Funundrum Recommends category. Today Funundrum would like to highly recommend an excellent new show on FX called The Riches. It stars my favorite comedian and yours, Eddie Izzard, as well as Minnie Driver, as two Travellers plus their three kids who fall into a situation wherein they impersonate rich people living in a posh Louisiana country club.

It kind of sounds retarded on paper, but if you've ever seen even five minutes of the Izzard, you'll understand what a great setup this is for him. He gets to live the American dream, which in his words has always been "to get all the money in the world, and stick it in your ears, and go TTHHHBBBBBTTTTHTTT." And that's pretty much what this is. We were captivated. Monday was the pilot -- we only saw it today because Tivo is our slave. They'll be showing it again later this week, I daresay, and then every Monday night. Please, do yourself a favor and check it out. Even if it runs opposite Smallville. Because, dude, he's never going to start flying so why bother watching?

You learn something every day.

Have you ever heard the saying that wisdom comes when you learn how much you don't know? It was brought to my attention today that my self-actualization may be a few years off yet. I didn't realize until today that there's a name for M&Ms that aren't M&Ms. Really, how would you ask for M&Ms in a store if you could only use a generic name for them? (If you answered "Smarties," congratulations. You are British. Or Australian. You are also wrong.)

Turns out they are called "chocolate lentils," which is just about the most unappealing name for a candy that I can think of. It's like calling jelly beans "sugar lima beans" or something. Anyway, chocolate lentils are the things you buy to grace your wedding reception munchie bowls when you are too poor to have M&Ms, or even Smarties, god forbid.

Here's where I'm going with this. If I show up at a wedding reception and see a bowl of chocolate lentils on the table, I am going to first be appreciative of the fact that they exactly match the color of your bridesmaids' dresses. I'm then going to be a teeny bit frightened at the fact that you micromanaged your wedding to the point where your chocolate lentils match your bridesmaids' dresses. Finally, I shall sample aforementioned lentils, and my face will take on an imperceptibly puzzled rictus of horror as I realize that I'm not eating M&Ms. I'll peer down at the remaining candies in my hand, turning them over and over in search of the trademark "M," which will of course not be there because you cheaped out on generic lentils. This will, of course, make me wonder about the quality of the other foodstuffs at your celebration, and I'll secretly wonder if I can sneak my Cuisinart toaster off the gift table and instead leave a check just big enough to pay for a lower quality generic toaster that won't toast on the first try but instead will require you, every morning, to whack the lever back down a second time. After all, second best is apparently good enough for you.

The good news is that I'll never take action on any of this, provided that you've got an acceptable open bar. Let that be a warning to you.

Thank God Almighty, I can bake at last!

Ever since I got a job in a real office with real coworkers again, I've been happily baking cookies and cakes on a regular basis. Now I can bake whatever I want to, Chris and I can have one or two servings apiece, and the rest goes to the vultures. It's brilliant.

My latest venture is due to a dream I had a couple nights ago. Seriously. I dream of baked goods. I woke up in the middle of the night from an incredibly realistic dream wherein I was eating a type of cake that my grandma probably hasn't made in 15 years. At any rate, I haven't eaten it in 15 years. I actually laid there in bed, getting hungry because I had remembered this cake. I've been a woman on a mission for two days. The recipe was nowhere to be found in Grandma's trove of recipes, so I had to go on the internet to find something close. I did, and the results should be coming out of the oven in just a few minutes.

You want to know what's in this magical dream cake? Of course you do. Okay. The bottom of the pan gets layered with mini marshmallows, then white cake batter, then a mixture of sliced fresh strawberries and strawberry jello.

Here's the magic part: as it bakes, the strawberries sink to the bottom and the marshmallows come up. It ends up being tasty as hell with strawberry juice keeping everything moist and the sugary top turning the perfect shade of GBD. That's "golden brown and delicious" for people whose priorities wrongly exclude Alton Brown's Good Eats.

Okay, so it just came out of the oven and I think I got exactly what I was looking for! Sorry to tempt all you folks with cake you can't have, but I'm really excited. I'll give you the recipe if you want it.

OW OW OW OW OW OW

I was just in the shower, minding my own business, when I got one of those temporarily disfiguring foot cramps. My right foot was completely normal, and my left foot had suddenly decided to do the Hostel Two-Step, a move that should be instantly recognizable to every international budget traveler, as well as anyone who's ever spent time in the military, at a YMCA, or other hygienically questionable showering location. It's that involuntary thing you do with the bottoms of your feet when you get into a manky shower, where you attempt to minimize your contact with the floor using as few skin cells as humanly possible. The sensible solution is, of course, to wear flip-flops or something into the shower, but if you were remotely sensible, you probably wouldn't be showering at the manky hostel/YMCA/army barracks to begin with.

Anyway, the cleanliness of my shower wasn't the problem here, it was the fact that my muscles were fighting my tendons, or that I had ingested too much sodium, or some other such foot cramp-causing situation. I couldn't very well sit down and rub my foot, and anyway rubbing a cramping foot doesn't do jack to begin with. I tried to just stand on it with equal pressure all over, which helped a bit but didn't make the cramp go away. Then I remembered something that an old coworker of mine had told me. She was the sort who would sing to your injuries and was studying under a Reiki master to learn how to better manipulate q'i. One of the fun accupressure facts she taught me is that the hands and feet are supposedly closely linked, so much so that treating one will cure the other. She would demonstrate this by instructing me to, say, scratch the palm of my right hand if the bottom of my right foot was itching. I'd say that works about half the time, which is pretty good odds if your feet are itching and driving you crazy.

Like I said, rubbing my foot would have done nothing, so I tried massaging my hand. Would you believe that the cramp went away almost immediately? I had to do it a few more times before the muscles relaxed completely, but at that moment I felt like an alternative health rock star. What an awesome trick! Don't say Funundrum never taught you anything.