Start Your Year With a Smile – 2016 Edition

It’s Year 6 of the photo blog and we’re going to dive right in.  This is my annual look-back at the year just ended.  What follows are the best pictures or screen captures I took (and in a few cases, that friends sent me) from all of 2015.  In one way or another, they are all about the things people choose to do and how they choose to express themselves.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I hope you find something that makes you laugh, and that you aren’t offended by the parts that are a little off-color.  As always, I refer you to my blog rule, which is that I never make anything up because I’m not nearly funny enough to come up with stuff as good as what real life provides.

With that, let’s get started.

My journalistic year started in January, when I paid a visit to Kohler, Wisconsin.  And I want to be absolutely clear about something:

Anyone who can turn a toilet factory into a tourist destination has my undying respect.

That said, the Kohler design center has an entire roomful of toilets, including a wall full of them that must be fifty feet high.  Standing atop that wall is this guy.

I’m really not sure what he’s so joyful about.  After all, he’s gazing down on a roomful of toilets.  He looks like the toilet version of Rocky.  Maybe he’s feels like a king, in which case could this be his Throne Room?

The piece de plumbing resistance of this exhibit is Kohler’s remote control toilet.  Call me crazy, but I always thought the idea of a remote control anything is that you don’t have to touch, or even be near, the device in order to use it.  I’m not sure how that applies in this case.  Anyway, here is the remote’s screen.

Yes, you can now have a toilet that will serenade you.

While we’re on the subject of toilet humor, there’s a high-rise going up across the street from the building I live in.  I walked out the front door one day and saw a handful of people on the sidewalk gazing skyward.  I looked up and saw this:

It’s a little dark, but those blue things in the middle are a trio of Flying Porta-potties.  Trust me, there were lots of crossed fingers and a few prayers being said on the sidewalk.

In June, I had the great fortune to take a road trip with my daughter from Scottsdale, AZ, to Chattanooga, TN.  In Scottsdale, I happened to see this sign.

I was curious, so I pulled in to see what it was for.  Here’s it is.

As we were traveling, I discovered that there is indeed Welfare in Texas. . .

. . .and that there are some roads probably best left less traveled.

At the end of the trip, we went up to the top of Lookout Mountain, TN, where we saw this:

I’m thinking that Starbucks may have become just a bit too important in our culture.

We also saw this.  I’m pretty sure that “Restrooms” would have been entirely sufficient.

At the bottom of Lookout Mountain, which actually puts it in Chattanooga, we came across this place.

If you can’t make it out, this is the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame & Museum.  Aside from the history of the tow truck, it’s dedicated to those, and there appear to be many of them, who gave the last full measure of devotion.

 

 

 

 

According to the website, this year they will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the tow truck.

While we’re on the subject of arcane museums,  I was back at the Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot, ID, this summer.

Yes, back. Second visit. This time when it was open.  Well, not quite open. I missed closing time by five minutes, but they were still there and opened it back up to give me a private tour. I think I heard someone in the back yelling, “Hey, we got one! We GOT one!!!!”  I picked up a souvenir, a Potato Museum hat, which caused my friend Lynne Marek to comment, “OK, never wear that thing around your kids.”

This is the kind of thing you can find at the Idaho Potato Museum. Where is Garrison Keillor when we really need him?

Last year’s post contained an ill-advised and regrettable beaver-themed section. So does this year’s.

A Beaver Tail

In Auburn Hills, Michigan, you can find yourself at the intersection of Big Beaver and Crooks.

And what year would be complete without Flying Beavers?  I couldn’t get the video code to embed properly.  To see this 1-minute “film treasure” (their words, not mine!), just click here or on the picture below.

As always, there were a few great signs in, on or near businesses:

I’ll have whatever this place is serving!

A great sign, seen in Seattle:

From my friend, author Debra Dean (if you haven’t read her novels The Madonnas of Leningrad and A Mirrored World, do yourself a favor. . .stop reading this, go get them now, read them, then come back here. . .you’ll thank me for it), came this rainy-day picture of our friends at the Neptune Society offering a service that I thought went out with the Spanish Inquisition.

 

This place is on North Avenue in Melrose Park, right across the street from a gun shop that has assault rifles on prominent display.

Go back and take a closer look.  It does not way “Warehouse.” It does say “Bar.” And did I mention that it’s right across the street from a gun shop?

Bad grammar aside, I love seeing the poor, beleaguered Frozen Yogurt people take a stand.

It is so good to know that that this company, in Elk Grove Village, IL, is keeping things clean.

For a moment, I thought the T fell off this building, but it was only a shadow. Still, one can hope.

 

It was another good year for things seen on, in or from cars.

Check out the model of the car, the license plate bracket and the first 3 letters on the license plate.

 

The poor State of Illinois is so broke it is now private labeling vanity plates to neighboring Indiana.

This one is a little hard to explain.  I only know what “twerking” is because Miley Cyrus did it once while performing on an awards show.  So last year, I thought it was pretty funny when I saw a car with a bumper sticker indicating that it’s owner was a (presumably proud) member of something called the  “Twerk Team.”  Imagine my surprise when this year I saw two more.  After all, I’m only one pair of eyeballs in a metropolitan area of 16 million eyeballs.  What are the odds?

These people are very proud of their pastime and their membership on this team.  I figure that if there are enough people like this to form a team, then there must be other teams, so that they can hold some kind of twerk-off.

If you’re like I was and are wondering what twerkers do, I have saved you the trouble of Googling “Twerk Team Chicago.”  Click this link and watch any video you like.  I can promise that all of your questions will be answered.  I can’t promise that you’ll be happy about that.

Moving on.

Who wouldn’t give their eyeteeth to be able to go a barbeque armed with this as the answer to the question, “So, Bob, who do you work for?”

As my friend Mike Paton will attest, I am rarely rendered speechless.  This did it:

The State of Arizona went to great pains to make sure that this cow is udderly, anatomically correct.

Another road to leave less traveled:

 

Back on the business front, every now and then, I see something that makes me wonder about the conversation that led to it.  Here is this year’s winner.  I’m picturing a team that has been charged with coming up with a new feature to differentiate their bicycles.  They’ve spend a long, frustrating day in the conference room.  They are tired and sweaty, there are empty coffee cups all over the room.  They know that soon they have to go back to the boss with an answer.  Then, suddenly, a member of the team sits bolt upright and cries out, “Eureka!  I’ve got it!”

If you can’t quite make out the writing around the hole in the middle it says “Perineal Safety Area.”

And the winner in the “Helpful Labeling” category:

 

In the ever-popular Animal Hijinks category, here’s a TV show you wouldn’t want to miss:

If you’re old enough, as I am, you might remember Morris the Cat of 9 Lives fame. It turns out that Morris was adopted from a shelter in Downers Grove. Who knew?

And in that shelter was this guy, whose motto, I’m pretty sure, is “Because I can.  Sue me.”

 

Lastly, thanks to my friend Bruce Onsager, who bought the boat, did all the hard work and invited me to be part of the adventure, I had the opportunity this year to sail the Chicago-Mackinac race. We sailed in the Cruising (read “slow boat”) division, and even then we were the finest ship and crew ever to finish last in their group.  Nonetheless, we crossed the finish line with the same crew we started with, which is a win in my book.

Along the way, I got to see this:

That wasn’t part of what I expected from the race.  It occurred to me afterward that we can’t force these experiences. All we can do, and we should, is to put ourselves in places where we might have them.

I hope you will in 2016, and that it turns out to be an even better year for you than 2015 was.

Just Plain Not Smart Enough

Political commentary coming shortly, but first, here are two recent conversations, one that I overheard and one that I was part of.

Overheard: The other day, in my neighborhood Walgreen’s, I saw a skinny young man who was wearing pants that defied gravity and an oversized baseball cap that was overwhelmed by it. I thought he was accompanied by one young woman, but it turned out to be two. I’m still not sure what that was about. He sidled up to the pharmacy counter and here’s what I heard:

Young Man (face mostly obscured by oversized cap): “Mumble. Mumble mumble. Mumble mumble mumble.”

Pharmacist (loud and clear – might as well have been using a bullhorn): “Over the counter?”

Young Man: “Mumble mumble. Mumble. Mumble.”

Pharmacist: “Fertility tests? Yes, we have fertility tests for women. They’re in Aisle 3.”

Young Man: “Mumble! Mumble mumble mumble mumble. Mumble.”

Pharmacist: “What?!?!”

Young Man: “Mumble mumble mumble!”

Pharmacist (looking a little disgusted): “No! For a test like that, you gotta go see a doctor!”

The pharmacist fled to the comfort of filling prescriptions. The young man and his crew slouched out of the store. All looked dissatisfied.

Part of: Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent way too much time on chat and phone with various forms of tech support. Most of it has had to do with Quicken, which inexplicably stopped working right, and then piece-by-piece, started working better. It now appears to be fine, although no one knows who or what caused the improvement. In the world of technology, an experience like this is known as a “Full Smolinsky.”

I have great respect for people who provide tech support from call centers in the places like India and the Philippines. To make better lives for themselves and their families, they work miserable hours supporting poorly built products that are used by ungrateful people like me.  And last week, one of those wonderful people called me and said the following:

“Hello. I’m trying to reach Mr. Daniel Wallace. Is this Mr. Daniel Wallace? Hello, Mr. Daniel Wallace. I’m calling from Intuit Quicken. I am the support agent who will be helping you on this call. My name is Ann-Margaret.”

You know my rule. I never make this stuff up.

Now, on to the political commentary.

Hillary Clinton has, at last, thankfully, conclusively demonstrated that she is not qualified to hold the nation’s highest office. This time, it’s not the general smarminess, the lack of transparency or the squishy ethics. It’s not the habit of doing questionable things and then acting outraged when people question them. And it certainly isn’t the deeply held beliefs, the policies that emanate from them, and the clear, compelling vision for the future of America. It can’t be any of those things because I have no idea what they are and, in fact, strongly suspect that they don’t exist.

No, this time it’s much simpler.

In this day and age, if you don’t know that you can carry one phone with two email accounts on it, if you think that the right way to get a personal email account is to get your own mail server, if you can actually get your own mail server, and yet your answer to the question of whether it was secure is, “Well, it was on a property protected by the Secret Service,” then, at least in my humble opinion, you simply are not smart enough to be President of the United States.

Case closed.

Start Your Year With A Smile – 2014 Edition

Welcome to Year 5 of my annual photo review. Once again, I went into the year afraid that I’d get nothing and once again I got lots. Once again, I had help from friends and family.  And once again there’s the silly, the absurd, and the in-the-kind-of-bad-taste-that-appeals-mostly-to-inner-13-year-olds-like-me.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This year instead of themes, I’m mostly going to work chronologically. But first, here are the gifts from friends and family. With apologies to those who sent them, over the course of the year, I mostly forgot who sent what.  So I’m not going to attribute them because I would almost certainly get it wrong. Here they are, in the order received:

This school bus company decided that the best way to recruit drivers was to run a bus off the road and slap a sign on it.  Which seems like a great way to recruit exactly the people who shouldn’t be driving a school bus.

I don’t often post things that have been posted elsewhere, but I like this too much not to.

An accurate reflection of last winter in Chicago.

I dare you. . .go ahead and figure out what you are and are not allowed to do here.

A new form of nightlife. . .the Raw-iano Bar?

OK, on to my year.  My tour of the visually absurd which started at O’Hare on January 13. I wasn’t fast enough with the phone, so I missed the actual picture.  But here’s the scene.  See the guy at the far end in the blue hat?

About a minute earlier, he was right in front of me with his backpack on the floor, bent over, trying to find something in it.  Let’s just say that in that moment, he, umm, revealed himself to be a plumber. Not an apprentice, either. A full-on, no kidding, 100% card-carrying, can’t you at least feel the draft, master plumber.  As the saying goes, I will never be able to not see that.

I’ve stayed in hundreds of hotels, and I’ve never hoped or expected to find a pre-printed, fake-handwritten Post-It like the one below stuck to the headboard of the bed.  And I hope never to see another one.  Methinks they doth protest too much.

The former Caribou near me used tips to run informal polls.  I.e., one cup for Dogs and one for Cats.  Put your buck in the cup you favor  This poll took me a second. Then it made me wince.

By the way, Holyfield won by a knockout.

OK, bad taste time. . .

In the spring, I found myself stuck in traffic behind this car on a Chicago expressway. (Side note: now, there’s a misappellation for you.   There’s nothing “express” about Chicago freeways. For that matter, there’s nothing “free” about most of them, either.  Now, back to our story. . .)

The nice lady driving this car either loves horse country or she really likes to over-share.

My money is on over-sharing.  A couple of days later, at the very beginning of the same “expressway,” I saw this sign.

It’s a little hard to make out because it was flickering. It says “Beam Erection.” Really.  “In the event of a road construction project lasting more than 4 years. . .”

Departing from the chronology briefly (but staying with the bad taste). . .when I was in my mid-20s, I lived in Washington DC for a couple of years. Every day, page 3 of the Washington Post was graced by an ad from Fred the Furrier. One day, the ad featured a woman in a lovely coat under the headline “Joie de Beaver.” Now, I”m sure Fred thought he was being clever, but I got D’s in college French, and even I can translate that. It was the source of much amusement for my roommates and me.

My roommates have matured. I haven’t.  So I was pleased that it turned out to be a banner year for the beaver-related.

There’s this place – an institution on Chicago’s north side:

And this street downtown Flagstaff (I’m actually not sure which I like better, the name itself or the fact that it’s one-way):

None of which prepared me for this, which I saw in a brew pub in Idaho Falls.

I had one, by the way. It was very good.

Back to chronology.  Years ago, my friend Chuck Nordhoff introduced me to the joys of in-bad-taste lawn statuary. So I was delighted to see this guy.  He’s about 4 and a half feet tall.  The hat and the glasses are real.  I don’t know anything about the neighborhood over which he presides.  Only that someone thought he was a good idea.

We’re now up to mid-summer, and if the beaver thing wasn’t bad enough, please remember that I never make anything up. My friend Anne Beall invited me to view Chicago’s “Pride Parade” (a public celebration of LGBT life, but others join in).  It passes right by her house, and you can see her in the lower right corner of the picture below.  This was my first time seeing the parade. It’s quite a show.

This was the first thing I saw when I arrived.

I guess everybody needs a cause.  Remember, a group of men and women sat around someone’s living room and decided that they were sufficiently, well, hacked off about this (there are adjectives I could insert here, but even I won’t stoop that low) issue to do this.

I passed this sign on my way home from a day with a client.  Maybe it’s me, but I’m thinking that this is a product for which no amount of advertising or promotion is really going to increase demand.

I’ve always thought that the homeless suffer perhaps the worst misfortune among us.  So I was surprised to learn that they’re apparently doing quite well.

I was enormously relieved to see this car. Since they treat all ends of the horse, there’s still a place for me to get medical care.

This was next door to an office where I had a meeting with a client.  (Yes, you can see me exercising my craft.)  I was not able to get my client to move the meeting here.

Please read the description of the Grill Room Burger. Then head straight to your local ER because just reading this puts you at risk.

I saw this just before I heard that Family Dollar had put itself up for sale.  It’s a little dark and you may not be able to make out the sign on the far right.  It says, “New!  Everyday Low Prices!”  Really?  This is Family Dollar.  What the hell have they been doing for the last 25 years?

Jimmy Hoffa may still be missing, but at least we found Miley Cyrus.

This place is closed.  I don’t know anything else about it, other than that they stole Dunkin’ Donuts’ tradestyle. But just try to pronounce whatever it is that’s on the sign.  I tried.  I can’t do it.

I love this place’s definition of “foot.”  Very generous.

Presumably, the Jew Arena is a foot-traffic nightmare.

I could imagine this company being many different colors. Honestly, green really isn’t one of them.

And wrapping up the year, this is the entire beef/poultry section of the menu from a wonderful Italian restaurant. There’s not a lot of beef in the beef/poultry section. For that matter, there’s not a lot of poultry, either.  Lots of lawsuit fear, however.

And lastly, putting the fun stuff aside for a moment. . .this is the new Freedom Tower (actually One World Trade Center) in New York. From a distance, I didn’t like it very much.  But up close, it’s astounding.  From the right vantage point, It truly seems to ascend forever, touching, one might hope, the souls it honors.

That’s what I have for you.  I hope you had a wonderful 2014 and that 2015 is even better.  For my part, I already have the first entry for next year’s edition.

My Neighborhood Has a Moose! Does Yours?

 

I usually pay attention to things with more redeeming social importance than this.  Except when I don’t.  Which is often.  Including now. . .

Yesterday and again today, I’ve been busy getting ready for a week of business travel.  Lots of desk time catching up, cleaning up and prepping.  And a curious distraction.

There’s a building that I see every time I look up from my laptop.  It’s a few blocks north, older, maybe 8-10 stories.  I’ve never paid any attention to it before, but yesterday a work crew was busy painting the side of it a bright, vibrant blue.  Today they’re back.  At least I think it’s them.  Maybe it’s a different crew.  Whoever it is, today they’re hoisting up the side of the building a giant picture of a moose that appears to be blowing a bubble-gum bubble.

I have no idea why my neighborhood is getting a bubble-blowing moose.  Perhaps there’s new research showing that bubble-blowing moose(s) raise the value of nearby properties?  Maybe the building owner misses Bullwinkle, just like I do.  That seems unlikely, though, since the bubble makes this moose look a little more like Rudolph than Rocky’s BFF.

Whatever the reason for it’s appearance (and I hope that eventually I’ll find out what that is), I’m sure it will be a great enhancement.

Consistent with my rule that I never make this stuff up because I’m just not that good, here’s my new neighbor.  Enjoy!

PS – Lots of fun trying to come up with tags for this post. . .:-).

Speaking Plainly

Having been away for a long time, I owe my handful of faithful readers something better than this.  But it’s what I’ve got for you.

Perhaps you heard that the King of Spain recently abdicated the throne.  You know what this means, of course:

• The reign in Spain went lamely down the drain.

<sigh> Finally I come up with something Twitterable and I have no Twitter account.  I refuse to create one because I believe that behind every great Twitter is a Twit.

Or perhaps I’ve put the cart before the horse?

Justifiable Schadenfreude

Any thought I had about perhaps being a big enough person not to revel in a little schadenfreude went right out the window when my friend Steve Smolinsky emailed me this headline a few weeks ago.

 

(To read the full story, click here)

This was a revelation to me. I had no idea that suicide bombing is something you need to go to school for. I always assumed the instructions were pretty simple:

1. Strap on vest
2. Make your way to a place filled with innocents
3. Push the red button
4. Express great surprise at the absence of virgins

Obviously, there’s more to it, presumably starting with “When practicing, be sure to use a vest that’s not actually packed with explosives.” Good advice.  A little surprising that anyone needs to hear it.

I’ve been meaning to post this since it arrived, mostly because along the way, I picked up these wonderful bits of drollery from friends:

• “One thing you know for sure about a suicide bombing instructor – no on the job experience.”

. . . and . . .

• “Kids – they blow up so fast nowadays.”

Someone somewhere no doubt is blaming America for this mishap and using it to recruit and misguide yet more children.  I was hoping that this sort of over-the-top corporal punishment might discourage at least a few of them from signing up for this class.  Apparently not.  As I was getting ready to post this, I heard that yesterday in Iraq, suicide bombers killed 30 of their countrymen/women/children and wounded 70 more.

Misguided is the wrong adjective.

Start Your Year With A Smile

This is now the fourth consecutive year for this photo missive.  One of the benefits of it becoming a habit is that I’m starting to get photos from friends and family, for which I’m truly grateful.  Takes some of the pressure off.  I’m also grateful for the good fortune of a great scene that presented itself with only 40 minutes left in 2013.  But you’ll have to read on to find it.

Let’s get started.

The following four pictures are all from a single trip to visit a client in Milwaukee.  When I visit that client, I stay at a Crowne Plaza hotel, which is basically an overdressed Holiday Inn.  Nothing wrong with that – it’s clean and comfortable, and the staff is very nice.  But while Doubletrees give their guests a couple of cookies so good you know they have to be bad for you, the Crowne Plaza, gives you this:

The blue bag looks suspiciously like something you might take with you while walking your dog.  On my next visit, the Keebler cookies were gone – replaced by a second bottle of water.

Driving back to Chicago, I saw this sign on a building just off the freeway.  It’s my favorite of the year – does the best possible job of explaining why you wouldn’t want to be this company’s customer.

A little further south, just before Kenosha, I came across this.  It’s Wisconsin and there’s a party goin’ on.

(OK, heroism should get its due.  My friend Cliff Porzenheim points out that the sign actually refers to Kenosha native Dick Bong, who was America’s leading fighter ace in WWII.)

When I got to Kenosha (land of the BoDeans and a zillion outlet stores), I stopped to grab a bite at the Tuscany Bistro, which I recommend, by the way – it’s terrific.  And run by people with a sense of humor.  It’s Wisconsin, and there really is a party goin’ on.

All of that from one trip to Milwaukee.  If I had any sense, I would quit while I’m ahead.   If I had any sense.  Let’s continue. . .

If you can’t make out the name of the company, it’s Key Sales, Inc.  Apparently, they can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

My daughter, Julia, spotted this sign at the Wal-Mart in Hayward, WI.  Might they be better off simply not talking about their safety record?

Here, thankfully (and thanks to Victoria Woodarski) is a little truth in advertising.  You gotta love the phone number.

And courtesy of Scott St. Clair, here’s a smart buy for the not-so-smart.

If you’re tired of your kids, my friend Steve Smolinsky found out where you can take them.  Of course, if they don’t sell, you may have to take them back.

A couple of travel tales this year:

In January, I visited my daughter in Puerto Vallarta, where she was volunteering in an orphanage (yes, she has a very proud dad).  We took a bus to a nearby town, where we found these people waiting to take the bus back the other way.  I kept hearing a clucking sound, which turned out to be coming from the box in the middle of the picture.

Yup. . .that there is a Chicken In A Box.

I go to Detroit once a quarter to visit with my friends at EOS Worldwide.  We meet at the Detroit Airport Westin.  I’m glad I’ve never been given this room, which I suspect is the 10^th Circle of Hell.  Note the Do Not Disturb sign.  Demons at work, I assume.

There used to be just a few of us at the EOS meetings, but now there are so many that the EOS folks give us really fancy name badges.  Here’s the back of one.  Care to guess what led to the badge-maker adding this legend?

This sight raised a bunch of questions.  Starting with who thinks of things like this?  And who buys them?

An aside: I had Tetra as a client many years ago.  Their HQ and factory are in the tiny, landlocked town of Melle, Germany.  By tiny, I mean that the only sources of economic activity are the Tetra plant and a Chinese restaurant. It seems like an extremely unlikely location for both businesses, and I have no idea how either one got there.  Thanks to the factory, the entire town smells like fish food.  So it really doesn’t matter what you order at the restaurant.  Like it or not, you’re ordering from the seafood menu.

In the automotive category, I was on my way to have lunch with my friend Julie Roth when I saw this.

Yes, that’s an Aston Martin parked in a handicapped spot.  To the owner:  You can afford the car but you can’t afford the valet?  James Bond is going to get you for this.

I saw this while stuck in traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway (a classic misnomer – there is nothing “express” about it).  I swear, I wasn’t moving when I took the picture.  Completely safe.  Really.  That’s my story.

It’s a little hard to see, but that thing in the right front seat is a giant, orange plastic cockroach.  There has to be a story behind this.  I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been in a situation where the right thing for me to do was put a giant plastic cockroach in any part of my car, let alone in the passenger’s seat.  Worse yet, the cockroach was sitting feet up, head down, and the driver was smiling.  You want to fill in the blanks?  I don’t.

If you’ve been following my year-end posts for any length of time, you know that I have an undeniably juvenile appreciation for restroom humor.  Perhaps it’s because the water closet is one of life’s great equalizers.  Or maybe it’s just because I’m undeniably juvenile.

Whichever, I saw this sign while trying to find a restroom in Mexico.

And this one somewhere else, maybe on an airplane.  With signs like this, I always wonder what set of events made someone decide it was necessary.  In this case, I think it was the milk bottle that caught my eye.

Speaking of wondering what made someone decide it was necessary, I saw this at a Doubletree (yes, the cookie people).  I’d never really thought about what goes into a decision to enter a public restroom.  I guess I’ve always been satisfied simply to know that it was intended for my gender.  Apparently, that’s not always enough information.  I suspect (for the obvious reasons) that this isn’t a standard sign.  Which means somebody thought about this, decided it was important, and had the sign made.  Someone else paid that person to do it.  Perhaps this is the OCDoubletree.

This logo made me want to run right out and by the stock:

Imagine what the analyst call with the CEO and CFO is like:  “We’re pleased to report that primary demand is up thanks to increasing coffee consumption. . .”

And finally in this category – I got this piece of spam from what appears to be the Vietnamese version of Home Depot.  It was entirely in Vietnamese except for one word.

Using that as a segue to technology, I found this bit of brilliance while looking for some free Wi-Fi:

Now go back and look at the Wi-Fi network below “FBI Surveillance Van.”  Someone was in a bad mood the day they set up their router.

On a much happier note, nature loves a plastic surgeon with a sense of humor.

Here’s a bit of pith from the Russian playwright Anton Chekov.

Editorializing briefly:  I’ve sat through a Chekov play.  Once.  Which was enough.  If you want to know what REALLY wears you out, give that a try sometime.

This is my dog, who doesn’t offer much comfort but has no problem accepting it.

And finally (thank you for your patience), there I was at 11:20PM on New Year’s Eve, getting my car out of the alley behind my friends Anne and Doug’s house.  It was 15 degrees, snowing like mad, and this guy came down the alley.  There’s just never a St. Bernard when you need one.

Thanks for visiting.  Happy New Year – I wish you a wonderful 2014!