Potato Chips

Wow! I missed the big event. Well, it's not really big unless you like to eat potato chips, as most of us do. You see, August was the month potato chips were born. According to "legend" (rumor... or maybe somebody's guess) the original potato chip recipe was created on August, 25th in 1853, when a chef, frustrated by a patron (who kept sending his potatoes back to the kitchen, complaining they were thick, soggy and bland. So the chef decided get back at the complaining diner by slicing them as thin as possible and fry them until they were crazily crisp. The diner loved them, and our waist bands have been expanding ever since.

What could be unhealthier than a thin slice of potato cooked in grease and salted to death? Hmmm Not even my precious donuts are that artery clogging. But during W.W. II here in the U.S. potato chips were the only readily available veggie for war sacrificing Americans. The U.S. government even declared then to be "an essential food". (Today I am hoping the government will declare donuts to be a sacred food).

Today, potato chips are the most popular snack in the United States. Potato chips constitute 40% of snack food consumption in the U.S. And they are also universally popular. Try these weird flavors as an example: Cajun Squirrel, Lamb & Mint, Seaweed & Salt, Roast Chicken, Margarita & Salt, Steak & Onion, Chesapeake Crab, Tuna Salad, Prawn Cocktail, County Mayo Ham, Wasa Beef, Mango, Lime 'n' Masala, Spanish Chicken Paella, Chutney,

Bacon Sizzler, Fries n' Gravy, ramen (the noodles are always around because they bred like rabbits), cucumber, fusion (a whole bunch of unrelated flavors in one disgusting chip), paprika, kebob, oregano, caviar and....many more to please or repulse every palate.

Anyone can make homemade potato chips if they have a mandolin slicer to cut potatoes thin. Just drop the thin slices in 350 degree oil and cook until browned. But you can even make them in a microwave oven. I'm not kidding. Here's how:

-Pour vegetable oil into a plastic bag. Add the potato slices, and shake to coat.
-Coat a large dinner plate lightly with oil or cooking spray. Arrange potato slices in a single layer on the dish.
-Cook in the microwave for 3 to 5 minutes, or until lightly browned (if not browned, they will not become crisp).
-Remove chips from plate, and toss with salt (or other seasonings). Let cool.

Have I ruined your diet with this stupid potato chip report? Ok, then just have a nice donut and forget the whole thing.

Halloween Movies

Turn on your DVD or Blue Ray because I want to put you in the mood for Halloween with Halloween movie talk. For me, it isn't Halloween without some Halloween films to watch, in part (if they are especially awfully-good films) or completely (to set the mood). I think Halloween is especially popular because it allows us to pretend to be scared, to escape the real scare of everyday life and find refuge in pretending to be afraid by what we watch on screen. The late film director, Alfred Hitchcock said it best, "People like to be scared when they feel safe."

The Hollywood Halloween films do it in many ways......with fun or funny scary films, suspense scare films, special effects scare, suggestive scare, and with gruesome slasher films (I don't like those and won't recommend any of them today). Most people just watch them because they are merely fun to see. I prefer the older ones that have fewer special effects, come in black and white and have almost no special effects. That way, the imagination can take over the viewer. Suggested horror is always more frightening than seeing it in full blown modern tech, special effects enhanced with gore.

I also like the light, innocent Halloween films, the one the little kids also like.
Here are a few of my favorite non gory/violent Halloween films that you might want to give a try. I promise you will have a spookingly good time if you view any of them.
* Frankenstein , Dracula, The Wolfman- These three 30's era black an white films are, in my view, the greatest horror films ever made. Boris Karloff

(Frankenstein), Bella Lagosi (Dracula) and Lon Chaney (The Wolfman) created the characters that have changed little since. After watching them you feel frightened, but you can't remember why. It seems that all the fright was suggested and your imagination created all you could stand.

* Hocus Pocus- A fun 1993 Disney film that stars Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sara Jessica Parker tells the story of a Halloween-hating teenager named Max, who accidentally resurrects three witches, The Sanderson Sisters, from their temporary death and must risk his life to protect his sister and defeat them with the help of a classmate and an immortal black cat.

* War of the Worlds- This 1953 black and white film follows the world's failed efforts by we humans to stop an invasion from Mars. The film offers plenty of scares, but the biggest has to be the encounter with a Martian in the abandoned farm house.

* Dawn of the Dead"- The 1978 movie features some of the goriest scenes ever committed to film. It's no wonder the film was banned in 17 countries.

* The Things- Made in 1982 it follows a crew stationed at an Antarctic base stalked an alien. But which member of the crew is the alien? The crew doesn't know, and neither does the audience until the creature begins one of its stomach churning transformations. There's one part with a head sprouting insect legs to escape.

* The Birds- a late 60's classic by Alfred Hitchock that is based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier is about an invasion of earth by birds. The use of suspense and the unknown (we are never told why the birds of the world suddenly turn violent and attack humans) are classic ways to spook anyone without resorting to cheap special effects gore.

Sleepy Hollow- A rare twenty first century thriller about a headless ghost slaughtering the villagers of an 18th century town. It's a complex murder mystery that Johnny Depp is sent to unravel.

* Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein- It's a lot of fun to watch the great comic duo Abbott and Costello work out slapstick routines and mix with with horror pro's like Lugosi (the original Dracula) and and Chaney (the original Wolf Man).

* The Invisible Man- The 1933 black and white classic d filled with as much humor as frights.

* The Mummy- Boris Karloff brought The Egyptian Im-ho-tep to life in the 1932 version of The Mummy. This one is full of intriguing imagery and suspense and sort of, well...creepy.

Social Media Web Sites

About Face book and the rest of the social media sites or more specifically, about their usefulness. A decade ago before those social media web sites existed, no online profiles existed. There was no profile picture to choose, no status update to draft… no relationship status request to hope for. In order to actually be seen by others, one would have had to contact face to face. But with Face book and other social media sites, we always have an audience.

Now people find a sort of empowerment in being able to control how others saw and shaped their opinions of them. They use the sites to craft an image
(often distorted) of themselves. Some live vicariously through there social media profile. I think it's fair to say that social media in general has created a somewhat unavoidable compulsion to put ourselves up for public approval by a panel of often unknown judges. Unsurprisingly women are, according to a University of Buffalo study, more apt to use Face book as a means of self promotion than men are, especially in terms of crafting an ideal representation of themselves for those in their networks to see.

It is curious, and I wonder if it is a positive or negative thing. Just look at any social meeting site and you'll see far more women posting far more personal information and being far more active there. According to researchers, not only do women tend to have larger social networks than men do, and share five times as many photos, but also, women who seek approval based on others' views of them tend to be more active in social media.

I wonder if in opening that online door we've ultimately closed one of intimacy. Sometimes when we go on one of those sites it feels as if we are watching a movie with people we doubt exist as they have presented themselves. We have taken this social network so far that we've begun to lose the individualism of ourselves and our private lives. Yet, the do bring people together, do open new worlds and have many positive benefits as well as the negatives I have mentioned.

So I ask. Are the social media sites more beneficial or are they more injurious to our every day relationships in this confusing and cluttered world? You tell me....

Halloween Foods I Remember

I saw a candy apple for sale at a grocery store today and had to by and eat it. Candy apples are definitely associated by me with the autumn and Halloween season. I like the ones with the hard red candy coating much more than the caramel coated apples. It's probably because when I was a child we ate many more of the hard coated ones. It got me to think about varies foods that I associate with during Halloween and autumn. I believe we all have childhood memories of traditional foods during a certain time of the year. Halloween is one of those holidays that have plenty of memories for me.

Another food I crave at Halloween time is apple cider. Apples season hits a peak in October, so apple cider makes an appearance everywhere. There is nothing more symbolic of Autumn than a glass of apple cider that is cloudy with all the parts of the apple that have been ground in it and so naturally sweet. It's one "healthy" food I endorse. I have already had many glasses of it this October.

Then there is the Halloween cookie. Every year I made them with Jane when she was small, and she or she and her friends would decorate them at the kitchen table. It reminded me of the times in my boyhood when my mother would do the same for me. I can still see myself decorating with colored icings those sugar cookies shaped in to the images of bats, pumpkins, skeletons and other Halloween symbols. Jane and I did make a few last year( though not with the fun and enthusiasm we showed in her childhood as she and her friends did the decorating of the cookies I baked) and I will offer to do it again this time, for my sake and to pass on the tradition so that when Jane has children she will make Halloween cookies with them as well.

For me candy is also synonymous with Halloween and Autumn. I always over-eat candy that I allegedly buy to hand out Halloween night when trick or treaters appear at my door. I confess to buying my favorites so that I can nibble on some before Halloween night and after on leftovers that were not needed to be handed to trick or treaters.

Many other people like me gain weight during the month of October and blame that constant candy snacking for it. My childhood memories of coming home after trick or treating, emptying my bag of candy spreading all the candy on the living room rug to trade what I didn't like for what I did with other kids who I trick or treated with were replayed when Jane used to do the same thing, as millions of other kids will do again this Halloween night.

I remember then feeling so sorry for the kids whose parents told them something stupid after we returned to our house with our trick or treat candy packed full in our loot bags. After the trades we would make (I don't like nuts in my candy, so I always traded those first)... there was always some jaded parent who would declare to his or her son, "Johnny, you can take only three pieces and we will give the rest away so you won't eat too much candy tonight." It's like a parent telling a child on Christmas morning that he can only have three of the eight presents under the tree. Those insensitive parents were the Scrooges of Halloween, and did not need to be costumed to prove their identity.

It probably ruined the fun of Halloween and trick or treating for those poor kids, and as adults they must be the ones who turn off their porch lights and pretend to be away from home when the children try to trick or treat at their houses. Hmmm Too little candy for them during their childhood, means no candy to give for kids who trick or treat at their houses. It's sad.

I also associate pumpkin sweets with Halloween and autumn. I think I eat the vast majority of pumpkin sweets during October and November. Just yesterday I bought a pumpkin donut at a local bakery. I love pumpkin in sweets except when it is a pumpkin pie. I hated pumpkin pie when I was a child and hate it now. This must be proof that the child is the father of the man. Strange I like just about every other pumpkin sweet and have already had pumpkin ice cream, made pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake, had a pumpkin shake and a pumpkin smoothie.

Come to think of it, I am stopping this reminiscence now to have my morning breakfast...yep...it will be... pumpkin pancakes.

Charade Of Democratic Refrom

It's too bizarre to be logical, even if it's another of those crazy Muslim state policies. What I refer to is the fact that Saudi Arabian women have now been given the right to vote in Saudi election and to run as candidates in local elections there. Uh, it's great that women can now vote there, but the sequence of women's rights seem a bit off in Saudi Arabia and many other extremist Muslim nations.

Need an example? Well, how about two even more fundamental rights every human should have today but are forbidden to Saudi women, the right to drive an automobile and to leave the country unaccompanied by a male. Uh, so women in Saudi Arabia can't drive their own cars, but they have the right to vote and run elections. I wonder how the women will conduct their election campaigns or get to the polls to vote. Will they still be barred from driving and have to be chaperoned by a male member of their family.

It's sort of like buying car insurance for a son or daughter but telling them they can't use the family car. But them those fanatical Muslims were never very logical.
No doubt the women, like the men of Saudi Arabia, will be voting for "nothing" anyway. The whole Saudi population, males included, is in effect disenfranchised from the the ruling autocratic regime who appoint the key political positions and make elections meaningless by ruling as dictators. A few token women will be elected to meaningless posts and women will have the right to cast meaningless votes as life will go on there are before with no real change.

When ever the thugish Mullahs and princes in Saudi Arabia want to keep the underlings (the other non privileged 99% of the population of Saudi Arabia) down they always cite the democratic changes the people there as for as as "incompatible with Sharia Law"? Sharia Law is the ancient law that the thugs there use to stay in control. It is taken from the Koran and from the examples of Mohammed. Thank goodness we still don't use the Bible for our civil and criminal laws. if so, we might, for example, be stoned to death for divorcing. But the Muslims believe some things should never change, and that would be whatever their Koran says that best suits their agenda for maintaining control over the population.

Oh well, despite the voting change and the chance to run for meaningless elected offices in Saudi Arabia. I suspect the women there aren't celebrating too loudly about it. If they do so, they will probably be flogged for making too much noise disturbing the males in the kingdom. of course, Sharia law would probably be used to permit the flogging too.

Halloween Costumes 2011

Halloween is near so you get my senseless rhetoric about costumes today. Statistics say about 40% of people in the U.S. (and 11% of their pets....I love the idea of a Lindsay Lohan dog outfit.....kind of makes a statement about the actress) dress in costume for Halloween. I think the kinds of pretend costumes we wear for fun reflect the kinds of things we don't pretend about, uh, that is, the serious things we are thinking about . According to a survey in the U.S. conducted by the National Retail Federation last year, witches are still the number one costume for adults, followed by vampires, pirates and nurses. But, some pop culture costumes are immensely popular this year.

Hmmm, I refuse to dress like "Snookie" and think that anyone who does might have an IQ equal to a reality TV performer, or worse to one of the viewers of that mess. But Snookie outfits are big sellers this year for both adults and kids. I saw quite a bit of Snookie gear at one local store that sells Halloween items. When I was a kid my costume was more often a ghost, crafted from an old white bed sheet my mom tailored for me. I still remembering hitting the ground after tripping over that thing and getting more laughs directed at me than spooks sent out by me from underneath it.

Anyway, last year surveys said that the most popular costumes for 2010 came straight from the youth-dominated music or TV networks. The cast of a reality TV show called "Jersey Shore" (no, I have never even had an inclination to watch one second of it) in which people with no discernible talent are photographed in situations to show their stupidity and are then made rich and famous for it. Jersey Shore outfits topped the list of most desirable. Lady Gaga outfits finished as the second biggest seller. It makes me want to gaga gag.

Among other hot costumes last year were: anything associated with the inane Twilight' Vampire series; all things 80's (think that Madonna look); those Hollywood movie characters , as in 'Avatar' and 'Harry Potter'; and the standard Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman and other traditional outfits we no longer are scared by, given their ubiquitous nature.

I like all Halloween costumes because they reveal our inner thoughts and because they are just plain fun to see. They are a kind of Freudian slip in how they let us show things we don't otherwise say. The fact that the culture is now so obsessed with nonsense (think Snookie) targets when costuming indicates the frivolous and anti intellectual nature of society today. But then, who wants to dress like Einstein or Steven Jobs? When we costume we more often lower ourselves, not elevate.I more often dress for Mardi Gars than Halloween, and when I do it is almost always a satirical outfit spoofing politicians, infamous newsmakers or pompous celebrities. This is because I like to make more than a visual statement with my costumes. I want to throw spears at who I am spoofing. My 'Obami The Clown' outfit last Mardi Gras day drew quite a few laughs and compliments. In fact, no one seemed offended by the slurs I hurled at Obami....err....Obama. It seems that when humor at an event like Halloween or Mardi Gras comes into play, people love it even when you criticize a favorite of theirs.

So Halloween might be the best time to make your serious statement about someone or something that in your real life you find odd or objectionable. Yes, that means you could even dress and mask as me.

At Halloween And Every Day After

I still keep in touch with the activities in New Orleans through my computer, mostly with a New Orleans radio station I listen to from time to time and the web site of the 'Times Picayune', the New Orleans daily newspaper. Today I read about the usual Halloween activities going on this year in New Orleans. Halloween is much bigger in New Orleans than most other places in the world. Everywhere else in the U.S. Halloween is a night of trick or treating for the kids and a smattering of adult activities. But in New Orleans, like nearly everything else, it's different. Halloween there is second only to Mardi Gras for wild and crazy activities in the most haunted city in the U.S. And it's become more of an adult holiday than a kiddy day.

Even when Halloween is over and forgotten, the Halloween edge there is constant. On any night, for example, one can take one of the many haunted tours through the old part of the city, The French Quarter. Every year scores of tourists who are vacationing in the Quarter report hearing or seeing ghosts, apparitions or bizarre activities at night. It is said that the cries for justice, vengeance or sympathy from the dead can almost be heard, crying out eerily. The stories told about restless souls, zombies and ghouls have been :"verified" by quite a few who have witnessed the spirits of the departed walking about at night.

One haunted tour operator, 'Haunted History Tours', claims that 90% of their tour participants capture paranormal activity in their photos. Day time in New Orleans before or after Halloween also has plenty of macabre activities to see. One popular one is to visit the old cemeteries of the city. The tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, for instance, at St. Louis cemetery #1 is the second most visited tomb in the U.S. On occasion the visitor to the cemeteries can find candles and other paraphernalia used and left behind from the bight before by Voodoo worshipers who met and sacrificed chickens or made incantations at tombs said to be inhabited by the possessed. before I left New orleans I visited some of my ancestors tombs at old Lafayette #2 and saw the same at the foot of one of the graves.

Another Halloween-like activity one can do in New Orleans any time of the year is to visit one of the many Voodoo shops operating in the city. Besides learning about the haunted nature of the city one can buy what is needed to cast a few spells and mystical incantations (don't worry, I haven't cast a spell on you yet!) or he or she can have a consultation with a practicing Voodoo priestess. Voodoo is alive and functional in the city.

The list of Halloween activities in the city would fill a book, so I wont mention them. Just remember that if you are ever in New Orleans and in a spooky mood, you need not go far to find some frights.

Gahdafi Gone

Those images of Libyan dictator Moammar Gahdafi being captured, beaten bloody and then murdered by the celebratory rebels is a disturbing, even though if anyone deserved such treatment it was that thug Gadhafi. But now that Gadhafi has left the scene, the rebels and their iffy government have lost their reason to exist. Now what?

The rebels under the banner of National Transitional Council have been plagued by infighting and the emergence of factions that hate the others. I wonder which new dictator will emerge in such a disorganized place as Libya. Surely, the last thing I expect to see in Libya is the replacement of a dictator with real democracy.

It is more likely to be the same old story...liberals and Islamists come together during the revolution, only to split afterward and fight each other for control. Guess who gets left out of the equation? Yep, the average Libyan citizen whose hopes for better than Ghadafi will gradually wane.

It would be great to see a Middle-Eastern country, Libya or any other which suffered life under a dictator, rebuild and take pride in itself, build an infrastructure and settle down to enjoy a normal life. But that's a dream unlikely to happen in Libya. More probably is a fundamentalist Islamic government almost as bad as the Ghadafi regime.

Osama Goess To Hollywood

It had to happen, and happen so quickly. What is it? It's a movie about Osama bin Laden. Some filmmakers already were at work on bin Laden movies even before his death, in anticipation of it. It's a case of art imitating life...every quickly....in search of financial reward...by appealing to the baser nature of the audience.

And the operation to assassinate bin laden itself sounded very cinematic, like a plot out of a Hollywood movie. The fact that it happened in real life is just astounding. I wonder how Hollywood will butcher this one when the real story of bin laden and his killing is already interesting enough. But surely they will make the real the ridiculous (PLEASE, Hollywood....don't throw Meeghan Fox into it as one of bin Laden's mistresses).

Supposedly, one of the first bin Laden films is called 'Act of Valor', an action thriller featuring real-life commandos, the story will follow a squad Navy Seals on a covert mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent, which then turns into a race to take down a web of terrorist cells and bin Laden. Another one, not yet named, will allegedly tell the story of the bin Laden hunt as it happened.

In truth, I am not interested in such films because I already have observed first hand the real events. It seems too soon to tell a story when anyone with any degree of consciousness already knows much about the event. How soon is too soon when making such a film of current history? Maybe in this case, some Americans are so bitter about bin Laden that they are eagerly receptive to seeing him killed on the big screen. These films probably will make money, and that is what drives filmmakers to produce such films.

Well, I'm sure the fanatical element of Muslims won't watch it. But they could decide to try to blow up every theater that shows them.

Near Naked Protesting

So much protesting is going on in the world these days. I think the protest, many aimless and with little definition, just reflect the desire to be noticed and listened to, even when the rhetoric is odd. One of the fun ones happened recently. It's called The Great Utah Underwear protest. Yep, a bunch of people (ok, about 3000 total) in Mormon land who want the stricter Mormon laws that govern the Mormon influenced state (think of a much milder version of some of the nutty Islamic laws and you have Utah Mormon law) of Utah replaced with 21st century laws and social sanctions, ran around in their underwear to show both their beliefs and their body parts. Thousands of people showed up and stripped to their underwear (local laws make nudity in public a crime, so the protesters kept mostly covered) and ran through Salt Lake City to protest what they called the "uptight" laws of Utah.

Hmmm "uptight" is an old 60's era word to describe those with outdated morals. I haven't heard that one in awhile, but then the residents of Utah are not exactly hip, so it is fitting to use 60's language to protest the 50's style of moral codes in Utah. The mostly younger participants showing off donned bras, panties, nightgowns, swim wear or colorful boxer shorts as they ran through the streets. Some added political messages by expressing support for causes like gay marriage on their chests, backs or legs. (The Mormon Church and Utah have opposed gay marriage).

"We've all heard it for years, Utah is boring, the Utes are uptight... well it's time to change all that, at least for a night," the group wrote on its web site. They may be right about that. Utah is stuck in time, as the state founded by Mormons for Mormon values seems more like a place in the U.S. in the 50's than the 21st century. No doubt the majority of Utes don't support the protest, and that it is more like a college prank for attention, and fun than about changing Utah politics.

But I would love to see those bodies racing through the streets in their negligees...at least the hot ones. Hot girls walking around in their underwear seems like a good cause to me. We need more semi naked or naked protests in this world. This is the kind of protest I can get BEHIND (if the behind is hot enough)

Tea With Hitler

A strange tourist attraction dubbed the 'Tea with Hitler' venue is in the news. It's the Eagle's Nest, the mountain retreat in Germany near the Austrian border, where Adolf Hitler took time off with mistress Eva Braun while World War II was on-going. German tourist officials say it had about 300,000 visitors last year, up 30,000 from the year before. Apparently, there are a lot of people who prefer to remember Hitler than forget him.

I remember long ago passing through the Eagle's nest compound while on a European train and seeing it from the train. But I had no inclination to stop and gawk at Hitler's retreat. What is there to see? Most of it was destroyed at the end of the war, and unless one admires Hitler why walk through his vacation home? I did some checking on line to find other "weird travel venues' and here are some you might (if you have lost your taste) or might not (if you have retained good taste) want to check out during your next vacation.

* Chernobyl and Pripyat- Yep! it's the same place in the Ukraine where a nuclear meltdown happened in 1986- a growing number of tourists are showing interest in spending some days in the highly radioactive zone. I guess they are "glowingly excited" about being radiated.

* Bubble gum Alley- Can you imagine a 20-meter-long stretch in San Luis Obispo, California where you will find the used bubble gums pasted on one another creating a colorful canvass? If you can, be ashamed of yourself because you probably are the one who put all that bubble gum under my desk in school.

* Catacombs- If in Paris, you might want to look at he catacombs located under a church there. I confess to having toured it and had a "bone chilling" time. It was once a stone mine, but the tunnels these were used in the 19th century as a burial site to avoid the high cost of burying above ground in Paris. So it houses human skulls and bones that are stacked to the walls.

* Giant Hockey Stick- Located in the small town of Eveleth in Minnesota, this is a metallic hockey stick is 107 feet long and is 3 tons of weight. There is also a hockey puck at the base of the figure which, matching to the massive stick weighs 700 pounds. I guess anyone who likes dull hockey would be fascinated by this. But having to spend time in Minnesota is such a bad idea the tourist going there should be beaten with a hockey stick as punishment for his or her bad judgment.

* Carneval di Ivrea- This is about one thing...throwing oranges at one another in the tiny town of Ivrea, Italy. It's part of that town's Mardi Gras celebration and continues for three days in late February or early March. Every body can take part in the orange fight, but that one seems more kid friendly, given kiddies probably do this on their own more times than the once a year Ivrea festival

* Waitomo Cave- I included this one because I have seen it myself. In this cave in New Zealand it looks as if the stars shine underground! Well they don’t really, in actuality what you are seeing is thousands of glow worms. I have only "glowing reports" about that place.

* Museum of Bad Art- It is allegedly the world's only museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms. This one is in Boston, Massachusetts, a city known for it's crude residents. Maybe the Bad Art museum inspires their bad behavior.
Enjoy a weird vacation soon...

Dangerous SpongeBob

Do you ever watch the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon show? The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is amusing and has a few jokes directed to the adults in the audience too. The best cartoons are friendly to all ages in the audience. When my daughter Jane was small I watched many episodes of it and came to like the show very much. I think it was because I could relate to the dense but pragmatic 'Patrick' character. Patrick may be dumb, but his stupidity sometimes makes sense. We are all Patrick to one degree or another.

Well, SpongeBob is out of the ocean and in "hot water" now after one of those never endless and pointless studies suggested that watching just nine minutes of that program can cause short-term attention and learning problems in 4-year-olds. I won't go through the study dynamics because it was not reliably done. Suffice to say, the study tested the 4 year olds after watching 4 minutes of SpongeBob, and tested them again after they watched 4 minutes of an "educational" cartoon show called 'Caillou'.

Those who had watched "SpongeBob" did much worse than those Caillou brats. (But Sponge Bob is a cartoon, Caillou while a cartoon is also suppose to be a learning show..... seems an inappropriate comparison for judging intellectual gain or loss)
Hmmm I wonder what the test results for adults would be after watching any TV news program when compared to their viewing a sporting event. I think the news program would produce many more confused, angry, anxious and disturbed people than the sports event. Should we stop adults from watching the TV newscasts as the study says we should ban kids from seeing SpongeBob? Too, if they tested you after reading what I write you would probably be labeled as learning disabled. This attack on a mythical sponge has gone too far!

The authors of this study obviously don't spend much time around 4-year-olds. If they think that Sponge Bob causes this instead of those kids hitting each other in the head with plastic toys, being screamed at by mom and dad, or listening to baby talk from grandma. (and I swear that get brain lock just from listening to Barrack Obama's weekly hope and change speeches).

Better to study a much stronger cause and effect in kid brains development....the parent. Seems to me (and I don't need a study to confirm this) that bad parents, not cartoons, are the ones who most often injure the minds, bodies and souls of children.

Tourist Venues

I have some travel related news for you. I just read that a U.S. magazine, Travel and Leisure, conducted a survey and found that Times Square, New York City is the favorite travel destination in the U.S. with more than 39 million visitors last year. That peeked my curiosity about tourism trends today in general, so I went the United Nations World Tourism Organization to find out where those tourist are headed.

The UNWTO collects and collates statistical information on international tourism. It also supposedly encourages countries to make tourism in their nations more user friendly.
According to their stats, the top five places tourists visited in 2010 are
1) France- 76.80 million visitors
2) United States- 59.75 million
3) China- 55.67 million
4) Spain- 52.68 million
5) Italy- 43.63 million

Interesting... I am surprised that France is number one and that Spain is in the top ten. What's amazing to me is that little Malaysia is the 9th most visited place. I wonder why? And the most visited city, list for last year is: 1) Paris- 15.1 million visitors 2) London- 14.6 million 3) New York City- 9.7 million 4) Anatalya- 9.2 million and 5) Singapore-also 9.2 million. Anatalya, Turkey???? What is that about?

The developments in technology and transportation (those low cheap flights, for example) in recent years have made many types of tourism more affordable today. And the affluence in the world now means there has been an up trend in tourism over the last few decades. Travel is now truly a habit of not just the wealthy, but the common man and woman. Tourists have a wide range of budgets and tastes today. They can travel in so many different ways and do so confidently.

So the choices people make for their travel destinations must be changing more often and are no longer stable. The old favorites remain, but their are now places that are hugely popular that were almost unknown 30 years ago. I have plenty of places not yet visited that I would like to see, and some I have no interest in. Hmmmm Don't send me to many of the African countries or Saudi Arabia, for example.

How about you? To what not yet visited place would you most like to travel and where would you go reluctantly?

Halloween Excess

I have several maples on my property and they are also showing quite a bit of color. Of course it reminds me of Halloween, one of my favorite holidays Halloween says excess, as in too much candy, too many decorations, too many pumpkins to crave or parties to attend. Halloween brings forth some rather bizarre records or events. For an example, take the pumpkin house below. Ok, it's just a side decoration used during Halloween season. but still, one fun thing about Halloween is seeing such sights.

- This year's champion for biggest pumpkin weighed in at 754 kilos -- about 73 kilos shy of the world record set in 2006. And it belonged to a Rhode Island man named Joe Jutras, who at one time held the world record for giant pumpkins.

- In Pretoria, South Africa several bakers created the world's largest pumpkin pie. The 957 kilo pie took two days to assemble and bake and measured 13 meter deep. The pie's other dimensions were 8 1/2 meters long and 2.3 meters wide. It took 10 hours to bake.

- And the record for the most human looking pumpkin face is not from a carving, but rather from the pumpkin's face itself, which had been molded during growth to look human.

- In my former home of New Orleans in 2010 New Orleans Saints football fans set a new world record. On Hallows Eve 17,777 fans came to the Pittsburgh Steelers game in costume, putting them in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest costumed crowd at a Halloween event. Here's a link to a newscast report of that one. http://www.abc26.com/news/local/wgno-news-saints-costume-record,0,2539152.story

There's plenty more excess out there. If you ever visited one of the many Halloween haunted Houses you'll know what I mean. In New Orleans, what is said to be the number one haunted house in the U.S to see, is located in a mortuary house....a former funeral home. Cost of the display, costumes, props, animation lighting, and actors and actresses etc. to set up up each year are hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the crowds that line up to pay $25 a piece to walk through it can expect an hour or more wait for entrance.

It's all a little spooky, but then, that's what Halloween is supposed to be about

Who Could Believe This?

I get plenty of span mail, and always read it as entertainment material. But the lamest piece I ever got, the most obvious scam attempt of all came yesterday. It is below. Take a look.

DEAR BENEFICIARY
WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT OUR DIPLOMATIC AGENT LEFT WITH YOUR ATM CARD CONTAINING US$5.5 MILLIONDOLLARS (FIVE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) SINCE YESTERDAY HOWEVER THE DIPLOMATIC AGENT CONVEYING THE PACKAGE MISPLACED YOUR ADDRESS AND HE IS CURRENTLY STRANDED AT (GARDEN CITY REGIONAL AIR PORT KS) OVER THERE IN USA. WE REQUIRED YOU TO RECONFIRM THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION BELOW SO THAT HE CAN DELIVER YOUR ATM CARD TO YOU TODAY.

NAME: ------------------------------------------------
ADDRESS: --------------------------------------------
MOBILE NO: -------------------------------------------
NAME OF YOUR NEAREST AIRPORT: ---------------
A COPY OF YOUR IDENTIFICATION: ----------------

PLEASE CONTACT THE DIPLOMATIC AGENT WITH HIS EMAIL ADDRESS AS RECONFIRMED BELOW: CONTACT PERSON: MR. JOHN L. WILLIAM, EMAIL:(johnwilliamtnts@gmail.com) THIS IS THE TELEPHONE NUMBER TO REACH HIM OVER THERE IN KANSAS CITY: 316243 5619.

THANKS
MRS MARIA JONATHAN
DIRECTOR TNT EXPRESS COURIER BENIN REPUBLIC

How crazy is that? The spelling, usage and grammatical errors alone make it trash can material. Only the most naive person could believe it has any element of truth to it. But the content itself is totally bizarre. The "our diplomatic agent left with your ATM card" line is is strange. Haha I imagine anyone believing a fairy Godmother in Africa is trying to give him or her 5.5 million dollars would have to wonder how, though stealing his or her ATM card the Godmother "misplaced your address" and can't send the money.

Then there is the clarification of what 5.5 million dollars the figure is when written in English text. Haha One would think a scam artist would at least scam in a literate version of the language used to trick the e mail receiver. Hmmm Maybe "over there" in Kansas City they just don't write English well. Yet, I wonder how many of that type respond to that mailing. Some people must or we would not have such junk mail in our boxes every day.

Oh...if you give them your personal information and they can rush that 5.5 million give them a few thousand of your proceeds so they can attend an English language school and con more convincingly next time.

TV Today

Television...called "The Idiot Box" and "A Vast Wasteland" in it's earliest years seems to be stuck in place these days. If one watches programming (and I admit I rarely do watch much of it) there seems little creativity in the programming content. Eve the awful, brain killing genre called "reality TV" has been done ( in a more subtle form than the vulgar version seen today) many times before in earlier generations of TV.

What has changed about TV though is the myriad ways viewers can watch programs now, on the device of their choice. At the same time, these revolutionary delivery systems will be transmitting new show that, by and large, nothing more than the same old "stuff". The broadcast networks are programming out sitcoms, soaps, and cop shows that have been ( in a less idiotic and vulgar form than today's shows) on TV in the days before cable.

So the technology of TV is way out in front of the content presented. The biggest change in TV programming content has been the switch from family entertainment, particularly the wholesome situation comedy shows of the early days of TV to the current saturation of the bizarre reality TV show. Reality television has taken over the television airways. It reflects the distortion of reality we see outside of TV, in our daily lives.
That TV can claim the reality shows it programs present reality is possible only in a society that either doesn't know reality anymore or knows it but prefers to hide from it. TV does reflect the society as a whole. And sad to say, the picture one gets of society from watching TV is not a pretty or intelligent one. Society may be able to be visually stimulated better by the technological changes in television, but the program quality of television has changed for the worse. It makes one ask the question, "Are we worse than before too?" And, "Are humans less creative because the technological improvements have hypnotized and captured our us so much"

On the other hand, technology has changed TV for the better. Television has undergone several transformations over the years. From the a small little box that displayed black and white images, to a huge floor model television with the wooden panel that displayed vibrant color images. The changes in television continued to improve with the concept of High Definition television. High definition television was as big an improvement over color television as color television was over black and white television. The special effects we now see on TV were unimaginable long ago, but have they taken precedence over the quality of the content presented on those shows?

I left much of what TV shows long ago, bored by unintelligent and vulgar programming. Today TV is delivered by more technology and by gadgets that excite and make people more expectant of what they see on TV, Trouble is...most of what they see is garbage.