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Showing posts from April, 2006

SPAM haikus

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Blue can of steel What promise do you hold? Salt flesh so ripe Can of metal, slick Soft center, so cool, moistening I yearn for your salt Twist, pull the sharp lid Jerks and cuts me deeply but Spam, aah, my poultice Silent, former pig One communal awareness Myriad pink bricks Clad in metal, proud No mere salt-curing for you You are not bacon And who dares mock Spam? You? You? You are not worthy Of one rich pink fleck Like some spongy rock A granite, my piece of Spam In sunlight on my plate Little slab of meat In a wash of clear jelly Now I heat the pan Oh tin of pink meat I ponder what you may be: Snout or ear or feet? In the cool morning I fry up a slab of Spam A dog barks next door Pink tender morsel Glistening with salty gel What the hell is it? Ears, snouts, and innards A homogeneous mass Pass another slice Old man seeks doctor I eat Spam daily, he says Angioplasty Highly unnatural The tortured shape of this food A small pink coffin Pink beefy temptress I can no longer remain Veget

Wake me up so I can smoke dope

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Poor George Michael. It must suck to have been relevant so many years ago and now to make news for drug, sex and other stupid behavior like crashing into a parked car this past week (last time I checked, only old ladies get away with that.) George has an acute case of Scott Stapp syndrom, also known as a Stapp infection. At least he is smart enough to have a publicist who seems to have dreamt up a lovely diversion tactic in the form of a divalition derby between Michael and Sir Elton John. To prove that Michael is still smoking the good stuff he was on when the bobbies found him passed out behind the wheel in February, he now claims that all the recent bad press he's received is all Elton's fault. Michael recently told an interviewer, "The trajectory of my particular soap opera (with the press) launched from that statement Elton made about 18 months ago when Elton hadn't seen me for years." "Elton said he thought I was really miserable for some reason. From

Adios J Dog!

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My friends, Jeana and Phil Durst are leaving our lovely neighborhood for Tampa Bay on Tuesday. I will miss my monthly meetings at the Crestwood Coffee Company with Jeana where all topics related to pets and local journalism are discussed. Jeana, pictured here enjoying one of her favorite pasttimes, sniffing markers, has become a good friend in a short amount of time and will be sorely missed. Here are some interesting facts about Tampa Bay marine ecology: -- A single quart of bay water may contain as many as 1 million phytoplankton -- microscopic, single-celled plants that are an essential thread in the "who eats who" marine food web. - More than 200 species of fish are found in Tampa Bay, including the popular snook, redfish and spotted sea trout. - Mangrove-blanketed islands in Tampa Bay support the most diverse colonial waterbird nesting colonies in North America, annually hosting 40,000 pairs of 25 different species of birds, from the familiar white ibis and great blue h

Wee Willie T

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Wednesday I finally got to meet week-old William Wayne Tutor. I hope all the cynicism, insensitivty and smoke blowing he witnessed in utero, while in the newsroom, doesn't affect him until he is at least a junior in high school. I had a hunch that Christina was pregnant before any official announcement and I knew from early on that Baby T would be a boy. The Tutors never revealed the gender to any of their journalist friends which made us all the more eager to know. Had I been reporting this for a tabloid I think I would be getting a little bonus right now because I also was rooting for his birthday to be 04/05/06 and it happened. Will, don't worry. I will never tell any of your friends that you were wearing a nightgown when I first met you. We'll keep that between friends.

Local boy hits it big

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A big "way to go dude!" to friend, local rocker and filmmaker, Chance Shirley . A movie he made called "Hide and Creep" will be on the Sci Fi Channel May 11 at 6 p.m. The movie, made a couple of years ago, features a cast of local folks, most of them I know, and a soundtrack that features my friend and fellow bandmate, Eric McGinty . The creators of the movie describe it: "In the tiny town of Thorsby, Alabama, the dead begin rising from their pine boxes and feeding on the locals. As the law enforcement is out of town, the local video store clerk joins with the sheriff's secretary, a retired deputy, and the single G-man dispatched to the site. Together they arm themselves with all the weapons and farm tools possible and unleash a healthy dose of Southern justice on the army of the living dead." (Thorsby really exists. It's about 40 miles south of Birmingham.) Chance is as nice and humble as he is talented and ambitious which makes all the good press

Rockin' the blocks

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Big props to flickr and youtube for being unending buffet of random interesting photos and video. The other night I decided to do a photo search on flickr and came across a guy who creates famous bands, politicians, albums and other various scenes in Lego form. It is absolutely hilarious. The guy is from England and his handle is minifig. Check his flickr portfolio for more excellent lego art. Here are the some of the highlights: From top to bottom, Bruce Springseen, "Born in the U.S.A." album cover, The White Stripes, The Darkness (who knew they made Lego mullets), The Beatles"Let it Be" album cover, The Village People. (Click on the the picture panel for a higher res image.)

We aren't the champions, my friends

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A month ago I decided to do something adventurous and coach little girls softball. We have a small team of seven but some great players and more importantly, a group of great kids. Tonight was our first game -- the Southside Flames against the Centerpoint Angels and they beat us 5-2. Our highlights were an amazing home run by my all-star first baseman, Bre, and a couple of great defensive plays by the infield pitcher, short stop and first baseman. I have always hated the parents that take the game too seriously, but I definitely did it tonight as head coach and I have my tail tucked a little bit in retrospect. The lack of organization on the grown-ups part was embarrassing. Our field was not chalked and had no bases when I got there to find out that it was my responsibility to do all that. There were all kinds of rules questions and problems between our umpire and the Centerfield coach who felt like he needed to question our line-up every third batter or so (like this was some kind

National insecurity

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I am so glad the Department of Homeland Security has learned its lesson from Hurricane Katrina and continues to do a stellar job protecting our country (not!). Straight from the the files of 'Yes, it can actually get worse' we have the story of a middle-aged pervert who is now in jail, charged in Florida with 23 counts of using a computer to seduce a chi ld and transmission of harmful material to a minor . It turns out this "girl" was an FBI agent. This sadly happens every day, but this particular pervert was Bri an Doyle , the press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. As unbelieve as his actions are, what is more stupifying about this incident is that Doyle gave the internet decoy his real name, job title, location and work phone number. Doyle did everything but place a bumper sticker on his Lexus luxury liner that says 'lurking pedophile'. He must have thought there was nothing wrong with his behavior and that an underage girl would be super

What ... tha...... HAIL?

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There aren't a lot of advantages to being an insomniac, but last night was an exception. I went to bed at the very decent hour of 10:30 to wake up suddenly at 2:30 a.m. and, yet again, I wasn't able to get back to sleep. I started working on the computer when I saw flashes of lighting through the window. I checked weather.com and saw we had a storm system coming through central Alabama from Mississippi and went back to my business. About ten minutes later I heard a horrific sound of the roof like nails were coming down from above. It scared the dog from a deep sleep as she ran around the house barking. What was falling is what I would call 25 cent gumball-sized hail. This is only the second time I've seen hail in my life. It's one of the strangest weather phenomena in my opinion as we had temperatures in the '80s yesterday and then ice buckets just hours later. Chris Tutor got a good picture of it to show you its exact size. The hail in my picture is pretty shatter

Tagged

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Jamie Meli n tagged me a while back. So here it goes: 4 Jobs I’ve Had Pizza baker Music director at summer camp T-ball coach Design director 4 Movies I Can Watch Over & Over Fargo The Breakfast Club But I'm a Cheerleader Waiting for Guffman 4 Places I Have Lived Nashville, Tennessee Troutville, Virginia Montevallo, Alabama Lyme, New Hampshire 4 Places I Want to Live Portland, Oregon Brooklyn, New York Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chicago, Illinois 4 TV Shows I Watch Regularly Intervention Top Chef The Amazing Race Ghost Hunters 4 Highly-Regarded TV shows I have never watched a minute of Desparate Housewives The West Wing The O.C. CSI: Miami 4 Places I Have Vacationed St. Simon's Island, Georgia Fort Morgan, Alabama Missoula, Montana Victoria, British Columbia 4 Places I would Like to Vacation Hawaii Coastal Mexico Italy England 4 Favorite Dishes Homemade Macaroni and Cheese Chicken Pesto Pizza Mongolian Beef Greek Salad 4 Sites I visit daily Celebrity baby blo g (guilty p

Tahoe up!

- - - - Once again I credit friend and co-worker, Christopher J. Tutor , for keeping an eagle eye on all things random and hilarious in web world. While taking a quick breather from finding the latest USB-powered snow cone machine, Chris heard about ultra corporate match up between lagging former auto giant, Chevy, and NBC's reality show, "The Apprentice," featuring everyone's favorite million dollar mullet on the head of Donald Trump. Chevy has set up a site where you can literally make you own commercial for their new gas hog, Tahoe, using their generic stock footage and music tracks. The interesting part of about this campaign is that you can say any old thing you want, anything, so of course, Chevy's Tahoe has become the punching bag of recent web buzz. Environmental and political statements seem to top the list of favorite commericial themes, but there are some very good off the wall random commercials as well. Having worked in advertising, I would think that