The article is entertaining in an awful reducing humans to a cartoon type of way, but the best part is this: “Ms. Looney, a certified reality therapist”

Hooray!

So we went to Anaheim recently to visit the mouse (this entry has been in draft state for almost exactly two years—and here I thought I was behind on my book reviews!—so some of it was written while the trip was fresh in my mind, but most of it was thrown together based on some scribbled notes). Here are a variety of observations:

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Those Germans, always coming up with le mot juste:
Vorne Kurz, Hinten Lang = a mullet
Arschgeweih =“Ass-Antlers,” a tatoo near the bottom of the spine

Despite the assurances of the book Der Struwwelpeter, your cats will neither warn you against using matches nor cry after you are burned to ash.

So I’m watching At the Circus, starring the Marx Brothers. Groucho makes a joke about not having seen Chico since he stopped taking Scott’s Emulsion. Wondering what that is, I look in up on the intertubes. Well, it’s a brand of cod liver oil, still available, but not in the US, made by GlaxoSmithkline. And browsing through the list of their various worldwide brands, I also find Granufink, a German pill made from pumpkin seeds, “used to strengthen the function of the bladder and help treat prostrate disorders.” Hey! I’m prostrate right now, but I just thought it was related to watching movies on a Saturday afternoon!

A German-language podcast of a building a crane. More of those podcasts here.

Read it before it vanishes forever: the TSA blog with open comments! Someone read an article about Web 2.0, and somebody’s bum will be canned when they realize that being open with complaints may mean having to actually be accountable for them rather than just restating policy (or “policy”, you must read the comments, you absolutely must!).

Some favorites so far: the elderly couple with replacement joints who are made to sit in a low chair with no arms (and no help in getting up from said chairs) to be repeatedly wanded despite having documentation about their replacement joints, the several military people who get searched on every flight, the person complaining about having their wallets searched (!!), the flight attendant with a background check to have the job in the first place who gets searched every time at a particular airport… and those were just comments on one post!