kbobam

The fancy 'pokers and stickers' reminded me of something I heard recently. Apparently several restaurants in the downtown Washington, D.C. area have 'creative' menus available for their high-level government patrons. This allows these customers and their guests to comply with recent stricter requirements as far as what sort of food can be purchased with government expense-accounts. The basic idea of the 'restrictions' was to limit food consumption in many situations to only simple snacks, or 'finger food'. The 'creative' approach offers things like a 'beef appetizer'. This is a sixty-dollar steak which has been pre-sliced, and each slice has a toothpick in it! ( :

It's becoming clear that grandparents have a 'moral obligation' to spoil the grandkids with sweets! And that this obligation far outweighs any opinions the parents may have on this matter. Besides, they're still just kids themselves. They don't know squat! The 'grands' have 'been there and back'!

Saw an ad recently for a new cereal that looked like it actually had a little hunk of Hershey bar inside each piece. As an adult, or possibly 'post-adult' this naturally made me gag a little. Why would anyone eat this junk when they could start their day right by simply drinking coffee and smoking? But then I thought back a year or two or three, and started remembering enjoying the super sweet stuff. I remember not being very fond of the chocolate varieties. Because they didn't taste anything like it Count Chocula and Coco Pebbles just didn't cut it. So maybe this new one isn't such a bad thing. At one point I think it was the original Corn Flakes people who came out with a variety that had pieces of freeze-dried strawberries in it. I loved it but it all came back up 30 seconds later. Kids do the cutest things! Luckily, the sweeter and even more delicious Captain Crunch with Crunchberries was able to replace it. I'm going to shut up now and finish by saying that Banana Frosted Flakes gets the gold medal. I bet I'd still like it. Does anyone else have any disgusting childhood breakfast favorites? Non-cereal stuff also welcome! ( : (I really miss Calvin and Hobbes.)

Don't forget your hot bath, cigarette, and ice cold Coke too! ( :

Way back in the old days, when I was a boy... What were the dinosaurs like, Bop-Bop? Shaddup, you little bleeps! Like I was saying, when I was real little like you, I once got to take a long ride on a train so I could meet my grandparents. I was real excited, because back then when we were walking miles uphill to school barefoot in the snow, we used to think about how much we admired and respected our grandparents. And walking home was uphill too! I couldn't believe how cool these old people were. And you should take a lesson from that! Is that why it's so hot in here, Bop-Bop? Because you're always so cool? !@#$%^&!!! That's not the point! Anyway, my new grandparents showed me how they pumped water right out of the ground. That was pretty neat, but it wasn't the best thing. The best thing was that they always had the biggest can of Hershey's syrup I'd ever seen. You could have chocolate milk anytime you wanted! And they had Milky-Way Bars in the freezer! No one where I came from had ever thought of that! They were geniuses! Like you, Bop-Bop? Damn straight! Coming soon: The other grandparents and more chocolate.

I'm now able to give a proper response here and say that I'm eating a slice of reheated pizza. Microwaving is not allowed for this. Heat up a bare-nekkid dry non-stick skillet with a cover. Actually, I bet a good old iron one would work fine. Just haven't done it myself. Figure out the perfect level of heat and time to get everything nice and hot without further darkening the crust. (Made that sound easy, didn't I?) To be honest, this isn't really possible. Which is why you need to occasionally lift the cover and throw a couple small splashes of water on the surface of the pan. Just enough to aid in the cheese-melting process, but without getting the crust soggy. Once you have the dozen or so variables calibrated and in perfect balance, you'll have the ultimate reheated slice! (You know, cold pizza is pretty good too.)

Well I don't know about right this second, but for any given moment in time, statistically-speaking, "my words" would be the most likely honest response. ( :

Thanks for the Earth Day reminder. It really should be on everyone's 'never forget' list. Although I'm embarrassed to say that I did. So I appreciate it.

I used to write about television commercials a lot. Some Many Most of you would probably say 'too much'. So I decided it would be a good idea to only do it occasionally. But I still think they're fascinating. You can take any given one and analyze it. What were the people who made it thinking? What were they trying to accomplish? Did they do a good job? "Boring" wasn't the right word to use in the title here. "Understated" might be a better word. There's nothing particularly dramatic or exciting going on in this one. But I definitely found myself saying "Yes! Why would I want to wear anything but cotton?" The even more impressive thing here is that the ad is very 'generalized'. It's not for a single product. It's for a 'concept'. So the people who made it don't have a quick way to determine if it was effective or not. But they don't care! Because they've been around for a long time and they just 'know' that this will be beneficial for the cotton industry in the long run. This is the kind of intelligent 'guts and faith' thinking that made our country so much greater several decades ago than it is now. In spite of all the good things that 'the internet' has given many of us, it has also made most people think that their important decisions should be based on short-term or immediate 'feedback'. I can't begin to tell you how sad this makes me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55rgLFeeOeI

Lloyd, you look like you're in the middle of a Hitchcock movie.

That's an interesting and very logical point.

The hard part for me is getting to the point where the more you learn, the more you know you don't know. But keeping the 'love and fun' you mentioned in mind makes it okay. ( :

But wait! There's more! You also get the newly re-released 'dancing banana'!

That's really interesting about the Golden Rebel and the similar marble! I didn't know that there was a 'Golden Rebel' that wasn't! How does the pricing on the 'Rainbo' version work out in practice? I'm guessing that it 'ought' to be a little less than the NLR, but my cynical side makes me think that many sellers are going to 'misrepresent' it, knowingly or not, and that they'll always find a buyer. ( :

Oh shoot! I put another message on here earlier, but I guess I didn't. Probably goofed up and didn't hit the 'post' button. Wanted to say that from the limited information I saw where I found this picture that this may be a 'computer-generated image' and not a real marble. But I still like it. ( :

By Anyzamarah on deviantart.com

Guys, that was thoughtless of me. Sometimes I get caught up in trying to do an 'artsy' shot, and forget that many people here would prefer well-lit multiple views. ( : Thanks to all posters for the great marbles here!

Calling 'dibs' on .375 Thanks!

Only have one, but they don't get rarer than this. Without a doubt, the most exotic of the 'exotics' ! The rarely-seen CAC 'Ghost' !

Nice going! Not knowing nuttin', I have to ask if there's a common thread here or if you let your subconscious choose what would work. ( :

So I've been seeing commercials for Popeye's red-stick chicken recently. This extra pleasant woman is holding a red stick and explaining how pepper growers use it as a color gauge to know when to pick the perfectly ripe peppers. Cool. Love Tabasco, but never heard of a 'red stick' before. Or had I? Three days later I remembered the capital of Louisiana. ( :

Ha! Gotta like it! And clearly the inspired work of someone who's been drinking Coca-Cola in an elevator. ( :

Oh man. It just hit me that you must have some great elevators in Chicago. I can't remember the last time I actually missed New York....

Hey! Quit Bogarting the cola!