1. You Are NOT Going to Believe This!

    OMG!  I don’t want to ruin the surprise but I have totally found your Christmas present…!!!!!

    You don’t already have it, do you?  You probably do, don’t you?  I can’t imagine you don’t have it!  Oh my God, it would be soooooo cool if you don’t have it and I’m the one who found it for you!  I mean, I saw this and

    I.  Just.  About.  Screeeeeamed!!!!!

    …right there in the store. Right there in the store! Oh my God. I almost sent you a picture of it from my iPhone but then I thought, no, I’m not going to ruin the surprise.  And here I am ruining the surprise.  Can you blame me?

    Seriously, do you already have it?  You can tell me if you do!  I won’t be offended if you already have it.  I can bring it back and get you the Twilight one instead. Either way, I want to give it to you early, so you can enjoy it all Christmas season long!

    But I have a feeling that even if you already have it, you’re going to want another one.  If you have one already (it’s cool if you do – TELL ME!!!!  PLEASE!!!!) you can hang this one on your rearview mirror. Or I can tell everyone else about it and we can each get you one and your entire tree will be nothing but these!  How amazing would that be?????

    And yes, I know, we agreed to a $5 limit this year, but how could I say no?  If you really feel you want to keep everything even (totally NOT necessary!) you can pay for my brunch at the Abbey on Sunday.

    Or you can take me out for sushi. Let’s do sushi, okay?  Or the Abbey, it’s up to you. Why don’t we do both?

    You totally love it, right?????

    Posted by on November 12, 2011, 2:16 AM.

  2. Boo!

    I bought these all for you.  Oh, and I arranged them just-so, just as you see here!

    And I waited for hours, right inside the door. I was so sure you’d come. I even put that funny little plastic skull with the flashing light on the porch, right next to the jack o’ lantern I carved from a pumpkin I bought at the store.  I gave him a friendly face – I didn’t want any of you to be scared. If only you had come!

    You could have had anything you wanted up there.  A (fun size) Milky Way, a Snickers (fun size)?  Yours for the taking! A Nestlé’s $100 Grand bar, in convenient fun size size? You needed only reach for it. There were eight Three Musketeers, each in a small, fun, fun size. That’s twenty-four musketeers, total. You could have had any one of them, in multiples of three. Perhaps you’d have liked a baby Baby Ruth? Take two, they’re fun size.

    But no one came. Why not? Each day, I see you playing outside, up and down the street…but never…never in front of my house. That but one of you had walked up these front steps, rang the bell, knocked on the door, rapped on the window, or just called out “Trick or Treat” from the walk – oh the delights you’d have gotten! And it wasn’t just the candies, oh no; I also had a roll of pennies for your Unicef boxes! I spent all afternoon polishing them until each one was as bright and shiny as the day it was minted!

    Why are you so afraid? Are there stories about me? Do people talk about me?  Do they say…things?

    I hope not. I just want to be your friend is all. And if any of you change your mind, all this delicious candy will be in the knothole of the old oak tree along the sidewalk in front of my house.

    Well, the wrappers will be, anyway, you little assholes.

    Posted by on November 1, 2011, 1:53 AM.

  3. Spider Sense Tingling!

    YOU KNOW my wife Irene’s love for small, out of the way bed-and-breakfasts. Well, nothing’s too good for my Renie so I decided – completely on a whim! – to surprise her last week and take her to one of the smallest, out-of-the-way-est B&Bs I could find – the Kenwood Glade Inn, in rustic Hill, Virginia. And, okay, I stumbled across someone on Craigslist who was hoping to get some money back on a bed & breakfast Groupon he couldn’t use before it expired. …He didn’t get much.

    I have to admit that I had a bit of an ulterior motive for bringing her there. As the bumper stickers famously state, “Virginia Is For Spiders” and I don’t have to tell you, early October is peak spider-viewing time. We’re both avid arachnaphiles, sure, and the small hamlet of Hill claims to have more spiders per square acre than any other region in the state. Brother, I believe it.

    As you’ll see, we were not disappointed.

    Above is the black and yellow garden spider. One of the smaller ones we saw, its abdomen was only about the size of a Mini Cooper. This orb web spinner’s distinctive vertical zigzag design just below its front legs is believed by arachnologists to make the web more visible to low-flying planes that might otherwise get snared in its web (the cause of 85% of small aircraft fatalities in Virginia).

    Speaking of airplanes, here’s a daddy longlegs as seen from above when we were flying into Roanoke.

    A mid-sized “Daddy,” we estimated the length from the tip of its longer legs to its powerful, waiting jaws was probably a little less than a quarter mile.  It was spotted on the striated flatlands of an abandoned strip mine just out of town. While popularly known as daddy longlegs, they’re also called harvestmen because they literally “harvest men” (and women and children) and eat them.

    Other species we were enchanted by included the black widow (spotted along a retaining wall up on Mill Mountain just below the Roanoke Star where she’d dart out to snatch distracted tourists as they looked up at the landmark. We understand the framework for the star is in fact her web.), various jumping spiders (Seen in the woods, these magnificent creatures can overtake a deer running at top speed in a single leap.), a nursery web spider (so-called because of its habit of spiriting away infants from their cribs), and of course, the ubiquitous wolf spider, which, as its name implies hunts in packs. We ate at the nearby and highly-rated Field View Tavern on more than one occasion and were surprised and delighted when a few “wolves” appeared from the darkness during the main course to add some excitement to a delicious meal. (By the way, be sure to make a point to visit the downstairs at the Tavern where you’ll see dozens of trophy spiders, vanquished by a local bowhunter, literally scattered throughout – though be careful: Rumor has it, this lower level still houses at least a few active “dens.”)

    Since the outside of our bed-and-breakfast was studded with countless enormous egg sacs, we couldn’t resist taking home a few of these beachball-sized souvenirs. Unfortunately, a slight change in cabin pressure on the plane home must have somehow sped up the incubation process resulting in an early mass hatching and, well, we’re particularly grateful Samuel L. Jackson happened to be on our flight.

    Posted by on October 18, 2011, 9:00 AM.

  4. An Apology and an Update!

    YOU PROBABLY READ in the newspaper that my better half and I were called away unexpectedly last week to speak at a symposium on flair horseshoeing at HoofCon 2011. Demetrios and I decided it was the least we could do for our mentor, the legendary Frank “Hoofpick” Purdy after his beloved Mr. Magoo was spooked by Frank’s ringtone* and kicked the anvil, sending three red hot Capewell #5 bridle-path nails right into his mouth. Ol’ Hoofpick’s going to be fine – don’t worry, he managed to spit them right out – but it’s going to be another week and a half before the blistering and swelling on his tongue goes down enough to allow him to speak coherently. (Right now it sounds like he’s doing a bad impression of a deaf person, which of course is hilarious, but would likely begin to lose its appeal after fifteen minutes behind a lectern. Either that or it would just kill, and then who wants to follow that? It would be like having to go on right after Buddy Hackett tells his forehead-penis story.)

    Considering it was me calling him that day, attending in his stead was the least we could do. As you know, Demetri and I had been staying away from the Con for the last few years after we submitted what we still feel should have been the winning suggestion for HoofCon 2008’s theme. (“Where the Shoes Are” – and Demetri knows Connie Francis’ manager so we’re sure we could have gotten her to attend and sing. I even wrote new lyrics to the song.) But oh no, convention chairhole Mark Lautraub went with the lame “Forging Our Future” which of course sucked. (Gee, a pun involving “forge” for a farrier’s convention – didn’t see that coming.) Since Lautraub dropped dead of a heart attack in April there was really no reason for us not to attend. And here of course I want to extend my deepest sympathies to his family. He was a great man. He was a great man.

    Anyway, we quickly packed up our rasps, performance clinchers, our tearaway black leather smithing aprons (Thanks again to Jim at Custom Leather & Rubber Fabrication in Palm Desert!), pritchels (10″ and 12″), iron nippers, a fantastic collection of glow sticks (including colors you wouldn’t believe possible through chemiluminescence) and driving hammers (Anvils were thankfully provided this year – something the incompetent Lautraub was somehow never able to facilitate in his lifetime.) and headed to the airport. Demetri joked that getting through security was going to be harder than when we flew to Las Vegas in May for the fetish ball. I figured it might be smoother since I wasn’t wearing my ballgag on this trip; or at least a wash since we were carrying virtually all the same equipment.

    …Now what was my point?

    Oh, yes – first of all, the update: Say what you will against Walmart, but by Godfrey, their in-house brand, Equate, still offers rewetting drops in the generous 0.5 oz size. Sure, it’s not as much as what CVS used to sell, but it’s better than what those assholes at Target are selling now – and I got a two-pack (that’s 1.0 ounce!) for $4.35.

    And an apology: The Ted Parsnips Web Design Team was supposed to run Ted Parsnips: The Best of the Early 90s in my absence, but as usual, I get back and see nothing’s done and the whole department looks like they had a weeklong pizza party / rubber band war. Hope they still have the number for Little Caesars handy, because once I check the balance in the petty cash till, there may be some nerds looking for new jobs.

    *#1 Rule of Farriery, and it’s the first thing they teach you in school or as an apprentice: Leave your cell phone turned off, in the truck, on vibrate, or for God’ sake, never use ABBA as a ringtone. Christ, the piano swipe that opens “Dancing Queen” could startle a Budweiser Clydesdale, let alone a skittish 1,100 pound quarterhorse.

    Posted by on October 17, 2011, 11:36 AM.

  5. Downsize Syndrome!

    OH, SURE, we’ve all read stories over the past few years, probably, about product downsizing.

    It started with, what, ice cream, right? It came in half-gallons from our birth to about seven years ago, downsized to 1.75 quarts, and now to 1.5 quarts. Then yogurt, or as you like to spell it, yoghurt, from eight ounces to six ounces (or if you’re an idiot who buys those Yoplait Whips, four ounces, three of which are air).*

    And now canned tuna, potato chips, toilet paper(!), peanut butter – and the list goes on, probably. And the thing is, like you, I’d be willing to pay a few pennies more for the old size! We’re not unreasonable, you and I! We understand prices go up!

    But Big Grocery has decided to emasculate us by literally shrinking the size of our package, laughing at us, and acting like it’s the same old amount while charging the same price…and then eventually raising the price anyway! Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining! How would that fool me anyway? Look, I’m no meteorologist, but I seriously doubt the existence of a type of storm cloud so low-lying that its precipitation hits my leg and nothing higher. If you’re going to piss on me and tell me it’s raining, you need to stand on a stepladder and urinate on my head, and blindfold me so I don’t see you doing it. But I’m not into that anymore – not since that whole hepatitis scare last year. My God, the people I had to track down and call.

    Anyway, it’s bad enough they shrink our jars of mayonnaise, our bags of ginger snaps, our cartons of orange juice, our packages of Kraft American cheese – but for God’s sake, man, leave our eye care products alone!

    You heard me, Big Eye Care! Stay the hell away from our rewetting drops!

    Look at this!

    My old bottle of rewetting drops is on the right. Yes, I should have put it on the left when I took the photo, but I wasn’t thinking. I was too angry!

    My new bottle is on the left! Notice any difference? Oh ho ho, brother, you bet you do!

    It went from 2/3 ounces – 20 generous milliliters…to a stingy, niggardly, penurious, gee-can-you-spare-it 0.27 ounces! A measly 8 milliliters!

    Also, it seems I stopped buying them at CVS and began buying them at Target.

    But according to CVS’s website, they’ve shrunk their size, too. Not as drastically – now you get half an ounce, or 15 milliliters. It’s still downsizing. And for the record, the last bottle I bought before this bottle at Target was the same size as the CVS bottle! Are you following all this?

    My point is, Jesus, we’re talking about a trace amount of liquid to begin with. I tinkle in my pants more than 20 milliliters when I laugh watching “Reba” on Lifetime – and that’s not nearly enough to really soak through and be visible (or obvious) nor smell (unless I’ve just had asparagus).

    So the eye people, they’ve looked at that tiny amount of eye solution – 20 milliliters – and decided “Oh, that’s too much. These rubes will pay the same price for less than half that amount – you watch! And most of them are probably so goddamn blind to begin with they can’t read the tiny print on the bottle anyway! They’ll never know.”

    They’ll know now, brother. They’ll know.

    Oh, and on top of that, the new, tiny bottle is made of the same thickness of plastic as the old, bigger bottle, but of course it’s now shorter, squatter, more compact and that much harder to squeeze. 

    So because of the size of these minuscule vials, the money I’m throwing away on rewetting drops – anywhere from $3.50 to $4.75 each time! – is starting to add up a lot faster: I’m now buying them once every ten months rather than once every two years. Frankly, it’s beginning to make more economical sense for me to just get laser eye surgery and kiss my contact lenses goodbye once and for all. And then Target Brands, and CVS Brands, and all the major eye care companies are going to be happy that they downsized.

    Because then, ladies and gentlemen…?  Then I’m going to tell them all they can stick their little bottles up their ass!

    *By the way, Yoplait people: Christ almighty, those Yoplait Whips are good! How about you send me a big wad of free coupons for them, especially for chocolate mousse and orange creme? Nothing’s written in stone on this blog, if you know what I mean.

    Posted by on October 3, 2011, 9:00 AM.

  6. A Stunning Realization!

    MY WIFE LINDA AND I took a little trip down to our local IKEA last week. As I’ll bet you figured out by now, our youngest, Susan, is pregnant (again!), so we figured we’d help her out and help furnish the nursery corner of the bedroom she shares with her sister and brother as a sort of early graduation present. (The baby’s not due until next June, when Sue’ll be saying goodbye to middle school and gearing up for at least one year of high school – we hope!)

    As with most grandparents-to-be today (Do we really have to consider ourselves “grandparents” if we convince her to give this one up, too? LOL!) we’re on a budget so IKEA is the perfect solution. We take a pad & paper to jot down furniture names and sizes while considering what pieces might work and where.

    …Then we come home and search for the same pieces on Craigslist and pick them up, used, for about a third of their original cost from idiot college students. I’m not paying IKEA prices. Who do I look like, Pierce Morgan?

    Anyway, we were in the “AS-IS” section of IKEA when as usual, Linda started having another one of her hot flashes – or what we thought was a hot flash.

    As for me, I always seem to become inexplicably  – what do the British call it? – randy when we visit IKEA; so much, in fact, that I’ve specifically been asked not to wear sweatpants when I go there. (I still have the oversized yellow polo shirt they gave me to cover up the first time it happened.) I always presumed it was the glue in all the particle board that gets me going. (As with you, it acts as something as a pheromone to me.)

    Then it dawned on me:

    Cut most of the lights, plug in a couple of fog machines, stack a bunch of pallets into an industrial maze of sorts, a disco ball here, a strobe light there, and of course, a near-naked DJ spinning the hottest bad Euro-techno-pop of 1995, the air filled with the sweet smell of perspiration, White Diamonds, alkyl nitrate, Zima, and a familiar though unplaceable fruity yet musky aroma – and this place becomes The Allen Wrench (though we regulars knew it affectionately as The Allen Raunch) – the hottest couples-only sex rave that dominated the Southern California couples-only sex rave scene of the mid-90s.

    And here is the very wall I, blindfolded, always ended up chained to while Linda and a procession of other gals (I presume!) manhandled me.

    It all adds up now. DJ Billy Bookcase! I didn’t get the name then! That familiar yet mysterious scent? Not the intoxicating stink of genital friction as I’d half-presumed but the lingering odor of Swedish meatballs in lingonberry sauce still hanging in the air from the café! Of course!

    How funny the very place Susan was conceived would, nearly sixteen years later, end up being where we shopped for her kid’s cradle. And we had no idea at the time! But it makes perfect sense now – it’s the ideal space for a rave, and I guess Manny – who used to ferry us over in his ’85 Mitsubishi Montero six at a time from a Pick & Save parking lot a mile away and then lead us in through the loading dock – being careful never to let us know where we were! – probably worked in the warehouse during business hours.

    Ah, memories. You wouldn’t think that a swing made to display their iconic and hideous stuffed heart could support two overweight adults, commingled in sweaty romantic congress. You’d be wrong. But, brother, I’ll never forget how that thing came crashing to the floor once I clambered on and tried to join them.

    Unfortunately, that night there were no dump baskets of ugly plush toys beneath but a display of countertop paper towel holders.

    Thank Christ whatever the hell I was on that night had relaxed my muscles, or I guess dilated at least some of them, and let’s leave it at that.

    By the way, my attorney has asked me to note that I have a terrible memory and of course all of this happened somewhere else, if at all. 

    Posted by on September 28, 2011, 9:00 AM.

  7. Target’s 2011 Halloween Nightmare!

    REMEMBER TWO YEARS AGO when stupid, easily-offended, over-sensiti–    …eh, when thoughtful, concerned people everywhere were up in arms over an amusing if obvious pun that somehow manifested itself into a Halloween costume of an illegal alien? Only the illegal alien wasn’t the good terrestrial kind but an evil, bloodthirsty outer space alien, like ALF or Gazoo or Mork or Chaz? Of course you remember it, and we all had a good laugh over the whole thing. …Eh, that is to say – we were all very upset. Very upset, sure.

    Here’s a link in case you don’t remember, and don’t get your panties in a bunch: Yes, it’s a Fox News story. Hey, this is the most concise version I could find!

    Anyway, Target took a lot of crap for that costume, and rightfully so! Because illegal aliens are good for America – they do the trick-or-treating American kids won’t do!

    Hey, don’t stop and try to make sense of that! Keep reading!

    So look, if you want to be ahead of the curve this year, if you want to know what to boycott Target about this Halloween season, listen up, pal, because here it is! And ho ho, brother, it’s a doozy!

    Can you believe your eyes?! It’s a child’s Halloween costume of an Indian warrior! Yes, you read right – An Indian warrior! Not a peaceful, maize-sowing Native American scout. But a barbaric “Indian warrior!”

    As though the violent “warrior” aspect of this outfit wasn’t disgusting enough, the manufacturers – and by extension, yes!, Target! – openly and brazenly flout the law by referring to the costume as that of an “Indian,” and not the legally-acceptable “Native American!”

    I know you’re as outraged as I am by this despicable costume and the message it sends to children, especially if they’re wearing it and happen to see other children dressed as – God forbid! – cowboys, so look: We’re all getting together for a little pow-wow – to discuss exactly how to attack this problem – in the Yuhaviatam Room at San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino tomorrow morning.

    How!  

    Well, that’s easy: Take the 101 South to the 134, take that to the 210 East for about 35 miles, get off at the Highland Avenue exit, and then a left onto Highland, and take that for almost a mile, and then…

    Posted by on September 26, 2011, 9:00 AM.

  8. Photomosaics, Bah!

    FOUR DAYS AGO, in the wee morning hours of September 11th – purely by accident I assure you! – I wandered onto “The Huffington Post.”

    On their front page was an image of the New York skyline prior to the attacks.

    It was presented as a photomosaic. And it made me think.

    I’d like to reproduce it here but my attorney mentioned that might be poking Ariachna with a stick.  Oh, nevermind – look, I found it elsewhere. Ah, there’s the story behind it too. It’s a good story and an important story, and this particular photomosaic gets a pass from me. I do not have a problem with this photomosaic. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: What kind of monster do you think I am?

    But as to nearly all other photomosaics:

    When photomosaics first came out in the early 1990s, they were interesting to look at specifically because they were comprised of a bunch of photos carefully arranged in such a way that when you looked at it from far enough back, the images blended naturally – yes, organically! – to form a larger image.

    Oh, but then they got popular, and it became too complicated or time-consuming or un-cost-effective, or cost-ineffective I guess is the word, or something to keep doing that; and so what they’ve been doing  – the photomosaic people in the photomosaic industry  (and brother, believe you me, it’s an industry!) – what they’ve been doing since then is they simply take a bunch of little photos, and then drop, I don’t know, some sort of slightly translucent screen over it with the image they want you to see and in the process tinting nearly all the smaller images artificially.

    In other words, it’s cheating!

    Here’s a perfect example, from the box of a Snoopy photomosaic jigsaw puzzle:

    Most of the tiny pictures from this line of Peanuts puzzles are made up of screen grabs from the animated specials. So unless there was one called “You’re in Hell, Charlie Brown,” Snoopy’s dog house is composed of images that have just been colored red.

    If photomosaics hadn’t been created so precisely and carefully when this technique first debuted, I wouldn’t have a problem with where we are today, photomosaically speaking. But the fact is, they were. The genie’s out of the bottle. We can’t go back, folks. Originally, there was a level of craftsmanship among the early photomosaic artisans. And whether they meant to or not, they’d set a  precedent. The public justifiably had and has a certain level of expectation. When they started doing photomosaics nearly twenty years ago, the larger image may not have been too detailed, but it worked, dammit, and it was real neat to look at on account of the images making it were untouched. Unmanipulated. Pure.  

    But now?  Oh, now just arrange any picture next to any other goddamn picture, repeat this a few thousand times, drop your larger image over the whole mess, dick around with the opacity, and call it a day.

    It disgusts me.

    When did we lose our way, America?

    Posted by on September 15, 2011, 9:00 AM.

  9. Cuckoo for Koo Koo Birds!

    I was in Walmart a few months ago – which should give you an idea about the amount of time each one of these posts is in production from the time we start until it finally airs – and there was this dump basket of Pillow Pet-like creatures but unlike Pillow Pets, they had embroidered cartoon eyes and an electronic chip inside that made a noise when squeezed.

    One of the pillows in the dump basket was a bird, and I thought to myself, “Gee, this looks an awful lot like one of those Angry Birds all the kids at school are talking about!”

    I looked at the copyright date on the tag and it was 2010. I know Angry Birds came out in late 2009, but I think even if these pillow creatures debuted in 2010, it was surely just by chance that the bird had the same general look.  After all, it was one bird pillow among a sea, a veritable dump basket, if you will, of mammal pillows.  If they were consciously ripping off Angry Birds, they’d have all been birds.

    So then today, I see this:

    Go ahead, click on the photo above to watch the commercial!

    Or just look at these other two images, I don’t care.

    It says “Available only at Toys R Us” but I know what I saw. (A big dump basket of pillows.)  Anyway, who knew they still made such great frenetic toy commercials?! Look what we’re missing out on now that we’ve all got DVRs and blow through the commercials when watching “Maury” (presuming they advertise on “Maury,” which I think is a safe bet).

    And yes, now they’re totally ripping off Angry Birds. And I for one say, “Good for them!” for no reason whatsoever. I have no stake in the matter.  I don’t have a pony in this race. But, hell, “Good for them,” right? Sure, why n0t.

    So here’s my theory: The folks at Jay at Play released these Pillow Pet-like creatures which were ripoffs of Pillow Pets but more interesting than Pillow Pets what with the embroidered cartoon eyes and the sound chip. Then Angry Birds got big, and someone at Jay at Play said, “Holy crap, the stupid bird pillow in our pillow line looks just like one of those Angry Birds all the kids at school are talking about. Let’s get a whole line of these stupid bird toys in production, fast! What can the Angry Birds people do to us? We designed the stupid bird pillow without even knowing about their video game! Besides, the game designers are Finnish – what are they going to do, take us out to a sauna and then beat us with a birch branch? And so what if we find that enjoyable, a nice schvitz!”

    This is all conjecture, of course. It’s all probably just an enormous coincidence like my attorney said.

    Hey, I bet if I put “Angry Birds movie CGI Pixar Lady Gaga voice” in here I’ll get more than my usual four or five hits today.

    Posted by on August 30, 2011, 9:00 AM.

  10. Why We Hate Wikipedia!

    If there was a Wikipedia TV show (God forbid!) you could get bombed very quickly playing a drinking game where you have to down a gulp of booze every time someone says “portmanteau.”

    Have you ever noticed that about Wikipedia? Every other goddamn entry on Wikipedia describes the name of whatever you’re looking up as a “portmanteau of [this] and [that].” And portmanteau is always italicized and always linked to their portmanteau entry. I’m telling you, no one ever heard of the word portmanteau before Wikipedia came along. I’m half-convinced they made it up. I’m further convinced there’s some jackass who’s sole (volunteer) function on Wikipedia is to note – at the beginning of the entry of whatever the hell you’re looking up – that it’s a goddamn portmanteau of two other words.

    Like you, I have a love/hate relationship with Wikipedia. On the one hand, it’s wonderful because it makes casual, unimportant research very easy. On the other hand, the people who make all that casual, unimportant research so easy just annoy the hell out of you and me. How could so many lonely people with so much time on their hands be so utterly and completely pretentious?

    Case in point: Yesterday, as you recall, I made some stupid (though hilarious) throwaway reference to the Kermit the Frog “Rapunzel” sketch from Sesame Street. I wanted to make sure I called it the correct thing – I thought those segments were called “Muppet News Flashes,” but I wasn’t sure. So I checked Wikipedia where I learned they’re called “Sesame Street News Flashes.” Okay, makes sense. Maybe “Muppet News Flashes” were from The Muppet Show. Who knows?

    I ended up reading the whole article. And in just the second paragraph, we come to this:

    Other skits were spoofs of popular culture (such as one which parodied the then-popular The Six Million Dollar Man), while others involved Kermit asking children simple vox populi, or “man on the street,” style questions.

    So some loser Wikipedia editor decided that “man on the street” wasn’t good enough. He had to put in “vox populi” and link it to the article that defines it as, surprise!, “man on the street.”

    Further down, citing some examples of Sesame Street News Flashes, we get this:

    A spoof on Humpty Dumpty began in medias res with “all the king’s horses” and “all the kings men” finding the shattered Dumpty.

    Did you look up “in media res”? It means in the middle of things. I’m sure the same vox populi asshole who presumably recently got his increasingly worthless degree in journalism put that one in there, too – you know, to make sure we all know, and so that future generations will know, the crucial, critical fact that a two and a half minute puppet sketch about a nursery rhyme on a children’s program begins with the felt frog in the trench coat, oh boy, right in the thick of it.

    Posted by on August 24, 2011, 9:00 AM.

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