Drastic Verge 2007

2007-08-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

Didn't he put down the Whiskey Rebellion?: Next week visitors to Mount Vernon will get a rare treat, watching experts follow George Washington's actual recipe in -- no, not his kitchen, but the Father of His Country's newly reconstructed distillery.

Yes, our first president not only led the way in stepping down after two terms but was the model for Uncle Jesse Hazzard: Urged by his Scottish-born farm manager to make a double profit from the rye and corn grown on the plantation, Washington in 1797 built one of early America's largest whiskey distilleries. In 1799, the former president produced 11,000 gallons of rye worth a hefty (at the time) $7,500.

Credit for the five-day show of liquor companies' master distillers taking turns at the copper pots, and for the $2.1 million restoration of George's moonshine still, belongs to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS). The trade association's next event is National We Don't Serve Teens Week, September 10 through 15.

2007-08-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

We all float: This, via First Draft, is a wonderful story that not a few of us can relate to. But I mention it because OMGPONIES is The Greatest Internet Exclamation Ever.

2007-08-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

Product recommendation of the month: Goo Gone doesn't whisk away unwanted bumper stickers as well as advertised (the trick for that is to use a hair dryer), but it works wonders in scrubbing off unwanted paint transferred to your car by backing into a wooden gate. Except for its gas mileage the Fusion is the best car I've had, but it does seem to hit things (three in eight months).

2007-08-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

Re Karl Rove:

David Horsey rules.

2007-08-09T07:15:00.000-05:00

You notice these surveys are always sponsored by somebody like Slim-Fast or Gardenburger: Back on the self-defeating female self-image beat, Slim-Fast has spent some of its dough from diet shakes and inedibars to underwrite a survey of 2,000 women -- and find that more than three-quarters (78 percent) of them say they're bigger than they'd like to be. Only one woman in five considers herself to be her ideal size, with others feeling an average of 38 pounds above it -- 56 percent of respondents said they wanted to be a size 8 or smaller, even though the average size is 12.

Some women have such low opinions of their bodies that they avoid possible exposure. Of these, 65 percent don't go to the beach or pool, 42 percent put off shopping for clothes, and 40 percent avoid being nude in front of their partners.

Slim-Fast, whose sponsorship of the poll coincides with a new "Find Your Slim" ad campaign that follows Dove soap's much-buzzed-about daring to show Real Women in commercials, tries to spin the survey as empowering to women: The idea is that, permitted to feel better about their weight, women might decide they'd be glad to drop just 10 pounds or only one dress size instead of crash-dieting in dreams of being mistaken for Charlize Theron. In fact, almost three-quarters of the respondents agreed that you can wear a large size and still "feel good about yourself."

Of course, 64 percent also admitted that it's "very difficult" for women to have a positive self-image if they wear a large size of clothing. Hence, the weight-loss product of which Elayne Boosler exulted, "A tasty shake in the morning, another for lunch, and you've got headaches and diarrhea all day!"

2007-08-08T20:35:00.000-05:00

Nerd nirvana: Never mind the string bikini -- at a computer show last week in San Diego, there was an exhibit of high-tech fashions including a solar bikini. The custom-made swimsuit was fitted with 1 by 4-inch photovoltaic film strips sewn together in series with conductive thread, terminating in a 5-volt regulator with USB connection to power or recharge an iPod or other personal music device. Or to give would-be gropers and harassers the surprise of their lives. Do the words electric eel mean anything to you?

Actually, there already was an iPod bikini; seriously Brazilian-waxed supermodel Marisa Miller posed with a strategically placed music player and earbud cords for a shot in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I know pin-ups are more about exploitation than empowering, but I should confess that I've tried to objectify women myself: On two occasions, as editor of two different computer magazines, I pitched a Special Summer Issue cover that would feature a glamorous bikini model with a pocket protector full of pens in one cup of her bra. The circulation department never went for it.

2007-08-07T20:10:00.000-05:00

Get Ed "Too Tall" Jones on the phone! The 2008 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records -- actually, I see they've changed the title to the hipper and more fly Guinness World Records 2008 -- has debuted with a nationwide contest to find the Tallest Man in the U.S. The lucky winner will have to stretch to beat the new Tallest Living Human Being: veterinarian Leonid Stadnyk of Podoliansky, Ukraine, who hits the ceiling at a spectacular 8 feet, 5.5 inches.

If you ask me, the publication of a new Guinness book is the only consolation left for fans of the famous and fabulous Weekly World News, closed this month after 28 stranger-than-truth years. The Guinness publishers promise that the '08 edition contains many additional new records, such as "An elephant with the Largest Prosthetic Leg" and "The unbelievable World's Hairiest Family."

2007-08-07T19:30:00.000-05:00

Press release headline of the week:

DEATH From COSMETIC SURGERY Is Never Acceptable Claims Dr. Friedberg

That maverick Friedberg, always staking out radical positions.

2007-07-19T17:30:00.000-05:00

Planned that vacation yet?: Two breaking news stories bring new opportunities for summertime travelers. First, shopping-mall gadget HQ the Sharper Image proclaims that it's gone "beyond high-tech products to life-altering experiences," becoming the exclusive retail source for FAA-approved Zero-G Weightless Experience flights.

Regularly scheduled, specially configured Boeing 727s depart from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral -- or, more prosaically, Las Vegas -- to perform the same series of parabolic maneuvers used to train astronauts for zero gravity in space. Only those who truly possess the right stuff will not barf up their breakfasts before capping the 90-minute flight with "a festive re-gravitation celebration" with champagne toasts and souvenir DVDs. The $3,675 price includes a flight suit that's yours to keep.

If that whets your appetite, of course, Space Adventures has already taken five sightseers on its $40 million Soyuz rocket trip and week's stay in orbit at the International Space Station, though nobody's splurged yet on the 16-day package with the first civilian space walk ($55 million). By 2009 the company hopes to have a customer for the first private flight to and around the far side of the moon, though I'd have hoped you'd get at least a lunar orbit if not a landing for your $100 million.

For a different kind of vacation fun, Dublin-based Reva Health Network says that over 2.5 million people will consider "dental tourism" this year, finding financial savings by recreating the movies Hostel and Turistas heading overseas for an implant, veneer, or crown. As the company's downloadable Dental Tourism Information Pack reveals, Hungary, Mexico, and Poland are the most popular destinations; an American traveler to Costa Rica can save 60 percent on a dental implant, while a Mexican veneer is barely a quarter of the price of the U.S. procedure.

2007-07-17T20:10:00.000-05:00

Young at heart, but not that young: As I count the dwindling days till my 49th birthday, I take comfort in my immature behavior. I bet not many other 50ishes usually eat dinner lying on the TV-room floor. I bet not many cruise I-95 with the CD player on loud enough to clear three lanes of traffic, or at least not playing The Faders -- a female pop/punk trio from the U.K. whose combined ages approach mine; their 2005 single "No Sleep Tonight" is best played at stick-your-head-in-the-drum-set volume with the bass cranked up so the side-view mirror appears to show an earthquake.

Except while watching the coming attractions before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the other day I heard "No Sleep Tonight" as part of the soundtrack to the upcoming Bratz movie. Ewww! Thanks for ruining that. Back to Abba for me.

2007-07-16T19:15:00.000-05:00

Sorry I missed it: There aren't many great Bastille Day celebrations in America, so I'm vowing that next year I'll be in Philadelphia for the festival at the Eastern State Penitentiary ("America's Most Historic Prison"). In addition to a Tricycle Tour de France for the kids, last Saturday's fun included revolutionaries with muskets and cannon storming the prison while a Marie Antoinette impersonator mockingly cried, "Let them eat Tastykake!", hurling 2,000 of the Philadelphia bakery's famous snack treats from the ramparts. How do you say "Butterscotch Krimpets" in French?

2007-07-15T20:25:00.000-05:00

No brand left behind: Comes a press release from the California Dried Plum Board, touting an updated, more user-friendly Web site with tasty recipes for consumers such as Dried Plums Steeped in Jasmine Tea with Yogurt, helpful info for the "healthcare institutions that are primary foodservice users of dried plums," and other news including Governor's Proclamation Encourages Californians To Incorporate Dried Plums into Their Nutritional Regimen and Building Strong Bones With Dried Plums: What Men Need To Know.

Dried plums, of course, are better known as prunes -- or, as the CDPB site has it, "California Dried Plums, as they're called in the U.S., and Prunes, as they're still known in the rest of the world" -- and the association of 1,000 growers and 21 packers' primary mission is to erase the existing brand awareness of Laxatives for Old People, just as the current Sun-Maid Raisins commercial touts "Grapes and Sunshine" rather than Dried-Up Old Shriveled-Ass Grapes and the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board no longer uses the slogan Cheese: It's Milk Gone Bad.

In totally unrelated other news, Kimberly-Clark Professional announced last week that it is "about to go where no health and hygiene company has gone before -- crossing the final touchless restroom frontier" -- with the ultimate counterpart to the hand-motion-sensing faucets and soap dispensers already found in the better class of public facilities: Though it looks more like shaving cream in the picture, the JRT Electronic Coreless is the first automatic toilet tissue dispenser.

Powered by a one-year battery, the miracle device delivers a preset amount of that terrible one-ply, near-transparent Scott bath tissue -- 16, 20, or 24 inches -- when users place their hands beneath the, er, fount. This controlled dispensing, the Kimberly-Clark folks say, yields a 20 percent reduction in the amount of tissue used, as well as bringing the humble stall into compliance with the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act. Emergency manual relief is provided by a knob on the front of the machine.

2007-07-08T20:40:00.000-05:00

I tremble for my country when I reflect that half of us are yahoos: It's not original with me to observe that everything you need to know about the USA's place in this ever-faster-moving world is that 48 percent of Americans don't believe in evolution. Every election year politicians talk about our kids' math and science scores, and then we elect even a blatantly dishonest, spectacularly unqualified candidate if the media anoints him as the sumbitch most likely to kick back and have a beer with.

Against that background, I predict that Grand Theft Auto and God of War will not be blown off the video game charts by D3Publisher's new PlayStation2 game The Adventures of Darwin.

In its press release announcing the $20 title, the company explains that "players take on the leadership role in a group of primitive, yet promising, primates" as Darwin the monkey and his evolutionary entourage try to grow from simple chimps to an "intelligent colony of human cavemen," dodging dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers while collecting raw materials to use as tools and mastering increasingly civilized language. Players "will find out if they are capable of becoming a leader of evolution, or if they are doomed to a life of monkey business!"

2007-07-08T20:15:00.000-05:00

I know it's far too long since I updated this blog, but Edison Research just reported that one-third of U.S. consumers now pick the Internet as the "most essential" medium in their lives, rapidly gaining on TV (36%) and blowing away radio and newspapers (17% and 10%, respectively). America is counting on me.

2007-06-13T21:00:00.000-05:00

Peel open the cellophane: You've read about stranded, isolated soldiers who, when discovered, believe that World War II is still going on? Today, perhaps the last such vanished veteran has rejoined civilization and entered the twenty-first century: the Hostess Twinkie.

How can that be, you ask, when the iconic snack-cake treat has never been gone, selling half a billion strong each year? Because its vanilla creme filling was really an emergency ration: The Twinkie that Chicago baker James A. Dewar invented in 1930 featured banana filling, which was replaced with vanilla due to a wartime banana shortage.

Save for a few limited-time promotions, such as a tie-in to the 2005 movie King Kong, the original taste remained in exile -- until today, when Hostess announced that both flavors are back on supermarket shelves to stay. Well, to stay for 25 days, the company says of Twinkies' shelf life, but you and I know a Twinkie is forever.

2007-06-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

Now this from the self-esteem desk: Beach and swimsuit season is supposed to be a happy time, but alas is really a mortifying one: Only 6 percent of American women feel ready to appear in public in a bikini. So says a survey conducted by Gardenburger, the veggie-and-other-meatless-materials patty provider. Worse, a plurality (47 percent) of women identify their body type most with Rosie O'Donnell rather than Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Garner, Cameron Diaz, or Nicole Richie (presumably listed in the questionnaire in order from sturdy to skeletal).

But fear not! From Dallas comes the good word that MedSurge Advances, which calls itself "the nation's largest independent provider of aesthetic medicine products and services to physicians," has opened the futureperfect™ Total Body Management Center and fitspa™ ("an evolution of the medspa"), which offers "breakthrough fat-burning and body-sculpting technologies" from Europe and Japan.

What technologies, you ask? Well, there's the Vybe™ shown here, which "induces thousands of involuntary muscle contractions by transmitting high-frequency vibrations to the body through a mechanical vibration plate." After "achieving the benefits of a targeted workout" with no voluntary movement whatsoever, the pampered client can proceed to the tanning-bed-style Slimdome™, which uses "harmless infrared energy" to help her "reach a highly beneficial 'Marathon Sweat™,' excreting fat as well as water as "the body's natural response to the warming stimulation [will] melt away calories and release dioxins."

After this Abu Ghraib regimen, there's MesoMassage™, which eschews old-fashioned mesotherapy's needle injections of fat-burning agents for the application of "finely tuned electro-waveforms to create natural micro-pathways between tissue cells," facilitating a deep-tissue massage of fat-burning gels into the lower dermal layers. You'll be bikini-ready, or at least painfully tingling, racked with tremors, and suffering heatstroke within hours!

2007-06-07T19:10:00.000-05:00

But I still refuse to call him Rupe: Lance Mannion, first among the bloggers who make me gnash my teeth because I don't have the ~~talent~~ time to write essays half as eloquent, surprises me (and I do mean surprises) into giving a grudging half-salute to Rupert Murdoch.

2007-06-04T17:50:00.000-05:00

He's strong to the finish: Forget Harry Potter on July 21. This makes July 31 the most worth-waiting-for day of the year (he said, constantly muttering to himself).

2007-06-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

Speed dating: After a few months' trial in Los Angeles, online dating service Motodate.com -- described in its press release as "a Web site that allows you to meet people while driving in traffic" -- has registered a trademark and is waiting on patent approval. Single drivers can sign up, receive personal four-digit code stickers for their car windows, and instead of being distracted by cell-phone conversations can be distracted by "look[ing] for that next cutie driving beside them."

"Once you see the person next to you in traffic," founder Tim Baudler says, "you know whether or not there is a spark, and vice versa. Many of us sitting in traffic have glanced over and said, 'Wow! I wonder what his or her story is. Are they single/married? Are they straight/gay? What are their interests?"

"And [Motodate.com] is so much better than sites where you have to guess whether someone really looks like their photo," Baudler explains. "This way, you see them first, rather than spending $60 on a dinner where there's no physical attraction anyway after only seeing an online photo! It's REVERSE online dating, which is much more practical!!"

2007-04-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

Hastily summoning an ambulance, the corpse was rushed to the hospital: My collection of handy grammar and composition samples, such as the sentence before this or "He likes to fish, to hike, and swimming," is growing as I read Ben Yagoda's nifty field guide to (quoting the table of contents) Adj., Adv., Art., Conj., Int., N., Prep., Pron., and V., titled When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It. The author's introduction explains how he was torn beween that title -- advice attributed to Twain -- and a concise, contemporary example of how nouns become verbs and vice versa: Pimp My Ride. Yagoda also deals briskly with once-sacrosanct rules long since turned to baggage and barnacles:

A couple of generations ago, every grammar-school grammar teacher drilled into her charges' heads the eternal rule that one forms the future tense in the first person by using the auxiliary verb shall. Today, the only possible response to anyone who says "I shall go to the store" is "And I shall call you a dork till the end of your days."

Hear, hear -- or, as World War II commandos in the apparently unedited thriller I read last weekend exclaim, "Here, here" -- although I confess I'll miss a mnemonic gem I heard many years ago: Far from shore, a struggling swimmer nears the end of his strength, sobbing, "I shall drown! No one will save me!" Suddenly there appears another swimmer, who struck out from shore determined to commit suicide: "I will drown! No one shall save me!"

2007-04-20T17:30:00.000-05:00

The horror, the horror: Behold, if you dare, the most unholy and terrifying Web page in the history of the New York Times! Look and learn (1.) that Tony Award-winning director (The Lion King) Julie Taymor, U2's Bono and the Edge, and Marvel Comics are joining forces to bring Spider-Man to the Broadway musical stage! (2.) That the infamous 1980 Olivia Newton-John / Gene Kelly roller disco movie musical Xanadu is also Broadway-bound, just like Legally Blonde (opening next Sunday)! (3.) That the same page wisely offers an ad for anxiety treatments!

The Daily News article adds that "Superman was the last superhero to try his luck in a Broadway musical, but the 1966 play flopped after only 129 performances." Memories!

You see, I am one of the few mortals living who has seen that show, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman -- I was just a boy when ABC inexplicably aired it one fateful midnight in 1975, but to this day I am haunted by mercifully vague recollections. For instance, Loretta Swit singing to some guy a catchy (as in Ebola) number titled, "Ooh, Do You Love You." Or three comical thugs marching around the stage chanting, "CUR-tains! For SUP-erman! CUR-tains! For SUP-erman!"

Looking up the ABC show online tells me that "Password" host Allen Ludden was Perry White, while Lois Lane was played by none other than Lesley Ann Warren, but I don't remember them. I do recall crusty old David Wayne, forever a favorite as fatherly Inspector Queen in the tragically short-lived Jim Hutton's tragically short-lived "Ellery Queen" series, as a mad scientist and evil genius; his big solo was a song called "Revenge," which repeated the word at least two dozen times, but ABC paused VCR-style before the last word of his last line:

" -- till I get what I waaaannt --"
freeze frame; voice-over narrator Gary Owens: "What does Dr. Forgethisname want? Stay tuned!"; break for commercials; return to and unfreeze frame;
"REEEE-VENGE!"

But the lyric I remember best was part of the big ensemble opener, "We Need Him," with citizens of Metropolis joining one another in musical tribute to the ever-helpful Man of Steel:

He brought the orphans Christmas turkeys!
He flew my asthmatic son to Albuquerque!

Match that, Bono.

2007-04-10T16:45:00.000-05:00

The last honest man, Walter Mondale: A depressing Harris Poll report today reveals that the American people, trained in acceptable levels of sacrifice by their war president, believe the U.S.'s ponderous, dangerous budget deficit can be fixed by clapping their hands to save Tinkerbell.

A 71- to 15-percent majority of adults do not think "it is necessary to increase taxes to reduce the budget deficit" ... Even if taxes "had to be raised," very large majorities oppose raising the estate tax (64%), gas taxes (82%), income taxes (81%), the Social Security tax (83%), and the Medicare tax (87%) ... The only two [tax increases] which would be acceptable to majorities of adults ... are taxes on cigarettes (73%) and beer and alcohol (72%).

How about cutting government spending? When respondents were asked to choose two federal programs to cut from a list of twelve, only the space program was picked by a majority (51%). Welfare and defense spending tied for the next most popular cutback (28%), with farm subsidies cited by 24%, environmental programs by 16%, and homeland security by 12%. Shockingly, Republicans led Democrats by 43 to 18 percent in choosing to cut welfare and by 30 to 7 percent in axing environmental programs; donkeys led elephants by 45 to 8 percent in trimming defense spending.

The poll's conclusion? The 2008 elections may well involve some discussion of the need to reduce the budget deficit, but given these results, it will be a brave and possibly foolhardy candidate who gets into specifics about how to do this.

2007-04-06T19:15:00.000-05:00

Respect my Peeps: With the advent of Easter I resume my duties as president of the Alliance Against Hollow Chocolate Bunnies (mottos: "Hollow Bunnies Mean Hollow Tummies" and "No Marshmallow Inside? The Rabbit Died"), but Epicurious.com suggests more upscale basket ballast. Norman Love Confections sells 10 hand-painted, Faberge-style chocolate Easter eggs for $22.

PlushPuffs.com marshmallows are square, not chick-shaped, but come in flavors like Vanilla Bean, Orange Honey, and Caramel Swirl. I'll endorse any company that offers a recipe for marshmallow nachos and lists HomestarRunner.com's inspired Fluffy Puff commercials (starring Marshie the psychotic marshmallow) as company training videos.

And Russell Stover rabbits can only bite off their own waxy heads when faced with the $14 hares from Vosges Haut-Chocolat, such as Naga Bunny (sweet Indian curry, coconut, and deep milk chocolate) and Red Fire Bunny (chilies, cinnamon, and dark chocolate).

2007-04-05T17:50:00.000-05:00

Can't. Stop. Giggling.

2007-03-29T12:45:00.000-05:00

Take me out of the ball game: Word over the wires today that Eternal Image Inc. of Farmington Hills, Mich., is starting a quarterly newsletter for its customers. If you'd like to subscribe, you can contact the company at 1-888-6-CASKET -- yes, ETI ("Products That Reflect a Life Well Lived") is "the first and only manufacturer and marketer of licensed brand image funerary products," including urns for cremated pets featuring the logos of the American Kennel Club (and soon, Cat Fanciers' Association) and, for persons now burning in hell, urns and caskets decorated with one of five exclusive Precious Moments^® figurines.

The Eternal Image Web site asks, "Why, when our lives are so full of passion, do funerals -- events designed to celebrate a life -- have to be so plain and boring?" The alternative, of course, is "a themed funeral" highlighting one of the loves of a loved one's life:

For example, if the person was a baseball fan, place memorabilia from a favorite team around the room, display photos of the person at the ballpark, include ballpark music (for instance the instrumental of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game") and consider an official Major League Baseball^® licensed casket or urn.

The abovementioned urn features not only team logos but a home-plate-shaped base and a display dome at the top to hold a favorite autographed ball. The first models available salute the Cardinals, Cubs, Red Sox, Yankees, Braves, Tigers, Dodgers, and Phillies.