Happy Birthday Beebo!

It's Beebo's B-Day today!

The anxiety of phone coverage

Here is a phone doodle I did while taking a call on my office's main public line. Answering that line is like Russian roulette--you never know what you're gonna get.

Lazy, lazy TMZ.com

Crappy gossip site TMZ has a photo feature called "All Growed Up", which is basically a 'what do they look like now' photo gallery of old TV stars from the 70s-90s. What irks me is the title--it fits if you're showing what some kid from an old sitcom looks like, but I often see something like this:


Ann B. Davis -- all growed up? She was all growed up 40 years ago, when The Brady Bunch was originally on TV. Can't TMZ at least come up with another header like:

"ALL OLD AND STUFF! CLICK TO SEE"?

A Beebo-Style Post

Nut Crackers:
Squirrels Go Mad For Coconuts

Andy Jack, Sky News Online

A pair of squirrels have taken their love of coconuts to a different level - by getting stuck into their favourite snacks.

The squirrels take a nibble out of their weekly coconut snacks.
Photo: Mike Walker.

They love them so much that they dive right inside the shells to get the last tasty bit.

The squirrels are regular visitors to Jane Roberts' garden in Fareham, Hampshire.

They often used to steal the food put out for the birds but now they are just crazy about coconuts.

Jane, 46, puts out two nuts a week and suspends them on pieces of string from the washing line.

She said: "I make a large hole in the coconut so that they can get into the flesh. The first time I saw them feeding I nearly died laughing, they looked just like a pair of spacemen.

"Even now I can't stop chuckling every time I see them."

Half Pint Dimpled Pot/Scarlet Ribbons

Since I was a kid, I've been very been extremely specific in my likes and dislikes. "Specificity" is one of my core traits. My mom has often referred to various "scarlet ribbons" quests she's had to do on my behalf, due to me knowing exactly what I want, even as a child. ("Scarlet Ribbons" was a popular song from the fifties. Description: Written by Jack Segal and Evelyn Danzil in 1949, this song is about a father searching the town for a ribbon for his daughter's hair. In the song, a father hears his daughter praying for a ribbon, searches for one, can't find any, comes home and sees a ribbon laying on her bed.)

One of my current quests is for the elusive British half pint 'dimpled mug (or pot)'. It's a smaller version of the familiar British beer mug, as seen in Irish bars and the occasional micro-pub. I've become fascinated with these from seeing them portrayed in various 60s and 70s TV shows from England that I've watched. The half-pint is typically the beer that women would order (due to a smaller drinking capacity -- at least in theory), or the size you might order if you were just stopping off briefly in the middle of your work day. The latter idea fascinates me, since I think it's still acceptable in the UK, though verboten here in the U.S.

I'm searching for a small set of these, but they're difficult to track down. The typical American beer enthusiast isn't really interested in drinking ' a half', so they've never caught on here, even among fans of 'authenticity'.