humor

Public displays of grooming.

by

thRecently I flew from Anchorage to Las Vegas to give a talk at the New Media Expo. Going from a chilly climate to a potentially blast-furnace-hot one meant I’d need nothing but sandals, so why bother wearing shoes on the plane?

But this was an overnight flight and I can’t sleep when my feet are cold. Sighing, I made a sartorially awkward choice: gray wool socks with my Teva sandals.

And yes, I know how fugly that looks, but I’m built for comfort, not for speed. Besides, it wasn’t wearing the socks with sandals that left me feeling embarrassed. It was the removal.

The terminal in Los Angeles made my feet feel overdressed, instantly. Yet I felt it absolutely necessary to remove the socks in the ladies’ room. Doing so in the waiting area – even an empty one – seemed indecent somehow.

Read more

Giveaway: “Tundra” calendar.

by

IMG_20150503_130130I saw “Moose: The Movie” again on Saturday, on the drive back from Fairbanks. The first time was at the world premiere of this goofy horror-film spoof, the brainchild of cartoonist Chad Carpenter, creator of the “Tundra” comic strip.

In the past I’ve given away “Tundra” books, playing cards and a calendar. Reader interest has always been high because Carpenter’s work is syndicated in some 600 newspapers worldwide. Not bad for a homegrown cartoonist.

Carpenter was on hand at the Saturday screening and was giving away “Tundra” 2016 calendars. In addition to signing the calendars he added a little moose drawing. Look to the left and you’ll see the result.

Enter to win and you may wind up owning the result.

Read more

In which I buy a dongle.

by

thAnimation artist Chuck Jones, the guy who invented Pepe Le Pew and the Road Runner/Coyote binary, once noted the existence of a vast conspiracy to keep people from getting where they need to go. It’s called the Anti-Destination League, and it was out in force for me yesterday.

My to-do list contained eight errands when I set out at 1 p.m. When DF called me at 6 p.m. only four of the to-dos were to-done and I was nearly spitting with frustration.

Our conversation included something I could never have imagined I’d say: “It’s not as easy to buy a dongle as you might think.”

 

Read more

Giveaway: “Tundra” playing cards.

by

31bj+FtE-zLReaction is always enthusiastic whenever I give away one of the “Tundra” comic strip collections. Why shouldn’t it be? Chad Carpenter is a very funny guy.

He’s also resourceful, having come up with an extremely portable and dual-use version of his best-selling anthologies: “Tundra” playing cards. (Insert your own “playing with a full deck” joke here.)

A set of the playing cards are up for grabs this week. As the artist suggests, use these for a poker game and see if anyone at the table can keep a straight face.

Read more

Giveaway: 2015 “Tundra” calendar.

by

2015_Wall_Calendar-257x350-1I know you guys like Chad Carpenter’s “Tundra” comics, because the response is quite enthusiastic whenever I give away one of his books.

And why not? His is one of the fastest-growing comic strips on the planet — and the third-fastest on Jupiter, according to his home page.

So here’s a gift for the person who has everything: a 2015 “Tundra” calendar, signed (and doodled!) by the author.

Just think: an entire year of silliness hanging on your kitchen, office or workplace wall. That is, unless you decide to make it one of your holiday presents.

My personal favorite is the August illustration, which features a TSA agent looking askance at a porcupine. Caption: “I’ll opt for the pat-down.”

Read more

How to look like a grownup.

by

thI’ve discovered the secret to maturity, or at least to the appearance of maturity. This wasn’t what I expected to learn at the Financial Blogger Conference.

Yesterday I had breakfast with the other FinCon14 volunteers. (Fun fact: We’re called “Finions.”) We ate at a place called Café Beignet, because while in New Orleans it’s not just a good idea to eat beignets – it’s the law.

Incidentally, let’s take a moment to call the beignet what it really is: a square funnel cake. Really delicious, but not the doughnut-y sort of pastry I’d expected. Besides, “funnel cake” is easier to say. Whenever I try to pronounce any French word I sound like an idiot.

Read more

On the road to nowhere in particular.

by

thLast week DF and I took a four-day driving trip around rural Alaska, aka “1,200 miles’ worth of postcard views.”

Now that summer is pretty much gone, we decided to treat ourselves to the sights of our too-brief autumn. While we don’t have the scarlets and oranges of New England, the changing colors were still pretty heart-stopping.

Brilliant yellow birch and rich gold willows glimpsed against backdrops of spruce so dark they looked black. Here and there some in-between leaves that gleamed chartreuse in the nearly nonstop sun.

Splashes of red fireweed and redder berry bushes alongside the highway and also carpeting the hillsides. Mountains festooned with blindingly white new snow as well as the more somber ivory of alpine glaciers.

September is a well-kept secret in southcentral Alaska. Most of the tourists have gone home, although we did see some at Denali National Park. Buttoned up to their necks, they were, and seeming disappointed that they didn’t get to see all of Mt. McKinley (which we call “Denali” or just “The Mountain”) due to partly cloudy skies.

At least they got to see the first 10,000 feet of it. Denali is like a stripper who generally doesn’t show you all the good stuff at the same time.

Read more

How spam is made.

by

thApparently there’s a spam template floating around the Internetz. Anyone who blogs has likely seen its spawn, i.e., would-be “comments” that sound a lot like other “comments” you received that day. Or the previous week, or year.

That’s because they’re not comments at all. They’re camel noses.

Folks promoting their websites or who are being paid to promote other people’s websites cut and paste chunks of these templates and mass-mail them to every blog extant. Approve them once and they can get into your tent any time they want in the future.

Or, rather, their spam-mails can. If you’re new to blogging, be really wary about which comments you approve. Should the English seem very clunky or the comment off-topic (or a blatant non sequitur), check the return e-mail address/web page attached to the e-mail. You’ll almost certainly see something like “cheap retro Jordan size 8” or “teeth whitening” or “cheap FIF coins.”

Today I got an e-mail from a really clueless spammer who cut-and-pasted the entire freaking template: 2,828 words. Taken together they look like an English-as-a-second-language version of Mad Libs.

Read more

The call of the Koolickle.

by

thRecently DF came into possession of a special report from the University of Mississippi’s Meek School of Journalism and New Media. “Land of plenty: Will food save the Delta or be its death?” is beautifully photographed and contains fascinating articles about the foods commonly consumed in the Mississippi Delta.

These range from the expected (barbecue, greens, fried chicken) to the surprising (tamales, kibbeh, Italian, Asian, haute cuisine). A supermarket is the only one in the Kroger chain that grinds its own meat, because the kibbeh consumers demand fresh grind of a specific quality.

This isn’t just a travelogue, mind you. The writers focused on nutrition issues, food deserts and health problems. We also learn about prawn farming, soul food, family-run eateries, blues music, restaurants that turned dying cities into Saturday-night destinations.

And we learn about Koolickles, a Delta delicacy also known as Pickoolas: dill pickles marinated in brine, sugar and double-strength Kool-Aid.

This is the home of the fried pickle, so it’s no surprise that gherkins might receive unusual treatment. But Kool-Aid pickles struck me as both horrifying and fascinating. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.

Reader, I made some.

Read more

11 signs of spring in Alaska.

by

thThe first shot in the dandelion wars has been fired: Over the weekend I pulled up a fledgling and chopped its leaves into my pot full of garbage soup. Take that, Taraxacum officinale!

Not really a war. In fact, I think dandelion blooms are cheerful and last year DF made homemade soda from them. It wound up fermenting and tasted more like a hard cider than a soft drink.

(Acted like one, too, which made DF pretty cheerful as well.)

Even if I hadn’t seen the dandelion greens I would know that it’s spring. Real spring, not calendar spring (March 20, my boot-clad foot), although some refer to it as “breakup.”

How do I know? Let me count the ways.

1. Vanishing snow piles. On today’s walk I had to pick my way past the remains of a  pile that had been plowed into an alley, and patches of snow still linger in shady spots. Mostly it’s a thing of the past, although some pretty impressive mountains of the stuff persist in the city’s various snow dumps.

2. Nighttime temps at freezing or better. The other day it was 23 when we got up, but generally the overnight temperatures hover in the low 30s.

3. Daytime temps in the 40s. When you’re in the sun that feels great. In the shade, or when a north-facing breeze smacks you, still a little chilly. But you couldn’t prove it by…

Read more