Category Archives: Unclassifiable

…and look at this gallery of hacked stop signs.

As a follow-up (sorta) to our earlier item about how prices in Las Vegas are all over the place: Let's say you're visiting the Venetian Hotel. Let's say you're craving something sweet. Well, how about one of those $750.00 cupcakes?

There's apparently a fierce ongoing debate in elite circles as to who it was who first decided to put character heads on Pez dispensers. A likely candidate is the gent who recently passed away…Curtis Allina, who was the vice-president in charge of United States operations for the firm for nearly three decades. Whoever's notion it was, it was a brilliant idea.

The gossip website TMZ.com was today touting the scoop of the year, any year: A photo of John F. Kennedy cavorting on a yacht with naked women. Naturally, I had to go take a peek…and I saw this article which explained how thoroughly they had verified the photo's authenticity. I also saw the photo and instantly thought, "Hmm…I think I remember that picture from an issue of Playboy in the sixties."

Sure enough, a couple hours later, TMZ is admitting that the photo ran in a 1967 issue of Playboy. That either means it's a hoax or an even bigger scoop than they thought. The Smoking Gun has a good summary of the story…or rather, the non-story. If you prowl through the comments at the TMZ website, you'll see an awful lot of people saying, before the fraud was exposed, "I'm an expert and I can tell you it's authentic." Yeah, right.

Adam Thirwell reviews a new book on Charles Dickens and discusses why he was the way he was.

The awesomely-talented Shelly Goldstein sent me this link. It's to a very bizarre article about a very bizarre man. John Antrobus tells us how Peter Sellers used to spend Christmas.

According to this article, the Disney folks are about to unveil a new, improved Animatronic version of Abraham Lincoln at Disneyland and, one assumes, at its other theme parks later on. The new robotic Abe is capable of hundreds of different facial expressions…which is more than can be said for the last dozen-or-so men to occupy the Oval Office, unless you count talking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time.

The old voice track by actor Royal Dano has been retained despite suggestions that they opt for a new one…say, one by Sam Waterson, who is said to be closer to what The Great Emancipator actually sounded like. In the linked piece, it says, "To be sure, no one living today has ever heard Lincoln speak — and there are no recordings. Much of what scholars have deduced about Lincoln's delivery comes from contemporary accounts of his relatively high-tenor voice."

Far be it from me to quibble with Lincoln scholars…but I'm quite sure I remember reading or hearing somewhere the opinion of poet-historian Carl Sandburg on the subject. Sandburg, of course, never heard Lincoln speak having been born in 1878. But I'm certain he said somewhere that his research had led him to conclude that Lincoln sounded very much like the late Pat Buttram.

You all remember Pat Buttram, perhaps as Gene Autry's sidekick, perhaps as Mr. Haney on the TV series, Green Acres. He was a lovely, funny man and I had the pleasure of directing him a half-dozen times for his recurring role on Garfield and Friends. In fact, I once asked him about the Sandburg remark and he said he'd heard it, too. Pat had a squeaky voice filled with highs and lows, often at different ends of the same word, and he said, "People would never believe ol' Honest Abe sounded like me."

He may have been right about that…and the current flock of experts may know that. Look at that line above about our 16th President having a high-tenor voice. And look at this quote: "He often was so nervous at the beginning, he would almost shift up into a falsetto before he settled himself," said historian Ronald C. White Jr., author of "A. Lincoln: A Biography." Sure sounds like Pat Buttram to me.

Do not click on this link unless you have nothing better to do for the next hour or so. It's one of those addictive puzzles that will keep you glued to the keyboard for a period of time you can ill afford to waste. If you want to go ahead, be my guest and see if you can Circle the Cat.

How to design a menu to get people to order the more profitable items.

Wanna purchase the house Walt Disney first lived in when he moved to Los Angeles? It's for sale again. I had a tour of it many years ago and didn't spot any ghosts of the past…or even any trace that anyone named Disney had ever lived there. (The place belonged to Walt's uncle.) But hey, it's a one-of-a-kind collectible.

Many Korean-speaking readers of this site — I didn't know I had so many — have written to inform me that the sign in the previous posting should more properly be translated as "Oysters may cause allergies in people with certain physical conditions." Hey, we all know that. What's news to me is that the Oyster consequently in constitution which is the possibility of getting up and allergies. That's something to sing about.

Carolyn and I were in a Korean supermarket here in Los Angeles last evening and she called my attention to this sign in their seafood department. I agree with every word of it. The Oyster consequently in constitution which is the possibility of getting up and allergies. Who among us could dispute that?

Yeah, I'm trying to see if I can blog from my new iPhone. If you're seeing this, I guess I can.

The other day here, I posted a link to a very funny e-mail exchange between an entrepreneur and a web designer. The former was trying to get the latter to do some work for free and the latter was responding in an amusing manner. I have no idea who's telling the truth here — maybe neither of them — but fairness requires that I note that the person in the entrepreneur role is denying the conversation was true. Thanks to Bob Elisberg for investigating.

Yesterday, I was polled by the Gallup folks on a whole range of topics. The call took about fifteen minutes and it was pleasant enough…but I had two stark observations about the questions I was asked, one positive, one negative. The positive was that the wording of the questions was absolutely neutral. I was not being nudged in the slightest towards one answer or the other. The negative was that in most cases, there were only two possible responses and that neither really gave a true picture of my feelings.

One was — and I may not be remembering the wording precisely but it was close to this — "Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your current health insurance?" My options were to choose "satifisfied" or "dissatisfied" or I suppose I could have abstained. The truth is that I am relatively satisfied with my own health insurance. It covers most of what I need it to cover…though let's be honest here. The true test of your health insurance is not whether it covers one particular prescription (I've currently having a little argument with them over one) but whether it will cover you tomorrow if you suddenly need a liver transplant. Apart from premium costs — which these days, you can't do much about — most insurance plans are just dandy when you aren't filing claims for anything more than Omeprazole. It's like asking, "Are you happy with your local fire department?" Yes, since I haven't had to call them in more than ten years, I have no complaints.

Actually, my complaints regarding health insurance have little to do with mine. I'm frustrated and dismayed at the number of friends who are ill (including a few who have actually, you know, like died) without being able to get health insurance. I also know a few who have it, or thought they had it, and are spending money they can ill afford because of what their policies don't (or won't) pay for. I think that's a horrible, horrible situation that's destroying lives just as thoroughly as any public tragedy…

…but though the pollster asked me a half-dozen questions about health insurance, no combination of answers would have allowed me to express that viewpoint. I was asked if I had health insurance (yes) and if I was satisfied with it (I guess so) and if I obtained mine through an employer (no) and if I obtained mine through a union (yes) and so on. No question that queried, "Do you think health care in this country needs a drastic overhaul?" (abso-friggin'-lutely)

I was also asked if I approved of the job Barack Obama was doing. I said yes, mainly because if I said no, I figured my answer would class me with the Teabaggers or the Republicans or some other group that wishes someone else had won the last election. The truth is that I'm annoyed that he hasn't done more of what some of us expected him to have done by now…but I can't think of anyone I'd prefer to see in the White House at the moment. (This morning, I read this article by Jacob Weisberg who argues that Obama will have had a much more impressive first year than his supporters think.) I kinda wish the Gallup folks had given me an option that said, "I'm dissatisfied but in the opposite way from how Sean Hannity is dissatisfied."

There were others like this but you get the idea. Time and again, I wanted to ask the pollster, "Can I say, 'satisfied but with some major reservations?'" That I couldn't really express my views is something I'm going to keep in mind next time I read one of those polls. They're fine as far as they go but they don't go far enough. Then again, neither does my health insurance or Barack Obama.