SHOCKER! Superman’s SECRET Secret Identity Revealed!

(Note:  This is a crosspost from buzz.mn, although those of you unfamiliar with that particular site probably won’t have a clue what’s going on here.  For a word of explanation, Lance Lawson was a (very) obscure comic that ran in a few papers back in the late Forties featuring a quick “solve it yourself” mystery that always seemed to result in someone murdering someone, lying transparently about it, and getting busted for their crimes all within four panels of the funny pages.  There was also some clue inside the comic that’s supposed to tell you why the perp is lying that you’re supposed to find, some of them easier than others.  A more thorough explanation and some examples can be found here, and “new” Lance Lawson strips extracted from the old microfiche can be found every Thursday over at the Buzz (a recent example can be found here.)  For those of you who still don’t get it, you can skip to the end for a bit of real-world context.)

In this day and age, Superman is one of the world’s iconic comic book superheroes, and in most modern societies not being familiar with Superman and his backstory would probably be the type of thing that might be indicative of subeterranean living accommodations. As a result, I’m sure that almost everyone (at least those of us who reside on Earth Prime anyway) are well aware of Superman’s secret identity as Clark Kent… Right? Not so fast.

As the shocking photo you are about to see below reveals, Superman had a SECRET secret identity that he has successfully kept hidden for over 70 years… Until now. This photo, taken from a recent GSN rerun of a 1966 episide of I’ve Got a Secret inadvertently reveals the shocking truth behind Superman’s TRUE secret identity:

That’s right, it turns out that even the whole “Make everyone think he’s Clark Kent” spiel was a ruse. The one day Superman appeared on national TV just happened to be the one day he forgot to “fix” the unmistakable hair comma, revealing once and for all that Superman’s TRUE secret identity was none other than that of everyone’s favorite bringer of suspiciously swift justice, Lance Lawson!

When he’s not crashing through walls and banging crooks’ heads together or pretending to pretend to write for the Daily Planet, it turns out the Man of Steel keeps himself busy smashing through flimsy alibis and collaring crooks with astounding speed. Do you think that Mr. Lawson could really manage to solve any crime that he happens to come across in four panels or less if he DIDN’T have X-ray vision? Besides, what would make you think an invincible Kryptonian Man of Steel wouldn’t be bored out of his skull covering sewer board meetings and cat-in-the-tree stories all day when Lex Luthor is off on vacation? Has anyone here ever seen Superman and Lance Lawson in the same room? Didn’t think so.

Nice try, but the gig is up Mr. Lawson (or should we say… SUPERMAN!?) Sure would explain a lot though, wouldn’t it?

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The Real Story behind the picture: As stated above, the picture comes from a 1966 episode of I’ve Got a Secret where Bob Holiday was the special guest. Bob portrayed Superman in a short-lived Broadway musical entitled It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Superman!that lasted for roughly four months in 1966, but later got turned into a made-for-TV movie in 1975. As for Bob Holiday, it doesn’t appear that he had any further involvement with showbiz after this role, and he later became a homebuilder in Pennsylvania, which he continues to do to this day. He even has a website with some stories of his short-lived Broadway career and video of his I’ve Got a Secret appearance, where he “taught” Steve Allen to fly, although you can pretty clearly see the wires at times on camera while he’s doing so, at least when you watch on television.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

(Programming note:  Posting may be light here for the next week or so, but I plan to write at least one post each day over at buzz.mn while the host of that site is on vacation (it’s not so much guestblogging as usurping, but that’s beside the point.)  This particular article is a crosspost from there.  The rest of my buzz.mn blog entries can be found here.)

Well, I’ve been trying to think Spring, but lately it just doesn’t seem to be working all that well. The picture above shows the scene this morning when I got to church. According to the news, some places in the Puget Sound area got as much as six inches of snow overnight, and there’s been scattered snow throughout the area since Wednesday. I suppose for those of you who live in some frozen wasteland snow in late March probably isn’t all that unusual, but considering the fact that over here getting snow more than two or three times over the course of the Winter is considered abnormally snowy, this seems to be just a tad excessive.

Nonetheless, the calendar says that it’s just about time for the Boys of Summer to take the field for another season of Baseball. Although in recent years I haven’t followed baseball as closely as I used to, in my family Opening Day is practically considered to be a holiday, celebrated with hot dogs and apple pie (NOTE: Due to ongoing criminal investigations, the Cream will not be provided with apple pie this year.) Although rooting for the home team (which around here happens to be the Mariners) seems to be the order of the day, living in the middle of nowhere meant that there really wasn’t a “home team” where I lived, which meant that I had to make do with whoever’s games we could get on cable TV. For many years, this meant the Chicago Cubs, whose games came to us via WGN out of Chicago via the not-so-silver tounged Harry Caray (who I got to meet once at a Spring Training game in Arizona, which the Cubs of course lost.)

Soon faced with the realization that backing the Cubs wasn’t exactly a winning proposition (the ‘84 playoffs were probably a good sign of this,) my allegiances eventually shifted toward the Atlanta Braves, whose games played on TBS. Given their frequently dismal record during the late Eighties, expectations were set low, until they suddenly managed to get good in 1991, and pulled off the miraculous worst-to-first comeback and even more improbable playoff win against the Pittsburgh Pirates to reach the World Series in 1991. Although I would later learn to respect both of them as players and people, Kirby Puckett’s game 6 walk-off homer and Jack Morris’ 10-inning shutout in game 7 of the 2001 World Series are both in the top ten of my most traumatic baseball experiences. Although a couple of years later the expansion Colorado Rockies would give us something that would reasonably call a home team, my loyalties remained with the Braves until my family moved up to Seattle, where the Mariners were a cellar-dwelling team at risk of being moved to some random city in Florida. We figured they could use all the help they could get, so we hopped on the bandwagon. And what a ride it would turn out to be.

Then came the 1995 season, when suddenly everything came together, and the Mariners managed to get into the playoffs by winning a one-game tiebreaker with the California Angels, then pulled off an even more improbable comeback from a 0-2 deficit in the Division Series to beat the Yankees before finally losing the ALCS in six games to the Cleveland Indians (who would then go on to lose to the Atlanta Braves in five games. All in all, not a bad year for baseball in our family.)

Although the Mariners didn’t make the World Series (and have not yet done so in their 30 year history) that 1995 run ensured that the Mariners would stay in Seattle, and set the table for the incredible 2001 season, in which the Ms would win 116 games and host the All-Star Game, but lose to the Yankees in five games in the ALCS. Among the highlights of the season that I saw in person were the All-Star Game itself, with Cal Ripken’s home run in his final All-Star appearance (marked today by a plaque in the visitor’s bullpen at Safeco Field,) and the “victory lap” that the team took around the diamond carrying an American flag the day that baseball resumed following the September 11th attacks. Oddly enough, I was working in a concession stand at Safeco Field for that game (something that I would do for anywhere from 5-15 games a year for several years on a volunteer basis, to help raise money for various nonprofit organizations. It was hard work, but it provided plenty of opportunity to be at the ballpark. I can best describe the experience as similar to trying to watch the ballgame through a hole in the fence while serving beer and hotdogs to everyone else crowded around. I must have served thousands of the things, yet surprisingly enough, I still consider the hot dogs at the ballpark to be superior to those you can find just about anywhere else (just don’t ask me to actually pay for one.) This concession standexperience came in handy when I took a trip to Disneyland a couple of years ago, and found that the food prices inside the park almost seemed reasonable in comparison.

Since that 2001 season, the Mariners haven’t given us a whole lot of reasons to celebrate, but nonetheless, there’s nothing to compare to a beautiful summer evening as you watch from the cheap seats as the sun sets over the third base line as the National Pastime plays out on the field in front of you. Sure, my team ends up being down by six runs in the fourth inning more often than I would like, but still, a bad day at the ballpark beats a good day at work anyday. Feel free to share any baseball memories you have here. Even if the Twins did beat the Braves in the ‘91 series, we can all agree that we don’t like the Yankees, right?

Oh, and Play Ball.

A Cavalcade of Somewhat Delightful Easter Merchandise

As the Winter begins to give way to Spring, thoughts begin to turn to the renewal of the Earth that the change of season brings, and the promise of the Summer ahead.  It also brings with it the Easter holiday, and with it, nightmare-inducingly huge inflatable Easter Bunnies hawking chocolate, as you see above.  And that’s just the beginning.  Although the quantity of Easter-themed merchandise you’re going to find at your friendly neighborhood mega-mart doesn’t come close to the massive quantity of Christmas merchandise you’d find during the last three months of the year, you’d be surprised at just how much the stuff there is out there these days.  I’d say that the quantity is probably similar to what’s available for Valentine’s Day, and that one’s starting to look way too overcommercialized already.  I had previously noticed the apparent convergence of the assorted holidays (or at least the type of merchandise they’ll try to sell you for them) but there’s no shortage of kitschy, ridiculous or just downright questionable merchandise unique to Easter alone.  After the jump, a look at the somewhat delightful merchandise without which the stores would like you to believe that Easter would not be complete.

How Do I Say “Carbon Offsets” in French?

If you’re an environmentalist these days, it probably doesn’t take a whole lot to convince you that the planet is headed for some form of unspecified generic Eschaton in a pollutant spewing hydrocarbon handbasket.  Sure, you might be living in an Earth-friendly yurt made out of recycled fair trade organic hemp and biking 150 miles a day to work and back, but what about all those other people who have the audacity to actually enjoy the conveniences of modern society?  There has to be some way to convince them to see the error of their ways, but since the last street corner protest ended with a trip to jail on an indecent exposure charge, some other approach is going to be needed. 

The good news for local commuters is that in an effort to get people out of their single-occupant vehicles and into other more Earth-friendly forms of transportation, the Washington State Rideshare Organization has begun offering a number of prizes for people who use alternative forms of transportation to commute.  On the other hand, the grand prize in this contest isn’t  exactly what I’d call Earth-friendly:

That’s right, you can help save the Earth and reduce your carbon footprint by getting out of your car for a couple of days (to enter the contest requires using some alternative to commuting in a single-occupant vehicle just twice during the contest period,) only to drastically increase your personal carbon footprint by flying more than 10,000 miles (roughly 5,000 miles in each direction) from Seattle to Paris on a CO2-spewing jet plane.  For that matter, just how many people would have to participate in something like this for the resulting reduction in carbon output to not be completely obliterated by the 3.7 tons of CO2 (according to the calculator on this site) generated by the round trip to Paris?  For comparison, that site estimates my car’s annual CO2 output to be just a little bit less than 5 (4.954)tons.  Based on an estimate that I will drive my relatively average (on fuel efficiency) car somewhere around 13,000 miles this year to generate those 5 tons of CO2, offsetting the carbon generated by the trip to Paris would require this program to result in about 9,650 miles less driving by people in order to break even on the flight.  That’s not even counting any carbon-generating activities that might occur during the 7-day trip, nor does it include any of the other prizes in the contest (which include a TV/DVD player combo, a couple of shorter weekend trips within Washington, and a number of various gift cards.) 

Although I tend to be skeptical about much of the current global warming hysteria going on, and I don’t doubt that there will be enough participation in the program to cover those 9,650 miles, I suspect that the trip is probably going to end up negating the majority of whatever benefit this program might have for the environment. 

Have Yourself a Merry Little Easter

It’s that time of year when Spring is just around the corner, and with it comes the celebration of Easter.  Throughout many fine local retail establishments, a mind boggling array of baskets and bunnies has appeared, along with plenty of other things to make your Easter Sunday happy and bright.  Let’s take a look at a sampling of some of the fine wares that have been proffered for our Easter enjoyment:

To start, why not hang some of these festive Easter lights to add a few splashes of bright color to the room…

And while you’re at it, why not add some of these hanging decorations to bring the Easter spirit into your home?

One of these special bunny rabbit filled snow globes will further compliment the decor and instill the children with a sense of wonder. 

Don’t forget to hang the wreath on the doorway…

…And pick up a few extra ornaments.  And why would you need those, you may ask?  Surely you jest…

They’re to hang on the Easter tree, of course. 

Whether you choose to stick to the traditional style or opt for something more modern,  you can be secure in the knowledge that you are carrying on a centuries old Holiday tradition.  In time, it will all seem familiar to you as you prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth and/or resurrection.  Come to think of it, all this stuff seems oddly familiar already.  It seems like I’ve seen this somewhere before, but I can’t quite seem to figure out where.  Anyone got any ideas?

Valentine’s Day Kitsch Roundup

 

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner now, and as the thoughts of (some) people turn to the subject of love, the seasonal sections of the stores have filled up with all manner of heart-encrusted merchandise.  Back in the old days, it used to be sufficient to put out a few boxes of chocolates and other heart-shaped candies, and a selection of the noncommittal “friend” cards featuring the current pop culture flavor of the week for kids to pass out in their grade school classes.  Nowdays, as is the case with pretty much any other holiday, they’ve overcommercialized the living daylights out of it, and the variety of Valentine’s Day merchandise available these days at your typical discount store is staggering, and continues to expand every year.

As a single guy who probably isn’t doing as much as I should to rectify that situation, I generally don’t have much reason to be shopping for anything related to Valentine’s Day, and even if I did, I’m pretty sure I’d have to come up with something a bit more romantic than the stuff that you are going to see here.  In fact, I’m certain that if I was involved in any sort of meaningful relationship with a living breathing human female, giving most of these items as a gift would probably result in the termination of said relationship.  After the jump, a selection of some of the finest Valentine’s Day kitsch to grace the shelves of whatever department store you happen to shop at, and a reminder of why you should probably just stick with the roses and expensive jewelry.

Out With the Old…

By the time you read this, you will have less than 8 hours of 2007 remaining (unless you happen to be reading it from some island out in the middle of the Pacific, in which case you’re just complicating things.) If there was anything that you swore you would do this year but haven’t gotten around to yet, now would probably be a good time to start panicking. In spite of what some of the stuff in your inbox might claim, about the only way you’re going to be guaranteed to lose fifty pounds that quickly is to go log onto a UK-based Internet gambling site. There’s always next year though, right?

As the year comes to an end, it seems that there’s always one thing or another left to do before making the big jump into the next year. In some cases, it might be getting an early start on whatever resolution you are making for next year. It might also be some task that you probably could have gotten done easily back in September, but have put off until it becomes a crisis. It could also just be something that you always do to close out the year. Dealing with your taxes is one such task, although that generally doesn’t come until a bit later on. In my case, one of the standard end-of-the-year tasks involves counting out the pocket change that I’ve accumulated over the course of the year. I keep all of it in a plastic container left over from my brief and disastrous foray into Beanie Baby collecting many years ago (it’s a long story, and I’m not telling it to anyone but my Shrink,) and count it out at the end of the year. You’d actually be surprised just how much of the stuff you can manage to accumulate (although some people are a bit more successful at this than others.)

What exactly you can do with the change once you’ve got it is a bit of an issue. Banks tend to put restrictions on how much of it they will accept at a time, and the coin counting machines that have become a common feature in supermarkets add an 8-cent per dollar fee on top. Generally I will roll up the quarters (which are usually a majority of the contents) and deposit those in the bank, and put the rest into the coin counter, which can turn it into an Amazon.com gift certificate without adding the counting fee to it. For a number of years I have done this by hand, but last year I got one of those fancy counting machines you see pop up in the stores as a “great gift idea” (yeah, right) around this time of year, and found that I just ended up counting the things by hand anyway just to make sure the machine wasn’t messing me up. It’s a bit of a time-consuming task, but a subtle, nagging sense of avarice helps greatly in ensuring that the task gets completed in a timely fashion.

Elsewhere, the end of the year provides a convenient opportunity for journalists everywhere to break out the time-honored slow news day gimmick of the Year in Review column. This allows them to take the stories they ran into the ground months ago and dig them back up for just long enough to run them right back into the ground again. If that doesn’t provide enough material, there’s always the option of “presenting” a number of completely meaningless and arbitrary “awards” as well. If you’re really hard up for material, you might even be able to finagle another entire column out of that gimmick.  I’ll go ahead and get things started with the award for Most Politically Correct Toy of the Year…

And the Award for “Most Politically Correct Toy of the Year” goes to…

 Approved by the Sierra Club and Jesse Jackson, I’m sure.

How to Tell When Your Holiday Has Overstayed its Welcome

(Note:  This is a crosspost of an item I wrote over at buzz.mn.)

As you might have noticed if you did any shopping yesterday, it’s after-Christmas markdown time at your friendly neighborhood Target store, or whatever other ”great big box full of stuff” store you’ve got nearby.  On the shelves, all the various baubles and trinkets shine and sparkle just as brightly as ever, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they’ve literally gone out of style overnight. In spite of this, the great big “50% OFF” signs tell the tale. The Valentine’s Day stuff is moving in a week from now, and it’s time for the Christmas stuff to hit the road (or the closet as the case may be) for the next nine months. Next door at the recently opened Kohl’s store (which, oddly enough, replaced a Mervyn’s that closed about a year ago,) they’re even more emphatic: 70% off.

In theory, this would be the best time to stock up on assorted paraphanelia in anticipation of Christmases yet to come, but that leaves the problem of storage. Are those tremendous savings really worth filling up the closet for? Sure, if you’ve got a large crawlspace to put the stuff in (as my parents have) this isn’t a big deal, but since I live in an apartment that accumulates an ever increasing amount of clutter over time, this becomes an issue. Besides, it’s not like they won’t make more of the stuff when the next Holiday season rolls around, right? Right? Um…  Better go ahead and stock up, just to make sure.

 

On the other hand, it’s not just the Christmas decorations taking a quick trip to the bargain bin. As you wander the aisles, it seems like anything even remotely festive is getting the big markdown. This is most visible in the candy aisle, where it seems like everyone’s been wrapping their stuff in festive Holiday packaging since roughly five minutes after Dia de los Muertos ended. In many cases (such as the package of chocolate shown above) a few sprigs of holly printed on the package will save you a couple of bucks over the same product in the standard packaging, even though the individually wrapped squares inside are 100% identical. I stocked up on these, but I don’t know why, since I still have these left over from last year’s after-Christmas clearance sale. If I was a food snob I’d call it “vintage” and claim that 2006 was a good year for chocolate, but I’m pretty sure most food snobs wouldn’t bother with this stuff anyway.

 

Finally, we see shelves and shelves of these red “gift” boxes full of generic Chinese merchandise (Now with 50% more lead than the leading brand!) all with the obligatory markdown. Granted, none of this stuff is particularly expensive in the first place, but if you ever wondered if giving this stuff as gifts would make you look cheap when they were at “full” price, seeing all the prices slashed in half a day after Christmas wouldn’t do much to reassure you. Still, there might be a couple of useful items here and there, so it’s worth looking through the pile. You’d probably feel ripped off if someone gave you one of these as a gift (or vice versa,) but buy it yourself and it’s a bargain.

How to Become a Food Snob in Five Easy Steps

As you can see over in my Blogroll, one of the message boards I have listed is chowhound.com.  Although that particular site can be a valuable source of information cooking and food, there’s just one slight problem:  The place is absolutely crawling with food snobs.  To the sites credit, of the websites I read and participate at on a regular basis, the discussion at Chowhound is usually kept far more civil than that found virtually anywhere else I read.  I haven’t ever been able to figure out whether this was the product of dilligent moderation, or the fact that most of the troublemakers on the Internet haven’t ever managed to advance their cooking skills beyond the microwave and the speed dial button on the phone for pizza delivery.  Nonetheless, on a fair number of threads at Chowhound, the snobbery gets so thick there that you’re not sure why you bother with reading the boards there in the first place.  Maybe it’s just because you haven’t got the refined tastes of the usual crowd there, but more often than not, you just haven’t taken the proper steps necessary to fit in.  After the jump, a handy guide to joining the elite ranks of the food snobs in five easy steps.