Well, It Does Make Him Feel Pretty…

If you haven’t figured out what you’re getting for your Dad for Father’s Day this year, now might be a good time to start panicking (Editors Note: Um… yipe.)  By now, the necktie bit has been done to death, soap on a rope went out with the Seventies, and that new Porsche he’s been wanting seems to be just a bit out of the budget right now.  Need some other ideas?  Why not try getting him some fresh handmade cosmetics?

Granted, it’s not like you’re buying your Dad makeup or anything like that (all the products here seems to be bath and body type stuff) but in the time this store has been around, I can’t ever recall seeing a male inside the store who wasn’t either working there or staring blankly at the wall as his significant other shops for stuff.  Besides, do you really want the kids at school on Monday telling their friends that you bought Daddy cosmetics for Father’s Day?  Personally, I’d recommend just sticking with the golf stuff.

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.

Oh, and About That Summer Thing… Never Mind.

Although I’ve already used up my one allotted weather complaint post for the month (which of course I wasted on a temperature of 51 degrees that was followed by the temperature dropping to 48 degrees just a couple of days later and a foot of snow up in the Cascades,) I somehow don’t think that this is a reassuring sign for the Summer ahead.  It isn’t even officially Summer for another week and a half, and sure enough, just as was predicted earlier over at the  Buzz, Target already has summer stuff on clearance, presumably to make way for the Back-to-school stuff to arrive a week after Summer Vacation begins for the school districts around here.  At this rate, it’ll be only a matter of time before the Back-to-school stuff arrives before the school year even ends.  Back when I was still in school they at least waited until August for this type of thing (which by now puts me dangerously close to being in “rode dinosaurs 40 miles in the snow” territory.)  For the few of you around here holding out hope that there might be some actual summer weather at some point before October, don’t sink into despair just yet (wait another week or two, and THEN sink into despair.)  As far as I can tell, it’s just the “Whim” stuff by some designer I’m too unfashionable to have ever heard of that’s being cleared out, and I suspect the usual supply of pool, backyard and beach paraphernalia will be around in its usual spot in the sporting goods department in the unlikely event that the sun comes out at some point in the next three months. 

 Then again, taking a look some of this stuff, I don’t think there are going to be too much lamenting when this stuff goes away.  After all, when was the last time someone went to your picnic or backyard cookout and told you that everything there would be perfect if you would have just gotten a day-glo plaid ice bucket?

 

Along with matching tablecloths, placemats, dish towels and tableware… there’s enough of this stuff here to make whole house clash with itself if you want.  Fortunately, it does appear that they stopped short of trying to sell furniture in that pattern, I shudder to think what a sofa covered in that stuff would look like ten years down the road. 

Oh, and if you’re drinking the technicolor Cynthia Rowley kool-aid, you might as well go ahead and grab a set of flip-flops in that same pattern while you’re at it.  I get the sneaking suspicion that those things would burn that pattern onto the soles of your feet if you wore them for too long.

Fortunately, there is still some stuff on the shelf that isn’t covered in Tartan gone horribly wrong.  Unless your name happens to be Strawberry Shortcake, good luck getting this stuff to match with your decor though.

On the other hand, if you like pink stuff, they’ve definitely got you covered there.  If you happen to be male and/or wish to avoid damaging your retinas every time you go out into the yard, you probably should have shopped for this stuff earlier when they still had this stuff in colors that sane people buy things in.

 Oh, and don’t forget to color coordinate the garden hose while you’re at it, to add that special touch to the yard.  I think I’ll stick with the hoses that don’t come in a color  on the opposide side of the color wheel from grass, thank you very much.  I do suppose that even these colors are an improvement over the stuff that Nature seems to be providing around here, which seems to be mostly gray right now. 

The Best is Yet to Come?

Call me crazy, but I get a hunch that this guy, who I found in the ”emerging artists” section, might just manage to make it big someday:

Then again, he could just end up in Vegas hanging out with a pack of rats, for all I know.  However his career turns out, I’m pretty sure he’ll do it his way…

Signs That I Might Have Watched Too Much TV as a Kid

If you’re looking for something to do today, why not go check out this site, which has a rather large collection of original soundtracks from old TV shows.  I’m a bit surprised at just how many of these I can immediately recall even 20-25 years after the fact.  Even more interesting is the fact that there are a lot of these that I thought I knew that end up sounding completely different than you remember them when you’re listening to a clean version through good speakers instead of a version half covered up by canned applause through the mono speaker of a 15″ TV from the Eighties.  There’s also some stuff here that I haven’t heard in years, like a bunch of music from Wheel of Fortune back in the early to mid 80s when contestants still shopped for prizes after winning a round (those ones are found under the “Merv Griffin” category) and a surprisingly complete set of music cues from Nickelodeon’s Double Dare. There’s plenty of other music cues as well, including a lot from news programs and sitcoms.  There’s a good chance that you’ll find something hear you had completely forgotten about.

Old? Yes. Decrepit? Maybe.

Well OK, maybe not decrepit just yet, but I’m definitely getting there on the “old” part.  Today I turn 30 years old, and with such a chronological milestone comes the usual pondering of the circumstances that got you to this point.  To be honest, I’m pretty sure that there are things I could have done better over the years, but all things considered, things have actually gone pretty well up to this point. 

Sure, there’s a few things I could use to fix, but those are just minor things like actually folding laundry every once in a while (I don’t care to admit how long it’s been since there wasn’t a pile of laundry on the floor here,) not eating quite so much garbage and getting away from contracting and into a more secure form of employment, but there’s still time to deal with those.  There’s also the pesky little problem of still being single at age 30, which I’m still working on doing something about (sort of), but I suspect that if nothing else, that would take care of the laundry problem (or rather, force me to take care of the problem myself…)  For the time being, I still have my health, whatever I’ve been trying to pass off for good looks for the last decade or so, and I’ve managed to remain self-sufficient for a number of years now, so I can’t complain (but, as Joe Walsh reminded us, sometimes I still do.) 

For the most part, I didn’t do anything special for my birthday, aside from a bit of cake and getting Happy Birthday sung to me a couple of times (which is nice because it’s the one day during the year that I can get away without having to sing that blasted song.) It does sound like some sort of party is in the works, although that won’t happen until a couple of weeks from now when Heather and Brooks are in town.   Either way, l sure hope that I can get things figured out sometime within the next thirty years or so.  A bit sooner than that would be nice though…

Friday Was Pizza Day, the Best Day of the Week

In my family, the first week of June is a time for celebration.  For nearly a decade now, our family has observed the twin holidays of International Pirates Day and Ernesta Day a week apart from each other, along with the observance of what has come to be known as Ernesta Week in between the two.  And yes, that is as completely random as it sounds.

The origins of International Pirates’ Day and Ernesta Week are, as with many things that happen within my family, completely and totally random.  My sister posted a brief explanationof the holiday’s origins over at her own Blog, but the short version is that someone decided that our former neighbors’ pug dog Ernesta had a name that sounded like it should be a holiday, so they decided to throw an Ernesta Fiesta, and it stuck.  International Pirate Day was something that was randomly written on the calendar, and that one stuck too.  I’m not sure where the whole Ernesta week came from, but it is observed by following the dietary guidelines as outlined in the song “Pizza Day” by the Aquabats, as seen in the video below:

The menu for the week:

• Monday: Hot Dogs
• Tuesday: Tacos
• Wednesday: Hamburgers and Chocolate Milk
• Thursday: Sloppy Joes and Burritos in a Bag

Friday is Pizza Day, the best day of the week, it always comes with salad and a side of cold green beans (although that part tends to be omitted by most people.)  All in all, I suspect this might not be the healthiest diet one could come up with, but at least this makes it easy to figure out what to eat for lunch and/or dinner.  More on this (and the upcoming Ernesta Fiesta) later.

Sledgehammer 2.0 Turns 1.0 Today

This week marks several personal milestones for me.  First of all, it was a year ago today that I started this Blog, my third attempt at writing on the Internet, and by far the most successful of the three.  As I had briefly outlined in the first post that I made here a year ago, I had originally intended this site to be something of a revival of my original 1996-1998 website, which is now forever entombed in the fossil records of the Internet, typos and all.  In the year that has elapsed since I began writing this Blog, it has already received far more hits than my original site ever did in the two years that it was actively maintained.  A lot of this has to do with the fact that there’s a lot more people on the Internet now than there were back in 1997, and sites like this tend to be a lot more discoverable now then they were back then.  In those days, most of the traffic that my site received came from a link on Yahoo (which consisted primatily of a manually generated catalog of Internet sites back in those days.  Here is the archived copy of the page the link to my site was located on, to give an example of what this looked like.)  All in all, I think I managed somewhere around 10,000 vsitors or so on the site within a period of two years. 

The most notable spike in traffic on that site came from my site getting a plug in Computerworldmagazine, a weekly IT publication where a writer inexplicably declared it to be one of the best IT websites of 1996 (apparently the bar hadn’t been set too high at the time.)  This link was good for about 200 hits or so.  The site also eventually got a plug on the back page of an issue of NetGuide magazine (a long defunct Internet for dummies type publication) good for another 50 hits or so.  Eventually, the whole thing just got to be too much of a pain to maintain, and I lost interest.  The site lingered on the Internet for a couple more years before my ISP at the time finally deleted it from their servers, but not before it got archived.  As I have noted before, there is a link to it on the right side of the page, but I would kindly ask that any English teachers who might happen to read it please refrain from grading and/or spellchecking it.

Fast forward to now, where this quasi-reincarnation of the site has now been on the Internet for a year.  This site has turned out to be nothing like I had intended it to be, but so far I happen to be quite happy with the way that it has turned out, as long as I don’t go digging too deeply into the archives.  I find that I tend to be my own worst critic when I go back and read some of this stuff, to the point that I can barely stand to read some of the stuff I wrote back on my original site.  To provide a bit of a picture of how this Blog has developed since I started it a year ago, here are a few statistics, which I am posting here mostly for future reference and comparison as I continue to write here.  Some of these are averaged for the whole year, so for comparison I’ll include the most recent figures to provide a better picture of what the site’s traffic looks like currently: 

• Total Posts: 168 (including this one)
• Total hits (as of the time this is written): 20,815
• Average hits per day: 57 (Yesterday: 127)
• Average hits per week: 400 (Last Week: 843, although that reflects higher than average traffic.  An average week seems to be somewhere between 550 and 600 right now)
• Average hits per month: 1,734 (Last month: 2,885)
• Most hits in one day: 444 (April 14, 2008, when a post was linked by kotaku.com)

Most popular posts (Total hits):

Retail Wasteland - A Tour of the Totem Lake Mall	3,399
Classical Gas - Abandoned Route 66 Gas Stations	1,687
Malls of the Seattle Area: A Tour of the Factoria Mall	1,417
The Photocopier of Judgment	449
It’s ugly, but it gets you there	398
Totem Lake Mall Research Update - A Map of the Lower Mall from 1973	390
Factoria Mall Just Keeps Getting Emptier	384
Things You Didn’t Know Existed Here - Part 1	383
Italian Plumber Plans to Build New House in Redmond	365
Looks Like the Show is Over at Redmond Town Center… Or Is it?	358

At this time, I would like to  thank everyone who visits this site for your support and the informaton that you have provided for my research into the local malls and other local history.  It’s good to know that I’m not the only person out there who is interested in this stuff.  I hope that some of the stuff I have planned as I continue with my various projects continues to be interesting to those of you who are reading this site.

Anyway, the second, and slightly more important milestone that I will be observing this week is my thirtieth birthday, which will take place this Sunday.  I’m still trying to figure out what exactly you’re supposed to do for a semi-sorta-halfway-to-mid-life crisis (is that the one where you’re suppose to rent a Porsche?) so I’ll probably do another post on that one later. 

Uh… Who Turned Out the Lights?

I think someone forgot to pay the power bill, because the power is out in my building at work, and several others (although oddly enough, the other half of the complex I work in still has their power on.)  Given the fact that the lack of electricity at work doesn’t leave a whole lot to do there and the foosball tables are probably booked for the duration, I’m just hanging out at home for a while while I wait for it to come back on (although I managed to get myself lost in the parking garage in the dark while trying to get out.)

Oops, never mind, it sounds like the power just came back on.  Oh well, it was boring while it lasted…

 

The Obligatory Monthly Weather Complaint Post

If I’m reading the calendar correctly, it is now officially June here in the Pacific Northwest, Summer is just a couple of weeks away, and we’re supposed to be breaking out the shorts, sandals and the sunscreen by now.  So why is it that the temperature is barely making it into the fifties currently?  This was what the thermometer in my car showed on the way to work this morning:

That’s not even taking into account the heavy rain and the wind that has accompanied the past couple of days worth of this stuff (when I was at the old and moderately decrepit  KFC in Redmond last night, the roof had developed a rather aggressive leak as a result of the heavy rainfall, and water was pouring down into the seating area.  Needless to say, I ordered to go.) 

I suppose this would be a really lousy time to point out that back in December I was complaining about 45 degrees being too warm when the average temperatures were hovering just above freezing (link goes to a post on buzz.mn that I didn’t crosspost over here,) but still.  Last time I checked, at this time of year I usually shouldn’t need to wear a jacket just to get from one building to the other at work in June without freezing and/or getting drenched, and I should be using the air conditioning in my car far more than I should be using the seat heater (and yes, I am complaining about using stuff that I managed to survive just fine without for a decade of driving my old beater Camry.) 

Granted, we’ve had a few nice days scattered here and there, but for the most part things have been cloudy, cool and rainy for most of the spring, and the long-term predictions are calling for a cooler than average summer in the Puget Sound area as well.  I’m sure that by the time August rolls around I’ll probably find an excuse to complain that it’s too hot and hasn’t rained in weeks, but for the time being it would be nice if we could just get the weather in June to actually be June-like for a change.