Mr. Pumpkin Farmer out to admire the neighborhood

Mr.  Pumpkin Farmer gets very excited this time of the year.

The beverage stores are selling pumpkin latte (I had some butternut squash soup yesterday that had the pumpkin look to it).

Better yet, many people place pumpkins in their yards. 

In the image, Mr PF is admiring one of them. 

Vampy Out to Look at pre Halloween sights

 I went out with Vampy today to look at some of the decorations people had done to get ready for Halloween.

The umbrella was to protect Vampy from the Sun (because he is sort of a vampire, he might burn up)

The first image shows Vampy looking at some shrunken heads on posts.


The second image shows Vampy looking at a scary ghost.

Of course Vampy is not a big fan of Halloween. Quite to the contrary. Vampy feels that Halloween has become to commercialized and detracts from its true meaning. He says something like, "it should be about our father below".

Soft Drink Decision Day

 

For some time, we've struggled to keep both caffeine free Coke and regular Coke in the house at the same time; the former, for George, the latter for Ann.

It got to the point that Ann worried that we would be out of the w/caffeine product and began labeling it.

George agreed to give up the no caffeine brand so that will make the inventory work less difficult.

This is a cross over post with the weiss chronology blog.

 

Yes, that's the Coke Bear on the left admiring his products.

Soc and Joleen: not an item

Another failed date matchup.

We tried to get Soccer Bear (who is also called Kicks, the Beanie Buddy) and Joleen interested in a relationship.

However, there wasn't a good connect. The closest they came is when Joleen asked Soc if there were any trains that stop in Dublin.



Actually there are (see route map) and in fact downtown Dublin has two rail stations but Soc complained that there weren't any stops 'just outside Dublin' and that was pretty much that.  

Vamp Has Some Advice for Beth

Vampy has been studying management with various sources (the image has him studying with the cast of the TV show "Angel"). He has however, also studied with Coke Bear and w Lucy and Grad Bear (the latter had little credibility in the underworld however).

Thus Vampy knows a few things about how management likes to hear staff speak. In Beth's case she needs to find a way to disagree without seeming to disagree. Vampy suggests the following:

- Yes. In the big picture that is good but to support the major point, you will have to do.....

- Yes that will be the pivot point and it would be usefully reinforced with....

- Yes and that will allow adaptive techniques and practices such as...

of course Vampy also likes to point out that

- you can exceed you benchmarks by honing your core competencies and,
- it is important to establish cross cutting coordination to break down organizational stovepipes 

in the Angel episode he learned about fail-safe mechanisms and loss cutting maneuvers as well as client support, all in the context of a multidisciplinary, turn-key, legal operation

Coke Reduces the Complaints

I was doing the shopping for an event at the synagogue. Not realizing there was a speaker (even though I had called in advance for late news) I under bought food and actually had fairly plain food at that.. 

Fortunately, however, I bought plenty of Coke because there was a sale.

Somehow there were no complaints.

And there was even some Coke left over.

Vampy Vs Hellish Bureaucracy

Vampy has been trying to get a management spot in the underworld (as noted a few posts earlier).

Unfortunately for him there are numerous obstacles to overcome. First, he submitted his qualifications and some essays on how he would deal with certain problems in the underworld.

It has taken the Beelzebub screening committee quite a while to do the early work (after them is the recommendation process and then the selection process). 

While the screening committee has been 'working', some of Vampy's certification became out of date. So Vampy had to go to get them updated. He got into one line but when he got to the front of the line he found out he was in the wrong line and he had to go to the back of the new line. Of course by the time he got to the front of the new line, the certification office had closed for the week.

Two of the images are from the boadingshan rock carvings in China. These were completed about 1200 CE and show various situations in hell (one judgement, one examination of sins).

Vampy Get Referral

Vampy is trying to get a management position in the underworld. 

To impress the supervisory demons and their bosses, he needed some references. Vampy identified Lucy and Graduation Bear. Lucy was identified because she frankly considers medicine a business and is comfortable pushing reimbursements to the maximum. Graduation Bear has an arguably unethical relationship with a Hedge Fund. However, the powers below did not consider Grad Bear a 'self starter' and so his referral wasn't of any value.

Party at the Postols

We took Gate, UGA and Labor Bear (aka Trotsky) to the Postols for a party on Purim 2013 (5773) with the Postols stuffed animals. The big red bear next to labor bear is Ivan (in the last image, Labor is on the left and Ivan is on the right. Mike has a pink duck who is always evil and a stuffed beanie buddy who is always good (November bear).

The Postols had enough stuffed animals to require two pictures. 

Anyway, we think the stuffed animals had a good time.

Michelangelo Goes to Sienna's

Mikey has wanted to get an 'insider' tour of Sienna's Restaurant for some time. After all, he's looked a the final product several times (in fact the post below shows Mikey doing that).


Tonight, I took him there. 

He got to see the pizza dough being prepared (1st image) . They use a device to flatten the dough and another to cut it into round pieces and another to punch holes in the dough. All this is before any of the ingredients go on it.

Then after the ingredients are on it, it goes into a cooker oven. The oven has a moveable grid and the pizza moves with the grid and comes out cooked (second image).

Of course, Mikey said the cooked pizza looked awesome.

Mikey Praises Pizza - Again

Mikey Again Praises Pizza 

Our dining table was set on Dairy since it was the day after Chanakah and we had people over for a dairy meal the previous night.

So Ann decided it would be a good day to carry out pizza.

Naturally we invited Michelangelo to the event.

He declared the pizza to be awesome.

No surprise there.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:24 AM

Christian Stuffed Animals enjoy a youtube concert

Wiley, Ski Bear, Jim and Martha came down to the couch to enjoy a few viewings of "Oh Holy Night" as sung by the Celtic Women.

The video is here.

If the counter is right, the video has been downloaded about 8,000,000 times with several thousand comments.

Vampy in Safed

We took Vampy to Safed (in the North) as part of our trip to Israel.

He was especially interested because there are 3 large cemeteries there. He thought that because of all of the kaballah influence a lot of people would be confused and wandering around and easy prey.

It turned out a bit different. The cemeteries were all on very steep terrain (and Vampy doesn't like that because he gets tired after flying a few feet) or guarded by military personnel.

The image has Vampy looking at the direction signs very near our motel. It shows you have to go way down to see the cemetery.

Another Policy Triumph for Gate

President Obama signed a bill shielding airlines from carbon fees in Europe.

An account of this from The Hill, leaves out the role of Gate who is in favor of global warming as policy (since it would increase his habitat).

No doubt some environmental groups were disappointed as were the Euro agencies that stood to collect the fees.

The airlines will be thanking Gate at some future time perhaps.

Vamp's Day At Blood Bank

M went to the local Red Cross blood bank to give platelets. Vamp wanted to come to because he was interested in making a withdrawal.

One of the first things you do at the blood bank, after giving name, SSN, Date of Birth, etc. is to read the rules. The rules are complicated. They require you to think about where you have 'lived' and that is a sore point with Vamp (who is differently alive).

After the first bunch of information there were many questions on hepatitus, AIDS, etc. and Vamp was pretty confused by the end of it.

He also wasn't that happy in the pheresis area because the bags of platelets have a yellowish color to them, not like the nice red that he hoped to see.

Still, he was pleased to get a nice bumper sticker (Vamp thinks it is a great slogan too) that said, "GIVE BLOOD" (the stickers were available at the after donation snack bar.

Mikey Gets His Awesome Pizza

After G got word that he passed the VA bar exam (he passed the MD bar in 2011 and was waved in to DC in early 2012), we got pizza to celebrate. Michelangelo (aka Mikey), who thinks pizza is awesome, got an invitation. 

For some reason, Graduation Bear also heard there was a party and invited himself. Grad was disappointed that there was no hard liquor or recreational drugs available. 

Mikey kept saying how awesome the pizza was (Mikey thinks a lot of things are awesome - once M was at cafe Shawreen and some people, after being told that mustard and ketchup was available on the condiment table, said, "Awesome". Mikey was impressed with that also..

Gate Might Be in Trouble

After the VP debate on Oct 11, Gate was worried that he (our Alligator) would be blamed for Biden's creepiness.

This worry was based on the fact that Gate has had to brief VP Biden several times in his (Gate's) job with the Office of Legal Counsel and Biden was impressed with Gate's smile and decided to smile repeatedly and at inappropriate times in the VP debate.

However, as a couple of days have passed, it looks like there will be more focus on Biden's comment that neither he nor POTUS was briefed on the threat to the consulate in Benghazi and Biden's implied comment that there would be no troops in Afghanistan post 2014.

A small step for a woman, a giant meal for a croc

A woman in Thailand was feeling depressed.

She left her house and got into the crocodile area.

The image on the left went with the story in a British news source. I don't know if it was an 'after' picture but the crocodile sure looks well fed.

Alligator Law

The estate of an 83 year old Georgia woman had sued a home owner association and country club subsequent to the woman dying from an alligator attack. 

The premise of the law suit was that the home owner association and country club should have had Alligator warnings near each of the 150 or so lagoons on the property. There were warnings in various documents but the woman wasn't a resident and was house sitting for her daughter).

The supreme court of GA ruled that the woman should have known alligators like to be near lagoons in and around Savannah, GA. 

Article here.http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/21/georgia-alligator-ruling-reversed/

Party Time and Date Time

 Grad and Jolene went on an internet watching date. Jolene insisted that they look at images of trains. She had Coke to drink while Grad, who didn't think trains were that interesting, had something a bit stronger. 

Unfortunately, Grad toppled on this side  from the effects of his drink and the date was over.

A second date?

Not that likely. 

I used both a regular and brightened image for both the pre and post drinking. 

Wile In the Comixs

Wile Coyote was in the comix.

He is so well known even now, decades after the most recent 'new' adventure.

Grad Has an Accident

One of Graduation Bear's eye's popped out. I built a patch for the eye. Then later that day I found it and put the eye back.

Grad bear, however, likes the patch. 

He says it makes him look cool and it impresses the chicks.

Mr. Coke Faces a PR Problem

Today's Guardian (a UK pub) has a story about a woman whose is said to have had an addiction to Coke which contributed to her early death.

She died at age 30 of a heart attack.

Per the story, she drank 8 to 10 litres of Coke a day (which is about 3 or 4 times what G drinks during his most thirsty times). She also smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day and didn't eat well.

Coke put out a PR notice that said that even drinking that much water a day might be bad for you and the coroner's office agreed with that statement.

Dogone Conference

Gretel and UGA had a conference today to discuss an article they read at the BBC.

The BBC article was on the advantages of taking dogs to work. The BBC article was, in turn, based on research by employees of Virginia Commonwealth University from the business, medical and math/statistics schools.

There is a national 'take your dog to work day' which began in 1996 in the UK and 1999 in the US.

The pro-dog TYDTWD crowd has its own site (and its own spokes dog. 

There is no 'take your cat to work day'. An artist's concept of how this would have worked out is here. 

Visitor at Motel

A Super 8 motel in Baton Rouge Louisiana got a visit from a lovely 6 foot long gator.

Everybody was presumably thrilled, except a few people who were bitten.

Article is here.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/weird/NATL-Alligator-Visits-La-Motel-Bites-Guest-147141025.html

Vamp Studies Up for TV watching

Vamp is another stuffed creature (not an animal) who came to us from Atlanta.

He is a vampire but an unusual one. He has no legs and has an odd peak on the top of his head and something of a tail. We think he may have been designed as a ghost and changed during the manufacturing process.

Anyway, Vamp is nice and cuddly (although Vamp says that the camera makes you look 10% fatter) and I sometimes let him watch the TV show "Angel" (which is about a good vampire trying to right wrongs in Los Angeles).

In the image, Vamp is looking at the TNT web site for the TV show Angel.

Labor Organizer Bear and Grad

Labor organizer bear (in red, we call him Jimmy) came from Atlanta. 

He had a meeting with Grad. Grad was telling Jimmy about how he, Grad, dealt with a Corporation.

Jimmy had hoped to teach Grad the song,

"Oh lets go down and join the union.

Oh lets go down and join right now.

Oh lets go down and join the union.

Come on down. I'll show you how."

Fellowship of Christian Stuffed Animals

Five of our stuffed animals are Christian. Four of them came recently from Atlanta.

Wily Coyote decided to give them a briefing.

The two next to Wily and Jim (the lamb) and Martha who were Kathleen's friends at her church. The gray bear is Mixed Metaphor bear (because he is a gray Christmas bear who bring chocolate in a gray box and has a gray Santa hat). The bear on the right is Ski Instructor Bear.

Is UGA too Vigilant

UGA sometimes refers to his 'mission statement' as 'constant vigilance'.

This expression is also a favorite of Mad Eye Moody, a character from the Harry Potter series.

Anyway, one of UGA's trainees identified the contents of Entertainer Snoop Dogg's possessions as containing drugs. This was in South Texas (Sierra Blanco).

Snoop's total stash consisted of enough marijuana cigarettes to fill a prescription bottle (probably no more than 2 ounces). Seems to be a bit petty considering that the entertainer calls himself 'Dogg'.

Wily Advises Reindeer

Wily Advised Musical Reindeer about the Cartoon Network version of the song that Musical Reindeer plays.

This song is, "Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer".

The song makes the Grandfather and grandson out to be bad for wishing Grandma would be run over. However, in the Cartoon Network version, the story line turns this around and the Grandfather and grandson actually rescue the Grandma after she is hit and taken to the North Pole (this due to a complicated plot involving selling a toy store).