Vampy Sits for Hearing

Vampy was nominated by President Trump to be the Assistant Secretary for Satanic Affairs working for the Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

This is a classified position and does not appear in the organization chart of the Department of State, although it is easy to figure out where it would go. Also, from page 27 of this site it is obvious that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be the one conducting the hearing.

The hearing results were positive but because the position is classified, we don't know what happened in detail.  

There was some tension because Vampy was uncomfortable with the fact that some of the Senators had a cross.  Vampy also asked the lights to be dimmed several times. Vampy also stumbled in his response to the question of his overall mission. Vampy said, "we're going to make America Great Tasting, uh, I mean Great Again."


When one of the committee asked Vampy if he had ever drunk human blood, Vampy said back that every member of the committee has probably done so when they accidently bit their lip or at the dentist.  Although it was a somewhat non responsive answer, the committee didn't seem to notice. 

The committee will vote on this in secret and then the full Senate will act similarly. 

UPDATE: Vampy was confirmed Feb 10. He immediately ordered all the lights dimmed in his area of the State Dept. and also had all the mirrors removed and told the cafeteria to ban the use of garlic.

Little Panda in NYCity

 Little Panda was with us on our touring of NYCity.



In addition to the two images in the NYC blog itself, here are three other pictures of him.



The first is inside the Rockefeller Center. Little Panda got to be in front of the famous photo of the workers on a beam high above the city.


The second shows little Panda in front of the window as I look NW from the Top of Rockefeller building.



The third shows Little Panda at a legacy phone from the Hotel Edison which was opened in 1931 and at the time the biggest hotel in town (it had 1000 rooms, 3 restaurants and a ballroom).

Vampy Confused by TV Series

George and I have now watched the first two seasons of the made-

for -Amazon- Prime series "The Man in the High Castle". 

The moral ambiguity is enough to badly confuse our stuffed Vampire (Vampy, in the first image he is back on meds).

The second image shows Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido of the Kempeitai (the Imperial Police). He is stationed in Japanese ruled San Francisco and is the most compulsive obsessive character in this alternate universe (in which the US lost WWII) where many other people are also compulsive obsessive.  He orders people killed. Orders people tortured and risks his life to save Japanese civilization also.  He is however, NOT, by a long shot, the most morally ambiguous character. This is cross posted to the Weiss Chronology.

Wile E. advises us on the Completion of the Sukkah frame.

 Image one is before the completion of said frame.


Image two is the same perspective after the completion of the frame.
 

Image three is Beth and George and Wile E. relaxing after the completion of the frame (which took about 10 minutes).



Wiley is advising us on where to put some of the devices he really wants in the Sukkah, for example,

the rocket,

the giant spring.

the catapult

the cannon

The Professor Discourses on the subject of the sabbath

Lev made the mistake of wishing the professor a 'Good Sabbath'

"Well", 

said the professor, 

"A mythopoetic whole of idealized poststructural context could be considered 'good' according to convention.  But, that paradigm will be only weakly semiotic without robust dialectic."  

Lev inquired, "That's jargon?"

"Yeah." said the professor.

"Incompehesible jargon?" asked Lev.

The professor said, "Is there another kind?"

the Professor becomes annoying to Lev

The professor has described our Passover Seder as a 'Retro Simulation in which we deal with historic trauma by normalizing it through ethnic solidarity'. Once he said, 'ethnic foundation mythology'.  George asked which he meant, 'ethnic solidarity' or 'ethnic foundation mythology'.

The professor answered, "A little of column A and little of column B" (a common line used in the animated show 'Archer').

When George (who thinks the Professor is trying to make 'most annoying stuffed animal' status) asked if we were supposed to understand him, the professor said, "You first have to accept a deconstructed worldview".

That didn't help much.

Lev (once known as Labor Bear) doesn't think the Professor understands his own sentences (image w Lev and the Professor also has Diane's flowers). 
 

Lucy Provides Advice Wants Payment

A few days ago, I was about to make a matzoh dressing (also could be called a matzoh pilaf).

I got out one of Ann's cookbooks and was frustrated at the skimpy table of contents. As I finally got to the matzoh stuffing page, Lucy (the doctor who looks at medicine as a business, not a calling) said,

"Why don't you just Google it?"

I did and used a variation of the James Beard Foundation's recipe.

Then Lucy said,

"That will be $500 for the referral"

Later, after several short reminders of her fee, she told me,

"By the way, you can pay through Paypal"

I'm thinking of getting a restraining order (or as they call it in MD, a protective order).

Professor Plum and Assistant Billie

I had seen a stuffed animal platypus at someone's house (actually during a shiva minyan).  

A few days ago, while getting some kitty litter in the grocery store, I saw a parent and child platypus stuffed animals for sale and bought it (it was discounted for members of the grocery discount club). 

I looked on line for platypus names. Billie was a common choice because the gender of a platypus is difficult to determine and Billie is a gender ambiguous name which highlights the prominent bill of the platypus (see image of actual platypus).

George pointed out we don't have a stuffed animal in the education industry, so the adult Platypus is named Professor Plum. 

The Professor (sometimes we leave out the 'Plum') is Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies (keeping the ambiguity) at a prestigious university that is not named (furthering the ambiguity). The Professor once won the Burns award of outstanding achievement in the field of Excellence.

Also since that industry is highly incestuous (I'm sure most people in the industry would deny it) we gave the child platypus the name of Billie (again gender indeterminate). Billie is the administrative liaison for the Gender Studies Dept. and also assistant to the Professor Emeritus of Gender and Ethnic Studies.

Lucy Is Scandalized

Lucy is our stuffed animal physician (named for Ann's mom whose middle name was Lucille).

Lucy has taken what some might call a dark turn. She regards medicine as a business, not a calling  (In the image she is checking accounts against here written notes).

Lucy is repelled and outraged by those who think otherwise.

When Lucy heard about the CVS Minute Clinic not charging Beth for a consult (this was on April 16), Lucy could barely contain her indignation. 

"What kind of example are they setting for the profession?" she exclaimed.


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UGA Demands Snow Related Vigilance, Reindeer just relaxs

These images are all related to the post in the Weiss Chronology regarding the Blizzard of 2016. 

In the first image, myself and UGA are shown near the street part of the driveway.

UGA wants us to be constantly vigilant when we pull out of the driveway in these conditions because the visibility is restricted by the high snow mounds. 

 The next image is Christmas Reindeer and me. Mr. Reindeer doesn't get a lot of posts but since the weather was so polar, I put him in. Mr. Reindeer was inherited from Ann's mom (as was UGA). He plays, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" when you push a button on his hoof.

Vampy Finding Ways to Welcome the Stranded

This is after the Blizzard of 2016 (Jan 22-23) which is subject of a post on the Weiss Chronology.

Vampy likes to welcome the stranded. One type of stranded are pedestrians. 


However, the night of Jan 24 Vampy was thwarted by the end of the shoveled walkway.



Vampy decided to welcome stranded motorists instead. In the second image, he is at the end of the driveway, waiting to offer hospitality.

Of course when they come in he has Igor help them to their room.

Then they are invited to get comfortable and come down FOR dinner.


Vampy says, after the invite, "Heh. Heh."

Panda Is Horrified by Quality of Painting

Panda was with us on our Las Vegas Trip (the blog for that is here).

Two of the venues we visited stood out for their lack of art.

One was the Hoover Dam which had some paintings but they were only of the Hoover Dam.

The other was the Atomic Energy Testing Museum which had only one painting (yes - only one). It was by an otherwise unknown painter (or as Panda might say, a "Painter"). 

Panda has so very much to teach these people. 



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The Great Wall of Pumpkins

Croton on Hudson has annual pumpkin This is a tradition dating all the way back in 2005.  



The image shows the director of the event and the great wall. They also have many other sights, including a pumpkin planetarium (I think you have to see that one up close as the image didn't come out well).


All may be seen at this report in the NY Times:


 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/nyregion/the-spark-behind-the-great-jack-o-lantern-blaze.html?_r=0

Halloween and Global Warming

The US Energy Dept put out a pumpkins themed public announcement. While the tone is positive, it implies that untreated pumpkins contribute to global warming.  In order to make this seem important, the Energy Dept reports total garbage in tons and pumpkin waste in pounds.

here is a piece of paragraph 2 of the announcemnt

"...With the passing of Halloween, millions of pounds of pumpkins have turned from seasonal decorations to trash destined for landfills, adding to more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year...."

and here is a piece of paragraph 8 of the announcemnt

".... It might not be long until the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins we produce annually are nearly as important to our energy security as they are to Halloween!"



http://energy.gov/articles/turn-your-halloween-pumpkins-power

Pumpkin Biz is booming

Today's newspaper had a big article on the pumpkin biz.

It is, uh... well...healthy.

Pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks has apparently inspired numerous other pumpkin flavored products.

 

In the image is pumpkin spice donuts, pumpkin latte and in the back, pumpkin flavored cheesecake.

As the pumpkin farmer stuffed creature might say,

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

The newspaper article is here. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/09/03/its-not-just-lattes-how-pumpkin-took-over-cat-food-cheese-vodka-and-everything-else/

Coke Bear Approves of the new drink

I bought a bottle of fairlife earlier this week. It is an 'improved' milk which has more protein and calcium and less sugar than regular milk.

Coca Cola, Inc. bought the company in early 2015 and has bringing the product to chain stores.

I had read about the product and the reviews were that the milk is more creamy than regular milk. From my tasting, this is true. The bottle in the image (about 52 ounces) cost about $4.50 at Shoppers.

The product should help us get thru the 'no meat' restrictions of the first part of Av which began last night and ends Sunday night the 26th.

Since it is very similar to chocolate milk, I didn't say the blessing for 'bringing me to this occasion'.

Back in Feb, a number of nutritionists had negative things to say about the product.

On our way back from Israel, we picked up some Mozart chocolates at the airport in Vienna, Austria.

We put the package on a table and our dachshund, Gretel, examined it. Gretel approved of our purchase since, as something of a German cultural supremacist, she considers products to be 'better' based on their German content.

A Lobster Disaster is Averted

A truck carrying 30,000 pounds of lobsters overturned on I-95 in Maine a few days ago (first image).

According to the reports, the lobsters were all in crates and, although they were jostled about, none of the lobsters were hurt (although how that is known is difficult for me to imagine).

The news article is here.

As lobby (lower image) would say, 

"Great. Now they can relax on their way to being eaten."

Lobby has been criticized for this by lobsters but he says that he is just making a livelihood for himself and he doesn't understand their problem with him.

Mikey on Pi Day at Ben Yehuda

It was pi day, that is 3-14 and super pi day because it was 3-14-15.



And to add to the excitement, one of the kosher pizza places opened after the sabbath on Saturday night.

Everybody celebrated at 9:26 pm when it could be (sort of) 3.1415926 (or possibly 3.1415927 if you wait another minute and round to the nearest whole number seven to the right of the decimal point). 


Mikey went with George and Justin Walls (aka Rabbi Gedaliah Walls) to the pizza place and tried to eat a 28" pizza in one hour. Ben Yehuda made the pizza with triple thick crust and the two eaters fell just short...

Nevertheless, Michelangelo proclaimed it awesome. Perhaps it made the day special for Mikey because the previous time George had brought him to a pizza place, George left Mikey in the car when getting pizza.

Michaelangelo has Awesome time on the Cruise to Hawaii

 For our cruise to Hawaii we brought along Michangelo. Gator wanted to go but I began reading about the various endangered animals on the Islands and decided that Gate might create an incident or at the least, would frighten people.  

One nice thing for Mikey was that one of the dining rooms was named for him (or possibly for that other guy, who did some paintings and sculpture).

They also had a Pizzeria on board. Of course Mikey found that awesome. 



 
We took Mikey on two off ship tours. One was the submarine ride, which is cross posted on the Hawaii trip blog.


 
Mikey liked staring out the window at the fishes and having him along side the submarine.


One day, our cabin steward made a towel dog who kept Mikey company while we were at supper.

Finally, we took Mikey into Ensenada to see the blowhole (La Bufadora). I will agree with Mikey that the blowhole was pretty awesome.        




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Coke Exec Presentation

Cross Posted on Weiss Chronicles (same date)

I was doing Mashgiach work at a conference downtown on Dec 5. 

It was an annual meeting of the Israel-US Chambers of Commerce.

The first plenary session (all the sessions were plenary) had executives from GE, Noble Energy and Coca Cola.

The Coke Exec mentioned Coke's long history in Israel (since 1966 or so) and the number of employees and the number of products, etc. He also made a statement that went something like this, "Our people in Israel use the marketing platform developed in the US to leverage its product innovation and our people in the US use the Israeli product innovation as a platform expedite marketing improvements in the US". The first image is a cool exec type Coke Bear and the second image, which I took back in 5772 has a Coke machine at the entrance to the Caro synagogue in Safed where someone had put the benediction "...whose word brings all things to be", aka the Shehakal, under the beverage selection buttons.

Vampy Has a Problem w Narcotics

I have, since my tooth extraction (see Weiss Chronicles blog for Nov 28, 2014), been taking some narcotics for pain.

When I've been sleeping, just subsequent to the narcotic treatment, Vampy has been getting a 'snack' from me.

This has caused him to have some affinity for the narcotics themselves.

Strangely, he may have to go to a treatment house to go back on blood.

Sheep Vamp Tries Something - not successful

Sheep vamp took a jump out of my pocket yesterday morning when I was getting the paper. He was hiding under a tree awaiting our first snow (which came today) and hoping to get first dibs on the blood of some stranded motorists. 

However, it rained pretty hard before it changed to snow and he got wet and cold. I found him this am. getting the paper today

A Pumpkin Enhanced Conference

The Israel -American Council is having a conference over the weekend. The caterer is the one I am working with today.


About 700 people are eating there (several meals). The menu is pretty standard, i.e., many pastries, breads, meats, hummus, root vegetables, etc. Nothing particularly unusual. However, there is something different about this conference.


The dining area is to be decorated with a dozen large (20# of so) pumpkins and several dozen small (8 oz or so) pumpkins.

Red Lobster Hones its Core Compentancy

Red Lobster has been losing sales lately. The previous owner of the company, Darden Restaurants, Inc. (which also owns Olive Garden), had revised the menu to add non seafood dishes such as a tortilla dish and a grilled pork meal. However, new management, no doubt advised by a certain crustacean lobbyist who suggested a way to exceed their benchmarks (second image), now thinks that they should focus on seafood. The image of food is Red Lobster's  'Ultimate Seafood Feast" which has, shrimp, salmon and, of course lobster.

Interestingly, another change the company is making is that they are using slightly smaller plates with higher outside lips and piling the seafood on top of the rice instead of having a rice pilaf next to the seafood on bigger flatter plates. The reason is that the smaller plate protocol results in food staying hot longer and also passively spreads the seafood flavor to the rice.

Article from the Honolulu newspaper is here .