01/31/03's illustrious band:

Vanity Fare

Brought to you by my lunch date with Jason the guy from speed dating.

It went well. We met at a Chinese restaurant not far from Media HQ, hit the buffet and chatted easily. I did not find myself desperate for 12:45 to roll around so I could make my escape. Thanks to all who offered to stake out the restaurant and watch my back.

Jason (whose last name I forgot to ask) still seems like a pretty nice guy. He gets points for:

• Arriving on time.
  
• Arriving in his own car. As he joked at one point, his mommy did not give him bus fare to go meet his little friend.
  
• Dressing much the same as I did in casual Friday attire. His consisted of clean, nonragged jeans and clean, nonragged, nonstinky t-shirt. I wore black jeans and a plum-colored sweater. He complimented the color. I think it was a gift from Mother Media. Most of my good stuff is.
  
• Having good table manners, which included selecting reasonable portions from the buffet, using the right fork (OK, so there was only one to choose from), and dealing promptly with noodle splatter.
  
• Conversing on general topics.
  
• Making a couple, but not too many, respectful and affectionate references to his mother and father. He visits; he does not live in their basement.
  
• Saying that he liked cats and convincing me he meant it.
  
• Having nice pale blue eyes.
  
• Paying for lunch with cash from a tidy, folded set of bills. Though I was tempted to peek at the denominations, I did not.
  
• Asking for and receiving my e-mail address.
  
• Complimenting my witty conversation.
  
• Saying he'd be in touch soon, but neither racing away from me nor pressing for another meeting immediately.
  

Yeah, it was good. If he asked, I'd probably go out with him again. But I'm not quite sure how to react to his apparent normalcy.

Right now, though, the real excitement is focused on the betting pool: What kind of car does Jason drive? You need to peg make, model and color to win the big money. Ante is $.50.

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

Addendum: I just received a very complimentary -- and well written! -- e-mail thanking me for a lovely lunch and asking for another date. His last name is Gabbert.

01/30/03’s illustrious band:

Juicy Germy

Brought to you by an ad for Saran Disposable Cutting Sheets. You can put an SDCS on the counter when you're cutting up meat or whatever, then "Say goodbye to the juicy, germy mess" by throwing it away afterward.

The SDCSs are a good idea, aside from the fact that they generate even more waste for our landfills. The ad may be especially effective thanks to the combination of "juicy" with "germy." Instant gross-out! If you had something juicy and germy in your house, wouldn't you fall gratefully upon anything or anyone that could erradicate such a plague? Repeat these words a few times, with suitable inflection, and see if you don't agree.

Back in the Very Long Ago, Sister-san and her friends compiled a list of words they found a bit icky to say. "Slacks," "moist," "davenport" and "soil" were on it, I remember. They'd compose sentences like "The soil on the davenport made my slacks moist." I wish I could remember some of the others; it was quite a good list. "Juicy" and "germy" seem like viable candidates, too. How about "The germy soil on the davenport made my slacks moist and juicy"? Yeah, that's fine writing, that is. "Slake" and "vulgar" could go on the list, too.

Help me out here. What don't YOU like to say?

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

01/29/03’s illustrious band:

Mimeographic Memory

Brought to you by my late father, who has been gone from us a startling two years now.

Dad was reputed by his college roommates to have a photographic memory -- some of the time. He could somehow tell when it was going to kick in and would hit the books during such intervals to maximize retention. If not 100% accurate, this ability was at least enough to make his roommates jealous that he could maintain better grades than most people while studying less.

Sister-san and I appear to have inherited lesser degrees of his talent. Both of us can tell you where on a page we read a particular passage, what people were wearing at a particular event, or how oft-quoted lines from movies and TV really go. We recall plots and conversations in detail and were always the first to have lines memorized for the school play -- ours and everyone else’s. We both did well in school, too, like Dad, but I don’t recall either of us ever announcing that we were feeling photographic and needed to study quick before it went away.

I think Sister-san got more of the knack than I did; she can glance once at a map, put it away and navigate flawlessly, while I require more time to talk myself through the route. She also used to kick my keister at an Atari video game called Maze Craze, where one of the variations featured a maze that was partially or entirely invisible most of the time. A few quick blinks of the layout were all she needed to guide her gamepiece through the twists and turns in record time.

For my part, I tend to textualize things and remember them that way. Once the environment has been converted into words, if I decide to remember it, I’ve got it. For instance, I might provide mental closed captioning for a conversation (with correct punctuation, of course) and add narrative detail, such as, “‘Come live with me and be my love,’ he whispered, leaning forward.” It’s like telling myself a story. I’ve tried visualizing nametags on people when I meet them, but that works less well; usually all I can conjure up on our next meeting is an image of a nametag, blank.

So when I say I’ve got it, what I should really say is that I’ve pretty much got it. My memory isn’t truly photographic -- I don’t have perfect recall. I’d call mine more of a mimeographic memory: I might get a slightly fuzzy copy, but for most purposes it’s still good enough to refer to later.

Anyway, that’s just another ramble through my cluttered mental landscape. On the anniversary of Dad’s passing, I can think of no better way to remember him than to appreciate the very literal sense in which our genetic inheritance keeps his memory alive.

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

01/28/03’s illustrious band:

Guttle

Brought to you by the invaluable A Word A Day service.

Guttle (GUT-l) verb tr., intr. To eat voraciously; to devour greedily.

[From gut, on the pattern of guzzle, from Middle English gut, from plural guttes (entrails), from Old English guttas.]

Is that almost more etymology than anyone can stomach, or what?

Guttle is the perfect word for today. I’ve been complaining to friends recently that it’s hibernation season, and there are only two things I want to do right now: 1. Eat huge quantities of carbohydrates and 2. Retreat to my warm, dark cave to sleep them off. Because I am a responsible adult, and moreover, a solo homeowner, indulging #2 impulses is out of the question. I have to get up and go to work in the mornings, and it’s considered bad form to hibernate on the job. (Snails, interestingly enough, can sleep for three years. Envy!) However, I’m having a great big #1 moment even as I write this, guttling my morning meal at my desk and swigging a Coke.

Normally I eat a very genteel breakfast in my snug kitchen at Sensational Acres, usually some low-fat granola cereal with skim milk and a cat hair garnish. When I looked out the window this morning, though, and saw the snow falling and thought about how the traffic on my route to work was likely to be even more painfully slow than usual, I decided to pack breakfast to go and get on with the commute.

I made the drive under grey skies and a cloud of melancholy, my blood sugar having bottomed out during the night after a light supper and exercise the previous evening. I was ready to curse and kill by the time I reached the office, for no good reason. I know better than to let myself sink into such a state, but I still do it sometimes. However, the moment food passed my lips, the whole day brightened. (There’s a lesson here for everyone: If the Media Sensation is grumpy, just shove food into her hand.)

And what cuisine hath such power to soothe the savage guttlebeast? Over the weekend, I did my usual cooking of dishes to bring to work for lunch, and I made a concoction of my own devising: brown rice (with chicken bullion added to the boiling water), lentils, green onions and golden raisins drizzled with olive oil and spiced with a little curry powder and a little cumin. A single-serve Tupperware full of this stuff, a Coke -- excuse me, as a stockholder in the Coca-Cola company, I insist upon use of the proper phrase, an ice-cold Coke -- and a crisp Braeburn apple for dessert makes a dandy breakfast. (Especially when a speed-date boy calls and keeps me on the phone longer than one should chat at work, but he was complimenting my wit so much I didn’t want to interrupt him. We’re having lunch on Friday.) And don’t worry about me going hungry at lunch; I’m going to guttle a Subway sandwich with a friend.

So there you have it. My appetite for verbiage knows no bounds.

Today’s random trivia: "Stewardesses" is the longest English word you can type with only the left hand; “lollipop" with your right.

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

01/27/03

Sorry, no bon mots to share today. I've got no bloggin' in my noggin. The best I can do is quote my literary hero, James Lileks, who referred to a pro football player as a human meat anvil. Inspiration will return, I hope, tomorrow.

01/23/03’s illustrious band:

Everyday Rocket Science

Brought to you by my desire to see a few little changes that would make life a great deal easier. To wit:

• Coathooks in women’s bathrooms -- and probably in men’s rooms, too. Yes, we have hooks on the insides of the stall doors for hanging up coats, purses, small shopping bags, squirmy toddlers, etc. Very good. But once you get out, you’re stuck. There’s nowhere to put your stuff when you’re washing your hands unless you want to set it on the counter beside the sink. Which you don’t, because the counter looks like a scale map of Minnesota, complete with 10,000 lakes. So you’re stuck dumping your good coat and bag on the floor at your feet, or trying to brace them between your hip and the counter during the hand-washing process. And then you have to pick them up with wet hands or clamp them between your knees while you proceed to the hand-drying area. How tough would it be to install a few hooks on the walls next to the sink, maybe on the outside of that last stall? And how about putting a few small shelves there, too, so no one has to take a coffee mug into the place of business? People do, you know, and we’ve all heard by now how far the splash/mist from a flushing toilet can travel. ‘Nuff said.
  
• Corollary to the above: How about putting the hand-drying apparatus a little closer to the hand-wetting apparatus? Might cut down the number of lakes on the countertop if people didn’t have to wag their dripping mitts all the way across the room to dry them off, eh?
  
• Computers need wheels. Yes they do. I spent 10 minutes on my knees under my desk this morning wrestling my processing unit across a yard of carpet. The computer isn’t that heavy, and I’m not that wimpy, and the distance is certainly not that great. But due to my awkward position (just ask my across-the-aisle neighbors!) and the low overhead clearance, I couldn’t lift the unit high enough off the ground to avoid the enormous snag factor. A couple cheap little casters on the bottom of the tower would have made this a lot easier.
  
  By the way, don’t tell the cubicle furniture movers’ union that I did this. Moving one’s own cubicle furniture is forbidden. I think this stricture applies primarily to more permanent items like walls, baseboards and desk surfaces attached to the walls, but I’m not taking any chances. If I tick off the cube gods, I could end up with an office the size of a phone booth. You remember phone booths, right?
  
• I want architects and remodelers to consider traffic flow in public spaces when laying out the floor plans. Architects do, I know. Places like Target and grocery stores are marvels of intentionally channeled traffic flow, the result of hours upon hours of shopper observation. I wish people making new use of old space would spend a little time doing the same. The Soup Group’s favorite haunt, EatingTons, is a case in point. I rant about it every Thursday when we go, and since today is Thursday, I’m ranting about it here, too. When you enter, you walk right into the line of people waiting to get their soup. Once you’ve gotten your food, you turn around to find the cash register, only to run smack into the line you just left, because the register is near the door, back the way you came. And once you pay and turn to find a table, well, you’re swimming against the stream of people waiting to pay, because some of the seating is in the back; otherwise you have to fight your way through the entering/serving line to get to seating on the other side of the room. It’s tough. It’s also all you can eat for less than $4, so of course we keep going back.
  
• Counter space. You can never have enough counter space. Specifically, we need more counter space at cash registers so that after you’ve paid, you can scoot down a step and have a moment to tuck your change back into your purse or wallet, close it up, get out your keys and sunglasses, put on gloves, etc. -- all those activities you feel guilty doing right at the register because you’re keeping other people waiting. Stores that spend billions figuring out whether I’m likely to walk to the apples or the paper towels first should be able to shell out a buck for an extra 18 inches of counter space at the register.
  
• Failing a fashion revolution that makes stockings obsolete, I want pantyhose that don’t hurt. Unless I stick with knee-highs, which will probably give me terminal varicose veins before I’m 35, I end up with hose that are about a foot too long and have a waistband tight enough to clamp the wings onto the space shuttle during re-entry. What I want is a pair of hose with a kinder, gentler waistband that has Velcro on it -- and I want Velcro on my bra to hook the hose onto. The dang hose are so long I end up tucking the top under my bra anyway, so we might as well make it official. All hose-wearers do this, right? It’s either this or Post-It hose, which is actually an even better idea. Post-It hose would have a skin-friendly adhesive in the waistband; no elastic necessary. Just stick the waistband at the desired level, peel off when needed and then press back into place.
  
• While I’m at it, I want Post-It shirttails, too. Then I could tuck in a shirt and press the tail against my buns and not have it roll or bunch back up as soon as I’ve fastened my pants.
  
• And finally, I’d like to see some cubicle walls in colors other than grey. Not only would they be less monotonous to look at, colorful walls might actually increase productivity. Certain bright shades are known to stimulate the brain and increase energy levels, while cooler ones contribute to serenity. Workers could look at one wall for motivation, the other for relaxation. I’m surprised these aren’t already mandatory.
  

C’mon, designers! It shouldn’t take an English major to figure these things out!
What’s on everyone else’s wish list?
E-mail: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

01/22/03's illustrious band:

Alberta Moose

Brought to you by the calendar kept by the hunting club magazine down the hall. Apparently the notation "Alberta Moose" means it's moose hunting season in Alberta. "MO Turkey" is my other favorite. Wouldn't we all like MO turkey?

Speed date update

The last couple days have been super-busy at here at media headquarters. We Media Sensations are scrambling to produce our next issue of the Award-Winning Magazine, and I've been working the phones, too. Yep, Jason the speed-date yes-man called me back. I had accidentally written down my work number instead of my home one on the "call me here" line, so he rang me over the weekend and ended up with office voice mail. But he called back yesterday and we chatted. Well, he did. He seemed to have a really hard time hanging up the phone, even though he knew I was at work. He said I was sweet -- probably because I didn't interrupt him during his 45-minute explanation of his business. From what I could gather, he's a professional ticket scalper. Anyway, we made a firm date to talk again sometime next week (on my home phone!) and maybe set up a lunch date. That's appropriately low-key, and he seems like a decent guy, so I'm willing to stay in the game for now.

Stay warm, y'all!

01/20/03’s illustrious band:

Scoop Loop

Brought to you by way too much technology.

I bet I have the best excuse of the day for being late for work (other than that it’s Martin Luther King Day and we should all be out committing acts of civil disobedience in his honor): My litter box was on the fritz. OK, technically it’s the cats’ litter box. But they graciously allow me the privilege of keeping it clean and full of fresh litter.

This job got considerably easier when Sister-san gave me a mechanical cat box for Christmas. Powered by electricity or batteries, the m-box does its own scooping. It waits 10 minutes after a cat has done its business and walked away. Then a motorized rake glides across the box, scooping up the litter that has clumped around kitty’s leavings. The rake nudges up a lid at the end of the box and pushes the clumps into a receptacle there. The rake retreats, smoothing the litter as it goes, the lid falls on the receptacle, and the box is ready for another go. The cats love the m-box because it’s always clean. I love it because the mess is out of sight, out of mind.

I checked our clump receptacle this morning and replaced it with a clean one. I also added more litter, because a lot had gotten scooped away. One of the cats immediately made use of the new litter, and 10 minutes later I heard the motorized rake do its thing. And then I heard it go again. And again. It had somehow gotten stuck in an endlessly repeating loop.

Eventually I figured out the problem. I think the rake gets triggered when a sensor notes that the contents of the m-box rises above a certain level. A cat counts as extra contents, so the sensor notes the presence of something above the “full” line, waits 10 minutes, then signals the rake to go ahead. Apparently a too-high level of litter also triggers the sensor, and keeps on triggering it because the extra stuff doesn’t go away. My refill was the culprit. I had to find a disposable cup with which to put some of that extra litter back where it came from.

Now everyone is happy again. I wish all plumbing problems were this simple.

E-mail: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

01/17/03’s illustrious band:

How to Wear a Hat

Brought to you by an online headline about harnessing the fashion power of headgear.

Hats are cool — or warm, as the case may be. Mother Media received a grand red one for Christmas, and Chicken Step Lady has just come into possession of a marvelous furry salt-and-pepper number. Movie stars of both sexes used to wear them, and they looked smashing. I wonder why hats fell out of style?

I’ve always had a secret affinity for hats myself. The only thing that stops me wearing them is that I come down with a terminal case of hat hair within 5 minutes of putting one on, and then my only choice is to keep it on or risk mat-maned mortification. Still, it’s winter on the high plains, where avoiding hypothermia takes precedence over fashion. I’ve been pulling the wool low over my eyes for brief intervals these past few days, and trying to ignore the itch and the static.

But that’s as far as I’ll go. You won’t catch me wearing a baseball cap turned backward or a visor both backward and upside down. As a sign of my venerable age, I’ve grown attached to the belief that there’s a difference between funky and stupid.

And now I’m off to shop for a birthday present for a T’ai Chi instructor. What do you get for the man who knows everything?

Parting words from immortal bard George Carlin: “Don’t sweat the petty stuff, and don’t pet the sweaty stuff.”

Have a good weekend!

01/16/03's illustrious band:

Braingelt

Brought to you by fontmaster Chank Diesel and his wonderful web site, www.chank.com. Click here to see the Braingelt font.

If you've ever wondered who sits around thinking up new and cool ways to draw the letters of the alphabet, Chank Diesel is your answer. Rather than carry on about him at length when I should be -- and am, for once -- hard at work here at Media Headquarters, I encourage you to explore his site on your own. Especially recommended: King George, a font created in honor of the president, and Space Toaster, originally created for the Cartoon Network. Enjoy!

01/15/03’s illustrious band:

Familiar Stranger

Brought to you by Kim Husband. Not me -- the other one.

I checked my Hotmail this morning and was surprised to find a message from Kim Husband. I figured it was spam from one of those e-mail programs that cleverly insert the user's own name into the subject or sender line, so I almost deleted it. But I decided to click it on the off chance it wasn't spam.

Sure enough, it appears to be a legitimate message from someone who has the same name I do. She (I think it's she, anyway) lives in Nashville. She got bored while surfing furniture websites and typed her own name into Google, and some link to me came up. So she got in touch just to let me know there are two of us out there.

Wild! I've known there were a couple other Husband families in the U.S., but someone with my same first name, too? I'm sure a Chris Smith or a Pat Johnson wouldn't get worked up over such a coincidence, but I'm intrigued by it. I responded right away. I hope I hear back soon. Maybe I’ll get a pen pal out of the deal.

It’s been suggested that this other Kim Husband may be my evil twin from another dimension. I have to admit, the thought had already crossed my Trekkie mind. Because Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock once encountered their own evil twins from a parallel universe, it was pretty scary. Especially the part about Spock’s counterpart having a goatee. I don’t think the world is ready for a bearded me. I know my little corner of it ain’t.

In other news, you’re probably asking yourself why I’m not out in the bloodmobile right now giving the gift of life as I have done many times before. Well, it’s because today I would also be giving the gift of a cold virus, and for some reason the American Red Cross doesn’t want any. Bummer, yeah, but I’d hate to make anyone else sick. It does tick me off, though, that I should get one of the two colds I’m likely to contract this year right when the bloodmobile makes one of its two annual visits to my workplace. What are the odds? Even a hefty dose of wasabi at lunch yesterday wasn’t enough to kill all the little viral invaders, although I can assure you that my sinuses are clean as a whistle. I think my hair has a little extra curl to it, too.

01/14/03's illustrious band:

Frozen Sweat

Brought to you by Sister-san, who wrote on a recent record-breakingly warm January day:

"Boss-man Nathan just came in and expressed his joy about not needing a down jacket today. He hates to wear another coat over his suit coat, even on frigid days, because then, he says, he becomes a 'sweaty guy, full of frozen sweat.'"

Blech.

But now that more normal winter temperatures have returned the frozen North to its natural state, I think we all know how this guy feels. You get all layered up, then stand around the lobby for five minutes before everyone is ready to go out to lunch, or you go into a warm store to shop. You keep your ultragortex uber-parka on, of course, because you'll be going back outside in just a few moments. The coat does its job and keeps you nice and toasty. And then, when you finally exit the building and that first blast of icy Canadian air hits . . . poof! You're freeze-dried. Yep, I can relate.

Winter does indeed seem to be back, so consider this a Happy Second Snow greeting. We got a dusting of dry, fluffy snow that looks like dryer lint last night. The stuff is lightweight enough that I swept the driveway at Sensational Acres rather than deploy the snowblower at 6:00 a.m. My neighbors' houses are probably just as well sound-insulated as mine is, given our proximity to a major airport, but the blower really would have been overkill. I had the deck, drive and walkways cleared in under 20 minutes, which is about how long it would have taken me to refamiliarize myself with the blower's user's manual anyway, and didn't even develop a frozen sweat problem. I'll save the heavy machinery for a heavy snowfall.

01/13/03’s illustrious band:

Timecap

Brought to you by a note on a colleague’s office door.

A timecap is not headgear you wear to travel through the fourth dimension. It’s short for time capsule. The colleague mentioned is celebrating a birthday, and a friend had used a timecap service to create a page displaying lists of headlines, top songs, TV shows, new toys and books, prices for common purchases, Academy Award winners, government leaders, and other important people born on the same day. All you have to do to generate a timecap sheet is go to http://dmarie.com/timecap and input the relevant birthdate.

If you hit “Quick Page,” the software immediately generates your timecap page. If you choose “Advanced Page,” you’ll be taken through a series of steps in which you choose the items from each category that you want to display. The list of people born on the same date is especially long, so you can just pick the ones you like best. The resulting timecap page is suitable for printing and posting on office doors, or I suppose you could copy and past the information into the format of your choice. This can be a nice way to mark a special day or just do a little then-and-now reflecting.

I tried the process with my own birthdate, just to see. Nixon was president when I was born. The list of shows on TV at the time includes Star Trek, I Dream of Jeannie, Dragnet and Hawaii Five-O. Slaughterhouse Five was published that year (1969), and stamps cost $.06. The average price of a house was $27,900, and average annual household income was $10,577. Silly String, Weebles, Nerf Balls and Barrel of Monkeys hit the toy stores. Candice Bergen (1946), Billy Joel (1949) and Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265) share my birthday.

I’m pleased to say that Candice, Billy, the Star Trek franchise and I are still going strong.

Public Opinion Poll

The burning question: Should I buy a Palm Pilot or not?

Pros

• It's a shiny new tech toy.
  
• I recently got a rebate check that would cover about 75% of the cost.
  

Cons

• I already have an electronic organizer that works just fine and does not need updating.
  
• Even with the rebate check, this would still cost me around $60.
  

So I must decide between the sober, responsible, money-saving option and the frivolous, entertaining, economy-stimulating one. What would YOU do?

(I'd ask "What Would Jesus Do?", but I don't think Jesus ever had to worry about Palm Pilots. Just Pontius Pilate.)

01/10/03’s illustrious band:

Playing With Matches

Brought to you by the Soup Group and Company, who sponsored my speed dating foray last night.

I am pleased to report an OK night. I encountered no knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing geekazoids. No body odor, no rudeness, no drunks. No pressure. It was actually kind of fun. It was reassuring just to learn that there are at least 18 single, heterosexual, age-appropriate men living in the metro area. I had begun to wonder.

The evening proceeded pretty much as expected. Thirty-eight participants paid the $35 fee at the door -- thanks, Soup Group! -- and collected our nametags and packets containing a dating card, a note page and a comment/feedback page for the event organizers. I was Bachelorette #11, so I sat down at the appropriate table and waited for the dating to begin.

When the wind chimes jangled, one of the 18 nervous men sat down opposite me and we started chatting. After 7 minutes, the chimes sounded again, the women remained seated and the men moved on. I scribbled furiously on my note page between visitors. There would be a total of only 9 official dates throughout the evening, so if I wanted to meet one of the other 9 guys, I had a chance to do so during the halftime break and “open dating” time at the end.

I ended up talking to eight men whom I would not flee if they sat down next to me at a party and one whom I’d ditch as soon as he revealed that he had attended a Godzilla convention. Given my own attendance at sci-fi cons, perhaps this makes me a hypocrite. However, I have changed my hairstyle and wardrobe since 1982, and I prefer a fellow who does the same.

I met an attorney, a physician’s assistant, a sports merchandising salesman, a high school librarian, a computer systems manager, an advertising sales consultant, a UPS shipping agent. One liked salsa dancing; one had lived in Hawaii, China and Japan, among other places; one lived for Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. All of them were interesting in one way or another, and all of them seemed nice.

Two of them seemed particularly nice, so I circled Yes next to their names in the “Date this person again?” column on my dating card. I ended up talking further with one of them during the open social time at the end of the night. I wished for a chance to approach a tall cutie in a white shirt who hadn’t ended up at my table, but I never quite made it to his side of the room. So I turned in my dating card with yes/no choices marked, along with my comment card, and headed home.

My only big complaints about the night concerned the facility where the event was held rather than the event itself. The dating service had reserved a small bar/nightclub connected to a restaurant, and once our allotted time was up, the bar was open to the public. Several people began smoking, which should be banned in all public spaces without exception, and a DJ started blasting music at earsplitting levels, making conversation very difficult. These are reasons 1 and 2 why I go to bars so rarely in the first place, and they hastened my exit considerably. I jotted those thoughts down for the organizers.

This morning I received a call from the service. Of the two men I yessed, one had yessed me back, so we had a match. I was given his phone number, and he was soon to receive a call from the service with my phone number (and those of anyone else he matched with). My match was Jason the sports merchandiser, the guy I’d talked to after the main event. If he invites me out again, I will probably accept. I don’t know how many other guys may have yessed me while I noed them; the service doesn’t tell.

So there you have it. I think I got the Soup Group’s money’s worth, along with a very good cosmopolitan in a funky cocktail glass. I’d probably do it again in a few months if I had nothing else going on. Coming away with no horror stories after all this buildup was almost anticlimactic.

FYI for Bloglet subscribers

Here’s something that has tripped a few people up, including me.

If you have subscribed to the BND blog -- signed up to have it e-mailed to you -- remember that the messages containing the band names come from the Bloglet subscription service, not from me. So if you’ve clicked the “reply” button to respond to one of those messages, your response went to Bloglet, not to me.

Sorry, no band name today -- I'm too busy getting geared up for tonight's speed dating adventure! I promise a graphic report in the very near future. And I apologize for any lack of reading pleasure today's bandlessness may cause.

Hey, will you all do me a favor? My Uncle Jerry is turning 60 on Friday, Jan. 10, and we'd like him to receive at least 60 e-mails to mark the day. So just send him a quick howdy if you have a minute. His e-mail address is:

jmwsmw@msn.com

Thanks!

01/08/03’s illustrious band:

Vulgate

Brought to you by the A Word A Day service and free-speaking American citizens across the map.

Vulgate (VUL-GAYT) noun.

1. Everyday, informal speech of a people.
2. Any widely accepted text of a work.
3. The Latin version of the Bible made by Saint Jerome at the end of the 4th century.

[From Late Latin vulgata editio (popular edition), past participle of vulgare (to make public or common), from vulgus (the public).]

Texans and Minnesotans aren’t the only vulgus who pronounce the names of their towns funny. Señor Editor is all too familiar, he says, with Indiana towns named Peru and Chili. Wouldn’t you think you’d pronounce those like the South American country and the tomato-and-bean dish (of which I made a big batch this past Sunday, and let me just say it’s fabulous)? Well, the locals don’t. That first one is PEE-roo, which Señor says puts him in mind of a kangaroo with a bladder-control problem. The second is CHAI-lye. Now whose bright idea was that?

Sister-san reminds me that at least in South Dakota we know whom to blame: the Verendrye brothers, according to my sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Ashley. (That’s Ver-ON-dray for the Dakota-impaired.) Francois and Louis-Joseph Verendrye were French-Canadian explorers who tramped and mapped a good portion of the region and in 1793 claimed the land that is now central SD for Louis XV, King of France. They left us with a state capitol that’s spelled Pierre but said Peer, not Pee-air -- which is what you call a dehydrated Frenchman, Father Media used to say.

However, my hometown of Belle Fourche, a French phrase meaning “beautiful forks” and referring to a fork in a river, retains its Francophone pronunciation of Bell Foosh. (And yes, I know what feminine hygiene product that rhymes with; rival football crowds used to remind us constantly.) Why be authentic about one but not the other? We don’t know. One of the many mysteries of the prairie, I guess.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am forced to admit that I didn’t remember all this South Dakota history from Mrs. Ashley’s class. I looked some of it up on the Internet. Sorry, Mrs. Ashley.

However, I do remember quite clearly the expression on her face the day she received a hurried whisper from another teacher, then turned to tell the class that President Reagan had been shot. Seated in the back row, I was closest to the classroom’s tiny black-and-white TV, and I reached out to turn it on without even asking permission. That event riveted our attention on civics and government like nothing else could.

01/07/03’s illustrious band:

Miracle Meat

Brought to you by the Flexible Chef.

This is January’s reading from the book of Spam.

Last night the Flexible Chef gave me a 2003 wall calendar featuring America’s favorite canned meat product, Spam. She’s had firsthand experience with Spam musubi, a very special kind of sushi, and lived to tell about it. FC and I had occasion to discuss the Meat of Many Uses when she saw me wearing a jaunty Spam sweatshirt several weeks ago. Apparently the conversation stuck in her craw.

Just for the record, I was a Spam eater once upon a time, but had to give it up after driving past, on a hot and humid day, a meat processing plant that emitted a toe-curling odor redolent of rancid Spam marinating in raw sewage. The smell was strong enough to actually trigger my gag reflex, and lunchtime was never the same after that. However, my sudden conversion became the basis for a long-running joke that has spilled outside the family and has resulted in my receiving numerous, sometimes international, Spam-related products as gifts -- including, as you may recall, a Spammy Valentine from Mother Media.

We all have our own fond memories of Spam, but who among us knows where the gel-coated pink stuff originated? Well, I do, thanks to my handy calendar. In addition to numerous full-color photos of Spam advertising and Spam in action, it also features historical and trivial data. So I am now the next best thing to a Spam scholar.

Spam was born to the Hormel Company in 1937 in a combined effort to introduce canned meats to the American consumer and find a use for wasted pork shoulder meat at the processing plant. (No data on why that pork shoulder was nobody’s first pick.) The original can (size not specified) was designed to hold enough meat for a family of five, plus provide leftovers. The distinctive shape ensured that a slab of Spam would fit easily on a slice of bread. Several names for the new product were considered, including Brunch, but a naming contest held on New Year’s Eve at the Hormel home yielded the one we’ve come to know, love and name unsolicited pornographic e-mail after. Gotta wonder what they were drinking at that party.

True Spam story:: I once attended a bachelorette party at which, after drinking a few mimosas, the ladies sculpted certain features of the male anatomy using only devilled Spam, a peeled banana, and their bare hands.

This is just the beginning, friends. Each month this year will bring us a new reading from the Book of Spam, filled with wondrous Spam facts. I know you can hardly wait. In the meantime, your thoughts on the subject are always welcome. Spam me!

Jugglernaut@hotmail.com

01/06/03’s illustrious band:

Readbumps

Brought to you by deadpan comedian Steven Wright, who claimed to have been injured in a bizarre speed-reading accident when he hit a bookmark.

I’ve always been an avid reader, and I’ve had my share of speed-reading accidents. However, most of mine have occurred (and still occur) without the benefit of speed. I just plain misread things. For instance, for years I misread the word talisman as tails-man. I could figure out from the context what the word meant, so I never bothered to look it up. Fortunately, I heard someone else say it out loud before I tried it myself and was spared the embarrassment of a public mispronunciation.

But I do mispronounce things in my head all the time. Before I heard the word infrared said -- it’s in-fra-red (meaning below or beneath red’s wavelength in the spectrum of visible light) -- I used to believe it was in-fraird, two syllables. I thought it was the past-tense form of the verb infrare, so I followed the rules I had learned in school about what the vowel sound should be in a word ending vowel-consonant-e. I also thought, for a short while, that the apostrophe on a classroom display of punctuation marks was an ap-o-strof. And I thought that the name Ian, which is Ee-an, was I-an until I actually met someone with that name.

I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of mentally mangling foreign words, phrases and names. (But at least we have some sort of excuse when it’s a foreign language.) Years before I took high school French, there was a character in a favorite book of mine named Georges Mordreaux -- George Mor-dro, with that French zh sound replacing the Gs. But my flat Midwestern twang turned him into George-ess Mor-dree-ox in my head. When I reread the book after I’d learned some French pronunciation rules, I had a terrible time remembering what to call the poor guy.

(On a completely unrelated note, except that I seem to be on the subject of men’s names here, I used to believe that President John F. Kennedy had a brother named Jack, and that they must be twins because the president’s actions were often ascribed to Jack. I didn’t realize that Jack was a nickname for John, and I still don’t see how that works.)

Conversely, having been exposed early to Spanish spellings and pronunciations, I couldn’t understand why the Texas city of Amarillo was called (by ignorant Americans, at least) Am-a-rill-o instead of the correct Spanish pronunciation Ah-mah-ree-yo, in which a double L is voiced with a Y sound. I also don’t see why Minnesotans call New Prague New Prayg instead of New Prog like the European city. English is so goofy!

Tell me about your own favorite readbumps and mental malapropisms. Convince me that I’m not alone.

01/03/03’s illustrious band:

Bill and the Black Brassiere

Brought to you by Legal Beagle.

On Christmas Day, it’s customary for my family to exchange visits with LB’s family. LB was a close friend of my late Father Media. In addition to a love of fishing, a finely tuned sense of humor was something the two shared. So it was no great surprise to me when, during this year’s visit, LB told the following story about my Dad, whose name was Bill.

Once upon a time, when Father Media was still courting the lass who became Mother Media, Father and a friend ventured into the ladies’ lingerie section of a department store. (They were in the Big City for a wedding of a pharmacy classmate and fraternity brother.) Father wanted to buy a gift for Mother: a black brassiere.

So the two men wandered among the delicates for a few minutes looking lost. Soon a saleswoman approached and asked if she could help them. Father told her what he was looking for. She asked what size he needed.

“Oh,” he said, holding his hands before him as if squeezing two objects, “about this big.”

Editor’s note: When asked if the gift bra had fit, Mother Media informed us that it did.

illustrious band for the extra-cool date 01/02/03:

Brad Tidings

Brought to you by Brad, with a little help from Sister-san and Brother-in-Law-san.

First of all, let me just say howdy and welcome back. To all those who instructed me to have happy holidays and enjoy my vacation: Mission accomplished! A weeklong sojourn at Mother Media’s house, followed by a few days of kick-back time at Sensational Acres, has left me rested and ready to tackle a new year. Santa and my family and friends spoiled me with gifts, including a garment steamer and a self-scooping cat litter box to keep my clothes and nose unwrinkled in 2003.

I rang in the new year with Señor Editor and company, where I was introduced to Crack Balls (a dense, dark paste of ground-up Oreos mixed with a wee bit of sour cream and rolled into 1-inch balls, then covered in white chocolate; named for their powerful addictive properties), and to such musical gems as “The Feminine Hygiene Song” and a ditty about the King featuring the line “Elvis needs boats.”

But the real joy of the holidays comes, of course, from love. And when I think of love, I think of Brad.

Brad is a guy who responded to a profile I posted with an online dating service eons ago. His response to my ad was (A) typed in all capital letters, which is considered “shouting” by the digerati; (B) badly spelled and grammatically challenged; (C) devoid of punctuation. However, the kicker, as it were, was the final line of his note. Referring to the martial arts hobbies I’d mentioned, he wrote, and I quote (with emphasis added):

I'D PROBUBLY KICK YOUR TAIL. BUT I NEVER HIT A WOMAN EVEN IF SHE DESERVES IT. THAT IS SOMETHING THAT IS JUST NOT RIGHT WITH ME

It’s so comforting to know that this Romeo has my best interests at heart.

As if this weren’t enough of a turn-on, Brad also supplied a link to his own personals ad, which included a picture of him. Unfortunately, my blog site does not support the addition of photos, or I’d post his here for all to admire. Key elements of the scene include a handlebar moustache, no shirt, a macramé necklace, unbuttoned jeans, one hand holding a beer and the other out of sight somewhere (Don’t look at the unbuttoned jeans. Don’t look! Awww, you looked, didn’t you.), and stereo equipment that was state-of-the-art in 1975. The shot appears to have been taken in Brad’s mother’s attic, where I suspect he lives. Further perusal of his profile reveals that he’s 45 years old, a mere 12 years my senior, and holds a job in retail sales.

You see now why I’m willing to try speed dating? It can’t be any worse than this.

Anyway, I did forward Brad’s photo to a few lucky souls, Sister-san and her husband among them. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a couple gifts under the faux fir bearing tags that read “from Brad.” The wrapping paper on the first was a Brad photomontage rendered in vivid hues by Sister-san’s color printer; the wrap on the second gift sported the same images in classy black and white. On each box was a clever [sic] poem in masculine handwriting that looked suspiciously like Brother-In-Law-san’s.

The first of these treasures -- can you guess? -- was a beautiful Christmas ornament, a life-size Budweiser can made of glass. Delicate, yet alcoholic. Now I can decorate next year’s tree with love. I’ve left it in its protective packaging to preserve its value as a collectible.

The second present was something with which to decorate myself for future dates: a ponytail scrunchie made of fake hair. Fake curly, brassy, auburn hair. My own hair, as you know, is sort of dark blonde/light brown, and still fairly short, so this little doo-dad will really . . . stand out. Until my hair grows out enough to make the scrunchie useful, I’ll just leave it in the playful care of my two cats.

These were, as you can imagine, a few of my favorite things from this year’s Christmas, and they’re on display here at Media HQ. I was truly, truly blessed this holiday season. Let’s all take a quiet moment right now to reflect on the generosity of friends and family. And to plot revenge.

And to answer the question everyone has been asking: YES, speed dating is a go! I got confirmation today that I’m on the ‘A’ list for an event next Thursday evening, and the Soup Group’s fundraising effort has supplied me with the full fee. While not quite giddy with anticipation just yet, I am looking forward to this adventure. Any suggestions on what to wear will be appreciated, as the Media Sensation remains fashion-impaired.