06/30/03’s illustrious band:

Big News

Brought to you by the Belle Fourche Post, my hometown newspaper. No, it was not the Post that inspired me to become a journalist -- but it’s done wonders for my crotchety English teacher tendencies.

The Post has been a source of as much amusement as news for as long as I’ve been able to read it. Like many small-town papers, it’s published on a shoestring budget by people with more enthusiasm than journalism training, in an area that produces more crop reports than crime reports. Not exactly the New York Times, but then again, it’s not exactly serving a New York audience, either.

People in Post photos are routinely misidentified -- even though the person who took the picture probably knew everyone in it personally -- if you can tell who they are at all through the blurring. But that’s OK, because most readers were probably at the event themselves and remember perfectly who was doing what.

Facts are sometimes a bit murky as well. Getting your name in the paper is still a big deal, but don’t be surprised if it’s misspelled and you’re reported as having done something you didn’t. But that’s OK, too, because if someone wants to know what really happened, they’ll just ask their neighbors. Or read the social notes page, which tell who went to visit whom over which holidays, how these people are related to other city residents, and sometimes what they had to eat. Readers of the Post think of it as a starting point for newsgathering, not an end point.

And don’t be surprised if the proofreader (I’m sure they have a proofreader) misses a dropped letter “l” in “public,” leaving you to contemplate a whole new kind of library. That was my Dad’s favorite Post typo, not just because it’s funny, but because it usually crops up a couple times a year.

My favorite Post story dates back to the Belle Bucks fiasco, which occurred when I was in junior high or high school. It’s every publisher’s nightmare. To encourage people to shop in Belle Fourche, downtown merchants were issuing Belle Bucks, coupons that could be used for discounts on merchandise purchased from participating retailers. But somehow, in a grand, full-page ad for the program, the “B” in Bucks got replaced by a different consonant that had parents scrambling to hide the paper before the kids got up. Oops!

The big news this week: There’s a new ATM in town! You know you’re in Mayberry when there’s enough excitement about a new cash machine to warrant not only an announcement, but also a photo. Oh, and they just got central air installed at the community hall, too.

Actually, I’m glad these are the hottest topics on anyone’s mind right now. Means there’s not much to worry about today. And that’s what small-town living is all about.

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

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.

06/27/03's illustrious band:

Geek Goddess

Brought to you by Mr. Goodhands, who christened me a Geek Goddess after reading yesterday's BND. Shucks, Mr. G, you flatter me.

The Geek Goddess is the woman most geek boys would like to meet but are too shy to approach. She's computer literate, linguistically nimble, has a sense of humor, doesn't blanch at the mention of a sci-fi convention, and speaks just enough Klingon to get by.

Though the mere fact that she's a female stranger in a strange mostly male land is enough to set her apart from the crowd (that, and the fact that she's not likely to be sporting a combover/ponytail combination hairdo), men really do admire the GG for her mind. She's equally at home discussing the finer points of The Simpsons or web page construction. A night of D&D holds more appeal for her than a night at a B&B. A GG will sip Mountain Dew or a Vulcan Mind Probe with as much elan as she would a dry martini. When she sighs over that sexy Gibson fellow, she means author William, not actor Mel. A true GG can fix your dinner or fix your hard drive -- probably at the same time.

It's tough work being a Geek Goddess, but I'm up to the challenge. I have a Mighty Mouse T-shirt, a pocket-sized computer, an extensive vocabulary of Star Trek one-liners and a shady past that includes dressing as Princess Leia one Halloween back when my hair was long enough to make those big ear-donuts.

Worship me!

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

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.

06/26/03’s illustrious band:

The Incredibly Victorian Hulk

Brought to you by my viewing last night of The Hulk, the latest comic strip hero to hit the big screen. Warning: If you don’t want to slog through a comparison of this movie to Victorian literature, exit now!

The basic story is this (and here’s where you can thank me for saving you the price of a matinee): Scientist David Banner performed experiments on himself to see if he could create a stronger, more resilient human being capable of healing very quickly. He passed these genetic mutations on to his son Bruce, who also became a scientist.

Bruce didn’t know he was special until a freak accident in the lab exposed him to high doses of gamma radiation. The radiation apparently triggered changes in his DNA, and after that, every time he got mad, he turned green and grew to several times his natural size. Incredibly strong and resilient, the big green Hulk is the embodiment of rage. He smashes everything in sight until the sight of his girlfriend’s face soothes his savage breast, whereupon he shrinks back into regular Bruce.

For all its high-tech animation and avant garde cinematography, this movie reminded me very much of the Victorian novels I read in school. The Victorian era (generally defined as occurring during the reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901) was characterized by great advancements in science, and by the populace’s fear that too much science would rob people of their humanity. (See Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)

Bruce Banner confronts this same problem: His life revolves around science, but he is considered slightly less than human by his colleagues because he’s not very emotionally expressive.

Not, that is, until somebody pushes his Hulk button. Then the buttoned-down Bruce transforms into that thing civilized people fear most: an emotional stormfront on the move. Sure, we all swallow some rage, but the repressed Victorians stored up more than their share. And when they finally snapped, they did so in style. This is the era that gave us, for instance, the first recognized serial killer, Jack the Ripper.

The theme that stood out most for me, though, was the role of the woman in The Hulk. Victorian women were expected to be weak, helpless, delicate flowers whose lives revolved around the home, where they were expected to stay. They were also expected to be a calming, civilizing influence on men, whose raging passions were beyond of their own control.

Dr. Betty Ross is the Victorian woman (and essentially the only woman) in this movie. Her powerful father (grittily portrayed by Sam Elliot’s inestimable mustache) continually sends her home or shoves her behind him, protecting her for her own good — even though, as a scientist herself, she is best equipped to solve the Hulk problem. Her ex-boyfriend Glen expects her to turn her research over to him, and even her more recent love Bruce would prefer that she buzz off and let the men take care of everything.

But boys will be boys, and the next thing you know, Bruce has gone all green and postal. He’s not responsible for wrecking the lab, the military installation or half of San Francisco; his inner child made him do it. And no one expects him to chill out on his own; it’s Betty’s job to calm him down and turn him back into a productive member of society. She’s not valued for her scientific expertise, only for her ability to stroke the big guy’s hair.

According to The Hulk, we haven’t come very far in the last 100 or so years. We still fear science, we still haven’t mastered anger management, and we still want women to stay in the background looking pretty until men need their mommies. Then it’s all up to them to restore order.

Personally, I don’t think this attitude shows much respect for either men, portrayed as hyper-aggressive oafs, or women, shown as their sad-eyed angelic sidekicks. I also don’t think it entirely reflects the climate of today’s society, but it does shine some lights into our dark corners.

Overall, I found the movie thought-provoking, for which I enjoyed it. But due to a clunky plot, it was not very good cinema. Next time out, I’d recommend more comic book fun and less MTV-style editing.

And that’s our deconstructionist rant for today.

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

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.

06/25/03’s illustrious band:

Golden Rings

Brought to you by wandering minds.

Today’s scholarly inquiry takes up the question of how two entertainment classics, The Lord of the Rings and The Simpsons, resemble one another.

1. Our heroes. The protagonist of LOTR is a hobbit named Frodo Baggins, a pudgy, funny-looking regular guy caught up in a web of circumstances (dark forces taking over Middle Earth) beyond his control. He lives in a made-up place called The Shire. The protagonist of The Simpsons is a nuclear power plant employee named Homer Simpson, a pudgy, funny-looking regular guy caught up in a web of circumstances (his own day-to-day life) beyond his control. He lives in a made-up place called Springfield.
   
2. Good vs. Evil. Both heroes must battle the forces of evil. Frodo must pit his wits and his little-guy luck against the formidable dark wizard Saruman. Saruman is impossibly old and powerful and has a long, beaky nose. Just when you think he’s dead, his magic brings him back yet again. Homer’s foe is nuke plant owner Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns is impossibly old and rich and has a long, beaky nose. Just when you think he’s dead, his wealth and medical technology bring him back yet again.
   
3. The sycophants. There’s an LOTR character named Gollum who wants nothing more than to possess the One Ring. He’ll grovel, beg, lie, cheat and steal to try to get it. There’s a Simpsons character named Smithers who wants nothing more than to possess the heart of Mr. Burns. He’ll grovel, beg, lie, cheat and steal to try to get it.
   
4. The chicks. In LOTR, the main female character is Arwen, an Elvish woman possessing immense beauty. Though she could have lived for thousands of years had she stayed in her homeland and married one of her own kind, she chose to wed the human Aragorn (a friend of Frodo’s), giving up a life of ease and wealth. In The Simpsons, the female lead is Marge, an animated woman possessing an immense blue beehive hairdo. Though she could have lived for dozens of years had she remained in her homeland and married one of her own kind, she chose to wed the doofus Homer, giving up a life of ease and wealth.
   
5. One ring rules them all. LOTR hero Frodo is motivated by a desire to keep Middle Earth safe from the all-consuming evil golden ring he wears on a chain around his neck. Simpsons hero Homer desires to consume all golden donut rings and wear them as a spare tire around his waist.
   

I’m sure there are plenty of other parallels that greater scholars than I could draw, but I’ll stop here for now and resume reading the latest Harry Potter book.

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06/24/03’s illustrious band:

Fish Strudel

Brought to you by a “reado” from Mother Media last night.

A reado is just the reading version of a typo: you see something you shouldn’t have. In this case, Mother Media was reading the previous day’s BND, in which I mentioned fresh strudel. Scanning quickly so she could get on to her other 150 e-mail messages -- this lady gets more mail than Santa at Christmastime, I swear -- she thought she read fish strudel.

The sad part of this story is that it took her a minute to decide that perhaps that wasn’t what I had meant. This is someone who thinks that peanut butter and mayonnaise is a palatable food combination (anything and mayo, almost), so fish strudel was not entirely out of the question.

And it’s not! My high-tech research techniques indicate that fish strudel actually exists. I got more than half a dozen hits on the subject from a couple different search engines. Hmm! One menu offers “white fish, salmon, pineapple and cream cheese cooked in light pastry served with melon and paw paw sauce.” Another includes (Smoked) Fish-Strudel (Räucherfischstrudel) — along with Salmon-Spinach-Strudel (Lachs- und Blattspinatstrudel) and -- get this -- Sauerkraut-Strudel (Sauerkrautstrudel). Boy, how German is that?

Anyway, tonight we’re hitting the town to celebrate Mother Media’s birthday, which is tomorrow. So send lots of good wishes to the address below! Possibilities for dinner include Fat Lorenzo’s pizza, replete with homemade ingredients (and available by delivery) and Christos Greek restaurant, where garlic is the ingredient of the day, all day, every day. But no fish strudel. Not if I’m driving.

E-mail Mother Media: husband@rushmore.com

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

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.

06/23/03’s illustrious band:

Suddenly Sangria

Brought to you by three adventurous souls who tried to teach me to play bridge.

A little while back, some bridge-loving friends offered to initiate me into the fold. A date was set, a lesson was planned, and a foursome convened on a shady patio one lovely summer evening. We had a fantastic time, and while I don’t know how much I learned about the venerable card game, here’s a sampling of my new knowledge.

• You get 13 cards, which strikes me as an unlucky way to start things off. It turned out to be unlucky for my partner, too, since he was ready to bid and trump and trick and track like a pro, while I had trouble sorting my hand by face value.
  
• Forget what you know about the face values of cards. In bridge, an ace is worth four, a king is three, a queen is two and a jack is one. Except when the word “singleton” is involved, in which case a one can become a two.
  
• Forget the face values anyway. Sometimes, I think during bidding, you have to deal with the suits alphabetically.
  
• If you say “pass” a lot during bidding, you don’t have to think so much and can pay more attention to the munchies. In our case, these included a fresh strudel, veggies and dip, crackers and cheese and a huge Tupperware container of mixed fruit. Plus margaritas, red wine and white wine, which do wonders for the learning process. If you drop the fruit into the wine by accident, suddenly -- sangria!
  
• If my partner takes a trick, I’m supposed to scoop up the cards. But if I’m a dummy (and I have a copy of Bridge for Dummies on my coffee table to prove it) and put all my cards on the table, he plays them for me. At which time I can return my attention to the goodies.
  
• If your bridge coach is a Virgo and his partner is a Leo, they’ll spend enough time debating which star sign has the more controlling personality that you can refill your sangria without missing key points of the game. But when they’re done debating, you’d better be ready to bid on cue.
  
• There’s scoring involved, but the scoring of bridge is so complex that even Miss Leo, a veteran player, did not try to keep up. John the Strudel Man, on the other hand, kept score in his head. I’m glad he was my partner.
  

You know, I think I could get to like bridge. (It reminds me of Fizzbin, a ridiculously complicated card game Captain Kirk made up on Star Trek to confuse the bad guys so he and Mr. Spock could escape.) You get good food, good gossip, good laughs. I still don’t know what trump means, exactly, but if they let me come back, I’m willing to learn.

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06/19/03’s illustrious band:

The Toot-Toot Family Restaurant

Brought to you by my late grandmother, Marie Pauline Wiemholt, to whom we bid farewell this past Friday.

The exploits of Grandma Wiemholt and her clan were the true genesis of Band Name of the Day. It was in the summer of 2001, after a visit with Mom to Grandma in their hometown of Boonville, MO, that I began telling the stories behind the amusing phrases I picked up. That trip provided me with several anecdotes that remain favorites, including Wienador, Wrong Cemetery, Bury St. Joseph, Aunt Mary’s Dire Prediction, and Homemade Teeth. (These don’t appear in the current BND archives, but if you want to see them, let me know.)

Granny also gave me a reason to start a photo gallery on my old website, and many of the pictures are still there (address available upon request). These include family Christmas gatherings, the riverboat casino she liked to frequent, the apartment she briefly shared with her boyfriend Charlie, and the Caribbean cruise the two of them took together before her health and spirits began to slip. Granny photos were always the most fun to caption because she’s usually doing (or wearing) something silly, and more likely than not getting others to join in.

Our gathering in Boonville to say good-bye to Grandma was a sad, but not too sad, occasion. She had passed quickly -- a quick cardiac arrest while getting ready for bed -- and she didn't have time to suffer or be afraid. So despite missing her, we’re happy that she got her wish to join Grandpa in Heaven. There was plenty of laughter among the tears -- and, since it was a gathering of Wiemholts, plenty of cookies and ice cream, too.

Which reminds me of where I got the name for today’s illustrious band. On our drive to Missouri, Sister-san and I spotted several enormous billboards for the Toot-Toot Family Restaurant. Truth in advertising? Or just an unfortunate choice of words? We got a laugh out of it, and I know that Grandma, never one to pass up a toot joke, would have, too.

The funeral was very properly done, including an automobile procession from the funeral home to the church, which is kitty-corner across the street. Grandma's group of ladies, the Daughters of Isabella, conducted prayers and provided a just-right luncheon in the church basement after the rites. I was introduced to numerous relatives I've never met and several I have, people with names like Boopie and Hoppy and Linna Lou, who all knew me from photos and my parents’ annual Christmas letter.

The two funeral directors, who conducted everything with respectful dignity, appeared to be about 23 years old -- young enough to be wearing a thumb ring apiece and having trouble growing muttonchop sideburns like my uncle Don's. I've always thought of funeral direction as an old man's profession, but I suppose old men have to come from somewhere.

At the cemetery, I learned that while the Wiemholt family owns a generous plot, Grandpa declined to be buried in it when he died; he figured there might be other relatives who wanted to use the space, and he didn't want to hog it. So he and now Grandma are in another corner of the graveyard from the family plot, modest in death as in life.

I’ll miss my Granny and her funny stories and gossip, but I’ll keep the shared desire to pass along silly little things that amuse me. She started something good when she lent herself to this world, and I don’t see an end in sight.

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06/13/03’s illustrious band:

The Complete Guide to Psychic Development

Brought to you by the book of the same title by Cassandra Eason. (Thank goodness it isn’t an incomplete guide to psychic development; I’d hate to end up with ES but no P.)

According to the back of the Guide, if I’ve ever known who was calling before answering the phone, I may already be a winner in the psychic sweepstakes. I do, in fact, often know who is calling before I pick up, but that’s more likely due to caller ID than ESP. Well, I get the occasional surprisingly lucky guess, too. And I have to admit, I’m more likely to get it right if it’s Mother Media or Sister-san calling.

So what about it? Can people see the future? Can people see, hear or simply know what’s happening at a great distance? Can they communicate with the dead? Have out-of-body experiences? Learn things about other people just by touching their belongings?

I’m of the “if you can’t disprove it, maybe it works” school of thought. After all, if human beings use only 10% of their brain capacity, what’s going on in the other 90%? That part of the brain could be tuned in to frequencies we just haven’t identified yet, don’t you think?

That’s it for today’s blog. I need to get outside and enjoy this splendid weather.

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

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.

06/11/03’s illustrious band:

Birdscold

Brought to you by CAWS, the Cat Activity Watch System.

Now that hammock season is here, my feline companions and I have been spending as much time as possible out in the back yard. The jingle of the tags on their collars helps me know where they are, but the loud scolding of crows from the trees is just as good a tracking system. I can follow the cats’ prowls by listening to which batch of birds takes up the cry.

Sometimes, though, it’s not birds doing the scolding. Cat #2, Sprite, is a model of decorum and tranquility who stays mostly within my yard. No problem. But Cat #1, Warren Peace, is another story. A month or so ago, there came a knock at my door on a Sunday afternoon. When I went to answer it, there stood my neighbor Big Tony with a complacent Warren draped over one massive arm. Tony, who lives at the end of the block, had propped his own front door open, and Warren had sauntered right in and started investigating the house. Being a good-natured fellow, fortunately, Tony scooped him up and brought him home, and we had a good chuckle about feline curiosity.

A couple weeks ago, Warren went visiting again. I was reading in the hammock when I heard a soft voice saying, “Excuse me. You got a kitty?” Sure enough, Warren had joined the housewarming party kitty-corner, if you will, to my yard. He had again strolled right into the house. However, he had become alarmed by all the activity, especially by the attention of several young children, and had hidden under a bed. My new neighbor Jisella could not get him to come out. So I had to go into her room and grope around under the bed until I found a hairy leg to drag forth. Jisella seemed less amused by the incident than Tony had, but luckily she was still very cordial.

There’ll be more outdoor time for all this evening as I mow and weed and the cats sniff everything in the yard for the umpteenth time. Hopefully they’ll be intimidated by the sound of the mower and stick close to home. If not, back inside they go. Well, as I look out the window, I wonder if we’ll all be spending the evening inside if the clouds make good their threat of rain. We’ll see. Maybe a little birdie will tell me.

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06/10/03’s illustrious band:

Quiche Bones

Brought to you by a dream I had last night.

Last night I dreamed that I was helping a friend cater a fancy tea party. We had made many dozens of miniature quiches, baked in mini muffin pans lined with mini paper cups. Quiche bones is what we called the discarded papers heaped next to the plates as we cleaned up.

Sometimes dreams reveal the deepest secrets of our unconscious minds -- and sometimes they just rehash what’s taken place during the day. I hate to disappoint, but the quiche dream was one of the latter kind. Yesterday I attended a tea party during the day, and during an evening class I talked with a couple different people who work in the cooking/restaurant business. I don’t have a precise explanation for where the mini quiches came from; maybe the little snacks represent ideas that have fled my mind, leaving only their husks behind.

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

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06/09/03’s illustrious band:

All About

Brought to you by a little linguistic pet peeve of mine.

Today’s missive is all about -- OK, briefly about -- me griping about the phrase “all about.” I’m tired of hearing “It’s all about vision” or “It’s all about service” or “It’s all about the economy.” I’d much rather know what “it” actually is and what sort of action is taking place. It’s all about specifics, dude.

All right, enough word nerdism! Let’s talk about clotted cream instead. What the heck IS clotted cream, exactly? “Clotted” isn’t a word I usually associate with good things to eat. especially after a couple years working at a health magazine, where it’s all about blood and guts. But if you’re throwing a tea party, as one of my coworkers did this morning, you make the adjustment.

According to my mystical sources (the Internet), clotted cream is “A thick cream made primarily in England by heating milk until a layer of cream forms on its surface that is then cooled and skimmed off. Also called Devonshire cream.”

To me this sounds like a pale-faced butter wannabe, since I prefer my cream blended with generous amounts of sugar, chocolate and coldness. The clotted cream served at tea today looked sort of like milk gelatin. I think I’d apply the stuff to a food that was so piquant it needed its flavor dumbed down, like a jalapeno pepper or super-dense jam or something. I didn’t try the clot, though, so maybe I’m missing the culinary boat here.

I’ll tell you what is good, though: champagne garlic mustard. Talk about piquant! This is something I stumbled upon in the gourmet mustard section of my favorite grocery store. Since buying it less than 36 hours ago, I’ve already used it twice -- once for breakfast. Now I’ll have to buy better lunchmeat to live up to the mustard’s potential. We should all attempt to justify our condiments.

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06/06/03’s illustrious band:

The Pants May Be Lying

Brought to you by writer Anne Lamott.

Anne Lamott gave the commencement address at the University of California at Berkeley in May, and the text of her speech was reprinted today on www.Salon.com. She gave the new graduates plenty of good advice, but she saved the best for last. Here it is, in her own words:

“And -- oh my God -- I nearly forgot the most important thing: refuse to wear uncomfortable pants, even if they make you look really thin. Promise me you'll never wear pants that bind or tug or hurt, pants that have an opinion about how much you've just eaten. The pants may be lying! There is way too much lying and scolding going on politically right now without your pants getting in on the act, too.”

You tell ‘em, Anne! Actually, I’ve been taking this principle one step further lately by not wearing pants at all. (And before you assume you’ve just been harassed, think “skirt” or “shorts.”)

Have a good (if damp) weekend!

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

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.

06/05/03’s illustrious band:

Title Bout

Brought to you by Barbara M. Chirinos, VP of Executive Sales at Stewart Title.

Remember last month when I was refinancing my house? The people handling the closing -- Stewart Title -- goofed at the 11th hour, and in such a way that I thought (A) I would have to personally track down my ex-husband to get his signature on a certain form and (B) if I didn’t, the refinancing would not happen at all, and I’d be left up a monetary crick without a paddle. The matter was finally resolved when I took it upon myself to read the entire text of a legal document I’d supplied to Stewart and found that the information they wanted from Mr. Ex was right there all along.

It was a very stressful incident, as anyone who knows me can tell you. If there’s anything I like less than nasty surprises involving my bank account, it’s nasty surprises involving both my bank account and my ex.

So . . . When I got home from work last night, I found a letter from Stewart Title in the mailbox. My first thought was, Oh, swell, what now? I anxiously ripped it open and found . . . a check for $250.00.

Barbara Chirinos wrote to apologize. Someone -- I’m assuming it was my loan advisor, who got a detailed description of my displeasure -- made her aware of the circumstances surrounding my closing and how unhappy I’d been about it. Ms. Chirinos acknowledged that the matter should have been handled differently and said she’s made some recommendations on the subject to both the VP of the closing department and the VP of operations/manager of production. She also wanted to assure me that the loan advisor had not been at fault. Further, she said she appreciated the opportunity to address their internal processes and improve customer service in the future. The check is a refund of my closing fee.

Well, how the heck to you like that? I’m floored! Not only does Ms. Chirinos give a dang whether the service provided by her office is up to par, she takes full responsibility when it’s not. She’s taking active steps to improve it, and she’s making amends to a customer who was not well served. It’s not just a pro forma apology, either, but meaningful reparation.

After all my gripes about bad service lately, it gives me great pleasure to share this story. What a marvelous surprise to find a service provider whose standards are high! I plan to write back to tell her just how impressed I am.

Lunch is on me today!

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

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06/04/03’s illustrious band:

Penguin Pee

Brought to you by Skeeter, who can still pick ‘em even from a distance.

Actually, this story comes from Skeeter’s colleague Suzanne. Once upon a time, Suzanne and her family went to the Montreal Zoo, where the penguin area is one of the high points. While Suzanne and her family were there, there was a bunch of 5-year-old boys also at the penguin exhibit. The boys were all lined up in front of the glass. Then the penguins came up to the glass and lined themselves up. Then the penguins -- most of them, and at the same time -- decided to relieve themselves on the glass, right in front of the boys. Suzanne said pandemonium ensued -- which I have no trouble imagining.

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

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06/03/03’s illustrious band:

Weasonable Doubt

Brought to you by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams in the audio version of his book Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel, which I’ve been listening to in the car.

Adams' theory, well grounded in cube-farm cynicism, is that everyone involved in the business world is a weasel. Weasels are goldbrickers who want to reap the maximum reward, or at least stay employed, while putting forth minimum effort. They’ll do anything to weasel out of responsibility. If a weasel has to lie, misdirect, or cast blame onto others to meet this goal, he will.

That's where the concept of weasonable doubt comes in. If a coworker (or boss or stockholder) accuses a weasel of dropping the ball on a project, the weasel will cast doubt upon the other party’s competence rather than his own. The weasel will say something like, "I sent you the info. Didn't you get it?" or "I must have forgotten to remind you of the deadline" -- implying that it's someone else who goofed, not the weasel. (See also “passing the buck.”)

One of my favorite segments so far is one in which Adams points out that in large companies, employees are not viewed as people, but as headcount, and headcount exists for the primary purpose of supporting the quality of managers’ furniture. That is to say, the greater the headcount in a manager’s department, the nicer the furniture he will have. This is encouraging news for work-dodging weasels because it means it’s in the manager’s best interest to keep them on staff so he can maintain his furniture quality. It doesn’t matter whether the weasels are productive or not, as long as they stick around to justify the manager’s purchase of a nice chair.

Adams also points out the fallacy of management advice books -- like the ones Way of the Weasel parodies. If management books were actually any good, he reasons, everyone who read one would become a great manager, and we’d have no need for such books any more. The fact that businesspeople keep publishing and buying more of them actually proves their uselessness. This kind of thinking makes my brain hurt, but being a bit of a weasel myself, I’ll just ignore it and move on.

This audiobook is very funny. Part of the humor comes from recognizing one’s own workplace in the corporate victims Adams skewers; anyone who’s ever worked for, with or near another human being will find something to identify with. And part of the amusement comes from the stilted delivery of the author himself as he reads the book on tape. He has a tendency to swallow the ends of his words and take awkward pauses (something I think the recording engineer could have remedied), almost as if he was trying to weasel out of the job of reading. Adams is a better cartoonist than vocal actor, but I won’t hold that against him when he’s making my commute enjoyable.

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06/02/03’s illustrious band:

The Key to Happiness

This month's reading from the Book of Spam:

Spam was not always the easy-opening convenience food we know and love today. Oh no. Originally, you had to open it with a key that was attached to the top of the can, winding the metal around the key. However, during the metal rationing of WWII, Hormel stopped making the keys and asked people to save the ones they had. This allowed for some unique promotional opportunities, like when Hormel sales teams gave prizes to anyone they found with a used key.

In 1967, the RingSide side-opening (side-splitting?) can provided a short-lived solution. Unfortunately, this can cost more and would sometimes open on its own during shipping, making it even more problematic than the original model. Can you imagine receiving a shipment of spontaneously erupting Spam on a nice, warm July day?

The permanent solution arrived in 1989 with the advent of the top pull tab. The pull tab was perfected, and ultimately made gold colored, in 1998. And that's the Spam we know and love today.

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