now conceals, now discloses

That flag billboard has a rodent on it, said my wife as we drove west on I-40. The rest of us in the car weren't looking the same way and didn't see it. Perhaps it was a patriotic message from Brown Squirrel Furniture, I suggested. The billboard is west of Cedar Bluff Road but east of Brown Squirrel's location. No, it didn't have a bushy tail, she said.

On our next trip past it, I too saw the rodent shape. It almost could have been a hidden Ratatouille, similar to the hidden Mickey Mouse images around the Disney theme parks. Upon closer inspection, it's merely a shadow on the billowing flag to give the photograph some depth, not a political commentary from Lamar Advertising. Happy Independence Day!

feet in the air like you just don't care

Back in the olden days, we would look in the newspaper to see what movies were playing at our local theaters. Yesterday my son and I watched Roeper & Phillips (or whatever it's called) and then wanted to check the opening dates for some upcoming movies like "Get Smart." Nowadays, we go to the Internet for movie times and locations.

I already had a million tabs open on my laptop and was in the middle of researching yesterday's blog entry. Since my TiVo is also connected to the Internet, it was easy to use it instead. On the list of movies opening this weekend was one we've heard nothing about. It's called "Miss Conception" starring Heather Graham. From the trailer, you can tell that it's a biological clock comedy and that it won't win any awards. Not even for Heather's fake British accent. My son and I laughed when we saw that TiVo had it listed as a "horror" film. Maybe they've already seen it.

the darndest thing

Art Linkletter is alive and kicking, as far as I know. Although I had my doubts yesterday when I saw an online obituary for the very talented Harvey Korman. Some fool put Linkletter's photo alongside Korman's obit.



eFluxMedia has been turning up a lot lately in the Google News headlines that I scan. Dumb mistakes like this will keep me from clicking on their links in the future.

feng shui

This meeting of the Waffle House Board of Directors is called to order. Any new ideas?

We could serve fried chicken with every waffle!

I have no idea what you're talking about.

We should buy the empty lot next to our restaurant on Papermill Drive.

Yeah, we could use it as parking for eighteen wheelers.

No, let's keep thinking. What would Marshal Andy do?

Maybe we could enlarge our restaurant to serve twice as many customers.

No, I want to hear some more ideas.

Let's build a brand new Waffle House, exactly the same size as the old one.

Okay, but why?

Because the new one will be rotated 90° to the right!

You know that sounds crazy, don't you?

Not if our business plan is to get more northern exposure.

solid, liquid or gas?

Obviously the sign is supposed to say "Clean Smart." And it does. Yet every time I go past the new Middlebrook Station strip mall, I see something else. The letter M looks like an H to me. They must specialize in stain removal. From pants.

where to stick it

Campaign buttons used to be free. When I was a kid, I would occasionally stop by the local Republican and Democratic headquarters to pick up a few pins for my collection. My interest waned as I grew older and came to realize that I would never have a complete set. The buttons I did collect are in a big jar at my mother's house. If I had stuck with it, I might be like Ken Gustafson of Yakima or Graylen Becker of Rochester whose collections got them in their local newspapers. Or like Jordan Wright, who wrote a book about his political memorabilia.

I saw two things at Weigel's that surprised me this morning. One, that campaign buttons and bumper stickers were available for $1.99 each. That's at least $2 more than they're worth. And two, that some candidates who had dropped out were still represented. If I were so inclined, I could have bought a Giuliani or Edwards button or a Huckabee sticker. To prove that these pictures aren't from January, I posed hostage-style with today's News Sentinel.

sardines

There are a few random thoughts still in my notebook from Walt Disney World. I'll unload them here.

I noticed a lot of areas around the theme parks set aside for the Disney Vacation Club time share pitch. At each place, a lonely cast member stood by with brochures while a video screen played an infomercial. I'm thankful that they hadn't moved the sales presentations into the ride queues where they would alienate a captive audience. I'll bet that somebody suggested it in a meeting though.

While trying to find an easier way to get from the Magic Kingdom to Disney's Hollywood Studios, I saw a sign at the Transportation Center for buses headed to Shades of Green. Being unfamiliar with the concept, I asked a waiting lady what it meant. I was pleased to hear that it's a military hotel known as an Armed Forces Recreation Center.

The only flaw in an otherwise perfect vacation was the long wait for Disney Transport. One of the other people at our convention thought that higher gas prices may have forced Disney to cut back on the frequency of the buses that take guests from the hotel to the theme parks and back. While we waited for a bus to Epcot, we saw at least three buses going to the Magic Kingdom. The next day when we were going to the Magic Kingdom, we saw at least three buses going to Epcot. Each time we waited over half an hour for our bus. Once we got one, it was packed full of passengers.

couldn't make this stuff up

This is an actual record album that I saw today. It's called "Spring City Baptist Favorites" by Guy Tester. His name is Guy Tester!



From the liner notes:

Guy Tester is one of Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee's most dedicated Christian men in the field of music today.

Guy has been used by scores of ministers and many funeral homes during the past years to bring comfort and blessings to thousands of broken hearted people and sorrowing families. One of the outstanding things about Guy Tester's singing is the fact that God's Hand is on him and his ministry in music through these years. We feel this is all because Guy never sought to become professional in the field of music, but was careful to remain among God's people where the Spirit of God is continually on him and his singing.

The track list for Side B is as follows:

1. There's Nothing Like A Friend
2. Ship Ahoy
3. Your Home To Stay
4. His Hand In Mine
5. Now I Have Everything

I wonder if Guy is any relation to Tommy Tester. Hope not.

poly want a cracker?

The Apostrophe Abuse website has a never ending supply of plural words that are made possessive by the erroneous insertion of an apostrophe. I enjoyed looking at it back in October. On our recent walk through Gatlinburg, I spotted a sign for a shop called God's Corner. Given that it's in the Bible Belt, they probably meant for the sign to be possessive, not made plural by the omission of an apostrophe.



Earlier that day we went to a shop in Pigeon Forge called Country Clutter. They sold a line of Willow Tree figurines that were missing faces. I was reminded of the stained glass windows at All Saints Church, which have faceless figures to allow the observer to imagine themselves in the scene. You may recall that a columnist for the local Catholic paper didn't like the windows (or anything else). The figurines were okay but the creepy keepsake boxes looked like they belong in a columbarium.

fork a stick in it

After the 4:00 p.m. dinner show at the Dixie Stampede on Wednesday, we were ushered out of the arena past a display of stick horses from WHOA, the Woodin-stick Horses of America. I have looked at their website and cannot figure out why they insist on misspelling it "woodin" instead of wooden.



The night was still plenty young, so we headed to Gatlinburg for more sightseeing. I saw a bunch of marshmallow treats in the window at Kilwin's. They had chocolate covered marshmallows on sticks as well as chocolate covered Rice Krispies Treats on sticks. The Poofy Ropes and Poofy Pops were bargain priced but I wasn't interested in strawberry-flavored marshmallow poof.



It was only 7:15 p.m. when I took a picture of the Gatlinburg Inn. All the lights were out. Because of the prominent placement of the AARP logo on their sign, I assumed that the residents had gone to bed for the night. It turns out that they are closed until April 1. It also turns out to be the place where the song "Rocky Top" was written in only ten minutes, presumably not in the winter.

right store, wrong color

Kroger had some bananas on clearance today for 29 cents a pound. The discounted fruit filled a shopping cart in the produce section. I chose a bunch that looked fine to me, with only a few small brown spots on the otherwise yellow fingers. Why the discount? Their website gives a clue:

If you select a bunch of bananas that are perfectly yellow, eat them all as soon as possible because the ethylene gas produced by bananas causes them to ripen, then spoil, quickly.

A Louisville business journal reports that Kroger has special banana rooms infused with ethygen 2 gas to partially ripen them. Another article on the Kroger website says:

Don't be afraid to buy green bananas. The fruit will ripen quickly once you get it home and leave it uncovered at room temperature (about 70 degrees). Growers pick bananas while green and keep them cool while shipping to keep them from ripening.

That might explain why the store had a basket of "golden ripe bananas" that were completely green. Another blogger noticed the same discrepancy at Ralphs, a subsidiary of The Kroger Co.

progress report

A new McDonald's sign was delivered to the Pilot Food Mart last Monday. I went past the location again today and couldn't help but notice the newly naked pole in the sky. This could be good news. It's possible that the entire pole was stripped just to make it easier for the McDonald's sign on top to be switched. However I am now more hopeful that they also plan to replace the gas price sign with one that cannot be seen from space. A clerk inside the Pilot told me that the sign change was due to state regulations. I guess somebody else finally noticed that the sign was too big for a scenic route. I hate to say I told you so, but that's exactly what I said ten months ago.

dental floss included

The produce section at my local Kroger has a decent assortment of fruits and vegetables. To distinguish the organically grown from the regular old fruits, they have started wrapping mini crime scene tape around the more healthful choices. It's funny to me that the eco-friendly fruits are putting more plastic in the landfill than the cheaper stuff that I buy.

call Dr. Nick for a refill

After seeing a movie at the Regal Riviera the other day, we took a walk over to the Mast General Store. In hindsight, we probably could have done it the other way around and picked up a piece of classic candy to eat during the film. They had an unusual set of Pez dispensers on display featuring the King of Rock 'N Roll. It made me proud papa when my son was the first among us to deliver the descriptive pun: Elvis Pez-ley.

carved in stone

Here's a couple of leftover photos from last month's road trip. A chapel in upstate New York bore the inscription "Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people" from the Book of Isaiah. The usage must have been correct at the time but it's weird to see the word "house" preceded by "an." The current New American Bible translation of Isaiah 56:7 reads "a house."

We passed a cemetery in Connecticut that was having some repair work done to its stone gateway. I thought that the scaffolding gave new meaning to the inscription from 1 Corinthians 15:52, "The dead shall be raised."

great googly moogly

It was the Trojans vs. the Fighting Irish in the heat tonight. No, not USC vs. Notre Dame. Instead Morristown West took on Knoxville Catholic High School in the first game of the football season. As we pulled into the parking lot, I heard the radio announcers on the pregame show say that this was Week 0 of the season and that next week would be Week 1. That makes no sense to me.

The Irish returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and soon scored two more when the same player ran a handoff 75 yards and later caught a pass in the end zone. At that point I told my wife and the priest sitting next to us that the score was Zach Vann 21, Morristown West 0. Catholic's remaining points came on a blocked punt. The final score was 28 - 6. By the way, the priest was Fr. Tony Dickerson, an alumnus of Morristown West who drove up to the game from his new assignment in Chattanooga.

Several announcements were made during the game thanking Morristown Ford for supplying a postgame meal for both teams. The auto dealership also displayed a large banner wishing "Gool Luck" to the players.

what up

On any given Saturday, the roadsides and medians are full of signs pointing toward garage sales in every direction. This morning I saw a neatly hand-lettered sign along Middlebrook Pike advertising a "G-Sale." Of course we assume that the G stands for garage. What if it didn't? It might have been a garden sale, a garbage sale or a gun sale. My son suggested that it could have even been a gnome sale. If the sale were especially big, how would this family advertise a combination Garage And Yard Sale?

national pastimes

Baseball and gambling don't mix. Just ask Pete Rose. Because of him, I used to think that baseball avoided even the most remote hint of gambling similar to the way a college with a religious affiliation might refuse to accept lottery scholarship money. As we entered Miller Park today for the Mets vs. Brewers game, we were handed a "Baseball Bingo" card from the Potawatomi Casino. The 25 squares on the bingo card had the scorecard designations for various offensive and defensive plays. Fans can win prizes if their card matches enough of the plays that occur in the game. I also noticed a small Wisconsin Lottery logo painted on top of both dugouts. This reminded me of something I saw during my recent road trip. At one supermarket I saw a Missouri Lottery machine selling St. Louis Cardinals themed lottery tickets.



Baseball has gambling controversies in its past and steroid controversies in its present. Somebody might want to mention that to the Brewers. Their costumed mascot looks ordinary enough in person but not in the animated version that appears on the scoreboard. At the start of each game, a computerized Bernie Brewer slugs long balls and shows off his unnaturally buff physique. I know he's just a cartoon but he still looks like he's been getting binary injections in his digitally generated rear end. Based on the number of t-shirts I saw, Bernie is nowhere near as popular as the famous Klement's Racing Sausages.

driving Miss Dursley

The goal is to finish "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" before seeing or hearing any spoilers online or over the air. For the past few days I have limited my exposure to live media. It’s been fairly easy to do because I am traveling with my wife and son. I was supposed to read the book as soon as my son finished it. My wife would get it next. That was until she came up with a better idea while we were passing through the small town of Anna, Illinois. If we bought the audio book, we could listen to it in the car while we drove. The first store we saw that we thought would have the discs in stock was Wal-Mart. We eagerly grabbed one of the two CD sets they had on the shelf. It will take 21 hours to listen to the whole book. At least we still have a lot of driving ahead of us. I think we're on chapter 21 right now. I'm not sure because I may have dozed off as it got late tonight. This is my first experience with any of the Potter audio books, all of which have been read by actor Jim Dale.

Dale does a fine job on the narration part. For the dialogue, he takes on a slightly different voice for each of the characters, giving them fairly strong British accents. I like his Hagrid voice best because it sounds most like the actor from the movies. Of course almost anyone can do a decent Hagrid impression. Try saying the line, "You’re a wizard, Harry!" Dale's female voices take some getting used to. As minor characters and wizened old witches, he sounds good. However he makes poor Luna Lovegood sound like she is mentally challenged. Dolores Umbridge sounds like Mrs. Doubtfire. And Hermione gets the worst of it. Obviously she has more lines than any other female. Dale uses a half-whisper with an ever so slight hint of a speech impediment for her voice. There is one particular word that is the most annoying. Unfortunately for the listener, that word happens to be "Harry." The way Dale says it as Hermione, it comes out more like "Haweee!"

four course meal

The Taylor Farms bagged salad at Sam's Club is normally excellent. Our family goes through salad fast enough that I can buy two three-pound bags and a bag of the broccoli I like without any fear of it going bad before we use it. I was surprised and disappointed by the two bags of salad that I bought on Monday. As usual, I rifled through the packages looking for the ones with the most distant expiration date. I found several that expire on July 24, which was, at the time, over a week away. The label promises that the greens are "triple hydrowashed." Well, mine may have been hydrowashed but they were not "hydrodryed." The salad in both bags was soaking wet, which caused the lettuce to wilt. Being too cheap to throw it out, I ate the wilted salad after using a paper towel to soak up the excess water. For my next shopping trip, I went across the parking lot to buy a three-pound bag of Fresh Express salad at Wal-Mart. At that store the broccoli comes on the stalk instead of in a BreatheWay bag. When I got home, I cut a little bit off the end of the stalks and put them in a container of water like you would do with fresh flowers, except that I put the container in the fridge. Another time I used the same technique to revitalize some broccoli that had started to get rubbery. We slice up the stalk and add it to our salads.

Speaking of things at Sam's, I thought the original selling point of Pringles was that they wouldn't get broken in their cans. I wonder why they now put them in bags.



Can raw scallops really get cooked by sitting in lime juice? I saw Ingrid Hoffman make some ceviche on a talk show recently. I found the actual video clip of it on her website. Curious about the process she described, I looked it up. A Washington Post article explained that the acid in the lime juice has the same effect on the meat as cooking.

For dessert, I recommend a faux ice cream sandwich. It was a year ago when my daughter suggested we try making root beer floats with frozen fat free whipped topping. At the time, I found a website with the idea for placing frozen whipped topping between two graham crackers. I didn't get around to trying it until a couple of weeks ago. It was just okay until I figured out that I should use a chocolate graham cracker and that I should leave the sandwich in the freezer for a week. The graham cracker softens up and takes on the texture of a real ice cream sandwich. I grabbed a handful of Ziploc bags and made a batch to share with the family. I used one whole container of frozen fat free whipped topping and one of the three sleeves of graham crackers in the box.

big enough to drive a truck through

It seemed as if there were more stunt performers than actors listed in the credits for "Live Free or Die Hard." The exciting action scenes more than make up for the gaping plot holes but I am still left with some questions. As in many other movies, the villain turned bad when his employer wouldn't heed his warnings. In this case he told them to prepare for a cyber attack. He leaves his job and plots a crime to prove that they should have listened to him. But if they weren't paying attention to him, why did they build a multi-million dollar facility exactly to his specifications? I must have missed that explanation. The whole purpose of the building is to back up data in the event of an attack, just like the villain had predicted. Now he knows precisely how to work the system in his favor. And another thing, if all the cell phones are knocked out of service, why does OnStar still work? C'mon!

meet and treat

It was hot at the Smoky Mountain Invitational swim meet but not quite as uncomfortable as it was last year. The schedule of events showed that our son had a six hour wait between his first and second race. We could have cooled off by taking a cold shower or by paying a dollar to jump into the "free swim" area of the pool. Instead we got in the car and went to a movie in an air conditioned theatre.

We saw "Ratatouille" at the Carmike Foothills 12. All of their screens have digital projection. I am now spoiled and only want to see movies that way from now on. The movie was very good, quickly overcoming one part that I thought was a little slow. It's completely G-rated but the subject matter sailed over the head of the littlest kids in the audience. In fact, they left early. They could have been turned off by the drama of a restaurant losing a star from its five-star rating or by the legal ramifications of a character's paternity.

After the movie, it was back to the Springbrook Pool and the SMI. Like at every meet, many kids had their event and heat numbers written on their arms. At all the meets so far this year, I've noticed a lot of swimmers, mostly girls, with the phrase "eat my bubbles" written on their backs. I'm still waiting for somebody to change it to "breathe my bubbles." Doesn't that make more sense? Several swimmers had their team names written on their bodies. I saw things like "Go Gators," "Go Sharks," "Go Dolphins" and so on. My favorite team name is the "Smokin' Salmon." They swim for a Jewish community center. At a swim meet last month, I noticed a sign posted by the guy who lives next to one of the neighborhood pools. Apparently his name for the local swim team is "Sprinkler Heads" as he implores: "Please, sprinkler heads, do not drive on the grass."



My son swam his last event around 6 p.m., eleven hours after we had arrived at the pool. We rewarded his performance with a trip to Brooklyn's Original Pizza in Lenoir City. Nick, the owner, remembered us from our last visit and probably from the Knoxville Yankee picnic. He also said that he just saw me on stage at the radio station's Fourth of July concert.

entendre

Seriously, what were you guys thinking?

the monkey's got a hockey stick

Fox is burning off the remaining episodes of a funny show called "The Loop" this summer. The show has not been renewed for next season, which is a shame because it provides several good laughs per episode. The network has scheduled it at odd times. Last night they ran three episodes, one each at 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30. I gave the show a Season Pass on TiVo so that I wouldn't have to worry about the weird scheduling. As it turned out, I was able to watch the 8:30 episode in real time on the plasma screen in glorious over-the-air HD. Before going to bed, I made some room on the upstairs TiVo by deleting the episode I had already watched downstairs. First, I skimmed through it to make sure it was the same show I had watched earlier. The episode on my TiVo had been recorded in SD via cable. As usual, the picture quality from my cable company wasn't very good. I noticed that our local Fox affiliate plastered huge weather warnings over the bottom third of the screen. But when I had watched the same episode in HD, the warnings were not there. On the one had, I'm glad that my HD viewing experience wasn't interrupted by a larger-than-necessary storm warning that didn't affect me directly. But on the other hand, what if the storms were headed my way? Does my local affiliate not care about HD viewers? Or are there so few of us that it doesn't matter?

malem me pakeno

It was impossible not to notice the inflatable King Kong in the parking lot of All Occasion Party Rentals. Upon driving closer, it became clear that Kong had an inflatable dinosaur friend.



The two of them are part of a giant slide that can be rented for various events. Renting is a better option than buying. I found a Kongo Crazy slide for sale on the Internet for $14,195. The Kong and T-Rex slide amused me. Another clever slide is the giant Kraken for $18,395. One slide that tests the theory of tragedy plus time is an inflatable representation of a sinking Titanic. After all, it's been 95 years.

out of my element

The East Tennessee Corvette Club asked me to be the "celebrity" judge at their car show, which was held this afternoon at Reeder Chevrolet. The annual event is a benefit for The Angel Tree. I know nothing about Corvettes. Fortunately, all I had to do was pick out the one I liked best while the real judges ran through a complicated checklist on their clipboards. The older cars impressed me more than the newer ones because it must be harder to restore and maintain the antiques.



Some of the newer Corvettes had unusual additions. One had star spangled engine parts. Another had a picture of the Sorcerer's Apprentice under the hood but with the car owner's face replacing Mickey Mouse's. Perhaps the most appropriate accessory was the vanity plate that read "ADUL TOY."

doodle doo

Every so often the name Donald Poteat turns up in the list of search terms that brought people to my blog. I usually don't recognize the name and have to look it up again myself. Poteat turns out to be a "nationally recognized cockfighting enthusiast." I thought of his name on my own today when I pulled up behind a van with a bumper sticker that read: "I Survived the Cocke County Rooster Raid." With his new found free time, the driver could take up a new hobby. Perhaps he would enjoy fishing and reading Crappie World magazine.

long live the queen

Queen Elizabeth is on vacation in the States. On Thursday and Friday she visited the former sovereign colony of Virginia. She landed in Richmond where she spoke to the General Assembly and then rode to