Chad the Elder apparently is on assignment in Russia. His post about flying into Chelyabinsk reminded me of some favorite passages about Russia from P.J. O’Rourke’s book, Eat the Rich:

In the old days, the soda pop tasted like soap, the soap lathered like toilet paper, the toilet paper could be used to sand furniture, the furniture was as comfortable as a pile of canned goods, the canned goods had the flavor of a Solzhenitsyn novel, and a Solzhenitsyn novel got you arrested if you owned one. Now the Russians have discovered brand names…

My six-hour flight to Siberia took two days. Airline employees circulated with walkie-talkies. Not satisfied with individual screw-ups, they apparently wanted to coordinate them.

“Everything’s unready to go in the cockpit.”
“Roger that. We’ve got the baggage lost.”
“Seat selection’s a mess.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Catering’s not f*****d up yet.”

Granted, O’Rourke may not turn a comedic phrase as deftly as Vlad Putin, but I’ve always kind of liked him. I hope conditions have improved since that was written.

Good luck, Chad.

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The Llama Butchers have the scoop of the day.

Apparently, it wasn’t Al-Zarqawi who got taken out as reported earlier and established by the photo below.

No, it was really Luciano Pavarroti, all due to a slight misunderstanding regarding the Global War on Tenors.

Reload.

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The best-selling new book “Game of Shadows” has brought to light the startling facts that many have whispered about for years: the Easter Bunny has been abusing steroids. Accustomed to going about his business in the dark, Bunny has been exposed as an insecure cheater who was jealous of the other mythical characters.

The book describes Bunny as saying he was tired of the attention that “bigger” holiday icons such as Santa Claus and the Great Pumpkin received and resorted to steroids in an effort not only to compete but to surpass his counterparts. “Really, look at those Thanksgiving Day turkeys; you mean to tell me that that’s all natural?” Bunny reportedly says in the book, trying to justify his actions.

Whispers about Bunny’s increasing size have existed for years though few will admit readily to seeing him. “Well, it was very difficult to bring it up,” says Puxatawny Phil, the famous groundhog and close friend of Bunny. “You know he was always this sleek, kind of cute guy with big eyes but over the last few years … he just kept getting bigger, you know? His head, it was huge and those paws and those feet! It did seem like his eggs were getting smaller, though, and those mood swings; I just decided I wasn’t going to say anything about it.”

Prompted by the media-storm created by the book, the Holiday Commission has announced its own investigation.

(The actual story related to this picture can be found here. HT: The Wide Awake Cafe)

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Oenophile Doug at Bogus Gold laments the absurdity of certain winemakers trying to market “manly” Merlots. I’m sure Doug was well below the legal drinking age in 1972 when Monty Python released the definitive description of macho vintages, but you’d think the wine industry would know its own history. As with Perth Pink, the message is, “Beware.”

Australian Table Wines
A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Australian table wines. This is a pity as many fine Australian wines appeal not only to the Australian palate but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain.

Black Stump Bordeaux is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy, whilst a good Sydney Syrup can rank with any of the world’s best sugary wines.

Château Blue, too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and its lingering afterburn.

Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles of this and you’re really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is ‘beware’. This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Another good fighting wine is Melbourne Old-and-Yellow, which is particularly heavy and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.

Quite the reverse is true of Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

Real emetic fans will also go for a Hobart Muddy, and a prize winning Cuivre Reserve Château Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga, which has a bouquet like an aborigine’s armpit.

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Sometimes humility hits you right between the eyes.

Yesterday I went up into our garage attic to get a few small things I needed. I get into the attic by pulling down a panel in the ceiling to reveal a segmented ladder/stairs, the bottom third of which pivots so as to reach the garage floor. After retrieving my items I descended again with these carefully balanced in my left hand.

Refolding the ladder and closing the attic is usually a two-handed operation, but I did’t want to set anything down so I used my right hand to refold the bottom section, then shifted my grip to the bottom of the panel so I could hoist it back in place. In so doing, however, the lower section of the ladder began to swing out and down again. That was not what I wanted to see, but I quickly repositioned my right hand so that it grasped one of the steps in the ladder.

Unfortunately, in my haste, I grabbed one of the fixed steps in the ladder, leaving the hinged section to continue its downward arc, which I witnessed up close and personal-like as the lowest step gracefully impacted my forehead, smack between my eyebrows — which for the next few days at least will look like one long eyebrow.

Sweet magic 8-ball, I should have known that would happen. I seem to have escaped serious damage (there’s a reason why the forehead bone is the thickest one in your skull) but my brain hurt the rest of the day. Serves it right for falling down on the job.

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Via The Llama Butchers, by way of CalTech Girl, who got it from LadyGunn, who may have found it laying in a manger:

How Many Christians Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

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Charismatic: Only 1 – Hands are already in the air.

Pentecostal: 10 – One to change the bulb, and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness.

Presbyterians: None – Lights will go on and off at predestined times.

Roman Catholic: None – Candles only. (Of guaranteed origin of course.)

Baptists: At least 15 – One to change the light bulb, and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad and fried chicken.

Episcopalians: 3 – One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks, and one to talk about how much better the old one was.

Mormons: 5 – One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.

Unitarians: We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, you are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, 3-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

Methodists: Undetermined – Whether your light is bright, dull, or completely out, you are loved. You can be a light bulb, turnip bulb, or tulip bulb. Bring a bulb of your choice to the Sunday lighting service and a covered dish to pass.

Nazarene: 6 – One woman to replace the bulb while five men review churchlighting policy.

Lutherans: None – Lutherans don’t believe in change.

Amish: What’s a light bulb?

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Go to CalTech Girl to see her own Orthodox addition to the list and an entry from a commenter describing the experience for Non-denominational Evangelicals.

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… and I’ll bet the EckerNet didn’t even know it had an airline!

Go here for Pilots Packing Heat.

HT: Portia Rediscovered.

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Any day now a 45-pound bale of a green, grassy substance known to produce a sense of euphoria and a case of the munchies will show up at my doorstep. People in brown or blue uniforms will have been paid off. No, my connection isn’t named Raoul (as far as I know) and the transaction won’t involve a shoebox full of five and ten dollar bills. It’s all been handled online and funds transferred via PayPal.

And it’s all because my wife likes sticking it to “The Man.”

The bale in question consists of timothy hay, and we’re getting it because our guinea pig has a hay habit that makes Cheech and Chong look like a Red Hat Society bridge club. My frugal wife, the Reverend Mother, is also known as the Finance Minister and is our chief procurement agent (that’s because one of my titles is Minister of Fritter and Waste). It bugged her to make repeated trips to PetSmart or Petco to buy, well, grass. Especially when she figured out it was costing about $2.50 a pound. OK, that’s not much I suppose as pet fodder goes, but it just seemed to her that there couldn’t be that much value added to preparing it for resale.

Sure enough, a little poking around on-line and she had a source ready to cut, bale and deliver for just under a buck a pound. You really can get just about anything on the Internet!

Now it’s just left to me to imagine the neighbor’s reaction when they see this green bale left on our doorstep, or what her new friends on the city police force might say.

Do you think they’ll believe us if we say it’s for personal use?

Update:

I received a telephone call from a mysterious reader to this blog Sunday night. The caller said, “Hey, man, I’ve got the stuff.”

My response: “Dave’s not here.”

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