Phone cam round up: Halloweenie edition

Aw quit hollerin' at me ya mean ol' tree troll.

Dude, you lost your head.

Mighty neighborly of ya.

Ghostly!

Buggy feetsies on the road.

A good place to set your beer.

Is it a trick or is it a treat? Dunno.

Joy right backatcha.

Park to shop vs. the dreaded drive-by shopping excursion.

Piano on the road.

The fabled Pizza Tree caught on tape.

Scary but true.

Shrooms R us.

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The United States of Insanity

1. We've got Midland School District Vice President Clint McCance publicly announcing that he enjoys "the fact that [gays] often give each other AIDS and die."

2. We've got a candidate for the United States Senate refusing to talk to the "lamestream media"because "it's not to promote me."

3. And lastly, there's the charming 53-year-old male Rand Paul campaign coordinator who stomped on a 23-year-old woman's head and is demanding an apology from her.

Of course this list could go on, but I can't stomach any more.

Is this really my America?

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The giant pork

Your giant porks go on sale every few weeks for $1.99 a pound (although I've seen them as low as $1.77). Either way, a seven-and-a-half-pounder will run you 15 bucks.

What do you do with it? Here's some general recession-style what's-for-dinner (and I daresay dessert) advice from a "Rainy Day Woman" column I wrote last year:

Cut half of it into chops for the freezer and put the other half in the oven for 10 hours. Pour a bottle of BBQ sauce over it and PRESTO! - you're eating pulled-pork sandwiches for the next two weeks.

Or you could make with the refrigerator round-up: Dump everything you've got in there into a pot. Add a can of navy beans or creamed corn or diced tomatoes (or all three). Cook it until it's an unrecognizable monochromatic pail of slop, add a few shakes of salt for good measure (or habanera sauce if it's really iffy - no one will taste anything if it's hot enough), ladle it into bowls, dole out a few slices of Wonder topped with Blue Bonnet and there you go.

For your evening entertainment, you do not need a Wii or a 50-inch flat-panel television. Go screw instead. You've already got everything you need on board. Plus, it burns calories and it'll put you in a good mood.

Revisiting that makes me believe that good ol' wholesome American ingenuity never goes out of style.

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This shirt'll be great to drive in

The whites are whiter. The blacks are blacker.



Lucky, lucky Fran.



But what did they do in between the wash and the rinse cycle, baby?

Guilty pleasures vol. four: Suze Orman

I love Suze Orman.

I am hypnotized by her white teeth and eyeballs. I'm dazzled by her orange John Boehner tan.

Have you seen the outfits this chick wears? Those shiny leather jackets. The yellows and oranges and purples. And dig the coordinated jewelry--two perfect gold drops at the ears and another at her throat. I can never figure that sort of shit out.

I totally love it when Suze calls people "girlfriend" or "boyfriend" --the way she grins and leans forward a little bit, like she's flirting, even though she hardly has any time on account of having to fit all the segments into her show. And that she flirts with everyone--chicks AND dudes--even though she's gay? I love that.

I love it when Suze talks directly to me via the camera, even though I'm not the poor schmuck who is a zillion dollars in debt, unemployed, and wants to take a $10,000 Paris vacation.

"You are DEE-NIED!"



I secretly want to be on the "How Am I Doing Segment," just so I could hear Suze give me a financial "A" and tell me I'm really fucking great. (Of course, I'd never actually go on for fear that she'd really give me a C+ or worse.)

Once Suze said this to a caller, "Get down and dirty with me, girlfriend!" with this sort of naughty look on her face and I thought that was great. Once she called a caller named Julie "Jules." Once she called a caller named Brittney "Brit."

I wonder if she'd call me "Er." I would so love that.

"Come on, Er, what do you want to buy?"

When Suze Orman talks about serious financial matters like Roth IRA's, my eyes glaze over and I stare at her hair. Her hair has so much hairspray on it, it looks like a helmet.

Shit. I need some hairspray like that.

On that "Can I Afford It" segment, I love it when Suze says, "show me the money, boyfriend!"

Suze Orman is from Illinois, but for some reason, I suspect she's part Canadian. I love that.

I love Suze Orman.

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Miscellany

Sometimes I enjoy affecting a loud Foghorn Leghorn accent and saying things like, "Why, my Daddy pulled me from the banks of the Cuyahoga River in the year of our lord, 1965."

I'm cool like that.

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Cleveland Scene's 2010 "Best Of"

Your Humble Hostess authored a number of the Staff Pick entries in this year's Cleveland Scene "Best of" issue. Here's a rundown of those contributions:

-Best Forgotten Relic: the Hulett Ore Unloaders



After an astute commenter brought their resting place to my attention in this post, I went to visit the Hulett's. To see a bevy of pics of the mothballed ore unloaders and surrounding Cleveland's Whiskey Island, hop over here. Opt to "view all sizes" for super resolutions. I think you'll agree that this tiny bit of land is haunted, severely underutilized and strangely beautiful.

-Best Rooftop Cocktailing

-Best Kept Secret: Backstage tours at Playhouse Square

-Best Boozeless New Year's Eve Celebration: First Night Akron

-Best Public Skate Park: Lakewood

-Best Urban Gym: Titans

-Best Frozen Festival: Medina Ice Festival

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Money, money money

"The United States racked up a $1.29 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2010, the federal government said Friday.

While that is historically high, it's not as high as the $1.42 trillion registered for 2009, which was the largest on record as a percentage of the economy since 1945. In real dollar terms, the 2009 gap was the largest ever."---CNN Money.

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The oracle of beer and wine

Sometimes I drink Labatt Blue Light beer.

Eighteen cans of Labatt Blue Light beer cost $13 or $14 at the discount grocery. As evidenced by the accompanying photo (which, in the publishing industry, we call "art"), I purchased some the other day.

Since it is not yet cold enough to store the Labatt Blue Light beer in the garage (which, in Cleveland is a law during the months of November through March--give or take a few weeks either way), I was unloading some of the 18-pack into the refrigerator.

The proceedings were going along well enough until I pulled out one can that was not only distressed, but empty despite having the pop tab intact (furthest can to the left, click image to enlarge).


Outrage welled.


I could either take the Labatt Blue Light 18-pack back to the discount grocery and raise hell, or write the brewer/distributor. As quickly as it had arisen, however, my fury subsided. Frankly, the thought of a kerfuffle over a 75¢ can of beer exhausted me. The cardboard case showed no signs of leakage (I was a bit worried about the interior of the Mini Cooper). Clearly, the can had burst days ago, if not at some point during packaging. Damage was largely contained, save the wasted 12 ounces of Labatt Blue Light beer. Swallowing this defeat whole, I moved on.

Then yesterday at the high-end grocery, this:

The debacle was courtesy of a sharp turn and my backpack-style purse. The employee who first discovered me standing sheepishly over a pool of wine adjacent to the deli counter offered a polite tight-lipped smile and said, "These things happen," in a way that indicated she wished said things did not happen. The guy with the mop bucket said nothing, just stepped through his bovine-like motions like he'd done a thousand times before.

Being the impetus for "clean up in the deli aisle" (admittedly imagined as such communications are no longer public, but have given way to discrete private intercom systems) is not exactly who I want to be, but once you're there, you're there.

At the checkout, my lame offers of payment for the broken bottle of wine to the clerk were rapidly declined. She did ask me if I wanted to "lick it up off the floor." I didn't say anything, just trudged off with my purchases.

I normally try to keep my karma freshly shampooed, but could anyone blame me for being concerned about all this? Is it some sort of sign?

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Further Reading

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Project

Last pix from summer--Updated*

*Explore this set of photos in high resolution here.

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President McCain

From The Man Who Never Was by Todd Purdum for Vanity Fair:

It’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the first two years of a McCain-Palin partnership in the White House might have produced. There would probably have been no stimulus bill, and the country’s economic condition would be no better (and probably worse). General Motors and Chrysler would have been allowed to go bankrupt rather than helped to emerge into a state of healthiness, as they may well be doing. There would have been no significant new regulation of the financial industry. The Bush tax cuts for those Americans with the highest incomes—something McCain had opposed before reversing himself—would have been extended. There would have been only modest health-insurance reform, at best—McCain’s proposals were Republican boilerplate and meant for use in the campaign, never a serious program. Perhaps there would have been greater progress on immigration, though McCain had already abandoned that issue, and it’s easier to imagine his taking the more nativist stance he has since adopted. There would be no Supreme Court justices Kagan and Sotomayor, but there would likely be two more conservative justices, and the days of Roe v. Wade would be numbered. There would be no troop drawdown in Iraq. The United States might well have bombed or blockaded Iran in response to that country’s flawed election last year, or in response to its nuclear program. There would have been serial feuds between aides to the president and vice president, but the fact that Vice President Palin had an independent power base, far larger and more enthusiastic than McCain’s own, would have limited what President McCain could do about it. The “Ground Zero mosque” dispute would probably have arisen anyway, and McCain might have been hard put to do anything but side with the opponents. The Palin-family soap opera would now be daily fodder for the national press rather than mainly the tabloids.

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Mini post--UPDATED*

* for those who may have had trouble with one of the (ahem) links earlier today, your humble hostess has hopefully corrected the problem.

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Hello.

I am at the Mini Cooper dealership waiting for my Mini Cooper to get serviced. They have free wifi, hence this post. Please lower your expectations and enjoy.

-The new Mini Coopers think they are cooler than my '03 Mini Cooper, but they are wrong.

-This YouTube was sent to me by an Owner's Manual visitor. I will allow him to reveal himself if he so chooses.



I love the martini that shows up at he beginning of "Round Two"

-Here's a dirty picture just for philbilly.

-You want to blow all your gas out after that dirty pic? Dig the sort of thing I write for money.

-The Mini Cooper service guy thinks I'm wearing purple underwear. I am not. (It's a long story.)

-I love this guy: I am writing you today.

-Oh man peeps, I am having fun live-tweeting this stay at the Mini Cooper dealership! Hope some of you are following me.

-I call the color of my Mini Cooper "Dr. Pepper." They don't have it any more (no, my Mini Cooper is not one of those pictured. Those Mini Coopers are still waiting.)

-I love my Mini Cooper.

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Candy ass vol. one: automatic transmissions*

Your automatic transmission is candy ass.

How can you stand driving around like that knowing some cheese-head engineer decided what gear you should be in? What do you do if you need extra power on the highway to pass some cheese head in their automatic transmission Ford Focus as they putter along doing 73 in the left lane? What do you do in the snow?

Yes, I know manual transmissions aren't available on most models. No, I don't care.

My first VW Bug was a manual (purchased for $200 from the proceeds from the sale of my Pacer moped, which I purchased with baby sitting money and which was COOL AS ALL HELL and which I NEVER SHOULD HAVE SOLD). That first Bug (pictured circa 1981) ran for two weeks before throwing a rod and dying an indignant death that was not necessarily unwelcome (the heater was stuck on high and blew its blistering acrid air over some animal carcass that was hidden in the works, hence the car was not only sweat-popping hot, it stunk like hell). My second VW Bug was a manual, both Hondas were manual (the CRX and the Prelude--both SI models) and the Mini Cooper is (of course) a manual. (No, my Mini is not a Cooper S, and no, I don't need to hear any shit about that.)

"Three on the tree."

You don't get too many guys saying that anymore. I love that three-on-the-tree shit.

Me to my kid: "Kid, do not date anyone who doesn't know how to drive a stick shift. They're probably a candy ass."

How many people out there know what a goddamn double clutch is? You had to double clutch Dad's Willys. Try that shit while you're smoking and drinking a beer. One time the steering wheel came off in my hands while I was driving 40 MPH down Clifton Boulevard, which some might consider a safety hazard considering there were no doors or roof. Seat belts? Very funny.

"Dad," I said to him when I got home, "the steering wheel on the Jeep is a little loose."

"Yeah," he said indifferently, "I know."

Dad was like that. Dad was not candy ass. Dad was not candy ass even when he was driving the baby blue Pinto ('73?) or the Olds Vista Cruiser ('76?), both of which were candy ass (if Dad were here, he'd have said so himself [sometimes I think I use too many parentheticals]).

Dad was one of your original Beer Guys, the contingent of which is pretty much the antithesis of candy ass.

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* I was going to do a simple list of candy ass items, but decided each entry requires its own post, complete with pontification from your humble hostess, so you can look forward to more of these beauties in the future.

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