Yearly Archives: 2010

People with allergies are freaks.

Posted on by Standard 36

People with allergies are freaks.  We’re geeks.  We’re undesirable.  We’re the weak, and we should have been weeded out with natural selection.  The weirder the allergy, the weirder the person.

At least, that’s what I pick up from watching TV.  The nerdy kid always has glasses and/or asthma.  I guess at least I don’t wear glasses like some of you real freaks out there.

The latest support to this line of thinking that has come to my attention is this lovely commercial:

Of course, I see the humor, and I’m not so offended that it’s ruining my day.  It’s just that the general perception of people with allergies kind of sucks.

If the guy had rolled through the door in a wheelchair, or walked in with crutches, missing a limb, blind, deaf,  or anything similar causing the date to be undesirable, it wouldn’t be acceptable at all.  You could even throw in other stereotypes like a different race or religion.  Both would be unacceptable.  I bet even if they threw in a guy that was 500 lbs. and turned it into a fat joke it would be considered tasteless… but making fun of a shellfish allergy is apparently acceptable.

They could have done this same joke and just had the guy dressed ridiculously or something… something that’s a choice, not an affliction.

If you’d like to pull apart the commercial for other reasons, check out this blog:  Who Are The Ad Wizards Who Came Up With THAT One? Zoosk alors.

There’s a radio commercial I’ve heard recently too, maybe for a phone or something… the line is “Bob is still allergic to shellfish.”  I wish I could remember what it’s for.  At any rate, it’s not offensive… it just puts the thought out there.

At least the peanut-allergic and gluten-free people have been getting a lot of good press lately.  How about passing it along to the rest of us?

All of this happens on the heels of articles popping up about kids with food allergies being bullied at school.  I wonder why?

I’m hoping that my #FoodAllergy Tweeps will hop all over this and help me let Zoosk know en masse that this isn’t cool.  Maybe they need to read this & watch this.

As always, your comments are not only welcome, but encouraged.

Calvin and Hobbes / Star Wars | by Jason Chalker [via Distracted By Star Wars]

Posted on by Standard 1

Calvin and Hobbes / Star Wars | Mash-up

Calvin & Hobbes – Star Wars // by Jason Chalker | Distracted By Star Wars.

This is beyond awesome.

STAR WARS MOVIE NIGHTS

Posted on by Standard 6

This is just a re-post/update of the STAR WARS movie nights we’ve been having at our place.  If anyone’s interested and they haven’t been to one, let me know!  We’ll be moving out of the movies proper into the crazy stuff soon.  We do snacks, food, pop, beer, and just chill while watching the movies and cracking the occasional joke or spitting the occasional trivia.

I have the movies in bold, need to get my hands on the rest…

Then we have Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Complete Season One & Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Complete Season Two that can each be divided out over a few nights.

Confused with all this Clone Wars crap?  Well… we have 3 sort-of distinct entities…

  1. Star Wars: Clone Wars – the animated (like old-school cartoons) microseries split into 2 volumes, taking place after Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and before…
  2. Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The animated (CGI) movie taking place between the events before…
  3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The animated (CGI) TV series where apparently coming up with a new name was too difficult.  These events take place after the Clone Wars CGI movie and before Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.  Currently there’s 2 seasons.

I’m not sure if I have the time-line right there.  Wookiepedia is misleading.

Believe it or not, there are still other gems we can get our hands on… Including the Spaceballs animated series, Lego Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2, and certainly I can try to find more Ewoks/Droids cartoons including The Great Heep.  Then there are fan-films… like Troops, Pitching Lucas, Hardware Wars, Thumb Wars, etc.  If I can find somewhere to download ‘em.  There are a ridiculous amount of parodies, mockumentaries, documentaries, & fan fiction out there.

Related-by-stretching, we could watch TXH-1138 (Lucas’ 1st film based on his earlier short film, Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, & referenced multiple times in Star Wars movies), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill are both in it and it has a bunch of SW references), the Indiana Jones movies (a bunch of SW references there too!), the new Star Trek (R2-D2 is among the wreckage in an on-screen explosion), Willow (starring Warwick Davis who plays Wicket the Ewok and several roles in The Phantom Menace – and it’s another Lucasfilm movie), or I’m sure a bunch of other movies.

Chime in with your thoughts/opinions in the comments section below…

Utitti!

Families & Allergy Comprehension Problems…

Posted on by Standard 1

Got an interesting email today from Allergic Living Magazine, calling for submissions of stories for people with families who just don’t comprehend the severity of some food allergies, down to simple stubborn refusal to cater to the needs of food-allergic relatives.

From: Allergic Living magazine <Allergic_Living_magazine@mail.vresp.com>
To: [me]
Sent: Fri, September 24, 2010 8:33:04 AM
Subject: Allergies and family feuds

When Family Doesn’t “Get” Food Allergies

Dear Allergic Living reader,

Do you dread visiting your parents because they don’t take the allergy precautions you or your child require? Maybe you have a sister who knows you have a shellfish allergy but insists on serving shrimp? Perhaps your mother-in-law refuses to stop putting out bowls of nuts, even though her grandchild is allergic?

Or have you finally figured out a way to get through to a close relative, and now it’s all smooth sailing?

Allergic Living magazine is researching a feature article for its coming Winter issue on dealing with relatives who fail to grasp the seriousness of allergies or celiac disease. Writer Carolyn Black will be speaking to experts about solutions to help open the lines of communication.

But first, she wants to hear the stories of people’s experiences with family. We commonly hear of allergy feuding, but we want to try to understand why it occurs. If you have such a story, please e-mail Carolyn directly with a brief summary of it at mcarolynblack@rogers.com. If she can use your story, Carolyn will contact you.

Since this can be a delicate subject, Allergic Living can protect people’s identities where necessary. Thanks in advance for helping us with an important article.

Regards,

The Editors at Allergic Living

I’ll have to think about my own stories.  I generally don’t expect family picnics to be shellfish free, but I’m very picky about what I eat at any informal  (or formal) gathering.  For my own internal mental issues, I have to be able to visually identify all the ingredients before I put it on my plate.  I also generally use the wife as my official taste-tester.  Do those mini wraps contain crab?  Does that salad have shrimp? Ha ha.

I’m interested to see the follow-up to this, as dealing with people in general in regards to a severe allergy is difficult enough.  I can’t imagine not having familial support.

I have run into people thought that insist you just need to “eat it a little bit at a time”, suffer the reactions, and “build a tolerance”.  While this may work for some less severe reactions… it’s certainly not advisable in all cases.  I’m thankful that I’m not related to these people.

Time for a game: What does this say? + Storm Damage Photos…

Posted on by Standard 8

So, the other night a ridiculous storm that lasted only a few minutes wreaked havoc all over Pittsburgh’s south hills.  With the electric out and not much else to do, the fun thing for us to do when  it’s light out & no longer raining is to go to the park with a camera.  I got some interesting shots of the storm damage as darkness fell, and we ran into a bunch of people in the park from the surrounding area, and we were all quite talkative.

(Is it odd that we have a regular “routine” for when the power goes out?)

One young man was walking his dog, and I got a few pics of the dog that he said he’d like to see.  No problem, right?  I asked him to write down his email address.

In hindsight, I have no idea why I don’t think like it’s the 2010s and just put information like this in my phone that’s always in my pocket.

Why is that an issue?  Well, this is what I got…

wmailwtf

abfdbzklxfdklgbzbkx7832sjjb34t

I’d certainly like to email the kid the photos… hopefully they have power by now too.  I just really have no idea what that says… other than “@msn.com”.  I think.

I’d appreciate any help/suggestions that you may have!

If you’re interested in taking a look at my photos, you can check them out on Photobucket:

Here’s a weird bug, a tree that just needed to sit for a minute, the dog, and a shot that isn’t storm damage, but I like it anyway:


Giant Eagle Market District | Educating Yinz Guys N’at

Posted on by Standard Reply

At the new Market District in Robinson, I laugh every time we go in the side door by the cafe & I see this sign:

PRETTY PLEASE! (with a cherry on top) USE MAIN ENTRANCE ←with a cart― NOT THE ROTATING DOOR

sign for the special sort of Yinzer...

In case you can’t read it (or see the photo), it says this:

PRETTY
PLEASE!
(with a cherry on top)
USE MAIN
ENTRANCE
←with―a―cart―
NOT THE ROTATING
DOOR

Yeah.  Apparently people need to be told things like this.  It makes me want to try to squeeze a cart through the rotating door and see if anyone reprimands me.  They certainly don’t when you have more than the accepted quantity of items in the express line.  How far will they go to keep the customer happy?

Why I’d rather be punched in the testicles than call customer service – The Oatmeal

Posted on by Standard Reply

Why I’d rather be punched in the testicles than call customer service – The Oatmeal.

Genius.

The AllergyEats Blog » Dining at Disney with food allergies – a follow-up

Posted on by Standard Reply

This is an excellent blog posting with an excellent community response, and quite encouraging: The AllergyEats Blog » Dining at Disney with food allergies – a follow-up.  (You may want to read this blog first.)

I’m going to have to plan ahead and look at the meal plans when we finally decide to go to Disney.  It’s great news that chefs will come out & prepare food in front of you, it would be entertaining as well as putting you fully at ease.

The Square Guitar | My Galveston B.B. Stone

Posted on by Standard 21

The square guitar.  People have gone out of their way to tell me how ugly it is at shows.  People have exclaimed their approval and asked where I got such a crazy instrument.  People have just shaken their heads in wonderment or disapproval, sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which.

Galveston B.B. Stone

ERiC AiXeLsyD's Galveston B.B. Stone

Many years ago now (2000 if the date on the photo below from the day I bought it is accurate), I saw it hanging on the wall in a venue where my old band used to play that also doubled as a music store.  I had to have it.  I don’t know why.  It was just absolutely goofy.  I had certainly never seen another one.  Would I again?  Probably not.  It had to be mine.  I ended up trading in a nice “Cimar by Ibanez” Fat-Strat style guitar that I had recently purchased from Music Go Round in Monroeville just to buy the thing.  I paid $75 for the Fat-Strat, and somehow got $125 off of the price of the square guitar in dealing for it.

Galveston - The day I bought it...

Girl? No, guitar! - 12/23/2000 - The Day I bought the Square guitar.

At first, I didn’t know anything about it other than it was a Galveston and it had a “Made in Korea” sticker on the back.  It took me a while to track down that it was a B.B. Stone model, and that there are only about 8 or 12 of the Galveston brand in the US.  B.B. Stone is apparently a Korean blues artist and guitar-builder, and he designed the guitar with Jerker Antoni of Sweden’s Eagle Instruments.  There are 24 pieces worldwide, the ones around the world are branded with the  groovy Eagle headstock.

I did have to replace the original pickups, as it didn’t quite have enough punch.  My friend and musical gear advisor (most likely to his dismay) Dave suggested & helped install some killer GFS pickups.  Now the sound is a little better, and it gives an aural kick in the ears to match the obvious kick in the eyes.

Dancing E.Sure, there are other square guitars… like Bo Diddley’s iconic square guitar, or the George Barris-designed Dragula by Hallmark.  This one is pretty simple though, and for better or worse, it’s become part of my rock n’ roll identity.

I have come across other owners, almost bought a black one a few years back, but didn’t have any extra cash at the time.  There are a few reviews up at Harmony Central.  I’d love to get a hold of the 23 or so other owners out there and get their thoughts on them.

Trick or Treat? How about both?

Posted on by Standard 2

When I was a kid, and I went trick-or-treating… there were always a few memorable houses; The people that weren’t home but left a bowl of chips on the porch, the guy who gave out quarters (or 50¢ if your costume was “above an beyond”), and the guy who decorated his front porch like a haunted house and scared the crap out of you every year. The best was when he dressed as a scarecrow dummy and sat ridiculously still until your finger was just barely touching the doorbell and jumped up with a terrible scream.  I nearly filled my pants with fear at that place many a year.

That was fun.  Now that I’m of the old age where I need to pass out candy instead of collecting, I’d like to be that fun too.  Sadly, it seems to me that parents would get angry these days if I scared the bejesus out of their child.

I saw this comic online and thought it would be funny to set up shop on the front porch for Halloween:

Admiral Snackbar

Admiral Snackbar

Admiral Snackbar by Scott Johnson / EXTRALIFE (Twitter) (Flickr)

I don’t think I’ve grown out of wanting to wear costumes, and this looks like a good excuse.  All I need is some paint and an Ackbar mask.  Would you be creeped out to bring your kid up to get candy if Admiral Snackbar was set up, or would it be a cool memorable Halloween adventure?