Sunday, June 26, 2005

miracle cures and panaceas

Every day Jimbo pores through the available medical literature to find a miracle cure for what ails mankind, and frequently the same panacea jumps up and says, “Eat me.”

I am, of course, talking about chocolate and I am beginning to wonder whether the secret to health and longevity is only as far away as that candy dish in the living room. I read today more good news about what helpful things chocolate can do for us, but before I discuss that, I’d like to review some of my previous revelations.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/03/sweet-dreams-of-healthy-lifestyle.html

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/12/i-want-new-drug.html

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/11/cure-for-all-ills.html

I read this morning that consumption of dark chocolate and all of those miracle “flavonoids” improves cardiovascular performance in healthy young people. Good news if you ask me. When enough research is done and all the facts come out, we can dispense with eating everything but chocolate. Dear God, it’s a miracle.

Now, I’m beginning to wonder if I leapt to an incorrect conclusion earlier this week when I blamed the M&Ms for the largesse of my abdomen instead of the obvious culprit, the salads I ate last week and early this week.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/06/mms-and-damage-done.html

I don’t know about you, but rather than wait for all of the data to come in years from now, I’m going to head downstairs to the living room and that bowl of M&Ms and ask them to forgive me for all those bad things I said about them. Then I will have an intimate relationship with them, in much the same way that Homer Simpson interacts with donuts.

It’s Sunday morning in Jimbo’s world, and all is well.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

the ceremonial dance of the jumping bug

You may recall around Christmas, I rewrote O'Henry's story Gift of the Magi. Well, maybe you don't, because according to my site meter, nobody read it. I was going to rewrite A Christmas Carol, but I never got around to it. I guess that is just as well, as no one would have read it, either. I wanted to rewrite a classic forth of July story, but I'm not sure there is one. So I wrote my own, and here it is.



The Ceremonial Dance of the Jumping Bug



I remember it rained on the fourth of July the summer that I was five years old.

It wasn’t a hard or steady rain, just intermittent showers. We sat under the umbrella on the picnic table on my grandparents’ patio during the rain. Then, between showers, we ventured out from under the umbrella to set off fireworks, hustling back under the umbrella when the raindrops began falling again.

The selection of fireworks I was allowed to have was extremely limited and consisted of ladyfingers, snakes, smoke bombs and torpedoes. The snakes were small black carbon cylinders that, when ignited, began to emit a long serpentine black thing that looked like a snake, hence the name. Smoke bombs were colored spheres with a fuse protruding from them which, when lit, would billow forth colored smoke. Despite the dangerous-sounding name, torpedoes were small bags made of what looked like toilet paper and were filled with a sandy-feeling substance, and were about a quarter-inch in size. When thrown down onto the concrete patio, they would make a popping sound. They were a distant relative of the famed “cracker-ball,” which was a small, brightly colored sphere that was detonated by throwing it onto a hard surface. They became dangerous when bitten—and I guess that there were a number of small children who bit them because they looked like candy-- so they changed the name to torpedoes and made them out of unappetizing toilet paper-like material. Still, reports of kids biting them and hurting themselves filled the news. No way was I ever going to put something that looked like toilet paper in my mouth.

However, that didn’t mean that my father couldn’t warn me not to do it. I ran around throwing them on the patio, making them pop, and my father would occasionally remind me not to bite them.

Yeah, right, dad.

My grandmother baked a cake—one of those one-layer, rectangular ones—and decorated it like the flag, with red and white horizontal stripes and a blue square in the corner studded with white stars, all made of colored icing. All of our friends and relatives brought food, especially desserts, which we carried outside and ate at the table, while listening to the rain spattering on the umbrella overhead. We’d eat until the tapping on the umbrella fell silent, and then I’d carry my snakes out into the back yard and put them on a board my grandfather had put in the grass. I would ignite the snake pills by putting the glowing end of my punk to them, and crisp, black ash serpents would crawl from the smoking tablets. As the snakes slithered off the board and across the grass my aunt hollered at me:

“Be careful! Don’t burn yourself.”

And my father warned me: “Stay out of the smoke or you’ll smell like a trash-fire. Do you hear me Jay? Stay out of the smoke.”

My grandmother yelled from the house. “Is anyone watching him?”

Everyone on the patio responded in unison, “Yes, we are.”

About that time, my father walked out to where I was and began to look over my shoulder at the snakes I was lighting. We both watched until the last snake had slithered out of the smoke and I went back up to the patio to have some more cake.

I was surprised that my father allowed me to light fireworks, because even with the snakes and smoke bombs, the tamest of all fireworks, there was fire and danger. When my grandparents and aunts and uncles wandered off and I thought I was alone, I looked up to see father watching me, to make sure I didn’t do anything dangerous.

Late in the afternoon the sky began to clear and the sun came out, turning the rain that had fallen earlier into a stifling, inescapable steam. The umbrella on the table that had protected us from the rain earlier became a refuge from the heat of the sun, but the humid air pressed against us and caused all adult activity to cease. That was when I asked my father again to light my punk. The adults wouldn’t let me play with matches. I suppose they felt I couldn’t burn myself as badly or be as much of a fire hazard if I were restricted from having an open flame. My father would ignite my punk and I’d keep it hot enough to set off the fireworks by blowing on the end, making it glow red-orange, but barely noticeable in the light of the afternoon sun.

“I’m going inside for a minute,” said my father, handing me the lighted punk, “so you be careful while I’m gone. Okay?”

“Okay, dad.”

When father was inside I quickly put together several snake pills and got them all burning at the same time, sending black carbon snakes in all directions. As I watched the smoke and ashes billow forth, I overheard my aunts talking about my father.

“He sure keeps a close eye on Jay, doesn’t he?”

“I’ll say. A real mother hen.”

I put two smoke bombs in among the fire and soon I had a rainbow of multi-colored smoke that gathered around me in the absolutely breezeless air.

Throughout the day the staccato popping of firecrackers could be heard in the distance when it wasn’t raining. When the showers came, the frequency of the popping of the firecrackers diminished, as did the sound, until finally the sound of lone firecrackers exploding was almost drowned out by the patter of rain.

When evening came, however, the sound of the popping of distant firecrackers reached a crescendo. I added to it by lighting a few ladyfingers, which snapped and popped, but were nothing compared to the louder firecrackers and cherry bombs exploding around the neighborhood. I had gotten three packages of ladyfingers that my father and I had separated and put into a metal coffee can, but I hadn’t fired many of them, because they just weren’t very exciting, so a majority of them remained in the can.

As afternoon became evening I became anxious for it to get dark, so we could set off our nighttime fireworks.

“Is it dark enough, daddy?”

“No, Jay,” he answered, his hand on his forehead to shade his eyes. “We have to wait until the sun goes down.”

I asked several more times during the evening, each time adding to my father’s irritation at having to repeat his response.

It was about eight in the evening when I finally became too bored to set off another snake or smoke bomb or lady finger and I was too stuffed to eat another piece of cake, so I just sat on the patio and squinted as I watched the sunset. Even though it was low in the sky the sun still burned my face and all of the adults looked away from the sun’s light and fanned themselves.

I shaded my eyes and continued to watch, as the sun became a burning hemisphere on the roof of a large house one block to the west of my grandparents’. Then, the half circle became, very slowly, a small slice of fire; then a sliver and finally just the unseen source of a glow hidden behind the house it silhouetted against an evening sky of fire-red, yellow and orange.

“Daddy! The sun’s gone down. Let’s set off fireworks.”

“But, Jay, it’s not dark, yet.”

“But, daddy, you said…”

“We’ll wait ‘til it gets dark.”

I again sat and watched the western sky. My anticipation of the coming fireworks display was dulled by the anxiety of waiting. It was like Christmas morning between the time when you first stir yourself awake and realize it will be hours before you can go down and open presents and each succeeding time you check the clock only minutes have passed and the early morning goes on forever. That is the only example I could suggest to describe adequately the amount of time that dragged on as I watched the fire in the western sky gradually burn out and slowly go from a fiery orange to pink, to purple and then to gray. Then, as the last glowing embers of the natural fire went cold and ashen, I saw a flash, heard a whoosh, then a bang, as somewhere, a block to the west, someone set off the first man-made fire in the evening sky of the fourth of July.

“Daddy! Somebody’s setting off fireworks! Let’s do ours, too.”

The adults concurred and we began our own aerial assault on the darkening skies.

My father presided over the ceremonies. He put the night fireworks on the board in the back yard, where my snakes had crawled into existence earlier, and everyone turned their chairs to face the display as father began to light the fuses. Father stood close to the fireworks as they fired flaming balls into the sky, or they rose into the air like flying saucers made of colored flames, or they burst forth into showers of sparks and fire. There was one flying saucer that went awry and, instead of going straight up into the air, it went toward father. Everyone screamed and yelled for him to get out of the way, and at the last moment, he ducked and the fireball sailed over his head. After it passed he stood and laughed to everyone’s delight.

Of all the elaborate fireworks we had, my favorite was the least expensive—a small tube the size of a firecracker, called a jumping bug. The jumping bugs had multi-colored pin stripes that spiraled around them. I remarked that they looked like the candles on the cake on my fifth birthday. The jumping bugs were supposed to spin on the ground in a colorful fiery dance, but when my father put them on the board and lit them, they would spin off the board and into the grass where they would lie trapped, spitting sparks and flame until they burned out.

I asked my father if I could light some jumping bugs. At first he said, no, but after I whined for a while, he acquiesced. He only let me help light them, however. He would put his arm around me and his hand on mine and as the fuses began to spark, he would shout:

“Okay, it’s lit! Now get away. Run! Run!”

I remember feeling his hand on my shoulder, helping me put distance between the jumping bug and myself. I also remember my view was obstructed because he kept himself between me and the fireworks, as if telling the jumping bug that to get to me it would have to go through him first.

The fiery dance of the jumping bugs was short-lived, because they all danced to the edge of their stage and fell off, their elegant swan songs deteriorating into a spasmodic death rattle in the grass.

Someone suggested the jumping bugs needed more room and my father’s immediate solution was to change the venue to one side of the patio, where the jumping bugs would have several square yards of stage on which to perform, and dance their hearts out.

The first jumping bug my father lit on the patio hopped two feet into the air and exploded like a firecracker. Everyone acted surprised, until someone in the crowd exclaimed:

“Well, what do you expect for a penny apiece?”

The second jumping bug did a modern interpretive dance, rather than the elegant ballet we were expecting. It jumped off of its stage and charged into the audience, causing aunts, uncles and grandparents to scatter, diving out of its path. It was one of those moments of panic when my first thought should have been concern for everyone’s safety, but my first reaction was to laugh. I hadn’t seen the adults move so fast before and it struck me as funny. I continued to laugh, that is until the jumping bug skipped through gaps in that crumbling wall of humanity, made an abrupt left turn and began to hop straight toward me. I couldn’t move. I could only stand and watch as it made three measured, symmetric jumps, knowing when it came up after the third hop, it would hit me and burn into my flesh.

As I waited in terror for the impact, I realized something had happened. The jumping bug didn’t rise for a third time. I looked down at my feet and saw my coffee can full of ladyfingers had entrapped the jumping bug and its green flame was burning out in the bottom of the can. I realized my salvation was not complete when the first few ladyfingers exploded, filling the air around me with other ladyfingers in various stages of ignition.

Then I was surrounded by the flash of fire, the feel of small concussions and the smell of smoke. I began to run to get away from them, and I heard my father shout:

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

I felt one of his hands on my arm and one on my shoulder, and we were both there together in that atmosphere of sound and fire. I felt him moving me away and as quickly as it had started, it was over. The silence was comparative. Even though there were firecrackers exploding all over the neighborhood, there were none exploding within a foot of my head. It seemed quiet—almost peaceful.

My father put his hands on my shoulders, dropped to his knees, and his face was directly in front of mine.

“Are you alright? Are you okay?”

I was overwhelmed by the look of absolute panic in my father’s face. He looked completely helpless, as if he didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t seen this expression on him before. It was unexpected. All I could do was laugh. It took a moment, but one of my aunts enjoined my laughter; then it was my grandfather, and then one of my aunt’s friends. Soon, it was everyone laughing—everyone except my father, who looked around incredulously. Then he looked back into my face and I was laughing louder than before. I recognized an instant of total confusion that became, as I watched, final and complete understanding. Then, everything was as clear as the light from the brightest aerial bomb that ever illuminated the nighttime sky on the fourth of July.

And father laughed also, louder than anyone else: last and best.

Then, we finished the fireworks display.

Father lit the rest of the jumping bugs first, and when he held one in his hand and announced it was the last one, my grandmother said, “Thank God.”

The grand finale of our fireworks display was one that shot sixteen exploding fireballs into the sky.

“Well, that’s it,” said father.

We all sat on the patio and talked for a few minutes until my aunt’s friend picked up her pack of cigarettes off a table and said:

“Look what I found.”

It was one last jumping bug.

My father took it to one end of the patio and everyone else sort of backed away. He looked over at me.

“You want to light it?”

I came over and took a match from him, struck it and put the flame to the fuse of the jumping bug. When the fuse lit, I ran to the other side of the patio, but father stayed where he was, only a few feet from the firework. The jumping bug spun to life with a green and red flame and then, as father stood motionless, it made a complete circle around him, ending back where it started. Father began a funny little dance of his own and circled the jumping bug. The jumping bug ended its dance with a fiery pirouette, and father responded with an awkward pirouette of his own.

Everyone laughed at my father’s silly little dance.

I remember afterward seeing him walk toward me, across the darkened patio, sort of a dreamlike figure moving through the smoke, held close to the ground by the still, humid night air. The closer he got to me, the less shadowy and more real he seemed, until finally his hand touched my shoulder and he was completely flesh and blood again.

He pointed toward the sky and we both stood, side by side and watched someone else’s rockets bursting into flame—flashing brilliant for a moment, brighter than all the stars, then fading to black against the backdrop of the summer’s night.

Monday, June 20, 2005

the m&ms and the damage done

Jimbo’s girlfriend has a full-length mirror in her bedroom that rests in a stand, so it can be adjusted to compensate for the height of the person observing him- or herself. Tonight, when I was changing from my work clothes into a pair of white shorts and a gray T-shirt, I was shocked to see a fat boy in the mirror looking back at me.

I asked, “What you lookin’ at, fat boy?”

The fat boy mimicked what I said and that sort of ticked me off, although the only sound I heard was my voice. Then, after looking more carefully at the fat boy, I realized he was wearing the same clothes as I was, although the logo on his T-shirt was ass-backwards. I’ve played on several teams in my life where everyone was dressed in the same uniforms, so I’m used to showing up at places wearing the same thing as everyone else, so that in itself didn’t bother me, but for some reason this overweight chump was irritating me. Then, I started asking myself, “What is this dude doing in my girlfriend’s bedroom?”

So, I asked, “What’re you doing in here?”

This jerk-off started mimicking me again, even to the point of putting his hand on his oversized stomach, just as I was doing. I took one step up to the mirror so I could coldcock this turkey, at which point I realized it was actually me in the mirror.

“Jesus!” I said-- not to suggest the image I was seeing was in any way comparable to or could be mistaken for the Son of God-- but that was just the first word that came to mind.

I patted my ample stomach again and made a mental vow to ease up a bit on the M&Ms and the Coca Cola and not to super-size supper tonight. I thought about how the phrases “comfort fit,” “full size” and “classic fit” sound so much better than “fat boy pants” to the man who is wearing them.

At least, they sound better here in Jumbo Jimbo’s world.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

up jumped the devil

They say the devil is in the details, but I’m convinced the devil is in the next room over from me. And I’m certain he has stopped by Romania for a visit. First, I’ll explain locally and then globally.

Jimbo’s girlfriend needs eight hours of sleep; Jimbo needs seven. During the week my girlfriend averaged seven hours a night as did Jimbo. On Sunday morning she is making up for the hours she missed during the week while I am awake and blogging after getting in my seven hours. So, I am trying to be quiet and keeping all the lights off, except the one on the desk in my office and the one in the range hood (so I could see to make coffee). We have two bedrooms upstairs at chez Jimbo’s girlfriend—one is her office; one is mine. We sleep in the master bedroom, downstairs.

Anyway, the coffee is brewing and I haven’t had my first cup yet and suddenly there is a loud noise in Jimbo’s girlfriend’s office. I recognize the noise. It’s the four-note song that Windows XP plays for you when it is shutting down. We both have XP and I hear it a couple times a day. But this time, it’s loud. I hope it didn’t wake up the little woman.

I walked into her office and her computer has shut down and re-booted itself. She must have left it on overnight. She plays CDs on her computer while she is using it and so he has the speaker volume turned up. Why is her laser printer sitting on the floor instead of in its cubbyhole in her desk? Obviously, Satan has been here. Do your best, Satan. I know you exist and I respect your power, but I do not fear you. Although, I did jump just a little bit when you made XP blare its evil little song throughout the dark and silent house.

Fifteen minutes later I went back into her office and there was a short message scrolling across the screen. Was Satan trying to tell me something? What was the cryptic message that the devil was trying to get to me? Would it change my life? Would it change the world forever? Would this office become a shrine for devil-worshipers throughout the world? Would this computer monitor forever be a portal to the underworld? What was the message? It said:

Jimbo and Jimbo’s girlfriend forever.

Oh, wait a minute. That’s the scrolling marquee screen saver I put on her computer last year. Never mind.

Oh, I’m sure there is some worldly explanation as to why the computer re-booted. Perhaps Jimbo’s girlfriend’s son, who seems to know a thing or two about computers, has set up some kind of program that does maintenance on the computer at regular intervals. At this time, though, I’m not going to rule out demonic possession. In the words of the song Open Up Your Heart,

My mommy told me something a little girl should know
It’s all about the devil and I’ve learned to hate him so.

While I’m sure the majority of you are leaning toward the computer maintenance rather than the Prince of Darkness, perhaps the following will cause you to rethink what the devil is capable of doing.

I read this morning that in Romania, a priest is alleged to have ordered the execution of a nun by crucifixion with the explanation that she was possessed by the devil. There is a photo of the priest along with the story and the priest has those “Charles Manson” eyes.

Apparently the nun had been critical of something the priest said and so it was concluded that demonic possession was present. While some may say that when she disagreed with the dictates of a religious conservative she should have expected to be butchered, I say this is taking religious conservativism too far. At her funeral there was thunder from a storm coming in and the priest said the storm was proof that God’s will had been done.

Yeah, right.

I can’t help but draw a parallel between this and another crucifixion. In St. Luke’s version of the crucifixion of Christ, I believe I read there was also a storm at his demise. In Luke, chapter 23, we read the following verses.

44 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.


In St. Mark’s version, he says the veil was “rent in twain from the top to the bottom.” (Mark, chapter 16, verse 38). Now, I ask you, does that not sound like a storm? And, was it proof that God’s will had been done?

The priest was quoted as saying that he was justified in what he did, but said he needed a good lawyer. If God exists, and I hope he does, this brother is going to need something more than a good lawyer. Because when judgment day comes, the man is going to have to plead his own case, and I’m afraid he is going to have a fool for a lawyer.

At least that what we think, here in Jimbo’s world.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

lewis and clark

Friday night we went to an outdoor blues concert featuring several bands. Between performances by the bands we took a walk beside the Missouri River. There were several monuments along the river walk to the journey of Lewis and Clark. It appears that Lewis and Clark came through here in 1804 on their journey to the west coast and they came back through here on their way home two years later. It is hard to fathom that their journeys were more than 200 years ago.

I’m not sure whatever happened to Meriwether Lewis, but I know Dick Clark did American Bandstand for years and he did that New Year’s Eve thing for as long as I remember. I think he is still around and looks as young as ever.

My hat is off to the Lewis and Clark expedition. It had a good beat and you could dance to it.

journey into ixtlan

It’s funny how our journey through live brings us around in large circles to where we’ve been before. Jimbo’s journey today was with his girlfriend, but it was like some reminiscence into the past, kind of like how Charles Dickens might have imagined a father’s day story. You know, the ghost of father’s day’s past; and father’s day’s yet to come. But the spirits were more like what Carlos Castaneda may have imagined, so I stole his title.

Faithful readers of Castaneda are probably asking, “Oh, Jimbo, don’t tell us you started using peyote and psilocybin mushrooms and are learning from the mystic Don Juan?”

No, no. Nothing like that.

It was a journey into the past in that Jimbo’s girlfriend visited a piece of property she owns at Truman Reservoir in central Missouri. She hadn’t been there for eleven years, and it took a little while to find it, and when we did, we found that oak trees had taken over. It would require some work to clear the lot, although the white oaks were tall and healthy.

Anyone want to buy some resort property?

It was a nice drive. I had a chance to put a couple of hundred miles on my girlfriend’s new car. It was the first time I have driven it, and it drives well. We had a few hours to talk and she told me stories about the history of the property and how it got into her possession. There were ghosts moving in and out of the lines of succession. Decades before, my girlfriend’s grandfather had purchased the lot with the understanding that a dam would be built, the valley would turn into a lake and the water from the lake would create a vista of blue. And that a man could build a cabin on this lot that would overlook the sparkling water, and that a man could look with pride on what man, and God, had wrought. Unfortunately, the guy who sold him the lot neglected to mention that there were people who were willing to pay just a little more money and purchase the lots between his property and the sparkling water. And forever obstruct his view of the diamonds that sparkled like stardust on the surface of the cool aquamarine lake.

After we had the chance to talk to a number of very nice people, especially the extremely friendly couple who run the store at Angler’s Camp, MO., we had a chance to go to the Visitor’s Center at the dam at Truman Reservoir. That was where my ghost was. The Visitor’s Center sits on a rock bluff overlooking the dam and reservoir and there are large windows on a circular wall that allow one a 180-degree view of the water below. There were ski-boats, bass boats and pontoon boats below cris-crossing the lake. As I looked down at them and at the rock bluffs on which the building stood, I realized I had been here before. To make a long story just a little bit longer, I have attached a link to a blog I wrote last winter about a vacation in the Ozarks. Here it is.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/01/summer-song-of-pine-cove.html

The guy who owned the cabin in the Ozarks where we stayed on that long ago vacation sold his cabin and bought a gas station, also in the Ozarks, so he could enjoy a year-round vacation by working every day. When I was about thirteen, my father went down to visit him at his gas station and took me along. We spent the night and drove back early the next morning. While entertaining myself behind the gas station the previous day, I had stepped on a board with a nail in it and had driven the nail through my foot. The pain kept me awake all night, so when we got up early in the morning and drove home, I fell asleep during the trip. I remember on the way home, my father drove up on a tall bluff that overlooked a valley and woke me up. Below us large earth moving equipment was being used to construct a dam. Dad told me that pretty soon the entire valley would be under water and that the dam would make another huge lake. He called it the Kaysinger Dam. Later, in honor of President Harry S. Truman, the name was changed.

Today, I realized the Visitor’s Center was located on the same bluff my father and I had looked over decades earlier, when it was just a gravel road, before the dam, before the lake and before the Visitor’s Center.

Who says you can’t go back? Today, we did a little time travel and we never left the comfort of the present.

It was a good day.

And we need every good day we can get here in Jimbo’s world.

bad to the bone

It was five weeks ago tomorrow I broke my finger, and I have to admit it has taken longer for it to heal than any other bone I have ever broken. My finger is still swollen to one-and-a-half its normal size and I still can’t do anything physical.

We’re making an odyssey today to find some “resort” property that Jimbo’s girlfriend owns a hundred and fifty miles away from here. We’ve never driven anywhere together outside of the metro, except to go to my house, and my house is only a half-hour away. This should be fun. We’re going to look at this place because she hasn’t seen it for a decade and we are interested to see if it’s worth anything.

“Oh, Jimbo, you gold digger,” many of you are probably saying now. “At the mere mention of valuable property, your eyes light up like a cash register ringing up a sale.”

No, it’s not like that. After paying the property taxes faithfully for the last decade, Jimbo’s girlfriend has received a letter advising her she has been inducted into a landowners association, and requesting she pay the annual dues, which exceed the annual taxes on the place. We’re not “joiners.” It is time to “opt out.” Today, we see what we are dealing with.

So as the sun rises over the hood of her red 2005 Toyota Corolla “S” and we begin our journey, I bid you a fond “good morning,” and if anything of interest happens on our trip, I will faithfully report back to you.

Until then, bon voyage.

At least, that’s the way we say it in Jimbo’s world.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

a lesson to be learned

Animals and their urine are in the news today.

I read this morning a story about some cats that caused a fire by relieving themselves in the wrong place.

It seems that in Kobe, Japan, some guy had two kittens in his house and they chose to urinate on his fax machine. The urine found its way into the electrical printing mechanism of the fax machine, caused a spark and the result was a fire that extensively damaged the man’s domicile.

Fortunately the man suffered only minor smoke inhalation as he put out the fire, and the kittens ran to safety and were not injured.

I’m sure there are many right now thinking, “Thank goodness those cute little kitties were not injured.”

To which I answer an emphatic, maybe.

The owner of the house says there is a lesson to be learned here, so I guess, since he gained some new knowledge, some good came from it. He says if you have a cat or dog, be careful where they urinate, and to make sure they don’t urinate on electrical appliances. I also see some good that came out of this. While the house reeked of smoke and burned rubber and plastic, it didn’t smell of cat piss—at least for a while. I think the real lesson is to keep your animals out of your kitchen and living room, at least until they are housebroken so they won’t be urinating and defecating all over the place and smelling up the house.

There was also a story in the news about a bovine gone mad in Nigeria. In this situation it was the animal that apparently was offended by a human urinating. The cow killed a bus driver who was taking a whiz on the highway. It also injured some bystanders. The police “arrested” the cow and put it in the pokey.

I think the lesson that can be learned from this is to make sure that whether one is a human or an animal, one needs to be sure that they relieve themselves in the proper place, or there could be negative consequences. If you are proceeding down the highway and the urge becomes too great, at least stand on the other side of the vehicle and shield yourself from traffic, or from large animals that might take offense and stop you in mid-stream. If you feel you have to tinkle on electronic equipment, find the guy in Japan and do it in his house. He’ll understand. Otherwise you may be in for a shock, or you may be playing with fire. For the rest of us, we’ll confine our voiding to properly designated places.

That’s the way we do it in Jimbo’s world.

Sunday, June 05, 2005

reflections in a glass slipper

Last night Jimbo and his girlfriend saw the movie Cinderella Man. It was an entertaining movie, of the Rocky genre, and I thought it was worth seeing, but, as in all movies about someone overcoming tremendous odds to be successful, the opponent necessarily has to be portrayed as villain and I wonder whether Ron Howard’s portrayal of Max Baer as a monster may have been overdone. By the way, Baer was played by Craig Bierko, who did a very convincing job of convincing us Baer was a really nasty guy. You may remember that Bierko played the baddest of the many bad guys in the movie The Long Kiss Goodnight, where he also left no doubt how bad he was.

I read this morning that Max Baer, Jr., the son of the former Heavyweight Champion of the World, and coincidently the actor who portrayed Jethro Bodine in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies, objects to the portrayal of his father. Baer, Jr., says his father was not at all the sadistic killer he was portrayed to be.

When I looked up Baer’s biography on Wikipedia, it states that after Baer knocked out Frankie Campbell and Campbell died, Baer gave the money from his next few fights to Campbell’s family. Baer also lost four of his next six fights. Baer supposedly wore a Star of David on his trunks when he fought Max Schmeling in 1933. This sounds as if he may have been somewhat ahead of the rest of the world in recognizing Nazi persecution of the Jews. Another note I found interesting was that Baer failed to take James Braddock seriously and didn’t train properly for their fight. This may explain why he lost, more than simply being a battle of good versus evil, where evil loses by unanimous decision.

This is not to say that Baer was probably a saint. I think a prerequisite to getting in the ring with someone else and beating the crap out of them is that one must fit within the guidelines of being a hard-ass.

Anyway, Cinderella Man is a good way to keep yourself occupied for two-and-a-half hours on a Saturday afternoon. The cast is excellent. Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger put on very quality performances, and Paul Giamatti melds into his character as well as he did in Sideways. You’ll probably want to see it, but perhaps you may not want to give it as much thought as I did.

Because sometimes we can think too much here in Jimbo’s world.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

lies, damned lies and statistics, and what john snow said

It has been a while since I have said anything about Treasury Secretary John Snow, but even so, many of you may have the impression that I don’t have a high opinion of him. Yesterday, Snow opened his mouth a couple of times and these pearls of wisdom spewed forth.

Snow was reported as having said that energy prices are denting GDP growth and public confidence in the economy.

No shit, Johnny boy! I would have never guessed that without your telling me.

When the government reports the monthly inflation numbers, they always omit the “volatile food and energy sectors” in their reported numbers so it makes inflation seem very tame. Ever since they shut down that cathouse down the street, it seems I have spent all of my money at the gas station and the grocery store. Okay, I spent all my money at the supermarket and the Phillips 66 before they shut down the cathouse. When all ones money goes to fill up the car and splurge on an occasional tomato, it is hard to be enthusiastic about the future of our economy. I’m just glad Snow finally figured it out. Maybe now, he can tell someone else in the Bush Administration. As if anyone there would actually listen to anything.

When the job growth numbers came out yesterday at 78,000—about 107,000 lower than the expected number—Snow was interviewed on the Fox “News” Network and said that he expects the economy to continue to grow at a rate of 180,000-185,000 in the months ahead.

If there has been one constant in our current economic recovery it is that the job growth numbers have consistently failed to live up to what the administration expects.

Secretary Snow, we didn’t believe you before and were not believing you now, because you seem to be very late in the game when it comes to speaking the truth.

Here in Jimbo’s world, we want the truth early and often.

free at last! free at last! thank god almighty i am free at last!

Jimbo is keyboarding semi-normally for the first time in three weeks. My medieval apparatus are a thing of the past and my broken finger is on the mend. I have two of my fingers taped together and keyboarding is still a bit of a challenge, but now I can re-engage my verbal assault on the Bush Administration.

Look out you sleezeballs, because here I come again.