Thursday, May 06, 2010

You've Gotta Be Explicit With Those Cake Decorators

With the Braves in Washington to play the Nationals Senators Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) hosted a ceremony, inviting the Braves manager Bobby Cox, as well as players and officials to honor Cox on his retirement.
But the cake had an unfortunate and profane misspelling of his last name



“Thanks for 50 great years Bobby Cocks”

Here’s how it happened: Restaurant Associates which does the catering for the Capitol called to place the order with a cake company they don’t normally use. They gave the name over the phone and never specifically spelled out C-O-X.

When Cox and the Braves players arrived they met with and posed for pictures with Congressional staffers. It was during this time that a staffer went to get the cake ready and noticed the mistake. They quickly cut off the offending portion of the cake and smeared the icing with the misspelling, but not before a media member got a picture.

a heady Congressional staffers quick fix to Cocks-gate

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Song of the Week

"For the Longest Time" - Billy Joel
I really like the fact that 20 years after doo-wop went out of style Billy Joel just said "hey fuck it, I want to record a doo-wop song."
Also, doo-wop is one of my favorite styles of music, you just can't be unhappy when listening to doo-wop. I love that every song has a guy with really deep bass and one with a really high falsetto.
According to Wikipedia, my old station WCBS-FM was instrumental in this song becoming a hit. When the "Innocent Man" album came out in 1983, CBS-FM started playing "For the Longest Time" because it sounded like an old song even though it was new. That prompted the record label to release it as the 4th single from the album.
Wikipedia also says Joel recorded all the vocals, presumably including the bass profundo and the falsetto himself.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Mrs. Poop's New Favorite Baseball Player

We all have our crosses to bear and Mrs. Poop's cross is her oft-recurring kidney stones.

Note: her idiotic husband was her own choice

That is why her new favorite baseball player is Colorado Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo. In a game earlier this season Olivo went to the clubhouse bathroom between innings and passed a kidney stone. Impressive, because as bad is it is for a woman, pushing the stone out for a man is even more painful.

Even more impressive, Olivo went back out for the next inning.

“Believe me, it’s not fun,” said Olivo. “Sometimes, when I’ve got that thing, I just want to die. But I can handle pain a little bit. Once it’s gone, I’m normal, I’m good. Let’s play baseball.”

Olivo has learned to live with the condition ever since he began experiencing kidney stones in 2003 while playing for the White Sox.

“Come on,” said Olivo. “After I passed it, I don’t even feel it anymore. I don’t feel anything. It’s like crazy.”

Paulo's Book Club: "Real Men Don't Say Splendid"

"Real Men Don't Say Splendid: A Lexicon of Unmanliness" is a silly little book that literally takes all of 10 minutes to read cover to cover.
But if you love words the way I do, it's a funny 10 minutes.



Simple premise: it lists 99 words real men should never say under any circumstances and it gives sentences for each one.

A large portion of the words are only used by gay men and gossip magazine writers: Canoodling, Preggers, Galpal, Chic, Elegant, Nuptials and the homosexual standard, Fabulous

There's also quite a few words Mrs. Poop uses on a regular basis which is ok because she's a girl: adorable, comfy, cuddle, snuggle, dilly-dally and scoot.
If Chase and I are laying in bed and she wants to get in she might say "you guys look comfy but can you scoot so I can snuggle and cuddle with you."

The word golly might have been added after the author saw me at a goyisha wedding because the accompanying sentence is: Golly, that's a lot of shrimp for one person.

Seinfeld perfectly captured the essence of this book when saying he didn't want to carry the chocolate babka to the party because standing at the door holding a box by a little string is a "tad dainty." Both those words are in the book.

A few other good examples from the book that I absolutely agree no real man should ever use: fancy, heartthrob, mingle (especially as in "I'm single and ready to mingle"), glamorous and hunk.

But a few of the entries I really don't understand their inclusion:
Boobies: Sometimes you have to talk about tits but you can't call them tits, boobs or boobies is the best alternative here.

Giggle: I don't know a good synonym to describe this type of laughter.

Oops: What else are you supposed to say when you make a mistake?

Shimmy: Only acceptable when quoting Major League 2: "Parkman is doing that little shimmy, it makes the women here in Cleveland wanna puke."

Tasty: Once again a manly movie quote "MMMM, this is a tasty burger."

Panties: There is a manly way to say this "She wasn't wearing any panties dawg."

In place of those I word have added: drafty, duvet, draperies and exquisite