Friday Afternoon Randomness

Saddest thing I’ve read today: evidently even koalas get the clap. Poor little buggers. The male koalas need to learn to stay away from the pick-ups and the “good time” girls. Here’s a job I’d hate to have: “At the Koala Conservation Centre, we test the koalas for Chlamydia every few years.” Maybe they should look into passing out little koala condoms? And they should probably put this poster up in the habitat parks:

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

I had a strange memory-flash to my childhood just now, and remembered scraping myself and my mom applying Mercurochrome to the scrape. And then I thought – you know, I haven’t seen Mercurochrome in over 20 years probably. Upon reflection, the last I had even heard of it (and remember noting the reference) was when I saw Rent, and one of the lyrics in “Today 4 U” is “The Nurse Took Him Home For Some Mercurochrome,” and I’m pretty sure that’s because of the rhyme and meter of the word, rather than the probability that Angel would actually have had Mercurochrome at his (her?) place.

Thanks to Google, of course, I found this article by Cecil Adams on “What happened to Mercurochrome?” Apparently, in 1998, the Food and Drug Administration declared that Mercurochrome, generically known as merbromin, was “not generally recognized as safe and effective” as an over-the-counter antiseptic and forbade its sale across state lines. What the hell? I remember it being safe and effective . . . . How did I ever get out of childhood alive?

Don't hide behind me when TSHTF . . .

27%

I'm not feeling horribly inspired at the moment, so I fall back on the crutch of bloggers everywhere in times like this . . . the internet quiz! The beauty of the results of this one is that scoring low is actually a GOOD thing.

Weird e-mail of the week (and it's only Tuesday)

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever. Opening line of the latest missive from my buddy Jason:

It's a question we all face at some point in our lives: do I know enough people who are willing to dress up in Velcro shoes, striped tube socks and headbands to field a dodgeball team?

Sam and I already volunteered.

A Mad Shoeshiner Moment

I ran “shoeshiner” through YouTube today, and came across this bizarre commercial. No detail on it, no country of origin indicated, but it looks like there are a whole series of “Kiwi Express” commercials featuring these strange little stick figure cartoons. The Boss’ reaction in this one captures my first reaction, as well. A little on-line research led me to adsoftheworld.com, which informs us that this little gem came from Hong Kong, and that:

A SHOE SHINER is urban slang for a brown-noser. Since Kiwi Express is a ridiculously fast shoe shiner, this humorous campaign shows a brown-nosing employee shamelessly sucks up to his boss – in no time whatsoever.

Clearly not American urban slang. Great. Now I’m going to be insecure about the title of my blog every time I see some random foreigner on sitemeter. For the record, there is a real Mad Shoeshiner. He used to work in the lobby of La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Perhaps he still does. He shined my shoes once many years ago and was clearly insane. He did, however, drop several pearls of wisdom that stuck with me to this very day, and I still quote the guy on occasion. Among his observations:

“You buy an electric toothbrush and then you have to buy a house that has electricity.”

Think about that one for a while. There was a definite method to his madness. As an aside, if you ever get shoe polish on your clothes or upholstery, your first order of business should be a spray-down with WD-40.

Royale with cheese . . . .

Saturday Randomness

Hipster Olympics

Lower than I expected, actually . . .

63%

I guess an arsenal of firearms, a machete, and a stockpile of canned food will get you only so far.

The Hand of God

June 22, 1986. In 1986, when England and Argentina met in the quarter-finals, tensions were running particularly high between the countries, due partly to the Falklands War, which had taken place just four years earlier. Jorge Luis Borges described the Falklands War as "two bald men fighting over a comb." That about sums up the England/Argentina football rivalry for me.

Further proof that Spaniards are insane . . .

. . . and I love them for it. Especially the Basques.

Kalimotxo is a sickly sweet mixture of Coca-Cola and red wine. Home-mixed, the crazy fuckers chug it in the streets during fiestas. Not the best tasting stuff out there, but it'll get you drunk. Being that the drinking age in Spain is 16, kalimotxo is big among the younger crowd. Personally, I'll stick to the cerveza or the Asturian cider, which they sell for about $3 a liter and will show you a damn good time once you've acquired a taste for it.