The Year in Review

Burl Ives Toby Mugs

Christmas is almost here and the Amish are working their fingers to the bone to create these delightful Toby-style mugs. What a delight to drink your grog and your nog out of Burl Ives head! Collect all eight Burl Ives Toby-style mugs crafted with old Amish workmanship: Frontier Burl, Reb, Dixieland, Sea Captain, Bum, CIA Agent, Bowler-hatted Brit and, of course, Big Daddy. Each mug smokes a cigar. The handles are very durable - Rebs even looks like a tree branch, though the others are unimaginative. Order now from the Bryce Mint and a buggy will pull up to your house Christmas morning. Cheers!

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

Saw The Birds yesterday at the Castro theater. One of my favorite in-jokes is when Mitch is tending to Melanie's scalp wound from a seagull with a bottle of antiseptic and Melanie asks "What is that?" Mitch replies, "Peroxide."

This is the first viewing where I realized that Patty, I mean Melanie's father is a San Francisco newspaper owner. Now prankish daughters of socialite newspaper owners are an interesting subject. We learn that Melanie misbehaved in Paris (don't all debs and sub-debs do that?). I might point out that when Mitch's twee neighbor in San Francisco tells Melanie that Mitch is out of town in Bodega Bay she asks "Where is that?"

There are two reasons why Melane should know where Bodega Bay is

1. She is a socialite.
2. She works for Travelers Aid

But I gues the audience needs to know where it is.

The only two excellent actors in the movie are Veronica Cartwright and Jessica Tandy. Tippi tries, and Rod looks confused. But Rod will later triumph in V.I.P.'s

Catalan Yule Log

According to the pedia this actual log is wrapped in a blanket and fed grass. After a few days it is hit a few times with a stick and expels presents.

The Drunken Remote Control Jungle Cruise Boat

The story is that Victor Hugo gave French poet Arthur Rimbaud the nickname Shakespeare Infant, but it now known it came from an unscrupulous Belgian phrenologist. In addition, there is now ample evidence that the poem The Drunken Boat refers to the famous remote control jungle cruise boats on the grounds of a famous hotel in Anaheim, California proving that Arthur and boyfriend Germain Noveau travelled further west than Java.

On Java, Rimbaud's first job was a rock pile supervisor, next a rockstar Java programmer.This enabled the guys enough money to make their next stop in Hawaii where they went to Auntie Things Luau located in an industrial area outside of Honolulu. Weakened pineapple juice and even weaker rum did not bother Boy Shakespeare as he was able to drink anything, even absinthe.

They worked as French tour guides on Waikiki Beach and earned enough money to buy e-tickets to southern California.