December 02, 2005
It's The Festival of Trees, Charlie Brown!
Why is Charlie Brown unhappy? Maybe he missed Western Pennsylvania's largest and original display of themed Christmas trees of all sizes and shapes ... the Festival of Trees at Renziehausen Park in
Our Fair City:
McKeesport's 20th Annual Festival of Trees
12 noon to 9 p.m., Dec. 2 to 4, 2005
Area businesses and organizations display trees in the holiday spirit. Entertainment, music and programs scheduled throughout the event. Pictures with Santa, bake sale, food concessions, "sleighay" rides through a decorated Renziehausen Park. The McKeesport Heritage Center, the Little Red School House, and the Garden Clubhouse will also be open to the public with holiday decor and crafts.
Donation $2 at the door. Kids under 12 admitted free with canned good(s). Call 412-675-5068 for more information or visit the McKeesport Recreation Board's website.
So don't be a blockhead this weekend! The Festival of Trees is held in the Jacob Wall Pavilion at Renzie Park, located on Sycamore Drive about 1/10 of a mile from University Drive. (Need directions? Go
here.)
Westinghouse TV picture from
tvhistory.tv. Charlie Brown and
Peanuts characters copyright United Feature Syndicate.
Incidentally, that's a 1968-vintage "Instant-On" television. Those of you old enough to remember when you had to wait for the TV to warm up before you could watch it will remember what a marvel "Instant-On" was.
Those of you old enough to have been in the volunteer fire department will remember what a
fire hazard it was.
November 30, 2005
English Spammers Wanted
I'm used to spammers having a limited grasp of English, but an email I received recently rose (?) to new levels:
From: Sjaak Abram
To: Romolo Spier
Subject: Re: opium Pharramacy
Hello, We acknowledge you for being our customer. Thus, we put wise you of information and renovates between whiles. Our records indicate that you may be in need of a refill.
We apologize and hope you will take a jaundiced view at medicaments we sell. Again, let us introduce our drugs at attractive prices which may be urgent needed. We also offer you impeccable customer care.
Sincerely Yours, Customer service department
Well, Sjaak, of course I'll take a jaundiced view of your medicaments, and I appreciate your acknowledgement.
Or, to put it another way, as a different spammer recently wrote to me:
"czarina little and deoxyribose marinate for vet against."
No, I'm not against czarina little, or marinating vets in deoxyribose. Who could argue with either of those? As Mitzi Cohen, another spammer, told me,
"help me Denisse Richards Sports CDC: West Nile in 1993 FINE." I'm not sure if
Denise Richards ever helped Mitzi play sports with the CDC in the West Nile, or if West Nile Virus is helping Mitzi to stop Denise Richards from playing sports. Either way, I sure hope things worked out.
Why do these people send these mysterious messages? An email I received recently from denmark@convergentlaser.com may hold the answer:
"The Internet is a gigantic place were millions and millions of people roam!!! As long as there is an Internet there will be a way for people to make money on it."
Truer words were never spoken, Denmark, but why do these people keep clogging up my email? Let's ask Galen Smiley, who wrote to me pitching low-cost home mortgages:
"You bespoke to be imparted of knowledge of offers from either us or one of us partners, if you do not want to obtain extends from ourselves once again have the will to get hold of us here."
Well, if I'm the one who bespoke to be imparted of it, then I guess I have only myself to blame when you obtain extends to ourselves.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go bang a dictionary against my head until sentences start to make sense again.
Meanwhile, here's something for you to do to waste time (besides reading the
Almanac, that is). It's
a gallery of classic Christmas-themed television commercials from the '50s, '60s and '70s, including the memorable spot featuring Santa Claus riding down a snow-covered hill on the top of a Norelco electric razor. (A tip of the Tube City hard hat to "
Drink at Work.")
And, from the useless trivia department, the Wikipedia entry about "
A Charlie Brown Christmas," which notes that "the special has not been seen in its original, uncut form since its original telecast in 1965. The opening and closing credits contain references to Coca-Cola, the show's original sponsor. The main titles have Linus and Snoopy crashing into a Coca-Cola sign, while the final end credit mentions "Merry Christmas from your local Coca-Cola bottler."
I was at
Compass Federal Savings Bank in Wilmerding last week, and the big plasma screen TV in the main banking room was playing "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on an endless loop.
As much as I love "Peanuts," and I do, I feel kind of sorry for the tellers. By Christmas, I figure they'll have Linus' monologue memorized, and they'll be ready to strangle him with his security blanket.
November 28, 2005
A Bang-Up Thanksgiving
They say that pride goeth before a fall. Sometimes pride goeth before the winter and during the fall.
I make no secret of the fact that I drive a big car (and I've decided I'm not getting anything smaller until they pry my Gulf card from my cold, dead hands).
Oh, I used to have compacts. Loved 'em. But when the frame fell out of my dearly departed Datsun 200SX, and I needed a cheap car in a hurry, I wound up with the first of two Grand Marquises. (Marquii? Grandes Marquis?) And as they say, once you've had Grand Marquis, you never go back.
Or something like that.
One of the things that I'm proud of is that I can maneuver it almost anywhere. Take heavy traffic. I enjoy getting stuck behind a garbage truck on a city street, with cars parked on both sides, and one lane barely open. Light touch on the gas, eyes ahead, and right through.
I particularly enjoy looking in the rear-view mirror and seeing the expressions of the people driving subcompact cars. They know that if a big boat like my sleek, gray Mercury can get through, then their Kia Rio can get through, but they can't get past the notion that it might have been an optical illusion.
Or parallel parking. There aren't many places that I can't park. Oh, occasionally I bump the tires on the curb, but I'm sure the QEII bumped the dock once in a while, too.
Even snow driving is entertaining in a rear-wheel drive car, though many people, conditioned to front-wheel drive, look at me with abject horror at this time of year. "You're driving a what? In the snow? In Pennsylvania?" Proverbial piece of ice-cream cake, I tell 'em, especially with a good set of snow tires.
In fact, the worst winter driving experience I ever had came on a perfectly dry, clear day. I was driving Route 136, heading east, in Hempfield Township one warm winter morning when I made the right turn at Millersdale Road to head under the Amos K. Hutchinson Bypass. Suddenly, the world began to revolve and I found myself in a nice, lazy 360-degree rotation.
When the car, and my head, stopped spinning, thanks to the rear bumper's contact with the guardrail, I got out to see what had happened. It seems an overenthusiastic PennDOT salt truck driver had laid down a perfect carpet of granulated de-icer across the entire lane for several hundred feet. Since there wasn't any ice, snow or rain, it was still there, like a blanket of BBs. As I looked for damage on my car, another motorist made the turn, slid sideways, and came to a screeching halt, spraying salt through the air. I got out of there as quickly as I could.
Anyway, driving in winter or otherwise holds no terrors for me, so Wednesday night, despite steadily falling snow, some ice, and frigid temperatures, I started backing out of my driveway. When the back tires slipped a little bit, I just fed them some gas.
... and slid off the driveway and slammed right into a metal pole, putting a nice big crease into the right rear fender above the wheel. I'm no body man, but I'd estimate the damage at somewhere around $1,000 by the time the metal is pounded flat, smoothed with body filler, primed and repainted.
The problem, of course, is that I don't have a grand to spend on this little misadventure. So I've got a call into one of those "painless dent removal" places in hopes that they can pull the fender relatively straight. Then I can do the rest of the work myself. Otherwise, I'll have to attack it with a slide hammer, which involves drilling holes and, usually, pinching my fingers several times. (Having driven junkers for many years, until buying this car, has left me with a variety of "skills," and patching holes and dents is one of them.)
Of course, the pinched fingers are nothing compared to the damage I've already done to my ego. Especially embarrassing was the fact that I did this in front of my house, in full view of the neighbors.
Now, they say if you fall off of the horse, you're supposed to get right back on again, before you lose your confidence. And though I obviously haven't stopped driving, I am eyeing this week's weather reports warily. I don't know if I want to get back into the snow again.
On the other hand, the incident has taught me a valuable lesson: It's hard to drive while you're patting yourself on the back.
