"Not Blind Like Stevie Wonder"

Can one scrap of writing provide insight into a stranger's soul? Maybe.

In early 1992, I saw the following classified ad in Kansai Time Out, the English-language magazine of metro Osaka. The only reason I still have it is because I had an article in the same issue.

"I am an ex-NASA Computer Electronic Systems Test Engineer," the ad began. "In 1971 I was taken on board a UFO, and many strange experiences including 'out of body' and 'time travel' have happen [sic] to me. I want to make friends with a Japanese girl who has had similar experiences or who is not afraid to talk about this kind of thing. I have a message to bring to the Japanese people. Can somebody please help me? I am an American born in Utah. Please write..."

Draw your own conclusions about that fellow, though I hope he found a girl of similar cast of mind. In any case, dashing off a bit of soul-baring verbage is easier these days. Just put it in the comment section.

One jumped out at me yesterday. Semiliterate, completely wrong in its facts, borderline unhinged and including a gratuitous use of a blind singer's name. What more can you ask of a comment-section posting on a financial news web site? You can say that I take false comfort in feeling superior to such posters, which is why I point them out. And you'd be right about the feeling superior part, though it isn't much comfort.

The only change I've made is to remove the company name, which is that of a retail property landlord. Everything else, including punctuation, is exactly as I found it yesterday.

"Since march lows the shares of ______ have gone up 300% .Who will convince me this is not a fake stock .Eversince march lows ,commercial real estate has lost a substantial vallue .Even if the stock has remained the same I would have been doubtful ,but to go 300% UP, GIVE ME A BREAK!! People who a not blind like Stevie Wonder can not be fooled arround cause they see the empty malls and commercial plazas .So this only could be artifficially prompted like the banks are -a total manipulation ,or the accountants are defrauding the public ! The whole system became a FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Illinois Knows How to Pick 'Em

Sometimes -- usually -- it takes a while to clear away the junk mail accumulation on our former dining table. Today in the pile I noticed an oversized postcard with a picture of hands exchanging cash, captioned by the words: "If You're Tired of Politics as Usual..."

On the other side of the card is the message: "Then Vote for Scott Lee Cohen. NOT a Career Politician."

And, I should add at this point, NEVER to be one. Instead he will be a punch line on late-night television for a short while.

The Tribune wrote this morning: "Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Scott Lee Cohen, a Chicago pawnbroker whose surprise primary win last week was followed by scandalous revelations about his troubled past with a prostitute ex-girlfriend, said Sunday night he would quit as nominee...

"In a steady torrent following the Tuesday primary, leading Democrats called for Cohen to step aside as new details were revealed about his relationships with his now-ex-wife while using anabolic steroids and his ex-girlfriend, convicted as a prostitute, whom he met at a massage therapy spa. Other revelations showed that as he pumped millions into his campaign, his ex-wife filed a mid-December lawsuit seeking $54,000 in back-due child support."

The Snowballs of Yesteryear

Until this weekend, putting "snowball fight" into Google News might not have yielded that many results. But the one in Dupont Circle over the weekend got some attention.

That's what we need in winter, more spontaneous mass snowball fights. Nothing like that would ever happen around here, maybe because we're too inured with snowfall, but more likely because gathering en masse in the dead of winter isn't so easy in the suburbs.

Our snowball actions will probably never involve more than a few people. Pictured above is one from four or five years ago. There's no date on the photo, but Lilly hasn't been that short, or able to wear that silver coat, in several years.

Zhu Zhu Pets

Time to write about Zhu Zhu Pets, a creation of St. Louis-based Cepia LLC. Apparently they were The Toy for Christmas 2009, but that fact passed me by at the time. No one here asked for one anyway, maybe because my daughters know that asking for a toy because it's The Toy of the season isn't going to make me go out to find one. Especially if the toys are difficult to find or inspire a ludicrous black market.

Now they're easy to find. Ann's birthday party was last Saturday, and one of her friends gave her a Zhu Zhu Pet; "Scoodles," according to the box. It's a (simple) robot hamster, which has the advantages of not needing food and not producing droppings. "Each Zhu Zhu Hamster has its own unique personality & whimsical sounds!" exclaims the box. "Let them scott, scamper, bump n' boogie across the floor or through their Hamster Habitat."

I hardly have to add that the Habitat is sold separately, as are eight other models (Patches, Nugget, Winkie, Jilly, Pip Squeak, Mr. Squiggles, Chunk and Num Nums), plus a bunch of additional extruded-plastic, made-in-China accessories. The toy itself uses its battery power to make tweeting and human-voice noise and travel across the floor unpredictably. That is, it backs up or changes direction without warning, but it will also turn around if it comes to an obstacle, after pretending to inspect it.

I was happy to see "two AAA batteries included" on the box. They turned out to be two Brand X batteries that were able to power the wheels for about a day. This caused consternation, since at first we thought the toy had broken after only a day. Fresh batteries revived Scoodles' exploring spirit, however.

Ann thinks it's the greatest toy ever. She might even think that for a few more weeks. I'd say Cepia hit that the sweet spot of that tricky market, early grade-schoolers, as surely as Robin Hood split the arrow.

Cryobot Day

Long, busy day. I stepped on a small Burger King bobblehead too. No damage to the bobblehead, since I missed the head itself, and only slight pain for me. But where did it come from? I haven't visited a Burger King in a while, and as mascots go, he's one of my least favorites, so I wouldn't have picked it up elsewhere. I suspect small hands brought it here somehow.

But at least I had the satisfaction of writing about cryobots today, in a short squib for a magazine client of mine. It wasn't anything I knew about before -- a probe that penetrates serious ice by using heating elements in its nose, or jets of hot water.

By serious ice, I mean the sort that Antarctica has on top of a feature called Lake Ellsworth, a subglacial lake. In a couple of years, scientists will be melting a small hole down to that lake, to found out what they can find out. Lake Vostok is a more famous stygian pool, but Ellsworth's probably just as interesting. Cryobots may one day go to the Jovian moon Europa as well. All I can say about that is I hope to live long enough to hear about it.

Voting in Cook County Ain't What it Used to Be

The election judges at my polling place today looked a little bored. It's a mid-winter primary for an off-year election, after all, and snow fell most of the morning to boot, which probably didn't inspire turnout. So I guess things were a little slow.

In fact I was the only voter there in the mid-morning. It was all on the up-and-up too. No one offered to buy my vote -- no offers of beer or doughnuts or anything. Doesn't anyone value my vote? Where's the respect for the political heritage of Cook County?

A Small Fast Fire to Greet Short Slow February

Today I decided to see just how fast a dry Christmas tree would burn. We've all been warned about the dangers of Christmas tree fires, and while the numbers are small, there are such fires.

The National Fire Protection Association provided me a handy pdf that says that "U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 250 home structure fires that began with Christmas trees in 2003-2007. These fires caused an annual average of 14 civilian deaths; 26 civilian fire injuries; and $13.8 million in direct property damage."

Nearly half of home Christmas tree structure fires (45 percent) were caused by electrical problems, while over a quarter (26 percent) involved "a heat source too close to the Christmas tree." Candles, the time-honored way that your great-grandparents accidentally torched their tree, accounted for only 14 percent of ignition sources.

The NFPA also noted that "an average of 460 outside or unclassified Christmas tree fires occurred on home properties." That is, let's take the tree outside and burn it! Over at that spot behind the garage, after we have a few more beers! Oops, the garage caught fire.

Instead of having Waste Management haul away our spent tree this year, I put it out next to our woodpile, anticipating a not-too-cold, windless day like today. It hasn't been snowing much in the last week, so I figured it was dry enough to make a nice fire to greet February this year.

But I wasn't about to be a future NFPA statistic, so I cut off the top two feet of the tree and positioned it in our ovoid grill well away from anything else likely to burn, like this:

It took a little doing to get the tree alight. I needed to use a piece of paper as a starter. But once it got going, it created a fast-burning needle fire with some cool popping and crackling sounds to go with it, plus the unmistakable smell of burning evergreen.

In only a few seconds, it was over. The branches themselves didn't really burn that much, but most of the needles did.

Item From the Past: Weavermania!

Weavermania! was a fun show. Eight years later I can't remember exactly what they sang, but I'm fairly sure it included the likes of "Midnight Special," "If I Had a Hammer," "Twelve Gates to the City," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," and "This Land is Your Land."

The show was what I paid to see. Namely, a re-creation of the Weavers, since I spent much of that group's career not being born yet, and thus unable to mosey on down to the Village Vanguard to catch a show. Even by the time of the Weavers' final reunion at Carnegie Hall in 1980, I didn't know enough to find my way to New York to try to see it, though it would have certainly been sold out anyway.

I've found only a scattering of references to Weavermania! on line (most hits for the word refer to actual weaving), but enough to find out that Tom Dundee, who re-created the part of Fred Hellerman, died in motorcycle accident in 2006. Other members of the tribute band included Mark Dvorak channeling Pete Seeger; Barbara Barrow in the part of Ronnie Gilbert; and Michael Smith sounding very much like Lee Hays. This is pretty much what they looked like in concert.

That was the first and unfortunately only time I've been to the "new" Old Town School of Folk Music. Not so new any more, since the school has been on North Lincoln Ave. in Lincoln Square since 1998. When I first moved to Chicago, the school had its venue on Armitage, and I saw a few shows there, but I can't remember who just now.

Yuriko bought their CD for me after the show. Since it's a collection of live recordings, there are some spoken introductions to some of the songs, as they did during during the show we saw. My favorite is the description of old song "Eddystone Light," which I don't believe they sang at the Old Town.

"The next song tells a story," one of them (not sure which one) says. "A folk song that tells a pretty serious story about a man who was a sociopath -- a hermetic sociopath, actually. With the exception of one night, when he had an adulterous affair with a mythical sea creature. From the passion came three offspring. Of the three children, one was cannibalized, the other ended up in zoo his entire life, and the third boy lived in a lighthouse. One day, his mother returned after years of abandonment. The song ends with a curse. [pause] This is a children's song."

(Lyrics here; plays music upon opening.)

Mashed Potato, Meet Martini Glass

Mashed potato bars, I'm told, are not that unusual. It must be so; here's an article from 2003 that mentions the concept, going as far to illustrate it with mashed potatoes plus toppings in a martini glass.

That's exactly how it was served to me today at a commercial real estate event in downtown Chicago. There was a choice of "regular" or "garlic" potatoes, and the server scooped your choice into a large martini glass. The toppings were self-serve: bacon bits, bleu cheese lumps, chives, and so on. Pick up a spoon and eat.

When I encountered it, I thought it was a novelty. Soon I found out otherwise. I must not hang out at the right kinds of gatherings, or I would have known about the spud-in-a-glass creation by now. Be that as it may, it's a good dish for stand-around-and-eat kinds of events, because like cocktails or cigarettes, it gives your hands something to do.

Fun on the Ice

For me the big ice puddle in the back yard is a hazard. Fortunately, there's no need to go back that way on a deep-freeze day in January. Lilly and Ann feel differently about it.

This was at about noon. It was a half day at school. "What do the teachers do the rest of the day?" Lilly asked me.

"Get together and tell stories about their students," I answered. "While drinking coffee. It used to be coffee and cigarettes, but now just coffee."

She knows better than to take me seriously all of the time.