Not A Dollarshort

It's tax deductible, too!

Since the 24 Hour Blogathon is only a few days away, I'd like to make a quick plea for more sponsors. The organization I'm blogging for is Guide Dogs for the Blind, a local non-profit "devoted to promoting the human/animal bond" and providing independence for the visually impaired.

Or, you can sponsor Leia. She's blogging for the DFW Humane Society, an organization in desperate need of funds.

The DFW Humane Society is a not-for-profit animal shelter that has no government funding. They are a no kill organization that cares for the animals until they are adopted. Current operating costs are about $400 a day.

All donations will go directly to the organizations so you don't have to worry about anyone getting their corrupt little hands on your money. And why are we participating? We're doing this as a way to support the causes we feel strongly about. It's, as they say, for a good cause. So sponsor one of us. Or better yet, sponsor the both of us. There is no minumum, and even five dollars would be appreciated.

And, as a bribe, my sponsors can expect a little something in the postal mail. Nothing big. Just a sign of thanks.

Intraleague Memo To: All Major

Intraleague Memo
To: All Major Leaguers
From: The Management

It's that time again -- time to pick out your signature song. Remember, the crowd likes to dance so remember to WORK IT!
--

If only.

Baseball Now Part of a Multimedia Experience. From Morning Edition.

Also: Music industry types pick the song they would want to hear while at bat. In My Life? Has this Leslie person ever been to a baseball game?

I'm still fascinated by the whole baseball organization. Saturday, we went to see the Giants play the Diamondbacks and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Too bad baseball can't be considered a cheap pleasure anymore.

Excuse the cliché:

Two Upper upper upper deck tickets: $32
Two hotdogs, two pretzels and one coke: $20
The look on this woman's face (the one in the visor, over my shoulder): priceless

Did you notice how oblivious Ben and I are to the actual game?

What grand slam?

I Scream, you scream.

Today's a good day for sugar lovers as we celebrate Charles E. Minches's invention of the ice cream cone ninety-seven years ago.

Cones are good.

My grandfather was the one who would pick me up from elementary school and as a treat, he would stop at Baskin Robbins so I could run in and buy myself a cone. Accustomed to paying with coins, I was faced with a major life choice the day he handed me a $10 bill.

Should I stick with the under $1.50 cone? Or, should I move onto something a bit more impressive?

Keep in mind that my grandfather, like many grandfathers who lived through the Great Depression, always counts his change and wants to see a receipt.

Counting change wasn't necessary when I came out of Baskin Robbins with a $7 banana split. The minute he saw me come out with a bag, he knew I spent more than the allotted buck and a half.

Note: Seven dollars has always been the amount I remember paying the for the banana split. Now, I think that is a bit pricey. That's more than I think they even charge now. I'm not sure if I created a higher price in my mind based on what my grandfather told my grandmother or if the staff at Baskin Robbins saw me coming and tricked me into adding all sort of extra toppings.

Regardless, I don't think I even wanted to eat my banana split after being reprimanded by my grandparents. My split -- the glorious three-scooped creation -- became tainted with guilt when my grandfather called me a little con artist and my grandmother just looked at me with grandmotherly disappointment.

Today, I can't eat a banana split without feeling a bit sick to my stomach. The banana/ice cream combination gives me the same queasy feeling that I felt on that trip home from Baskin Robbins so many years ago.

More ice cream:
Farm boys eating ice-cream cones. Washington, Indiana. From the Library of Congress.

Do you remember Farrell's? Or their Selective Service shannanigans?

A Memorex Moment.

I believe I've been listening to a bit too much NPR.

It's a weblog entry! It's a MP3! It's both.

I present: Radio, Radio (1.9 megs)

About a month ago, when my parents were faced with sudden homelessness they began stockpiling all their belongings from their house to our garage. Sorting through my mother's memory box, we unearthed a dusty old Scotch brand C-60 Cassette tape.

This is a story about what was on that tape.

"Was Rome where we saw the big yellow dog?"

This MetaFilter thread concerning "ugly Americans" traveling abroad got me thinking about my own European encounters.

Before I arrived in Paris, I was fearful of the French. I bought into all the exagerations.

Everyone: "They're rude!"

Everyone: "They'll hate you."

Everyone: "They hate all Americans, you know."

Me: But I hate Americans. Does that matter?

Everyone: Be prepared.

So, I prepared for the worse yet only encountered one rude Parisian. He worked at Gare De Lyon. But I guess I can't really blame him. How many outgoing and considerate Americans do you know working at public transportation stations? What about your local post office?

As it turned out, I became some American's image of a rude French person.

I was in the Louvre giftshop reading a book by the counter when an fanny-pack clad, ugly American actually grabbed the book I was reading in order to show it to someone else.

When I silently, but snappishly, grabbed it back, the man said something like "Excuuuse me. Or rather, pardon moi."

I could almost see him telling his story when he got back home:

"You should have seen this French bitch..."

But my favorite, oft-told ugly American story takes place in a French restaurant on Rue de la Harpe.

We're sitting at our table and enjoying our dinner when an American couple sits down at the table directly behind my seat. They were an older couple, perhaps in their late fifties, early sixties.

The moment we saw them, we knew they were trouble.

They're were exactly the sort of American that we all exaggerate about -- the kind that you picture when you utter the phrase ugly American.

They shouted. They only spoke in English. They actually said gar�on.

David Sedaris says it best as he writes about the relationship between Americans traveling in Paris:

People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American. France isn't even my country, but there I was, deciding that these people needed to be sent back home, preferably in chains. In disliking them, I was forced to recognize my own pretension, and that made me hate them even more.

Yes, we too, can be place in that pretentious lot. We hated that couple and wanted them to leave our restaurant and patronize the nearest McDonald's. This impression of disgust was formed way before they actually started to get extremely rude.

Ugly American man: Garcon! Could you get us some butter to go with this bread?

Waiter: Butter? (He knew how to handle this sort)

U.A.M: Yeah, some butter for my bread.

Waiter: Sorry. No.

We were half-embarrassed, half-delighted by the conversation. But the ugly American man just became incensed by the waiter's "incompetence." Then, he became the ugly American man who takes out his anger on his wife.

"Is this what French onion soup is supposed to taste like?"

"They call this steak medium rare? I should go back to the kitchen and teach that French "chef" how to cook a steak."

I swear that those were his exact words.

We're not perfect travelers. I know. We're the type, accustomed to living in California, that look around to see who is smoking when we smell the slightest hint of smoke. We had a tendency to eat earlier than the rest of the Europeans. We couldn't help it. And, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't completely avoid dressing like Americans.

But at least we respect French cooking.

Postal mail is my friend.

I got, in the mail, the greatest package from Ms. Paula of Perils of Leisure.

It contained two Pixies articles, a CD with the Pixies on a Holland radio show and some of Paula's favorite Throwing Muses songs, and the kicker -- a copy of Radio: an Illustrated Guide by Jessica Abel.

The comic is a behind-the-scenes account of how a This American Life show is conceived and produced and why the show is just so darn great.

Speaking of TAL, the Real Audio of Hitler's Yacht is now online.

In the late eighties, a group of Holocaust survivors towed the rotten hull of an old boat into the sea several miles off the coast of Miami, dropped it off a barge, and watched it sink to the bottom of the ocean. The boat was believed to be Hitler's personal yacht. The story of how it came to be called Hitler's yacht, and how it made its way from the boatyards of prewar Germany to a swampy marina in Jacksonville, Florida, is a long, strange monumentally entertaining yarn which takes up our entire hour.

So much to hear. So much to read. Thanks Paula!

Loobylu is back.

It's winter for Loobylu and she's back online.

And the new shading of her illustrations is so subtle and fabulous.

So where's my picture of Dorian Grey?

Is it possible for straight hair to naturally turn curly or wavy?

Even if it isn't, it's happening to me.

I think it has something to do with the fact that my hair is prematurely greying.

It used to be that I dyed my hair to look extreme. Now, it's more so I just look my age.

The greying started when I was around twenty.

My mom told me, in all honesty, that the grey hairs looked nice -- like a silver shimmer. Yeah right. You'll note that she doesn't let her silver shimmer shine.

But recently, she told me that I need to keep up with my coloring. That my hair is getting too grey and it's starting to make me look tired, old. That she doesn't want her baby to have gray hair. So much for natural beauty.

So, I dye it despite the reservations I have about sitting in semi-toxic fumes for a couple hours on a Saturday. I dye it because it actually does make a difference.

And now, my hair is changing textures. It's getting kinks and exhibiting the characteristics of hair that belongs on someone twice my age.

It's just something I've got to deal with. My great-grandmother was completely grey, or rather white-haired, by thirty. My grandmother, a decade later.

Since I started losing grey hairs, I realize that the Embrogno odds are in my favor.

I can handle the grey, I guess.

It's just the waves that are really creeping me out.

Hands off my quarters, brat!

I collect state quarters.

There, I've said it.

Geeky shame aside, it's quite thrilling to discover the latest quarter in a handful of change.

The only thing geekier than collecting state quarters is actually having a favorite one.

I'm partial to North Carolina and its scene from North by Northwest.

Or, you can view it as the Wright Brothers and Flyer in the "First Flight."

If it in any way redeems my cool factor, I should probably mention that I don't have the collector's map (as seen on TV).

I keep them in a commemorative book.

Big difference.

I'll have to wait until 2008 until my collection is complete. That's quite an investment of interest and dedication. Maybe by 2008, my kids will be able to put the last couple quarters in the slots.

Or maybe, I'll have a mean teenage daughter (parental payback) who will use my set of quarters to pay for a movie or lunch at the mall's food court. My biggest fear is having a daughter who puts me to shame in terms of teen angst and bitterness.

I wasn't a bad kid. I just put myself first in many a situation.

When I was a junior in high school, for example, I took some of my dad's books and sold them at a used bookstore for the cash. Not a complete monster, I picked books that were in my dad's "donate" area of the garage.

When stealing salt and pepper shakers from restaurants and selling your dad's books are the worse things you did as a teenager, I think there's a lot of room for redemption.

Rationalizations aside, I felt horrible when I was at the book store -- maybe because of the way I anthropomorphize books. But it's not like he was giving away the classics. I distinctly remember one of the books being The WASP Mystique. Now, who wants that lying around the house?

Entendres.

Lame double entendres -- like the ones you see on bumper stickers -- keep popping into my head tonight.

Sample:

Philologists do it in different tongues.