Who wants to live forever?

A few months ago, I caught this interesting tidbit on The Slate and stuck it in the "to blog" file in the back of my mind.

But in the way that thought gives way to thought and day give way to day, I just sort of left it on the mental back burner. And frankly, this whole blog has been on the mental back burner for a couple of weeks, so I figured now's a good time to dust off this topic and see if it has any legs left.

The story from The Slate was about how human life expectancy is getting much longer. It's happening not just in developed countries, but all over the globe. People are living longer, significantly longer. In fact according to the article, when we turn 50 most of us will still have more years ahead of us than our grandparents had when they turned 40.

This development comes with an argyle sock full of difficult socio-economic problems that someone will have to deal with: How do you feed all these old geezers? How can an already broke-ass Social Security system handle our additional years of geezerhood? Is Larry More really going to live long enough for me to have to watch him as a 3-D hologram?

I can't really answer these questions. Probably something for the upcoming young people to deal with the way my generation had to deal with cleaning up the Grunge music mess.

But when I first read the article I happened to be going through a bit of an existential funk, thinking about how quickly the first few decades of my life seem to have gone by and how even 100 years doesn't seem like nearly enough time to do everything that you want to do.

I know, I can hear what some of you are thinking. "Who wants to live to be 100, anyway?" And to be completely honest, I probably said idiotic shit like that back when I was young and stupid myself. Of course the answer to "Who would want to live to be 100?" is "Anybody who's 99."

As I've "matured" I've found that I love life. Sure it's crappy sometimes. There's always some jerk with an Apple logo sticker on his rear windshield who speeds up in rush hour traffic to block you from making a lane change. There are still people in the checkout line at the supermarket who insist on taking 15 minutes to write out a check (that's 15 minutes that I'll never get back, btw). The world, our culture and everything is pretty much going down the toilet.

But dammit, I really want to be around to enjoy this crappy world for a long, long time.

I love my family and I want to spend lots of time with them. I love seeing my kids grow up, even as I'm saddened to see them pass through the various stages of getting older. For every a-hole that doesn't hold the elevator for you, there's a glorious sunny spring morning, there are beautiful and priceless interstitial moments with your Supermodel Wife, there's your daughter with a death grip on your finger as she learns to walk, rather than crawl, down the stairs.

Everything just seems to be happening so fast. When I consider my own mortality, I think about how sad it will be to get to the end of the road and look back to see how short of a journey it was after all. Maybe life has a way of wearing you down as you age to the point that, by the time you get to the end, you're ready for it. But that hasn't happened to me yet. So when I read about increased longevity, I say bring it on.

It seem at this point that I would need 300 or 400 years to really absorb everything life has to offer, do everything I want to do, suck all the joyful marrow out of life's cold, cracked bones. Even that's just a guess. I'm sure that when I reached 399, I'd be thinking another 150 years or so would be nice.

I'm kind of just rambling on now, just freeforming this thing (that's what happens when you get old). I know I'm not alone and these are hardly original thoughts. Poems, songs, books, hell entire religions have been built around this subject. One could argue that the contemplation or our own mortality is central to what it means to be human.

So let me put it to you. Am I just stuck in a mid-life funk here? Can it even be considered mid-life given the longer lifespans? How long do you want to live, and more importantly, how long should Larry More be allowed to geezer up the airwaves?




Note: If you're reading this from an RSS reader, you might want to click through to the page to participate in the embedded poll question, if you can figure it out, ya old coot!



tagged: life, expectancy, science, society, Five For Fighting, family, mortality

3AM Poll: Ad nauseating

In case you haven't noticed, there have been a lot of campaign ads on the television box lately. I was tempted to write that there have been a lot of classless campaign ads, but I like to avoid redundancies where possible.

Anyway, its easy to see that the entire commercial television industry is being kept financially afloat in these trying economic times by political advertisements and ads for erectile dysfunction remedies — both of which make me reach for the DVR fast forward button quicker than Larry Moore reaches for his jumbo bottle of Geritol.

But that may be just me. What do you think?


tagged: politics, campaign, advertising, media, erectile dysfunction, poll, vote

Serendipity do

I think it’s cool when things seem to happen for a reason.

Doesn’t have to be a great big chain of cosmic events altering the time-space continuum and creating alternate realities. Although I guess in a cosmic sense we wouldn’t really know when that sort of thing happens anyway.

What I’m talking about is those seemingly trivial, seemingly insignificant events that happen every day that just fit together so well that it makes you wonder about fate, providence, whatever.

I say they’re seemingly insignificant, but I think these chains of events happen more often than we notice. And perhaps they are more important than we think they are.

Here’s the latest example from my awesome life.

So I’m at a certain sports/entertainment event well known for the proliferation of product sponsors. I’m wandering around a concourse area when a helpful chap comes up and offers me a free sample box of Goody's Headache Powder - Cool Orange.

It's a powder (like Kool Aid) that you pour into a bottle of water, let it dissolve, then drink the potion for headache relief. Nifty idea, I thought. Wonder if it works.

I stuck the three dosage packs in my pocket, anticipating a headache later in the day from too much sun and fun. But with all the merry-making and being awesome, I soon forgot they were there and it turned out I didn’t need them anyway.

Now fast forward ten or eleven hours. It’s two in the morning and I’m returning to the hotel. I stop at the front desk to check for messages and mail. There’s another fellow talking to the front desk attendant. The woman behind the counter seems to have disappointed him, saying something like “I’m sorry sir, we just can’t give out that kind of thing here.”

But the guy is insistent.

“Look all I need is some Tylenol, or some ibuprofen or something,” he says. “My wife is next door and she’s got a terrible headache. There aren’t any stores open around here.”

I instantly remember the headache powder packets I've had in my pocket all day and it all seems too perfect. I size up the guy and quickly conclude he isn’t some kind of ibuprofen junkie. I pull the medicine out and slide it down the check-in desk counter to him.

“Try these,” I say. “I don’t know if they’ll work, but it’s better than nothing.”

He recognizes the packets and is very gracious.

“Aw thanks man!” he says. ”This is great. You’re really helping me out. I really appreciated it.”

He offers a handshake which I return.

“No problem,” I say. “Hope it helps.”

“I want to repay you. Are you going to be in town for a while?” he asks.

I tell him I leave in the morning – actually, in a few hours. But no repayment is needed.

“Well are you going to be back next week? I own the bar across the street and you can be my guest for drinks or something.”

Tempted as I am, I’m pretty well exhausted from being awesome all day, and I’m already thinking about the travel day tomorrow – er, later today. I tell him I won’t be back in town and repeat that no repayment is necessary. It's just me doin’ a solid for a brutha (hell, I didn’t pay for the stuff anyway).

And besides, I couldn’t help but mull over the possibility that God... The Universe... karma... or whatever... had me bump into the medicine marketer and get a free sample for the express purpose of delivering it to this guy’s ailing wife a few hours later.

For that matter, the entire purpose of my life could have been to be in that specific place at that particular moment with free samples of headache medicine in my pocket just at the time when someone needed free headache medicine.

That may sound trivial and unimportant, but how do I know that the guy’s wife wasn’t working on a key breakthrough in the cure for cancer and if she could just get rid of her headache she could concentrate on finally working out the solution.

Or maybe she was about to finally figure out how to achieve peace in the Middle East? Or perhaps she'd worked out a way for newspapers to make money? Or it's possible that she was about to develop a treatment for Larry Moore's extreme geezerism.

We just don’t know, is all I’m sayin’. And I couldn’t very well take payment for playing such a pivotal roll in this cosmic drama. It just wouldn't be good karma, you know?

So I left him with these words before heading up to my room.

“Look, you don’t owe me any money. But some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this headache medicine as a gift from me.”

tagged: fate, karma, serendipity, Goody's Headache Powder, medicine, anecdote

Journey man

Against my better judgment, I watched the KMBC so-called local so-called news tonight. It's just been so long since I've had a good dose of homeless pet coverage, and I wanted to subject myself to the sickening stream of political ads.

I'm crazy like that.

So any way, anchorgeezer Larry Moore led off the news with the story of Keith Slater, the 22 year-old KC resident who found a racial slur printed on his receipt after returning a pair of shoes at the Journeys store in Overland Park's Oak Park Mall.

This isn't going to be a commentary on KMBC's coverage, although you can bet your Kenneth Cole's that since the story went national they'll be blanketing their coverage with senseless follow-up stories for the rest of the week.

Rather I just wanted to ask, nay implore, Slater's parents to take a higher road on this issue. Sure, they have every right to be pissed off. Who doesn't get angry when called a name -- even more so for a racially charged one.

But KMBC aired footage of a room full of local media hacks invited into Slater's home where his father threw out not-so-veiled threats of a lawsuit against a store that was clearly screwed by an employee (an employee who has been summarily and rightfully fired).

This goes dangerously close to perpetuating a stereotype.

So please, Slater family, don't play the role of the victim on this. Please don't wax melodramatic about your pain and suffering and the pain and suffering of your children.

Instead, be magnanimous and accept the store's apology. Lament the fact that this kind of thing can still happen in our day and age and try to make something positive out of it.

Teach your son that there are assholes in the world, but he doesn't have to be one. Teach him that he isn't defined by someone's ignorant opinion of him, but rather by the way he treats others.

Teach him, when being hated, not to give way to hating. Teach him to battle a stereotype by showing that the stereotype isn't true.

But don't be swayed by a pack of slimy lawyers trying to cash in on an insulting incident. Doing so may give you an extra 15 minutes of fame. But is that really what you want to be famous for?

tagged: race, Slater, Journeys, Kansas City, Overland Park, Oak Park Mall

Socky

One of the good things about our recent trip to Branson was the shopping.

Not that I'm an authority on shopping. I hate shopping. Frankly, I'd rather watch Larry Moore do a naked burlesque show than spend even five minutes in a mall.

But I had a nice score in a Branson outlet mall that almost makes the entire trip worthwhile.

First, a little background: About five years ago, I went through a simplification regimen. This consisted of getting rid of some of the extraneous "stuff" in my life. Focus on the important things, streamline the processes, etc. As part of this exercise, I got rid of all the fancy socks I used to wear to work and replaced them with plain black socks.

These are special (to me) socks, a lycra/cotton blend from Jockey that was comfortable and tended not to fade as much as other socks. At the time, I could only find them at one store, so I stocked up with a couple dozen pairs.

The beauty of the system is that they are all identical and they pretty much go with anything I might wear to work, so I never had to worry about finding a pair of matching socks. They all matched each other, see?

Over the years, a sock would wear out and I could just throw a new one into the rotation. This worked great until the store I shopped at quick carrying them. I searched online and couldn't find them anywhere.

As I started to wear holes into the heels of more socks, I resigned myself to the fact that my great sock experiment was coming to a close. I even went so far as to wear a couple of pairs of non-standard socks that I had received as a Christmas present (yes, I received socks as a Christmas present. Sad isn't it).

Then, while on a stroll around a Branson outlet mall while my Supermodel Wife was buying factory outlet-priced Supermodel clothes, I saw a Jockey outlet store. I felt a slight tinge of hope. I stepped in and saw a display of the very socks I needed -- and at factory outlet prices no less.

So, I restocked on socks. I've got a nice big stack of two dozen socks just waiting to move into the rotation as their older brethren wear out.

Life will continue to be simple for me -- at least in the sock department.

tagged: Branson, Jockey, socks, feet, shopping

The Obvious Psychic

Most people don't know this, but I have psychic powers.

My powers used to be more acute. Back in high school, for example, I successfully predicted the rise and fall of Yahoo Serious. Then during college I got kind of messed up in drugs, and even though I'm clean now, I only have flash forwards every now and then.

But I still have a talent for making obvious psychic predictions with stunning accuracy, so I've put together a few for this weekend. You can keep score at home. It's fun, see?

• Saturday Night Live will lead off with a skit featuring Liz Lemmon impersonating Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin in the VP debate. That show's predictability is matched only by its unfunniness. Who'd a thought we'd look back with longing on the Kevin Nealon days.


• TKC will have no less than a dozen posts about the KCMO co-mayors. His predictability is matched only by the pictures of scantily clad women he posts. Still, he's an order of magnitude more original and funny than SNL.

• The K-State Wildcats undefense will get shredded by Texas Tech to the tune of about a brazillion yards.


• Congress will drive the final nail into the coffin of the country formerly known as America by passing the $850 billion Buy Our Way Into Social Totalitarianism Bill.


• There will be at least three people killed in East Kansas City over the weekend, which, with the direction this country is heading socially and politically, makes them the lucky ones.

And finally,


• Larry Moore will continue to be a complete goober by gushing all over MU while reading non-news stories about homeless cats or fake local celebrities.

There's more, but the premonitions are getting really weird and disturbing (I don't know why The D and XO would be sharing a pair of rubber pants (shiver)) so I'd better stop for now.

You kids have great weekend.

tagged: psychic, obvious, Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live, Sara Palin, k-State, Kansas City, Larry Moore, Congress, bailout, Yahoo Serious

That's all I've got to say about that

I'm a little bit bitter better today -- a state of mind I owe, no doubt, to the therapeutic affects of time and a Benadryl overdose (the original stuff, not that non-drowsy crap).

Today the KU fanboys (and girls) around the office are still obnoxious with their second straight day of Blue and Red, but they seem to have picked up on my non-verbal cues that I'm not one of them (chief among such cues: the purple shirt (the color of kings) that I'm wearing today).

I know I've been a whiny bitch about the whole KU thing. But in my defense, I just think someone should try to provide some kind of equal-time balance to the gigantic, collective Hawkgasm that has spewed its sticky self all over this city.

Still, I know a lot of the Cheathawk fans don't have much of a sense of humor in this regard, so I'm making this my last post on this particular issue (unless and until Coach Bill Self takes the money and runs to Okie State).

That being the case, I just need to get a couple of things off my chest.

First, I want to offer a bit of a mea culpa to KU's basketball team. I want to congratulate you for your accomplishment. You succeeded in using illegal recruiting practices* to build a team that could coast through the easiest bracket in the tournament and then accept the championship presented to you on a silver platter by an inept Memphis team that refused to foul when it needed and refused to make critical free throws.

So congratulations again on that.

Secondly, I know that this is a huge deal to KU fans, but just remember how annoying we all think the Oklahoma "longest-winning-streak-in-college-football-history" Sooners fans are.

With that in mind, if you must talk or interact with me, let's see if we can find a topic other than KU. I've come up with a starter list:

Things I would rather do than hearing about KU's win:

• Suffer through the New Kids on the Block reunion concert
• Go skinny dippin' in Brush Creek
• Open-mouth-kiss Larry Moore
• Experience a continuous 12-hour rickroll
• Shave my nipples off with a cheese grater

*NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions, Oct. 12, 2006: "Major violations occurred in the men's basketball program from 2002 through 2005. During that time frame, a representative of the institution's athletics interests supplied cash, transportation, clothing and other benefits to two men's basketball student-athletes. The athletics representative befriended one of the young men while he was still a prospect, buying him clothing and meals and transporting him to a number of the institution's men's basketball contests. ..."
tagged: KU, cheater, basketball, Final Four, NCAA, Tournament, sports, Jayhawks, New Kids On The Block

Headlines: G.M.'s alternative fuel bet

General Motors is taking steps to make sure it maintains it's position on the cutting edge of automotive technology.

According to the New York Times, GM has invested heavily in a company that is developing a process to create alternative fuels out of waste products.

General Motors, eager to ensure a supply of fuel for the big fleet of flex-fuel ethanol-capable vehicles it is building, has joined the rush into alternative energy and invested in a company that intends to produce ethanol from crop wastes, wood chips, scrap plastic, rubber and even municipal garbage.

GM is investing in a company called Coskata, which is keeping it's fuel-generation process largely underwraps. But it has released an overview of it's technology.

Coskata is one of many companies ... in an emerging world of start-up firms that are making alternative fuels with a mix-and-match approach to existing technologies. In Coskata’s case it is a combination of gasification and bacterial action.

This overview is giving local economic development officials a lot of hope.

According to my many inside sources, officials with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce have already contacted Coskata and notified them that Kansas City sits right on top of the largest source of gasified waste and municipal garbage in the Midwest.

He's on KMBZ each night at 6 and 10 p.m.

tagged: General Motors, ethanol, gasification, waste, Larry Moore, Kansas City, environmentalist

Friday Feast

Hey, how about I do the Friday Feast this week?

Appetizer
Make up a word and give us its definition.
Multiple Sarkasm: A term I use for the media gush-fest that happened when the French elected Nicolas Sarkozy.


Soup
What is currently your favorite song?
Was, is and always will be Jimmy Buffett's Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw.

Salad
What’s at the top of your Christmas wish list this year?
I want an official Red Ryder carbine-action two-hundred-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time.

Main Course
Name a scent that reminds you of someone special in your life.
My grandmother always kept whole cloves in her purse and she would give them to us as mints. My guess it it's something she picked up as a young girl during The Depression when only the rich and powerful had access to TicTacs. Still, I can't smell cloves without thinking of my grandmother.

Dessert
Who is someone on television that you feel probably shouldn’t be, and why?
Omigod! The possibilities are endless! How about everyone on teevee between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Or how about a "contestent" on every Deal or No Dancing with America's Top Survivor Idol. But in keeping with theme, I'll just go with Larry Moore, for obvious reasons.

---

Here are alternative Friday Feast menus you might enjoy:

• Bea's Weblog
• Logtar's Blog
• Chimpotle
• ...and that's all I found. Leave a comment if you know of others.

tagged: meme, Friday Feast, television, Larry Moore, Jimmy Buffett, Sarkozy

It's a Mangino-ful life

The geniuses at JibJab have created one of the coolest web widgets ...EVAR!

To prove this, check out the video I made using their Sendables widget. You might recognize a few local celebrities, such as KU Coach Mark Mangino in the lead role, KMBC news zombie Larry Moore, King Leonidas from 300 fame and Your's Truly (sans cigarette).

Enjoy. If you make your own version, be sure to leave a comment to let me know so I can check it out.

Don't send a lame Starring You!
eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

PS- I think this is so cool that I didn't strip out the advertising code. Diggity!

tagged: video, Jib Jab, Larry Moore, Mark Mangino, Gabe Kaplan, holiday, It's a Wonderful Life

3 A.M. Poll: Parts is parts

As humans have evolved (if you believe in such things), we've retained certain evolutionary throwbacks that seem to serve no useful purpose.

The appendix, for example, or the fifth toe, or Larry Moore.

So, what is your favorite useless body part?


tagged: body, parts, biology, evolution, male nipples, poll, vote

Headlines: Chimp on your shoulder

This news just in from that wellspring of scholarship Atlanta - Gestures May Come From Chimps

Gesturing is one of the oldest forms of human communication, and now researchers have discovered that apes and chimps use the same motions humans do when asking for things.

The study indicates that hand gestures, much like Democrats, evolved from monkeys.

I know, I was skeptical at first just like you. But then I saw some of the pictures that were published with the study and now I have to admit, they may have something here.

tagged: headline, news, science, evolution, monkey, chimp, finger, the bird, gesture

Headlines: Void where prohibited

In case you haven't been keeping up with current events in science, astrophysicists have discovered the largest yet totally empty region of space.

Radio astronomers have found the biggest hole ever seen in the universe. The void, which is nearly a billion light years across, is empty of both normal matter and dark matter. The finding challenges theories of large-scale structure formation in the universe.

The void has nothing in it. No thing. You can't believe how utterly empty this thing is. It's like Paris Hilton's resume, or any song by Maroon 5. We're talking devoid of content here.

I read about this the other night and immediately went outside to see it for myself. Sure enough there it was, right there in space where they said it would be.

I took a picture to share with you. My little Nikon digital camera got a pretty good shot.



tagged: space, science, void, Paris Hilton, Larry Moore, Maroon 5, humor

Manufacturing concrete news

My Supermodel Wife and I were on our way home with our daughter after a community meeting last night when, on a whim, we decided to stop by Sheridan's Frozen Custard on 75th Street.

Someone mentioned at the meeting that Sheridan's was giving away free "concretes" if you mentioned that you "love KMBC Channel 9."

Now, "love" isn't a word I would use to describe any TV station, unless it's in the context of "I love to bash Larry Moore." But then again, who am I to scoff at a free frozen custard treat.

Then we pulled into the parking lot at 75th and Metcalf and realized that nothing is free. Check out the picture (from the KMBC website).

At the 75th Street location, the line stretched around the entire building. Sure, you don't have to pay money for the frozen custard, but you'll have to wait on line for an hour. It took us about two seconds to decide we didn't want to pay the price for Sheridan's, and about 10 minutes to drive over the Foo's Fabulous, which is right by our house anyway.

I would rather pay the 12 bucks to treat my family rather than make them stand in line with a bunch of moochers. Actually, that's not fair. I don't begrudge those who wanted a free frozen snack. What I really begrudge is KMBC reporting on this like it was a news story.

Look, I tune in to the local nightly news to get updates on Paris Hilton's jail sentence, the Iranian stance on porn stars and the bayou ban on baggy pants, not this meaningless manufactured tripe about people getting free frozen desserts.

To spend so much time setting up an event and then foisting the reporting on an unsuspecting public smacks of Rathergate.

tagged: news, KMBC, Larry Moore, media, Iran, porn star, Dan Rather

Get rich or die tryin'

So I caught this article about a UK guy who bet some bookies 10 years ago that he could live to be 100 years old. He won $50 grand yesterday when he celebrated his 100th birthday.

I can see some pros and cons to this.

The pros of course are that the dude is still alive and $50k richer. The con is, how much fun can a 100-year-old have with $50,000. I mean c'mon, he's 100 freakin' years old.

So for this to work for me, I would have to bet on someone else living to be 100. After all, I want my $50 large now, not 70 years from now. And the only guy I know who's even close to 100 years old is Xavier Onassis. He might have a shot at making it, too. Hell, he already quit smoking.

The other option is my favorite geezer Larry Moore. I'm not sure how old he is, but by the looks of him he can't be too far from the century mark. And I hear that there are a lot of preservatives in all of that makeup and hair "product". Plus, everyone knows that the annoying people are always the ones who tend to stick around the longest.

Anyway, I'm calling the bookies tonight to find out what kind of odds I can get. Want in on the action?

tagged: age wager, Alec Holden, Larry Moore, 100, get rich, UK, bet, bookie

Dream job?

Let's face it, most of us aren't in a job we love. Personally, I merely like my job, but I always have this nagging thought that there's probably something better.

Then I caught this little nugget. It looks like KMBC Channel 9 News, home of geezersauraus rex Larry Moore, is looking for a new weather dude/wench.

In my mind, there are pros and cons to any career choice and you have to weigh these carefully before telling you current employer to foxtrot oscar. So, regarding this opportunity...

Pros

• You don't have to know a thing about meteorology.
• Chromakey+Maria Antonia+remote control=tons of fun.
• I have more hair than Micheal Mahoney.
• Endless opportunities to riff on Larry Moore.

Cons

• I'd have to develop a "sky is falling" attitude about thunderstorms.
• I've been told I have a face for radio and a voice for print.
• Endless opportunities to be hazed by Larry Moore.

All in all, I'd say it's worth a shot. I'm off to polish up my resume and get my audition tape ready.
tagged: media, job, career, meteorology, Maria Antonia, Larry Moore, Kansas City

Victory for wanking and free speech

I wanted to give a shout out to the federal judge in Philadelphia who dealt another blow to government efforts to control Internet pornography.

In overturning a 1998 U.S. law which makes it a crime for commercial website operators to let children access "harmful" material, Judge Lowell Reed Jr. essentially said the right of free speech outweighs parents' rights to have the government raise their pervy kids.

In his opinion, Reed wrote:

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if (free speech) protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."

That's a good point. Everybody just needs to ease up a little and keep things in perspective.

I contend that if you’re a parent and you're worried about your kid seeing pornography on the internet, then you're probably already "with it" enough to use any of the myriad of blockers and filters available to prevent that sort of thing.

Besides, as the article points out there are bigger concerns for parents of connected kids to worry about such as predators on social networking sites like MySpace, identity theft through spyware, and the contagious geezerhood of Larry Moore.

tagged: free, speech , wanking, porn , Larry Moore, Judge Lowell Reed, internet

Headlines: 1st Beaver spotted in NYC in 200 years

This is great news for NYC.
Here's the key quote from the story:

"It had to happen because beaver populations are expanding, and their habitats are shrinking," said Dietland Muller-Schwarze, a beaver expert at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. "We're probably going to see more of them in the future."

This is true, even in these parts. A casual stroll through Westport on any Friday or Saturday night shows how even the furriest beavers seem to be bursting out of their surroundings.

Fortunately, there has never been a shortage of beaver in Kansas City, although I've heard that it's been at least 200 years since Larry Moore has seen one.

tagged: news, headlines, wildlife, beaver, Westport, Larry Moore

Another headline I couldn't resist

Blind snake rediscovered after 100 years

A rare blind snake has been rediscovered a century after its last sighting. The snake, which looks like a long, skinny pink worm, was only known from two other specimens, both discovered in 1905.

“They’re really rare because they’re subterranean,” said blind-snake expert Van Wallach of Harvard University who described the new specimen. “You can’t just go out anytime you want and collect these things. You can dig forever and never find them.”

It turns out that a UMKC biologist has discovered another specimen of this blind, pink snake which hasn't seen the light of day in 100 years in Larry Moore's pants.


tagged: news, blind, pink, snake, Larry Moore, science

YouTube Tuesday: Blueman

Yesterday, Tony took exception with a recent column by The Star's Steve Kraske about the sorry state of so-called news reporting in this city.

Evidently Tony gets off on tales of car accidents, house fires, east-side shootings and Larry Moore. He's sick like that.

Personally, I had my fill of it two years ago and stopped watching the so-called local so-called news. With a DVR, there's no need to watch trash that doesn't feature Alissa Milano.

Anyway, this little YouTube video expresses my thoughts on the subject better than what you've read to this point...



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Network, blueman, pop culture, news media