The Mars Polar Lander was considered an amazing bargain at $230 million. In the minds of NASA scientists, this is an amount that is way below the price you would normally expect to pay for a big, hulking piece of metal that doesn’t actually work.
The Mars Polar Lander would’ve cost more, but NASA was determined to cut corners after hearing one too many whiny Americans claim that basically all we’ve gotten after some forty years of space exploration is a frying pan your eggs won’t stick to.
Be that as it may, somebody at Mission Control should have questioned the fact that the Polar Lander’s heating elements were, upon closer inspection, actually a couple of deluxe model George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machines.
Plus there was the admission by a NASA project manager that there was little hope of retrieving usable data from recording devices on the probe because the batteries were probably dead. Note to NASA: spring for the copper-tops next time.
The latest theory is that “there was an incorrect orientation of the main antenna” on the Mars Polar Lander. When I was a kid, it was my job to go outdoors and turn our TV antenna toward the TV station we were trying to receive. Perhaps NASA just needed one skinny country kid “stropped” to the top of the lander screaming, as I did, “IS THAT IT?” to someone inside until Hee Haw came in real clear or you hit Mars, whichever came first.
One thing we know for sure is that the latest silly space probe was programmed exclusively by men of the male sex.
I know this because it’s obvious that the Lander refused to follow directions to Mars and instead, in a little-publicized transmission to Mission Control, announced that it most certainly did not need directions and “furthermore, maps are for sissies.”
That’s why I’m fairly certain that, at this very minute, the MPL is floating somewhere around Neptune feeling tired and cranky and looking for a Holiday Inn.
Of course, you’d have to have a heart of titanium not to feel a little twinge of sadness while watching those dejected NASA scientists waiting by the phone like the class wallflower on prom week.
On the other hand, it was kind of fun to watch a bunch of men waiting by the phone and seeing how they feel when someone promises they’ll call and then YOU NEVER HEAR FROM HIM AGAIN.
See, it wasn’t all bad news, now was it?
Fools for Fashion
The fashion industry just wrapped up its nine-day fall show in New York. Imagine it. Nine days of learning what “they” have decided we’re going to look great in this fall. What’s that you say? You’re still checking the clearance rounders for bargains from LAST fall? How positively plebeian of you.
Maybe you didn’t have time to check out the designers’ shows last week because you were busy registering the kids for kindergarten and spending your spare time trying to dig up proof they’d been born and even vaccinated.
Not to worry. While you were busy living your mundane little life, the fashion industry’s forecasters have been busy pulling together reports that will keep you looking trendy this fall. Even those of you who still say Tommy HilFINGER and haven’t taken those stupid icicle lights off your house yet.
I love to listen to fashion types because they tend to speak in third person, a la erectile dysfunction poster-dude Bob “Bob” Dole and WWF darling “The Rock” (who, incidentally, has written a best-selling biography that details his life from when he was just a pebble.) They’re also, well, self-important. Consider designer Yeohlee Teng’s promise to “forge a path away from today’s fashion omni-trends, mega-mergers, and inside politics.” Hey, it’s just a blouse with flowers on it, but maybe I’m missing something.
The other funny thing about fashion folks is that they don’t mind sounding stupid; in fact, they embrace it with a throaty ha-ha-ha and a toss of their $500 blow-outs. (And you thought it was a big deal when you bought REAL Paul Mitchell down at the Kut ‘n’ Kurl). One fashion guru was quoted as saying that “black was an ’eighties look and not so interesting but now the ’eighties are interesting.” Well, alrighty then.
The official fashion world word is that black is going to very BIG this fall, but mostly as background for camel, brown, and green. Or you can just wear black by itself. Neutrals will be big but so will electric, vibrant colors such as blue, fuchsia, and bright reds. In other words, just wear whatever the heck you want because it’s all, to borrow a phrase from the finally fabulous ’eighties, “smurfy.”
I think most fashion designers are crazier than an outhouse rat, myself. How else do you explain dresses that are more holes than fabric or stockings that are purposely ripped worn with exposed garter belts?
The only thing more amusing than the runway designs is the fawning fashion press. Consider one journalist’s description of a brown skirt and shirt as a genius notion from a “minimalist designer known for her cerebral exercises.”
Reckon she’d really go nuts over my MATCHING navy blue Hanes for Her sweatpants and sweatshirt. I’m chic and minimalist and all the time I thought I was just tacky and po’.
Sadly, most of us won’t get to wear those de la Renta red vinyl halter tops and mink miniskirts “they” have designed for us. Too chilly when you’re hanging out in the freezer case buying Kid Cuisine, don’t you know.
I’ve Scanned, So Where’s My Check?
Remember a few years back when George Bush the first marveled at a bar code scanner during a just-us’ns campaign stop at a Maine grocery store? Most of us chuckled at this because Bush, who apparently hadn’t bought his own groceries since Sputnik, was dismayed at such whiz-bang technology.
Imagine what George would do if he could see us now, taking that next bold step and scanning our own groceries.
Self-serve checkout systems are all the rage. Literally. They just installed two at my favorite grocery store and the air around those things is bluer than Aunt Hettie’s hair after a fresh mink rinse.
I tried one of these gizmos and we just didn’t get along. Perhaps it’s because I have the mechanical savvy of a box of Ring-Dings, but I had to keep rescanning stuff. Plus, I couldn’t resist talking back to the thing.
“Three seventy-nine,” the soothing female voice inside the gizmo said.
“For cereal? Are you kidding me? I can remember when this stuff was a buck and a half AND you got a Batman rubber stamp set in every box.”
“Two ninety-nine. Eighty-nine cents. Thirty-three cents.”
She’s not much of a conversationalist, but I guess that’s not her job.
Frankly, I’m a little worried about how smart these machines are. They’re impossible to hoo-doo because they check the weight of your groceries against the weight they’re supposed to be, automatically alerting a cashier to any discrepancy.
I’m terrified that I’ll accidentally scan myself and the discrepancy between my correct body weight and my actual weight will cause the thing to alert Jenny Craig.
I have to wonder why this weighing skill can’t extend to the baggers, who routinely insist on putting an eight-pound chuck roast and a couple of bottles of wine in the one flimsy plastic bag, then place a lemon and one garlic bulb in another bag all to themselves. What’s with that?
With the self-serve checkout, you have to bag your own groceries. This, like pumping our own gas and being able to make funnel cakes at home, is just another giant step backward.
Seems to me that if you’re going to scan and bag your groceries, you should be eligible for employee medical and dental benefits. What else is there left to do? Restock the canned goods? Smoke outside on break and glare at the customers?
Grocery stores like the U-Scan system because they estimate that one cashier can oversee four self-serve checkouts. Not if most of the customers are like me. I had to have the woman in the Wizard of Oz booth come down four separate times to scan my unscannables.
Stores say the system’s biggest bonus to the customer is avoiding long lines at the regular checkouts. This is especially true at peak times, like five P.M. when grocery store managers acro
ss the land routinely close half the registers so everybody can sit in the office, drink box wine, and laugh at us while we sputter and fume.
I’m sticking to the old ways. How else will I get to read Weekly World Globe Enquirer? Some traditions are sacred, you know.
Tofu Shrinks Your Brain
In case you missed it, medical researchers dropped a couple of dietary bombshells on us during the past week. The first one was that it turns out that a high-fiber diet, well, it doesn’t actually do much of anything for you one way or the other.
All that talk about how high fiber keeps you from getting all those awful colon diseases?
Turns out it’s not true. Flawed data. Lah-dee-dah. My bad.
So here’s my question: who do I kill?
No, I mean it. I want names. Somebody needs to pay for every bowl of fiber-laden cereal that has cramped my gut for nearly a decade when there was a freezer full of toaster waffles just screaming my name in the night.
The second revelation was that scientists have discovered that tofu—the earthy-crunchy set’s favorite protein-packed “health” food—has been linked to “a faster decline in mental abilities.”
Shoot. I could’ve told you that. I’m sure you’ve all met someone who has said they just loooove that tofu ice cream and right away, you’re thinking, “Now there’s someone who is experiencing a decline in their mental abilities.”
Turns out that a study of three thousand Japanese-American men living in Hawaii found that the men who ate tofu at least twice a week experienced a more rapid decline in mental abilities when compared to the non-tofu-eaters.
Not only that, the study found that the tofu-eaters actually EXPERIENCED A REDUCTION IN BRAIN SIZE.
This explains a lot of the stupidity in the world today. For example, today I went to the one-hour photo place and said, “I’ll see you in an hour,” and they said, “Well, we’re backed up and it’ll be more like ninety minutes.” “But,” I said, “you’re a one-hour photo store, not a ninety-minute store. That’s why you charge roughly forty-three dollars and fifty-three cents a roll.” And they said, “Well, we can’t guarantee you’ll get your pictures in an hour, that’s just what we do most of the time but today we’re real busy,” and I said, “Then you shouldn’t advertise one-hour service or you should make it a lot cheaper if you can’t deliver in an hour,” and they said that I was making their head hurt with all my newfangled logic.
Tofu-eaters, no question.
Just so you won’t think I’m totally close-minded, you should know that I tried tofu recently because some tofu-loving friends were coming for dinner and I didn’t want to just slap a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store on the table like I normally would for company. Didn’t want the sight of genuine quasi-home cooking to send them into some kind of reduced-brain panic.
So I bought a wad of tofu, which is Vulcan for “soybean curd mixed with pencil sharpener shavings,” and followed the package directions, which involved draining it, then sawing it into little cubes and frying them until lightly brown and spongy. The tofu-eaters were thrilled but we weren’t. The toddler pronounced it “very, very yuck” and we all ate big plates of fiber-free frozen waffles after they left.
Tell me we don’t know how to live.
Designer Kitty Litter
My twelve-year-old cat shoved the Home section of the newspaper toward me with a paw still wet with milk from my cereal bowl. (Too bad I only made that connection AFTER finishing the bowl. Yuk.)
She mewed noisily and batted at a headline in the top right-hand corner: “Picky Cats, Litter and Scents-ability,” it said.
“What’s this?” I asked while she rolled her eyes dramatically and tapped a paw on her temple.
“Hey, don’t get an attitude,” I said. “I’m not the one that coughed up a hair ball and then got scared and tried to kill it.”
The story was about a new development in kitty litter technology that combines “aromatherapy” with antibacterial kitty litter full of dried botanicals and essential oils. The litter comes in scents such as lavender, geranium, and orange spice, and promises to “deliver a sense of inner growth and relaxation” as the cat uses the box.
Why should we stop there? Why not tiny kitty-sized magazine racks for the bathroom with reading material like Good Mousekeeping or Martha Stewart Living—For Cats (“Spray-paint leftover lizard innards for a festive patio wind chime!”).
I’m not even sure what aromatherapy is for humans, let alone cats. I think it’s what we used to call candles. These days there are entire stores devoted to aromatherapy, which is far removed from the box of kitchen matches we always kept in the bathroom in case it was Thanksgiving and Uncle Deewit was visiting. Y’all know what I mean. You probably got an Uncle Deewit in your own family.
The idea behind aromatherapy seems to be that certain combinations of scents can grant you the kind of deep spiritual connection and inner peace that could only be achieved in previous times by devouring an entire Sara Lee French Cheese-cake.
It all seems like a bunch of hooey to me, although the sense of smell can certainly take you places in your head every so often. The other day, I was talking to a woman in her fifties and suddenly I realized she was wearing patchouli. Woman, please. Nobody actually likes the smell of this old hippie scent from the ’sixties anymore. Get on with your life and get yourself some Estee. After all, it’s not like any of us still think Grand Funk Railroad was talented. Move on.
I think it’s nice to have a good-smelling house, but aromatherapy? Puleez. Even Glade and Wizard have started making “aromatherapy” candles that are supposed to “soothe and pamper.” Hey! I just want to cover up the smell of that shad roe I fried last night.
The cat listened to me mutter about all this and sulked back toward her plain old litter box with the cheap Wal-Mart litter and a Stick Up that hasn’t had any juice in it since 1988, but it’s not like you can ever get ’em off the wall. We just keep painting over ’em.
I bet she’ll pout until I open a can of mackerel for her supper. Remember, she thinks that stuff smells terrific so do you really think she deserves litter “enhanced with lemon thyme”?
I thought not.
Clams, Flying, Batman, and Me
Pilots always tell me more than I want to know. And they always start by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, from the cockpit, this is your captain speaking…”
Where else would he be? On the wing?
And pilots are always bragging about their altitude.
“Ladies and gentlemen, from the cockpit (natch) we’ll be flying at forty thousand feet today. That’s really high. In fact, it’s a good ten thousand feet higher than the guys on that U.S. Air cropduster just below us on the right side of the airplane. Ladies and gentlemen, what can I say but nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.”
I was traveling with my parents to New York recently when the motormouth pilot felt compelled to tell us the weather ahead was “bad, really bad.”
He said we’d have to refuel in Philadelphia. While he prattled on about wind shear this and lightning storm that, my seat-mate, a New Yorker, tossed two Xanax into her palm and started chewing ’em like they were Di-Gels.
A few minutes later, the captain came back with this: “Well, folks, it seems everybody else had the same idea as I did, so now Philly’s too busy to take us. We’ll have to go elsewhere.”
Elsewhere? ELSEWHERE? Does he have a buddy with a cornfield in Pittsburgh? Define elsewhere, I wanted to say. Give two examples.
The girl beside me just smiled dreamily. I couldn’t help but think that if we’d been ten thousand feet lower we’d have had dibs on Philadelphia but now, here we were, stranded with a dwindling fuel supply and not one danged bottle of Jack Daniels left on the beverage cart.
Lawsy.
After a couple of minutes, the pilot spoke again: “We really do need to refuel,” he said. “I think we’ll try (sound of arrow spinning on cardboard with names of cities) Baltimore!”
My m
other and I greeted this with delight. While others, mostly serious-looking Yankee businessmen, groaned and snapped their laptops shut in disgust, we had only one thing on our minds: She-Crab Soup.
This helps explain my food obsession. It is inherited. I have a cousin who is well into her nineties but still writes long letters detailing every meal she has had since she last wrote. I positively drool over her shakily written pages with long descriptions of “meatloaf with an interesting brown gravy and a velvety blackberry cobbler with Cool Whip.”
And when she’s done with her meal, she starts with, “Blanche had the omelet, which we thought was silly since it was past noon, but you know Blanche…”
Southern women take their meals quite seriously. We don’t just eat them, we commit them to memory so we can relive them with friends later.
We spent our five-hour layover in Baltimore buying crab soup and clams. Fabulous!
We landed in New York uneventfully and immediately went to Planet Hollywood where, of all people, Adam West, the REAL Batman, was sitting at the next table. He winked at my mother (!) but ignored me, which wasn’t all that fair since I was the one with the Batman and Robin posters all over my room. Okay, they’re still up. Anyway, my dad asked Adam West on the way out if he knew there was a Bat Cave, North Carolina, and I just thought I’d die of embarrassment. He was acting like Adam West was a regular person.
Oh, yes. I had the blue cheeseburger, medium rare. My daddy had a plain burger, well-done, and my mama had a grilled turkey burger. Batman had a small Caesar salad and a Killian’s.
Blanche wasn’t there, of course. But if she had been, she’d probably have gotten the Bruce Willis Omelet.
You know Blanche…
Card Shopping for My Gay Friend’s Dog
Bless Your Heart, Tramp Page 10
