A Wisconsin Yankee in Walt Disney's Court

Click for full size. I’m not sure what this illustrates. I didn’t hunt down the associated article, though, because I’d rather wonder how somebody ended up with a wheelbarrow full of baby orangutans almost exactly all the same size. It’s not like they have litters, like kittens or in vitro-fertilized barren humans. I like to keep the hope alive in the back of my mind that the story is that they’ve found a way to mass-produce baby apes who will never grow into giant brutes who can snap your limbs like twigs and will alway be docile. On the other hand, it may be about Sumatra being over-run by the orange-haired freaks and this batch is heading to the incinerator. I don’t want to know that.

Other ape news: Cuter than seems remotely possible, this chimp has adopted two white lion cubs at a zoo. Cute, but all three will be willing and able to eat your face off in just a few months, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Japan may be way ahead of us in every kind of technology, but they might also be the first to fall to our monkey overlords judging by this story of two macaques running a sake bar near Tokyo. Click on the video link to see a bipedal monkey in a tiny robe plot the overthrow of his cruel masters between drink orders. The owner of the bar is already training more, so as soon as this little guy gets his army in place it’ll be viva la revolution! just you wait and see.

At the Scrabble club last night, I made the boneheaded play of CHOSING, thinking it was CHOOSING for some unknown reason, when a couple of other options were available that would’ve scored plenty of points and a win.

When old Irv challenged I realized what I’d done, and cursed my greed. I haven’t had a 100-point word in quite a while and it blinded me. My buddy Art over at the next table couldn’t believe I’d done it, after playing a pretty solid 400+ point game against him. I’d thrown away what would’ve been a great comeback that I’d been handed on a platter.

Irv did the right thing by blocking the only real bingo spot and scoring 30-some points to wrap it up– all the tiles were out of the bag. I stewed about 5 minutes off of my clock, looking for some unseen hook, or wondering if I could get enough points off without a bingo to win. I was over 70 down, and my rack was CGHINO and a blank, and the only real hook was the K that Irv put down. Something had to end in I or IN to make KI and maybe EN.

But like the Bear’s squib kick against the Falcons, he had given me a shot at a 1 second field goal, and some part of my brain suddenly saw GNOCCHI for 98 points and the win. Old Irv challenged– he’d know matzoh or knish but not gnocchi. He asked me to pronounce it, and what it was, about half a dozen times. All those trips to the Italian restaurants back home paid off for me. Art knew the word, but couldn’t believe I’d found it. Me neither.

I went 4-0 for the night after another 3-bingos-each barn-burner. They were all close games, and there aren’t any slouches here. A couple of weeks ago a new woman showed up to play and left nearly in tears (I wouldn’t doubt there was sobbing in the parking lot) before the first game was even over. “I beat my kids all the time” doesn’t cut it. Plus it makes you sound like a jerk.

I unveiled a prototype of my secret Scrabble invention, and it seemed to go over pretty well. I have to keep it hidden until it goes into production, so no more details on that right now…

There’s a new home page up, for everyone that skips it and comes right to the blog. Still nothing else major, but it’s a step.

At our new favorite park this afternoon, the little one’s potty training failed yet again so I went to the van to get our bag and herded her into the men’s room. I noticed that the padlock on the iron gate, which is usually fastened to a chain on the wall holding the door open all day, was hanging unlocked on the clasp. I would’ve have fastened it, but between the bag and water bottle and corralling the kid I didn’t have a free hand, and thought “What are the odds some kid will fasten it behind us while we’re in here? I must be paranoid today!”
Well you know where this is heading. A mom was waiting for a little boy inside, who dawdled while the she kept yelling in for him as I wrestled with the changing table and butt-wipes. Somehow, before I got the pants back on, the mom who had been hovering in and out of the doorway took her eyes off her kid long enough to let him close the gate and replace the lock, and turned around just in time for me to hear the inevitable “Oh, no, what did you do?!” that part of me just knew was coming. I didn’t even react.
So, with no need to hurry, I got us both cleaned up and out of the stall with the changing table and stood in the doorway clutching a crap-filled diaper (the only trash cans are outside the bathrooms) waiting to see what rescue efforts were underway. The woman whose kid did it was on the cell phone with the parks department pressing numbers to get through a menu that probably ended with an operator in India, and when that didn’t work she tried 911 but they couldn’t figure out what county we were in, and the woman’s battery died before they could. My phone was running out too (I used the last of my juice on a photo for evidence) so another guy (my kid had befriended his kid) called the parks department number on a sign and got a hold of an actual person.
An employee turned up in another 10 minutes or so, the kind of 60-something-year-old developmentally disabled guy who works for every parks department in the country, hunched over and leaning in two different directions that doesn’t seem quite possible or remotely comfortable. His teeth shared the same freakish geometry, but neither problem seemed able to wipe the ever-present grin off his face. “Hey, what’re you doing in there?” was the best wise-crack he could muster as he paused in front of the door, pleased with his effort. Then there was a slight scare when he didn’t go for keys right away, but fondled the lock for a few seconds like he had to figure out how to break it off. But the keys came out soon enough and we were released from the sauna.
Orlando’s Finest came by another 10 minutes later and high-tailed it to the bathroom, but didn’t pause at the door and went in to take a leak. I think it was just a coincidence.

Who didn’t want to order all that junk that used to be in the back of comic books? The posters, joy buzzers, monster masks, sea monkeys, and above all else the actual, living breathing spider monkeys that could all be had for what amounts to pocket change today. Comic Book Resources ran this great article about the monkeys and a couple of people who owned them. The guy who actually ordered his from a comic directly had a great story, that ends sadly, but another who adopted an unwanted monkey had much less fun with it. Well worth a read though.