Greg McElhatton

I’m not even sure what to mention first, there’s such an astounding amount of greatness in this video from the 1974 Miss America pageant. The outfits? The feathered hair? The music? The song? The dancers? (Oh god, the dancers.) Or the fact that Miss Michigan is almost certainly a man???

Seriously, I think I could watch this for hours on end. I’m also struggling to not keep watching all the other similar sequences from other years that were uploaded. (Thanks for the tip, Del!)

[Sandra] Lee’s official Food Network bio states that, “Lee then attended the world’s leading culinary art institute, Le Cordon Bleu.” Lee enrolled in a recreational two-week course at the school’s Ottawa outpost, which she acknowledges that she did not complete.

Just about everyone knows about the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I suspect a lot of those people know there was a sequel in the movie theatres, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. And a fraction of those people know about an animated series spin-off that ran for 20 or so episodes. (We’re already in obscure territory at this point. Comics fans may even know about the 12-issue series helmed by Evan Dorkin.)

But even I didn’t know until this week that there was also a live-action tv series that lasted a whopping seven episodes on Fox in 1992. And now that I’ve seen the trailer, I cannot un-watch this nightmare.

On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a negative 17. I love how the two leads were clearly chosen based on the fact that one of them was be easily given blond curly hair like Alex Winters, while the other one could do a semi-recognizable impersonation of Keanu Reeves’s voice (and had a gnarly wig slapped on his head). There’s even some full clips from actual episodes of the show on YouTube, but I don’t recommend watching them in the same way that I don’t recommend staring directly into the sun. I mean sure, you can do it if you really want, but don’t come crying to me when your retinas are burnt to a crisp.

Then again, it also turns out there was a Benji television spin-off involving a hunt for aliens (no, really) so this clearly is not the most inane movie-to-tv-series decision ever. But it’s still pretty impressive in a bad sort of way.

If you don’t have a problem with heights, you may develop one after watching this video of someone walking across Caminito del Rey.

In the words of Wikipedia:

The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter (3 feet and 3 inches) in width, and is over 300 meters (984 feet) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the concrete walkway have completely collapsed and all that is remaining is the steel beam originally in place to hold it up. One can latch onto a modern steel safety-wire to keep from falling, though it can’t hold much weight. Several people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years; after four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, many adventurous tourists still find their way onto the walkway to explore it.

Seriously, I actually felt dizzy watching this 6-minute video, and had to stop several times because it was scaring me so much. There are plans to restore it but I think they should take that money and just demolish the trail instead. *shudder*

Today was supposed to be the first of our office’s annual flu clinics. One or two times in the fall, the company pays for a nurse to come in and administer flu shots (at no cost to the individual employee) plus a luncheon. It’s a nice little perk to have and it’s fun because everyone hangs out and has lunch together.

Yesterday, someone from the office called the company that was sending the vaccine and the nurse, and we were told that yes, it was still on. Today? Noon arrived, the food arrived, the nurse and flu vaccine did not. After fifteen minutes went by, we called and were informed that no one was coming. The company was apparently out of vaccine and wouldn’t have more until November, at which point they’d show up. How nice of them to let us know when we’d called to confirm just 24 hours earlier.

Seriously, professional courtesy is dead in this day and age.

I was actually more than a little annoyed because I’d just had my annual physical last month and had passed on getting a flu vaccine shot then because I knew the work one was around the corner. But, undeterred, I called my doctor’s ffice this afternoon and was told to just stop by. Went over, and two minutes later had my arm swabbed and jabbed. So it turned out to be flu vaccine day after all for me, but just not in a way I’d planned.

I managed to somehow delete an entire post about the arrival of autumn (it’s not in my drafts or anything) that was going to go here. And to top it off, I realized about an hour ago that I managed to leave my bathing suit hanging on one of the dryers at the gym. Will call them tomorrow and hopefully it wasn’t thrown out. (Probably not, but you never know.)

Just one of those “aaaarrrrggghhhh” nights. Ah well, at least I didn’t accidentally blow up the universe. (Yet.)

Oh, come on. You could at least try, people.

Yesterday, when I got home, I saw another car pulling into the space across from mine (and between me and my apartment). In the passenger seat was a big teenager; I don’t just mean tall, I don’t just mean heavy, I mean big. You know, with that ruddy expression and sullen look and a sense of mass about him. As the other car was pulling in, he was licking a Minute Maid Limeaid Pop—and we are talking huge, exaggerated licks of which you normally only see in a cartoon. I mention all of this because it explains why this guy instantly registered on my radar.

Anyway, they got out of their car, and I got out of mine and fiddled around for a moment with my work bag and such. As I walked by theirs, I noticed that the teenager had dropped the wrapper of his pop on the sidewalk, apparently unable to bring it another 45 seconds towards a trash can. Charming. I knew I had trash to empty, so I figured I’d just pick it up on my way back out in about 20 minutes.

When I headed back out, though, I’d been running late and decided to delay the trash emptying until today. So as I walked by the car with the wrapper on the sidewalk, I scooped up the wrapper—and tucked it under the windshield wiper of the car. Hopefully they got the message.

On a non-victorious moment, I hit the morning spinning class today because I already had plans for this evening with my family. And sadly, instead of Barb (who’s been filling in for about two months while they tried to find a new instructor for Wednesday mornings) it was a new woman, Barbara, who’d taken over the slot. And it seems that Barbara’s idea of a good time was playing Jimmy Buffett. As in, probably 35 of the 45 minutes of the class was Jimmy Buffett.

As I loathe Jimmy Buffett’s music with a passion, I have made a mental note that from now on if I know I can’t make the Wednesday night class, I’m re-arranging everything else to hit Monday morning instead. The instructor at that time slot and I have a much closer musical taste. Because, quite frankly, had we been on moving cycles I would’ve contemplated throwing myself in front of another one this morning, in an effort to stop the horrible music from lodging into my head.

While walking through the CVS on 14th Street (just south of Thomas Circle), I heard one woman lecturing her shopping companion in the soap aisle. “Ohhhhh, no,” she scolded, “he needs more than one bar of Dove. We need to get a three-pack of Dial! Maybe more!”

I shudder to think just how bad this guy must smell. I mean, really!

And then today, while cleaning out my spam folder, it suddenly hit me that if one was granted a wish and you wanted to go for a selfish kind, I have the perfect one. “I wish that all of the spam e-mail offers that I’m sent are real and truthful.” Because really, this day alone I’d have gotten multiple $500 gift cards to all sorts of stores, some free pizzas, a brand new Toyota (the subject line didn’t specify which model car, alas), and of course, all the genital enlargement products I would ever possibly want and then some.

And that’s just from one day. Imagine the possibilities! (I think I’d pass on the offers for Russian brides, though. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen one of those in a long while. Which is a pity, because those always amused me. I liked to joke that my mother was signing me up for those mailings.)

I recently bought two new bookcases (the Sloane from Crate & Barrel), which I absolutely love. I spent Monday evening putting them together, and then moving everything off the old bookcases (which are now sitting in the middle of the living room) and then onto the new ones. But in the process, of course, a lot of dust got stirred up. (It’s amazing how much dust was piled up on the very top of those shelves.)

I’ll be giving the entire area a good vacuuming once everything is picked up and done (there’s still some piles of stuff from the old shelves on the floor, plus of course the shelves themselves still hanging around) but the one other thing that’s always helped in the past is opening up the windows and letting the apartment air out. So after two lovely days in which we’ve had temperatures in the high-50s and even hitting the 60s, I chose this morning to open the windows.

Naturally, that means the high today will be something like 46 degrees. I suspect when I get home from spinning tonight, I’ll have flashbacks to the walk-in fridges from past employments. And now, looking at the weather forecast, tomorrow? High of 58 degrees. Hmmmm, maybe I should have waited until tomorrow. Oh well.

On the bright side, I really do love those bookshelves. And I might be doing a little reorganizing of the living room area in general as a result. Woohoo!