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Santa will bring you toys if they are still around

About 20 years ago I was chosen — why I don’t know — to spend time as a mall Santa Claus for a first-person newspaper story. While it was a fun exercise, complete with nice looking babes wanting their pictures made on my lap, I had no idea as to half of what the children wanted Santa to bring them. I was told by the “real” Santa that the Big Man wasn’t supposed to promise what the kids asked for so I’d say something like: “I’ll see what I can do, Slick.” The moral of that story is never tell a mall Santa what you want for Christmas. Always mail your requests, with real envelopes and stamps.

Now there are all sorts of lists out on the Internet these days for the top toys of this, the 2010 holiday season. Toys R Us has a “Fabulous 15” top toy list. Squidoo.com displays a Top 10 list for kids. Gifts.com shows a list which is separated into categories for babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers, grade-schoolers, tweens, and teens. Of course, the more specific the more money is likely to be maken.

A likely top-seller for this year, according to Squidoo is the “Let’s Rock Elmo.” The Sesame Street Muppet character plays an instrument and “he is also able to tell which instrument a little one is playing and plays right along! There are up to six songs that can be sung and he comes with a microphone, tambourine and drums (additional instruments sold separately.)” A likely hit for this year, especially among the pre-school crowd.

For the 6-year-old and up crowd (56 years old??), the Nerf Vortex Vigilon Disc Blaster seems a favorite on all the lists I noticed. The Hasbro toy gun shoots 20 foam discs “in rapid succession” and comes with a scope and pulsating targeting light. It bares a slight resemblance to a Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol, albeit one that is on steroids.

From the “Return of the Weird Teletubbie-looking gadgets” comes the Fijit Friends. Says Toys R US: “Fijit Friends™ are every girl’s best friend – interactive, robotic toys full of personality that talk, dance, laugh and bring a new level of innovation to playtime. Made of soft, tactile skin that enables lifelike movements, girls can poke and squeeze a Fijit Friend™ for fun surprises. With word recognition capability, Fijit Friends™ can understand and respond to more than 30 verbal commands, culling from more than 150 built-in phrases and jokes.”

Everyone knows it's Slinky. More fun than one should ever have with a piece of helical steel.

These Fijits which are in odd purple, green, yellow and pink and have big ears and bug eyes must have something within their cognitive patterns — or pheromones perhaps — which make them attractive to little girls because they seem very androgynous from the outset.

All of this makes one wonder: What happened to the good old toys which were around in my kid days?

“A Spring

A Spring

A marvelous thing

Everyone knows it’s Slinky

It’s Slinky

It’s Slinky

For fun it’s a wonderful toy

It’s fun for a girl or a boy”

Yes, a spring. It’s a wonderful thing. Naval mechanical engineer Richard James was in 1943 seeking a way in which to stabilize and support sensitive instruments on board a ship in rough seas. A star toy was born. Take a helical spring that stretches and can bounce up and down, and you got a child entertained for the rest of his life.

My other favorites as a kid were Play-Doh and the Etch-A-Sketch.

Play-Doh got its start in the 50s as a substance for cleaning wallpaper but it got kids busy using their artistic talents forming the clay into semi-recognizable forms or pretending it was C-4 explosives which would transform a quiet neighborhood into an occupied police setting.

Etch-A-Sketch was and still leaves the sky as a limit as for what artistic mountains one would like to climb. I was always stuck in the foothills, but nonetheless it was a heck of hike. Check out their cool Website and see how far some were able to scale with the little red boxes with gray screens.

Fortunately, all these great toys of my age are still around. It makes me wonder how long the hot toys of this year will still be for sale in the future years?

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Cannons to the left of me, cannons to the right … of my minivan

A story on CNN caught my attention this morning as I brushed my teeth. I started to laugh in between molars and a few rugged bicuspids until I caught myself as the short news brief was read.

It seems an errant cannonball fired during the filming of a Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” episode went on a wild ride through a San Francisco Bay Area neighborhood. The show was taping at the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department bomb disposal range, where 50 previous episodes were previously filmed, when the 6-inch projectile went “zing” off a hillside and then went “zang” through two stories of a suburban home before blasting through the windows of Toyota Sienna minivan parked in a driveway. Remarkably, no one was hurt which is even more remarkable since the shell flew through a neighborhood where children were coming home from school, and through an upstairs bedroom where a man, woman and child slept through it all before hitting the minivan in which a man and his 13-year-old son sat.

“Mythbusters” is a show in which the hosts use weird scientific experiments to debunk myths, often at the expense of some automobiles and crash-test dummies including one named “Buster.” Of course, in this case it was at the expense of a house and someone’s minivan. It can be a pretty funny show sometimes. But I couldn’t help but think, looking into the mirror with my bed-creased face, that this must have scared the crap out of folks especially once the adrenalin was no longer there to smooth the edges. I’m talking the almost victims’ edges, not my bed face.

I once did a story about some artillery shells raining down in the back yard of some folks who lived in the tiny community of King, Texas. Those 155mm projectiles had flown some seven or eight miles from Fort Hood, where they had been fired from a M-109A6 Paladin self-propelled howitzer engaged in training by an artillery battalion of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. Army officials said after the incident that an improper compass reading was fed into the big gun’s computer, causing the cannon shells to fly off course. The guns were firing 180 degrees off target.

“Uh, sorry Sarge, wrong way.”

Some pretty large holes were made in the ground near a couple of houses and the foundation of at least one home cracked as wells as glass from windows and a chandelier was shattered.  A lady who lived in a house near where one of the shells landed told me she was in the bathtub when the shells started coming down. Imagine that, sitting and enjoying a nice bath when artillery rounds started falling in your yard. Luckily, no people, pets or livestock — this was a ranching area — were hurt.

It was incredibly lucky for those folks who took the errant rounds both in Texas and California. It is the type of happening one might hope they can laugh about someday. Some might be even laughing all the way to the bank!

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Rain: Smells good. Bank of America debit card fees: Putrid.

My bank, Bank of America, will begin charging a $5 monthly debit card usage fee on some accounts beginning in January. I had to go to the bank so I asked the person who screens the customers if my account was going to be one of those on which a fee was placed. The bank person looked up my account and said “yes.” That is probably because the charges will mostly fall on its least wealthy customers.

Although I was calm and civil about it, I gave that BOA person a piece of my mind about her company. The linked story above from Bloomberg explains the fee better than I could but in essence it seems that since BOA made such a mess of their affairs recently it decided to take it out on their customers. If you want to see why Bank of America is in so much disarray here is a good explanation. The shorter answer would be “greed.” I am sure some, such as a good friend who works for BOA, would disagree. But that is what I see as the honest answer.

I have experienced other difficulties with my bank over the past seven years during which I have had an account. Actually, I had a checking account with them for almost a year in the late 1980s. That was before “online banking” such as the account I now have. So, I am seriously searching for another financial institution. I use that term instead of bank because I am researching credit unions. We have a ton of those in this area that have been in business for years, so they must have done something right. We shall see.

In the meantime, a few thunderstorms/showers have slipped into Southeast Texas from the lakes area in the north to the coast. A severe thunderstorm warning has been issued until 4 p.m. in east central Jefferson county and western Orange County as well as parts of Cameron Parish, La. The NWS says a storm was detected a short time ago capable of producing winds in excess of 60 mph and dime-sized hail between Bridge City and Vidor. If you don’t live in these areas, I suppose it doesn’t mean much, if anything at all, to you.

There was nothing like that here in Beaumont but we have had some thunder and nice rainfall for a little while. I stepped out to see it rain like I normally do in these drought-stricken days. I also took in the fresh smell of the rain, which like the somewhat different smell before it rains, is a great natural wonder.

My ability to appreciate the smell before, during and after rains all increased — as did the ability to detect other smells and better distinguish different tastes — after I quit smoking.  If you have not smoked as long as I did, for almost 30 years, and quit (11 years next month!) it might be difficult to believe how much cigarettes can deprive a person’s senses.

The work done at the behest of the government by the area’s chemical plants to clean up the air also help somewhat in smelling the floral essence during and after rains. That isn’t always the case. Those days and evenings especially when the area is enveloped by a heavy mist can still make for some stinky air although I would say in general the worst smell still comes from the Mead Westvaco paper mill about 20 miles to the northeast. The mill, which has changed owners a few times, has produced an unfavorable odor for as long as I can remember. That includes during the time when I was growing up and living 40 miles from the plant. I mean, the smell isn’t a continual presence, but does stink on occasions.

But nonetheless, the smell before it rains, when it rains and after it rains are among my simplest pleasures. The redolence depends on where one happens to be at the time such as in an urban setting, for instance, as where I live or in a rural area out in the fields or forests. Certain forms of bacteria can be released from the ground during rain. Odoriferant gases can also rise from trees and plants when rained upon or during extremely humid times. Rain also releases oil from city streets during rainstorms. So if you have an ability to smell, or at least to smell things fairly well, one can detect rain before it even starts sometimes.

A few drops are still falling outside. These rains and the lack of any decent rainfall for, I don’t know how long but too long, make me want the rain to just continue. I would love to see it rain into the night and into tomorrow. Nothing heavy, mind you, just steady. I’m not greedy, like my bank.

 

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The Mile High Club at ground level: The Love Bugs do the horizontal bop

Sex is everywhere you turn on the highways of Southeast Texas. Yes, I am talking about the Love Bug swarm is here again, the skies above are black and orange again …

I had to take the G-mobile in to get it cleaned by professionals after traveling around Cow Bayou in Orange County this afternoon. I mean those f**king bugs are literally everywhere. It is like a ground-level version of the Mile High Club.

If you don’t know what Love Bugs are then here’s the scoop. They are also known as Plecia nearctica Hardy. These are, according to Texas AgriLife Extension: ” … about 1/2-inch long, black with an reddish-orange area on the top of the thorax, and a pair of smoky colored wings. They are all weak fliers.”

Aggie Extension service goes on to say: “Large numbers of adults emerge primarily in the spring (May) and fall (September). Males and females fly and couple in open areas along roadways, appearing to swarm in weak flight.”

The high numbers of bugs are quite aptly described by TAMU as “annoying.” The bugs can cause obscured vision from its splatter on the windshields of cars and the bugs committing hari-kari on radiators can lead to overheating. Likewise, the bugs can cause severe, permanent damage to a car’s paint job if not washed off in reasonably quick order. How quick is quick? Every two miles. Yes, get out of your car with a pail of warm, soapy water every two miles and give the front of your car a good washing. Just joking. But seriously, I don’t see how it would hurt to wash the bugs off at the end of every day you drive, if possible.

There are tons of ways to protect your auto from these horny little insects, everything from a car bra to spraying the front of your car with Pam or swabbing the car with baby oil. My local county extension office told me this afternoon that warm, soapy water is good to wash the bugs off. Newsprint is a great way to dry and rub down the windshield and grill. Why newsprint? Beats me. A friend in the fire department showed me when we washed fire trucks how great it works and even though I was in the newspaper business a lot longer than being in the fire suppression business, I never thought to ask about it.

Call your local county consumer or agriculture agent for more information and they might, most likely will, have some better information. I am not liable for anything that happens to your car if you follow my suggestions. I am not liable for anything, period. I am liable to eat something bad for me, but that is about as far as it goes. GIT OUT OF HERE! I was talking to those love bugs

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Have we ever seen a summer like this before?

The same hot day without rain over and over and over is beginning to get on my last nerve.

Some people get their emotions all out of whack when it is cloudy and cold and dark all the time. It’s called SAD, for Seasonal Affective Disorder. I may not be depressed from the temperature peaking near 100 degrees every day and “nary a clown in the sky” as someone used to say. One can be danged sure though that I am truly sick of, seemingly, the same high pressure center parking its hot rear end over my part of the world and seeing how long it can stay there.

I know folks around these parts who say they can’t remember a hot, dry spell like the one we have been having here in Southeast Texas. I can remember such spells but they were not exactly in this part of the state. Most recently I think of the Summer of 1998 while living in Waco. That summer was No. 4 on the all-time list of consecutive 100-degree days in that “Heart of Texas (HOT)” city with a total of 29 days in a row, according to the National Weather Service. This year is the new No. 1, with a string of 44 days when the temp was at least 100. That streak thankfully ended on Aug. 12.

Before that was the summer of 1980. I lived in Nacogdoches that year, about two hours to the north of where I now live. I worked then as a firefighter and was in between semesters in college. I remember it as plenty hot then as I lived in a little shotgun shack with an air conditioner that gave its all in a house surrounded by no trees. But we had nothing of a summer in comparison with Dallas and even Waco. That was the No. 2 Waco summer of consecutive 100-degree days with 42 in a row. Dallas had it much worse that 1980 summer as it was the all time number of consecutive and total days of 100-degree days. I remember a friend told me a story about being inside a Dallas bar at 10 p.m. during that summer and the deejay announced, to applause, that the temperature had fallen to 100 degrees.

But I don’t remember summers like that where I now live, which is basically within 60 miles of where I was raised.

And thus a little new history from this summer in nearby Houston:

…THE 100-DEGREE DAY RECORDS FOR SOUTHEAST TEXAS… …2011 NOW HAS MORE 100 DEGREE DAYS THAN ANY OTHER YEAR IN CITY OF HOUSTON WEATHER HISTORY… THE HIGH TEMPERATURE HAS ONCE AGAIN SOARED TO 101 DEGREES IN HOUSTON. THIS IS THE 22ND CONSECUTIVE DAY THAT THE MERCURY HAS CLIMBED TO THE CENTURY MARK. THIS IS ALSO THE 33RD TIME THIS YEAR THAT THE 100 DEGREE THRESHOLD HAS BEEN REACHED OR EXCEEDED. THIS BREAKS THE RECORD OF 32 ONE HUNDRED DEGREE DAYS ESTABLISHED IN 1980.

MOST CONSECUTIVE 100-DEGREE DAYS AT HOUSTON (DOWNTOWN/IAH): (RECORDS SINCE 1889)

1. 22 DAYS – ONGOING AS OF 8/22/2011

2. 14 DAYS – ENDING 7/19/1980

…

It is difficult to interpret all of our local weather records which come out of the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La., probably because they have a much smaller office there. However, the August maximum temperatures for Beaumont/Port Arthur show that, so far, no records seem to be broken as for temperature. I didn’t check the rainfall records because that would have really depressed me.

So yes, it is hotter than a million dollars worth of 2-dollar pistols here. Maybe we have never seen a summer like this one before although perhaps our ancestors did. When we start talking about possible culprits is where the real heat begins. I’m talking about the dreaded “GW” and no I’m not talking about Gee Dubya (W) Bush. I think even he expressed his belief in global warming, to which I refer.

It is getting impossible to have a civil discussion on global warming. The conservative propaganda machine, the best the world has known at least since that fun fellow Dr. Goebbels, has managed to make the GW into one of those controversies such as religion or abortion. If you are not on their side you are on the wrong side, no matter what.

After college is when I first began considering this global warming debate, some 25 years ago. I remember discussing the matter over several pitchers of beer one day with two friends, one with a Ph.D. in chemistry and another who now years later holds a doctorate in geology. I wasn’t really sold on global warming back then because of the obvious cyclical nature of weather. But today I do believe that, yes, we have global warming and that, yes, it is caused by humans. Despite the strides the neo-Goebbelist machine has made, most polls are reflective of this one conducted by Yale and George Mason universities which show a solid majority still believe global warming exists and is man made. A fact sheet from the National Geographic Society also is enlightening both on the subject itself and on the so-called “smoking gun” conservatives used to attempt discrediting major scientists who have researched extensively the topic.

That the right of the right-wing Republicans are so against what the majority of Americans see as a perfectly sensible scientific fact because primarily they have been led to do so in the name of big oil is particularly puzzling when you have big petrodollar people like GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman who acknowledge this “inconvenient truth.” Oh and by the way, the Huntsman Corp. bought Texaco’s chemical unit in Port Neches, in our county, for $850 million back in 1994. Did the Huntsmans contribute to global warming? Is Jon Huntsman Jr. running a Democratic Party campaign in the GOP as a way of saying “sorry” to places burning up by warming caused by his family’s business? I kind of doubt it.

Such a speculation is just that. But there is plenty of room for people to amicably argue about global warming without going nuts. Just make sure you have the air conditioner turned up to Warp Speed as well as your tower fan before doing so.