How Urban Legends Get Started

 

From : Southern Living Magazine
To : Louren Li
Subject : URGENT SAFETY NOTICE REGARDING ICEBOX ROLLS RECIPE
Sent : Saturday, March 27, 2004 11:25 PM

URGENT NOTICE REGARDING POTENTIAL FIRE AND SAFETY HAZARD IN RECIPE FOR ICEBOX ROLLS ON PAGE 154 OF THE APRIL 2004 ISSUE OF SOUTHERN LIVING

Please DO NOT USE the Icebox Rolls recipe. Combining the water and shortening as described in the recipe may cause the mixture to ignite, is extremely dangerous, and could result in fire and safety hazards. The correct recipe is currently available on our website, southernliving.com. It will also be reprinted in the May issue of Southern Living. If you have any questions, please call 1-888-836-9327.

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Don't mess with Texas

Don't mess with book store employees

Don't mess with librarians either.

Hooray for William Safire, what good sports he and his auto-reply agent are.

From : William Safire
Sent : Tuesday, March 23, 2004 11:10 PM
To : William Li
Subject : Re: In response to "On Phony Toughness"


At 06:12 PM 3/15/2004 +0000, you wrote:
> Dear Mr. Safire -
>
>In twenty-years of reading your remarks about the use of language in public discourse, I
>have never felt the need to respond - until today. Rather than speculate as to why this
>particular column evokes complaints from me, I will just state them. There are two.
>
>Like you, I wince to see the inclusion of a mid-sentence interjection in a quotation. Has the
>standard of journalism sunk so low that reporters and editors are no longer are able to use
>the ellipsis? Including quirks of speech like "um" and "you know" in quoted statements
>serves only one purpose: to make the speaker appear less intelligent.
>
>My second complaint is that you are too flippant when you dismiss Kerry's assertion that his
>opposition is "the most crooked... lying group I've ever seen." Why not accept this
>statement at face value? Kerry has seen many groups during his career, surely he has some
>opinion about which one he sees as the most crooked and lying.
>
>A final comment, not a complaint, is to express some surprise that you would take such
>personal umbrage over Kerry's comment. If Kerry feels as he says about the current
>president's supporters then presumably he believes that Nixon's organization was somehow
>less crooked and lying. That should be of some comfort to you.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>William Li
>Sugar Land, Texas
>
>
----------

Dear Reader:

As you can imagine, I’ve been swamped with e-mails responding to my column in recent months. I read them all, most assuredly, including yours. But I cannot begin to answer them individually or I would have no time left to write a column that delights, illuminates, stimulates or infuriates.
Ergo this automated response. (Curious how “automated” has replaced “automatic.” And why do I use “ergo” when “therefore” will do? )
Don’t take offense, and don’t stop writing. I’ll keep reading what you send me.

Sincerely,

William Safire

Ninja Customer

(Based on a conversation that I had with my brother)

Leave your tip on the table.

As you are standing in line waiting to pay for your meal at the Diner, figure out what the tax will be. Give the cashier the check and exact change. As the cashier is totaling up the bill say, "keep the change."

Then you walk out.

The cashier will say, "hey wait!" before realizing that the total with tax equals the cash tendered. Then the cashier will say, "oh." After a moment's reflection, the cashier will realize that you are no longer in the restaurant and be very afraid.

The ninja customer: pay quickly and then fade into the night.

From my Mom, in honor of Beer Bike

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

~ Benjamin Franklin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does anyone remember who came up with "Stairway to Freebird"? I want to say "Trout Fishing in America" but I couldn't find it.

A new season of Happy Days

Upon greater scrutiny, it turns out that Nick from Family Ties (Mallory's boyfriend) is nothing like The Fonz.

Happy Days was the most brilliant sitcom ever. I wish that they would bring it back for another season. Whole cast: Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Ron Howard, Donnie Most, Anson Williams, Henry Winkler, Scott Baio, Erin Moran, and Al Molinari. Not a reunion show, no contrivances to get them back into Millwaukie. Just a continuation of the show.
In episode #1, Fonzie's adopted son gets his braces removed by Ralph Malph (a dentist) and then tries out for part in a movie being shot at Rich's movie studio. He misses his call-back audition because he has to baby sit for Joanie and Chachi. "Joanie why are you all gussied up, its our bowling nite!" "Nice try, Chach."
In episode 2, Roger Cunningham gets abducted by Mork (special guest star Robin Williams) no one goes to rescue him. "Keep him, he's your problem now" says Mr. C. "Oh Howard", says Mrs. C It's up to Potsie to save the day. He hires a lawyer who server Mork with a writ of habeous corpus and then Mork has to give up. Na-new, na-new.
In the third episode, Mr. and Mrs. C are having trouble hooking up their TiVo but Jenny Picalo helps out.
In the 4th episode, Fonzie and Chachi visit Houston and hang out with the peeps at Han's Bier Haus.
Its a two-parter:
in episode five, Chachi mows my lawn and the Fonz fixes the front driver-side quarter-panel of my car. Like clockwork, I mess it up again in the same way. Al says, "Yep, yep, yep, yep yep."
In the sixth episode, I go hang out with Richie Cunningham in San Dimas (where my employer has an office). I show him our Cisco IP Phone (tm) system which he decides would be great for a commerical. He calls the Malachi Brothers (now ad execs) and tells them, "I've got a great idea, Buck-o." Then we go do pilates. Why are you still reading this?

Here is something pretty amazing: Astronomers have found a large planetoid past Pluto that they are calling Sedna.

L A S T E X I L E is like the fun videogame that your rich friend has on his game console, and your rich friend lets you watch him play, but doesn't let you play, and even if he did let you play it would be worse because the game takes 6 hours to finish, and you can't play your friend's game for six hours, and you can't ask your mom to buy you the game because you can't afford it, and anyway you can't afford the game console, and anyway it is a cool looking game, but... oh... now the game is over, and there is the final screen. Cool. So now what do you want to do? I don't know what do you want to do? Man, there is nothing to do in this soul-less 'burb. I can't wait to go to college where everything will be cool. Yeah, we will never sit around and play video games because there will always been wild parties. What's wrong with video games? Nothing. You're just jealous because you don't have a game console. Don't be a jerk. Sorry. Whatever. So you wanna go ride bikes? Ok.

Finale NotePadis fun and free.

We celebrate
the birth date
of Trav (the great)
as we meditate
thirty years time
AND
A tribute in obtrusive rhyme
&
Diet Coke with lime
and
the orange
door hinge of Stonehenge and Monophthongization (Ralph Malph)

Here's some cognitive dissonance for you:

Just as the NIH is telling us that obesity is passing smoking as leading avoidable cause of death, the House has passed a bill making it virtually impossible to sue fast-food establishments for making you fat. Nevertheless, McDonalds will no longer offer the supersizing. Bottom line: There are more of us trying to eat ourselves into an early grave than smoke ourselves into an early grave. Seizing the opportunity, McDonalds is going to make it more expensive to do so (now I must buy two happy meals) and forgot about suing them when I am on death's door.

My head nearly explodes at the unbelievable over-simplification of the issue. As if people get into the fast food rut by choice. As if people don't exercise simply because they are lazy.

Its the Revenge Effect of our own productivity that leads Americans into astoundingly unhealthy lifestyles; quite the opposite of being lazy.

This rant goes on so I'll fast forward too the absurd (but inevitable) conclusion: All workplaces should be required to have a 40 minute recess in addition to lunch, plus a 30 minute nap time instead of a "coffee break", and a summer vacation after which time you would always have a new boss. No one should have offices, instead everyone should sit in big rooms with their desk facing their boss and their boss' desk facing them. Okay, the principal can have an office. And we'd have report cards! And a prom! And when we were bad, the principal would call our parents! And twice a year the mummenschanz would perform, thanks to the PTA!

All this thinking is making me hungry for a Big Mac.

Happy Birthday, Andy Chen

I often describe Andy as "pure danger." I'm not sure when I first realized how dangerous he was. With the benefit of hindsight, I now understand Andy to be the embodiment of all that is threathening about a good course of study in Philosphy. Andy is unbridled intellectual curiosity coupled with disciplined objective detachment. In short: Andy has the uncanny ability to find out what happens when people engage in foolish or reckless behavior by inspiring or suggesting these behaviors.

Case in point: I have never let Andy forget that in Czech "tuky" is not our delicious Thanksgiving friend spelled badly and that it is not something delicious to eat as a sandwhich. At the time, Andy just snorted derisively and said, "eat it anyway." Almost ten years later: Ka-bang!

If you are still wondering what "tuky" actually is, click here and "Hledej" the meaning.

Today, I went to the Rodeo for the first time ever. It was also the first time that Dakota has ever been to the Rodeo. You would think that I would have something to say about it. I do: first two sentences of this paragraph. This was orginally how I ended this blog entry, but I decided that it works better as an introduction. Let me know if you disagree.

Now that Johnny Depp has won an Oscar for "strangest pirate accent ever", it seems only a matter of time until Richard Grieco is back. I know what's bothering you "Johnny Depp won a Tony not an Oscar!"

Well, you are wrong. What should be bothering you is: "Richard Grieco never left, babe!"

I marvel at the enduring popularity of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", considering how few true farmers there are actually left in the USA. Nevertheless, people can still relate - how about that?

The (extremely boring) point has been put to me (by loads of would-be historians) that "Nursery Rhymes are often allegories for historical events in the United Kingdom... zzz" oh wait, did I fall asleep? Annoyingly, I was thinking to myself "What is the political point of Old MacDonald?" as Dakota sang it to me this morning. Annoying because it distracted from my enjoyment of her "big finish" ending with the E,I,E,I,O designed to bring the audience to their feet. That's when it hit me: "I bet this is some stupid rhyme about the great vowel shift and that there is a really tedious ling paper on it"

Guess what? There is such a paper.
What's more: Thanks to Google, I found it almost immediately: here it is.

So Dean wins Vermont. Did you know that my brother was born in Vermont and also got married there? In fact, he got married the same weekend that the first Civil Unions happened. Mostly though, I am reminded of the movie Blaze where a govenor from a small state was too progressive for his time and as a result got characterized as an insane hothead but battled back to win an election even though he was already dead. Also Howard Dean somewhat looks like Paul Newman.

Clearly all of those "brilliant advertisements" that we were supposed to have seen at The Super Bowl where actually saved for The Oscars. My favorite was for American Express. The spot is featuring Tiger Woods as Carl Spackler. Call me William, but the commercial was so funny that I wanted to drink milk and laugh so hard that the milk shoots out of my nose. On purpose, I mean.