Schon

Read this on an internet forum...

Question:
How do you pronounce Schon?
As in "Neil Schon."
Is it "Shawn" or is it "Shone?"

Response:
It's pronounced "shrimp."

Insanity Is the Mother of Invention

I'm heading north on the New Jersey Turnpike yesterday afternoon. Traffic is stop-and-go between Exits 5 and 8A, where the highway mercifully doubles in lanes. Somewhere around Exit 7A, traffic turns bumper-to-bumper. I'm in the left lane, alternating between a dead stop and inching forward with the foot off the brake. Half a dozen cars in front of me, I see a kid in his late teens/early twenties dash across the emergency lane to the left and deftly leap up onto the concrete divider in the Turnpike's median. He stands atop the barrier for a moment, facing toward the southbound lanes, and then does a full reverse somersault, landing on his feet in the emergency lane, before scampering back to his car.

At first, I chided his foolish act. A dare? A PCP-fueled freakout? The latest "extreme" sport? No matter. Even though the pimply oaf performed his stunt without dashing his tiny brain all over turnpike blacktop, I chuckled contemptuously at his idiocy.

But after several moments of reflection, I applauded this young daredevil's act. Traffic jams are so draining; they can suck all the enjoyment out of a good day, ruining a pleasurable afternoon or killing the mood before its even begun. Yet here was a public performer entertaining throngs of frustrated, immobile travelers at no charge, coloring our lost moments with a memorable semi-suicidal act. If only more asphalt artistes would take to congested thorofares and ease motorists' pain with their roadside lunacy. Highway commissions would do well to employ concrete-barrier gymnasts, exit-ramp fan-dancers, and mile-marker comedians along traffic-prone routes. Road-rage incidents could be cut dramatically, and complacent state governments would finally be doing more than committing highway robbery with our tax dollars. Let's face it: in our overly crowded society, we Americans spend too much of our all-too-brief lives caught on choked roadways, cussing up a storm on the road to hypertension and peptic ulcers. It's time for the Department of Transportation to give us a brake.

Movin' On Up.....to EWING???

So, I moved this past weekend in the torrential rain and winds,

all the while singing the theme song to The Jeffersons, because I was in fact "moving on up to the east side," to Ewing, NJ, presumably named after J.R. Ewing of Dallas.

This got me to thinking: We are long overdue for a The Jeffersons/Dallas crossover! In my mind, it would go something like this: J.R. Ewing forges a hostile takeover of George Jefferson's laundromats. Hilarity ensues.

(Photos courtesy of CBS)

So I open a can of Coke...

...and tilt it to take a drink.

And I smell feet.

Foot odor on the can.

So basically, there's a big, fat, sweaty guy somewhere rubbing unopened cans of Coke on his feet before packaging them.

And if you're wondering...Yes. I finished the entire can. But I sure didn't like it.

Robert Plant and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

So, a version of the Led Zeppelin song "Ten Years Gone" came on my iPod the other day from a 1977 concert in Cleveland. As the song went on, I realized there was something eerily familiar about the rudimentary 70s voice effect Plant was using. Then it hit me: He sounds just like the humpback whale-speak simulation used by the bizarre alien probe in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The question then is: Was Plant trying to tap into the oft-ignored population of music-loving whales?

TV Show Theme Songs: Where Have They Gone?

Something happened in the 1990s that changed the landscape of television drastically, and in my mind, for the worse. The TV show theme song died. No longer were there great lyrics like "Come and knock on my door" and "She's a small wonder" but instead short, instrumental pieces. I say we start a petition to the networks to get these campy and ridiculous songs back into the public consciousness. Imagine if shows like Lost or The Office had a theme song like those of the the old days? Or how about 24? "Twenty Four!... hours to go, gonna kick those terrorists to the floor...Twenty Four!.... not gonna stop to eat or go to the bathroom like I have before. Twenty Four!..." Now that's what I'm talking about! Let's get those petitions rolling!