Thanksgiving Fun Facts

1. Benjamin Franklin once proposed that the turkey become the national bird of the United States and gravy the official condiment.
2. Adventurer Adam Smith said at the first Thanksgiving feast, "Deploy thy mouth, make it full with stuff and bits of bread."
3. Henry Bacon's oil-painting depiction of the landing at Plymouth Rock was originally titled "The Buckle Heads Arrive!"
4. The Detroit Lions have played every Thanksgiving Day since 1832 when they lost to the Augusta Bayonets 14-13.
5. The Great Turkey shortage of 1961 led many families to instead eat large bowls of spiced carrot soup for dinner.
6. Adam Sandler wrote his Thanksgiving song on a cocktail napkin while having drinks with Henry Kissinger in 1993.
7. The Heimlich maneuver was created when Zeppo Heimlich saved his uncle from choking on undercooked stuffing in 1914.
8. This year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will feature a float of Scottie Pippen's face.

Chels Goes to La La Land

The Piano Bar on Selma. Sal, the piano man, wasn't playing, unfortunately.


This is what Chelsea thinks of me, apparently.


Here's what I think of her assessment.


Then we fell into a wormhole.


Awh! Crazy!


LA--a place for happy people.


Crazy lights. Crazy!


Traveling through the wormhole.


Sunglasses (on face).


A stinky LA dumpster.


In-N-Out Burger.


Esta bien!


The healthiest meal on the planet.

Fin.

SD in HD

Little Jerry Seinfeld.

The Jennings clan.

I told the most hilarious joke. I can't repeat it though.

The Jenningses renewing their beach vows.

The Big One!

La Jolla Beach.

The top of Mt. Soledad--the highest point in San Diego.

The view from Mt. Soledad.

Birds.

Cookies from the German deli.

Enjoying the cookies.

Eating Nemo.

Coronado Beach.

Preparing to be buried.

Inadvertent sand angel.

Jennings saved my face from being bitten off by this dog. I think it was rabid. I was scared.

A kiss for Jerry.

Burying Jennings.

I tried to get Jerry to bite his face off.

Sandy dude.

Sandy dudes.

Hotel Del Coronado.

Jerry attempted a sit-in to try to keep me from leaving. Or, he may have just been comfy. Probably the latter.

A Troubling Trend

I think I'd seen enough when I saw a status update that read something akin to: "Sally Johnson is going to take a nap...LOL!" At first I thought, "Well, maybe these she doesn't actually know what 'LOL' stands for and just thinks it's a nice way to punctuate a sentence." But I don't think ignorance is a valid excuse in this case. Then I thought, "Maybe there really is something funny about the nap that she's taking. Perhaps she's taking a nap--in a clown suit!" But that didn't seem to make sense either.

Ultimately, I was forced to conclude that these LOL'ing folks, nice as they may be, expect us to believe that they are laughing out loud while completing some of life's more mundane tasks. I wish, honestly and wholeheartedly, that life were really that amusing from moment to moment, but it just ain't so. I wish that I LOL'ed while scrubbing the toilet, building a bird bath, or trimming my nose hairs (which could get messy, and dangerous), but it just doesn't work that way for normal people. I say normal people because, in the off chance that you are laughing hysterically while doing these things, it's more than likely that you need to see a shrink. Maybe an nice anti-psychotic is something you should look into. You're probably a raving loony--and should be treated with all the respect and caution that one deserves, being allowed to cackle maniacally in peace.

Speaking of pharmacological intervention, though, no matter how great or horrible your life is, I don't want to read about it in a status update. Posting anything resembling any of the following probably indicates that you are now, or should be, on medication of some form :

"I love my life!"

"I just can't make sense of life."

"Hooray: life!"

"I'm going to end it..."

(If you have posted these back-to-back, you may or may not already be committed in an asylum somewhere.)

I'm certainly not saying there's anything wrong with loving life, it's just that the majority of human beings are not in a constant state of ecstasy. Ever been in a bad mood and crossed paths with someone in a really super great mood? It's my guess that you've never been so close to strangling somebody. We've all been there--'nuff said.

On the flip side of that coin, if you're having a rough day, week, month, or even year, don't bring down those around you by broadcasting it to the world. Maybe watch an episode of "Friends" (note previous sentence), curl up with a blanket, and take comfort in the fact that tomorrow's another day. What purpose, other than fishing for pity, does, "Tim Sardepartment's cat died, his toe fell off, and he's gassy," serve anyone?

Additionally, on a somewhat related tangent, we have become an exclamation-point-dependent society. I don't know exactly how or when this happened, but at some point it became impossible to to convey delight, happiness, or excitement by attaching anything less than three exclamation points at the end of a sentence. And I'm as guilty as the next guy on this one. Examples:

An e-mail ends with, "Have a nice day." Period. I read that and think, "Geez, you grump. I'll have whatever the hell kind of day I feel like having. Nobody commands me to have a nice day. You're not the boss of me! Try throwing in an exclamation point or two next time and you'll avoid my icy stares the next time we pass in the hall."

Or, you might get: "Thanks." Period. Thanks for nothin' is more like it. "See if I do you any favors next time, Scroogey McGrump-Face. When I get a reply to an e-mail, I want some enthusiasm, some charisma! See, EXCLAMATION POINT! It's not hard. It requires the exact same number of keys strokes as a period: one. So what's the hassle? Am I not good enough for an exclamation point? I bet you gave Brenda in accounting an exclamation point. Bastard."

Stephan King says that more than one exclamation point per page of writing is too many. This is the same guy who wrote Cujo and The Shining, and did so by following--more or less--his own exclamation rule. I think he knows what he's talking about, and I think we'd all be better off following his example. They start to lose their meaning when they're thrown about like confetti: "I like apples!" If you like them so much, why don't you marry them? Wait, what?

So, in summary, the next time you see a status update such as, "Burt Dangley hates his life!!!!!! LOL!!!" please, take it with a grain of salt. And if you're actually thinking about posting this, I suggest you wait five minutes, evaluate whether or not you're truly laughing, and reconsider your post. That's all I ask.(!)

Fun Facts: Earthquakes

I recently experienced my third earthquake in four weeks, so on that note...

1. In Norse mythology, earthquakes were explained as violent struggles between the god Loki and his pet dalmatian.

2. Charles Francis Richter devised his scale along side Beno Gutenberg, great-uncle of actor Steve Gutenberg.

3. The Alaska earthquake of 1892 displaced more than 14 tons of snow onto a single moose farm.

4. Benito Mussolini shaved his head after losing a bet regarding whether one could "smell an earthquake coming."

5. The 1906 San Fransisco earthquake was named "Big Sammy" by President Teddy Roosevelt.

6. The United States Geological Survey estimates that as many as 3 of 4 children in Sweden have nightmares about earthquakes.

7. The earthquake set used in Superman Returns was purchased by Jerry Seinfeld for $1.2 million. He now uses it as a guest den in his Los Angeles home.

8. Rumors persist that many earthquakes are caused by anthropomorphic bunny rabbits that beat their tails and feet against their underground tunnels.

Vegas Ridic.

Santa Monica Beach. Palm trees and such.

Santa Monica Pier. We didn't ride the Ferris Wheel--next time, though, next time.

The Mighty Pacific.

Thinking, "Boy, she's big." I did this for about an hour or so.

Eventually, I decide: Esta bien.

This little guy wouldn't sit still for me, but I got 'em.

The facade of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

The staircase leading up to the...

Where the Oscars are held.

The Hollywood sign from Grauman's.

Les elephantes.

Griffith Observatory.

The Hollywood sign from the Griffith Observatory.

Ye astronomers.

Ye Herschel.

Ye Copernicus.

Ye Galileo.

Ye Kepler.

Ye Newton. Bear and I discussed our favorite new and old school astronomers. The debate was heated, but we agreed on one point: we decided, mainly based on this statue, that Newton was probably a prick. I mean, who holds an apple like that?

The sun dial.

Verifying the accuracy of the sun dial.

Griffith courtyard.

The ravine.

Hollywood Bear.

Hollywood Cran. It's like I'm holding the sign! Get it? Oww!

The city.

The Office Part II: Jim's Desk.

The shower from the Disco Cafe.

The phones--look familiar AMPers?

Michael Scott's office.

Hitting the road to Vegas. Again, ain't no trip to Cleveland.

Tad and Brad, not so bad.

Bear--he says, "Hi!"

The Luxor.

The pool at the Luxor.

Either a great picture of a crosswalk sign or a really bad picture of Excalibur.

Old Vegas.

Lady Liberty.

New York, New York.

A pile of rocks. Vegas rocks. Vegas rocks? Vegas rocks!