Friday, March 26, 2010

Friday Is For Funnies


That's Jack, making his mark on a sensational landscape shot from a cliff in Jerome, Ariz., when I was on an early-February reporting trip to Prescott. He's so proud!

As you can see, I've been saving up my little amusements. This one yesterday morning, a bizarre Tweet from @LasVegasLisa of KTNV, the ABC affiliate here, is what KVBC Executive Producer Miles Smith, aka my spouse, would call a Tease Gone Bad:


I didn't watch but I'm hoping against hope that they did NOT give voice on the air to the wackadoodles who think death threats are peachy keen. Lisa Tweeted back at me a few times, trying to encourage me to come to the KTNV Facebook page where, I guess, a serious, important debate was raging over whether destructive illegal activity is an appropriate means of expressing political anger. This is how the mainstream media thinks it can remain relevant these days. Yo, Lisa, how about next week we do this: "Are pedophile priests really bad for your kids? Hash it out on our Facebook page!" Hey, everyone's opinion deserves respect, right?

This may be an awkward segue from wackadoodles -- or not, depending on your point of view -- but I'm off to Searchlight, Nev., tomorrow to cover the big Tea Party in Harry Reid's hometown. Searchlight is really little. There's generally nothing to do there except stop at the Nugget for a cheap cup of Joe. So it struck me as funny when TripAdvisor.Com asks here...


..."Planning a trip to Searchlight?" That can't be an oft-clicked-thru pop-up, huh?

Lately I've been getting Friend requests on Facebook from other Steve Friesses. You see, we were all told as we were growing up that Friess is a rare name. It made up for the annoying difficulties we Friesses have had spelling, especially for those of us who have troubles with S's. This is generally how the valet dudes end up getting it:


Anyhow, I got over my impression that I was rare, at least name-wise, a while ago when, uh, I first used an Internet search engine. There's a Friess Lake in Wisconsin, a Friessland in Belgium and a prominent investment banker and GOP activist, Foster Friess, who has a wife Lynn (I have a sister Lynn) and a son, Steve. I've even been in touch on and off with a Steve Friess who once asked if he could use something I wrote for USA Today as his own for some academic purpose. No, really.

But apparently other Steve Friesses are just getting hip to our growing ranks. And this, anyhow, this is a long way around saying that THIS...


...is not me. But I'm almost "friends" with him, if that counts for anything.

One reason I am NOT that Steve Friess is because of this:

Yum on Twitpic

Covering the Fun Expo in Vegas this month -- which, in fact, was an expo overflowing of fun -- it was hard to resist tasting some free cotton candy, even at 9 a.m. It came from the latest in vending, the automatic fairy floss (look it up, it's the Australian term) machine.

The latest thing... Automated cotton candy machines!!! on Twitpic

Typically, you pay $2 for your treat. I ran into a podcast listener from Virginia who recognized me and walked me around a bit, and he said it actually costs the vendor about 8 cents for the stick and 2 cents for the sugar. Or maybe it was the reverse. I Tweeted it at the time, but I just hate trying to find old Tweets, don't you? The machine was $5,000, I think. I'm told there's one at New York-New York, fyi.

Speaking of friends, how many of you...


...fell for this?

And, while we're on the topic of Wynn, I wandered while in L.A. earlier this month into a fancy Bel Air neighborhood while trying to find the UCLA theater where Erich Bergen is in "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum." I came across this...

So which  came first, the Vegas one or this Bel Air usage? on Twitpic

...and wondered if it predated the hotel-casino of the same name. Probably, right?

Someone in Vegas ought to, just for civic pride's sake, get the people of Yermo, Calif., to...

Whatever, yermo: on Twitpic

...tear this insult down.

Does anyone have a freaking clue what any of this gobbledegook has to do with any of the rest of this gobbledegook?


And finally, we're back to the dogs. They went in for their dental visit which, in case you're not a dog owner, is a thing where they knock out your animals, clean up their teeth and, if necessary, remove some. Jack had four teeth removed, Black had one. They came home...


...totally stoned. And before you get on me about giving them too much fairy floss, I'll have you know I would never do that. It's much too delicious to waste on them.

2 comments:

Brian Fey said...

I wouldn't say I "Fell" for adding Steve Wynn on Facebook. I am not dumb enough to think he's a huge fan, or even has time to FB. But I did see it, and added him. Figuring either one of two things, A. it was possibly his PR people, or B. If was one of my fellow Wynn lovers. Either way, I want to be their friend, as we obviously have much in common.

Eli said...

Bellagio Road in Westwood/Bel Air does predate the hotel. I've lived nearby for 15 years, it's always been there.