Word to your Father!
 

That's just what we want you to think. Heh.

baby, if you ever wondered...
 

Mr. Carlson has died --

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Gordon Jump, who played a befuddled radio station manager on the sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati" and made his mark in commercials as the lonely Maytag repairman, died Monday. He was 71.

Jump suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, said his cousin, Katherine Jump Wagner. The illness causes scarring of the air sacs of the lungs, leading to heart or respiratory failure.

Strange Poll
 

Which goes to show how background can really affect what people perceive as strange. I've seen things like this so many times it doesn't even make it into my top 50. Did the cross have a little wheel on the bottom? Without it the bottoms of the crosses get chewed up in short order from the friction, but I still kind of think it is cheating.

The weirdest thing I'm ever seen was a fifty year old fat balding guy in a pea green ball gown, white elbow length satin gloves and a tiara (don't know how exactly he got the tiara to stay up on his comb-over) earnestly singing "Crazy" in the manner of Patsy Cline. This was made more odd by the fact that the man's normal persona was one of pure evil. But I bet you wouldn't think that too odd at all. Well, maybe odd, but probably not in your top 10.

baby, if you ever wondered...
 

First John Ritter, now this? All of our 70's television icons are dropping like flies. I guess I'll have to add more of them to my official celebrity death pool. I've got dibs on this guy.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/...GE/asnered.jpg

Seriously though, that sucks. WKRP was a great show and Mr. Jump played a great character.

sf

Strange Poll
 

David Lynch movies don't count. It has to be something you've seen IRL.

sf

Strange Poll
 

Several years ago, a friend and I drove cross country. As we approached Indianapolis, a huge thunderstorm began. We drove for a while, enjoying the amazing lightning display until the rain got so bad that we decided to stop at a truck stop and wait it out.

We entered the truck stop and sat at the counter. We ordered coffee. Our waitress was one of those gum-cracking, pencil in the hair, calls everyone "Hon" types, and she chatted with us for a while.

Suddenly, a huge crack of thunder and the lights went out. It was totally silent in the restaurant, and then, without provocation, a barbershop quartet stood up in the corner and started to sing.

Both my friend and I were totally wigged out and bolted as soon as we'd paid the check.

It was like something out of a David Lynch movie.

Strange Poll
 

while, contemporaneously....

Now this may be the strangest thing I've seen today...

Strange Poll
 

This poll was inspired by a conversation I had last night with a group of Austin friends.

One of the commented that, like knowing where you were when JFK was shot, Austinites remember the first time they saw Leslie Cochran. Leslie stands in the middle of the business district in a bikini top, thong, and stillettos, showing off what are widely accepted as the best legs in Austin. His longish hair and beard add to the overall look.

He used to get harrassed by the Austin police daily and was frequently arrested. He became very famous and they mostly leave him alone because of public outcry (they did escort him from the ACL, though, bastards). After that, he has run for mayor and received like 10% of the vote each time.

For us, he makes Austin, Austin. Others often freak out the first time they see him.

Strange Poll
 

Are you serious that this was also in a Lynch movie? That would be very strange. I'm not sure I've actually seen a Lynch movie all the way through.

This was very much real life for me. It was the same night one of my best friends from high school launched his drag queen persona Felicidi ("with a 'D'").

On a slightly different bent, the weirdest place I've ever been is the Stop N Go at the corner of Montrose and Westheimer in Houston. Weirdest things 2-5 on my list all occured there. Its weirdness is apparently widely recognized, because the Houston Press once named it the "brightest place to see the dark side" in Houston.

Strange Poll
 

Wow, one of the strangest things I've ever seen happened in a t-storm near Indianapolis as well. Maybe it was the same night.

First, I've never seen Magnolia (but I know what happens). Is it a David Lynch movie?

As I'm driving through the storm, frogs (toads??) appear. They don't fall from the sky as they apparently do in Magnolia. But they appear on the road. All over the place. Thousands and thousands. Hopping across the road. It was like a stampede of frogs. I obviously ran over quite a few. It was ridiculous. And eerie. And this mass migration wasn't just a 50 foot band of frogs -- it lasted for a few miles. A flash of lightning would illuminate the road ahead and...frogs as thick as locusts. And then it stopped as quickly as it started. No more frogs.

Strange Poll
 

Sitting in a bar one night, I watched as a rather large bear walked in the side door, causing most of the patrons to bail out the front door. The bear banged into the mid-game pinball machine, which started dinging and ringing and making all the normal pinball sounds. The bear was intrigued, and stood there for about fifteen minutes, whapping the side of the machine to get the sounds.

Then it walked back out the side door, everyone came back in, and the evening continued as if nothing had happened.

Strange Poll
 

Sweet -- I've been wondering what look to go for ever since I received my invitation to the Seventeenth Annual Podunkville Ghoul Fest Halloween costume party.

I've been trying to think of something worthy of posting in response to the strange poll. Sadly, I have concluded (yet again) that my white-bread existence has left me with a void that can only be filled vicariously via the exploits of the FB.

Carry on.

OxyContin
 

Does anybody have ahem friends ahem who have experimented with this drug? Can anyone give me any anecdotal information on what it's like to be high on this stuff?

Not that I plan to go out and buy some...I'm trying to understand someone I love who is addicted to the shit. He's been in and out of rehab 3 times, always seems to relapse, etc. And telling me its like heroin doesn't really help, as I've yet to try heroin...

Bn'B

Strange Poll
 

My strange Indiana storm story (but not the strangest thing I've ever seen) involved a giant bolt of lightning (looked more like a fireball, really) coming through a closed window in my Grandma's kitchen and striking her stove (which, oddly, I believe was gas). We were all sitting in her kitchen at the time and it freaked us out.

And the Easter Bunny's real name is "Harvey."
 

That's fringey's area of expertise, not mine. But sometimes we work together. She makes a scene to distract "Santa," while I steal the Salvation Army kettle. Afterwards, we meet up at the local Denny's, split the cash, and go buy toys for poor children.

Unfortunately, Paigow wears out vibrators faster than we can purchase them.

CDF (maybe we should buy in bulk, one gross at a time)

Strange Poll
 

Edited to remove double post.

Strange Poll
 

RP Disclosure for Coltrane: Magnolia was a Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

OxyContin
 

Imagine someone finding and activating the little nerve endings in your brain that stimulate every cell in your body to feel an almost orgasmic pleasure in waves and waves and waves . . . .

I was on MS-Contin (the less synthetic version of OxyContin - basically, pure morphine) for quite some time, both because I stumbled onto a huge supply of it, and because it was just so damn pleasurable. Still able to function, but always a little dreamy. No pain, no worries, just - huge physical pleasure. And, I don't mean an anesthetised absence of pain - I mean, waves of pleasure through the whole body.

Drugs like are so addicting simply because the feeling is so wonderful that the absence of that feeling can make you cry once you've had it for a while. Quitting is simply the dreary and hopeless acceptance that you are consigning yourself to never again feeling that wonderful coursing of pleasure through your body - and it's a hard thing to convince yourself that there's any good in that. I would have rather given up sex. Fortunately, the supply ran out after eight months, I went through temporary hell, (it's much easier to quit if you have no choice, since you can't get any more) and was done.

Place Your Bets
 

In light of the poll of the day, I'm wondering if anyone would like to wager on how many times the phrase David Lynch Movie is going to be used today.

http://www.thernf.com/weirdgal/elvisicon.gif

There. Now this post is just a bit more like a David Lynch movie.

aV

Breakfast Meat Poetry
 

Fayre mayde, wyll you that I love you?
I cannot hold you that you love not if you wyl love.
I have loved you, I love you and will love you . . .
I will brake my fast with you:
We will have a pair of sasages.

Florio, John; Florio, his firste Fruites (1578)

As for the strange poll, when in West Virginia I saw the words "Pa I love you" spraypainted on the side of a building, which may not be all that strange in W. Va. Beautiful state, but it really lives up to its stereotypes.

strangest thing
 

while I am sure I have seen plenty of strange shit, two things come to mind. guy at a dead show in Sacto in 89 wearing those bolt like things that plumbers carry around, all over his arms and dangling off his fingers.
stranger than that. we are talking major heavy metal covering the entirety of and dangling off his appendages.


the other strange site I can recall is a married man begging me to take off my clothes and undies, not to see me nekkid, but so he could wear them around. And I did. So I saw a married man in my bra, undies, and little plaid skirt prancing around like a schoolgirl.

I also once saw three GAs in a hotel room, standing around in a circle holding hands clearly testing the menage waters.

OxyContin
 

Like heroin, the first high is the most amazing feeling ever and you spend the rest of your fucking life trying to acheive it again. You can't. RUN.

(Not from personal experience, but close).

Breakfast Meat Poetry
 

The stereotype that West Virginians love Pennsylvannia?

[Early leader for Bilmore OTD Award!]

OxyContin
 

My understanding is that it is more than this. It is resigning yourself to never again feeling even "normal." You lose your ability to feel anything but bad (without it or some other drug) or your new definition of "normal" (on the drug, which no longer makes you feel high or good--simply not in pain).

We're all next on Paigow's ignore list
 

Blustery contains negative connotations regarding the speaker's lack of forethought, i.e., one who speaks first, thinks later. While I am absolutely guilty of being blustery as hell on this board, flagging me for it can only be described as a complaint.

I have excellent reading skills but frequently read things the way i feel like reading them so that I can respond as I feel like responding. I'm a tool like that.

S(Phoning my life in daily)D

Place Your Bets
 

What's the over/under?

sf

The Dewey Decimal System -- kind of like OxyContin. Only not.
 

From today's NYT: Who knew that someone owned the Dewey Decimal System?

Apparently not the owners of the Library Hotel, nestled in the shadow of the New York Public Library. Now the boutique hotel, which numbers its guest rooms and stocks them with books according to Melvil Dewey's century-old library classification system, is being sued for using it.

"The Dewey Decimal System is a product, a trademark, a brand name," said Joseph R. Dreitler, a lawyer for the Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit library cooperative that filed the suit last week in Federal District Court in Ohio. "The idea here isn't to put the Library Hotel out of business. The idea is to protect Dewey and the Dewey Decimal System trademark."

Breakfast Meat Poetry
 

While definitely Bilmore esque, I just dont feel it. Not every day has a Bilmore,but so we dont feel empty I will dig into the archves and go to the oeuvre of the holder of the Bilmore Lifetime Achievemt Award, lookingfor market.

for example, yesterday we didnt have a bilmore. so i give you this.

Message 130400 of 138090
Re: Aspires to double digits.
LookingForMarket
November 19, 2002 07:04 pm

"Dozen? How come LFM is getting so much play? "

I've lived next to Penske for about 6 months and his wife needs it every two weeks.

Strange Poll
 

I passed a similar clown on the Bay Bridge, and nearly caused an auto accident because I waved at the clown. The person driving the car had deep seeded clown-fear, and freaked out when I waved, and *gasp* the clown waved back. Of course, we were in the far left lane, and the clown was right next to us and coincidently going forward too, so there was nothing really that my friend could do to avoid the clown until we got off the bridge. He drove like a bat out of hell as soon as he was able, though, and I got a severe lecture about waving at clowns, especially when heading home when they can follow you and then kill you in your sleep.

As for the strangest thing I've ever seen? I'm not quite sure but the most surreal was when I saw 200 cowboys line dancing to Don't Cry For Me Argentina, the Madonna version, at a gay rodeo in a Maryland fairground in 1999. As one might imagine, it was quite complicated correography, and of course, it was perfectly executed.

We're all next on Paigow's ignore list
 

Blustery just means you are freaking loud and wordy. I am sure most of the people who are here will mainly agree that this is another of your tour de force arguments that would surely woo any judge or jury with the putting words into people's mouths. If I wanted to say you lack forethought and spoke without thinking, I would simply call you a fucking moron or a JDUMB sock or put you on my Ignore LIst if the posts were windy enough to wear out my scroll button. Which I dont think you are, nor do I think Less is. I do however think you are blustery.

Strange Poll
 

I had an encounter like that once.

Driving on a familiar gravel road in central Texas, late at night (I think it was clear instead of raining though), and suddenly this lone goat leaps into the middle of the road. It crosses the road, and leaps into the bushes on the other side. That apparently was some sort of signal, beause an entire herd of goats leaps out of the bushes and follows the first goat. I swear there were probably five hundred goats that crossed the road. And as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone.

I knew the area fairly well, and I knew that no one in the area raised goats. Who they were, where they came from and where they were going remains a mystery.

Strange Poll
 

I'm confused. Are you responding to the "strange stories" poll, or to the drug question?

Strange Poll
 

Driving in neat, crowded suburb with no agriculture or livestock within 50 miles. As I turn a corner, two huge llamas surge out of nowhere and give chase at full speed. I finally outpace the llamas, who are still in pursuit last time I saw them in my rear view mirror, and stop at a gas station to call the cops. The lieutenant (who usually only deals with 'kid knocked over my mailbox'/ 'teens steal alcohol from packy' type things), replies in totally bored voice, "Yeah yeah, llamas. We got 'em."

Strange Poll
 

More farm country weirdness: this may be pretty normal for people who have knowledge of farms. It was strange to me.

My car broke down in farm country. Nothing for miles but farms, but I know there's a town about 4 miles ahead so I get out and start hiking it. I come upon a herd of cows. About 100 of them. Their eyes all follow me. As I walk by, the entire herd starts to follow me. I'm on the road side of the fence; the cows are on the other. Coltrane was the pied piper of cows for about a half-mile. I'd look back, and 10 feet behind were the cows. All staring at me and following me. I was pretty amused.

FYI.
 

That Jai is so cute! I like all those dudes -- each in their own special way -- but I think if I had to choose a favorite, it would be the interior designer guy (Thom?), with the food guy a close second.

If Thom weren't on that show and I met him in person, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't immediately think he was gay (until he told me he was an interior designer that is.)

Reminds me of my (somewhat homophobic -- from very "macho" culture) husband's comment when I told him an architect ("A") would be coming to the house to give us ideas/estimates. I "warned" him that A was gay (before you ask, A made repeated references to his partner when I spoke with him on the phone -- that's how I knew). My husband's response was (in a whinging voice):


"Oh DTB (Geez-- I almost typed my real name!), we can't afford a gay guy!"


(Every last one of my gay friends loves that story -- although it is admittedly much funnier if you know my husband.)

Strange Poll
 

Shit. He just won his own award.

We're all next on Paigow's ignore list
 

Understood.

BTW... I got creamed this week playing fast and loose with other people's words. I'm still smarting. Judge got sooo fucking serious on my ass. This field can be sooo fucking gay. Everyone takes everything so toolishly serious. Its all just silly paper pushing and throwing words about in the air. In fact, you should have called me a dork for parsing "blustery." If I'm that potentially Timmyish now, who knows the depths I could fall to later. I could find myself playing Everquest or Dungeons and Dragons online. Hell, maybe I'd wind up on a chat board about the Lord of the Rings trilogy or start buying Yes records...

Dios mio... I have to, no, must, get out.

S(My god, what have I become?)D

FYI.
 

Not since the Emmys he's not--did the big-collared open shirt with a suit, shiny cross nestled in wispy chest hair thing--ick. Oily pimp/John Travolta wannabe look.

Ted, of course, can do no wrong.

Strange Poll
 

You can imagine the crush of disappointment I felt when I read the post and then read the author. I think I may have to use that post as the gleaming example of what it takes to be Bilmore of the day. not tht people should be competing for this as I have already explained.

and I have to ask, did your pied piper of cows experience convert you to a non cow eater?

We're all next on Paigow's ignore list
 

You probably already know this, but that's a real dangerous attitude in this business, one that can screw you over in a heartbeat if you're not careful. Don't get so tied up in process that you stop thinking about the substance - i.e., the client's fight. Our role in the fights is just what you say - but the consequences to others are real, and will be to you, too, if you are actually believing (and living) what you just typed.