The Junk Drawer

On May 21 I posted this picture I took at a defunct gas station in my area, showing a ridiculously low price for gasoline. Someone in my area wrote to the local newspaper and asked why it’s still there and if any information could be found about the station’s owner.

Since many of you asked about the sign, I thought I’d fill you in.

Click here for the story.

It seems the owner is a fugitive from the law, trying to avoid “10 counts of issuing bad checks, two counts of theft by deception, and related charges.”

I guess taking down the old sign is last on his list of priorities. It’s estimated the station closed down in the spring of 2002. So that’s the last time we saw $1.29/gallon gas. And it can be safely said we’ll never see it again.

I’m not a huge fan of the blog meme, but this one I liked. I stole it from my pal Ferd, who stole it from someone else. We’re all thieves, really. But in a good way.

The Mosaic Picture Meme

Originally from Bud who changed the rules slightly.

The Concept:

This Meme is all about the Mosaic Collage that you are about to build by answering the questions in this meme by using pictures! First what we changed: The meme we stole required the use of programs that you needed to register to use. So it was tied to you downloading two programs (and learning them…) Here we do the same meme, the exact same way, but leave you to your own resources. We also simplified the rules to allow a bit more creative (and speed!). So here we go:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Google Image Search or same type of search engine for pictures.

2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image. You can’t search forever for a certain image.

3. Copy and paste each in any program that you can post the pictures in a mosaic pattern. You can post them 3 X 4 or 4 X 3. We used Microsoft Paint below.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?… Kathy

2. What is your favorite food?… BLT. The more B, the better.

3. What high school did you go to?… Notre Dame, Green Pond, Bethlehem, PA. It’s where I encountered a new set of horrors after the ones I suffered in grade school.

4. What is your favorite color? … Maroon

5. Who is your celebrity crush?… Will Lyman, television and stage actor, and also the voice of PBS’ Frontline. I’m in love with his smooth, sultry voice. My husband is not allowed to talk when Will is speaking. He may use sign language in an emergency, say, if our house is burning down. But he may not talk to me.

6. What is your favorite drink?… Apple juice. I drink water almost exclusively, but when I splurge, it’s apple juice. What a flavor blast!

7. What is your dream vacation?… Without reservation, Paris, France. Our trip there in 2004 ruined us for any other vacation we’ve taken. Nothing else compares.

8. What is your favorite dessert?… Magic Cookie Bars. I make these for student assistants I hire to help on our team at work. One student ate a whole batch himself and asked if I put crack in them. Beware. They’re addictive.

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?… A writer.

10. What do you love most in life?… My husband, Dave. And, as you might guess, he’s a saint for putting up with me all these years.

11. What is one word that describes you?… Peculiar, but you knew that already.

12. What is your blog name?… The Junk Drawer

So there you have it! I’m not inclined to thrust a meme on others, so feel free to tag yourself if you’re interested.

UPDATE: Because the images used in my mosaic were taken from Google Images, I should properly credit the sources. In order from left to right:

Kathy, BLT, Maroon, Junk Drawer, Notre Dame Green Pond, Will Lyman, Apple Juice,  Paris, Magic Cookie Bars, Writer, Peculiar, My Husband Dave

My dear niece, Amy * recently had surgery to remove a growth on her pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is located at the base of the brain, which I thought was at the back of the head, just above the neck.

That’s not where it is. Here’s where it is:

Actual Amy brain, with growth

You might wonder how a surgeon reaches this part of the brain. Well, they don’t saw your skull open and pull unwelcome pieces out through a hole. They actually take a trip through your nose and do all the work from the front of your face.

The surgeon was very blunt about how she’d feel after surgery: “You’ll feel like someone punched you very, very hard.”

Amy’s surgery went extremely well and she’s home resting for three weeks, complete with colorful bruises from the medically-sanctioned beating she got. Along with some lovely pharmaceuticals, she was given a list of restrictions she must adhere to for a whole month.

The one restriction driving her batshit is that she cannot blow her nose, not even once. FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH.

Think about it.

I blew my nose twenty times since she had her surgery and every time I stopped to think “What if I couldn’t do that just now?” It pains me to think that no matter how desperately she needs to blow, she can only let it drain.

I try my blessed best not to blow my nose in solidarity to her predicament, but I just cannot NOT blow my nose. She’s not handling the restriction well at all, as you might imagine. She continues to wear gauze taped above her lip as a reminder that she can’t touch her nose, blow her nose, or God forbid, pick it.

Here’s my plea: Would you guys please think of Amy the next time you blow your honker? Say a little prayer next time you use a tissue? The girl needs some help getting through the next three weeks.

We’re just counting down the days for her. On Thursday, June 26th, that noise you hear will be Amy letting loose for a month’s worth of plugged up nostrils. After that, we’ll all breathe a little easier.

Thanks, guys.

* This post was pre-approved by Amy’s brain.

Today’s post covers a series of topics that don’t qualify for posts of their own. Kind of a mish-mash of things that don’t have anywhere else to go. You know, like stuff you throw in a junk drawer. Fitting, eh?

HUMOR-BLOGS.COM ROCKS

I’ve been a member of Humor-Blogs.com since I started this blog and have been ranked in the Top 20 blogs (out of 940 blogs) for the last six months or so. If you’re a humor blogger, I highly recommend joining up. Not only will you see increased traffic, you’ll find other great humor blogs to get to know and love.

I’d like to publicly thank Diesel, who started the Humor-Blogs site, for giving me a place to showcase The Junk Drawer. I don’t know where I’d be without it.

And for a bit of shameless self-promotion, you may not know that clicking the green Humor-Blogs button in my sidebar earns me referral credits that keep me in the Top 20.

If you want to check out other humor sites, click through to Humor-Blogs that way, and you’ll be doing your part to help me achieve fame and fortune. Well, not the fortune part. I haven’t quite figured that out yet.

WHAT’S THIS ENTRECARD THING?

You might have noticed the “Today’s Featured Blog” widget in my sidebar. These sites come from Entrecard, a service that gives bloggers a way to promote themselves by “dropping” their cards on sites as they browse other blogs.

You earn credits for dropping your card and having cards dropped on yours, as well as through other bloggers advertising on your site. Then you use your own credits to buy spots on other blogs.

In the month since I joined, I’ve seen a twofold increase in my daily visitors. Some people pooh-pooh Entrecard because it takes time to drop cards while visiting other sites. But I’ve found it to be a worthwhile effort so far. My stats program tells me that about 10% of droppers stay longer than five minutes on my site, and some also subscribe to my feed.

If you use Entrecard, try not to “drop and run.” Spend time on the blogs you visit, and most importantly, comment on the blogs you really like. In my opinion, commenting on other people’s blogs is the best way to gain traffic in the long run. If you use Entrecard, drop a comment in the drawer and share your experience with it.

YES, THE BAG IS STILL IN THE TREE

Just a quick update: The plastic bag is still stuck in the tree outside my building at work. You may have noticed the Plastic Bag Tracker displayed in my sidebar, updated daily. There it will sit until the bag falls out of the tree, or Jeff comes to take it out his damn self (I know it’s driving him insane that it’s still there).

I’LL HATE MYSELF IN THE MORNING

It kills me to beg, but I’m doing it anyway. I’m currently running a Top Spots widget in my sidebar, where bloggers can buy a spot in the list for $3 to showcase a link to their sites. Consider it my tip jar.

Right now, the list is full, but I would appreciate if a few more bloggers would buy a spot — and here’s the begging part — so that I can reach the payment threshold. Because Top Spots won’t pay out until $25 is reached, and I’m stuck at the $23 mark, I haven’t seen one red cent from running the widget.

To encourage new Top Spotters, I’ll drop the cost down to $2. A link to your site will appear on the list for one month, after which I’ll remove the widget and collect my 25 bucks. Thanks to those who’ve bought a spot and to those who will consider buying one now. I’m not sure how much traffic the people currently in the list have seen, but I hope it’s been enough to consider your $3 investment worthwhile!

That’s it for today’s mish-mash post. Have a great weekend everybody!

Some days I think I could be a vegetarian.

But here’s the thing. I loves me a good burger. What makes it easy to eat meat is that it doesn’t still look like the body part it came from, unless I’m eating Thanksgiving turkey, and then I try to ignore that it’s missing its head.

The most disgusting thing I’ve eaten that still looked like where it came from was this:

Italian tripe

Beef tripe is usually made from the first three stomachs of a cow, the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), the reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), and the omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe).

I ate the reticulum. Sounds kinda like “rectum,” doesn’t it? 

I found myself presented with a plate full of the above “I’ll be throwing this up later” delicacy once when my high school boyfriend took me to dinner at his grandmother’s.

His was an old world Italian family where dinners were hours-long events to be taken very seriously. If something was served to you, no matter how revolting it looked, you respectfully ate it, smiled, and asked for more.

If I recall correctly, the vomit-inducing tripe was served to me in a soup. When I took my first helping, I was appalled. Each honeycomb sheet looked like bubble wrap after the bubbles were popped. It was pale in color and resembled something you might peel of your shoes if you should happen to walk through a garbage dump.

I couldn’t imagine eating this mess, but I really had no choice. A lot of love went into making this meal and I’m not sure I would have been allowed to leave if I didn’t at least try it.

And so I did.

I don’t remember the swallowing part; I only remember the chewing. I could have saved myself a lot of time and trauma if I’d swallowed the pieces whole because it took ten minutes to chew through the stuff. Essentially, I ate a bowl of rubber bands.

One by one, the sheets went down. Imagining I was eating food instead of an office supply, I slowly worked my way to the bottom of the bowl. I was careful to pace myself so that I didn’t finish too quickly, as that would only invite the question “Kathy, would you like some more?” Oh, no. Please, God. No.

To this day, I can’t believe I ate what I ate and have only the occasional nightmare about it. Give me another part of the cow — any other part — and I’m fine. Impossible-to-chew, sheets of skin-like stomach matter? No, thanks. I think I’ll pass.

So, what’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?

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It’s chow time over at Humor-Blogs.