I’ve been remiss in following up on the Cadbury Gorilla story that’s been one of the most popular posts on this site in some time. The ad was viewed almost 500,000 times on YouTube during the first week of its release! Everyone’s enjoyed it, but the burning question has been, “Who’s the guy in the gorilla suit?”

While many speculated it was Phil Collins himself, it apparently was Garon Michael, a relatively little-known actor who seems to specialize in playing primates, having appeared in Congo, Instinct, and the remake of Planet of the Apes. No stranger to film, he’s appeared with such heavyweights as Anthony Hopkins, Donald Sutherland and Mark Wahlberg.

Says Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough, “We have been amazed by the way the advert has captured the public’s imagination.”

And so it has. It’ll be a tough act to follow!

Ever wonder what your cats do while you’re away? You probably think they sleep all day and, for the most part, you’re right. Cats spend the majority of their “alone time” sleeping and awaiting your return. But what happens when they get bored?

Thanks Sara!

This is just sad:

In all the stories that came out of 9/11 — stories of love, loss and heroism — Tania Head’s tale had it all.

As president of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network and as a tour guide at ground zero, she told countless people for the past six years about being burned on the 78th floor of the south tower. Head says she was rescued by a citizen hero, and felt compelled to escape by her promise to return a wedding band to a victim’s wife and by her love for a man she later learned had died in the north tower.

Tania Head’s story, however, was too good to be true, as The New York Times reported Thursday.

Though she’d spoken to journalists for years and recounted her story hundreds of times among other survivors, the newspaper found that nearly every detail of Head’s tale was false. … Story

I know there are people so desperate for attention and acceptance that they exploit victims of tragedies like 9/11 to gain them. They need help, certainly, but there must also be severe consequences…

Dawn asks, “What happens when you have nothing to do, own a sharp knife, have a large lime, own a patient cat, drink too much tequila and it’s football season?” Well…

Have a great weekend! Some good Week 4 NFL action Sunday. And try to get out and catch some of the fall colors!

I grew up in Miami and remember it as primarily a football town. Baseball was an “also ran” sport. Apparently it still is if this news story is any indication. During a recent game between the Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals, there were only 400 fans in a stadium that can seat nearly 75,000…

Could it be that the exorbitant salaries payed to major league baseball players have finally driven ticket prices beyond the reach of Miami fans? Larry? Ken?

No matter how nice or how expensive it may be, properly seasoning your humidor is a crucial and necessary step to ensure it functions correctly. You may have already started collecting your favorite cigars to give out to friends, take golfing, share during special times or for yourself and no one else. If so, you’ve come to realize you have a hefty investment in those stogies. You need to be able to care for them so they can be stored and (if you want) properly aged.

The inside of a humidor is usually lined with Spanish cedar or, in some rare cases, mahogany. These woods are preferred  because they hold humidity well and contain a natural anti-fungal agent that resists mold. In any case, the wood has been kiln dried and, if you simply filled up the humidification device without seasoning, the dried wood would suck up all the moisture, not your desired result.

In order to properly season a humidor, you need distilled water and a brand new sponge. Distilled water should always be used in the humidification device to prevent mineral buildup. Saturate the sponge and wipe down all the interior wood. Don’t be shy. Wipe all exposed interior wood generously, then fill the humidification device according to the directions. Saturate the sponge once more and place it inside the humidor, close the lid, and let it sit for 24 hours. Next day, remove the sponge, wipe down the interior wood one more time, close the lid and let it sit for another 24 hours. Finally, refill the humidification device. Your humidor is now fully seasoned and ready to house your stogie collection.

This is how a desktop humidor that contains a passive humidification device works: the wood retains the humidity and the humidification device replenishes the moisture in the wood. Simple, yes? So be sure you properly season your humidor to make sure it protects your cigar investment!

Till next time, keep Herfin’!

If you fly out of Sacramento International Airport, you may have noticed one of the more unusual art forms I’ve seen in some time, an aerial view of the Sacramento River woven into a carpet for the floor of the pedestrian bridge connecting the terminal to the parking garage. The image represents approximately fifty miles of the Sacramento River starting just outside of Colusa, California and ending about six miles south of Chico.

Although I’d noticed the carpet on occasion while hurrying across the bridge to catch a flight, I’d never taken (nor had) the time to study it. I recently made it a point and was amazed at the detail and scale of the project.

The artist, Seyed Alavi, received a Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University and a Masters of Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute. His public art projects are often engaged with the poetics of language and space and their power to shape reality and include site-specific installations for The New Museum of Contemporary Art and Franklin Furnace in New York City; The University Art Museum- Cal State Long Beach; The Museum of Santa Cruz County; The deSaisset Museum; The University Art Museum, Sonoma State; The University Art Museum, Cal State San Bernardino and San Francisco’s Capp Street Project.

Next time you fly into or out of SMF, take a few minutes to check out the large-scale art work right under your feet. You’ll be impressed.

I‘ve been under a lot of stress these past several months, more than the level I normally carry, and it’s taken its toll on me. One of the bi-products of too much added stress is greater difficulty managing it. As a result, my muscles have become more tense (and stay that way to the point of pain and fatigue), I can’t relax or sleep, and I’ve become my “other” self, the serious, brooding one even I don’t enjoy.

Last evening I was reminded of something Dr. Theodore Rubin once wrote:

“I must learn to love the fool in me — the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool.”

Stress is exhausting and deadly. I need to become reacquainted with my inner fool.

Here’s a list you don’t see every day courtesy of deputydog by way of James. I’ve featured tattooed men (and ladies) before, but this goes waaaay beyond reason. And I should warn you that a couple of the videos aren’t for the squeamish. But that said, take a look at what some may call body art, others might call obsessive/compulsive and more than a few would call insanity. Here are three from the list to give you a preview…

I suppose this is not unlike some people, usually women, that can’t seem to get enough plastic surgery. We’ve all seen them on TV and most will agree they’re obsessive. This seems to me to fall into the same category. What do you think?

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the American Film Institute revised its lists of the 100 greatest American films and 100 greatest movie songs of all time (Registration required to download.) In the venerated #1 song spot was Judy Garland’s soulful and iconic rendition of Over the Rainbow from the beloved family classic, The Wizard of Oz, and it would be hard to argue with their selection.

A close second, though, and one of my all time favorites, was As Time Goes By from the movie Casablanca. Surprisingly, it wasn’t written for the film and the movie version was never released as a single. Still, it’s hard not to associate the song with “Rick’s Café Américain. “  For me , it will always belong to Bogie and Bergman.

I’m sure most of you know at least some of the lyrics and will appreciate this video clip edited from the movie and featuring As Time Goes By. It brought back fond memories for me. You too?

According to this Associated Press story, one of our whack-a-doodle U.S. Senators, a barber with a law degree (an interesting combination) has done just that:

Fed up with the threats, tired of natural disasters, the state’s longest-serving state senator is using his legal muscle against who he says is the culprit — God. State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha sued the Almighty in Douglas County District Court last week.

Chambers, who skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians, said he filed the lawsuit to show that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody…

Chambers, incidentally, once sued to bar legislative prayers in the Nebraska Legislature. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the lawsuit.

Will somebody please tell me why the good people of Nebraska keep re-electing this guy? Not that he’s the only whack-a-doodle we have in Congress, but give me a break!

In a recent article, BBC News reported on research concluding that a compound extracted from tangerine peel can kill certain human cancer cells, information I thought worth sharing…

According to a research team at Leicester School of Pharmacy, Salvestrol Q40 - a type of phytoalexin (a chemical produced by plants to repel attackers, such as insects or fungi) extracted from tangerine peel, can kill certain human cancer cells. “Salvestrol Q40 is found at higher concentrations in the peel of the tangerine than in the flesh of the fruit, and is converted into a toxic compound by the cytochrome P450 CYP1B1 enzyme:

As a result, the researchers found, it proved to be 20 times more toxic to cancer cells than their healthy equivalents.

Dr. Tan said Salvestrol was found in other fruit and vegetables, such as the brassica family, which includes broccoli and brussels sprouts.

However, the compound tends to be produced at higher levels when infection levels among crops are high.

Therefore, the use of modern pesticides and fungicides, which have cut the risk of infections, have also led to a drop in Salvestrol levels in food.

CYP1B1 has been found to be expressed at a high frequency in a wide range of human cancers of different histogenetic types, including cancers of the breast, colon, lung, esophagus, skin, lymph node, brain, and testis.

Via Hyscience.

Blame Dennis for this groaner…

Back in the days of the Old West, a westbound wagon train was lost and low on food. No other people had been seen for days. And then they saw an old Rabbi sitting beneath a tree.

The wagon train leader rushed to him and said, “We’re lost and running out of food. Is there someplace ahead where we can get provisions?

“Vell,” the old Rabbi replied, “I vouldn’t go up dat hill und down d’other side. Somevun told me you’ll run into a big bacon tree.”

“A bacon tree?” asked the wagon train leader.

“Yah, ah bacon tree. Trust me. For nuttin vud I lie.”

The leader returned to the wagon train and told the pioneers that if nothing else, they might be able to find food on the other side of the next ridge. “So why did he say not to go there?” some pioneers asked. “Oh, you know the Jewish, they don’t eat bacon. It’s against their religion,” the leader replied.

So the wagon train went up the hill and down the other side. Suddenly, Indians attacked and massacred everyone except the leader, who managed to escape back to the old Rabbi, who was enjoying a “glassel tea.”

The near-dead man shouted. “You fool! You sent us to our deaths! We followed your instructions, but there was no bacon tree. Just hundreds of Indians who killed everyone.”

The old Rabbi held up his hand and said, “Oy, vait a minute.” He reached in his pack and pulled out an English-Yiddish dictionary and began thumbing through it.

‘Gevalt, I made myself ah big mistake. It vuz not a bacon tree, it vuz a ham bush!

This is alarming:

Pasadena (UPI) - A U.S.-led international team of astronomers discovered that Neptune’s south pole is much warmer than the rest of the planet.

The researchers published the first temperature maps of the lowest portion of Neptune’s atmosphere, showing the warmer south pole is providing an avenue for methane to escape from the deep atmosphere.

“The temperatures are so high that methane gas, which should be frozen out in the upper part of Neptune’s atmosphere, the stratosphere, can leak out through this region,” said Glenn Orton of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Orton is lead author of a paper appearing in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. In the paper, the astronomers report the temperature at Neptune’s south pole is higher than anywhere else on the planet by about 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The average temperature on Neptune is about minus 392 degrees Fahrenheit.

The findings were made using the Very Large Telescope located in Chile, operated by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere.

I hope Al Gore is on the case. I just know SUVs are somehow involved… More

The SU-35 is the prototype for the SU-37, a super-maneuverable thrust vectoring Russian fighter. Two Lyulka AL-37FU vectored-thrust afterburning turbofans (30,855 lb thrust each) give the aircraft it’s extreme flight characteristics. Amazing!

Thanks Michael!