When Pigs Fly

My sister (not a lawyer) told me a funny joke tonight.

People said there'd be a black President when pigs fly. Well 100 days into Obama's administration and...Swine Flu!!!!

I find that very humorous. What I do not find humorous is what I consider the mediafication of this illness. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on tv, but I don't get what the fuss is all about. According to various reports I've been reading, 36,000 people die each year in the US from seasonal flu, and upwards of 300,000 worldwide.

Now, no one wants to be sick, or die from the flu, but do we know that the people who died in Mexico were in peak health minding their own business, and boom caught the flu and died? I tend to doubt it. And I'm really annoyed that they keep talking about the "US casualty." It was a Mexican kid who came here to visit. For the DAY!!! How is that a US death from Swine flu? It's not! It's a Mexican death on US soil. Statistics are a tricky thing they can be used in so many ways.

I just read something that said over the last 30 years there may have been parts of this current strain in the flu vaccines that have been administered to the general public, and that's why people in the US are not so adversely effected by the virus. People may have built up an immunity, and that's why the cases are not so bad.

I understand that it's a little freaky the way it's traveling across the globe, but in almost every case it's traced back to someone who's been in Mexico, so really it's not as freaky as it may seem. The fact that we keep hearing about more and more new cases? Not really that odd either if you think about it, just generally speaking in the winter the media does not give a day by day blow by blow accounting of how many people caught the flu that day. Dude, it's the flu! It's catchy.

So get your designer flu mask, wash your hands for 20 seconds, and don't go to Mexico.

At least until the next news cycle finds something more exciting to hype out of proportion.

You Say Mojito I Say Potato

Last night, after a yummy dinner my Grandmother would have enjoyed (Kielbasa with garlic potatoes) I took 13 year old and 11 year old to A.C. Moore and then to the mall for some footwear.

To say the 13 year old was chatty would be an understatement along the lines of saying Joe Stalin wasn't such a nice guy. Or New Orleans got a little wet a few summers ago, or Al Qaeda doesn't like us too much, or the Mets aren't the best team in Baseball.

So after a fun evening where not a sign went unread, on both the road and in the mall, I heard all about the nutritionist who came to school and took over third and fourth period, so there was no math and science. I'm pretty sure that got a yay.

As we headed for the merge back onto the highway to head home, I was hit with a barrage of non-sequiturs until I could take it no more.

"I think you had too much sugar today. Between the slurpee, the winkies, the licorice, and who knows what else you had this evening, I think it made you hyper."

"Actually," came the very serious reply, "it was the potatoes. They convert to simple sugars, you know."

Some Other Swell Ideas Brought To You by the Defense Department

Yesterday there was quite a scare in lower Manhattan. Someone in the Defense Department decided that they needed new pictures of Air Force One. The old pictures have the Grand Canyon as a backdrop, but now they wanted a shot with Lady Liberty. How, you may ask, in this age of computer generated photos, does one achieve such a feat? Simple. Send a duplicate Air Force One with a military escort to Lower Manhattan at ten o'clock in the morning, and have the 747 fly circular patterns around the Statue, New Jersey and New York, close enough to rattle windows and nerves.

So, because it's doubtful that there will be advanced warning to the municipalities involved, here is a very short list of some of the non essential military exercises to be executed by the Federal Government in the near future:

1. In order to combat bad publicity that the TSA receives at airports, it's most widely known area of operation, there will be a series of photo ops to show the public what else they do. The first series will showcase the trucking industry. Trucks driven by men in paramilitary gear will be parked in front of federal buildings throughout Oklahoma.

2. To show the softer side of the US Army there will be a photo op in Northern California this summer. To achieve the look the Army is trying to convey, they will light the world's biggest bon fire, one that can be seen for 100's of miles, and invite boy scout troops from all over the state to attend.

3. Highlighting a brand new initiative to popularize nuclear energy, the Department of Energy will unveil National Nuclear Power Day in early September, and simultaneously sound alarms at nuclear power plants in all 31 states that have them.

These are just a few of the planned activities. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

Krazy Indeed

So yesterday, Five Year Old needed a day off. It was pre-planned, and we spent the day together. Two year old was there for part of it, but then she took a nap, and my super-amazing-fantastic niece came by to babysit so we could go do something fun without little miss cheese eater.

For this mental health day, Five Year Old wanted to go to Krazy City, which is an arcade with a few rides, a climbing section, some duck pin bowling, neon mini golf, and a few other activities. She's been wanting to go there for awhile, and I filled up a points card about 2 years ago when they were running a promotion so I didn't mind taking her.

When we got there we were accosted by a forty-something year old hyperactive woman, who declared "Miss Layne is my name! Fun is my Game!" I have no problem with this, and I love it when people really love their jobs, and actually care. That part of it is great, and I appreciate her for it, because really she made the time there fun. She was having fun, didn't seem annoyed, and engaged with both me and my kid.

I showed her my very old card, and she swiped it through a reader and told me it was disabled. So we walked over to the front desk, and she let the young girl behind the counter know what the problem was. The young man , also behind the counter, told the young woman what to do.

"You gotta call him."

Just like that. Not "call Bill," or "call John," or "call the manager," or "call the boss." Just "him."

She gets on the phone and starts talking quietly then starts typing stuff on the keyboard, and I hear her reading off numbers. She hangs up, and I ask what is happening.

"your card is disabled. He's gonna come and fix it."

I am not making this up. I ask if there is a substantial point amount left and she says, "yes," and adds "He's coming to fix it."

So I wait a few minutes, assuming I'll see a guy in gray or khaki colored shirt with a solid tie, thinning hair and scuffed shoes, pull himself out of the office to deal with this card issue.

Nope.

HE was maybe in his early twenties, very short spiky black hair (spiky on purpose), wearing a wife beater undershirt a thick gold necklace and what ever the male version of Capri pants are (basically duty length shorts): "Him."

So HE starts doing stuff on the computer and I ask if there are a lot of points, and he says yes, about 600. (At the time it was two for one so I got 600 for the price of 300). Luckily, I don't tell him about how I got my great deal, because I asked why it was disabled, and he explained that my card was sold to me (actually my friend was at Krazy City when they had this promotion and she called me, and bought them for me)by a guy who thought it would be a good idea to sell the cards and points, but keep the money for himself. I guess the whole "computer database" thing didn't register with him at the time. So they had disabled all the cards sold by this guy, but if you came up and told them, they would reactivate it. I don't know if they were able to track which are the "stolen" cards and that's why they reactivated it, or if you just need to ask. Either way, he looked at me and said "He's not with us anymore."

I did not want to ask if "US" meant the Krazy City family of employees, or the more general "US," as in living and breathing members of society.

I thanked HIM, kept my mouth shut about my two for one points and went to stomp arcade spiders.

So? Was it a Hit?

OK, here's the deal with the salmon loaf. I love it, and it came out amazing. Plus I love that I made it in a real honest to goodness ceramic bake-ware pan, as opposed to those horrible, probably cancer causing aluminum throw away (to some) foil pans.

MBB loved it. He loved it so much he's having it for lunch with a horseradish mayonnaise on multi-grain bread (he finished the basil pesto sauce I made for him).

Eldest daughter was excited when she got home, and exclaimed that it's been so long since I'd made it.

All the others, as you well know, were busy belly aching. To assuage them for making whole wheat pasta, I made a fresh tomato sauce, which was a big hit.

So we sat at the table I gave everyone a small piece to start, and told them dessert would be forthcoming if they ate at least that small bit I gave them. So a lot of "pass the pasta, and pass the salad" ensued. A few of them venture a nibble or two.

Some background. The whole reason I made this dinner, was because the girls did not want a meat meal, but they had deli sandwiches for lunch. Being of Eastern European extraction that meant six hours, so a fish meal was the way to go.

Five year old was shouting: "It's disgusting! It taste like fish! It's fish!"

So I said: "It has so much other stuff in it. It has lemon juice, and bread crumbs and eggs and milk....."

We all froze, and burst out laughing. So those who needed it got a reprieve, and those who actually wanted to eat it, had it later. It's better cool anyway.

No one had dessert. They're all in bed now. More Ice Cream for me.

Trouble in Gotham?

The 2009 season has gotten off to a bit of a rocky start for the New York Yankees. Through the first two weeks of the season, the Yankees' record stands at a rather mediocre 7-6.

One of their starting pitchers, the Taiwanese right-hander Chien Mien Wang, has been awful, with an ERA of over 34.00. That's nearly four runs allowed per inning. The last pitcher I saw with an ERA that high was an 11-year old, who hurled his glove at his father, yelled "I hate baseball, and I hate you," then ran off into the woods, crying.

(Blogger's note: Yes, that's a true story. And no, I was not that kid).

In addition, the Yankees opened their brand new, $1.5 billion baseball palace last week, only to discover that the place is a "bandbox," with home runs flying out of the park at a record pace. Through four games, 20 home runs have been hit. That's not baseball, that's beer-league softball.

But, that's not the worst part, as far as the Yankees are concerned. The most embarrassing issue is that many of the super-premium seats have gone unsold, leaving large clusters of empty seats in the rows closest to the field. Some of these seats carry a price tag of $2,500 per game, adding up to a whopping $200,000+ for a season ticket.

Perhaps when the stadium was first being built, back in the days of $100 million-a-year hedge fund managers and unlimited corporate expense accounts, ticket prices like those made some sense. Not anymore.

Now, after an offseason during which they spent money on free agents as though the recession was simply a rumor, the Yankees are finding out that the economic downturn will affect them, just like everyone else.

Apparently, the Yankees' front office has held several intense meetings over the past couple of days, in an effort to come up with an answer to their unsold seat problem. Perhaps they will lower the prices of those seats, and refund some money to those who have already bought some of the expensive seats. Or, as some have suggested, they could donate some of those seats to youth groups. It will be interesting to see the solution they eventually implement.

Of course, there is another option. As with many other crises that have cropped up in the past year and a half, the Yankees' issue calls for a government bailout. The Fed, the U.S. Treasury, or some other government entity should simply buy up all of the unsold seats.

Admittedly, this idea would undoubtedly lead to some uncomfortable situations, like when Andrew Cuomo declares, with great indignation, that "after hundreds of hours of tireless research, I have uncovered the fact that the Yankees are paying their players lots of money. For how long has this been going on, while the public suspected nothing?" However, I think that the long-run benefits will far outweigh the risks. For one thing, if scientists can harness the jet stream that currently seems to be blowing out to right-center field to create energy, we could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

The time to act is now. It's time for the government to step up to the plate. (And for the Yankees to start winning with greater regularity).

Bleech!

Every night, in homes all over the world (this is not a post about world hunger, or those who have nothing or live in fear of bombs raining down upon them, or lawless bands of militias bursting though the doors to drag away the women. Nor is it a post about broken families here in the US or people living below the poverty line eating soup and crackers, or even about those unfortunate enough to have no homes at all), as the family returns to the nest the question on everyone's mind is the same:

"What are we having for dinner?"

The roles in each family are defined differently, so who makes or serves dinner can vary, but the underlying premise is there. Someone needs to choose what's for dinner, procure the ingredients and put it together. Then wait for it.

As people return home from a long day at school or work each has that same question on her mind. Yet, the answer elicits different reactions from each. The happy reactions are taken in stride, as are the ambivalent ones, it's the complaints that kill ya.

Each dinner idea is evaluated before execution to ensure maximum satisfaction. The problem is, if you only stick with what you know works, the menu gets pretty boring. So you need to add new items here and there, or bring back some old stand-bys that never really were a big hit. Tastes change, and time is a greater changer of minds. If you put enough distance between you and, say, the mustard crusted fettuccine, you never know, they may just go for it!

The problem really comes in when noses are turned up at menu staples.

"What do you MEAN you don't like chicken?"

At Icebergcarwash, we're kind of tough about these things, if you don't like dinner you don't need to eat it. If you only want a side dish that's fine too, as long as you give everything a try. The main thing we've incorporated is that you should not complain about a new dinner item until you've actually tried it. Too many times there is wailing and breast beating over a new concoction, that once tasted becomes a new staple because of rave reviews.

My kids just got home and found out I'm making Salmon Loaf. we haven't had it in about three years. It is not going well.

They're going to eat it either way. Wait til they find out I'm serving it with whole wheat pasta!

Drive By

On the way home from some errands today, on a stretch of what could be considered the main road in town, I passed the remains of a car fire. There was a big Fire Truck, and the Chief Car, and one police car still there.

In this town, we have a volunteer fire department. So the brave men ( I don't think there are any women on this squad)who work in town, dropped what they were doing, jumped in their cars, raced to the fire house, suited up, hopped on the truck, set the sirens going, changed the traffic light in front of the station house from blinking yellow to red, and pulled out of the garage.

They drove ten feet and pulled up in front of the fire. Yup. It was across the street from the fire house! In no way am I saying that they should not have taken care of this, it just struck me as funny.

The truth is, I'm not even sure it was a car fire. There was a car in the driveway with its hood up, so I assumed that was the issue, but it could have been an issue in the building itself.

Either way, my first thought was throw a bucket of water on it, it'll go quicker!

Kudos, to all the volunteers, fire and ambulance, for sacrificing your time for the greater good.

Mystery Solved!

Well, sort of.

I know the problem, it's just so mundane I don't think I can reveal it, but I can't fix it either.

So I guess the saga continues.....

The Case of the Missing Post Numbers: Episode 2, "The Real Story"

I must begin this post by apologizing for my previous post, which attempted to attribute the loss of our post counter to the demise of our auditing firm.

Unfortunately, that story is not true.

In retrospect, it's not even plausible.

In posting that story, I've not only been untruthful to our readers, I've also insulted the collective intelligence of IcebergCarwash Nation (What? Do you need to be from Boston and be totally insufferable to have a "Nation?" I think not).
There's no way that anyone who takes the time to read this blog would fall for such a silly story.

For that, I am truly sorry.

Now here's the real story behind our missing post numbers:

It's actually just a matter of mark-to-market accounting.

I'll explain (whether you like it or not).

Historically, blog posts were counted on a book value basis. If you added 20 posts in a month, you get credit for 20 posts. Simple.

However, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB, pronounced "Fazbee" by cool accounting types) now requires blogs to use the mark-to-market approach to count posts. In other words, it doesn't matter how many posts you've added. The real question is, how many posts remain relevant and/or marketable in today's market environment?

Using this approach, it was determined that the vast majority of our posts are worth a lot less today than when they were written. This is particularly true of any complimentary posts I wrote about the Minnesota Vikings (or the New York Yankees, who seem determined to spend the next 6 months ooh-ing and ah-ing about their ridiculous new stadium, instead of concentrating on, oh, I don't know, maybe, winning?!).

The problem is, in the absence of an orderly secondary market for blog posts, it is difficult to determine the value of the posts, or how many posts we've actually written.

After working this through with our accounting department and our auditors, we've come to the following conclusions, based upon current mark-to-market accounting rules:

(1) We haven't written a single post. This is why the post numbers have been removed.

(2) Since its inception in September 2008, IcebergCarwash has lost $25 billion.


While FBB and I are certainly not proud of this loss, we are convinced that we can turn things around.

For just a small retention bonus, we will see this thing through.

Now, you're probably wondering why it is still possible to read prior posts on this blog, if accounting rules dictate that they do not even exist.

Good question.

The truth is that these posts are to be considered "toxic."

Luckily, help is on the way, in the form of beneficial government intervention.

Paraphrasing Treasury Secretary Geithner,

"General conditions cannot improve until we address the vast inventory of toxic posts currently sitting on the world's blogs."

We're hopeful that the federal government will take some -if not all- of these blogs off our hands.

Meanwhile, FASB has also provided some hope, with their announcement last week of plans to relax the requirements of mark-to-market accounting. Under the new rules, we'd be able to value and count our posts based upon "normal and orderly" market conditions. (Like if the Yankees were winning World Series titles, as per long-standing divine mandate).

At this point, we're not certain what impact it will have on our post numbers, but hopefully, things will work out.


So there you have it. The REAL story.



(Or is it?)

The Case of the Missing Post Numbers

In the previous post, FBB detailed the strange disappearance of the numbers indicating how many posts we had for each month.

I will now unravel the mystery.

First, some background information.

The post numbers were always very important to us, and, I assumed, to our readers as well. Therefore, rather than just have any unaudited number on this page, we felt that we owed it to our adoring public to have our post numbers audited. This would give the readers the assurance they needed that yes, in fact, we had added 20 posts in the month of January 2009, for example.

We found a small accounting and auditing firm, located in New City, NY, a Rockland County suburb. At first, we were a bit hesitant to use this firm, as it was very small. However, they assured us that they could handle our business. In fact, they pointed out, their firm was the sole auditor for a well-known, multi-billion dollar money management firm. Hearing that, we figured that these guys were certainly capable of handling our affairs.

Then, things got strange. It turns out that the multi-billion dollar money manager they were working with was having a bit of trouble with their books. This, in turn, reflected badly on their (amd our) auditors. Concerned, we stopped by their offices for visit, only to be greeted by a dark, empty facility. Apparently, our auditors were shut down by the authorities. (Or, they just skipped town; we're not sure).

This left us without an auditor for our post numbers.

Granted, we could've just run with unaudited post numbers, as so many other blogs do, but that's not how we do things here at IcebergCarwash. Besides, given our high visibility in the blog world, we were afraid of vicious populist-driven uprisings, which could have resulted in Congress taxing us at a 90% rate (that would mean giving about 28.8 ounces of a Big Gulp to the government).

Worse yet, perhaps NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would have launched an investigation into our blog, forcing our cooperation by threatening to send his father over here to drone on endlessly about some moronic topic or other, until we were ready to shoot ourselves.

So, I was faced with no choice but to make those numbers invisible.

The mystery is solved.

I'm the culprit.


And I would've gotten away with it too, if not for you meddling kids.

We Lost Our Numbers!!!

I read various blogs on the web, most of them happen to be on blogger. All of them have numbers in their archives listing how many posts per month and per year.

Ours have disappeared. You may think, what's the big deal, so what if there are no numbers? If you think this you have not met MBB.

The man is all about numbers. We have three thermometers in and around our house (though admittedly that's me just as much), and I'm not even counting weather bug on this computer!!

I can't understand what happen, and I can't find a fix (yet), but I find it curious that OUR blog has been effected this way, if only because it means so much to him. Weird.

Happy Birthday

So today was my birthday. Birthdays are different when you have kids, they expect SOMETHING! to happen. In reality, birthdays are just a day like any other, but the kids keep waiting for that special something.

This morning the five year old asked me what time Grandma was coming with cupcakes. I informed her that tradition was special for her and her sisters, and did not extend to the adults in the house (especially this time of year). Being the quick thinker that she is, she informed me that she would suggest to her father that he go to the bakery and pick up a cake, ostensibly in my honor.

Later, MBB and I discussed the possibility of going out later in the day, perhaps for dinner as a nice break, and use the birthday as an excuse. We were too busy and nixed the idea, but not before Eldest Daughter put in her two cents. She felt that she and her sisters should come along to help "show" how I've spent my years, growing up and having kids. I told her I could prop a picture on the table and achieve the same thing.

Later when 11 year old was going to bed she said: "I feel bad for you, you had such a bad birthday."

I asked why she thought so, and she said "because you've been busy and working all day."

I told her that's what made this birthday so good. I finished the den, the mudroom, the kitchen, and cooked 4 things. An accomplishing day is always a good day.

Of course going to bed this late is really silly, but it's fun to act young and stupid.