Strange Brew

On a boat in the middle of a raging sea,
She would make a scene for it all to be
Ignored.
And wouldn't you be bored?
Strange brew -- kill what's inside of you.
("Strange Brew," Cream/Eric Clapton, Gail Collins and Felix Pappalardi)


I'm a sucker for stories of the weird and the strange and boy, am I in luck today.

From Oil City, Pennsylvania, we have the story of the man-eating squirrel gone nuts. A female mail carrier went onto a front porch to deliver mail and was attacked by a squirrel that apparently thought it had dibs on the porch. It jumped on her and ran up her leg and onto her back. She eventually was able to grab it by the tail and pull it off her, and somebody later (probably fearing rabies) killed it with a BB gun. And it probably was rabid; that's not normal squirrel behavior by a longshot.

Apparently, all the election hype is contagious, driving more people (some of them not even in politics) to jump on the "Give Me Some Attention - NOW!" bandwagon during election time. They'll do damn near anything to get it, too, never for an instant having a clue about how completely imbecilic it makes them look.

Lately, we've had a spate of back-and-forth opinions on baby adopting by the rich and famous. That's certainly sparked a lot of attention. Similarly, we've seen a paternity lawsuit filed by an ex-boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith. Apparently, he thinks he ought to be her baby daddy, whether he actually is or not. Being that baby's dad will sure enough generate some attention, I guess.

A couple of perverts have been outed during all the pre-election hype. Bad attention. And naturally, other people step up to the plate long after the fact and claim victimization at the hands of the already outed perverts because, geez, they want some attention, too. Fifteen minutes in the spotlight (good or bad) is, after all, fifteen minutes.

Another preacher (Ted Haggard) bites the dust amid allegations of paid gay sex and drugs. My guess would be that's attention he could have done without.

Blogs are crazed with pre-election jitters -- some crazy-good, some not so much. Some putative bloggers (and we'll call them bloggers for the sake of convenience, since that's what they call themselves) maybe don't even know there are elections taking place. They're just looking for the attention -- which you, too, can have if you beg hard enough for it. I'm signing up. I crave -- oh, damn. No, I don't. I just hit myself in the head too hard this morning and am not thinking real straight right now.

At the same time a rare blue lobster turns up in Maine, pink lawn flamingos are in danger of extinction because the Massachusetts company that makes them is shutting down after 49 years. Oh, the ignominy of it! Do not take away our tacky pink plastic birds! Come on, this is not rocket science -- or a state secret. Surely some other company can figure out how to manufacture these things.

We can't let the sun go down without some fun with Twisted Linguistics, and Roxan has found us another bumper crop.

imagiuned - Someone daydreaming about all the tunes they could get with an IPod.

microphoone - A very tiny phoone. Don't ask us what a phoone is. We don't know. We don't care.

elaborite - A person who toils at e-commerce.

bearied - All things having to do with bear society.

dentestry - The den of any kind of animal on a day when they're all ill-tempered.

hospitol - A tonic taken for prevention of hospital admissions.

nuymber - The 13th month of the year.

intant - A branch of the CIA that works against the intel people and focuses on spreading disinformation.

incrses - Curses uttered but not said out loud.

In closing -- ta-da -- the ultimate in-your-face twisted linguistics.