Fluff lies bleeding.

I haven't seen all the Toy Story movies, but if they wanted to do a real horror show, they should make one from the vantage of dog toys. 

Izzy does enjoy ripping the fluff out of toys. If it's got a squeaker, he's going to get it out -- and then the squeaker must be carefully removed from his mouth, or he will keep munching it until it stops making noise. Die, squeaky heart! He might swallow it, which would be bad.

We really don't want the dog to swallow the squeaker, but it's instinct. He's a retriever by breeding and nature, so his job is to go get the duck and, if the duck still shows signs of life, to break or chomp its neck and put it out of its misery. Since I'm not a hunter, he only gets to do this to his toys. And do it he does. 

He's not as bad as his late uncle, Nipper, the legendary destroyer of toys. Nipper was once known as the Alexander the Great of dogs by tackling his personal Gordian Knot the same way Alexander did his -- direct action and ruthless efficiency.  

Tralfaz was less of a menace to toys. He would destroy them, but just incidentally because he was so big and strong. A few he did not wreck; he was a bit attached to a crunchy Mickey Mouse toy that he would groom, licking and pawing it. Gotta clean up Mickey's act. We had to keep Mickey away from Nipper or he would rip up his brother's favorite toy. 

Izzy has the Nipper instincts, and most toys don't last long around him unless he doesn't like them. Still, I would hate to see what would happen to Woody and Buzz if Izzy got hold of them. It would make the weird neighbor kid's bedroom of toy horrors in the first picture look like a day at the beach. 

About town.

Just a couple of holiday-related visions for you on this Monday morning, to give you the oomph to get through the next three days. You're welcome!

 

Bat Tree

In the dark of the morning I was walking golden Izzy, America's Sweetheart, and while he was sniffing about I did similarly with photons, which is to say I looked up into the tree with the headlamp on my forehead. There was this small Batman-themed bag, about ten feet off the ground, just hanging there like a hornet's nest. I was and am mystified by it. It looks too small to be a kid's schoolbag, too childlike to be a mom's miscellanea bag, too difficult to operate to be a Halloween candy bag, too landlubbery to be a sailor's ditty bag. What could it be? What's in it? I'll bet Catwoman is involved. She probably stole it from Bruce and got stuck up in the tree.  

Barbie vs. Minions

It's time for the gingerbread house kits again, and of course even they have to be branded now with pop culture-themed crap. I suspect there might be a Star Wars (TM) Death Star gingerbread house out there somewhere. My wife and I will have more than enough cookies around without gingerbread, but out of curiosity I asked which of these would appeal to her. She loves the Minions, but she was a Barbie girl throughout childhood, and has even made it a point to give Barbie dolls to girls whose moms were reluctant to introduce their daughters to the world of everyone's favorite toy blonde. To my surprise, though, she liked the Minions kit better. She just thinks they are a hoot.  

Early to Decor

Friday was probably the last day we'll have in the sixties for four months, so a few people around here took advantage and did their outdoor decoration. I've never seen so many people decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. Maybe they have in the past, but they didn't turn the lights on so I couldn't see them. 

Gator? Later

On the topic of seasonal inappropriateness: I knew exactly what this was from a ways off -- an alligator-shaped pool float. The property on which he reposed has no swimming pool. I can only suppose the wind carried him to this resting spot. People, take care of your gators and your gators will take care of you. Didn't we all learn that in first grade? 

Meanwhile, Back at the Wire

Remember this?

Two days after I put in the call, the power company got back to me. I was wrong, people! (Yes, it is possible!) This is a phone line, not a power line. Not that that makes it okay for the wire to dangle down to head level. So now I have to call the phone company. The adventure continues, and you can bet I'll milk a blog entry out of it keep you informed of further developments.  

Give it The Face.

I gave this giraffe to my wife years ago as an office mascot. She's got a different desk now, so she returned it to me for my use. Naturally I am thrilled. 

Look at that guy! Bendable, unlike me. Love the face: What a perfect mixture of shock and confusion. Maybe some disgust as well. He has no tag anymore, but I think he may have been a product of the late, lamented Alex Toys, a firm based in New Jersey. Alex was a fun company; lots of clever hands-on stuff for kids of all ages. In the early part of this century they were making baby toys that usually had powerful colors like this giraffe, colors that scientists said babies could see well with their underdeveloped vision. Lots of red and black, as if the babies were training to be Stendahl scholars. That seemed very important at the time, but now we're in the boho baby era, and things are more muted. I don't know if that's why Alex went under in 2020 -- its assets were sold, and the name survives in Canada under the name Alex Global Products. 

Or it could he was from some other outfit.

I think I'm going to like having him with me as I work. I'll just let him respond for me. For example, if someone reaches out and says they have a 500-page book that needs proofreading by Wednesday, I'll just let the giraffe handle it.

And he could come in handy for other statements. Like, "You know, COVID-19 was totally not invented by the Chinese lab that just happened to be working on weaponizing that exact virus."

Or, "When we say 'fortified the election,' we don't mean it was stolen, we just mean it was... boosted, like with a supplement."

"Peaceful but fiery protest."

"The economy is roaring! There are rich people in every city!"⭐

"Dudes who play women's sports ARE women!"

You get the idea. 

Well, I think I'm ready for Monday. But if things keep going the way they have been, I may have to get a whole menagerie of these animals. I'd wear this guy's face right out in no time. 

🦒🦒🦒🦒🦒

⭐This was basically the argument on a recent GLoP Culture podcast, that America is not in danger because we still have rich people in all the cities. I think the hosts have been spending too much time on yachts (there was an actual Mediterranean yacht story) and not enough time with families using credit cards to buy groceries, but what do you expect? An Eli, a guy who inherited a magazine from his dad, and a guy whose parents were both machers in the publishing industry who (incredibly!) became a writer.

See something, say something.

When I was a tiny tot of three or four years, Mater gave me an object that quickly became precious to me, and in fact would dictate my calling in life. 

"Reginald," she said, "this is known as a See 'N Say. Take good care of it, my boy, and it shall take care of you."

Indeed, Mater was correct, as always. From the first moment I spun the dial and pulled the string on my new treasure, I knew I had found my calling in life. To see. And to say.

By the time I was a precocious lad of six, I had already embarked on my hero's journey. "Doctor," I recall saying to the family doctor on one visit, "that is a blood pressure machine."

"Why, yes it is," he replied. 

"It says 'pst pst pst psssssst.'"

"I believe so."

"And that is a digital thermometer. It says, 'Beep.'"

"It does that, yes."

"And that is a nurse. She says, 'If Dr. Son of a Bitch doesn't divorce his old lady like he said, I'm going over there and telling her everything!'"

"Erm... How much you want to keep that on the QT, kid?"

So you see, at a tender age my gift was paying dividends. In this case, five hundred dollars and a lollypop.

Later I had established my own business, C-Say Inc. On a typical day I might be asked to consult for, perhaps, a building foreman.

Moi: That's a construction worker.

Foreman: Yeah.

Moi: The construction worker says "#*$^!&#^@+)&!!!!"

Foreman: Okay.

Moi: And "Look out bel--"

CRASH

Too bad about that one; Foreman Pete was a friendly chap.

Ah, my brilliant career. A recent job involved an interesting character. I was asked to have a look at this fellow named Epstein and report on what he said. I did the first part of the assignment, but there was some acute unpleasantness, and to make a long story short, he died. In fact, the agent who hired me was reassigned to investigating parents at PTA meetings, so I was left without a contract. 

But one cannot merely see and not say when one is as dedicated as I. So I have decided to use this forum to say the many things I overheard from Mr. Epstein. They were most enlightening. First, he said that among the most enthusiastic guests he brought to his private Caribbean abode, he would have to number Mr. --

Excuse me, that's the doorbell. I shall be right back. 

Deeper memeing.

Hello, pals! Just a few memes here to keep your strength up as you face the weekend. Be careful out there! 

Too dark?

I hope so! Enjoy your day.

Rubber puckie, you're the one!

As I write this, the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils have fought their way to a 3-3 tie in the first round of the NHL playoffs. I have no dog in this fight -- never followed hockey, and I have dear friends who love each team and hate the other team with the heat of the sun -- but from what I've seen, whichever team wins Game Seven deserves to go on to win the Cup. Either team would qualify under Lord Fred's #1 Rule of Ice Hockey, which is that no place that does not get ice in the winter deserves to have an NHL franchise.

And yet all that had nothing to do with why I bought a hockey puck. 

It's a puck for street hockey, or, as the puck also says, "hockey de rue," because otherwise those Quebecois would have no idea what it was. But I, very poor ice skater in the few times I've tried, and even worse on roller skates, have not played anything like hockey since my school days. Even then it was plastic-puck gym mayhem or after-school Nok Hockey or air hockey in the arcade, so none of them really count.

No, I bought this puck because of the World's Most Famous Golden Retriever™, Tucker Budzyn. Tucker, who lives with his son Todd under the auspices of Heckin' Linda and her husband, apparently likes to chew hockey pucks and will steal them from his owner to go play with them. Well, that might be a pain for Dad Budzyn, but there are advantages to a hockey puck as a dog toy. They're very tough, even the "hockey de rue" version, and no more expensive than a dog toy of the same caliber. Maybe cheaper. 

Baby dog Izzy likes to destroy toys, as did Nipper before him, but unlike Nipper he will continue to play with the rags that remain after ripping out all the stuffing. He does like some tougher toys, though, ones that will take a good chomp, and with his estimated bite power of 190 pounds psi, it has to be pretty strong. 

Well, a toy that could take out Gordie Howe's teeth has to rank up there. 

Did the puck pass the acid test? Well, yes. He does like to chomp on it, but it's not his favorite toy. It's not flavored, like a Benebone, and it isn't something he can rend like a chipmunk. But I can tell he likes the texture. He'll gnaw on it for a little to satisfy the bite urge before moving on to something else, like licking my wife's elbow. (He's a fan.)

I can't say he's obsessed, as Tucker is. I'd be willing to bet that Tucker's owner stores his pucks with his skates, and so the extra shoe-odor appeal on the pucks is bound to make them more attractive. Maybe I ought to store Nipper's in the foyer closet for a few days.

One thing that I like about the puck is that it has no squeaker, like so many dog toys. But it would be kind of awesome if it did. Can you imagine a bunch of rugged Canadians engaged in a bruising game of street hockey, only every time they slapped the puck or it bounced off someone's head it made a loud squeak like Ernie's rubber duckie? Comedy gold, man. 

Pushpin the Barbarian.

Some ages ago my wife gave me an excellent Christmas gift: A set of bulletin-board pushpins shaped like medieval weapons, a product of novelty company Nuopinc. The only problem was, I didn't have a bulletin board.

Well, I do now! 

Makes it look like we had a bar brawl with li'l tiny Conan the Barbarian and his pals in here. 

I'm not saying that I got the bulletin board just to display my swords and axes and daggers. I had to switch desks with my wife due to dog-related issues, and her desk doesn't have as much surface area for the piling of papers. So I thought a bulletin board would help, and as the French say, WAH LAH! or Ze idea, I have!  I recalled that I had these awesome pins. 

I'm not posting them here to make you jealous, by the way. That's just a bonus. 

If you want to get a set of your own, I think you can get it from Vat 19, but I'm not sure. Both that site and the manufacturer's site look a bit bewhiskered, like the businesses died during COVID and no one told them. My wife said she got my set at Think Geek, and sure enough my autopsy of that terrifically fun site back in June 2019 mentioned these pushpins and my plan to get a corkboard just to use them. Well, it didn't work out like that; I didn't buy a corkboard until I actually needed one. But I have the best pushpins in town. 

They're particularly good for posting something regarding a task I don't want to do. Take THAT, doctor's appointment card! Stabby stab stab!

Man, my G.I. Joe would have had some fun with these weapons back in the day. Some bad guys would have wound up with axes in their skulls, you can bet on that. 

Puppy vs. Bumble.

Dear friends of ours gave our puppy Izzy a Bumble to destroy. He loved it. 

Technically the head of a Bumble.

The Bumble was part of a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer collection from dog-themed subscription service BarkBox. It's not the kind of thing we would sign up for ourselves, which made it a great gift as a one-off. 

Izzy really loved this toy. We had to get it away from him sometimes so he would eat and sleep. He got supervised play every evening. And eventually it was destroyed. "Eventually" meant three days. But our previous toy-destroyer, the late great Nipper, would have destroyed it in fifteen minutes, so this was an improvement. 

BarkBox costs $35 month, for which you get treats and toys, but we can get a lot more than what they provide for the money. I applaud the company for the quality of the toy, though, and the little touches. For example, this is printed on the inside of the inside of toy's fabric:

"Time to Throw Me Away" and "All Good Things Must Come to an End." Both true, alas.

Inside the Bumble head was a squeaky ball, which was cool, because it meant that inside the toy was another toy. Kind of like playing with the bones after you eat the squirrel, I guess. 

Behold the skull of the Bumble

We also had another BarkBox toy; this didn't have a ball inside, but did have a squeaker, and the squeaker had another message for the dog owner:

"Game Over / Your Dog Won / Discard This Squeaker"

It's the little touches that make it fun for the humans. 

Izzy doesn't go for just any toy, but he really loved these. We were really grateful for the gifts. They gave him something to destroy that was not rugs, furniture, or shoes. And it was nice to know that Yukon Cornelius was right: Bumbles bounce.

Fred's Book Club: And What About Shrinky Dinks?

It's Hump Day! And that means it's time for our Wednesday book feature, the Humpback Writers! It's the stress of carrying Wednesday on their backs that causes the injury, you know, and.... Oh, skip it. I'm thinking of changing the name of the feature to the U#TIG’Hd836& Writers, which will make about as much sense. 

Today we go back in time, back to our younger days, or even the days before we were born, to ask the musical question... Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops?

Freelance journalist Gael Fishingbauer Cooper and PR agent Brian Bellmont created this project, and publisher Perigree turned it into a book in 2011. It's a fabulous collection of things pegged to the 1970-1990 era, especially for things that kids loved. That's an important feature, because most of us are at least a little nostalgic for the world of our childhood, and because nothing goes in and out of fashion faster than kid stuff. 

The book is a series of articles, arranged alphabetically, about the things of the past, and at the end of each there's a summation of its status in the current time (as of 2011), written as its "X-Tinction Rating." Here's one:

TIME FOR TIMER

TV was pretty lecturey in the 1970s and 1980s. Somewhere along the line, someone panicked that kids weren't eating proper snacks and decided the way to solve that was to offer nutritional advice from a yellow blob of fat with spindly legs and a ginormous hat. Thus, the birth of Timer, a disturbing but memorable PSA star whose segments were apparently dashed off by a bored but starving copywriter who had to make deadline before he could hit the drive-thru for a Big Mac.

     Timer's most memorable video has him "hankering for a hunka cheese," but any kid who needed to be shown how to place cheese between two crackers was really too dumb to be allowed to watch TV. In another, Timer takes a tour of the stomach and then apparently just gives up, encouraging kids to eat random leftovers out of the fridge. "Sunshine on a Stick" oversells the result by half, as it's just orange juice frozen in ice-cube trays. Timer also shows up in a segment demonstrating toothbrushing, which is odd when you consider that his teeth are as yellow as the rest of him.

 

X-TINCTION RATING: Gone for good.

REPLACED BY: Nothing. Television networks have since decided that kids can eat random food out of the fridge without frightening cartoon guidance. 

You get the idea. Each little profile is snappily written, with good humor, and appropriate kudos for products and other cultural phenomena that really came through.

Not everything is X-Tinct, either. Take those Shrinky Dinks:

SHRINKY DINKS

Invented in 1973, Shrinky Dinks brought into play the one appliance that Mom never really wanted you to mess with: the oven. In fact, the whole Shrinky Dink process seemed kind of like a joyous, don't-tell-the-parents experiment. Melting plastic on a hot cookie sheet without getting yelled at? Sign us up! 

     Shrinky Dinks never looked like they were going to work. You colored in the shape, be it a Smurf, Mr. T, or a rainbow-maned unicorn, threw it on a cookie sheet, and hoped for the best. Watching through the oven door, you were convinced you'd done it wrong and nothing would ever happen when suddenly it started to curl up like an old sheet of fax paper. It twisted, and then fixed itself, and the end product was tiny, bright and colorful, and thick and strong. As with Homer Simpson and his Flaming Moe drink, fire made it good.

     Few kids really knew what to do with Shrinky Dinks once they were shrunky dunk. One can only have so many zipper pulls, key chains, and napkin rings, after all. But no one ever thought about that when they were watching the plastic writhe in its little kitchen torture chamber. Sometimes the journey is indeed way more fun than the destination.

X-TINCTION RATING: Still going strong.

FUN FACT: In the 1970s, superheroes were the bestselling Shrinky Dinks theme; in the 1980s, it was the Smurfs. 

And indeed, in 2021, Shrinky Dinks are still out there, making kids ask themselves: What shall I create? And why is the oven door so grungy? Can't see nothin'!

As I noted, the book covers all sorts of cultural items, like typing classes, Bicentennial mania, Roosevelt Franklin, Jolt Cola, Halloween costumes "with unbreathable plastic masks," killer animal movies, Judy Blume books, and Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo. If you were alive and aware in the United States in the two decades covered, there's some cultural resonance for you in this book.

The authors have since moved on with their careers. They did a sequel book about the nineties, which looks like fun, but the original Web site for the project has been allowed to turn into a cobweb. I guess my looking back at this book that looks back at the past is like being nostalgic for Happy Days ("Fascination with the 1950s" is an entry in the book as well, by the way). 

And say -- before I close this entry, whatever DID happen to Jell-O Pudding Pops? Well, despite their popularity in the eighties, thanks to pitchman Bill Cosby (whose life went in the toilet after this book was published), the company had trouble making a profit from them. Then, "the Jell-O name was later licensed to Popsicle, which reintroduced the Jell-O Pudding Pops in 2004. Sadly, sharp-eyed eaters say its just not the same." And have since been discontinued. 

Well, sic transit Jell-O Pop mundi, I guess.  

Here comes non-Santa!

I always felt a little bad for the Easter Bunny. 

No, really. He's always way behind Santa Claus, the Christmas Kahuna. Even kids in families that don't celebrate Christmas love Santa, but there's no love for the Bunny there. 

There are a lot of reasons for this.

1) Santa comes to visit at Christmas, when Jesus was a baby. Christmas is fun! The Bunny comes at Easter, after we killed Jesus with agonizing, brutal torture, but He returned from the dead to save us. Kids have a tough time grasping that. Hell, adults have a tough time grasping that. 

2) Santa's got the tunes. I cannot begin to count all the pop songs that mention Santa. What does the Bunny have? "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." There are others, but they're hardly well known. And they never bother to play them on the PA at the supermarket.

3) Santa's mythos is much better developed. We know where he lives, who is married to him, who works for him; we know how he gets around, and even the names of his animals; we know what he does and why he does it, and the methods used in his distribution; we know what he wears, how he keeps his hair, and what he likes to eat. As for the Easter Bunny, we know he brings eggs, hard-boiled or chocolate, and other candy because... I'd have to look it up.* Where does he live? Who are his friends? What's with the Technicolor hen fruit, anyway? Bizarre.

4) Santa is fat and fuzzy when you see him around. On the rare occasions you see people in a big bunny suit, they look like freak show golems made from old bathmats. With those big, dead eyes. Children scream and run. Santa is almost never scary.

5) Santa's got the loot. The Bunny may bring such toys as can fit in a basket, but Santa can come through with a bike. Maybe even a BB gun. On car commercials it seems like Santa might drop off a BMW. Easter Bunny can't do that! He's just a bunny! He can't even drive!

I guess EB will always have to be number two, but he tries plenty hard. So do his helpers. A friend of mine was putting together Easter baskets with his wife for their various grandchildren, and right at the end they found a sawbuck that did not make it into a plastic egg. God forbid all the children got a ten spot and one didn't! So they had to go through the baskets and open every plastic egg that didn't rattle until they figured out which kid had almost been slighted. It's hard work, being an Easter Bunny.

So we salute you, Easter Bunny! As thankless as the job may be, at least you're not the Tooth Fairy, dealing with old teeth. Or the Great Pumpkin. Now that's a crummy gig.

🐰🐇🐰🐇

*According to Dr. Wiki, "Originating among German Lutherans, the 'Easter Hare' originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide." There's a lot more at the link, but it's all weird.

Horsin' around.

Was busy at the church last week, in the room where they keep a lot of rummage for rummage sales. Rummagepalooza. Anyone want some good rummage? I can hook you up. 

Sometimes I see pretty good toys, things that seem like winners and yet somehow did not get the ever-lovin' snot smushed out of them as a well-loved toy ought to. You never know with kids. You spend a hundred bucks on the toy and they want to play with the box. It's been that way since toys came in boxes.

Here's one I thought was pretty darn good:

I guess this toy proves that unicorns are no more than horses with horns on their heads, however much pink may occur on them naturally. That sound effect could have been around since the days when boys still played games with Western motifs. Now that's straight out, unless it's White Oppressors and Native Resistance. Which could be fun. However, I can imagine the neighing and galloping getting so annoying that a parent throws the thing out the back door, turning it momentarily into a Pegasus.

The point is, I never had a rocking horse to my knowledge, but if I had one like this when I was a toddler, I think I would have spent the day on it. Hi-ho, Pinkie Unicorn! 

Jerry Seinfeld talks about being bored to death as a child doing errands with his mother: "When you’re five and you get bored, you cannot support your body weight. I remember going to the bank with my parents... and I would lie down flat, like, 'Sorry, Mom, there’s nothing I can do. This place is so dull, I cannot get up.' This is what I think adulthood is: Adulthood is the ability to be totally bored and remain standing." But if he got a ride on one of those coin-operated horsies outside the store, he would be totally refreshed, ready to go look at carpet swatches.

If horsie's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'!

Refreshment aside, the other problem with this toy for Baby Fred is that, of course, it's a girl toy. In my childhood in Bedrock, people still expected boys to play with boy toys and girls with girl toys -- guns and knives vs. baby dolls. As a toddler I think I would have just seen a horsie and gone for it. I could have gotten some opprobrium from the males in the family, yes. 

It's no better now, though -- it may even be worse. A modern male toddler riding on a pink unicorn rocker might make his progressive parents very proud, so proud they would start him on female hormones immediately and schedule his gender reassignment surgery. 

It's dangerous out there.

Anyway, it's not an issue for me at the moment. I'm way too big for this toy. I'm sure it will go to a good home, and I hope the little girl who gets it loves it. And if it's a little boy -- well, look out, kid.

The fidget menace.

I don't want to seem like I'm on a death kick this week, even though it is the start of Lent tomorrow -- dust thou art and dust thou shalt become, you know. Which is why I don't dust. It could be a pal. Or someone great, like Solomon. Maybe Nebuchadnezzar! 

Never mind. The point is, we have been facing a terrible menace in this country for too long, and it's about time someone stood up and said it. I mean, of course, the fidget spinner.

I had no idea that fidget spinners could be deadly. Good thing the fad has dissipated somewhat since its high point in 2017. 

Sure, they look harmless enough. And who doesn't like to fidget? The fidget spinner supposedly relieves stress, helps with ADHD and even PTSD, is healthier than smoking or even nail-biting, and may aid with weight loss, and is only a little more annoying than tapping your feet or clicking a pen against your teeth. It's probably less annoying than cracking your knuckles, which for some bystanders is like nails on a blackboard x 2. 

But Google recently spat a story up at me that linked to this study from the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, a study that found danger within those silly little trinkets.  

The fidget spinner is a relatively new popular toy commonly sold without warning labels regarding potential hazards including those related to button batteries.

The 2018 study profiles two cases of children swallowing the button batteries from fidget spinners. According to the National Capital Poison Center, we've had 65 fatalities from these batteries. So the real issue is those little batteries we find in all kinds of devices, from tiny flashlights to hearing aids. 

I suppose fidget spinners that contain batteries are no worse than other objects, except that people don't tend to see fidget spinners as something with which young children shouldn't play. 

Harmless? Hmm.

Recommendations for these tend to be for ages seven and up, regardless how juvenile they look.  

I think it's unlikely that they could be dangerous to an adult. You might be in more danger from cracking your knuckles -- not because it harms the joints, but because someone might freak out and attack you. 

Be careful out there. Everyone's on edge. Maybe we should do more doodling.

A bone not to pick?

There is a brand of dog toy called Playology. Their slogan is "Toys That Make Scents to Dogs."

Science! 

The Web site explains it this way: 

Dog noses are 10,000x more powerful than a human’s. But they have 80% fewer taste buds. A dog’s brain craves scent.

Scent processing through a dog’s nasal passage is detected by 220 million scent receptors.

In a dog’s brain the olfactory bulb is three times the size of a human’s.

Dog noses are stereoscopic, with one nostril identifying a smell, and one locating it.

Armed with these facts, these smell boffins of Gardena, California, invented their Encapsiscent Technology: 

Because we embed the scents directly into the material of each toy, your pooch will enjoy chewing and sniffing over and over again.

And as it says on the package, dogs play with scented toys 7X longer than with unscented toys.

I'd seen their products in the PetSmart in the leadup to the holidays, but resisted temptation -- the bone for heavy chewers cost twenty bucks, which is a hell of a lot for a chew toy, science or no science. But in the post-Christmas sales it was up on deep discount, so what the heck -- I bought one.

Our main chewer these days is youthful dog Nipper, Old Man Tralfaz having turned seven and now much too sophisticated for chew toys, except when he's not. Nipper loves a toy he can chew, and especially one he can destroy. Often in the mornings when we can't go for a walk I will sneak a toy out to the yard and get him revved up on it -- a half hour of chasing, stealing, and chew chew chew will usually make him a happy pup.

So I brought the Playology bone outside, showed it to him, and threw it into the yard. Nipper tore after it like a greyhound. He sniffed it, tasted it, and proceeded to roll around on it. This is a good sign, as it is his way of claiming a toy and getting his scent on it. So I was pretty impressed by the scientists. 

That lasted about two minutes. Then he completely ignored the thing. I could not get him reengaged on it.

The next time we were in the yard I picked it up. He leaped at it as if to take it from me, so I threw it. Again he charged after the toy, but as he neared it he veered away and went somewhere else. He has not touched it since. 

I brought the Playology toy inside, thinking its turkey scent might work better there. Maybe Tralfaz would try it. But it has been lying on the same spot on the rug for three days, untouched, unloved.

It is true that my dogs, for whatever reason, always preferred toys they could rip to shreds, something I've discussed in this space in so many posts I can't even link to them all. (Okay, just one.) And tough toys that resist destruction are of lesser interest to them. Still, they usually give it a shot. They just don't care about this Playology bone. Neither dog has any more interest in this bone than they would if I left a wrench on the rug. It's like it's not even there. Even if they didn't like the turkey scent I would expect some reaction from them.

I might have been warned by the one review on the PetSmart site: "My dog did NOT like at all, it smelled like rubber." One star.

Maybe Playology has other customers whose dogs love the toy. Surely they didn't spend all this money to develop a sciencey! dog toy without testing it on dogs, right? Otherwise it would be that old shaggy dog joke about the company that designs the perfect dog food campaign.

All I can say is that there are limits to science, and even more limits to things that are marketed with the look and appeal of science but are just a hunk of malarkey. Or, maybe my dogs are weird.

Fred's Book Club: Toy Gory?

Welcome to Wednesday (a.k.a. Hump Day), and thus another of the seemingly endless schleps into Fred's Library for the Humpback Writers feature. The writers probably are humpless, although today's writer/artist, Tony Millionaire (a.k.a. Scott Richardson), has a twisted sense of humor that would make any Igor proud. 

With Christmas officially looming, there is a lot of talk about toys -- which makes some people think about Toy Story, the Disney property that doesn't bear thinking about, considering its horrible implications. I was once at a wake where the deceased was in the coffin with a Woody doll -- I don't know if Woody went into the ground with the mortal remains, but think about it in Toy Story terms for a moment. Tony Millionaire is a man would appreciate that.

I first encountered the artist's fantastic work in the late free weekly NYPress, run by Russ Smith. Millionaire's comic strip Maakies was almost an anti-comic strip. Starring a seafaring monkey called Uncle Gabby and the suicidal alcoholic Drinky Crow, its bloody adventures were grotesquely and gorgeously rendered in ink. Like most alternative humor, it could be hilarious and depressing at the same time. Often the little strip-below-the-strip was the funniest thing in the newspaper.

When I saw that Millionaire had published a children's book featuring a sock monkey that looked like Uncle Gabby, I found it difficult to believe. I figures it would be a "children's book" like Edward Gorey's or (at best) Roald Dahl's, with unbelievable cruelty inflicted on nasty children.

I was wrong. It is a charming book about toys come to life, especially the classic title toy, a monkey made of old socks.  

Sock Monkey is strange, don't get me wrong. It opens with a real-life monkey having a toothache, which is eased when the monkey pulls out the tooth. The tooth lands in an orchid, which is brought home by an explorer called the Captain. The Captain plans to give the plant to his young granddaughter, Ann-Louise, and brings it back from his butterfly expedition. 

Then the plant and its glass cover run into peril due to his granddaughter's toys, led by one Mr. Crow. 

"FLUKES AND FLAMES! What is all the consarn racket in here?" bellowed the Captain, as he rushed into the greenhouse, swinging a broom. "Here I am, peacefully sleeping after a months-long voyage, only to find magical dolls and crows disturbing the tranquility of the night! Away with you!" and he swept them out the door! "Blasted come-to-life toys! If it wasn't for all the magic around here, we wouldn't be having all this infernal chaos all the time!"

The monkey's tooth lands in his sock, which is turned into a sock monkey, which comes to life extra-fast because of the tooth now concealed inside. 

The next day was Ann-Louise's birthday, and it was the happiest birthday she ever had. For once her grandfather had not surprised her with one of his dusty curiosities, this year she opened her present to find a beautiful, soft, cotton sock monkey. She hugged him to her cheek and to her delight the monkey started to whisper all about his adventures in the house. 

"I'm going to name you Uncle Gabby, because you gab so!" she laughed. 

Mr. Crow is at first frightened by the sock monkey, but they become friends. Later the story sort of comes full circle as Mr. Crow and Gabby team up to shoo off a goldfish that is after a tooth fairy, and Ann-Louise thus gets a dime for her baby tooth. 

It's a sweet book, peculiar in its way but never scary. I was startled to see a G-rated version of Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow, but it works. And, I just love Millionaire's drawings. The Great Lileks has been running some work from cartoonists of the past who put a lot of time and detail into their art, and Millionaire is one of few living cartoon artists I know who does so as well.  

Maakies came to an end in 2016 when the free-weekly market faded away. But Tony Millionaire continues on. There were more Sock Monkey books, as well as books featuring character Billy Hazelnuts and of course Maakies collections. For my money, he is the true artist for the toys-come-to-life genre, a one-man Island of Misfit Toys, whether G- or R-rated.  

Scenes from December 1.

It's December 1 and we're just gettin' this party started! Woo! So let's see what's going on so far this Christmas season. 

OMG! IT'S BACK! 

If you have been following this blog for a while, and God love you for it, you may recall that in 2019 the house pictured still had that Christmas wreath up in May. In fact, it didn't come down until August. One day in August it was just gone, and I thought it probably fell off or disintegrated. It didn't appear last Christmas, so that had to be the reason. Obviously not the case, because it's back, baby! 

It's funny to me because I imagined Dad saying, "You wanted to put that wreath up, you take it down!" And daughter saying, "I'll get to it." And August arrives and Dad angrily pulls it down and flings it away. But not so -- it's here again! 

The clock is ticking. Will it last until August 2021? 

Meanwhile, in the supermarket, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas™, but Barney and Ben don't want hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots. 

They want Stretch Armstrong!  Stretch Armstrong is a sort of Plastic Man like hero doll action figure with the obvious appeal that his limbs and whatnot are stretchable and bendable. Kenner released the original Stretch in 1976, but I had no idea the old man was back, and in his original wrestling trunks look. I recommend the Wikipedia page on Stretch Armstrong, just to read about the bizarre film adaptations that have been in the works since 1994. 

What's new in the paper aisle? We always love to see normal products in seasonal packaging, right? Well, I do, anyway. Christmas up the whole joint! 

Um... I don't think Puffs tissues has really got the idea here. These were billed as the seasonal boxes -- and apparently they are, in the broadest sense:

I don't get it. There's nothing wintery about these boxes. The top one looks like a Google doodle celebrating rhythmic gymnastics and the bottom one looks like a birthday edition for people who cry at parties. This is what they're forgoing Christmas designs for? 

Looks like the geniuses at Procter & Gamble are at it again. They seem to like alienating their customers. I think P&G is in the control of a cabal that is trying to make the company fail. If so, good going, cabal! 

That's all I have so far, but we've not even scratched the surface yet. The supermarket was playing Greatest Hits of the Eighties when I was there Saturday and I got "Tempted" stuck in my head for hours. Next time Perry Como will probably have reemerged from beyond to sing "Silver Bells." We shall see. 

Teeny tiny toys?

We all want to be more charitable at Christmastime, don't we? (Just say yes and nod for now.) And Toys for Tots is without question one of America's favorite charities. Who doesn't want to give a child in need some Christmas cheer? This year you can donate a toy more easily than ever, by selecting what you would like to give and paying for it on the charity's site. No need to break quarantine! 

Or maybe you can donate even more easily... by eating chips! 

When you purchase specially marked packages of Frito-Lay snacks, you give a gift to Toys for Tots! "Give a Gift with Every Bag" it says. Which makes it sound like 1 bag = 1 toy for the cause, at least to me.

Only on the back of the bag in fine print does one discover that a purchase of a specially marked bag results in a 2.5-cent donation to Toys for Tots, capped at $500,000. My math isn't great, but I think that means they have to sell 200 million bags of chips to hit the $500,000 cap. Now, this is not as impossible as it sounds, since according to Food Insider the company (a division of Pepsi) makes 16 billion bags of snacks per year. Still, Toys for Tots doesn't even list Pepsi or Frito Lay on its Corporate Sponsors page, and no mention of this fund-raiser is found in the Frito Lay site's newsroom section. 

I'm in favor of corporate giving, but making people feel like they're really participating when they're only giving the equivalent of 2.5 cents is just stupid. They'd have to be pretty tiny toys to buy them for 2.5 cents. 

This is like my exposé of the Box Tops for Education program in 2017, when I realized that if everyone in town contributed the maximum allowed box tops (each worth a dime) to our local school system (capped at 200,000 box tops), it would fund the education of ONE STUDENT. Actually, not even one student; about 88% of one student. But I dutifully clipped the box tops for donations to our parish school, and guess what? The archdiocese closed it anyway.

The late Don Imus used to grouse that companies that wanted to make a donation should just make the damn donation, not tie it to consumer purchases or other incentives. I think he was probably right. 

I'm just tired of everything not being what it is supposed to be. Charity programs that don't help, voting machines that don't tabulate votes, reality shows that are fake, entertainment that isn't any fun, lockdowns that don't stop the spread of disease, governors who don't govern, district attorneys who turn criminals loose, churches that don't teach faith in God, an ACLU that doesn't support free speech anymore, sports leagues that produce crap sports, news media that don't report news. It's all image, no substance, or worse, substance contrary to the image. 

I'll send Toys for Tots a buck and forgo the 40 bags of snacks I would have to buy to make the same donation. Frito Lay will have to muddle through.

Fred's Book Club: Pet and 'Net.

Welcome, friends, to another episode in the Humpback Writers series, which runs every week on Wednesday, or Hump Day. Are there actually humps, or camels, or anything like that connected to these books? Beats me. Humps be damned! Sometimes these things are only even books by a stretch of the imagination. 

That applies today, as we have a look at the sad remains of what once, briefly, was a titan of the Internet bubble, now almost entirely forgotten. I am referring to the "author" of a novelty book produced during that wild era, a book featuring a character that was for a short time one of the most popular advertising mascots in the world. And this is that book:

Those of us over age 23 or so will probably remember the brief renown of the commercials for Pets.com. This was a pet supply site founded in 1998 for that World Wide Web thingy, which was advertised by a wacky sock puppet in the shape of a dog, voiced by actor Michael Ian Black. This is that dog, and this is the short book that featured some of his signature humor. 

These are three spreads from the book, and there's not a whole lot more; as it promises on the back cover, "as much as I could fit on a roll of 35mm film." That's about all there is to it. It's short and funny, meant to cash in on the popularity of the commercials. Unfortunately that was about the only thing Pets.com did cash in on. 

In these days of streaming TV I wonder if we'll ever have such an advertising phenomenon again. The puppet was interviewed on network television -- it even was a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. So naturally branded sock puppet products like this book would follow.

This was an era when bales of funding went to any old startup online, after which the entrepreneurs would reveal that they didn't know what they were doing, didn't have any idea how to get a customer base that would support the massive spending used to get things going, were only interested in blowing money on pool tables and employee backrubs and high salaries and nothing else, or some other combination of incompetence and malfeasance. As noted in Wikipedia's necropsy of the site, "Although sales rose dramatically due to the attention [of the sock puppet], the company lost money on most of its sales through mismanagement. Its high public profile during its brief existence made it one of the more notable victims of the dot-com bubble in the 2000s." I'd heard that Petco bought much of the remains of the property, but now the URL Pets.com leads you to the PetSmart site.

Running a pet supply site can be tricky. Pet food in any bulk, canned or bagged, is quite heavy and expensive to ship. Pet owners who know that regulation of pet products is nothing compared to that for human products are often wary of buying online, or at least they were in 2000. Amazon started a pet site called Wag (after losing its own stake in Pets.com), but has pretty much folded it into the regular site now. The real breakout in the field was Chewy.com, which we at Key Casa have found to be an amazing and dedicated site for pet owners. Unfortunately it was bought by PetSmart, whose own site was so-so, but so far Chewy has remained very good and we are regular customers.

As for the sock puppet -- well, you may remember that for a while he was doing ads for auto loans, saying "everyone deserves a second chance." But the ads were not funny, just sad; someone else was doing his distinctive voice, and it was not quite right. It all came to an end soon enough. Sic transit gloria puppi, and all that. 

But in this era where sock puppets are so often in the news, sometimes serving as our politicians, let's pause for a moment to remember a really popular sock puppet, who had a day in the sun that was so brilliant, it was doomed to burn out quickly.

Gotham needs us!

Longtime readers (who are just the greatest, believe me, above average and good-looking, everyone says so) may know I'm a little obsessed with comics, and maybe specifically Batman. They may be aware that I have mentioned Batman many times on this blog -- and have even discussed the famous Bat-Signal that the police use to call the Caped Crusader for help. 

Well, thanks to my wife, I now have my own Bat-Signal!

Yes, it looks like an ordinary Batman-themed pen, as one might see anywhere, but it actually has a secret button that turns it into the Bat-Signal Projector Pen! The batteries inside power the light that shoots the signal from the top, so it can shine anywhere you might need to notify Batman that there is perfidy on the prowl!

On the ceiling! 

On the street!

On the lawn! 

You may say it's silly for a grown man to carry such a thing, but you know, it's a dangerous world. I'll bet that the president carries a pen just like this. If I were him I would insist on using it to sign a big treaty with some important country like Sweden. Just to remind those Swedes that we have Batman and they don't.

I have to admit I've often wondered how the Bat-Signal is supposed to work. You can't just flash it in the sky; it vanishes into the night. Maybe it would shine on a cloud, but what if it's clear? 

The first time I attended an arena concert that used laser light to form words and shapes in the air, I thought it would make a much more effective signal. Would it work in the skies over Gotham? No idea. Maybe just shoot into space or blind pilots. Anyway, they didn't have lasers in 1942, when the Bat-Signal was first seen in a comic book. 

It was all mysterious to me when I was a little kid, when I saw Batman and Robin just get a phone call from the Commissioner and drive over to see him in broad daylight. They used the Bat-Signal only a couple of times on the sixties TV show, although it appeared in cartoon form over the opening and closing credits. 

However it works, the Bat-Signal plays a crucial role in Gotham crimefighting. So the pen is not silly at all. What IS silly are the Bat pants that I got five years ago. Silly, but comfortable. But my wife, who gave them to me, still won't let me wear them outside unless it's pitch-black, and even then she's worried I'll faint or get another concussion and be found there in the morning in my Bat pants. As the Swedes say, Hur pinsamt! (How embarrassing!)