VIDEO: The Shoplifting Scottish Seagull of Aberdeen

The seagull comes in for a bag a day--same brand, Doritos.

COLUMN: See Double-Nosed Calf at the Fair

By Tobin Barnes
These are strange times. The media barrage is making me a little punchy. I was reading these real news headlines from AP and Reuters the other night, happened to nod off and had the following sub-headlines nightmare:

“Report: NASA let astronauts fly drunk”
Take more than that for most of us

“Dead herring odor upsets Maine residents”
‘That kid needs a new pair of shoes real bad,’ says neighbor

“Nude blonde, gold stilettos and a Ferrari…”
Local authorities brace for trouble

“Rats and cats work to sniff out mines”
‘Problem is,’ handler says, ‘you get one trained and he’s gone’

“Tourists fined for cycling nude in heatwave”
‘This weather’s punished our citizens enough,” sheriff says

“Double-nosed calf appears at Wis. Fair”
‘It’s why I keep coming back,’ says a satisfied fairgoer

“Teen drives truck into river, gets stuck”
Real news would be ‘Drives into river, drives back out’

“‘Compliment machine' praises pedestrians”
Talks like George Clooney to certain females

“Voracious jumbo squid invade California”
Red Lobster managers running for their lives

“18,000 fake Viagra pills seized”
18,000 awkward moments avoided

“Hey big spender, $210,000 drinks bill”
But for one night in his life he was popular

“Oscar the cat predicts patients' deaths”
No bedside treats and you’re toast

“Hey, does this water taste funny to you?”
New bottled brand, Clown Town, appeals to circus fans

“Virgin secret to good festival weather”
But the sacrifice part somewhat controversial

“Coin dealer carries $1.9M dime in pocket”
Running into insistent panhandler could have spelled disaster

“Pistol packing pastor nabs theft suspect”
‘Some sinners need more persuasion than others,’ minister says

“Prankster dentist wins in court”
Extra laughing gas judged ‘good, clean fun’

“Wis. boy's lemonade stand robbed”
‘This criminal epitomizes desperate,’ local chief says

“Thief battered in fish shop”
Looking for bread, breaded instead

“Fundraiser to feature machine guns”
Donations suggested early and often

“Ga. deputy shoots Gator the pet pig”
Rednecks likely to run him out of town

“Computer program can learn baby talk”
First grade seen to be a few years off

“Wayward bull pummels veterinarian”
Evidently remembered last visit

“Police: Duo tried to flee on horseback”
‘Whoopee-ti-yi-yo’ heard amongst the hoofbeats

“ATM gives out too much money”
Complainant considered for bank beatification

Laugh Lines

A particularly good edition. (Click the title)

Gored in the Leg by a Bull

The whole macho "Running with the bulls" thing in Pamplona, Spain, has always mystified me, and even more so after seeing this picture. (Caution: graphic and educational--click the title.)

VIDEO: Strange 'Thriller' Remake in a Philippines Prison

The criminal mind must be a tad different over in Asia. Of course, there are worse ways for convicts to spend their day, but somehow, I just don't see American prisoners getting into something like this, and that doesn't have anything to do with Michael Jackson. This is really kind of a hoot.

JON STEWART: Taking on the Tour de Farce

SLATE VIDEO: The 12 Kinds of TV Advertisements

Don't worry. There won't be a quiz afterwards.

Laugh Lines

For those who can't stay up that late, like me.

THE ETHICIST: Exit Strategy

The second conundrum has a good comment about waiting rooms.

COLUMN: Make Every Decision in 60 Seconds

By Tobin Barnes
When trying to make a decision, you should ask yourself, “Is this really me?”

Anyway, that’s what blogger Steve Pavlina says in his article, “How to Make Smart Decisions in Less Than 60 Seconds.” (I assume as opposed to making dumb decisions after agonizing over them over a couple weeks.) The article appeared on his blog, “Personal Development for Smart People.” (Google it if you’re smart, morons go elsewhere.)

How I got to this material, I have no idea. You know how one thing leads to another on the internet? You’re mindlessly surfing along, going from link to link, and sometimes you run into intriguingly useful things and then sometimes you find yourself chewing mental bubble gum.

Well, Pavlina’s question, “Is this really me?” was one of those intriguing things I ran into, but I’m still not sure whether it’s useful.

No doubt the guy’s sincere: “Sometimes we face tough decisions that involve one or more unknowns. We can’t know in advance what the consequences of each alternative will be. This is especially true of big decisions like quitting a job, entering or exiting a relationship, or moving to a new city.”

Yeah, decisions like, should I keep reading.

“When faced with such a decision, what do you do?” Pavlina continues. “If you can’t figure out the consequences, can you do any better than guessing?”

How about flipping a coin? That’s right, put your life on a randomizer, bounce around like you’re in a pinball machine. Or buy one of those eight balls.

Or just freeze as Pavlina says a lot of people do, and “by default stay put.”

Instead, he says, “Let me give you a very simple method of making these kinds of decisions. In most cases it takes no more than 60 seconds to evaluate any particular path. For each alternative you’re considering, ask yourself, “Is this really me?” What you’re asking is whether each path is a fair expression of who you truly are. To what degree does each option reflect the real you?”

Of course, that leaves you with the deeper question of, “Who is the real me?”

And whoa! To borrow an apt phrase from Winston Churchill, that may be “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” But let’s put such acrobatic mind-bending aside, and assume that you’ve already got “Who is the real me?” figured out--yeah, right--and continue with Pavlina’s decision-making tip because this just might work for you. Change your life, if not mine.

Pavlina says: “When we look at choices as being more than just paths — as being creative statements of self-expression — certain decisions become much easier to make. You may say to yourself, “This path isn’t going to be easy, but I know this is the right way to go because it’s who I am.” Or you may conclude, “No matter how I try to represent this to myself, I know that deep down this isn’t who I am. This just isn’t me.”

And, you know, I’m kinda buying this. Like most tips I’ve run across, don’t know if I’ll ever use it, but I’m buying it.

He says you can use the technique on a whole range of questions, large and small, from “Is this job really me?” to “Is this shirt/dress/tie really me?” to “Is this friend really me?” (The last one leading to a troubling investigation into schizophrenia with perhaps the aid of a psychiatrist.)

So let’s put this theory to a real-world test, using a recognizably familiar subject: the ultimate decider, President George Bush, someone we’ve all come to know and, at the very least, wonder about.

How do all of the decisions he’s made in the last six and a half years measure up using Steve Pavlina’s decision-making question?

In other words, could President Bush ask “Is this really me?” about all those tough decisions he’s made and still get a positive answer?

Well, without a doubt!

Across the spectrum, from liberal to conservative, for better or for worse, we could all agree with President Bush if he concluded, “Yes...that’s right, those decisions are really me.”

Steve Pavlina? Buddy, you’re on to something there.

This Just In

JON STEWART: Another Trip to Sorrytown

JON STEWART: The Rice Triple Negative Scores a 10

THE ETHICIST: Knocked Down

Gees, he's good. (As always, click the title)

Late Night Monologues Laugh Lines

COLUMN: Couldn't Do Now What I Did Then

By Tobin Barnes
Alas, I have become woefully soft in these my declining years, though only 55.

Declining years?

Yes, afraid so. Got to face the facts. I’ve become a softy in my old age, if not a soft touch. Not that I was ever a tough guy. Never really wanted to be, but I never wanted to be a wimp, either. Nevertheless, a wimp I might have become. For certain, I no longer have anywhere near the resiliency I had as a youngster.

Couple weeks ago, I was playing in a golf tournament back in eastern SoDak. It was the typical Great Plains summer afternoon the chamber of commerce doesn’t want to talk about. Ninety-four in the shade with a raging 30-35 mile-per-hour wind and a humidity level only corn could love.

A playing partner said, “Thank goodness it’s windy or the mosquitoes would be eating us alive.” No way we would have been out there if it weren’t a special event.

Yeah, it was pretty miserable, despite the excellent company. (My brother-in-law Chuck was along. Never a dull moment with him. This time a club head from his antique set came off when he was hitting a shot. Club head went farther than the ball.) Can’t say I didn’t have any fun. But after four hours on this devil’s barbecue, we were somewhat past well-done. We 50-somethings wanted to bawl like a bunch of calves. Couldn’t wait to get out of our dusty golf carts and back into civilized air conditioning.

Thing is, I wouldn’t have thought twice about such conditions when I was a kid. Heck, I’d grown up back there, spent much of my time on that same golf course, and let me tell you it wasn’t time spent riding in a cart. Back then I was carrying a bag for a buck twenty-five a nine--a buck fifty if the guy wasn’t a tightwad and felt like adding a twenty-five-cent tip.

That’s right, I was a caddy. One of a dying breed right before two-thirds of America started super-sizing their meals and riding carts...uh, kinda like I do now.

Typical summer day started with a several-mile bike ride out to the course. Not too bad if the wind were from the west, a little tougher if from the east. A rare day if there weren’t any wind at all. Of course, along the way I’d be sneezing my head off with the rabid hay fever I used to have, blowing my nose into a soon soggy handkerchief I always carried. But that was neither here nor there. Just life.

If another kid was riding his bike out about the same time, there’d be a hellacious race in that heat and humidity to see who could get to the pro shop first. That’s how caddy jobs were given out--first come, first served.

But that didn’t always work out even if you won the race. Oftentimes the first golfer who showed up didn’t want a caddy at all. Wanted a shagger instead. And here you’d gotten up early and won the race for nothing. Other kid’s laughing as you head down the hill with the shag bag.

We hated shagging compared to caddying. Shagging meant you stood out on the driving range and let a guy hit bullet-hard golf balls at you. Shaggers served a dual purpose. First, as a target, and second, as a retriever. And when the golfer hit all the balls, you ran the bag in, dumped the balls, and ran back out for another round.

Of course, you also paid attention. Hazy days were the worst. In my hours out there, I heard plenty of golf balls invisibly whizzing down from out of the ether--distinctive sound, by the way--but never saw them till they had thunked into the ground a few feet away. Nowadays they’d arrest anybody who put a kid through that, but back then it was standard practice.

And for this you got seventy-five cents an hour--six bits, as they used to say. After an hour or so of that, all you wanted to do was go up to the clubhouse for a Dr. Pepper, a Slim Jim, and some peanut-butter, cheddar-cheese crackers. Yup, an hour’s work gone. Had maybe a dime left.

Nothing like the three bucks you could make caddying 18 holes. Then a kid could build up some savings, maybe stow a wad.

Most hours, however, were spent sitting around outside in the wind and the heat waiting for these kinds of jobs. In the meantime, we’d go down to the putting green and putt for tees or out on the course to look for balls, but most of the time we just sat there, ready for the next job.

At the end of the day, I’d bicycle back home--often against the wind--eat supper, and head up to my stifling bedroom, still sneezing and blowing my nose, with only a window fan for comfort. Air conditioner? Not in my realm.

Put my current soft self into those conditions today, and I’d think I was in hell. Couldn’t take it now. I’d absolutely freak.

Brings to mind a couple oft-stated lessons:

First, you can’t go back in time. (Heck, wouldn’t want to.)

Second, everything’s relative. (I didn’t know anything different, and that was a blessing. Amen.)

Check Out Singshot If You're into Karaoke

I'm one of those people who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, or at least no one ever told me I could. Back in grade school, when the music teacher said that someone didn't sound very good, I always thought it was me. Maybe it wasn't, but I was sold.

However, if you think you've got possibilities or just want to dabble with the thought, go to Singshot.com for the karaoke time of your life in the privacy of your own home. (Maybe that's the best part. Use this to try out your karaoke pipes alone before you have a couple drinks and make a fool out of yourself in some bar. Might decide you ought to keep it at home, hidden.)

The thing's free as far as I can figure, and you can record your renderings and even post them if you've got the guts--seems a lot of people do.

FRUGAL TRAVELER: Keep Austin Weird

It's week eight in Matt Gross's trip across America--the other America. (Click the title)

SLATE VIDEO: Bar Convention (er, the other kind)

The only trade shows I ever get to go to deal with education. I'd much rather go to some other types of trade shows, like this one:

COLUMN: Memories Are Made of Troubles

By Tobin Barnes
Everybody’s got their own idea of fun. My fun probably isn’t your fun.

Amen and maybe thank goodness.

Yeah, diversity is a good thing. If we all thought sitting through nine innings of a major league baseball game was fun, you couldn’t get into the place. Some people have to be collecting stamps instead. We’ve got to spread out the joy for there to be any joy at all.

Take me, for instance.

I like to ride my bicycle--that is, in a casual sort of way. Bike paths, streets, that sort of thing. It can be fun, believe it or not. Maybe not for you, but for me.

However, if I start heating up, huffing and puffing, doing some serious pedaling, the fun pretty much stops. Then it becomes a job. Never much been into jobs while I’m trying to have fun.

That’s why I’ve never been able to understand endurance-type fun. You know, where you’re working your butt off, kind of almost suffering, and people call it fun.

I got to see this kind of fun a few weeks ago: Bicycling fun that’s not my idea of fun.

My brother-in-law and two of his brothers and one of his brothers’ friends came out to the hills to do some bicycling, like 70 to 100 miles-a-day bicycling. Uh huh, I bicycle one of their days in about a year.

They did four days of this. It’s an annual thing for them. They smile thinking about past trips. They’ve ridden across Ohio and Wisconsin and Minnesota. They’ve ridden along Lake Superior on the U.P. of Michigan. They think this is fun, for crying out loud.

Matter of fact, the more trouble they have on a trip--pedaling along anything not downhill would be trouble in my book--the more they enjoy it. Makes it memorable, they say. I say it’s masochistic self-delusion. But I guess that proves my point: Everybody’s got their own idea. Besides, they’re slim and trim while I’ve got a tire other than on my bike.

Anyway, if they like trouble, they should have been happy on this trip. Had all kinds of it. Two of them brought their wives along, one of whom is my wife’s sister. But that’s not the trouble I’m talking about.

Started when we dropped them off about seven miles west of Alladin, WY, in the Bear Lodge Mountains. We, ourselves, drove on to Devil’s Tower so the wives could walk around the base of the monument. It started raining not long after. We thought it might be kind of tough on the guys. But not to worry. They said before they started they don’t mind rain--makes trips more memorable. Uh huh.

On our drive back home, we passed them riding in a pretty good rain, having fun, making memories.

Later that day, they discovered that riding in mountains can be a little mountainous with big ups and downs you don’t find in Ohio or Wisconsin. But, no big deal, they knew that coming in, so it was still fun by the time they got to Sundance, WY, where they spent the first night.

Next day they made more memories. At Newcastle, midway on their trip from Sundance to Edgemont, SD, they turned onto a gravel Forest Service road they thought was supposed to be paved, anyway according to their interpretation of the map. Going this way would save them 20-30 miles, they figured. But the travel was hellish--ultra-thin-wheeled road bikes do not do well on gravel. They would have multiple blow-outs on multiple bikes on this stretch, plus other mechanical problems.

Someone they met about ten miles down that torture track--one of only two or three passersby the rest of the day--told them they’d soon run onto a paved road.

Momentarily, there was peace in the valley.

But turned out that guy was either a liar or an idiot. Someone they met a short distance further on told them, “Nope, gravel all the way to Edgemont.” In other words, 50 miles of a butt-wrenching grind from Newcastle to Edgemont.

So notified of the task ahead, they knew they weren’t too far from Dewey, about halfway down that stretch of gravel road, so they decided to continue rather than heading back out to the highway. Or so they thought. Soon they came to a road sign that pointed to Dewey in three different directions, as though backwoods Dewey were so big there might be a North, East, and South Dewey with several exits along the way.

Undaunted, our funsters eventually found their way and limped into Edgemont late that night, chocked brimful with new memories. It’s the trouble, after all. After getting re-supplied with more inner tubes and other necessary parts, they followed the Mickelson Trail back to Spearfish Canyon over the next two days.

Meanwhile, the wives were taking casual bike rides, short little invigorating hikes, and brisk shopping sprees amidst leisurely lunches and wine-inspired gab sessions, building memories in more subtle ways.

To each his own.

But “You don’t have to be Norman Einstein,” as football commentator Joe Theisman once said, to know that the women had a much better grasp of fun.

FRUGAL TRAVELER: South Dakota and Nebraska

Another installment of Matt Gross's 12-week summer trip across America--no condescending included, which I really like though he's working for a big-city newspaper. This week he stops off in the Black Hills and experiences an ice cave and Rochford, including the Moonshine Gulch Saloon, then travels on to Carhenge in Nebraska. (Click the title)

Brett Cooley and Saltdogs: Summer 2007

Tom Cooley sent me some pictures of his son Brett playing for the Lincoln Saltdogs in a series in Sioux Falls. Lots of friends (including me) and family showed up to cheer him on. Bob Young's son Nick is shown in the first picture with Brett.

Bicylers of June, Part II

Sandy Lichter, Jerry's wife, sent us a couple pictures taken while the bicyclers were out here in the hills in early June. (I've got a column coming up on those intrepid cyclers.) First is a picture of Jeannie, Sandy, and Ann during one of their low-key hikes while the men were busting their butts bicycling. At the end of that trek, we all went up to Costner's Midnight Star in Deadwood, where, among other things, we compared wallets, since I'd noticed Jerry's (far right) as being unusually, if not ridiculously, large. The others are owned by engineers, and one of them belongs to a teacher. Can you guess which one? Of course, that's Jeannie and me in the background.

Brett Cooley Baseball Report

We finally got to see Brett Cooley play for the Lincoln Saltdogs when they beat the Sioux Falls Canaries 9-2 in a game the last week of June. Brett had a stellar outing, going 3-5 with two homers. Also got to visit with Brett's parents Tom and Kathy and other friends and family who made up a "Cooley Crew" of supporters. For more on Brett's season, check these links: http://journalstar.com/articles/2007/07/02/sports/doc4688730720790902744374.txt and http://www.americanassociationbaseball.com/cgi-bin/dist/news.cgi?id=1183413072

to dream

A lot of junk videos out there, but this isn't one of them. The craftsmanship is fairly amazing.

VIDEO: Pickpockets in Milan

Stash your cash in Milan or maybe even in SoDak. (Click the title)

SLATE VIDEO: Hillary's Achilles' Heel

This is a segment from an on-going series about the presidential candidates overcoming their perceived handicaps. Pretty good.

THE ETHICIST: All Together Now

Yeah, even ethics in religion, believe it or not.