Loonies I Have Lunched With (Part 23): Damsels in Distress [1 & 2]

Those who are familiar with my professional life know that I defend the downtrodden and, in particular, rescue Damsels in Distress.

By Damsels in Distress, I mean young ladies primarily but not exclusively between the ages of 12 and 29 who have gotten involved with the wrong end of the criminal justice system.

They need assistance. They need legal advice. They need someone to come to their aid when they are being tormented by The Forces of Evil (i.e. police, prosecutors, probation officers, etc.)

(Our local courthouse – Damsel in Distress central!)

And sometimes, they need lunch, bless their little cotton socks.

On more than a few occasions, I have had the opportunity to have them join me when I visit the local cafe (i.e. ‘my office’).

For the first time, two have agreed to grace the pages of my blog.

Two of my favourite Damsels in Distress are BD and JT.

(At my ‘office’: BD – pouting somewhat, and JT – somewhat content)

I have to say right off the bat that neither of these charming young ladies has a criminal record. They were neither convicted nor found guilty of committing any kind of offence whatsoever. They did get into a wee bit of trouble but the matter against them was withdrawn.

Neither are they what I would call ‘regulars’ or ‘frequent flyers’ in our court system.

They are, in short, a couple of sweetie-pies.

(BD perks up after learning she’ll not be at one of Her Majesty’s guest houses)

BD and JT are the kinds of girls who sometimes find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Luckily for them, when something in their lives goes horribly wrong, they can (and do) contact me to help them out.

And it’s absolutely my pleasure to do so!

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Bacon – The Never-Ending Story

Yes, boys and girls, geeks and nerdlings, it’s time for yet another installment in our continuing series…

What’s With The Bacon??

As I have commented many times…

It’s not so much my interest in bacon, per se…

It’s my fascination with people’s obsession with bacon.

From classic bacon usage…

(Swizzle sticks)

To the unusual…

(Fred Flintstone would approve)

To the far-fetched…

To the truly bizarre…

There always seems to be more and more room for bacon appreciation.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people are devoted to bacon…

(Gift wrapping paper)

Especially in the area of merchandising.

(I mean really!!)

Let’s face it…

Bacon provides a fertile ground for expression…

Political commentary, satire…

(Occupy bacon!)

Art, music, civil disobedience…

(Early bacon)

Or just some plain old good-natured ribbing (pun intended).

No matter how you slice it (pun definitely intended)…

Bacon is the next best thing to a religion.

It feeds the hungry…

Comforts those in need…

(Tell me this wasn’t created in The South!)

And gives solace to the destitute.

And gives life meaning and purpose in a chaotic world.

Or something like that.

I’m just glad someone’s making a buck off of all this passion.

I hate to see all this fervour go to waste.

So until next time, I will leave bacon where it best belongs…

On a plate, waiting to kill you.

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Thanks once again to my many friends and readers who send me more bacon-related photos than I can shake a bacon swizzlestick at!

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I Lost My Office… AGAIN!!

As followers of this blog know, I have a long and tortured past when it comes to my ‘office’… a certain spot at a certain address which has gone through various incarnations over the last few years.

Originally, I set up shop there when it was The Café on Main.

(Cafe on Main – my office, as it then was)

Then, when it was the Ambrosia Café, I re-inserted myself at the same spot and declared that my office was open once more!

(Ambrosia – my office, right side, farthest table back)

In its present incarnation, the Bridgewater Café has provided me my office space once more. I felt I was, once again, firmly ensconced.

(Bridgewater – my office, in front of the counter near the pillar)

That is, until I walked into the Bridgewater last Tuesday!

Judge my chagrin when my office was replaced with a couch, coffee table and some armchairs!

The pain. The loss. The sense of betrayal.

The lovely Shannon gave some lame excuse about the City finding that there were too many seats/tables for the number of bathrooms available and forced them to reduce the seating space.

(Here’s a shot of the lovely Shannon NOT coming to my rescue!)

Be that as it may, I would have hoped that the staff would have blocked any such attempt to eliminate my office.

Shannon should have put up a fight. I suppose she felt that you can’t fight City Hall. Or at least you can try but you will most likely be charged with assault.

(The fair Ashley – she would have stopped it)

I know for a fact that the fair Ashley, given the opportunity, would have stormed over to City Hall (kitty corner to the Bridgewater) like an angry, torch-wielding villager in a Universal Studios horror movie.

Alas, the damage had been done.

(There it is… GONE!)

This is what has become of my precious office space.

I don’t know which is worse… not having an office… or going to the café, sitting at another table and looking longingly at where my office used to be.

I am NOT happy.

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Wake n' Bacon

Reblogged from Mathlete:

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Version 1 by Matty Sallin, Daniel Bartolini, Hsiao-huh Hsu
Version 2 by Matty Sallin with engineering by Josh Myer

WHAT: An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of cooking bacon instead of a buzzer.  The aroma wakes you up, then you can open the oven component and eat the bacon itself.

Read more… 302 more words

Thanks to Steven Burke for bringing this to my attention!

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Just When I Thought I Was Out… The Bacon Pulls Me Back In!

Just When I Thought I Was Out…

They Pull Me Back In…

With Bacon!!

It’s quite remarkable really…

(Darth Bacon!)

This seemingly endless supply of bacon-related artifacts.

Thanks yet again to all the friends and readers who provide me with this outstanding bacon-related photographs!

From the cute…

To the somewhat nerdy.

From the historical…

To the hysterical!

From the political…

to the Existential!

From casual fashion…

to the goofy…

To the Newfie!

And of course….

a portrait of Kevin Bacon… made from bacon!

Let us keep bacon in its proper place…

In a frying pan. Waiting to kill you.

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Return of the Revenge of the Curse of the Bride of the Mummy’s Bacon!

As I have said many times, the love of bacon, especially in Canada and the United States, borders on religious fanaticism.

The knee-jerk response people say in their defence is, “Yes, but it’s so delicious!”

True. However LOTS of things are delicious. Ice Cream is delicious. Chocolate is delicious. Chocolate ice cream is delicious.

(Bacon Chocolate Ice Cream Cupcake)

But none of the other delicious foods comes close to the level of adoration accorded to bacon.

(“Honey, I’ve got it! BACON APPLE PIE!!”)

It reaches an almost fevered pitch.

I’ve heard people say that they dream of bacon.

More than a few people have admitted that a life without bacon is a life that is simply not worth living.

The love of bacon has become a lust. Bacon is bordering on becoming a fetish with some people.

(Bacon mug)

It’s become a relentless obsession with a large segment of our society.

Bacon is omnipresent.

(Bacon sunrise)

People see the world in terms of bacon.

(Bacon tattoo)

Bacon has literally become a part of many people.

Many people start their day with bacon.

(Bacon cappuccino)

Some not in the way one would expect they would.

(Jolly Roger Pirate Flag Bacon)

In our culture, bacon is ubiquitous.

Some guide their lives by it!

I will continue to chronicle this national and international obsession with bacon.

No matter where it leads.

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Many thanks to my readers and friends (especially Stephen Balen and Anna Camara) who have emailed or otherwise forwarded bacon-related photos and ideas to me. Thanks also to my dear friends Wendy McIntyre and Danielle Ulch with whom I have discussed the bacon craze at great length and who share my bafflement on this entire subject.

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Loonies I Have Lunched With (Part 9): Practical Jokers

Have you ever eaten anything that you thought was one thing and then, after it was in your mouth, you discover to your horror that it was something entirely different?

(Nonna cooking up some Timbits)

Let me give you an example. Italian grandmother cooking up some meatballs in a skillet, placing the cooked meatballs onto a platter. Little five-year-old grandson comes into the room, sees a platter of what he thinks are Timbits. Child asks his sweet, adorable grandmother if he can have some Timbits. Nonna, who has a sick sense of humour, says, “Sure!” Kid bites into Timbit expecting a sweet, tasty treat and, instead, gets a mouthful of meat, fat, garlic, onions and parsley. Grandson makes horrible icky face. Nonna falls over laughing, thinking the whole shtick is the cutest thing she’s ever seen. Kid bursts into tears and spends years on psychiatrist’s couch trying to get over culinary child abuse.

(Some restaurants are a bit TOO dark!)

I had occasion to witness another example of this kind of evil subterfuge ages ago when some alleged friends of mine and I were having dinner in a dimly lit steakhouse. Gullible Friend was having some difficulty making out what was on his plate through the gloom of the dining room. He lifted a forkful of something and peered at it, trying to figure things out. Evil Friend helpfully suggested that it was mashed potatoes. Gullible Friend smiled and put the forkful into his mouth. His eyes bugged out and he began choking. Evil Friend cackled at her cleverness in fooling someone into eating a heapin’ helpin’ of horseradish.

(Mashed potatoes… or death on a spoon? [Photo Eve Fox])

I’ve never been a fan of practical jokes. I just don’t think they’re funny.

Practical jokes involving anything that needs to be ingested as part of the gag are, to me, particularly not funny.

People grimacing or spitting out food does not crack me up in the least.

Stop it.

Now…

Would you care for a Timbit?

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Why I Miss The South (Part 3): Hey, y’all! Watch this!!

There is a kind of ‘laugh in the face of death’ bravura found in The South that you just don’t find anywhere else.

And just as well.

A common expression is that a southern guy’s last words are usually, “Hey, y’all! Watch this!!”

(Just about everything here began with a “Hey y’all! Watch this!”)

A good motto would be, “Never do anything that you wouldn’t want to explain to the paramedics.”

This attitude crosses over to all levels of society and all manners of activity. You can find extremism everywhere.

But it is at the Southern Redneck level that the “Hey, y’all! Watch this!!” mindset reaches its apex.

For example, food…

(Hey y’all! Watch me eat this!)

Fashion…

Child rearing…

Child fashion…

Hunting…

Even portraits!

(Tell me this photo didn’t start off with a ‘Hey y’all. Watch this!!’)

You watch out of a sense of morbid curiosity.

Sometimes, you look away. Sometimes you just can’t tear your eyes from what is happening.

Either way, it is one of the many reasons why I Miss The South.

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Why I Miss The South (Part 2): Extreme Food

Whether it’s Deep-Fried Twinkies…

Bacon Cheeseburgers with Krispy Kreme Donut Buns…

Or Turtle Burgers…

One of the things I miss most about The South is the penchant for extreme food.

This is not to say that all or even most people in The South partake in such culinary excesses. But there is a weird ‘Hey, y’all! Watch this!’ kind of dread fascination with extreme food – a sort of ‘Yew cain’t make this shit up!’ world view that lets you watch it out of a bizarre curiosity.

(The Schnitzel Tower Sandwich!)

How about this… a quadruple-cutlet hash brown sandwich with bacon and cheese: 1 veal, 1 pork and 2 chicken schnitzels (fried breaded cutlets), layered with 4 hash browns, 10 rashers of bacon and mozzarella. I can almost feel my heart valves slamming shut now!

(They call it… The Double-Wide!)

Or this… Chicken fried steak, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, sandwiched between two bacon waffles. Affectionately known as The Double-Wide, the name (like the sandwich) operates on many levels. Is it merely descriptive of the sandwich? Or is it a reference to the famous double-wide trailers popular in The South?

Or is it taking a poke at the kind of person who might order something like this Fourth of July Fireworks Burger?

(Hopefully, this isn’t the result of someone who exploded after eating one of the above dishes)

No matter how you slice it… it’s The South!

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Special thanks to CaveManCircus.com for some of the food ideas and photos.

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Loonies I Have Lunched With (Part 8): Darth Peanut

I recently had the opportunity of enjoying a lovely dinner with a dear friend of mine, AL, who – in addition to being a noted loonie and because she is quite petite – bears the unfortunate nickname ‘Peanut.’

I myself do not use this nickname for her, nor do I encourage others to do so. But stick with her the epithet has.

At any rate, we were discussing the rather sad turn her life has taken recently. Or rather, the sad turn the lives of those around her have taken recently.

I encouraged her to eject these distracting and possibly destructive relationships from her life.

She was reluctant to do so. Why? Well, it appears that my dear friend is ‘nice’… and by nice, I mean she will not assert herself, thinking – misguidedly – that standing up for herself and saying what needs to be said somehow makes her ‘the bad guy.’

I encouraged her to embrace The Dark Side. Get in touch with her inner Sith.

Doing so, I argued, would make her a more effective person and, in time, make her life a lot less complicated and a lot better for her and her young sons.

She needed to become stronger, more grounded, less scattered, more focused.

(Darth Peanut!)

In short, I urged her to become… Darth Peanut!

Anytime someone tries to undermine her or suggest she is not capable of doing something, I suggested that she should reply with a firm and steady, “I find your lack of faith… disturbing.”

Being firm, asserting yourself, standing up and resisting those who attempt to manipulate and take advantage of you is not, I stressed, being a mean person.

It is perfectly possible to utilize the Dark Side while still maintaining one’s overall cuteness.

(I find your lack of milk… disturbing)

I’m not sure whether our dinner conversation helped her in any way. I hope it has.

Until then, I eagerly await feeling a disturbance in The Force.

 

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