city yard to exotic paradise

although we enjoy the dank basement bar which has hosted such luminary entertainers as herb alpert and oscar homolka, we figured we would venture out to the lush jungle humidity and give it a shot of exotica.

bucky the tiki guards our humble little house of bamboo

puffer fish from the philippines, yo.

alright, i'm not saying the place is the pinnacle of good taste. but it's damn entertaining. not purchased from your local smith and hawken.

just for fun, here's the theme song (download) sung by earl grant:

http://rapidshare.de/files/21856815/House_of_Bamboo.mp3.html

zippy dee doo blog

picked up the daily planet yesterday and this cartoon caught my eye. thought i'd do a cartoon review (not to step on any toes).

de point is that zippy is a great strip, documenting roadside architecture across the nation and interjecting snarky comments about american society with a healthy dose of absurdist non sequiturs.

seems griffy's kvetching is focused on us lowly bloggers in this one... 'annoying ego blather?' well, possibly. props to the beef burger backdrop, but i dunno if cartoonists are particularly any different animule than us...

i love you, honny bunny

PUMPKIN
Everybunny be cool this lawn is rabbity!

HONNY BUNNY
Any of you dandelions move and I'll nibble every bunnyfluffing last one of you!

Dollar looks up, not believing what he's seeing. Under the table, Dollar's hand goes to his digital camera. He pulls it out, AIMING IT.

PUMPKIN
Vegetables stay seated, marigolds on the floor.

tales of the fez

in the october of about 1998, i decided i was going to be mustafa / nassim (see above) for a halloween party. so i called a hat store in georgetown, washington dc called "hats in the belfry" and got some guy. i said, "do you carry fezzes?" and he replied, "what's a fez?" i tried to describe it, but it was hopeless so i drove there to find out in person. when i got there, that guy wasn't there but there was a woman behind the counter and perhaps the manager woman who came in a bit later. i found the proper red fez, and while paying for it, i mentioned that the previous person i had called hadn't known what a fez was. i meant it in the spirit of having an informed haberdasher... you know, customer service. well the manager looked like i had just royally insulted the fellow, and made some snippy remark. fez in bag, i happily walked out of the store onto wisconsin avenue. the manager lady came out a second later and as she started to cross the street, she shot a glaring little look at me and said "i hope you enjoy your FEZ!!! in a hissy spiteful tone. i just laughed at her. freaking georgetown retailers.

when the screen hits your eye like a big pizza pie

that's a moire

history of ancient india

while digging thru my basement i found an old a VistaVision reel and i thought i would share it with you. the pencil on the reel cover reads " 1966 - gumnaam." out fluttered a black and white glossy signed "to johnny dollar, remember: jan pehechan-ho. all the best, mohammed rafi." well i don't remember that, must have had to many singapore slings that night...

candy scan - part the 4th

name: kellogg's pop tarts - HELLO KITTY meow berry
country of origin: well, that's debatable - but mfd. in the you ess ayy

description: meow berry!!! so sue me if a pop tart isn't technically candy, but at 200 calories apiece and ingredients #3-#6 being corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, and sugar, i think i have a pretty good case!!!eleven ennywheys, these little nits have bow-shaped jimmies on pink icing ands a non-identifiable fruit flavouring filling, and they DAMN GOOD despite being marketed to 11-year-old girls. so maybe thinking they are the bomb makes me teh gay. wat evah. i am mostly fascinated by the japanese uber-cuteness being exploited so craftily to sell american fat-increasing foodstuffs. who can resist the power of the meow?

even figureheads enjoy hanging out

the dutch keep abreast of the latest maritime technology...

i 0wns teh internets

don't you love sitemeter? do ya huh? i certainly do, maybe cause i'm a blog n00b... anyways, there's an occasional thrill to think someone in singapore saw my blog. i'm sure you older and wiser bloggers think it ain't no thang. anyways, in reviewing sitemeter recently i noticed that if someone comes to your blog coz they googled or dogpiled or boogled, sitemeter shows the search words. cool! so i saw that some humanoid in cali searched for the phrase 'johnny dollar' on search.msn.com, so curiously i looked at that search page and found out that my blog is the #1 hit for 'johnny dollar' there! how the heck did that happen??? not that i'm complainin...

the weird thing is that there are tons and tuns of references that that name relates to. 'johnny dollar' has been my hotmail email since 1997, and i've used the name as my internet avatar since then too. i liked it coz it was derived from both a 1940's radio show and a late 1950's rockabilly star (obscure contemporary of buddy holly) and it seemed to not pigeonhole but fit many genres of my interest - swing, film noir, rockabilly, lounge... even cowboy for that matter. and there's a political blog by this guy who calls himself johnny dollar, how did i beat him out? there's even a band in north carolina called johnny dollar, not to mention a deceased vice-mayor in florida (???) and a photographer in el paso.

wot eva. i guess being #1 hit on search.msn.com is not as prestigiditious as being #1 hit on google, (i'm not, wah), but it's still cool. someday i may be a snay.