by Ian Punnett

 

It’s no longer October so it can’t be an October Surprise but . . . 

MONTREAL — A Quebec comedy duo notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state has reached Sarah Palin, convincing the Republican vice-presidential nominee she was speaking with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In the interview, which lasts about six minutes, Palin and the pranksters discuss politics, pundits, and the dangers of hunting with current vice-president **** Cheney.

The Masked Avengers, who have a regular show on Montreal radio station CKOI, intend to air the full interview on the eve of the U.S. elections.

It’s doubtful it’s going to have any effect on the election but it won’t help Sarah Palin’s reputation any.  And that’s totally unfair.  In order to balance things out, I would call and bust on a Canadian politician and try to make them look bad, I just don’t happen to know who any of them are . . . 

As Sarah Palin has been the center of much funny comedy material this year, I best the The Masked Avengers are hysterical and it will be a real treat on election eve to hear it.

Meanwhile, here’s rotten trick reported by Giant in the Playground News that I found at Fark.com:

As has been reported by a few other gaming blogs and news sites, the Charity Auction at this year's GenCon Indianapolis was held to benefit a charity, which will (go un-named but will be obvious). The fine folks at GenCon raised over $17,000 for this charity, which helps starving children in impovershed areas of the world--only to have that money actually turned down by the charity. The charity refused due to the fact that the money was raised partly by the sales of Dungeons and Dragons materials . . .  Not only is this a slap in the face to every gamer, but it is especially insulting (but what about) the children who would have gotten food or clean drinking water with that money . . .   (www.giantitp.com)

Well, at least PETA has a cool new approach according to the news wire:

PETA recently offered to provide a state-of-the art, high-tech animatronic "elephant" if the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus agrees to retire its real elephants-sparing them from painful lives in chains and servitude. The animatronic elephant would be similar to the dinosaurs currently used in the popular "Walking With Dinosaurs, the Live Experience" show that is touring the United States.

Hey, PETA, if the circus doesn’t want your animatronic elephants, can I have one?  That would be so cool to get to work on!  Just think of the reduction in the word’s methane production!  And that’s a serious problem according to Physorg.com:

The amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end a period of about a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable, according to a team led by MIT researchers.

Maybe it’s all that Halloween candy . . .  Oh, and speaking of methane bubbles, this was spooky:

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - The two-seat Taiwanese fighter jet disappeared last week during a routine training mission over the Taiwan Strait. Debris and body parts were found the next day, but authorities are at a loss to explain what happened.

The Oct. 20 crash revived decades-old speculation: Are Taiwan's Penghu islands the Bermuda Triangle of Asia?

Some of you may be skeptical that the Bermuda Triangle exists or that it has an alien connection.  Some people think that if there is truth to the claim of an area of the planet being particularly dangerous to seaman and shipping, there must be an earthly, scientific reason such as methane bubbles coming from the ocean floor.

But that might not explain the disappearance of planes and the reports of bizarre meteorological behavior--could this?

Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth

"It's called a flux transfer event or 'FTE,'" says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn't exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible." 

Indeed, today Sibeck is telling an international assembly of space physicists at the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, that FTEs are not just common, but possibly twice as common as anyone had ever imagined. 

Researchers have long known that the Earth and sun must be connected. Earth's magnetosphere (the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet) is filled with particles from the sun that arrive via the solar wind and penetrate the planet's magnetic defenses. They enter by following magnetic field lines that can be traced from terra firma all the way back to the sun's atmosphere. 

"We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active," says Sibeck. "We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic." 

“Brief, bursty and very dynamic.”  First time I read that I thought it said, “brief, busty and very dynamic” and I thought they were talking about the career of some new Hollywood starlet and then I re-read the word “bursty” which I’ve never seen before.

But wouldn’t that describe a Bermuda Triangle event?  Brief, bursty and very dynamic.  Could it be one of these magnetic portals that just opened up between the Sun and the Earth?

Something to think about.

by Ian Punnett

 

The following is a little photo diary of my recent hair transplant.

The pictures are simple, matter-of-fact medical photos but some people struggle with even a little bit of blood.  

I find medical operations irresistible especially when they're being performed on me.  I watched my own vasectomy from beginning to end with a handheld mirror.  OK, it was a compact mirror.  'Nuff said.

Anyway, some people are more squeamish than others so consider this a "Kids in Carpool Alert" for the next few pages as I take you through the process of transplanting 1400 living hair follicles from the back of my head in order to save a hairline that was fading fast.

Not everybody feels the need to maintain their hair when it suddenly starts to fall out like mine did.  I understand that.   To some, man or woman, the feeling is "let nature take it's course."  I disagree.  Dandelions are natural but I still don't like them on my lawn and if dandelions were growing on your head, you'd probably do something about that too.  Where was I?

Oh, yeah, a neighbor friend said to me the other night, "So does you hair transplant officially mean that you're vain?"

I laughed and didn't deny it but have since wish that I had.  In broadcasting, in any public appearance business, keeping one's hair isn't vain, it's practical.  Upon further consideration, I would say that I am not  a vain man but a pragmatic man in a vain business.  I wish to keep as many of my career options open as I age and not looking older than I actually am with help me to take care of my family financially.

And I was looking older by the week when I started to experience dramatic hair loss this summer.

This "new horizon" was not what I was hoping to discover as I got older.  

At the Hair Restoration Institute in Bloomington (www.myhairlossclinic.com), Vern, Karen, Marissa, Deb, Andrea and Phung prepared me to push back the clock a bit.  

So, Dr. Nancy Shannon made some calculations and brought out the Sharpee.  This would be the new/old hairline.  Not too much--not too "young"--but enough that I wouldn't have to worry about it for the rest of my life.

Spooky photo, huh?

I think I need an eyebrow trim.  Couldn't I just transplant those eyebrows onto my forehead?  

Where were we?

Oh, yeah.  Trick-or-Treat!!

And what is your costume supposed to be, little boy?

"I'm dressed as a dork."

After being sanitized, I was off to surgery where the first order of business was for Dr. Nancy Shannon to remove a five inch by one inch swatch of scalp that would produce all the hair that I would need to transplant.

OK, now that is gross, I'll grant you that.  This is a photo of the band of skin that was removed from the back of my head before the follicles were prepared for transplant.

Kind of looks like Hannibal Lechter's watchband, doesn't it?

Or maybe a big, fat, hairy anchovy?

Either way, that piece of my chubby head is really the hero in the whole operation.   

Here we see Dr. Nancy of HRI making the 1400 incisions around my hairline for the 1400 follicles that were being prepped by Phung and Barry, two of the surgical techs that moved the procedure along really quickly and kept me entertained.

I think I was sleeping when this picture was being taken.  That speaks to how easy the process was.  My head is being shredded like a Florida paper ballot and I'm asleep!

Still snoozing!  I wasn't sleeping for the whole event, of course--they didn't give me a sedative or anything.  In fact, I wasn't given any pain killers at all.  All they had to do was put on a DVD of "Hope Floats" with Sandra Bullock and I immediately slipped into a deep coma.

If you look closely, you can see one of the hair follicles as the end of Barry's forceps as he's about to place it into one of Dr. Nancy's incisions, 700 on each side of my face.  

And here's the "Mr. After" photo for the time being.

 In just a few months, the area on my aging melon that is now red will soon be resplendent with freshly feathered hair.   Once more, I'll be parting my hair down the middle just like David Cassidy--and few men can say that at my age (especially David Cassidy).

Now, if I only I could find the perfect threads to go with my new "do" . . . 

   

 

by Ian Punnett

 

On this, the 30th anniversary of the movie “Halloween,” I feel like I was in a slasher movie because my head is full of stitches.  Not sure how many stitches because they’re in the back of my head but it’s somewhere around five inches worth.  As I mentioned a while back, for some reason, I started experience dramatic hair loss just this year so yesterday I underwent some treatments that included hair transplants from the back of my head.  Surgery went very well (thank you Dr. Nancy Shannon www.myhairlossclinic.com) but I need to warn you up front that the pain meds are making me a little loopy and I keep getting the hiccups.  Since I had the surgery yesterday, I must have had the hiccups twenty times and it could happen again at any second.

Hiccup.  See what I mean.  I have the hiccups even as I write this.  Maybe I can scare myself out of the hiccups with some cool stories!

First, a couple interesting stories on CNN tonight.  

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. 

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

At first I wasn’t sure whether to believe this “Palin goes rogue” on the McCain campaign handlers story until I scrolled down and it said right there that Palin has already killed, skinned and eaten one of his staffers from the RNC.  Man, they weren’t kidding.

But I am.  I am not kidding about this.  More UFOs spotted over Stephenville, TX/  

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/10/25/pkg.tx.more.ufo.sightings.wfaa

According to little white men from Outer Space, the US should be ready to send astronauts to Mars--for life.  That according to Buzz Aldrin on Physorg.com:

The first astronauts sent to Mars should be prepared to spend the rest of their lives there, in the same way that European pioneers headed to America knowing they would not return home, says moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. 

In an interview with AFP, the second man to set foot on the Moon said the Red Planet offered far greater potential than Earth's satellite as a place for habitation. 

With what appears to be vast reserves of frozen water, Mars "is nearer terrestrial conditions, much better than the Moon and any other place," Aldrin, 78, said in a visit to Paris on Tuesday. 

"It is easier to subsist, to provide the support needed for people there than on the Moon." 

Speaking of moonwalkers, have you seen this rarely seen footage from 1962.  It’s Neil Armstrong’s parents on “I’ve Got a Secret” in which they discuss the possibility that their son could be the first person to walk on the moon!  Here’s the link from Fark.com:

http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/vidplayer.pl?IDLink=3970878

Meanwhile, back on Mars:

(PhysOrg.com) -- Recent discoveries of water and Earth-like soil on Mars have set imaginations running wild that human beings may one day colonise the Red Planet. However, the first inhabitants might not be human in form at all, but rather swarms of tiny robots. 

“Small robots that are able to work together could explore the planet. We now know there is water and dust so all they would need is some sort of glue to start building structures, such as homes for human scientists,” says Marc Szymanski, a robotics researcher at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. 

They’re being referred to as “robot space ants” but making them will be no picnic.  I’ll keep you updated on that in the weeks to come.

No update on this story from last week:

A man wearing clown make-up and a wig is using balloons in an attempt to lure children into his vehicle on the South Side of Chicago. Police issued the alert about a week after a man with similar description was spotted on the West Side.

The man, who wears clown make-up and a wig, approached children with balloons attempting to lure them into his vehicle, but the children ran and called 911, the alert said.

The way I see it, Chicago cops have about six days to track down this potential predator before he’ll have a chance to blend in to the festive streets of Chi-town on Friday night.

A guy in clown suit trying to use treats to lure children stands out today.  In just six days, he’ll have the perfect camouflage . . . just like in the opening of the movie, “Halloween.”

Hiccup.

Dang.  I'm going to be stuck with these all night.

by Ian Punnett

 

Perfect fall in the Upper Midwest Saturday.  Everywhere the look of autumn colors, the smells of wood fires burning, the sounds of local football games.

In the park near my house, there are ponds that attract various water fowl (many of which truly foul the water . . . ).    Lately, the Canada Geese have been gathering in the park and I’m not exaggerating when I say that the biggest ones were 25 pounds with wingspans of what had to be six feet.

These Canada Geese are so beefy that they look like little ostriches--and just as likely to fly.

Some how they do fly but not without a lot of loud honking which now I understand better.  I’m not fluent in goose by any means but if a 25 pound goose is trying to take off with a belly full of food, all that honking just means “ow, ow, ow . . . .”

Anyway, it was a perfect fall day to go apple picking, which we did, and then go to pumpkin patch (the old fashioned kind where they don’t charge you for everything every time you turn around).

And two things struck me.  I know the economy is in trouble and all but everywhere we went today, there were willing consumers by the carloads in every shape and color.  I know I’m going to get slammed in the e-mail again with people branding me a right wing Republican but everywhere I go--from the corner tailor to the Mall of America there are people with money to spend.  I’m not saying that people aren’t hurting,  I’m just saying that depending on where you are, it doesn’t look like an economy teetering on the brink.

Which brings me to something I heard on TV the other day from a guy who owns a chain of seasonal Halloween superstores.  His business is through the roof--it’s the best year he’s had since the Halloween after 9/11 which set some sort of record.

Why?  Because in the Halloween business, he said, people spend the most on costumes, candy and parties when they need to take their minds off more serious things.  Bad years for the economy, he said, are the best years for spooky fun.

Which reminds me:  Is this first story for Crypto-News a trick or a treat?

A NEW sighting of South America’s ‘creepy gnome’ has caused panic among locals after a group of youngsters claimed a ‘midget monster’ ran towards them at night.

The teens – who recorded footage of the freaky being on their mobile phone – said they are now “too terrified” to go out at night.

Experts who examined the latest footage, taken in the town of Clodomira, province of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, last week, say it is ‘credible’.  (The Sun.UK)

Here’s the link but it seems bogus to me:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/weird/article1817406.ece

For that matter, I’m not any more certain about these ghost cab stories but they sure are cool:

The Solomon Times is investigating a group of cab drivers claiming to have picked up 'ghost passengers'.

The norm is for passengers in need of cab service to call and they come over.  No problem.

But the Solomon Times is reporting:

Cab drivers are getting spooked when night falls as many claim to "come face-to-face" with ghosts.

The word on the street is “that these cab drivers believe they have been seeing ghosts and worse scenerios are of some claiming to having ghost passengers.”

In one case, a cab driver picked up a passenger at a local airport "who just disappeared in the vehicle".

"I later realized that this passenger, who died early this year used to drive a taxi," the cab driver said.

Solomon Times received similar stories from fellow cab drivers and this other odd coincidence, whoever encounters the ghost passengers “will feel sick every evening and the only cure is to visit the church brothers".

I don’t know who the church brothers are that must be visited but I wonder if they wear clothes that are “right wally.”  Hang on to that thought.

First, as long as we’re in a Halloween mood . . . 

Molester Clown Impersonator, Or Urban Legend?

2 More Children Report Sightings Of Man In Clown Suit Trying To Lure Kids

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Two more children have told police they were approached by a sinister man dressed as a clown, after several other such incidents were reported. 

Both incidents happened on Wednesday, police said. In one incident, a child reported being approached by a clown while waiting at a bus stop, in the second incident, two boys told police a clown got out of a silver, four-door car and offered them a ride at 75th Street and South Shore Drive at 2:50 p.m. 

These were the latest in a rash of incidents involving a man wearing clown makeup and a wig approaching children in various parts of the city. In the incidents, the clown is carrying balloons and attempting to lure the children into his car. 

There have been two incidents on the city's South Side, police said. In both incidents, on Oct. 7 and Oct. 10, the children ran and called 911, police said. 

Last week Harrison Area detectives issued an alert for a man matching a similar description. 

That suspect was reported to be seen on foot in the Garfield Park neighborhood near an elementary school according to a community alert from area detectives. 

In both alerts police said the suspect was driving a white four-door van or brown pickup truck. 

The reports are understandably upsetting to parents. 

While police are taking the incidents seriously, a police source close to the investigation told CBS 2's Mike Parker that past scares involving men dressed as clowns have cast some doubt on some the current claims. 

A police source said at this point, the latest reports are being investigated accordingly and cannot be dismissed. But another source close to the investigation said the two reports from the city's West Side are now believed to be bogus. 

Whether or not every sighting is true or real, let’s not forget that John Wayne Gacy, one of the most notorious serial killers in human history, was in fact a murderous clown.  He never dressed as a clown to lure his young victims, to my knowledge, but Gacy did use his volunteer clown antics to deflect suspicion from his true nature.  Even in prison, Gacy took his mind off the bodies of the boys and young men he had buried under his porch by painting portraits, mostly of creepy clowns.

Gives me shivers just thinking about those poor kids.  I wonder what it’s like for the family that lives in the house that straddles Gacy’s former property.  As I understand it, the house that had been John Wayne Gacy’s address was eliminated officially from the Chicago address book, the property was added to the owner next door, blessed by a Cardinal and then a new house was built over both plots.

Still, on a cool fall night when you’re sitting on your porch, is it possible to never think of the bodies of those 29 victims of the mass murderer in the clown suit?  No wonder all of Chicago still has killer clown nightmares.

And it makes me wonder about all the undiscovered burial grounds left in the world, one you could be sitting over right now if you dug down far enough.

ROME, Italy (AP) -- Workers renovating a rugby stadium have uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath Rome that mimic the houses, blocks and streets of a real city.

Culture Ministry officials said Thursday that medieval pottery shards in the city of the dead, or necropolis, show the area may have been inhabited by the living during the Dark Ages after being used for centuries for burials during the Roman period.

It is not yet clear who was buried in the ancient cemetery, but archaeologists at the still partially excavated site believe at least some of the dead were freed slaves of Greek origin.

"It's a matter of a few weeks to discover what is down there," said archaeologist Marina Piranomonte. "But it's something big; it looks like a neighborhood."

Yeesh.  An uninhabited partially buried neighborhood that mimics the houses, blocks and streets of real city?  That sounds like downtown Davenport, Iowa when I lived there!

That’s a shout-out to my QC-Gnomies . . . 

And did somebody say Roman Empire era relics that never die?  It’s a little off the Halloween theme but did you hear about this?

(written by Graham Tibbetts)

Clergy should not have to wear robes during services because such rules are "absurd in the 21st century", according to a leading theologian.

Garments such as the cassock and surplice are a form of "power dressing" which reinforce class divisions and prevent the wearer getting the Lord's message across, said the Rev Andrew Atherstone.

"Robes can be a barrier to mission, a hindrance rather than a help."

The wearing of robes, which have their origins in the era of the late Roman empire, is enshrined in Canon laws based on rules from 1604.

Over the last four decades a number of attempts to amend the legislation have been thwarted.

During one debate in 1988, Bishop Pete Broadbent, a supporter of change, said: "Let members ask themselves whether there are not occasions...when they have been embarrassed by, or found evangelism hindered by, the clergyman up front in robes, looking a right wally?"

Exactly,  I don’t know what “right wally” means exactly but if it’s anything like anybody I’ve ever known named Wally, all I know is that the new robes I just picked up for church Sunday morning are going to look at lot better on the hanger than on me . . . 

 

by Ian Punnett

 

    “How to Tell if You’re an Episcopalian”

        (with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy)

If you refer to the basement of your own home as the “undercroft” . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If you can walk through the undercroft of your church after worship, get a cup of coffee, a cookie and wave to the ashes of half of all your ancestors . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If you even know who the hell St. Alban is . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If you’re afraid that if you worship more often than Christmas and Easter, you’ll start speaking in tongues . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If an acolyte with purple hair, facial piercings and flip-flops seems perfectly normal to you . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If you find yourself worrying whenever the Archbishop of Canterbury is interviewed because you know he’s about to say something really weird . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If just introducing yourself to a visitor sitting next to you at church seems a little too “evangelical” for you . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If you love communion but you just wish they would occasionally rotate a nice dry chardonnay or a sassy little pinot noire with your wafer . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If you’ve ever been to a church party and gotten seriously buzzed with your own priest . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If when people refer to St. Paul you have to keep reminding yourself that they don’t mean the late Sen. Wellstone . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If the Republican convention has been over for months but you still can’t get the smell of mace out of your favorite t-shirt . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If you secretly wish answering the phones during the annual PBS pledge drive could count as a mission trip . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

If churches without gay clergy just seem like they’re trying just a little too hard to be “butch” . . . You might be an Episcopalian . . .

Finally . . . 

If you not only have your pets blessed every year but you’re pretty sure that your dog should be allowed to take communion too . . . You just might be an Episcopalian . . .

(c) Ian Punnett 2008, All rights reserved