Today at work wasn’t too bad, managed to get one thing off my desk that popped up hot. Tomorrow I’ll see if any others showed like it in the week I was gone and if not, it’ll be reaching in to the pile and picking something.
Catching up on our household chores tonight and by Wednesday it will probably be like we never left. But I have about 4 or 5 little vacation stories to tell over the next few days. Then there is the weeding out of the 132 photos I took last week into at least one gallery page of 24. It may be more but not by much. There are 17 BMW Ultimate Drive photos that will come out of that 132 for sorting and thinning to be added to that gallery. This one won’t make the cut in either gallery.
I always have one of those “one day at a time” desk calendars at work as a conversation starter. Last year it was a Jeopardy! and this year it is Spot the Big Fat Lie. You are giving two different statements and it is your job to pick the false one. I’m usually pretty good at it, but today’s was easy because I knew the true one right off: One of P.T. Barnum’s famous “oddities” on display was the Fiji Mermaid, which was really the top half of a monkey sewn to the bottom half of a fish.
And how did I know? Episode 20 of Season 2: Humbug.
MULDER: Mister Helm, I wanted to ask you about this menu illustration. I recognized most of the historical portraits you’ve drawn here, but what’s this here?
(Scully rolls her eyes at the words “historical portraits.”)
HEPCAT HELM: It’s the Fiji Mermaid.
(He walks back to his desk carrying the menu.)
HAMILTON: Is that what that thing is?
SCULLY: What’s the Fiji Mermaid?
HEPCAT HELM: The Fiji Mermaid. It’s, it’s the Fiji Mermaid!
HAMILTON: It’s a bit of, uh… humbug Barnum pulled in the last century.
HEPCAT HELM: Barnum billed it as a real live mermaid but when people went into see it, all they saw was a real dead monkey sewn on the tail of a fish.
Who said watching the X-Files wasn’t educational.
The lie: P.T. Barnum owned more than 200 famous pairs of dentures, including the falsies worn by George Washington, Marie Antoinette and Robespierre.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 118