Alpaca Llama Ding-Dong

So today I hear an ad on the radio for some alpaca farm, and think to myself "What are alpacas good for except selling to other would-be alpaca ranchers?" 

Then I came up with this list:

• alpaca-flavored gum

• junkyard guard alpacas

• alpaca-flavored vodka

• alpaca blind-dating service

• McAlpaca burgers

• next president of Syria

• Marie Callender's deep-dish alpaca pot pie

• successor-in-waiting to Kim Jong Un: Kim Pu Alpaca

• next up on FOX: 

      So You Think You Can Be An Alpaca Idol With A Voice

Now if I only had a mindless, wealthy investor...

Let the inmates run the asylum

(editorial headline from this week's Amherst Bee)

And while we're at it, maybe Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley, Jr. should have seats on the parole board; and how about putting Howard Stern in charge of the FCC, and electing Rush Limbaugh president of NOW.

Beam me up, Scotty

As I came across this classified ad in today's Tonawanda News, a Tower of Power song came on my iPod. Is that some kind of a sign or what? Maybe I'll take them to my next bloggers support group meeting.

The ad failed to mention a price, but I'm sure they're a real steel.

The obesitzing of America

What a great idea — a cupcake vending machine (only $4 each!). I'm picturing this Beverly Hills cupcake shop as being between a dentist's office and the local Weight Watcher's location. Three more machines are planned to "roll out" this summer in NYC.

The next vending machine craze? Defibrillators to go.

The Day the Music Dyed

Seems that Baillie, writing for this week's edition of NCCC's school paper The Spirit, finally got that 51" HD flat screen television hooked up, and saw a close-up of American Idol judge Steven Tyler (a man with remarkably few gray hairs for someone quickly approaching the age of 64).

The nose have it

After spending an eight-hour shift in a closed-up patrol car, I'll bet the officer really didn't smell anything unusual in the air outside.

(...from the 2/29 Ken-Ton Bee Police Blotter)

The irony of Woods' wood

So I'm reading today's sports page about Tiger Woods' big stare-off with a reporter who dared ask him about his former coach's new book, lovingly titled "The Big Miss." Hank Haney was Woods' swing coach for six years, before resigning in 2010.

What surprises me here is that Woods allowed Haney to remain on his team for that long after discovering that a swing coach had nothing to do with helping him meet women while on the PGA tour.

Intersections I'd Like to See Dept.

...and I'm sure that somewhere out there I could find a June Avenue And a Wally Street. (I know where there's already an especially Lumpy Parkway!

Wrapping up my retirement plans

Stopped in to a local estate sale today, where Tracy bought a vintage roll of Christmas wrapping paper with an 89¢ S.S. Kresge price sticker on it. Only cost her a buck.

Am now working on a scheme to put all of our savings into wrapping paper and sell it in 50 years to bankroll our retirement.

Oh wait, I'll be dead by then.

Well-done, Tartare. Food critic pulls a boner.

Local self-proclaimed food critic Pork Tartare was recently banned from posting anymore reviews on the website In the Mood for Food after complaints from a local ethnic group. In a post about a local eatery, Tartare referred to the meat in a sandwich he ate as "Polish Sausage." A group calling itself Poles Are People, Too demanded the website discipline Tartare for demeaning an entire ethnicity by tying its national heritage to a "greasy oblong-shaped piece of meat-like food of questionable origin." They also asked that, in the future, such pieces of meat be referred to as "Irish Sausage."

180 trips from the couch to the the john and back?

The ad says it was only used for three hours.

What it doesn't mention (after a while you kind of learn to read between the lines of these things) is that the right turn signal was on the whole time.

And a Beer to Wash It All Down

I see that my calendar is open for this event, but I'm waiting to find out what's for dessert before I commit.

Write of Way

This Buffalo News story today mentions how the cost of traffic returning to Main Street downtown has just gone up by $263,000... for consultants' fees. Seeing that (at least, I believe) they're not removing the Metro Rail tracks, just how much does it cost for someone to figure out how to repaint new lines in the street?

Part of the new cost is for "complete(ing) documents for the phase of the project in the 600 block of Main."

Are they having unionized monks hand-scribe the documents? In gold ink? On parchment made from unicorn skin?

I've gotta get me one of these consultant jobs.

LAFFinitions

Today's word:

• violate

Meaning:

• The guy in the string section who never seems to be on time.