Archives for February 2011

Well, it’s practically March– and I’m happy to say that I’ve stuck to my New Years resolution so far.  I’ve resolved to de-clutter my life, one week (and one bag) at a time …

Week 4: I’ve found that hanging a garbage back on our pantry-room doorknob helps remind me that I need to keep filling it!! This week I tackled my husband Brian’s dresser drawers.

I discovered that he has about a million white undershirts, some of which are NOT white anymore! I peaked my head in the bathroom where Brian was a showering and yelled, “Honey… do I have your permission to toss out your white shirts, that are no longer white?!” and to my surprise he emphatically said, YES!!! So, they went into the donation bag in the pantry without a fight from the hubby.

There are a bunch of places you can donate your items, but I wanted to find a unique cause. I poked around for a while, and discovered this place called the St. Leonard’s Ministries on 2100 West Warren Blvd., right here in Chicago!

They provide comprehensive residential, case management, and employment services for those released from prison without resources needed to rebuild their lives. So, basically they help convicts work their way back into the real world. It is a very worthy and effective charity. St. Leonard’s Ministries are constantly in need of clothing for both men and women. I chose this organization because I believe that everyone deserves a second chance, and St. Leonard’s Ministries has been helping people achieve that since 1954– and I want to do my part to help in some way.

Watch a youtube video with Mayor Daley at the Adult High School Graduation for St. Leonard’s Ministries by clicking HERE. Daley encourages the city of Chicago to raise awareness for this great organization.

I’m looking forward to tackling another room next week. I think I’ll do the office & start going through all of our junk-drawers. St. Leonard’s Ministries will soon have another donation from us :).

You can also make donations to St. Leonard’s Ministries… here’s how:

Please address donations to:
Bob Dougherty, Executive Director
St. Leonard’s Ministries
2100 W. Warren Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60612

We’ve all done silly things in bed. You know what I mean. One minute you’re giggling innocents rollicking on the cheap hotel mattresses and then someone breaks out the heated baby oil, rubber sheets and leather masks. Or maybe you’re having some serious fun, doing the all flesh bumper cars routine, when suddenly you see 2 D batteries and hear a buzzing sound near your butt. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Maybe you’re like me, and right now every sexual partner you’ve ever had is thanking whatever God they worship that you’re not, and you have that perfect moment to break out the sock puppets and rubber nose.

Of course, we all know that perfect moment.

It’s about 10 seconds before you think it is.

So none of us are all that surprised that a nice man burned down his home by using voodoo candles during sex, are we?

MSNBC reports that a nice man did just that. Even though serious practitioners in Chicago know the proper term is Hoodoo.

Candles arranged on the floor for a voodoo ceremony caused a five-alarm fire that ripped through a Brooklyn apartment building last week, killing a 64-year-old woman and injuring 20 firefighters, the FDNY said Friday.

Fire marshals said the fire began around 6:40 p.m. on Feb. 20, when a Brooklyn woman visited a fourth-floor apartment in the Flatbush building, where she paid one of the male occupants $300 to perform a voodoo ceremony aimed at bringing her good luck.

A city official says the man was known in the neighborhood as a priest and the two were having sex when the fire started.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. He said he did not know whether the sex was part of the ceremony.

Candles on the floor around a bed where the ceremony took place ignited bed linens and clothes on the floor, fire officials said. Instead of calling 911, the man began retrieving water from a bathroom sink in a futile effort to put it out, but the flames only grew.

According to Fire Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano, the occupant then opened the door to the hallway, which “allowed fire to spread into the hallway.”

Nearly 50 families were left homeless, and a retired guidance counselor, Mary Feagin, died in the blaze, which took some seven hours to get under control.

Her body was found in the debris on the top floor of the building on East 29th Street. Earlier this week, fire officials said that a dispatching error had delayed getting help to the blaze.

Dispatchers had directed an engine company to the fire on East 29th Street, but it was already at another emergency, helping a police officer who had accidentally shot himself in the leg.

FDNY spokesman Jim Long said the delay lasted “over a minute,” until dispatchers discovered the error and sent another engine to the apartment fire. Officials said high winds also intensified the blaze.

Fire engulfed the fourth, fifth and sixth floors, causing part of the roof and fourth floor to collapse.

The fire department said the investigation is ongoing; it was not immediately clear whether there would be charges.

What could they charge them with? Reckless dangerous sex? Good luck with that one, counselor. We live in a society that advertises candles = sex every day.

I know that governments the world over have been intruding in our private lives more and more often. But, so far, even the worst of their attempts to legislate sex have been woefully ineffective. Thank God for that. After all, who among us hasn’t wanted to fire off a rifle when a woman has an orgasm?

Oscar night is a big night for lots of those Hollywood movie stars, but without a particular Chicago connection, it would be missing some of the glitz.  In particular, those shiny statuettes that they are all hoping to get their hands onto.  Before you were even born, (assuming that your under the age of 30), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been passing out Oscars statues from Chicago.

In 1982, R.S. Owens & Company, which made bowling trophies, got the gig to make those famous 13½ inches tall and 8½ pounds golden statuettes.   They also awards for Emmy, the MTV Video Music Award, the Academy of Country Music Award, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Award, and many others.

In 1998, NUDE HIPPO got a grand production tour of the R.S. Owens plant, by the man who started it all, Owens Siegel.  As the owner & founder, he began his company in 1938.  It was a great honor for our program to go inside and see an Oscar made from start to finish.  After the segment aired during Oscar week, a copy of his appearance on NUDE HIPPO and a thank you letter was sent out by Jim Gronemann, one of the producers back then.  To all of our surprise, Owen sent us a thank you letter for OUR thank you letter and expressed his delight in our coverage.

Years later, The Museum of Science & Industries opened an exhibit showcasing how R.S. Owens cast, molded, polished and buffed the Oscars for the 2004 award show.  NUDE HIPPO covered this event and included some of the footage that was used from the original Oscar piece.

Owen Siegel passed away at 81 in 2001.  His son Scott Siegel is now in-charge of the family business and the tradition still continues.  Our original coverage of Owen’s tour was damaged.  If our tapes were made as well as the statues that he made, there is no doubt that you would be watching his tour right now…so from my memory from that tour, I can tell you, that not only every worker did a fantastic job, but Owen was very proud of the work that was being done there.  Even his bowling trophies were made to last forever.  I just wish I could say the same for our footage.

It’s been an interesting day here at the World News Center. While it started as the kind of day where everyone was a focused world beater, it quickly devolved into a day where everyone was searching the web for stories about pigs. Well, as our producer likes to say, “Thank God for the Interweb!” After the obligatory Pigs In Space, starring C3PO and friends, and a couple of cursory sites about Gummy Bacon, it was off to serious concerns. “Such as,” you ask? Well, such as the nice German man who was attacked by flying pig’s knuckles. Or maybe the minor faux pas on a recent EasyJet flight where they tried to pass off an all pork menu on an Israeli flight. Sadly, they discovered there’s no such thing as Kosher Ham.

That revelation, likes its porcine counterparts referenced above, just flew over the heads of everyone sitting to my right.

Oh well.

But while our staff may be easily distracted, and currently trading kewt kitty videos, I am not.

No siree Bob. You don’t climb to the lofty heights of being the Senior Reporter at Nude Hippo’s World News Center without being on the ball. Which is why that, instead of being distracted, I’m going to write about distractions.

Before I begin, in a continued effort at journalistic transparency, I must tell you two things. First, I’m about as limber as a brick. Second, last July, a nice lady talking on a cell phone, while eating a burger, smoking and driving, forced me to attempt some Cirque du Soleil level acrobatics to avoid being crushed by her Camry.

In other words, I’m a touch sensitive when it comes to distracted drivers.

Reuters reports that I am not alone.

Whether is it texting during dinner, talking on a cellphone in a public restroom or using a laptop while driving, most people think mobile etiquette is getting worse, not better.

Ninety one percent of U.S. adults questioned in a new poll by computer innovation company Intel said they have seen people misuse technology, and three quarters think mobile manners have decreased in the past year.

“New digital technologies are becoming a mainstay in consumers’ lives, but we haven’t worked out for ourselves, our families, communities and societies what all the right kinds of behaviours and expectations will be,” said Genevieve Bell, the head of interaction and experience research at Intel.

The poll of 2,000 adults revealed that most U.S. adults wished people practised better mobile etiquette and found the lack of cellphone manners extremely annoying, even though about 20 percent admitted to poor etiquette themselves.

Nearly 75 percent said the lack of mobile manners has created a new form of public rage and 65 percent admitted they became angry around people who misused mobile devices.

The most annoying behaviours were the use of mobile devices during driving, followed by talking on a cellphone loudly in a public place and walking in the street while texting or talking on the phone.

People reported seeing, on average five mobile offenses every day, according to the poll. Nearly a quarter said they had even seen someone using a laptop while driving, and one in five said they checked their mobile devices before getting out of bed in the morning.

As I have previously noted, there are even some people who text during sex. Never with me, mind you, but they do exist.

Personally, I don’t get the fascination or the need. When I was a kid my grandfather would routinely ignore a ringing phone if he was doing something else. He always used to say “People are either calling to borrow money I don’t have, tell me someone’s dead who I can’t resurrect or waste my time, which I don’t want to do.” He also would mention that no one ever calls to tell you they’re on their way over with the money they borrowed. You have to call them to get that.

All these decades later, I can’t see that he was wrong.

There are times I wonder how stupid people are and there are other times I know. Today is one of the latter. I recently had a nice e-conversation with Joey G. (scroll down after you click the link) from Squidoo.com about people who believe in the Ghost Hunters TV show. These people are, what we politely call, morons. He’s a very rational person, quite lucid and capable of completing a sentence without drooling on his keyboard. Heck, he even knows how not to type in ALL CAPS. In other words, he’s exactly our target audience. The kind of person who looks for the rational amongst the illiterate hyperbole.

Sadly he appears to be rare.

Even so, that does not mean we give up the fight. Nay, I say unto you, now is the time for us to redouble our efforts and demand that factoids not be substituted for facts. Just FYI, factoids are not little facts. The word means something that resembles, but isn’t, the primary noun. A chimpanzee is a humanoid, but it’s not human. That’s what the Grecian “oid” suffix was meant to convey. Any other use is stupid.

And wrong.

Benjamin Radford at Discovery writes about about a bunch of mindless tools who think they’ve found a boy with magnetic skin. Thankfully Ben, I feel safe using the familiar here today, is not a moron.

A 7-year-old Serbian boy named Bogdan is making international news for an apparently paranormal (though not terribly useful) ability.

According to several sources including MSNBC and The Daily Mail, Bogdan is magnetic. Household objects such as spoons, knives and forks cling to his skin with almost supernatural ease. The idea that a person could generate a strong magnetic field is bizarre, but what’s even stranger is that other things stick to him too, such as small plates, small flat glass objects and even a remote control.

Bogdan is only the latest in a long line of people who have claimed this ability. Yet there is no evidence that Bogdan, or anyone else, is “magnetic.”

The key to understanding this phenomenon lies not in magnetism nor in any sort of mystical ability but instead in the physics of friction. Skin is very elastic (that’s why they call it “plastic surgery”) and tends to conform to objects it comes in contact with. This is especially noticeable on hot days when bare skin attaches itself to leather or plastic seats. Skin can also be somewhat adhesive for the same reason.

It also has nothing to do with magnetism. Indeed, the fact that non-magnetic (non-ferrous) materials such as plates stick to his skin is proof of that. What do metals, glass and plastic have in common? All of them have very smooth surfaces.

So-called magnetic people have a few characteristics in common. First, they have very little hair on their bodies. Sometimes (as in the case of 7-year-old Bogdan) it’s because the person is an adolescent and has not reached puberty. Often the magnetic people are of Asian descent and thus not typically hirsute. This is important because any hair that comes between the skin and an object placed on the skin will reduce the friction.

Second, magnetic people seen in photographs and videos with objects on their body tend to lean back slightly, or stand more or less perpendicular to the ground. If there really was some sort of unknown or magnetic force holding the objects to the body, the person should be able to lean over. It’s also true that Bogdan is a bit chubby, and thus some of the weight of the spoons and other objects on his chest is actually resting on the upper part of his protruding stomach.

If the reason the objects are sticking to the “magnetic” person is because of magnetism instead of simple skin friction, there’s no reason they should only stick to bare skin. Magnetic attraction works even through a thin piece of paper, and if the magnetism is as strong as is claimed, the magnetic people should be able to do their trick with a shirt on.

There’s no real secret or mystery to it: Anyone who’s seen a child with a spoon on his or her nose has seen it before. So are these people faking for attention, or do they really believe they have these powers? Most likely, they really believe they have special abilities. The only reason it seems unusual is that very few people spend their free time sticking spoons, knives and small plates on their bare chests to see if they stick.

Furthermore, testing these supposedly magnetic folks is easy: Simply apply a light coat of oil to the skin and see how well things stick. With the natural adhesive properties of skin removed, the magnetism either works — or it doesn’t.

DAMN YOU BEN! How dare you use rational thought to deal with misguided beliefs?

Just FYI, I have an acquaintance who claims to be magnetic. Once oil was properly applied all of the spoons fell off. He insists that my test was a conspiracy prompted by President Obama.

As I note earlier, we (politely) call these people morons.