Projo Offbeat Blog

Finally, some good news on the economy: Gas prices are falling.

I never knew how happy I'd be to spend $3.199 per gallon to fill my gas tank. I actually gloated about this to some co-workers.

As the stock market crumbles and the jobless rate climbs, energy prices are falling.

It's good to know that we Americans can save a few cents driving to job interviews or the soup kitchen.

A story from the Associated Press reports that "advertising is coming to the dentist's chair in the form of personal video goggles that patients wear while getting their cleaning or root canal."

Here's my first thought and maybe my only thought on this story: Aren't people already in enough pain during a root canal?

Can you can picture this seen at the dentist's office?

Patient: "Doctor, more Novocain, please."

Dentist: "Is your tooth bothering you?"

Patient: "No, these ads are driving me nuts."

A great northern New England tradition has ended now that patrons of the Black Frog Restaurant in Greenville, Maine, can no longer skinny dip for a free lunch.

We first explored this quirky practice a year ago in a blog entry that questioned whether Seinfeld's George Costanza would shrink from the skinny dip challenge in chilly Moosehead Lake.

Now we'll never know.

Town fathers foiled restaurant owner Leigh Turner and his patrons by refusing to renew the restaurant's liquor license unless Turner stopped the promotion, which entitled the naked swimmers to a free Skinny Dip sandwich.

Turner says he's pulling the promotion. That makes sense. After all, restaurants can make a lot of money selling liquor. More importantly, nobody in the entire history of skinny dipping has ever gone skinny dipping without warming up first with a couple of drinks.

Sadly these hungry people from Maine will have to find another place to drop their L.L. Bean corduroys and express themselves, which brings us to the report of a man who was apprehended after swimming naked in the moat around Emporer Akihito's Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

The man splashed and threw rocks at police officers in a rowboat who chased him with a long stick.

The man's name was not given, but he was described as a westerner.

It might be a stretch to speculate that this swimmer was visiting the Land of the Rising Sun from the great state of Maine, but I'm willing to bet some saki was involved in his pre-swim warmup.

Lap dogs might as well be added to the endangered species list in California.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed legislation that would have provided a lifeline to these pooches that serve as little more than handy props for the rich and sometimes famous.

The former action-movie hero callously tossed aside legislation -- known to many as the Paris Hilton lap dog driving bill -- that would have fined drivers for getting behind the wheel of their BMWs, Ferraris and Lexuses with a pup on their lap.

Some might argue that sitting on the laps or in the handbags of wealthy women is the ideal role for these dogs. After all, they can't all serve as mascots for taco restaurants.
Some might even charge that depriving the dogs of this function would be like telling Saint Bernards they can't rescue lost mountain climbers or telling Huskies they can't pull sleds across snow.

Some people might even think these dogs lead glamorous lives, their fuzzy faces lighting up the television screens of millions of Entertainment Tonight fans, but I think they're victims of animal cruelty on a level that we haven't seen since Mitt Romney strapped the family dog to the top of his car before embarking on a family vacation.

These dogs have it tough. Dogs have sensitive noses. Their exposure to the unwashed paparazzi, however brief, must trigger violent allergic reactions. They can probably smell a single paparazzo from five miles miles away. Imagine the olfactory overload they suffer when surrounded by a whole pack of them.

And it doesn't get any easier. The people who keep them as props (not pets), the Paris Hiltons and Jessica Simpsons, are world-class shoppers. How do the dogs endure the marathon sessions at the mall with all the perfume and makeup sampling? What happens to the poor dog with a weak bladder who can't help but pee in the Gucci bag? Naughty dogs may be easier to replace than expensive handbags.

In vetoing the Paris Hilton lap dog driving bill, the macho governor has shown his prejudice against little girly dogs. If these stars were driving around with more macho German shepherds or rottweilers on their laps, you can be sure he'd have taken this measure seriously and ensured that the dogs couldn't be treated in such a cruel and demeaning way.

Tina Fey might have fun with it, but Maine television anchor Cindy Michaels says it's not always easy looking like Sarah Palin.

According to a story on sunjournal.com,
"Michaels gets e-mails and phone calls from people who insist she is trying to sway voters with the Palin look. She gets e-mails and phone calls from people who claim she is being vain."

One woman called her station, WVII, and referred to Michaels as "the Kmart version of Sarah Palin."

Williams' accusers note that she wears her hair up as Palin does and wears hip glasses as Palin does. Most Americans had never set eyes on Sarah Palin before John McCain named her as his running mate a few weeks ago, but Michaels says she's been wearing her hair up for years and has worn glasses or contact lenses since she was a teenager.

That prompted reporter Mark LaFlamme to question whether Sarah Palin should be accused of copying Cindy Michaels look. But it sounds to me like he's just another one of those mean reporters picking on Palin.

I felt like a sissy going to the emergency room for a couple of bee stings, especially since my 5-year-old son was also stung and was home recovering on the couch as if nothing had happened.

It didn't help when the emergency room doctor told me I should "come up with a better story, something involving a swarm of bees."

He was kidding -- I think.

Almost two hours earlier, I was playing outside with two of my sons when my son Tommy started screaming. He'd been stung. A bee or yellow jacket was still pursuing him when I went to help. I was stung on the hand and the leg.

I hurried the boys home, worried that Tommy, like me, was allergic. I had been stung as a kid, broke out in hives and had to go to a hospital. I worried that he might have inherited my allergy.

I figured I'd be okay, since it had been a long time since I'd been stung, and I'm much bigger now than I was then, but I wanted to keep an eye on Tommy. With a little ice, some pain-killing spray and a decent television show, Tommy seemed to recover pretty quickly. (For the record, he was stung once and I was stung twice.)

Then I noticed a hive on my arm. Sure enough, hives broke out on other parts of my body. My skin turned red in areas and got itchy. Still, I thought, how bad could it be?

Then I recalled this tidbit of information: More people die each year from bee stings than shark bites. That thought usually brings comfort when I've ventured a little farther off shore than usual, but it wasn't making me feel good right then.

So I turned to the Internet. It didn't make me feel any better.

The information on one Web site reported that 40 people die from bee stings annually. (I've since read higher estimates.) I learned that an allergic reaction can lead to a dangerous drop in blood pressure, swelling in the throat. In strong language, I read that people showing symptoms like mine should seek medical attention. (The story mentioned other symptoms, but I couldn't tell if I was starting to imagine them or really suffering from them.)

I thought of the people of Galveston, Texas, warned to flee before Hurricane Ike or "face certain death."

Still, I wondered if I was being wimpy, paranoid, a hypochondriac.

When my wife, Susie, got home a short time later, we updated her on the afternoon's events.

Research has shown that married men live longer than single men. I guess that's because marriage is the only way some of us acquire a common sense gene.

"You should get checked," she said.

I wavered.

She called the hospital and then I called my doctor, reaching him through an answering service since it was after hours. Then I went to the hospital.

The emergency room doctor's (apparent) kidding aside, they took my case seriously. They hooked me up to a bunch of monitors, gave me drugs intravenously and watched me for a couple of hours. Before I left, the doctor gave me several prescriptions, including one for a shot that could prove to be a life saver in the case of a severe reaction.

Looking back and knowing what I know now, I'd advise anyone who has an allergic reaction to a bee or wasp sting to get medical attention immediately. I know I will if it happens again. But I just might come up with a better story -- maybe something involving a swarm of sharks.

Fashion models, or, really, fashion designers are the gift that keep on giving to this blog.

At first I thought this photograph, taken by an AP photographer during fashion week in New York, was further proof that fashion designers really don't like fashion models and delight in putting them in clothes that make them look silly or give them great pain. Read 'I thought everyone liked super models.'

But after giving it more thought, I realize that this look could come in handy for somebody who's having a bad hair day or suffering from a gaping head wound.

It could also work for a fifer planning to march in a Fourth of July parade with two guys who play drums.

Related blog: "Hot new fashion trend: The bighorn sheep look"