James Amos

Butch Haircut Fixes the Bozo Effect

Sena gave me a butch haircut the other day. What led up to that?

About a month ago, I got a haircut at a local shop. Usually Sena cuts my hair (she’s been doing it for decades), but I occasionally go out for a haircut. I was pretty impressed with the guy who asked me if I was getting the bozo effect.

I immediately knew what he meant. I’m going bald on top and Sena sometimes may not cut the sides a little shorter to offset that—which I didn’t consider until the barber mentioned that bozo thing.

You might not know about the bozo effect unless you’re old enough to remember Bozo the clown. If you ever find a picture of him, he’s bald on top and has big, bright orange wings of hair sticking out from the sides of his head. When I was a kid, I got to sit in the studio audience once to watch his show. I remember there was a TV cartoon show segment which I couldn’t see because the TV set was way too small from where I sat in the bleachers. That was the technology back then.

Anyway, I was really happy with the haircut the guy at the shop gave me. It was the first time in my life I ever gave a tip to a hair stylist or barber.

It was time for another haircut and I had decided that I was going to get my haircuts at the shop. I tried to get an appointment at the same place. I found out the hard way that you can’t telephone to schedule appointments, you’re not entitled to see the same stylist every time, and the on-line check in system was out of order at both of the two shops in town. The wait time was 2 hours. The waiting areas were the size of many walk-in closets.

Sena was very sure that she could do just as good a job, though. She got a new hair cutting kit with all the different colored clipper guards and followed the instructions. She was scared at first and I was a little nervous. As it turns out, she gave me a great butch cut, which I haven’t had since I was old enough to watch Bozo the Clown.

I think it looks pretty good.

The Fox Gets Breakfast

We again caught sight of the fox. It was hunting for breakfast, and this time it caught a mouthful of—mouse or mole, but whatever it was the hunter gulped it down in a hurry.

It got pretty close to our neighbor’s fence while circling the outlot. Just like the tabby cat, it switches its tail when it’s about to catch a meal.

We think this is a red fox rather than a gray, but we’re not naturalists. The web reference I read says both red and gray foxes don’t chew their food, but swallow it whole, which is what this one did.

Foxes walk on their toes (called digitigrade), which is probably why I thought this one had a funny-looking gait. I thought at first it was lame when it was walking in the tall grass.

Door Painters Remembered Everything But The 3 Legged Pig Joke!

The door painters remembered everything but the 3-legged pig joke yesterday. But they remembered everything else. They worked pretty hard getting the doors back on the hinges.

One mystifying thing was that they rehung all the newly repainted doors without leaving so much as a smudge on them. They were spotless. We don’t know how they did it.

Anyway, the 3-legged pig joke is below:

One day a man drove by a farm and saw a three-legged pig. The man went up to the farmer and said, “Excuse me, but why does that pig only have 3 legs?”

“Well,” said the farmer, “that pig is very special. One time my wife was cooking something she stepped out of the kitchen and it caught on fire. No one in the house knew about it but the pig, and he saved me, my wife, and my 2 kids.”

“That’s amazing!” said the man, but why does the pig only have three legs?”

“Well, there was that time the pig saw a big storm coming and we didn’t. The pig ran into the house and dragged us out to the storm cellar. If it weren’t for that pig we would all be dead.”

“But still, that doesn’t explain why the pig only has 3 legs.”

“And I remember the time my youngest son was stuck up a tree, but I was too far away to hear his cries for help. The pig ran to me and led me to where he was.”

“Well, that is a miracle, but how come that pig only has 3 legs?” the man said quite annoyed at this point.

“Well,” said the farmer, “with a pig that special… you have to eat ’em real slow.”

Hey, I don’t write these jokes. That one came from a web site called Funny English Jokes.

Air Purifier Went to Code Green and More Odds and Ends

Just some odds and ends here today. Our new RENPHO Air Purifier went to Green Air Quality yesterday around lunchtime. It’s the first time since we got it that it changed. Green still means “good” air quality. Blue is “very good.” Orange is bad, red is “polluted,” and magenta is “evacuate now!” The fan speed increases a little between air quality indicators. It went back to Blue in about 20 minutes. We’re not sure what made it switch. I would make a comment about Sena cooking tater tots for lunch to what you might call Black quality, but then I would have to leave town.

I saw a new juggling trick that has attracted some jugglers to post new world records. Since I like to brag about being able to stand on one leg for a minute, I can tell you there are world records posted for longest time juggling the cascade while standing on one leg. There are two records. The first one was set in 2017 by a young man who did it for almost 11 minutes. Then, in April of 2023, another even younger kid did it for over 22 minutes.

I’m thinking there is a need for an “Old Guy Juggler” category so that I could set a new world record for juggling while standing on one leg for 4 or 5 throws. I’m sort of practicing.

Sena and I are trying to learn a new 2-person 5 ball juggling trick. For some reason, it’s a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Slow progress. I’ll keep you posted.

Our freshly repainted doors are supposed to be delivered today by a couple of painters. I’m wondering if I’ll hear the three-legged pig joke from one of them. How about a painter joke?

So, the painters finished painting my house and hand me the bill. I notice that by the paint, it says $0. I say, “You guys did such a nice job, why didn’t you charge me for the paint?” The head painter says, “Don’t worry about the paint, it’s on the house.”

Day of The Fox Hunt

Yesterday, Sena called me to the window in the sun room to see the “tabby cat.” When I got there, it looked a lot more like a fox. It was hunting in the outlot and it may have caught a rodent. It also seemed to be flea bitten.

When we first moved in to this house a few years ago, I saw a fox moving her kits from the outlot way off north somewhere, probably to another part of the woods. I guess she didn’t like the neighborhood. It was beginning to get a bit noisy from all the construction on the new neighborhood.

This was not the same fox. It looked quite at home.

CDC Update on Respiratory Viruses and the Covid-19 Vaccine

CDC posted an update on Covid-19 vaccination on October 13, 2023. In brief, the salient points:

They save lives and prevent hospitalizations.

The vaccines work.

The side effects are mild or moderate.

Scientific evidence supports the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.

They don’t make you magnetic and they don’t have microchips to track your movements. We’re not living in an X-File episode.

Plant Based Cheese Made with Artificial Intelligence Is Only The Beginning!

We tasted plant-based cheese by Kraft yesterday. Sena bought it at Hy-Vee the other day. It’s actually not bad. The company is called Kraft NotCo. They make Not Cheese. It’s made with chickpeas, which are the same thing as garbanzo beans. You can also buy plant-based mayo, called Not Mayo. I don’t know if it’s made with chickpeas.

Sena could have got Not Mayo; instead, she got Miracle Whip—a miracle by itself because she likes “real” mayo.

What’s really interesting about these products is how they’re made. On the Kraft Heinz NotCo website, you’ll find a description of these products in the About section entitled “Not Your Average Joint Venture.” One line is thought-provoking:

“Our partnership reimagines the brands you love from Kraft Heinz using proprietary AI from NotCo to give you the plant-based version of your favorite foods that deliver on taste and performance.”

I’m assuming that AI stands for Artificial Intelligence (not “Absolutely Inedible”). So, how did Artificial Intelligence get involved? What does the AI actually do? Does it come up with the recipes for Not Foods? Are tiny bits of genetic code and nanobots involved?

Does this mean we’ll become enslaved by AI powered men in black who conspire with extraterrestrials to collect human embryos to create the giant Cheese Bots who take over the earth making it a gigantic assembly line to make smartphones that will make it easier to butt dial your congress persons to demand more laws making Home Owners Associations covenants mandatory and violators punishable by the giant garbage goblin in the well-known X-Files documentary “Arcadia”?

No; no, it does not mean that. You can safely eat AI manufactured chickpea products without fear of being transformed into an Extraterrestrial-Robot-Not Cheese hybrid super soldier marching on Washington, D.C. to force feed congress persons with Braunschweiger and Not Cheese Sandwiches with Not Mayo on Not Wheat Bread and Not Lemonade.

I kind of like Not Cheese and I don’t feel any different.

An Unexpected Encounter with Bigfoot on the Clear Creek Trail

The other day we put in about a 2.5 mile walk on the Clear Creek Trail in Coralville. We haven’t been there in a long while. It gets really quiet along the wooded trail. Sometimes even the birds don’t sing.

It was pretty quiet except for some strange knocking noises. You know, Sena has taken the lead in spotting Bigfoot in our walks in three parks, counting our latest trek. She saw Bigfoot in Hickory Hill Park, Terry Trueblood Recreation Area, and now again on the Clear Creek Trail.

She’s a Bigfoot hunter, there’s no doubt. This Bigfoot we saw a couple days ago was different. It obviously was interested in helping the Hawkeye football team with their offense. It eats plant-based cheese for some reason. I always thought it preferred beef jerky.

Did you know Bigfoot plays guitar?

Decision Time on Flipped Drain Tile Lids

OK, today another drain tile lid flip. We made a decision yesterday on this. We’re going to have the installers return and screw down all seven lids. Sure, it’ll mean I have to unscrew them to clear out the debris. Whatever.

The guy we called said this is happening because of an over-eager squirrel. That may be the case.

Let’s see if squirrels carry screwdrivers.

I have searched the internet for a solution to this problem. All I ever find are links to my blog posts about it.

Door Painter Dad Joke

We just got our upstairs doors picked up by the painters yesterday. They took all the doors off the hinges and taped numbers on them to keep track. They’ll probably finish them and return them by the end of the week. Two guys removed the doors and one of them had a dad joke for me:

“A man was driving along the motorway when he noticed a chicken running alongside his car. He was amazed to see the chicken keeping up with him, as he was doing 60 mph. He accelerated to 70, and the chicken stayed right next to him. He sped up to 75 mph, but the chicken overtook him.

Then the man noticed that the chicken had three legs. So, he followed the chicken, speeding all the way, and ended up at a farm. He got out of his car and saw that all the chickens on the farm had three legs.

When he spotted the farmer he asked him, “Where did you get these chickens?”

The farmer replied “Well, everybody likes chicken legs, so I bred a three-legged bird. I’m going to be a millionaire.”

The man was impressed and asked him how they tasted. The farmer said, “Don’t know, I haven’t caught one yet.”

Now, he didn’t tell it exactly that way, but it was just as funny. It was the first time I heard the 3-legged chicken story. Of course, as with any sort of hairy dog (hairy chicken?) story, there are different versions of it. I looked this up on the internet and Ronald Reagan told it. It was posted 12 years ago, has 2 million views, 32,000 likes, and about 1800 comments.