Learning to Use the Komati Basin Water Authority  (KOBWA) Egg Flipper!

I’ll deal with the silly KOBWA acronym later. Sena bought some new kitchen utensils and she got these egg flippers (one red and one black). They’re supposed to make it easier to flip fried eggs. I think a regular person who knows how get around a kitchen would do better than I did this morning to handle this tool.

On the other hand, I think I have a legitimate point to make about the egg flipper. I usually break yolks when I try to flip eggs, so they end up not looking pretty.

The egg flipper is a combination of a spatula and tongs. The tong set is above the spatula and you just squeeze the flexible handle to close them over the egg when you’re ready to flip them over.

I’m not sure how to make sure the yolk is out of the way. I hope others besides me notice that unless you position this instrument just right, you’d end up with crushed yolks. This doesn’t make much of a difference to me because I usually find a way to crush the yolks anyhow.

Sena found an interesting article about the inventor of the spatula, although I didn’t actually see that one; she just mentioned it. I think I found it later, though. The writer often doesn’t get credit for the original article but wrote another article in which he says his first one is often misquoted and leaves out his byline. His name is George Billions. For what it’s worth, the line under his name on his blog says “writes fiction and other lies.” Just sayin’.

There was one comment on Billion’s’ original article who requested a reference to support what he wrote about John Spaduala. For complicated reasons, a reference is hard to come by, and I think I’ll just add a reference to Billions’ article out of respect:

“John Spaduala: Inventor of the Spatula.” Spatula Planet. Spatula Planet, 3 Feb. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

I don’t know why he calls himself Mike because the name of his blog is George Billions.

I don’t usually pay much attention to Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the internet, but sometimes they are too intrusive to ignore. AI essentially says there was no such person as John Spaduala and that the story is a recurring anecdote. It’s an urban legend.

What lends weight to the AI judgment is a web article purporting to be an interview with John Spaduala himself, even though the guy lived in the 19th century and the interview was conducted in 2017 by Jason Denness who entitled it “Fake Interview: John Spadula.” Denness thanks George Billions for being the “victim of this interview.” While Denness credits George Billions by saying “He is the creation of John Spaduala…” I suspect that’s a typo and maybe what he meant was that Billions is the “creator” of John Spaduala.

That said, the question is who invented the egg flipper? It wasn’t John Spaduala. Technically, even though I have no right to make any judgments about this, there might not be any specific person identified as the inventor of the egg flipper. As near as I can tell, a spatula can be a “turner,” (also called a flipper) but a turner isn’t necessarily a spatula.

The name or acronym applied is KOBWA, which I suspect is not the inventor’s name, but the name of the company that markets the egg flipper spatula. The only thing I found on my admittedly cursory search is the Komati Basin Water Authority, which has no connection to any kitchen utensil. You can find kitchen gadgets with the name Kobwa (or KOBWA), though. However, there are other weird trademark related names for the egg flipper as well. I don’t know why.

I’m pretty sure they weren’t invented by any descendants of John Spaduala—if he had any. You’re welcome.

Big Mo Pod Show: “High Strangeness”

As usual, I listened to the Big Mo Blues Show last night. Today, we listened to the Big Mo Pod Show, and it sure was interesting.

First, I’d like to point out that the title “High Strangeness” doesn’t apply to all of the songs on the podcast. In fact, only the first one, “Neoprene Fedora” would sound a little strange as a blues tune, and then only the first couple of minutes or so of this guitar instrumental. We think it has 3 or 4 segments with only the first one sounding mostly like a surfing tune. Most of it did sound bluesy.

The song “Catfish Blues” by Corey Harris was fascinating mainly because it prompted Big Mo to mention MayRee’s hand-battered catfish. We heard him say that this was about MayRee. We’re not so sure. We couldn’t figure out the connection between MayRee and catfish that you could catch in a river maybe somewhere down south, (possibly Louisiana?) in a very specific place where there used to be a couple of shacks where you could get hand-battered catfish.

He had very specific names for places like “Brownsville” or someplace the name of which reminded me of a French word, “rouleaux” (which I connect with stacks of red blood cells just because I learned this is medical school). But it sounded like it was a place. AI popped right up and said there’s no such place by that name in Louisiana or Texas. Big Mo also mentioned that it was close to a “Missouri river bridge.” I think we heard him right. The Missouri runs along the western boundary of Iowa. There are bridges in that area, but I can’t tell which one is referred to.

I’m thinking this story might just be adding texture to the whole MayRee’s hand-battered catfish yarn.

Another puzzle was somebody Big Mo mentioned called Tail Dragger, to which Corey Harris had a connection. Big Mo didn’t expand on this, but I did manage to find out about somebody named Tail Dragger Jones, who was an American Chicago blues singer. He has an interesting Wikipedia entry on the web. He shot and killed a blues artist known as Boston Blackie and did prison time for it.

And we had the impression that the last song reviewed on the podcast, “Take It Easy” by Ruthie Foster, was a blues song that was readily applicable to anyone having a tough time in life. On the other hand, Big Mo thought it was about women being mistreated by men and how to bear up under this burden.

Conversely, our impression is that most blues songs done by men often have themes that remind you of the chauvinistic attitude men have for women. Just listen to any of the other songs on the podcast list and look up the lyrics (because you can’t always understand them on the recordings).

I especially like songs which have lyrics that I can clearly understand, and “Take It Easy” is one of them.

Dealing with an Adjustable Fanny Pack Strap

I’m waiting for delivery of my case, protector screen, and holster clip for my new smartphone. It’s taking a while and I need a safe way to carry my phone. So, Sena got me a fanny pack.

I’ve never had to deal with a fanny pack strap, but since it’ll be a few weeks for my stuff to be delivered, I had to cope with the adjustable strap. Believe it or not there’s a couple of YouTube videos that show how to put things into the pouch—but no videos demonstrating how to adjust the strap.

I’ve never had to cope with a fanny pack strap, but I think I figured it out. I made a video. See what you think.

The Magic of the Wave

Over three years ago, I posted about a waving man we used to see a lot of on a busy street in Iowa City (yes, we have them). He worked at the grocery store and waved at traffic whether he was walking to work or leaving. He still works there but we don’t drive that route much anymore so we don’t see him out waving.

Occasionally I’ll see news stories about men who wave at people driving by. They always look like they have a great time being friendly. I think most of us get a big kick out of it.

I saw another story today about a guy named Kent Proudfit in Urbandale, Iowa who does the same thing. After a while I wondered why I saw only stories about men do the waving thing. And then I found a story about a 74-year-old woman named Patricia Bracey who’s a waver in Chesterfield, Virginia. She says the Lord told her to do it.

So, waving at people driving by is an equal opportunity activity for cheering up others. I get the sense that it’s mostly older people who sit or stand by the side of the road and wave at folks driving by.

On the other hand, there is another phenomenon that works on the same principle of helping others feel good. It’s the Iowa Hawkeye Wave at the end of the first quarter of the football game in which the all the players, staff, and tens of thousands of fans of all ages in the stands get up at wave at the kids and their families in the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. It’s now called one of the greatest traditions in college sports. It got started in 2017, which is not such a very long time ago.

So, go ahead and wave.

Upcoming Svengoolie Movie: “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken”

Svengoolie Intro: “Calling all stations! Clear the air lanes! Clear all air lanes for the big broadcast.”

This coming Saturday, Svengoolie will show the 1966 comedy horror film “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.” I think it’s pretty good and Sena likes the movie too.

I’ve seen this film before at least once and I thought one of the times was on the Svengoolie show. But you’d think I’d have blogged about it. I can’t find any posts about it, though.

The gist of it is that Luther Heggs (Don Knotts) is a typesetter for a small-town newspaper and gets into a position in which he has to solve a murder mystery. It entails spending some time in a haunted house. He’s chicken-livered but perseveres (“Attaboy, Luther!”). He has to nip it in the bud.

If you ever watched The Andy Griffith Show, then you’ll recognize the comedy antics of Barney Fife in this movie (“These hands are like steel!”).

Sena Hates Her New Smartphone!

Since we’ve gotten new smartphones, we’ve been working on getting up to speed on how to use them. More often they seem to be using us.

In fact, Sena is pretty bummed about how much fiddling around with a smartphone you have to do. She used a little flip phone for years and this is a big upgrade (she would say “downgrade”) for her.

Zuckerberg wants to replace smartphones with Artificial Intelligence (AI) glasses. Sena tells me Bill Gates has been talking about replacing them with electronic tattoos.

That reminds me of a 1997 X-Files episode I don’t remember seeing called “Never Again.” Some guy gets a tattoo on his arm of a girl with the words “Never Again” under it. It starts talking to him and making him do crazy things, like buying mobile phones priced around $1,000, which is about what they cost back in 1997. Smartphones cost about the same these days.

Is that how electronic tattoos would work? Or would they just send mind control messages telling you to buy more of the same stocks in Bill Gates’ portfolio?

There are a plethora of new ads and promotional messages that we’ve never seen before:

Buy new armpit removal tool for half-price!

Upgrade to AI-assisted fruitcake recipe idea generating protocol!

Install planet construction and combustion instructions now!

I’m thinking we’ll Never Again purchase new smartphones.

Huston-Tillotson University News!

I feel like I should put on my Huston-Tillotson College (H-TC) news reporter press tag for this brief announcement, which you can get pretty much anywhere on the web anyway. Just a reminder, I was a reporter for the Ramshead Journal back in the 1970s for H-TC (now H-T University).

The breaking news is that the Moody Foundation recently gave H-TU a large gift of $150 million. It’s the largest gift to a single Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in history. Furthermore, the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave a $70 million gift to the United Negro College Fund recently to be divided among the 37 HBCUs. H-TU will also get a piece of that.

For more details about these donations, see the pbs story.

As an aside, the Jackson-Moody Humanities building on campus was named after the Moody Foundation, which covered the financial cost of construction. E.W. Jackson was a former trustee and donor. I took my English, Literature, and Spanish classes there.

picture is in the public domain

The other news is that H-TU rose in the National rankings and is now the #1 private HBCU in Texas for 2026.

A big congratulations to Huston-Tillotson University!

Svengoolie Show Movie: “The Night Strangler”

I saw the 1973 made for TV movie “The Night Strangler” directed by Dan Curtis and starring Darrin McGavin as the investigative reporter Carl Kolchak. I’ve never seen the first Kolchak movie, “The Night Stalker.”

The gist of The Night Strangler plot is that some guy in Seattle is strangling women and getting a little blood from them. People are scared; Kolchak is putting clues together with a lot of help from a local newspaper archivist researcher Titus Berry (Wally Cox) while local police as well as Kolchak’s editor, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) spend a lot of time yelling at Kolchak—which just provokes him to yell back. Eventually Kolchak irritates everybody so much they all just haul him up to the top of the Space Needle and toss him through a window. He happens to land on top of the first of 6 belly dancers killed by the strangler.

She’s as white as a sheet, dead as a doornail and has decayed flesh around her neck. She’s so anemic as to be white as a fish belly though the coroner finds that only a few drops of blood were drained from her neck.

And that really gets Kolchak started. He’s an extremely annoying reporter who doesn’t take “no” for an answer from anybody, even the owner of the Pink Elephant car wash who refuses to let him run his old jalopy through it for free.

Kolchak always wears the same dingy suit no matter how many times he gets thrown from the Space Needle and ignores everybody who insists he have the suit dry-cleaned.

He takes pictures of cops being thrown around like rag dolls in an alley (not Post Alley where the Gum Wall is) by a bull strong man who apparently can also dodge speeding police cruisers like a running back.

However, the police confiscate Kolchak’s camera and put enough obstacles in his way to make me wonder if they’re in cahoots with the strangler who it turns out is also leading tours of the legendary Seattle underground and would give free tours to the cops who can get free box lunches from an old diner where human skeletons throw fish around just like they do at Pike’s Place Fish Market while letting rats crawl through their eye sockets.

Kolchak gets valuable insights from an old crone named Professor Crabwell (Margaret Hamilton, who also played the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz) about a youth preserving potion that the strangler might be making—and just when she gets to the good part, a house drops on top of her.

When Kolchak and a brave belly dancer (who is beginning to dislike him as much as everyone else does) get to the underground, he tells her to give him about 30 minutes before she calls the cops to come and rescue him. How does he know he can hold off the strangler for longer than 30 seconds?

The ending is pretty good, mainly because you know you won’t have to listen to Kolchak anymore. I’ll give it a 3 shrilling chicken rating.

Shrilling Chicken Rating 3/5

Big Mo Pod Show: “Passin’ the Torch”

I caught the Big Mo Pod Show last night and listened to the podcast this afternoon. That’s later than I usually do because we were running around today learning how to use our new smartphones. You know, the makers don’t send the phones with even basic instructions. I guess they just expect you to guess right.

It’s like passing the torch (the title of the pod show) with the burning end towards your face. The phones are really slippery because they wash them with triple muddifying brahma bull body wash and add a 3-inch charging cable.

Anyway, I think the passing the torch title really comes from the Morganfield family. One of Muddy Water’s sons named Mud did a number called “She’s Getting her Groove On.” Mckinley is another son of Muddy and he’s also a blues musician.

Big Mo called one of the numbers on the blues show last night a novelty song: “Willie Dixon’s Gone,” by Tom Hambridge. Producer Noah asked him point blank, “What makes a song a novelty song?” to which Big Mo replies, “Ohhh, that is so hard!” He named a few like “Alley Oop.” And in general, his answer was that novelty songs are “overdone” and “over-shticked.” So, the novelty songs are comical.

But for comical, I don’t think you can beat one of my favorite songs that Big Mo played last night but didn’t make today’s list: “Can’t Even Do Wrong Right,” by Elvin Bishop. He grew up on a farm in Iowa. He even did a song titled “Calling All Cows.” I’ll let you look that one up.

We Finally Got New Phones

Well, we finally got new phones after several years. I think we bought the old ones from Fred Flintstone. I probably should have got a new phone after the battery swelled up in it so big it was starting to split the case. That was over 5 years ago. I have an iPhone 17 Pro now.

Sena’s always had a flip phone. She got one that still folds up, but it’s a lot nicer. It’s a Galaxy Z Flip7.

I think these phones have a feature that allows you to call extraterrestrials to order pizza. Don’t ask for extra cheese.

I remember we got along OK without portable phones at all for years until a big snowstorm made the streets impassable and I decided I had to sleep in my chair in my office at the hospital. We had only one car. I tried to call Sena to warn her not to drive in the snowstorm, but she’d already left to come pick me up. She got stuck on the way but managed to get unstuck and drove back home. I had no way to get a hold of her while she was out on the road.

We both got flip phones after that. I later got an iPhone triple zero, which ran OK most of the time on diesel. One of the residents talked me into buying one. It was a lesson in evolution. I guess we’re still evolving.