Some selected chunks of chum, for you to chew on over dinner:

• From the “Just Put It On The Tray” Department: The Los Angeles Times has an interesting piece on Clifton’s Cafeteria. Clifton’s was one of the earliest cafeterias in Los Angeles (I have vague memories of going to it as a child). There was a small chain of them, each one with its own theme. They have their recipes… and their regulars who know if a single spice is varied. They have their traditions. All in all, it sounds fascinating, and I’ll have to go visit there.
• From the “Twenty-Five Is A Good Number” Department: I know you’ve seen it. That 25 Random Things meme that has been going around everywhere. Well, it’s now made the New York Times! An article in their Fashion section today discusses the meme, and notes that a Google search for “25 Random Things About Me” yields 35,700 pages of results, almost all of which seem to have been created in the last two weeks. I do have to say I’m seeing it everywhere, and it reminds me of the old days when memes would propagate like that on LiveJournal.
• From the “Old Friends” Department: The Daily News has a nice piece on an old friend of mine, Jolie Mason, who runs the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service. They were knocked off the air during the recent Sesnon fire (which burned the KCSN transmitter), and are now attempting to raise $7,000 to get back on the airwaves. They do such a great service for folks, that I just wanted to mention the article. I worked with Jolie back when she was a programmer at SDC — yet another BLACKER person!
• From the “Be Careful What You Eat… Or Maybe Not” Department: The New York Times today has an article today about how many food allergies might be false alarms. The article is interesting, but seems to forget one significant fact: Allergy .NE. (that’s != for you perl folks) Sensitivity. An allergy is something that raises a histamine reaction. But there are other forms of non-allergy sensitivies (such as Celiac Disease), which can be equally or more problematic. Further, those sensitivities can serve to create more sensitivities (i.e., if you are Celiac and keep eating wheat, other foods tend to create problems — often getting off the wheat clears the other sensitivites). So, eat what makes you feel healthy. If you don’t feel good eating it, don’t. But do eat your brussel sprouts.
• From the “A Quite Amazing Paradox” Department: The New York Times is also reporting on an interesting transit paradox: although the economy is driving ridership on transit systems up, the economy is forcing such systems to make significant cutbacks. The problem is that fare-box revenue accounts for only a fifth to a half of the operating revenue of most transit systems — and the sputtering economy has eroded the state and local tax collections that the systems depend on to keep running. Further, the billions of dollars that Congress plans to spend on mass transit as part of the stimulus bill will also do little to help these systems with their current problems because the stimulus is for capital projects, not operations.
• From the “Now You Take That Back!” Department: You may have heard that the Pope recently unexcommunicated (would that be communicated?) some cardinals who had very conservative views. The problem was the one of them was a holocaust denier. Well, the Pope (after some pressure from Merkel) has now directed that cardinal to recant those views. Evidently, the Pope knew nothing about them. Right. I thought he was infallible. In any case, he’s done the right thing.
• From the “Where is the most unusual place that you and your husband have ever made whoopee?” Department: Yes, that story is true. But that’s not what this chum is about. You see, GSN is reviving the “Newlywed Game”, and has announced the new host. Carnie Wilson. Why, oh why? It’s not like Bob Eubanks is dead. In fact, he’s looking for work. Right now, he only seems to work one day a year. If the original is still around, why not use him. And if you can’t use him, rub it in his face and hire Stephanie Edwards!