This has been a weird and busy week, and thus Thursday is essentially humpday, and thus here is some quick lunchtime news chum:
- From the “Some Things Go Away, Some Come Back” Department: The LA Times has a nice article on the return of the milkman. For you yunguns out there, the milkman was a fellow that would leave milk and pastry products on your doorstep for you to find in the morning, very fresh. Of course, there were always the stories of the other deliveries made by the milkman. I remember the famous cartoon showing a baby labeled “PL/I”, a 1950s mother-type labelled COBOL, and a 1950s engineer father-type labelled FORTRAN, who was looking at the baby saying “Funny dear, he doesn’t look like me”, while in the background was the milkman labelled ALGOL.
- From the “Some Things Comes Back, Some Go Away” Department: In the disappearing department we have the Polaroid Men at McArthur Park in LA. It seems that nobody wants them to take their picture anymore.
- From the “Do You Want Fries With That” Department: USA Today is reporting on the new trend in marriages: getting married at retail establishments such as TJ Maxx or Taco Bell. I guess it makes gift shopping easier and saves on catering.
Lastly, the St. Louis Post Dispatch has an article on Robo-Tripping, detailing the signs that your child might be abusing OTC medicines such as Robotussin. Those of us who grew up in the 1970s probably remember the drug education classes (do they still have them? Silly me?) where they taught you to identify pills. Reading these “signs” made me laugh:
Robo tripping can have severe long- and short-term side effects ranging from hallucinations to loss-of-consciousness to death. Signs of Robo tripping can include:
An unusual medicinal smell on your child.
Empty or missing cough and cold medicine bottles.
An unexplainable disappearance of money from the house.
A sudden change in your child’s physical appearance, attitude, and sleeping and/or eating habits.
Questionable or unexpected packages arriving in the mail addressed to your child.
Visits by your child to pro-drug websites.
Let’s see. Money suddenly disappearing… in this economy, who has money? As for changes in your teen’s appearance… with most teens, how would you notice? Questionable packages in the mail… show me a teenager that actually uses the mail. As for visiting pro-drug websites, nowadays the newspapers fall into that category, so how would you know.
