Scrappy World News

This is Scrappy Booogle, and I'm just chillin' (literally in these temps) and hoping everyone has a nice Thanksgiving.  My Daddy has the nicest work- he got let off at 1 PM Wednesday and got paid for the whole day, and has been home ever since!  I'm not sure what "paid for the whole day" means, but hopefully he'll never have to go to work again.

He has some news stories I'm supposed to tell you about, but first let me tell you about our walk yesterday.  When we got in the woods, I knew something was up; Daddy, though, got distracted by two girls running by who wished us a Happy Thanksgiving.  I could smell something was over by that big hollow tree that I climbed in the other day, and then we saw a FOX running away!  I tried to keep up with it, but Daddy's so slow, and... well, sometimes I just run faster than I can sniff.  I knew where he went, but not where he WENT, y'know?

Not much happened after that.  We got down to the woods bridge and Daddy saw a heron take off.  I missed it, because... well... I went down the hill on the other side of the road to take a #2.  Daddy teased me about "wanting to watch it roll downhill", but you know how it is, trying to find a proper place to go.  He doesn't get that.  He's just happy if he can sit down.

Later, we went to the pond at the Alumni Center (whatever that is), and it was ALL ICE!

But the funny thing was, as I was sniffing around, I found something just underground at the water's edge...and I started digging.

It was a hole*!  It went out to the water and back to under the bank of the pond.  Something was just inside it, but I couldn't get to it.  Daddy thought it might be a mole hole, and even sent Stick in after it.

(* at least, it was a hole after Scrappy got done digging.  I'm not sure, it took me too long to get the rushes away to see what he was about.)

Okay, so now for Daddy's stuff.

ITEM:  First, a little Time Machine stuff.  KC (my boy) challenged Daddy last night with, "What is your favorite song released on Thanksgiving?" Now Daddy figured the best he could do was come up with his favorite songs that were released on Thanksgiving week since he was born to 1979 (He says music wasn't any good after that.)  And then he got a top ten and played it for us!  It went like this:

10.  From 1971, the Guess Who with Sour Suite.

9.  From 1963, Bobby Vinton with There I've Said It Again.

8. From 1966, the Monkees with I'm A Believer.

7. From 1973, the Love Unlimited Orchestra with Love's Theme.

6. From 1975, Helen Reddy with Somewhere In The Night.

5. From 1969, Elvis with Don't Cry Daddy (he did anyway...).

4.  From 1974, The Eagles with Best Of My Love.

3.  From 1967, Donovan with Wear Your Love Like Heaven.

2. From 1970, George Harrison with My Sweet Lord.

1. And from 1971, Don McLean with American Pie.

ITEM:  In Argentina, they found the world's oldest public toilet- 240 million years old, they say.

It was a toilet for dinosaurs!  And it was a big one;


A density of 94 poos per square metre was recorded by the researchers. And the excrement was spread across patches 900 square metres in size.

That's bigger than my back porch!  And they say it was one kind of dinosaur who pooped it all:

Daddy says he's called a.. what?  Oh, a Dinodontosaurus, and was about the size of a Rhino (which doesn't help me any because I haven't seen a rhino...).


ITEM:  Daddy says there's some people in Russia who got mad at their boss...

Investigators have detained two people in Nizhny Novgorod suspected of burying their boss in cement over a labor dispute.
The body of a construction foreman was discovered encased in cement in the basement of an unfinished building, RIA Novosti reported citing the regional Investigative Committee.
The 33-year-old man was beaten with metal rods and then encased in cement by nine construction workers who reportedly complained that he refused to pay them, according to the statement from the regional Investigative Committee.
Authorities are searching for the other suspects.

Daddy says if you think that's bad, he found a "mafia boss" in Italy got fed alive to a bunch of pigs!

Relax!  It tastes just like... well...

ITEM:  More Russian stuff:  A blog post was explaining how if you're a foreigner in Russia, you need to learn Russian anecdotes to tell people who want to hear a story.  You see in Russia, they don't want you to tell YOUR anecdotes, they want you to tell THEIR anecdotes.  (Otherwise, Daddy says they wouldn't know where to laugh."  So this guy printed his three favorites:

1) The first anecdote is really old but, like fine wine, only becomes better with age. If you are an inexperienced Russian anecdote teller, it is a safe place to start:

A man returns home in a drunken stupor. His wife begins to smack him over the head and scream at him asking, "Are you going to keep on drinking?" The man just sits there moaning which, of course, just upsets his wife even more, so she smacks him even harder and demands, "I asked you, are you going to keep on drinking?" The man is practically sobbing as he squeaks out his answer, "Fine. You talked me into it. Pour me another one."

2) If the first anecdote produced the desired effect, try this one:

Several wealthy Muscovite businessmen go to the far Russian north to go bear hunting . A local tribal guide begins to lead them from his village across the tundra. They walk for one day, then two days. On the third day, they finally see a bear. To their surprise, their guide just picks up a rock and throws it, hitting the giant bear in the head. The bear becomes angry and begins chasing the hunting group. The group begins running away back towards the village. They run for an hour, then two hours, then four. It is getting close to evening, and the businessmen are getting tired of running, so one of them turns around and shoots the bear. The guide looks at them says, "What did you do that for? Now you get to drag him back home."

3) Is your Russian anecdote confidence growing? Let's see if you can pull this one off. Show that you have the skills. This is my absolute top favorite Russian anecdote. I must give credit to my good friend Roman for teaching it to me, together with the important gestures that imitate both a camel and a desert mouse: If no one laughs, it is neither the anecdote's fault, nor the audience's. You are the only one to blame.

A camel gets lost in the desert. It walks in the baking heat with no water for a week. (At this point it is customary to go into detail about how camels have humps on their backs which is a backup water supply so that they can last for long periods of time in arid climates). So, of course, after a week with neither water nor vegetation, the camel was quite fatigued as the sweltering temperatures offered no respite. However, it continued its journey. The camel's tongue had swollen in the camel's mouth by the third week and the camel had indeed seen its share of mirages. But alas, those hallucinations provided neither sustenance nor the life-giving liquid the camel so urgently needed. Finally, the camel collapsed in the heat, ready to die. It then heard a curious sound and managed to open an eye to see a desert mouse scurrying to and fro under the scorching rays of the unforgiving sun. Eventually, the mouse noticed the camel laying in the blistering sand and cautiously approached the camel.

"Comrade Camel," inquired the desert mouse, "what has happened?"

The camel then began to relate the sad tale of how he had become lost in the desert for weeks with no water and was now about to die from the heat.

"No, no, Comrade Camel," replied the desert mouse. "You have it all wrong. See, you just need to do it like I do. I run around in the sun and it creates a wind, just like an air conditioner. You should really try it!".

The camel, realizing that he had nothing to lose, summoned his last iota of strength, jumped to his feet, ran 30 yards, fell over and died. The desert mouse of course was in shock by what had happened. He walked over and checked the camel's pulse.

"Poor guy," said the desert mouse (savor the pause here), "He froze to death."

 

 

Daddy told me not to mind the boos and hisses, whatever that means.

 

 

ITEM:  The Germans are like us- every year they have a "new words of the year" thing.  Daddy said the funny part isn't the words that won, but one of the ones in the also receiving votes category:

 

Other words to make the top five this year are: fame (great, super, famous), gediegen (super, cool, easygoing), in your face, and the "Lion King"-inspired Hakuna matata, which simply means "no worries."

 

 

Daddy says, they realize that movie came out NINETEEN YEARS AGO, and no one says it in America since the turn of the century, right?  But the Europeans are so far ahead of us...

 

BTW, the winner this year was "babo", which is apparently Turkish slang for boss.  Daddy sings, "I put my Ba-Bo in the Cement-o, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da..."

 

ITEM:  Daddy thought this story about an Austrian art scandal was "a good example of Obama economics":

 

"One of the biggest cultural scandals seen in Austria has come to an end after a case against the former Director of the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna was settled.

 

Accused of financial mismanagement of the museum's funds, a court has asked Peter Noever to pay 104,000 Euros to the museum. HOWEVER, Noever, who resigned from the position after 25 years at the helm, will receive 231,000 Euros in return to cover OUTSTANDING SALARY AND BACK PAY."

Daddy says, "so in the settlement for his crime, Noever comes out 127,000 Euros (almost $173,000 American) to the good.  Is he covered by the Teamsters or what?"

ITEM:  Daddy says he's not sure who's dumber in this one, Bob Dylan or the guys suing him:

The Council of the Croatian Community and Institutions in France (CRICCF) filed a lawsuit with a court in Paris, over Dylan's statements made last fall.
While promoting his album "Tempest", Dylan was interviewed by the Rolling Stone magazine and compared the contemporary United States with the Civil War era, to say that the country was "still obsessed with skin color."

"People at each others’ throats just because they are of a different color. It’s the height of insanity and it will hold any nation back – or any neighborhood back. Or anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn’t want to give up slavery – that is they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can’t pretend they don’t know that," he said, and added:

"If you’ve got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood." The court in Paris accepted the lawsuit, and a representative of the Croatian association said that they were not demanding "material damages, only Dylan's apology."

It is unclear if the musician plans to show up for the trial.


Daddy says, "I know I wouldn't."

ITEM:  Daddy says, finally we have to share this video (that many of you may have already seen) that he found on Facebook the other day: