Those Hazy, Lazy, Crazy Days of Summer-

I know that Summer still officially has three weeks left, but doesn't Labor Day always seem like the end of the Good Times? Well, even though the symbolic end of Summer makes me feel like this-



And soon the leaves will begin to turn and it will be Halloween-



Everyone here at MMB is going to take full advantage of one last glorious Weekend!

Now We Know-

Here at MMB we never take the news at face value. Our crack staff of researchers and investigators are always at their desks snoozing playing video poker working hard to get at the real, smelly underbelly of today's Top Stories as misreported by such disreputable rags as CNN and The New York Times.

We have uncovered highly-unlikely sensitive gossip information throwing light on what really went on in that airport bathroom stall between Senator Larry Craig and an undercover police officer.

We proudly present the Top Ten REAL reasons Senator Craig was acting so oddly-


10. The Senator had a dream that Arab terrorists were using that bathroom stall to pass around stolen nuclear bomb plans and as a Patriotic American he needed to check it out.

9. He belongs to a small sect of Pentacostals who commune with God by tapping and waving in bathroom stalls, and he's mad as heck that his Freedom of Religion has been tampered with.

8. It's all that damned Idaho Tribune's fault.

7. On further consideration, the Senator admits that if he's going to drink 12 cups of coffee before 10 am, he really should switch to decaf.

6. Two words: Nine-eleven.

5. The Senator would like to answer all your questions, but he feels he needs to spend more time with his family.

4. An undercover police officer? Up until last Wednesday that stall had always been Dick Cheney's favorite "undisclosed location".

3. People are jumping to conclusions- just because you plead guilty to soliciting sex in a men's rest room, that doesn't mean you're gay.

2. He was practicing to audition for 'So You Think You Can Dance!' next season because he thinks that Nigel Lythgoe Cat Deeley is totally hot.

1. It was all an innocent mistake- he thought the undercover officer was his meth dealer.

Signs of the Times-

Just back from a semi-weekend on the lake in Maine which featured lobsters, clams, beer and about 25+ family members. While driving down and back I started noticing the road signs the states put up on their highways. Maine's "welcome" sign is simple and to the point:

"Maine. The Way Life Should Be".

Maine's idea of how life "should be" is brought into stark focus 50 yards later (and every half-mile thereafter) by signs that urge drivers to "watch out for moose".

Oddly, my vision of the Ideal Life has always included wine, women, song, and Boston Red Sox World Series wins every year, but it has never included moose running amok on the interstate.

That could just be me, though.

Moose crossing the highways are a problem in Maine (and here in Western Massachusetts as well) because your average moose is 1,500 pounds of mooseburger, with a brain the size of a walnut, perched atop four tall, skinny, stilt-like legs. At night their body is above the area lit by your headlights until it's too late. And then, well...

Memo to compact car drivers: Moose don't bounce.

New Hampshire has big signs when you enter the state that declare "Driving with Courtesy is the New Hampshire Way". I assume that is some sort of joke, because the only way New Hampshire drivers can be considered courteous is if they are compared to Massachusetts drivers. To put it another way- in Maine drivers watch out for moose on the highway. In New Hampshire an approved method of hunting deer is to roll over one at 80 mph in your pickup truck.

New Hampshire has another clever set of signs on their highway-

"Don't Drink and Drive"

invariably followed 50 yards later by-

"New Hampshire State Liquor Store - 1 Mile"

Back in Massachusetts, we have a fairly tame "Welcome to Massachusetts" sign greeting drivers, though rumor has it that a certain Presidential campaign has offered the state big bucks to repaint the signs to say "Welcome to Massachusetts. Mitt Romney never really liked it here".

I'm sure there are other good highway signs out there. What do you all have?

Troubling Questions-

How many Pywacketts does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

"what???"

Campaign News You May Have Missed-

Fox News announced this week that it has tapped Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter to anchor its' 'Fair and Balanced Coverage' of the 2008 Democratic National Comnvention. According to a Fox News spokesman, the theme of this year's 'Fair and Balanced Coverage' will be "Which Democrat Will Betray America to Our Enemies the Fastest?". The spokesman reiterated that the coverage would be fair and balanced, and that "No preferential treatment in our Fair and Balanced Coverage will be given to any Democrat candidate, whether he be Shrillary, B. Hussein Obama, or the silly short guy with the hot new wife.".

In response to efforts by other states to usurp New Hampshire's "first primary in the nation" status, New Hampshire has announced that it held its' Primary last month. Granite State Attorney General Jedidiah Bunko, Jr. would not disclose who won the surprise retroactive primary, but did tell reporters "So tell those [bad word deleted] in Michigan to take their [very bad word deleted] new January primary and [physically impossible and startlingly graphic anatomical suggestion deleted]".

On the Republican side of the campaign, former-New York city mayor Rudy Guiliani petitioned the New York 9th Circuit Court to legally change his middle name to '911', and reiterated his promise to build the new 'Freedom Tower' by himself, with both hands tied behind his back, using only toothpicks and spit.

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney today denied ever having been Governor of Massachusetts. "Massachusetts? That America-hating, Gay-loving Pinko state? I've never even been there! " Romney told surprised reporters as he stood in front of his townhouse in Boston.

Puuuuuurrrrrrrrrr...

I mentioned a few weeks ago that one of my Top Ten Peeves includes folks who say "Well, of course I've never heard/read/watched [whatever], but..." and then proceed to criticize it. Of course, my own sense of Peevosity at other's actions has never prevented me from doing the same thing, when the [whatever] in question is of such blatant stupidity that I feel no need to see/hear/watch it first.

And speaking of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical 'Cats'...

So ok, the musical made its' debut, um, 25 years ago, and this past weekend I finally watched the full-blown original-cast version on dvd. Or, to be completely honest, I was at somebody else's house and they got me drunk enough so that I could not stand up properly and then proceeded to pop it on the dvd player.

My first comment will be that since Sir Andy got a knighthood out of it, and millions of people had coughed up a gawdawful amount of money to see it, and it ran for twenty years on Broadway, obviously the judgement of Society is that it has redeeming qualities.

Then again, Society also judges that turnips, "My Name is Raymond", and Celene Dion have redeeming qualities.

To begin with, I will admit that I enjoyed watching it. That is because half the cast were lithe female dancers who were dressed in skin-tight leotards. What's not to like? I'm afraid that female viewers may not get the same effect viewing the male dancers whose, um, "assets" were (unlike, say, ballet dancers) pretty well invisible.

The libretto was also quite fine, but Sir Andrew stole that from T.S. Elliot, so while I give him credit for good taste, it was not "Evita" (and for such small blessings I thank a Benevolent God).

The basic problem with the show was that it was 45 minutes of material stretched to two hours, and Sir Andrew only provided 12 minutes of original music, repeated over and over and over and over. The most famous song, "Memory", is quite haunting, and especially lovely when sung by Elaine Page. But she sings it 16 times. And the song itself has only 1 verse, which is repeated eight times each of the 16 times she sings it.

"Eighth verse, same as the first!"

By the end I was hoping a rabid coyote would gallop onto the stage and devour her on the spot, or that the big boot that comes whanging down in the opening scene would appear again and flatten her.

The rest of the music, with the exception of a nifty little number written for Macavity, all sounds exactly the same, and it's, well, not that interesting.

I understand that a lot of people love the show, and I'm probably full of horse manure, so I feel obliged to say something really nice about it in closing.

Let's see. Ah! I know.

It's much better than Sir Andrew's 'Phantom of the Opera'.

And for such small miracles I thank a Benevolent God.

Nature's Naughty Harvest-

As July has given way to August, all sorts of produce starts to come out of the garden-

all sorts of produce...




ALL sorts of produce...

Random Monday Musings-

When I heard the headline this morning about Karl Rove quitting, my first thought was "because he needs to spend more time with his family, huh?", and no more than five seconds later the newsreader confirmed that, yes indeed, the Rovester does feel he has to spend more time with his family.

I wonder how his family feels about that?

But does anybody out there really think, just because Rove managed to pick a sweet spot between investigations & indictments to officially "leave" the White House, that he's really leaving the Bush Administration? If so, I've got a (still-standing) bridge to sell you.

Speaking of bridges, here's a serious question- according to the President, spending more money is not the answer to fixing the country's crumbling bridges or schools. Instead, the answer is increased competition, and "smarter" ways of spending. But no more money. Can we take that paradigm and quote it to the giant oil companies next time they insist that they need ever-increasing tax breaks to build refineries or search for oil?

And if giving the people choice about what school to attend will result in better schools, why not apply the same logic to cable company franchises?

If you were given a choice today of driving a dump truck across a 50-year-old bridge, going up in the Space Shuttle or working in a coal mine, wouldn't you rather be Lindsay Lohan's rehab counselor?

Mitt Romney has spent the last six years and millions of dollars campaigning in Iowa and got 5000 votes out of it. Isn't that the same sort of victory that's destroying the army in Iraq?

Speaking of the Mittster and the Army, I hope nobody missed his statment last week that his five sons' work on his Presidential campaign is just as much of a personal service to America as that made by the men and women fighting and dying in Iraq. I'm not making any further comment on that, it's just something to think about.

I can solve the illegal immigration problem by tomorrow- just declare that anyone who wants to come here and work hard and pay taxes is welcome to do so. I mean, hey, I know that's a radical, fruit-loopy idea, but what the Hell. And don't start about immigrants having to learn English first- when George Bush starts speaking the language properly, then maybe I'll discuss the issue.

Is David Beckham ever actually going to play a game in this country, or did he just come to America to give his wife a shot at a Hollywood reality show?

Is there any better summertime sandwich than one made from fresh basil, goat cheese and home-grown tomatoes so fresh that they're still screaming as you bite into them? I don't think so...

Duck Doodles-

Back some years ago, in another lifetime, I raised ducks as a hobby. I lived beside a nice stream, and in addition to a dozen or so domestic ducks, there were usually a few hundred wild mallards hanging out, especially in the wintertime. I'd go through about a hundred pounds of cracked corn a week...

One fun thing to do with the ducks was make "Duck Doodles" in the wintertime. All you need to make a Duck Doodle is about ten pounds of cracked corn, 200-300 ducks, and a second floor window to view your work from. You decide what word you want to write, and then quickly sprinkle the corn on the ground in letters about three-feet high. The eating ducks will fill in all the letters, and you have a living, wiggling Duck Doodle. Unfortunately I never got a picture of one of the Duck Doodles.

All that is by way of introduction to this little ditty I wrote at some point during my duck-raising career, and which I offer today because it's so damned hot and humid that I swear I just saw a duck paddle by three feet off the ground-


My Momma has a duck,
she wears it like a hat!
I'd really, really rather
my Momma had a cat.

I wish she had a kitten,
named Rose or Friar Tuck.
A cuddly, bubbly kitten-
but no. She has a duck.

My Momma's duck lives in the house,
it eats with us at meals.
When Aunt Bernice saw that one night,
she made an awful squeal.

My Momma's duck is big and white,
and Poppa's awful pleased
she doesn't take it to bed at night,
'cause feathers make him sneeze.

My Momma takes her duck for walks,
she talks to it for hours,
she lets it on the couch, and (once)
she put it in the shower.

My Momma has a lovely duck,
I can't complain 'bout that...
It's just I'd really, really, rather
my Momma had a cat.

Monday, Monday...

Anyone else having one of those Mondays... ?

Ways Not to Start Your Weekend-

Don't give the cat a good scrubbing-

note: this is not our sink & not our cat

Don't volunteer for the Chinese National Guard-



Don't start anything you can't finish-



And don't forget to keep cool!