Microwavable Banana -or -The Slow and Painful Demise of Satire

Not long ago, my friend Cary posted on our band's blog about  a satirical product- the microwavable banana. Unknown to her at the time, there really is such a product available on the market already- an honest-to-Godzilla microwavable banana!

Here is a link to a company that sells them in bulk - by bulk, I mean 20 tons of microwavable bananas shipped in 40-ft cargo containers. That is a lot of bananas, even by my standards.

But is a microwavable banana a good idea?  At first glance, no. So I thought for a while longer.

After reflection, it still seemed like a bad idea.

So I tried it.

The first thing I did was to line the inside of my microwave with aluminum foil to safeguard against the possibility that the banana might detonate- then I set the timer for 60 seconds and closed my eyes against the glare emitting from my oven...at just over 30 seconds, I could smell banana quite strongly.

Inside the microwave, a change was taking place:

Long streaks of radioactive ripeness were spreading from either end of the fruit and a pale, viscous froth had begun seeping forth from tiny new ruptures near the stem.

Would 28 additional seconds be too much?  Probably, I decided but nuked it anyway.
28 seconds later, it was still recognizably a banana:

I set the timer for a further 45 seconds and quickly darted outside. Just in case.

It was long , unpleasant 45 seconds for Mister Banana:

He had completely changed color and his skin had ruptured, spilling molten banana guts out onto the foil covering.  But he wasn't quite done at the other end...after ten more seconds of cooking, the banana split....aaahhh.  Finished now.

Next: Light-bulbs and the game of Microwave Chicken.

Some Truth To That

Sunday afternoon the station sponsored an appearance by Harry Shearer, the voice of many Simpsons characters, including Mr. Burns. Mr. Shearer has been in show business and journalism for a long time- including Saturday Night Live during the Reagan years- and he was also one of the minds behind the classic '' mockumentary film, Spinal Tap, a movie now celebrating it's 25th anniversary.

It wasn't sold out, but he drew a decent crowd:

Inside the Byrd theater.:

Mr. Shearer is the purple and white blob in the middle.

Harp and alcove:

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In other news: I'm still broke.

 I was telling a female friend  about my job troubles and of my fear that I would soon be living on the floor of the radio station. She told me not to worry, that if it got bad, she had an extra couch, plenty of  space and that I was welcome to stay with her as long as I needed. Her place, she told me, seemed "sorta empty" since her boyfriend moved out after their break-up earlier this year.

Break-up? Hot damn!  

I'll move in, fix her a lovely supper, let her win a few games of Scrabble and then we'll fall in love and live happily ever after.
Sounds like a plan, I thought.

"Thank you, I might wind up needing a place to stay pretty soon", I told her before rushing home to set about the business of getting evicted from my apartment...it is not a  difficult thing to accomplish, but I didn't feel like waiting the customary 60-90 days...I had an invitation, after all.

Well, it's a good thing I dropped by to visit my generous friend before I got myself kicked out of my current home...in my fevered mind, I had imagined a much different scenario than what I saw at her place.

Her Extra Couch:

"You can park behind the sofa", she advised me, "just be sure to push the trash cans out to the curb on Thursday mornings before the garbage truck comes. You can use the mattress if you want- I threw it out when my boyfriend gave me the crabs, but it has been rained on a lot since then, so it might be clean now."

Hmmm, I thought, the only thing worse than returning to my old job would be to spend the winter holidays living outdoors on a lice-infested mattress in the backyard of an unrequited love interest.

I return to work on Monday.

Me On Me

New post  here.


Secrets revealed, homes, schools, roads, etc.

Joe Meek

Cut and pasted from Noise: the Monday Machines blog :

A Screwed-Up Ending

In this photo:

• A small screwdriver.
  
• A brass wire paperclip.
  

Are these items interesting? Not at first glance. The paperclip is utterly boring. I found it at the bottom of my desk drawer under a dried up glue stick and a sheet of floppy disk labels.

The little screwdriver, however, has a little story to go with it.

Many have heard of Joe Meek, a short-lived electronics tinkerer who produced “Telstar” and a few other cuts of varying levels of obscurity before going out in a dramatic murder/suicide at age 37 (Joe, as it turns out, was a very disturbed individual). [ Wikipedia article ]

But, here’s a part of the story that you will not find in Wikipedia:

Joe Meek’s parents had to dispose of his belongings after his death, and they came up with a great solution (a great solution for them anyway). Joe’s parents were acquainted with another couple, a couple who happened to have a son who was fascinated by electronics. A son who initially became very excited when he was offered ‘all of Joe Meek’s stuff’—very excited until he actually saw the pack-rat den. There were four rooms stacked to the ceiling with totally worthless junk, which Joe had promised to repair for people and just thrown in there—mostly broken radios and televisions—which had to be hauled away, smashed up, and burned. Some windfall. It was more of a total pain, actually.

This screwdriver was the only useful item in the lot.

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Originally posted by Cary