What Don't We Know About Cold Strawberries?

Can anyone confirm the allegation made on this page that President Zachary Taylor died from eating “too cold strawberries”? I don’t even care if that’s how he actually died. If he went to bed that night complaining about the strawberries and especially the chilliness of those strawberries, I want to know.

The Art of Stuffing Your Pockets While Still Appearing Moderately Sane

I love gluttony. I can’t get enough of it. People devouring large racks of beef. Lunging for food suddenly, greasy hands colliding, scraping knuckles. Greasy hands floundering for food. Sauced up faces, gravy trails. People who have to wear bibs when they eat ribs. People who give slobbery BBQ-slathered kisses to their girlfriends, eat ribs, wear bibs and more further high-speed hand collisions.

As for tidier forms of gluttony: people on game shows with shopping spree motifs. I would love to be present at a beat-the-clock Nickelodeon/Toys’R’Us shopping spree. You know these kids have mentally fantasized a variety of ways to pull down toys from the shelves. As a kid, there was a particular hoe in the garage that I intended to bring along to shopping sprees. Plan was: hit the water toys section first. Tie an armada of shallow pools (a la Mr. Turtle) to the back of the cart, lacing it all together with water weenies. Hoses, if available. See, you need to use the store’s own inventory against itself.

Chances are that, should I have won, I would have just completely abandoned my plans at the last minute. And, leaping like a wolverine at the nearest aisle, climbing and clawing the shelves, the whole rack would have come right down on me. I would have been crushed. Dead. I was just that into it as a kid.

These same feelings have come back today with the announcement of the 2004 Windrift Music Songwriting Competition. Look at these prizes!

• Sign a Publishing Deal with Outstanding Music/Morrhythm Records
• An IMDS1632CDRHD full Recording & Mastering System courtesy of Xytar Digital Systems valued at $11,499.00US
• $500US in cash from Windrift Music, Inc.

Yeah, yeah, that’s all fine, but lower down:

• A 15 minute phone call with Recording Artist, Lindsay Armaou (formerly of the band B*witched)
• Co-write a song with 2003 Competition Winner, Todd Herfindal
• ‘Submit a Demo’ to Jason Jordan, VP A&R, Hollywood Records
• ‘Submit a Demo’ to Novik Int’l Artists
• ‘Submit a Demo’ to BMG Canada
• ‘A Full WebStore and email accounts with design template and free hosting for 1 full year courtesy of My Real Networks

Fifteen minutes on the phone with a former member of a formerly famous band!! How outrageously cool is that!! I’m going to totally use my fifteen minutes to find out where she usually puts her arms in all the publicity stills. I never know what to do with my arms. I’m so clumsy. Can you help me, Lindsay? Got any good arm ideas? From the pictures, I’d say absolutely.

You’d think the phone call would be enough celebrity interaction for a lifetime, but no. Last year’s winner Todd Herfindal is forced to collaborate with you on a song. And if you submit that song to next year’s competition, there’s no way they can turn it down. It would be so embarassing if that song lost. It would shroud the entire institution in doubt.

The prize list just doesn’t stop:

• A copy of the book ‘Hot Hits, Cheap Demos’ by Nadine Condon (Backbeat Books)
• A copy of the book ‘100 Miles To A Record Deal’ by 2004 Competition Judge, Bronson Herrmuth
• A copy of the e-Book ‘How To Promote Your Music Successfully on the Internet’ by David Nevue
• 2 Compensated Nut sets (Earvana)
• Earvana Logo T-shirt (Earvana)
• Earvana Logo Hat (Earvana)
• Polishing Cloth and Asst Picks (Earvana)
• A Trophy CD Stand Clock (CDStands.com)

I mean this is great stuff. Most of this stuff is worth more than the stuff my neighbors leave in their yards, which gets blown over and gets stuck in the barbed wire fence behind my house. I mean, should I win, we could really make a run for patching in all the rest of the spaces in that fence. It looks like there’s enough free magazines, free software and free Todd Herfindals to do the job.

Prizes. Sweepstakes. Dreams. Success. Stardom. It’s all got to happen someday. Why not get it over with now?

You Can Be Anything (If You Put Your Crayon To It)

The drawing you see to your right (my left, assuming I am behind these words) is a depiction of a Komodo dragon and scorpion trying to do somersaults for 10 years. (Stolen from the climax to Joshua Goddard’s 2002 Reading Rainbow Award-Winning story Komodo and Scorpion Somersaults.)

Many thanks to Fiona Collins for her entry Edward, the Getting-Rid-of-Garbage Dragon. Too bad your title gives away the whole ending. Freak, girl.