Coffee Klatch

Alfred Hitchcock is known for appearing in his movies in tiny cameo parts. Usually nothing more than walking past or standing in a crowd. I didn’t know that out of Hitchcock’s 52 films, he only had a cameo in 37 of them.

If you’ve watched any of those movies and couldn’t find him, don’t give up. Check out the Wikipedia article and wonder no longer! If the movie isn’t on this list, he doesn’t have a cameo in it. If it IS on the list, it will tell you where to look to find him.

WARNING: Those of you who relish the hunt should NOT visit this site, which will, for you, contain spoilers that will break your heart.

Isn’t a turkey an American food? It’s only found in North America, so why is called the same thing as a Middle Eastern country?

There was a good story on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning that explained why a turkey is called that.

‘TWAS THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING

‘Twas the night of Thanksgiving,
But I just couldn’t sleep.
I tried counting backwards,
I tried counting sheep.
The leftovers beckoned
The dark meat and white,
But I fought the temptation with all of my might.

Tossing and turning with anticipation,
The thought of a snack became infatuation!
So I raced to the kitchen,
Flung open the door,
And gazed at the fridge full of goodies galore.

I gobbled up turkey and buttered potatoes,
Pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes.
I felt myself swelling so plump and so round,
Till all of a sudden, I rose off the ground!!

I crashed through the ceiling, floated into the sky
With a mouthful of pudding and a handful of pie,
But I managed to yell
as I soared past the trees …

HAPPY EATING TO ALL,
PASS THE CRANBERRIES PLEASE!!

So Google Chrome has been around for a while now. What I’m hearing and experiencing most about this new web browser is that it’s FAST! And the biggest drawback is that there aren’t plugins available yet. And I know when I tried it right at the beginning that it had issues with displaying popups and that kind of thing. I tried it again today and the display issues seems to be gone. And I’ve also read that plugins are indeed available now, but slow getting started and not yet ready for general public production like Firefox has. So the speed is great and the only thing Chrome seems to be lacking is some bells and whistles that I’ve become accustomed to with Firefox.

Cnet has a good article about Chrome: Why I Switched from Firefox to Chrome. The author, Stephen Shankland, does some great comparisons and talks about the strengths and weaknesses of both browsers. It’s definitely worth a read and some clicks on the embedded links.

And definitely give Google Chrome a try. It’s a little different but you will probably like it.

A city slicker moves to the country and decides he’s going to take up farming. He heads to the local co-op and tells the man, “Give me 100 baby chickens.”

The co-op man complies.

A week later the man returns and says, “Give me 200 baby chickens.” The co-op man boxes them up and hands them over.

Another week goes by and the man returns. This time he says, “Give me 500 baby chickens.”

“Wow,” the co-op man replies, “you must really be doing well.”

“Naw,” says the man with a sigh. “I’m either planting them too deep or too far apart.”

Bubba’s boss was getting tired of Bubba proclaiming that he “knew everybody” in the world.

“Okay, Bubba,” his boss said one day. “Prove to me that you know everybody in the world. Do you know Tom Cruise?”

“Oh, me and Tom go way back,” said Bubba.

So the boss bought airline tickets to Hollywood, and pretty soon Bubba was knocking at Tom Cruise’s door, and was shortly admitted by the butler. Tom rushed to greet Bubba and invited him for lunch, and they had a good time discussing movies and things.

“Well, I’m impressed,” said the boss when they left. “But I bet you don’t know President Bush.”

“Aw, sure I do,” said Bubba, and with that they were off to Washington, and pretty soon, the White House guard was escorting the two men into the Oval Office.

“Hiya, Bubba!” said the President, warmly embracing him.

After a nice visit and a chat with the Cabinet secretaries, they left. The boss was suitably impressed, but not giving up.

“Okay, Bubba, I’m going to ask you if you know the ultimate celebrity — the Pope.”

“Why, for sure I do!” said Bubba, and pretty soon they were on an airplane to Vatican City.

They found themselves in St. Peter’s Square in a crowd of thousands, and Bubba said, “Heck, I can’t see nothin’ from here,” and so he went right up to the Swiss Guards and the doors opened to him.

The boss waited outside in the square. Pretty soon the door to the upstairs balcony opened, and out comes Benedict XVI and Bubba. They began to smile and wave at the crowd, with their arms around each other. Shortly thereafter Bubba decided to return to the Square. When he got there, an ambulance was loading his Boss into the back.

Bubba rushed up and said, “What happened, Boss?” The boss says, “I was doing fine until you came out on the balcony and the guy next to me says, ‘Who is that guy on the balcony with Bubba?’”

BUTTERBALL TURKEY TALK-LINE

Over the years, the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line staff has had their share of memorable calls — inquiries that stand out from the crowd because they’re heartwarming or amusing. We asked some of the veteran staff members to tell us their favorites; plus, we rounded up a bunch of our own personal favorites from the Talk-Line archives. It’s hard to beat the call from a trucker who planned to cook his Thanksgiving turkey on the engine of his truck (”Will it cook faster if I drive faster?”), but some of these come pretty close.

WARNING: Do not attempt to adjust your screen — these are real incidents, true stories — from the front lines!

~ Home alone, a Kentucky woman was in the doghouse when she called the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line. While preparing the turkey, her Chihuahua jumped into the bird’s body cavity and couldn’t get out. She tried pulling the dog and shaking the bird, but nothing worked. She and the dog became more and more distraught. After calming the woman down, the Talk-Line home economist suggested carefully cutting the opening in the cavity of the turkey wider. It worked and Fido was freed!

~ Birdie, eagle and turkey? Roasting a turkey doesn’t have to interfere with the daily routine, so said a retired Floridian. He called “TurkeyCentral” for turkey grilling tips while waiting to tee off from the 14th hole.

~ Taking turkey preparation an extra step, a Virginian wondered, “How do you thaw a fresh turkey?” The Talk-Line staffer explained that fresh turkeys aren’t frozen and don’t need to be thawed.

~ Don’t wait until the last minute! On Thanksgiving Day, a Georgia woman took the “Be prepared” motto to heart. She had just agreed to host Thanksgiving Dinner and called the Talk-Line a year ahead of time for turkey tips.

~ A Southern woman called to comment, “On Thanksgiving Day, the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line is more important than the President. He can take the day off, but the Talk-Line staff can’t.” (The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line is open Thanksgiving Day, 6 am to 6 pm, CST.)

~ Thanksgiving Dinner on the run. A woman called 1-800-323-4848 to find out how long it would take to roast her turkey. To answer the question, the Talk-Line home economist asked how much the bird weighed. The woman responded, “I don’t know, it’s still running around outside.”

* Tofu turkey? No matter how you slice it, Thanksgiving just isn’t Thanksgiving without turkey. A restaurant owner in California wanted to know how to roast a turkey for a vegetarian menu.

~ White meat, anyone? A West Coast woman took turkey preparation to extremes by scrubbing her bird with bleach. Afterward, she called the Talk-Line to find out how to clean off the bleach. To her dismay, she was advised to dispose of the turkey.

~ A young girl called on behalf of her mother who needed roasting advice. To provide approximate roasting times, the home economist asked what size the turkey was. Without asking her mother the little girl paused, then replied, “Medium.”

~ A novice turkey-cooking chef wanted to know if the yellow netting and wrapper around the turkey should be removed before roasting. Envisioning a melted plastic turkey blob, the home economist
responded, “Yes,” then offered complete roasting directions.

~ Then there’s the time a lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but couldn’t find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?” The stock boy replied, “No ma’am, they’re dead.”

Okay, it’s not actually a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s a Christmas turkey from a Mr. Bean episode. But maybe you’ll feel more like stuffing yours after you see what Mr. Bean had to work with. That thing is so huge it’s almost obscene! And, yes, it’s the one he gets stuck on his head.

A guest in a posh hotel was at breakfast one morning and called over the head waiter.

He said, “Good morning, sir. I’d like two boiled eggs, one of them so undercooked that it’s runny, and the other so overcooked that it’s tough and hard to eat. Also, I want some grilled bacon that has been left out so it gets a bit on the cold side, burnt toast that crumbles away as soon as you touch it with a knife, and I’d like some butter straight from the freezer so that it’s impossible to spread. And I’d like a pot of weak coffee, lukewarm.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” said the bewildered waiter. “We cannot do that for you.”

The guest replied, “Oh? But that’s what I got yesterday!”

There was a professor, Dr. Jones, who thought pretty highly of himself so he arranged to have himself cloned so he could do twice as much good for the human race. He took a year to train the clone then he began to arrange speaking tours for each of them but didn’t tell anyone that there were “two” of him.

During the first round of speeches, the clone developed the habit of using foul, profane language. Dr. Jones heard about it and fearing his reputation would be damaged, he called the clone home for debriefing.

The Jones clone said he understood and was sent out again while Dr. Jones spoke in other places.

The same thing developed. The clone went right back to using foul, obscene and profane language. Dr. Jones once again called his clone back to talk.

After the discussion, he once again sent the clone out while he, Dr. Jones, went elsewhere.

There was no change in the clone’s language. Finally, Dr. Jones thought, “Enough is enough” and called the clone home and invited him to meet him at a stadium.

Shortly after the game started, the real Dr. Jones went to the PA announcer and asked if he would page “Dr. Jones” knowing the clone would respond. The PA announcer beckoned “Dr. Jones” to the third level railing.

When the clone showed up, the real Dr. Jones pushed him over the rail, where the clone fell to his death.

A policeman, who was at the game, immediately rushed to Dr. Jones and said, “you are under arrest!”

Dr. Jones asked, “Why, what have I done?”

The officer responded: “You are under arrest for making an obscene clone fall!”