I have at least 3 spam plugins on this blog, as far as I can remember.  I’d go look, but I’d have to abandon this post, and I’m crabby and I don’t feel like it.

Up until recently, those filters caught all of the spam comments.  In the past weeks, however, I am getting multiple spam comments that slip right past the filters every day and end up published on a post somewhere.

So, I figured that those comments must be added manually by the thousands of offshore link builders that are out there.  So, I tried to dissuade them with the message you see in the right column (at least of this date).   I might just get rid of it since it has had no effect.

The thought was to save the spammers from wasting their time adding comments, and to save me the hassle everyday of deleting them all.  No one seems to care.

So, if you have someone building links for you, and there is no earthly reason for ridiculously inane comments for your company showing up on this blog, but you see this blog listed on the confirmation report from your link builder…

Keep in mind that you’re really not getting any credit for that link.

And, for pete’s sake, if you’re one of the link builders out there, please leave this blog alone!  You’re making me crabby!!!

Thus ends my rant for the day.

I didn’t watch the Emmy Awards this week, but I did catch some of Joan Rivers’ Fashion Police show afterward.

The thing that really amazes me is that not all the stars on a show like the Emmys look good.  Why do you suppose that is?

These people have more money than any human being should have based on what they do.  And, besides that, clothing designers lend dresses to a lot of the stars just to have their designs seen on TV.

So, why is it that they don’t all look marvelous?  Surely no one makes them wear ugly clothes.  And, they do own mirrors, I would imagine.  Besides that, they probably have a host of “handlers” who are paid to watch their every move and keep them out of trouble.

I can’t remember who was wearing the two dresses that I thought were most amazing.  One looked like a dress someone like me threw together in the hour before the event.  It had a large, blousey, white bib-type front going over one shoulder and a black strap that looked like it had been tacked in at the last minute going over the other shoulder.  Did no one notice she looked awful?

The other one was a crazy-looking thing that was very short in the front and long in the back.  Did it float from front to back in a swirl of color?  No.  It was made out of a material I can’t describe, and looked rather like an upside down teacup with a train.

I know there is a term called “fashion forward”.  I don’t know what it means.  But, I have a word of advice for some of these stars:

Throw it into reverse!

I was driving along some local country roads the other day when I passed this sign:

Still Life
Taxidermy

So, I’m wondering…..

Does that mean that they only do taxidermy on animals that are dead?

Or, are they stuffing fruit??

What do you think?

I glanced at the hummingbird feeder the other day, and it looked like a twig had fallen into one of the “flowers” of the feeder and was sticking straight up.  Then, the twig moved, and I realized it was a wasp.  The bug was standing on its head in the flower, trying desperately to get a drink of the sweet nectar.

But, Ah Ha!  He failed!!  How did this great win come about?  Well, here’s what happened.

After I put the hummingbird feeder up this year, the bees and wasps discovered that they could get the nectar themselves.  At first, it was just a bee or two.  Then, I was looking outside and the feeder looked like a nest of bees, wasps and who know what other little nectar-sucking bugs.

So, I searched the Internet.   The first thing I found was a suggestion to take the feeder down for a few days.  The concept was that insects are so stupid that they’d forget about it if it was gone for a bit. 

Evidently, they’d never seen a nature show describing how bugs send messages to their buddies, giving directions to good food sources.  No matter how long the feeder was gone, by the afternoon of the day I put it back up, I’d have another busy hive outside.

Another piece of advice was to put vegetable oil on the “flowers” of the feeder.  What was that supposed to do?  Make it so slippery the insects would fall off?  What would happen to hummingbirds who were also coated in vegetable oil?  I rejected that solution.

The next solution I came across was to put out a separate feeder for the insects.  What??  I’m supposed to fill another feeder with sweeter nectar than the one for the birds to attract the insects?  So, I was supposed to have a permanent hive on a corner of the deck somewhere?  Please.

The final answer, of course, cost money.  A new birdfeeder.   It, naturally, cost more than the original feeder I purchased.  It was also shaped differently.  Rather than a vertical glass jar with flowers extending horizontally, this one is shaped like a flying saucer. 

And, it comes with little plastic caps to go over the holes into the feeder from the inside.  The caps have a thin membrane covering the opening to the nectar.  Birds can poke through it, but supposedly, insects can’t gain access.

So, rather than having a bee hive right outside the door, I decided to give this bug-proof feeder a try.  It seemed to be working, but the final confirmation was the sight of that silly upside-down wasp.

Victory is sweet!  (Some days you just have to take what you can get)

Newspapers are supposed to be well-researched, well-written and well proofed.  So, it really makes me smile when I see the corrections the papers are forced to publish.  Here are a few that might make you chuckle.

Apology: I originally wrote, “Woodrow Wilson’s wife grazed sheep on the front lawn of the White House.”   I’m sorry that typesetting inadvertently left out the word “sheep.”   [So, you're calling Woodrow Wilson's wife a cow, huh?]

We apologize to our readers who received, through an unfortunate computer error, the chest measurements of members of the Female Wrestlers Association instead of the figures on the sales of soybeans to foreign countries.   [OK, give me a break.   This one is way past a computer error!  Even computers aren't that dumb!]

Just to keep the record straight, it was the famous Whistler’s Mother, not Hitler’s, that was exhibited. There is nothing to be gained in trying to explain how this error occurred.  [Evidently, someone on the paper has a problem pronouncing Ws.  Probably the opposite of the problem experienced by Elmer Fudd]

In one edition of today’s Food Section, an inaccurate number of jalapeno peppers was given for Jeanette Crowley’s Southwestern chicken salad recipe. The recipe should call for two, not 21, jalapeno peppers.  [Unfortunately, there are still a lot of folks in town whose mouths are permanently scarred.]

The marriage of Miss Freda vanAmburg and Willie Branton, which was announced in this paper a few weeks ago, was a mistake which we wish to correct.  [Do you think it was Freda and Willie who put in that correction?]

Our newspaper carried the notice last week that Mr. Oscar Hoffnagle is a defective on the police force. This was a typographical error. Mr. Hoffnagle is, of course, a detective on the police farce.   [Isn't it written somewhere that two wrongs don't make a right?]

From a California bar association’s newsletter: Correction — the following typo appeared in our last bulletin: “Lunch will be gin at 12:15 p.m.” Please orrect to read “12 noon.”   [Some days, a correction just isn't worth the effort, evidently.  Maybe more gin would help.]

Corrections & Clarifications:  A recipe for Italian Breaded Chicken Parmesan on Page 2G of Wednesday’s Food section suggested beating the chicken with a small mallard.  That, of course, is incorrect.  A mallet would be a better choice.  [I agree.  It's never a good idea to use one bird to flatten another.]

Have a great day!