Be very careful out there ...

This is something we hope you don't need to know. But just in case … it's good to be prepared.

1) My car caught on fire last month (a small animal - maybe a squirrel? - had made a nest in the air filter, and the leaves apparently ignited as I was driving). I'd just pulled into a parking lot, and saw smoke billowing from under the hood. I turned off the engine, got out and called the fire department. I didn't open the hood, figuring that would fan the flames. And when the firefighters got there (very quickly) they were extremely cautious about opening the hood.

2) The next week a car on a local interstate caught on fire, and the driver died. (I sound like the dad in "Freaks and Geeks" - but he knew how to get a point across)

3) Shortly after that there was a national news report about a recent rash of car fires - set by people wanting insurance payouts.

4) When I was leaving Disney World last week, there was a major vehicle fire - likely a Disney bus - on one of the highways leading out of the property. Very frightening. Bad things aren't supposed to happen at Disney World ...


This link from the National Fire Prevention Association advises what to do if you are involved in a car fire. Stop the car. Don't open the hood. Move at least 100 feet away. Call for emergency help. Don't be a hero. The site says, "Vehicle fires can be tricky, even for firefighters."

What? Mauve is out?

From a story in the April 13, 2009, New York Times, about burglaries at vacant homes that real estate agents have "staged" - that is, decorated with high-end furniture in an attempt to lure buyers:

“It’s brazen,” said D. J. Grubb, the president of the Grubb Company, a real estate agency based in Oakland. “These are highly aesthetic crimes. The thief seems to be someone with very good taste, somebody who knows that mauve is out.”

Mike Nichols: TMI

Most disturbing news story of the day, from The New York Times, April 12, 2009:

"Mr. Nichols’s greatest improvisation is still himself. He wakes up every morning in his Fifth Avenue apartment, collects himself and, wearing a wig and paste-on eyebrows, plays a character called Mike Nichols.He was born Michael Igor Peschkowsky, the son of a White Russian doctor who emigrated to Berlin after the Russian revolution, and he arrived in New York in 1939, at the age of 7, permanently hairless (a reaction to whooping cough vaccine)..."

Zing Zing Zing ...

Tina Fey in The New York Times, asked if she had any advice for Amy Poehler as she worked on her new show, "Parks and Recreation":

“Trust no one. Yell at everyone. Insist on being driven to work in a party trolley.”

What's That Homeless Person Doing Inside My New Apple Computer?

When I set up my new Apple computer and was poking around among the features in the tool bar at the bottom, an image of a shabbily dressed woman, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, her hair askew and her body slumped awkwardly, popped up. And then … she started doing the exact same things I was doing. If I moved right, she moved right. If I tilted my head, she tilted her head. It was creepy.

Who was she? And why was she living in my computer?