PLASTIC TREASURE

I haven't been out of the house much since my surgery but I took Laura to go tan a couple days ago and while she was in there I walked down the College Hill and stopped into Hill Street News & Tobacco to look at magazines for a bit. While I was in there killing time my friend Noel called me on my cell phone. He wanted to know where I was at because he had a present for me.
He drove to the hill and got there right when Laura was done tanning. He had a little cigar box. I told him, "Noel, you are a dumb ass because you know I quit smoking". I was just joking but I did wonder what was in the box.
When he opened it up I saw that it was full of all these little knick-knacks. He knew I would like it. He said he bought the whole box for five bucks from some lady at the public library.
I didn't get a real good look at all the stuff that was in there until I got home and dumped it all out on the table. Here is some photos of the stuff that was inside:







All sorts of random cool junk.





There was a whole shitload of charms and I recognized a few of them as old "Cracker Jack" prizes because I've seen some of them at antique shows.



I let my daughter Sam put all the charms on a bracelet.



Here's a picture of all the rings that were in there. My favorite one was a really cool "motion" ring that flipped back and forth between the wolfman and the creature from the black lagoon. There was also a lot of Hostess rings. My dad worked for Hostess all through my childhood so we always had these laying around the house. There is also a yellow "Twinkie the Kid" ring I have a couple of them in my studio because they remind me of my dad and how me and my brother and sisters would raid his truck when he stopped home for lunch.

Anyway, thanks a bunch Noel. That was a neat gift.

SOME SEXIST ADS AND PRODUCTS

Whenever I'm photo-searching on the internet and I run across one of these "sexist" ads I always copy it and store them in a folder. I thought it might be neat to post and share some of these.



This one is just rotten!! You just have to laugh though. Can you imagine something like this in a magazine nowadays?



I guess women are too stupid to use the machine?



"Loose Women" I always thought that was so funny. Watch out for loose women. Full of disease.



Van Heusen shirts has quite a few really bad "Man Worship" ads.



Spank your wife if she buys the wrong coffee?



Here's another spank your wife ad from Van Heusen.



I have dozens of these ads where it just assumes the wife does all the housework. It usually shows the husband and children in the background watching television or relaxing.





You probably can't read all of the smaller print, but this is from a brochure about putting women to work in a factory. It says "Women are Teachable", "Women are Cooperative", "Women are Patient".



We've got Santa peeping up the lady's skirt.





He's pissed off because it's her fault the drain is clogged? It's probably full of his shaving scum.





Put that woman at crotch level where she belongs!!



I've tried this before and it doesn't work. You can't blow cigar smoke in someone's face and expect them to hop into bed with you.



Using scare tactics to sell beauty products. Your huusband thinks you are looking old and he wants to trade you in for a newer model.



This is probably the tag off a Van Heusen shirt.

The next few ads have to deal with "Feminine Hygiene" products and how your husband may leave you in your nasty "hoo-hah" smells.











This is how to get what you want. Pick the household appliances of your dreams and whip up some fake tears so your husband will buy them for you.





JEM, the magazine for masterful men.

Post a comment if you'd like to see more sexist ads I've collected.

TODAY'S AUTOGRAPH

Today I got an autographed photo of Susan Lucci in the mail. She is best known for her role as Erica Kane on the soap opera "All My Children". She has been on the show since it's first episode in January of 1970. The last couple autographs I got kind of suck. I never watch soap operas unless I'm trying to take an afternoon nap.
My goal in the beginning was to try and see how many "celebrity" autographs I could get in a year without spending money to buy them and I'm doing pretty good so I guess I shouldn't complain.
This is the 40th signed photo I've received in the mail since I started sending out requests on August 19th of last year. Since then I have also purchased 13 autographed photos from thrift stores and flea markets and I had 5 autographs to begin with. So that's a total of 57. Not bad.

MARY TYLER MOORE AUTOGRAPHED PHOTO

I got this signed photo of Mary Tyler Moore in the mail while I was in the hospital.



I used to watch The Dick Van Dyke Show on Nick At Nite and I thought Laura Petrie was the bee's knees.

A WEEK IN THE HOSPITAL

I just got home this afternoon after being in the hospital in Iowa City for almost a week.
I started having cramps a few weeks ago and it just kept getting worse and worse. Eventually I stopped pooping and my abdomen was bulging out like I was pregnant. I figured maybe if I took stool softeners then it would eventually go away but it just kept getting worse.
There was two nights where I was in such bad pain that I couldn't sleep and I figured that I better go to the doctor.
When I had cancer back in 1999 the doctors had to put in a "ventricular shunt" which is a tube that drains excess cranial/spinal fluid from the brain and through a thin tube that drains into the abdominal cavity. Since I knew the tube was on the right side of my body where I was feeling the worst cramps I was almost positive that my shunt had broke.
By the time I got to the doctor's office in Waterloo I could barely walk. When I laid on the examining table on my back the doctor pointed out how much higher the right side of my belly was from my left. That morning when I was taking a shower I was freaking out because when I stood up straight I could barely see my dick over my gut.
They drove me in an ambulance to Iowa City Hospital and gave me CAT scans and MRIs. They discovered that I had a 8"x15" mass of fluid in my abdomen that was pushing all my bowels and lower organs over to the left side. My shunt had broke and started leaking brain fluid into my belly.
The medical students who drained the fluid out where two girls and a boy who looked like they were only teenagers. The main boy who stuck in the needle reminded me of someone you would see playing "magic" at the local comic store. A young nerdy "Doogie Howser" type. And the two nurses looked just as young. When they stuck in the big needle they drained 680 ml of this crystal clear fluid into this big jar. I just laid there watching it fill slowly. I couldn't believe all that was in there. It was like half of a two liter bottle.
When I got back to my room my wife Laura looked at my belly and it was almost flat. All this time I thought I was getting a fat belly. The doctors told me later that I had the mass of a six month old fetus in there. So not only did I get to feel what it is like to be pregnant but I also got the pains.
I had to share a small room with an old man named Dick who was hard of hearing and said, "What?" really loud when anyone said anything. We ended up becoming friends but neither of us got any sleep because the nurses kept coming in an turning on the lights and making us both do neurological tests on the hour. I couldn't smoke so I was forced to quit cold turkey. That ended up being a god thing because there's no other way I would've done that on my own and I knew I needed to quit. I also hadn't eaten anything for three days. I ended up getting really grumpy and discouraged. No sleep, no food, no cigarettes, and in pain the whole time.
The nurses were so busy that they would miss my pain medication.
I called my wife to come help take care of me and she ended up staying there with me the rest of the time. She brought me some stuff that Chuck and Leah Hoffman sent with her and a bunch of food and stuff to do from my friends Nikki Johnson and Aaron Edwards.
The doctors shut off the shunt for 48 hours to see if I would get headaches but it never happened so they knew that I didn't need it anymore and it could be removed. Most shunts have to be replaced every five years or so mine had lasted twice as long as it was meant to. It was fused to my body pretty good by now so I was scared the surgery would be painful.
Dick and his wife left a day before I did so Laura and I got the whole room to ourselves. Dick had stitches all the way up his spine so he was scared about a rough ride in an ambulance to Mason City. I was up out of bed starting to walk around so I went over to his bed and laid my hands on him and said a prayer for him to have a smooth painless trip. Before that we had only talked across a room. I got a kick out of him because when the nurses would wake him up in the middle of the night he would be half awake and talking about nonsense. There was this young blond nurse who was the nicest one of all. One night she woke him up and he thought he was at a surprise birthday party for a coworker and she sat next to him and listened to him talking about it for about 15 minutes just nodding her head and playing along.
Dick liked me also because when I would get pissed off I had the greatest insults and curses. He kept telling the nurses that I was as popular as the president because of all the phone calls I kept getting.
I finally went to surgery to get the shunt removed and as soon as they gave me the anesthesia it seemed like they woke me up thirty seconds later and it was all over. I felt like I got ran over by a truck. I hope I don't have to go through that ever again. That night I stayed up all night long because my head was too sore to lay on the pillow. I watched an entire infomercial twice in a row with no volume all drugged up on Oxycontin and morphine. Then I watched this old movie and right before the end the nurses came in and spoiled the ending for me.
I have to take it easy for a couple of weeks but I should be feeling better before it gets warmer outside.