Here’s a neat page at the website of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research — their Gallery of Nostrums, containing labels from and ads for old patent medicines.
Yes, there’s snake oil. Several kinds. And many other scary things. “Epilepsy Remedy”… “Eckman’s Alterative” (sheesh, that one sounds like Jack Vance or Gene Wolfe invented it) … “Mixer’s Cancer and Scrofula Syrup.”
(shudder)
…Without warning, Carmela came around the corner and pulled Nita out of sight of the dining room.
“Who. Is. Your. Friend??” she whispered. “Where did he come from??”
“Ireland. There’s this town on the coast, it’s called Bray – ”
“No no no,” Carmela said, waving her hands helplessly in the air, “I meant it in a much more, you know, existential way. I was referring to his basic, you know, hotness — “
Nita had to work to keep from snickering at Carmela’s loss of composure. “Yeah,” she said, “while I was there I noticed that there did seem to be a lot of really good looking Irish guys. I started to wonder if maybe there was something in the water.”
Carmela put her head down by Nita’s and whispered, if possible, even more quietly. “Is he attached?”
“In ways it would take me hours, if not days, to describe,” Nita said, “yes.”
Carmela’s face fell.
“But none of them are those kinds of ways,” Nita said.
A smile appeared slowly on Carmela’s face. “Oh, good.”
Nita raised her eyebrows. “You’re going to break Filif’s heart, you know.”
“Oh no — my feelings for him go right down to the root.”
Nita groaned. “And what about Roshaun?”
“Roshaun? Please. That would be poaching,” Carmela said.
While Nita started to try to work that one out, Carmela grinned at her, then strolled back into the dining room in the most casual manner imaginable.
Finally Nita shook her head. And I thought things were too weird around here already. I think we’re about to set a weirdness baseline the likes of which the planet has never seen…
So they told us the new larder fridge and freezer won’t be showing up until ten days or so from now. Great, I thought. One less thing to worry about while I’m working.
So naturally they’re coming today. While Kit is arguing with a cranky alien about the meaning of life, Nita is up to her ears in trying to rewrite the physical laws of a volume of space she really doesn’t know enough about, and Dairine and Roshaun are… no, never mind that, it’s too complex.
Argh. Clutch head, yell “Cut!” at characters, put computer away, get busy rearranging the kitchen…
Just in case blogging gets a little sparse around here over the next ten days: this is because Wizards at War is due at the publisher on April 1 (don’t ask me if there’s a message there somewhere…). I expect to spend just about every waking minute for the next week and a half chasing the MS around the house and Doing Things To It.
The process won’t be uninterrupted, heaven knows. Life and the cats will see to that.
I may post occasional one-liners from the MS for the entertainment of those interested, though.
YW.Com / YW.Net readers: An excerpt will go up on YW.Net next week.
Wandering over to Fandom_Wank, I find the following: (sorry, no permalink, please scroll down to it if you’re interested — )
“Just before midnight last night, various places start suggesting that the new Doctor [Who] has been cast…
“Somewhere round about midnight GMT the BBC confirm that we’re getting Christoper Eccleston out of Shallow Grave. Squeeing commences, and LJ icons start appearing within minutes.
“But wait! Because while the BBC news site was the official breaker of this, the BBCi had no mention of it.
“And then, they replace their banner with this image.”
(chuckle)
I love Aya’s new Flash animation. They’re a conveyor-sushi place, and the Flash perfectly conveys (ahem) what they do.
Apparently they’re also shortly going to be installing free wireless. Go Aya!!
Yes, guys, it was me. (Hi, Judi!)
This isn’t the first time I’ve sent some bizarro link Dave’s way. Last time I think it was this — scroll down to April 28 and look for “Nature Alert”. And then there was this thing. (Dave linked to it originally here, but the Japanese link no longer functions. Never mind, because a public-minded and genial nutcase called Polazzo has saved all the Hi-Ho animations and stored them here. Bless you, Polazzo, wherever you are.)
…I love Dave’s stuff. He’s a national treasure, if you ask me. Anything I can do to make him laugh seems a small return for the many, many times he’s done it for me.
I found one today.
I can’t remember when I first saw this cartoon’s close “relative” — and I saw it in black and white. It involved two kids, Billy and Isabel, and their meeting with a wonderful fish, Red Lantern, guardian of the Land of the Lost under the sea, “to which all lost things make their way.” Only much later did I find that these cartoons were derived from a 1940’s radio serial (Art Carney was apparently the voice of Red Lantern on radio).
An offhand web search this morning informed me that there were actually three of these cartoons, and led me to LikeTelevision.com. This site has assembled a big library of old TV — classic cartoons, SF, classic TV (Jack Benny, Bonanza, Burns & Allen, Dragnet, etc.), movies, TV history (pick a day…) and toy commercials. All are available for viewing / download, and this is all on the up-and-up: make them a PayPal payment and save an .MPG of something you haven’t seen in a long, long while…
Wow!
It didn’t take long to download the third Red Lantern cartoon, which was waiting online. Now it’s just a matter of tracking down the first two…
For pity’s sake, don’t anyone give these people a copy of The Door into Fire.