In the News

Home and Garden TV

I'll have to be brief this morning. I have a TV crew in the house. Okay, it's not so much as a "crew" as it is one guy from SewerMatic. He's down in the basement checking out my sewer pipe with a video camera on a long flexible wire. I've got some interesting root action going on. I'll show the tape at the next party.

On other blogs

My drawing of Michael Ball from Feb. 9 has been picked up by another blog - the Michael Ball (Only) Club. It's a blog dedicated to people named Michael Ball.

So far there hasn't been much interest in a blog dedicated to guys named David Scrimshaw. I was contacted several years ago by a David Scrimshaw who owned a power tool company in Australia. I'm hoping he's not the same guy who ran an internet service and skipped out on his customers. (The reason I suspect it could be the same guy is that Power Tool Dave asked if he could give ex-girlfriends my address and tell them that he'd moved to Canada.) The David Scrimshaw who runs an engineering company in England with a guy named David Taylor (I'm not making this up) never replied to my email. There's also a David Scrimshaw in Wales who does particularly well at cricket.

Dave Scrimshaw snaffled 7-20 off 10 overs as Denbigh pulled off a two-wicket win over Gwersyllt Park, dismissed for 90 (Jamie Griffiths 25). Denbigh hit 91-8 (Neil Pearson 3-28 off 13 overs) in a 20-3 result. [source]

At least, I assume he does well, they wouldn't mention his name if he was doing badly, right? Snaffling is good, right?

Scrimshaw at the Olympics

No, there isn't a David Scrimshaw at the Olympics, but there was a new use of my last name in this news item from MSNBC, subtitled Failing at the Olympics is forgivable, but getting fatter on beer is not:

If there has been a weaker performance by an American athlete on the international stage than that of Miller, I’m hard pressed to think of one. To hear Miller tell it, he spent more time in Sestriere’s nightclubs than he did in actual competition, which amounted to less than eight minutes. Miller’s final Olympic event, the slalom, lasted all of 16 seconds. He bulled out of the start house, did a couple of quick scrimshaw turns, and promptly straddled a gate.

I just checked with my avid skiing brothers, none of us has heard of a "scrimshaw turn". Steve suggests "Maybe it has to do with the turn being 'carved'". In any case, I'm going on the theory that Miller was doing well when he "bulled out of the start house" and "did a couple of quick scrimshaw turns", and only went wrong when he straddled the gate.