Let’s visit with a few of the fine folks at the Dull Men’s Club (UK) today.
Greg Smith shared some good news. He posted the following photo with this note: “Yeah, I managed to get the lid off my pot noodle without tearing it.”
Allison Shaw was impressed and wrote: Now you can chase your dreams.
Jane Sutherland wrote: So there we were on holiday in Cyprus recently and my project manager of a husband sits there frantically making notes regarding our imminent house move! 
He said he could have done with a spreadsheet ideally but had to make do with a good old-fashioned notebook and pen!
Lee Collins replied: Who goes away without access to a spreadsheet?
My dad used handkerchiefs and not tissues and I picked up the habit from him, although I will also use tissues sometimes. And Sam uses handkerchiefs too. Tradition!!
Mark Hurd posted the following note and photo in the DMC (UK):
A baker’s dozen neatly ironed handkerchiefs. …Please don’t tell me that they’re unhygienic and that I should switch to tissues, some of those handkerchiefs have been used by me for more than 10 years so I’m doing my recycling bit for the environment. The “hygiene” factor was one of the best ever marketing ploys of the 20th century. After WWI ended the cellulose industries that had been making gas masks for the US military suddenly found themselves with an industry but no market. Tissues were one of their solutions and the “hygiene” factor was swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Mark later added the following: All my handkerchiefs are gifts from various relatives. A few are getting very frayed around the edges (the handkerchiefs, not the relatives … Well, some relatives may be getting that way…). My wife re-hemmed a few (handkerchiefs) but that makes them a bit small.
I added this note: My Uncle Morris used to own a variety store that sold, among many other items, handkerchiefs. He casually glanced at his laundry bill at home one day (my Aunt Emma sent the laundry out to a laundry service), and noticed that he was paying more to have a handkerchief cleaned than it cost him to buy for the store. “Ever since then,” he told me, “I just blow my nose and throw it away.”
As we near our 800th Owl Chatter post, I’d like to remind our two or three readers about our incredible staff, whose tiresome and dispensable efforts make it all possible. What can we say about Phil, our intrepid photographer, trained at the School of the Blind? We love you Philly! Georgie (Santos) our administrative assistant whose return from prison (in seven years, give or take) we eagerly await. George’s sole responsibility was to keep the fridge stocked with diet soda. He’s a genius at it and the operation has pretty much fallen apart, tbh. Our sports consultant, the exquisite pro hockey player Sarah Fillier, and the amazing Ana de Armas, our beauty and culture czarina. If you want to get to know Armas a bit like we have, spend some time with this video. It was posted on Rex Parker’s crossword puzzle blog today in connection with 16A “Bottleful at a barbecue,” HOT SAUCE.
At 63A “Some nostalgic throwbacks” was OLD SONGS. Commenter kitshef recalled a wonderful Monk line: “I like the old songs. Why don’t people write old songs anymore?” (Monk, Season 5, episode 8.)
At 5D, the answer was ANGELS (“Early investors, in lingo”). So here’s “She’s An Angel,” a musical interlude for us by They Might Be Giants.
The oddest clue today was at 50A: “Creature with ‘Underwater eyes, an eel’s / Oil of water body,’ per the poet Ted Hughes.” The answer was OTTER. I’ve learned a bit about them through puzzles, in particular that they are playful. Rex commenter Pabloinnh shared his favorite otter quote with us: “If an OTTER cannot have fun doing something, he simply will not do it.”
Wednesday was World Otter Day. It’s always the last Wednesday in May. (Visit otter.org for more info.)
OMG, have you ever seen such a beautiful trio?
If you look up “mild-mannered” in the dictionary, you might very well find a photo of David Brooks next to the definition. He admits it himself. But his column today in the NYT was written in anger. Here’s one paragraph of it.
“Over the past four months, a small cabal at the top of the administration — including Trump, Vance, Miller and the O.M.B. director, Russell Vought — have brought a series of moral degradations to the nation [American soldiers] fought and died for: the betrayal of Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine, the cruel destruction of so many scientists’ life projects, the ruination of PEPFAR. According to the H.I.V. Modeling Consortium’s PEPFAR Impact Tracker, the cuts to that program alone have already resulted in nearly 55,000 adult deaths and nearly 6,000 dead children. We’re only four months in.”
Those numbers are not typos, they are atrocities.
In Congressional testimony, Sec’y of State Marco Rubio lied and danced around the question of deaths caused by his and Musk’s cuts. He is up to his neck in blood. Every one of them is.
OK, let’s go to the ballgame. On Tuesday night, with the Mets facing the White Sox, Nimmo was on first base. (If you are interested in “finding Nimmo,” he was on first base. (Never gets old.)) Soto drove the ball 350 feet to right-center where Michael A. Taylor dove for it. It was clear that Taylor trapped the ball, i.e., caught it on a short bounce. The first-base ump signaled “safe,” meaning “no catch.” But Nimmo was running and did not see the signal. He interpreted the crowd roar to mean the ball was caught so he turned around to run back to first. Soto also thought the ball was caught so he stopped running between first and second. Under the rules, when Nimmo crossed Soto on his way back to first, Soto was out (for having passed the runner). He does not get credit for a hit. Nimmo is not out and could stay on first.
Some sports talk show hosts in their illiteracy occasionally improve upon the language. Evan Roberts (whom I like — he’s just a big goofy kid pretending to be a grown-up) was trying to say “greater likelihood” today. But that’s a sh*tload of syllables. He saved time by saying “likelier-hood.” A keeper.
Here’s Evan with his pretty wife, Sylvia. He’s Jewish and they have two sons.
Two items from The Onion:
Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ Falls Off Museum Wall After Sticky Tabs Come Loose
Pigeon Feels Silly About Still Being A Little Scared Of Plastic Owl
The 3-year-old pigeon, above, who months after his initial encounter with the artificial owl acknowledges he still gets “kind of freaked out” by it, reportedly doesn’t like walking or flying near the railing where the 16-inch-tall lawn ornament has been placed, despite knowing full well that it’s just a harmless piece of molded plastic and not a dangerous predator.
The pigeon conceded he will sometimes take out-of-the-way routes to avoid the plastic owl and, when in its vicinity, will circle overhead for several minutes before working up the courage to land. “I get that it isn’t real. I even saw it tip over in the wind once, so I know it’s fake. But it still gives me the creeps.”
He recounted an episode in which he was flying along contentedly with a large piece of bagel in his beak when he caught a glimpse of the plastic owl below and, in a state of fright, dropped the baked good, fearing to retrieve it because it had landed too close to the bird decoy. “God, I’m so fucking pathetic.”
See you tomorrow Chatterheads!
The Wellington Files 