Share your list 6
In what ballparks that no longer exist did you once watch games? www.collectorfocus.com www.eephusleague.com www.usgwarchives.org
The Slice archive for Sept. 2011
TUESDAY, SEPT. 13, 2011
Here's what I don't understand 1
www.fanpop.com You know those people who have car-window decals featuring Calvin urinating on a truck brand or whatever? Sure. Well, here's what I don't get. Clearly, if you would place that unauthorized image on your vehicle, you must hold the cartoon character in some regard.…
Brushes with obscure fame 4
OK, I'll start. 1) When I was about 12, I sent a letter to a guy who wrote columns for a physical fitness magazine published in York, Pennsylvania. I had a couple of questions about weight training. And even though I was just some dumb…
MONDAY, SEPT. 12, 2011
Still time to salvage the season
So you didn't accomplish all you wanted to this summer. Welcome to the club. But don't despair. Between tonight's full moon and the official start of autumn on the 23rd, there are 10 whole days. A person in the right frame of mind can do…
Once males were required to have... 2
...a favorite model year of the Chevrolet Corvette. www.corvettefever.com
Who names that tune where you work? 4
www.covershut.com I was across the street checking my box at the downtown post office when music coming from an area where postal employees work took me back to 1973. It was a song from an Allman Brothers album that several friends and I just about…
Difference between movies and reality 2
I asked Kim Papich, public information officer at the Spokane Regional Health District, what she thought was the most unrealistic aspect of the movie "Contagion." And after stressing that deadly contagious disease outbreaks can and do happen, she said the people in the movie were…
Borrowing a line from an old Bible movie 3
If you have been listening to someone complain for weeks and weeks about how it wasn't hot enough... ...and now that person is actually grousing that it is TOO hot... Well, The Slice recommends trotting out a certain line from an old movie. It doesn't…
One sign you live in a jerkwater town 1
Everyone you know believes mass transportation is a Commie conspiracy. That's seldom the case here in Spokane, of course. Right? Wednesday is STA Rider Appreciation Day. Sure it's an obvious PR move coming days before some service reductions. But a few early riders will receive…
Can Elizabeth Bennet save the world?
www.bbc.uk For some of us, actress Jennifer Ehle will always be remembered for her performance as Elizabeth Bennet in that great 1995 British production of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." This is true even when she is playing a CDC scientist searching for a way…
SATURDAY, SEPT. 10, 2011
Ten for the 10th
1. Did it seem like you couldn't drive half a mile in and around Spokane today without seeing a homemade "Turn here" sign for a wedding reception? 2. Does picking peaches at Green Bluff after most of the fruit already has been harvested remind you…
Want to have a song stuck in your head?
The Slice recommends going to youtube or some music site and finding a good version of the infectious instrumental "Time is Tight," by Booker T. & The M.G.'s. You won't be sorry. They didn't think the race thing was a big deal. They just liked…
FRIDAY, SEPT. 9, 2011
If you haven't been there in 23 years...
...can you still recommend a place? I'm going to say "Yes." www.terragallery.ru
Suddenly I felt like an STA driver 1
www.ed101.bu.edu On my way home from work this afternoon a ladybug landed on my bike and went for a ride. I was not going fast. This was on an uphill stretch. Still, I wondered if this little guy was soon going to be far from…
One possible response to hot weather 1
www.portlandmonthlymag.com
All-time least creative newspaper editor 1
At my first reporting job in Flagstaff, Ariz., I worked with a guy whose previous newspaper gig had been in sun-baked Yuma, Ariz. He used to tell stories about a sports editor there who meant well but lacked a certain spark. One tale stayed with…
Preseason NFL game in Spokane
www.gasolinealleyantiques.com
Did you know? 1
www.livelearnloveleave.com This '70s fad was invented by Gary Dahl, a 1954 graduate of Spokane's Rogers High. Of course, he had long since moved to California before coming up with the pet rock.
Speaking of the praying mantis IV 1
"I noted a striking lack of plural construction in your piece devoted to the praying mantis (Thursday's Slice)," wrote Jill Carlson. "By design?" I suppose so. To me, "praying mantises" looks like "praying mantiseseses." Moreover, some say "mantes" is the correct plural form. So I…
The origins of nicknames
www.boardgamescritic.com Sometimes nicknames are acquired by accident. At my first newspaper job right out of college, one of my fellow reporters was a nice guy named Rick Velotta. Well, once a typesetter made a mistake and his byline came out "Rock Velotta." Eventually, people stopped…
THURSDAY, SEPT. 8, 2011
In Friday's print Slice
The column leads off with a fun, fair-related proposal put forward by my friend Liz Cox. I think you might get a kick out of it. Once, years ago, the S-R managed to misspell her name in a news story. That's always bad. But this…
Speaking of the praying mantis III 1
My colleague Pia Hallenberg, who didn't encounter these green giants in her native Denmark, told me she saw a praying mantis at the corner of Post and Sprague downtown. It was on a window of the Post Street Ale House but then flew to a…
Baseball card blowout plus four
A reader politely asked, "What's with all the baseball cards?" She didn't add, but I think it was implicit, "Are you TRYING to drive away female readers or men who don't care about sports trivia?" No, not really. And after this batch, I intend to…
Speaking of the praying mantis II
Here's something written in the summer of 2008 by local poet R. Steven Heaps. It is called "Entomological Ingratitude." Say there, you artists, playwrights and peers who complain how your works are reviewed. Think again, if you will, please pause, now be still; I ask…
The best-ever line about facing layoffs
In the 1987 movie "Broadcast News," there's a scene where the head of a TV network's Washington, D.C., bureau emerges from his office with an employee he has just let go. Hoping to strike a conciliatory tone, the bureau chief says "Now if there's anything…
The online home for Paul Turner's musings and interactions with disciples of The Slice.
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