Tag Archives: Star Trek

Got Milk, Any Milk?

Banana Milk .

It sounded good to me. I love bananas. I love them plain I do or with some ice cream, just a scoop or two.

Let’s stop this Seuss train before the good Dr.’s estate decides to serve me, not with a treat  but a suit of the costly variety. 

Sorry, I just can’t quit.

Milk Alternatives

I recently read that dairy farmers were losing market share to “milk alternatives”.

“Johnson. Tell me about this great product idea you have.”

“Well sir I think the world of milk alternatives is something we should get into.”

“I’m still listening.”

“Well sir, we soak some stuff in water, we take out the stuff and the remaining liquid we call “Whatever stuff we used Milk.” The pitch needs to be polished up a bit but you get the picture.”

“Sounds promising but we’ll leave the promotion part to the advertising section.”

They are now making milk out of just about every food item not usually associated with dairy products. My local grocery store offers a cornucopia of “milk” types. Almond, coconut, soy, banana, cashew, macadamia, hemp* and quinoa are all food items that have been “milk-a-fied .” To be fair, coconut milk has been around forever. Almond and soy milk are a close second.

My first exposure to the  idea of coconut milk was introduced to my lexicon during the 60s (1960s) by Giligans Island.  I’m sure it had been depicted in other artistic forms before that , musicals and the stage, but for a smaller audience.

The island displayed a myriad of uses for the coconut, many of them purely fantastic. I do admit though the concept of a coconut radio intrigued me at a young age.

Banana milk sounded tasty. The promise of a tall glass of cold liquid banana sells itself. Who doesn’t like bananas? The mighty banana can go toe to toe with any fruit to accompany any meal whether its breakfast, lunch, dinner or that sneaky 2 am snack. 

Gilligan’s Island was overstocked with bananas. I was going to try it.  How could I go wrong?

 I’ll tell you how. Concoct a liquid that somehow captures the essence of gutter water topped off with a not yet ripe banana peel and shake enough to generate a froth like substance. You could also throw it in a blender. Spoiler alert:  It’s the same nauseous result.

Everything looks tasty when accompanied by a good froth. Unfortunately in this case looks are deceiving. 

To be honest up until now the only milk alternative I had consumed was almond milk and that was an attempt to rule out dairy products as the reason for a multitude of sinus issues. It wasn’t too bad with cereal if the cereal was chocolate frosted sugar bombs. My sinus problems continued to march onward.

If you are trying to limit the amount of fat in your diet, I think almond milk might be an alternative to cream in a White Russian cocktail. Someone try it out and let me know how it was.

Once you open the cocktail bar you could probably find quite a few recipes where almond milk might make a healthier choice with the alcohol making it tolerable. Go ahead and try a few and let me know what you thought of them. I am trying to lead a healthy life style but I’m not a first adopter. 

The other “milk” types while sounding interesting are not enticing enough for me to try.

At best I could probably tolerate a few but life is too short to just “tolerate” anything I consume. I think the alternate milk craze is here to stay for a while or at least until some new milk alternative takes on a light shade of blue ** and the marketing department can’t sell the public that blue means it’s wholesome.

*Stoner Alert:Legally grown hemp does not have a significant amount of THC to alter any sense but taste. 

**Blue seems to be a popular color for a beverage in the future. See Star Wars (the first movie), Star Trek TOS (The Original Series ) Silent Running to name a few.

Just following good SEO here. Back to where it all begins.

Must See Tv

When the election of 2016 had finished I realized that our president elect was not too far removed from his recent TV gig as a reality show host. I thought, “This will be interesting.”
To say the least that was an understatement.


Our conspiracy friends have an interesting take on the man in question and his reality show tendencies…

The dog days of summer had taken a hold of Washington DC like a  lobbyist on a politician. There was hardly any breathing room.

A small breeze from a few ceiling fans waltzed across the sweaty faces of three familiar and only occupants of a certain unassuming neighborhood bar on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Panama * was holding court and was about to reveal what he believes  to be the underlying cause of the wild actions of the currant occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Well, the recent actions, this past week.

“You’re pausing for effect aren’t you,” asked the bearded man.

“Of course. Could there be any other reason?” asked Mr Panama.

“That or perhaps the brat you just ate did not agree with you,” replied the bearded one.** 

“No, it’s for effect. May I continue?”

The nondescript bar tender and the bearded one replied in unison, “Please get on with it.”

“All right. So back to my theory that would explain the recent hi-jinks of the current leader of the free world.”

“Yes, we’re on the edge of our stools. Please.”

Do you agree the said occupant is not so far removed from being host of the TV reality show “The Apprentice”.

“I  agree,” replied the bearded one.

“I think he always wanted to be a network TV programming director and I believe that is  the model he is using for his presidency,” said Mr. Panama.

“I don’t watch much TV but I heard a rumor to that effect,” replied the bartender.

“Could you explain further,” asked the bearded one.

“I was about to after adding an additional pause for effect.”

“Any more pauses and the only effect you will observe is the sight of us asleep,” replied the bartender.

“I believe the recent activities of our president were examples of pilots of reality shows he and some of his aids plans on developing for the networks.”

“Which aides are you referring to?” asked the bartender.

“There is no point in naming them. Aids in this administration
are like red shirted Star Trek crew members. Their time in the spotlight won’t be long,” replied Mr. Panama.

“So if they are pilots who is the audience,” asked the bearded one.

“The press and whatever polls are being taken at the time.”

“What if the poles are negative,” asked the bartender. 

“He doesn’t mind that so much because what he is looking at is the percentage of respondents having expressed an opinion. The less he sees with “No opinion” the better. If they have an opinion they’re paying attention. He believes they are the ones that would tune into the show(s).”

“So what are the shows he’s pitching,” asked the bartender

Mr Panama replied, “”So you want to buy an Island?” tested out very well.”

“That Greenland story had a lot of people paying attention.”

“But a lot of them were late night comedians,” added the bearded one.

“Doesn’t matter its free publicity.”

“His other pilot program has been going on for a while with no known name but I think they have a name for it now and it’s called “What is our policy today?

It’s inspired by the Mar-a-lago 3.”

“Who,” asked the bearded one.

“Good friends of his that are members of the Mar-a-largo club.

Supposedly they are directing policy for the Veterans Administration,” replied Mr. Panama.

“The show will consist of successful members of Trump’s outer circle of friends suggesting new policies for random Government agencies.”

“Why are they considered successful?” asked the bearded one.

“Duh, they’re all rich. You should know that by now,” responded Mr. Panama.

“That ought to be interesting ,”  said the  bartender.

“They come up with a new policy and then apply it to a random agency.”

“ That doesn’t seem to be a good strategy,” remarked the bearded one.

 “Shouldn’t they craft a strategy for a particular agency,” asked the bartender.

“Probably but it is good television and the president  knows good television.”

“It will be interesting to see how this theory plays out ,” said the bearded one.

“I can’t wait for sweeps week,” added the bartender.

  • Full name Mr. Panama Hat. See my conspiracy series of blog posts.
  • * This character is only known as “The Bearded One” or ” Bearded One.” Again see the above link.

The Thin Yellow Line

It was one twenty in the morning and I was staring at a band of yellow police tape across the closed-door of my hotel room. “Thats funny” I thought, ”I don’t recall committing a crime before going to work. I would remember that”. Glancing at several other doors down the hall it appeared like the crime was part of a wave that  hit several other neighbors. The security guard parked unceremoniously on a chair outside my door eyed me with suspicion.

Taking the risk of raising the ire of a retired cop with hemorrhoids , I think I saw his posterior resting on a donut (no sprinkles), I smiled and said good morning (part of my killing with kindness persona) and pointed out that one of the taped rooms was mine.

“No it is not sir”. Now I was extremely tired and in that state I have been known to search the wrong side of the airport parking lot for my car but I was looking at my little hotel envelope , the one that accompanies your card key  you when you check in, and the room number on it definitely matched one of the  taped ones.  Proceeding with caution I  showed him the envelope and my key and uttered “Um I am sorry  but when I checked in I was issued a key for this  room”. Seeing the envelope and with the reluctance of a cop not wanting to leave his donut behind he slowly stood up to get a  closer look at the number. He brought out a list for comparison and blinked several times to insure the number remained the same. “Well you will have to talk to the front desk. I have orders to watch these rooms as they have minors on a field trip”.

Wow a field trip to see other people’s hotel rooms! Must be a private school. “Ok,  I know you are just doing your job” I said as I shuffled towards the elevator.

I appeared at the front desk, a tired beaten man incapable of any anger except for the small amount saved up for the snoring that  I hoped would soon be assaulting the neighbors. I explained my plight to the front desk clerk but  it was hard to ignore the fact that  he looked like several of the Star Trek Ensigns that never lasted more than an episode before they were killed off. Perhaps that was why  he  seemed a little extra jumpy. He grabbed the master list of student rooms with all the energy of someone who knew this was their last mission and returned to my floor to confront the hemorrhoidal Bones McCoy from episode whatever and the dangers that lay behind my door.

The security guard snapped to attention accidentally taking the donut with him.

Studying the list together they concluded that my room should not be on the list but they could not guarantee that there would not be a couple of 13 year olds rummaging through my shave kit playing grown up.

Ensign front desk clerk decided that if the was his last mission he was going to carry it out all the way to its conclusion. Gathering his courage he slowly opened my door and throwing caution to the wind flipped the light switch. There at 2 am on a Tuesday night in a hotel in D.C. standing alongside  Ensign  Hotel “ last episode” Clerk and Bones “I’m not a cop I am  a security guard Jim”  McCoy, my eyes fell upon my hotel room devoid of any signs of teenage mayhem.

Twenty minutes later I was unconscious on my bed adding to the stories the school kids would be able to tell their parents about their field trip to DC , the cool stuff they saw and whatever they made up to explain the horrific noise next door that woke them up in the middle of the night.