Angels and Others

This is Bucky. Bucky was a happy go lucky little pug without a care in the world but one day his owners thought it would be cute to dress him up like a character from a Sci-Fi movie. As happens so often in these situations pictures of this "cuteness" have turned up on the internet. Bucky is now a humiliated,depressed and suicidal little dog. We here at speckworld beg you...Please don't dress your animals up for Halloween or any other reason. It isn't cute...It's stupid. If you won't do it for us, in the name of god, do it for Bucky.

Uh …Hi…My name is Bob and I’m an addict. It all started when I was still in my teens; I’d watch an occasional episode of Julia Child’s The French Chef or The Great Chefs series on PBS for kicks.  Nothing major, it was all just fun.  The food seemed so exotic and special and a world away from anything I experienced in 70’s suburban Virginia.  As I got a little older I began to watch these shows on a weekly basis and discovered Chef Tell who was not only one of America’s first star chefs but the inspiration for a Muppet.  And all this years before the high priestess of American food writing, Ruth Reichl, made another German with an improbable name (Wolfgang Puck) a culinary god.  By my late teens my habit had grown to include The Frugal Gourmet with Jeff Smith and Burt Wolf, whose travel related shows were irresistible to someone who dreamed of a life beyond the tract houses and of food beyond mac and cheese. Time and travel gave me more opportunities to ...

"How like life is the endive, well shaped but ah…so bitter." I’m eating vegetables. I’m not particularly proud of this fact but it’s the truth. I have eaten more vegetables since starting my diet last Monday than in the previous six months. And not the fun vegetables either, the green ones. No corn, no potatoes, no carrots and no peas. I can, however, eat kale, cabbage and kohlrabi to my hearts content. Kohlrabi? Great, now I have to “google” vegetables to find out just how much I’m going to hate eating them. For the record Kohlrabi is a German turnip with the taste and texture of a broccoli stem. A broccoli stem? Yum! Give me more of that! I take solace in knowing that my green, leafy aversion is typical of many brought up in my class (blue collar) and my country (the good ‘ol USA) and that many of us were trained to dislike vegetables almost from birth. If your ethnic background, like mine (German/Irish), was one whose default method of vegetable preparat...

I’ve crossed over to the dark side, abandoned all hope thrown in the towel, read the writing on the wall and turned my back on all I hold dear. That's right.... I’m on a diet. No cookies, cakes, pies or chips. No pizza, General Tso’s Chicken, BBQ or fried dough of any kind. Just that thin flavorless grayish-green vitamin fortified gruel-like substance you’re forced to eat when you leave the matrix. Ok I’m exaggerating...a little. I’m on the Weight Watchers For Men (more on that soon). Wheee! It’s actually a pretty cool set –up. The best part of it is that the whole thing is done on line, no meetings. Now I’m well aware that people who go to meetings tend to be more successful in their pursuit of a chafe free summer. I’m also aware that if I were to attend a typical meeting I would more than likely be killed and possibly eating by a large number of protein deprived housewives and office workers from Burbank who wouldn’t appreciate my “unique” outlook on life. So I’m keepin...