Check out this photo from the Kudzu.com profile for Sta-Cool Refrigeration in Arizona! We’re honored!

The caption on this photo, one of many for CleanMyPooch.com, a mobile pet groomer in Atlanta, says it all: “Zeke the Jedi.”

This is kind of an interesting review of Elite Hauling Services in San Diego:

“These people showed up on time, took care of business and left.”

As opposed to? It’s a hauling service, after all…

I was eight. My brother was ten. My mother loaded us in the car and took us for a bit of a drive, not telling us where we were going. And then, there we were. Like in a movie. Like out of a dream. At a dog shelter, the Bide A Wee Home Association in Wantagh, NY. Where she had decided it was time for us to get a dog. I don’t remember us begging her for one. We had had one years before, the ill-fated Barney who didn’t last long, and we knew well enough to “let sleeping dogs lie,” as they say, after that experience.

I still get chills thinking of that day. Of the way we walked up and down the row of cages until we spotted her, the little black, brown and white puppy that we would name Gin and that would be my constant companion for the next 10 years until I went away to college, and who would die an old and happy dog while I was there.

There are days in your life you remember vividly. Your wedding. When your babies are born. And you know what? The day you get a dog is right up there. Thanks, Mom.

I saw my first opera, and, no, I’m not talking about What’s Opera, Doc, the classic Bugs Bunny Wagnerian opera spoof (“Kill the raaaaaaaabit! Kill the raaaaaaaaabit!”) created by Chuck Jones and included as one of only about 100 entries in the National Film Registry. I’m talking a real, live opera performance here, gang. Barritones, basses, tenors, sopranos, the works.

As I stood in the lobby of the Atlanta Civic Center, I froze in time, in space, in senses—or at least, in shock that I was even there on an innocent Sunday afternoon. It was at least two hours before the curtain was scheduled to lift on Fidelio, my first, and Beethoven’s only, opera. As I stood there, alone, I heard the strains of the orchestra warming up, running through scales. Beautiful, but vaguely familiar from other times in my life.

But then. Then. Those voices! “La, la, la, la, la, la laaaaaaa.” There was a chorus of voices, off somewhere in the back, in the distance, in the shadows of the hall, in their last private moments which are in reality not private at all, exposing themselves in all their rawness. I stood there, transfixed and in disbelief that it had taken me so long in life to find this.

Once in my seat, I leaned forward and didn’t know where to look first. The maestro in the pit flailed his arms while, unbeknownst to me, conducting his final performance with the Atlanta Opera after more than twenty years. The orchestra responded. Captions above the curtain translated the original German into English as the singers worked their way around the stark scaffolding depicting a timeless dungeon. And to me, this moment was timeless. And I was freed, finally, from having to wonder what it would be like to attend an opera.

Is this one of those “only in L.A.” things? There’s a company named Valley Clear Bra. Okay, it screams L.A. so far. Maybe some kind of Hollywood starlet plastic surgery thing. But then the one review of this company says, “The clear bra on my car looks fantastic!” Huh? I’m at a loss here, gang. Any ideas?

C’mon. Be honest. You look at that photo and feel an overwhelming desire to do a cartwheel, don’t you? Clear out the coffee table or close the office door and let it rip. One, two three four, all in a row. Or not. But didn’t that feel good?

You learn something new every day. Did you know that Asians do not have a crease in their eyelids, and that cosmetic surgery is very common in Korea to add a crease and round out the eyes so that they look more Western? And now this surgery is getting more common here? The things you can find out about on Kudzu.com…Watch the video..