New Years Eve, Alabama-Style.

If you want to go to a huge party for New Years Eve this year but don’t want to go all the way to Times Square, there’s a great option right here in Alabama!

Instead of watching a Crystal Ball drop (which is SO last year), Mobile will be dropping a giant Moon Pie at midnight!

And, of course you can’t drop a Moon Pie without serving RC Cola, which will be on hand in abundance.

The 350 pound, 12 foot Electronic Moon Pie has now been installed over Mobile in preparation for it’s big Debut:

The celebration is free to attend, and will also feature a Mardi-Gras Style parade in the afternoon and a street party in the evening. The street party will have two stages of live entertainment, headlined by the O’Jays, the singers of the infamous “Love Train”.

There will also be an elaborate laser and fireworks show at midnight to accompany the Moon Pie drop.

Oh, and if you’re wondering “Why a Moon Pie??”, it’s because it is the most favored treat to be thrown at Mobile’s Mardi Gras parade, the oldest in the nation. And, as such, the Moon Pie has become an unofficial symbol for the city.

For more information, head to http://www.mobilenewyear.com/.

Uncle Joe's Tot Locker: Answers, Finally.

If you were one of the many in the state that saw this:

during our snow "events" and begged for answers, I found them. Click here for the rest of the story.

A Neighborhood Mystery is Afoot. . .

A few days ago, I walked out to get the mail. When I got there, I was quite puzzled by the sudden appearance of this:


NO, not all the dirt and grime on our mailbox. That's always been there and has no projection of being removed any time soon.

A raised, green reflective dot, about the size of a quarter, had suddenly appeared.

Why? Who decided that I needed a reflective dot on my mailbox? Isn't it a federal crime to mess with mail or MAIL CONTAINERS?

So I started looking around.

Across the street: Freddy and Christie had the very same dot.

(You can see it's reflective properties in that picture)

I widened my investigation. Next door: They had a RED dot!!!!


In fact, upon further investigation, most of our neighbors had the RED dot.

But then, some neighbors had no dot at all (for instance, Alice had NO dot, which assuaged my fears that they were marking bloggers).

(Then again, Freddy hasn't blogged in about 10 1/2 decades, so he most likely wouldn't have gotten marked in that case)

Ali and I did an unofficial mailbox survey while out on a walk yesterday and discovered that:

• 33.65% of mailboxes had no dot .
• 64.35% of mailboxes had red dots.
• In the whole neighborhood, there were only two houses with green dots. Ours and Freddy and Christie's.
  

I am quite puzzled as to the meaning of these dots.

Are we marked for execution?

Or are all the red dots marked for execution and we're marked to be spared?

My un-fun, logical theories are:

• There's a new person doing the newspaper route who can't read numbers, so in true equal opportunity form, someone went through and marked with colors. Maybe green means we get the weekend papers only, red means daily, and no dot means no paper. (I need to survey Alice and Freddy and Christie's paper practices to help prove this theory.)
  
  
• Maybe they are related to garbage pickup. (Although this would be a riot since we've never paid for our garbage pickup due to being completely unable to get them to send us a bill. Half the time I think that they just pick up everybody's garbage without regard to the fact that we have no sticker, and the other half of the time I think that it must be on auto-draft out of the former house-owner's checking account, and in a very un-accounting like fashion, they never look at it. Oops.)

My preferable, more inventive theories are:

• Someone is going through and marking the excellent neighbors (green), the bad neighbors (red) and the neutral or hermit neighbors (no dot). We are being classified and a neighborhood caste system is being created. Which means, of course, that we are at the top echelon of neighborhood caste society. YESSSS.
  
  
• A city is finally looking at annexing us and is surveying the neighborhood for people who already have code violations. Like, for instance,
  
  • The man with 200 white homing pigeons in his backyard (housed in 6 huge birdhouses) = non-annex material.
  • The people with the skateboard park in their backyard = non-annex material.
  • Freddy and Christie, with their immaculate yard, house, and fence = annex material.
  • But then again, we have a green dot. So I guess that blows that theory.
    

Anyone else have any theories?

Or better yet, has anyone else had any mysterious mailbox dottage happen in your neighborhood?

This post was originally published at my personal blog, Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life, on May 14, 2009

Mysteries of the ALDOT

A lot of stuff happens every four years. The Olympics, the Presidential Election, and I have to get my driver's license renewed. I actually just now realized that it fell on the same four year schedule as the previous two things - maybe that will help me remember next go-round.

Anyway, so Ali and I headed to the lovely boutique known as the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) today.

We get in line, and as we're standing there, I see a sign that says "no debit or credit - only cash or checks". BUT the window right next to that one had the Visa/Mastercard sticker. I ponder this for a few minutes, knowing that I don't have a check or enough cash to get my DL. I finally realize that apparently if you're getting your TAG renewed, they take plastic. But if you're getting your Plastic renewed (aka Driver's License), they don't. Go figure.

So Ali and I get out of line, stroll across the parking lot to the Post Office, buy enough stamps to not feel auspicious by getting cash back with the purchase (that magic number of stamps is 10, just in case you wondered), then stroll back across the parking lot and get in line again. Miraculously, only two people got to skip ahead of us due to my lack of proper fundage.

So now I'm looking around at all of the signs to make sure that I haven't missed something else, and I notice that the line on the OTHER side of me where they are doing driver's tests only takes Cash, Credit or Debit - NO checks!!

So, as a public service announcement, let me summarize what you can and cannot use at the ALDOT:

Tag Renewal: They'll take anything. Even your firstborn, I hear.
Driver's License: Cash or Checks only, please. They don't believe in taking plastic, only issuing it.
Driver's Test for New License: Cash or Debit/Credit only, no checks. Apparently they are afraid of all of the sixteen year olds running around kiting bad checks.

Yes, these lines are all run by the same infamous Jefferson County figure, Travis A. Hulsey. So why the disparity in options?

Which brings us to ALDOT Mystery #2:

Why in the world are you supposed to make your checks out to Travis A. Hulsey?? Why not ALDOT?? What kind of scheme is he running?

Now obviously it's not his original scheme, because we all USED to make our checks out to Randy Godeke. But apparently Randy got enough cash and checks from us that he is good to go, and passed the reigns to his buddy Travis.

Ah, the world will never uncover the mysteries of the ALDOT.

This post was originally published on September 25, 2008 at Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life.