November 14, 2006

Yes, I have resumed blogging. I just wanted to make myself useful… or at least usable.

Barney is one of those silly-but-not-quite ridiculous names like Wendell. But there have been far more pop-culturally significant Barneys, as documented by the “Barney Timeline”, assembled by humor columnist/blogger Marti Lawrence. (I am sincerely tempted to make a “Marti” timeline, but it would have to include “Martys” as well) Anyway, the Timeline started with ancient auto racer Barney Oldfield, followed by Barney Google (failing to note his unfortunate fate of having his comic strip overrun by hillbillies), TV’s Fife, Rubble and Miller, Congress’s Barney Frank (who I was going to just list by his last name but people were going to react “Frank Who? I thought you were talking about Barneys”), historic heart patient Barney Clark, Homer’s drinking buddy, the purple dinosaur and Neil Patrick Harris’ last-nameless character on “HIMYM”. One commenter to the timeliner’s blog added Barney’s, a store where I will never shop, and actor Barney “Seinfeld’s Father” Martin.

Since my innate skill for trivia has shrunken to the size of a not-very-painful gallstone, I relied on my Google-Fu to find some more. (I Googled Barney. Am I the only person who thinks that’s funny?)

Discredited President George W. Bush has a dog named Barney, a good name for a Scottie (and one of his rare decisions I support). There’s Smith Barney the stock brokers (now a mere division of CitiCrap); remember John Houseman’s commercials? “We uuuuuuurn it!” There’s artsy filmmaker Matthew Barney (last-name Barneys are allowed, right?), Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King (I am NOT making that up…), Barney’s Beanery (I have a couple stories about that place I am NOT telling.), Camp Barney Medintz (included for no particular reason but I like the name), Football Hall of Famer Lem Barney (OK, how many of you aging football fans thought his name was Len?) and MGM’s other Golden Age cartoon character (after Tom & Jerry and Droopy) Barney Bear (how did he get stuck way down at #96 on my Barney Google search?).

I’m not going any farther into the Google abyss, except to point out a few above-average picking-on-Barney-the-dinosaur cartoons. And no, I am in no hurry to do the same with the name Wendell.

Frozen Pig Spill on I-5 Freeway. It must be noted that this did occur several miles from the parts of the Valley I used to live in, but technically, everything in the Valley is several miles from everything else in the Valley. Quote of the week: “CHP officers said it was unclear why whole frozen pigs were being shipped.” I hope they didn’t have to search inside the frozen pigs for drugs or illegal aliens or WMDs.