Throwing cold water on 'human bed warmers' idea

It appears I lack that entrepreneurial spirit and imagination.
Nearly every night during the winter months, I try to be a considerate spouse by climbing into The Blonde Accountant’s side of the bed. The idea here is to warm her side up while she is in the bathroom completing whatever skin ritual it is she performs every evening.
And she always compliments me on my ability to make her side of the bed toasty warm. Now, somebody has figured out how to make bed toasting a full-time job. And it wasn’t me, although I’ve had plenty of time to lie there every night and think up the idea myself.
According to a wire service story, the international branch of Holiday Inn is offering, on a trial basis, human bed-warming services at three hotels in Britain.
Apparently, if requested by a guest, somebody will come into to your hotel room fully dressed in an all-in-one sleeper suit and some type of covering over their hair and get in your bed to warm it up. The person would then leave the bed before the guest climbed in, at least that’s the hotel’s theory.
I’m sorry, I don’t believe this particular hotel amenity interests me. I don’t want a big galoot named Gus in my bed. And you know it will be big galoots who get these jobs because they can warm up more of the bed’s surface. I know this because I am a big galoot and I can warm up a lot of the surface in my bed.
And by the way, what if the guest takes too long with his or her nightly bathroom ritual and good old Gus does his job so well that he falls asleep in the nice, toasty bed that he has just created?
“The new Holiday Inn bed warmers service is a bit like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed,” said Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall in the wire service story.
So that begs the question, why not just offer guests a complimentary hot water bottle instead?

Preserving Gilligan for the next generation

File this one under the little pleasures in life: While strolling through Target recently I happened across the discount DVD section, where occasionally one can find unexpected treasures.
And I found one: The complete DVD series of seasons one and two of “Gilligan’s Island.” For $15. Beautimous.
I remember coming home from school in the 1960s and watching Gilligan, the Skipper too, the Millionaire . . . and his wife, the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann.
Of course, I watched the show in reruns for many years after that, well into adulthood.
The series actually lasted three seasons, so I still need to locate season three on DVD. It originally ran on CBS from 1964 to 1967. By the way — and I knew this from watching the show as a kid and paying attention to the trivial aspects of the show — the Skipper’s name in the show was Captain Jonas Grumby (played by Alan Hale Jr.) and the Professor’s name was Roy Hinkley (played by Russell Johnson).
And for the record, I always preferred Mary Ann. Must have been my Midwestern upbringing.
It occurred to me when I bought the DVDs that this was a show I’d want to share with my grandchildren someday. I hope future generations have more appreciation for a character like Gilligan than they do for, say, a character like SpongeBob SquarePants.
Then again, maybe not. I guess every generation is entitled to have its bumbling — and charming — idiots.

The Sarah Palin circus worth noting

Maybe it’s a good thing that former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has accepted a gig on Fox as a talking head. Maybe now we will get a more complete accounting of her inadequacies.
According to the new book “Game Change” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, more of a real picture has emerged about Palin during the presidential campaign: that she didn’t know there were two Koreas; that she believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks; that she was unaware of the functions of the Federal Reserve; and that according to Sen. John McCain’s chief strategist Steve Schmidt in an appearance on “60 Minutes,” Palin “routinely said things that were provably, demonstrably untrue.”
All of this will mean nothing to Palin supporters. The Republican Party has essentially been hijacked by the Looney Tunes fringe and constructive political discourse that could actually lead to something that helps the American people has not been part of the equation for a while now in the Looney Tunes platform.
So let’s get Gov. Palin in front of the Fox cameras as soon as we can and let’s hope that the poohbahs at Fox give her carte blanche to flap her gums until the cows come home.
The hope here is that the more she talks, the more her slip will show and she won’t sneak up on anybody come 2012.

'Mr. Blutarsky. Zero point zero.'

As one who usually stays in around New Year’s Eve, I’ve found over the years it’s easy to become a television-watching couch potato because a lot of my personal favorite movies and shows are aired.
This year, I was tickled by an all-day and all-night Three Stooges marathon; an all-day Sherlock Holmes film festival; a Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall film run; a couple of episodes of “Hawaii 5-0”; and the movies “Animal House,” “Caddyshack,” “Goodfellas” and “Field of Dreams.”
Of course, not even the most devoted Stooges fan can endure hour after hour of those shenanigans without a break, so that’s why it’s good to have other options. I’ve always been a fan of the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce version of “Sherlock Holmes,” filmed mostly in the 1940s. (I have yet to see the current “Sherlock Holmes” now in theaters.) I also liked the “Charlie Chan” series from that same era.
And what else can be said about Bogie and Bacall at this point? The first time I saw “To Have and Have Not” I fell in love with a then 19-year-old Lauren Bacall and have been enamored with her ever since. It was their first film together and the beginning of what would turn into a great love story.
As for “Hawaii 5-0”, it was one of my favorite shows as a kid and I spent many a night ditching the books in college so I could watch reruns of the show on late-night TV, primarily just so I could hear Steve McGarrett say “Book ’em, Dano!” at the end of each episode.
All of which may help explain my fondness for the aforementioned films, especially “Animal House.” It was released the year I started college, so not only was “Hawaii 5-0” interrupting my studies to some extent, I spent a good portion of that first year in college attending toga parties, where I quickly learned to study beer and women.
To this day, when I see “Animal House,” I laugh at the line, “Mr. Blutarsky. Zero point zero.”
I can certainly relate.