Botan Rice Candy

When I was growing up in Santa Monica CA in the 70's, my family used to go to downtown LA and visit Little Tokyo. It is a Japanese community with a temple, shops and traditional Japanese restaurants. One of the highlights of those visits was going to the Japanese toy stores. They had tons of cars, wind-up robots that shot out sparks and cool origami paper. They also carried Botan Rice Candy.
Botan is a slightly sticky, orange-flavored candy with two wrappers. The outside wrapper is plastic but the inside wrapper is made from clear rice paper. It looks like plastic but dissolves in your mouth. Each box used to come with a tiny plastic toy (like a car or plane) but now come with stickers. During our recent trip to DisneyWorld, my family and I visited the Mitsukoshi Department Store in the Japanese Pavilion at EPCOT. After looking around for a bit, I saw that they had Botan and bought a couple of boxes. The candy was a hit with the girls once they got past the weird texture of the rice paper. They pretty much finished both boxes on the spot. I can get Botan in Austin but it felt a little different buying it at Mitsukoshi.

Nice Hat!

Disneyworld Traveler

The little angel and I flew to Orlando last week to support the big angel's band trip to Disneyworld. We flew Southwest instead of JetBlue with the band. A great time was had by all.

Meet Murray

I have other four-legged members of my family besides Duke. This is Murray...say Hello, Murray.
Murray seems to be intent on scaring my wife to death. The other night, he was poised on the back of a chair in our living room, waiting for her to come into the darkened room (he might have even turned out the light...I'm not sure). When she walked by, he reached out and touched her with his paw. She apparently screamed like Bill Mahr on This Week with George Stephawhatshisname (see previous post).
Today she sent me this pic of Murray lying in wait atop the refrigerator, ready to POUNCE (cue dramatic music) down on her. This is the same cat who lays on the stairs in the dark, trying to trip the unwary.

Bill Mahr Gets Schooled by George Will

I cannot fathom WTF Bill Mahr was doing on This Week on ABC but he popped off with a few trite lefty-isms and got spanked by George Will. Mahr isn't qualified to appear on the Disney Channel, let alone a political roundtable. See the whuppin' here-
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bschaeffer/2010/05/03/george-will-skewers-bill-maher/

Working From Home

My daughter is sick, so I am telecommuting today. She says " Isn't it great that you can work from home? You have a TV and a refrigerator". This is true but I really don't need to spend time with either one. I do like having my personal assistant to guard me, though. I think he's chasing the bunny now...

Random Acts of Patriotism: Now the NRA Bans Guns

Wow!
No guns allowed at the NRA Convention? Someone needs to pick better venues.
Random Acts of Patriotism: Now the NRA Bans Guns

A Little Thing for Someone with Big Feet

As the blog name implies, I'm not a small guy. For years, I wore a size 13 shoe (even as a yoot). About 10 years ago, my feet were no longer able to be contained in triskaidekian footwear. Apparently feet, as well as noses and ears, continue to grow as we age. I am now a size 14, which makes shoe shopping difficult on good days.
Friday evening I was out with the fam and suggested that we stop into Famous Footwear in Sunset Valley to look for some sandals for our upcoming Disneyworld trip. I saw some that I liked but they didn't have 14's. They scanned the bar-code on the box and found a pair at another location near my office. While that were doing that, I wandered over to the clearance (Clarence) rack and found a pair of New Balance cross trainers in my size. SCORE!! And those babies set me back 50....dimes. Five Bucks? Are you kiddin' me? That's less than they paid the kid to stitch them together.
Famous Footwear, You Rock!!