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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations #811107 added March 24, 2014 at 2:15pm
Restrictions: None
How to Poo on a Date & Inspector Gadget
PROMPT: Provide your thoughts/opinions on a newspaper/magazine article or a radio/television news story from the past week. And if you feel inclined, let loose and blog about your week. Also, feel free to comment on your favorite blog entries from your fellow challengers from the preceding week, though this is not required.
The story that stood out most prominently to me this week was "How to Poo on a Date"  winning an award for the oddest book title. I suppose what surprised me about this article was not that a book called "How to Poo on a Date" would win such a magnanimous honor... but that there's a prize for this kind of thing at all. I probably should have suspected, since there are awards for pretty much everything else.
What's particularly impressive (although it wasn't mentioned in the article; I had to do a little independent research) was that the Diagram Prize has been given out consistently (except for two years) since 1978! Some of the more memorable winners from years past:
 Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop
How to Avoid Huge Ships
Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality
The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification
The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories
Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers
The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History, and Its Role in the World Today
Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice
If there's one thing this list proves, it's that you can literally write a book about anything.  It also proves, I think, that the person curating the list has an odd fascination with poop and farm animals, as eight of the thirty-four awards given out include something to do with one of those two subjects. 
I do have to admit, though, that now I'm tempted to read How to Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books and its follow-up, Baboon Metaphysics And More Implausibly Titled Books about the history of the prize and its nominees, including some apparent controversy where some of the titles were generated by computers and others where publishers began publishing intentionally bizarre titles to try and win the prize (which has no cash value, I might add). Like so many things, though, this is just bizarre enough to capture my attention and might result in me reading a book about it. 
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PROMPT: What was one of your favorite cartoons as a kid? Or today... if you still watch cartoons today, you can totally talk about those too.
I used to be addicted to cartoons when I was a kid. I had a really difficult time choosing, and at various times during the writing of this blog entry nearly went with TRANSFORMERS, ANIMANIACS, G.I. JOE, GARGOYLES, DUCKTALES, TINY TOONS, BATMAN BEYOND, X-MEN, TOM & JERRY, LOONEY TUNES, VOLTRON, RUGRATS, DOUG, HE-MAN... okay, okay, I think you get the idea. So today I picked the cartoon that, for me, I think has the most elements that still appeal to me today. I love a good mysterious villain like Dr. Claw, secret gadgets like the one the Inspector has in spades, and I'm fascinated by stories of kids in roles that are typically reserved for adults. In fact, if you take a minute to think about it, the Inspector looking into cases while his daughter Penny is really the one who solves them has a lot of echoes in one of my other favorite TV shows off all time - VERONICA MARS - where Veronica works for her dad's private investigation firm and ends up being the one who solves an awful lot of mysteries that he only scratches the surface of.
Here's the classic intro to the cartoon series:
It's too bad they made this classic property into a... less classic pair of movies, but at least I'll always have the cartoon to remember it by. 
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