Hypoglycemic delirium and Cyber Monday adventures.

In this post: Hypoglycemia, Cyber Monday, a focus on accents.

I’m just coming out of another scary low blood sugar episode. About 45 minutes ago I woke up to go to the bathroom and knew something was completely screwed when my knees didn’t hurt (my knees ALWAYS hurt) and I had a craving for chocolate, French fries, an onion bagel with braunschweiger, sweet pickles and Hunan Shrimp all at the same time. My blood sugar tested at 47; four tasty tropical fruit glucose chewables from Wal-Mart saved the day. I like the pink and yellow ones.

I enjoyed an early Cyber Monday adventure this morning during my hypoglycemic delirium and nabbed the following excellent Internet deals: 1) a large quantity of sugar free chocolates from Russell Stover at 25% off with free shipping; 2) four one-quart glass stacking canisters at 50% off from Anchor Hocking so I can store a bunch of essential crapola on my kitchen counters; and 3) little jars of spicy sauces, boxed tofu and half a dozen cans of straw mushrooms from Asian Food Grocer.

Anybody who reads the Howdygram with regularity should know by now that I love old movies, and as a movie buff I’ve always taken pride in recognizing really shitty fake foreign accents. Most of the time I’m right on target until I recently screwed up the following two:

• Rod Taylor as Australian tractor tycoon Les Mangrum in The V.I.P.s (1963). Rod sounded terrible and I wondered why the hell nobody considered hiring an actor for that part who could do a more believable Australian accent ... until I found out he was actually born and raised in Lidcombe, Australia.
• Alan Young as David Filby in The Time Machine (1960) with that abysmal Scottish brogue. Lo and behold, Alan Young is really a Scot who grew up in Edinburgh, so apparently that brogue isn’t so abysmal after all. And believe it or not, at age 94 he’s still actively doing voiceover work in Hollywood whenever an animated feature or doumentary needs an authentic Scottish accent. (Holy crap, right?)

This would be really embarrassing, people, although I do know two things for damn sure: 1) Humphrey Bogart’s Spanish accent in Virginia City (1940) was so hideous I thought he was supposed to be French; and 2) Robert Duvall played Dr. Watson in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) with an English accent so atrocious Sam got up off the couch and fled into the back yard.

At least I know I’m not entirely crazy. (Maybe just a little bit crazy.)

I’ll try to write another post after my nap with our latest Putz of the Week award and exciting breaking news from Texas. Thank you for reading this.