TSR is not bound by the rigid Gregorian calendar with its sordid papal roots. Its addlepated staff reports on humankind's idiosyncrasies and hypocrisies as they are discovered, less they forget. Plus, the avalanche of weirdness makes producing an annual review overwhelming. Today we begin with WORST O.C.D. HYGIENE PROMOTION. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a guide to proper hand-washing (left) that makes memorizing the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales seem like good use of a high-school student's time. Actually, these instructions were prepared for surgeons who missed that day in medical school when hygiene was discussed. And yet, we've seen the same poster in restaurants and office restrooms. Seriously, it's a 12-step program, and TSR's editorial board doesn't do droghtes.
WORST HOLLYWOOD SWAG goes to Patty's "Royal Dandie" Miniature Pet Pig. The bonsai swine were offered to Golden Globe nominees and presenters at a "swag suite." Even though you might be able to get a couple of pounds of bacon from them, do you really want to spend the time curing it? (Paris Hilton had to buy her "Princess Piglette" [sic], because she was neither a nominee nor a presenter nor a ticket-holder nor an after-party invitee.)
Revealing digression. What happens when owners tire of their tiny, even-toed ungulates (right), and we know they will? Do they toss Babe in a canyon from their speeding Priuses. There's a hideous precedent. Burmese pythons, one of the world's largest snakes, have been dumped in the Everglades by owners after they get big enough to prefer children to mice. Now there are zillions of them. Piglets wouldn't do that, or so we've been told, but they might get mean like raccoons if they had to live off the land. Something to think about.
And we wrap up this installation with the BEST PULL-QUOTE of 2009 from Rex Reed in The New York Observer:
