thinglets: Bowler-Capped Cross-Eyed Clown

Had a freakout reminiscence today when, around the corner from my house, I saw a dingy lovehate icon of my youth: The Conklin Clown. Representing oft-dilapidated carnivals that would tour mall parking lots, I never thought the actual logo was still around decades later.

About 15 years ago, I wrote a song about some memories of growing up through summers of these dingy midways. I don't have it recorded, but the lyrics are below.

Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering what the Astroliner is, a picture that's not exactly like I remember, but still holds many memories is linked below.

Bowler-Capped Cross-Eyed Clown

Took a ride in the devil's hole
Found a grip up the padded blackened walls
Watched the floor disappear Highway to Hell
Distorted through the dingy carnival

Speeds up enclosed gravitronic journey
Felt that corndog revisit the back of my throat
Twenty year-old grease under brown-encrusted mustard
Psychedelic gelatin creates the rainbow glow

Red magnet in the fish pond
Dart-pierced metal star
Led Zeppelin-painted mirrors
Fibreglass bumper cars

Carnival it's a carnival
All my money on 3 ticket rides at the 
Carnival it's a carnival
Drop the bucks on pinwheel luck at the 
Carnival it's a carnival

Carny people all live in trailers
In suburban strip-mall parking lots
Setting up and tearing down the tents with spots like robots

Astroliner cruise the Astroliner
Grainy film and grating sound
Left and right get tossed around on the
Astroliner cruise the Astroliner
Molded plastic captain's seats
Rockin' to the cosmic beat on the
Astroliner cruise the Astroliner on the...

Took a walk through the haunted house
Flourescent-painted Dracula and severed heads
Was I scared at what moved 'cross the floor
Or that I might fall through instead

Shrunken basketball hoops
Watergun horseraces
Skeeball Skeeball Skeeball
Candy floss-filled faces

Carnival it's a carnival
All my money on 3 ticket rides at the 
Carnival it's a carnival
Drop the bucks on pinwheel luck at the
Carnival it's a carnival

thinglets: Craz-E Burger - the 1,500 calorie doughnut burger

via telegraph.co.uk

In a follow-up to the 2700 calorie UK cheeseburger stack of last week, I have found something that has less calories, yet somehow seems more disgusting. When I think of burgers, I don't often think of a "glazed" bun. Apparently US attendees at a Massachusetts fair loved it before they fell over from coronaries in the parking lot on the way out:

"Organisers of the Big E, which finished on Sunday, said visitors bought around 1,000 Craz-E burgers each day of the fair's 17-day run."

With regards to the glaze that I could not imagine enjoying, some of the PR for the glazed "midway heart attack" was sold as follows:

"The glaze smooths over the burger and oozes into a foreign but delicious combination with the crisp of the bacon."

And if you thought that wasn't enough - just in case you wanted your meat fix in lips, hoof, and ass tubes - another treat was on the menu:

"The restaurant also serves a hamdog, a hotdog wrapped in a beef patty and deep-fried."

After all is said and done, perhaps the best fun fact about this Aorta Buster Supreme is that back in Decatur, GA the burger is named the Luther Burger after food fan, the late Luther Vandross.