The TSA had been testing backscatter X-ray machines which shoot low levels of radiation through passengers' bodies at several airports when the latest wrinkle in the machines' ability came to light.

Backscatter X-ray devices, unlike conventional airport X-ray devices, are capable of detecting ceramic knives, plastic weapons, copies of the Constitution and other contraband.

Controversy was generated late last year when it was discovered that the images produced by the backscatter devices showed the outline of women's bodies beneath their clothing.

Controversy re-flared a few weeks later when seventeen CD's containing photos of women who had passed through the X-ray machines at Tortuga Airport in suburban Cleveland were found for sale on a rack in an airport coffee shop. The photos were being marketed under the title "Under Tortuga: The Women Down At The Airport".

Authorities with the TSA said at the time that the machines would be physically altered to prevent the images being saved to CD.

Controversy exploded in white-hot hail of glowing shrapnel several hours later when it was discovered that the photos of women were being emailed to Mrs. Florence Klinckenhoven's first grade class at The Friendship School in suburban Westminster, Iowa.

Officials with the TSA insisted that the backscatter machines would be beaten with sticks until they stopped embarrassing officials with the TSA.

The latest controversy erupted Thursday like an immense, unimaginably powerful fire-breathing worm with lasers for eyeballs breaking through the surface of a city street when a TSA agent at MacGillicuddie Airport in suburban Flankstrough, Missouri noticed that the backscatter X-ray images also appeared to penetrate the clothing of male passengers (click image). "It sure shows what you might be packing," the unidentified agent said.

"This sock thing is embarrassing," said TSA spokesperson Felix Veritite. He added, "Up until now, we never looked at the guys."

Officials at the TSA have issued lottery tickets to all employees with the prize being the privilege of pushing their airport's backscatter X-ray devices off of a very high building on the airport grounds.

Brian Church died.

I spent a week writing to and waiting for a spokesperson from Harborview to update me on the condition of the driver involved in the accident at my building.

The main problem was that I didn't have his name. Harborview is the only trauma center in the city and as such, it gets a buttload of accident victims each day. Without a name, I had to bother a person whose job it is to deal with the press for what was essentially a dead-end memory game. My last note to her on Thursday was me prodding her recollection with the number of the aid car that may have brought the man in.

Today I found out the driver's name.

I came home from work, ready to email the HMC spokesperson with my new information. In my mail was a reply to the Thursday note I'd written to her, trying to help her identify the man I wanted information about.

She was telling me that if it was the man who hit the pole and came in critical...he died.

With my stomach flitty-flopping inside me, I wrote her back and asked her if she could confirm for me that it was the man of the same name I had just finally found out.

It was.

God rest your soul, Mr. Church.

The only dimly-bright spot in today's news is that I may know the town he lived in and the name of a next of kin. I now have what I believe to be his old address and the address of someone here in the city who might be related to him. I'm sending letters to each address, hoping someone can identify the Chinese "peace" charm as being his so that I may give it to them.

Brain Curch's mother called on Tuesday.

It turns out that his sister-in-law gave him the peace charm so they will be very happy to get it back. It will most likely go to his 11-year old son.

Brian was 34. He had some sort of medical condition which most likely caused him to lose consciousness or the ability to control the car. That's why I never saw the driver and why those who tried to help were reaching for him through the passenger window (he was laying across the seat).

Miss Significantly Other and me bought a new black lanyard for the charm, long enough for it to be worn around the neck - the original was wrist-length. I'll be mailing it to his mother tomorrow.

When my oldest brother died in 2000, his wife clamped down on everything. No one got any keepsakes. I hadn't thought about what might be motivating me to try so hard to find someone I didn't know. I realize now that the experience with my sister-in-law is what was driving me.

Once again, bad begets good. The fight continues.

I won't be updating this incident unless something unusual (!) happens. Thanks to those who helped me identify the charm and those who gave me moral support. I love you guys.

I suppose that Monday night is a hell of a time to update the weekend's activities but if I don't do it now, doing it on Tuesday will seem even stupider.

So, settle in.
Saturday Miss Significantly Other and me went to Swanson's Nursery for to see the reindeer that were there. We also needed one of those over-the-door-wreath-hangie-thingies.

Let me just say right here that I'd never been to Swanson's but I am now officially in love with it. It's bigger than I thought it was and the plants are gorgeous! If you're local to Seattle and you take your Christmas trees seriously, you need to go to Swanson's. They have some of the most perfect trees I've ever seen in one place!*

The first photo (click to biggen it) is one of the reindeer who, subsequently to me waking her up, went over to a tree and beat the spit out of it with her antlers. Her antlers? Why, yes.

See, if you had gone with us, you would have been able to read the reindeer info packet and you would have discovered that all reindeer sport nice racks (kinda like the SeaGals). You would also know that they are actually domesticated caribou but that they bear only a passing resemblance to their cousins because they've been domesticated for thousands of years (kinda like Minnesotans).

We then ventured to Duvall to see a living nativity. But really we went to see a camel.

Hannibal the Camel, a one-hump Arabian (Dromedary) camel, was called in from his home near Spokane to play the part of "A Reason To Go To See A Living Nativity" in the living nativity.

Now, I'm being mean. The nativity was done extremely well and was actually a live time line of the life of Christ.

No, I'm not pushing Jesus on you. We went to see the camel, remember? And the camel liked the donkey. And the donkey liked the camel. And they bumped snouts to show their okayness with each other. I was surprised that Hannibal wasn't more, shall we say, "unevenly tempered". Camels have a reputation for biting the heads off of their owners, you know.

Anyway, the kids were cool and Deity bless them for staying up on a Saturday night in the cold to put on a show.

We ate later at Leis Family Restaurant in Duvall and had a nice chat with Benny, the co-owner.

On the way home we stopped in Brier to see their neighborhood light displays at which they ask for a donation of canned goods or cash for the local food bank for which they will wish you a Happy Holiday and give you a mini-candy cane. We gave them two bucks. Deity bless those fine folks, as well.

Sunday was a bust. We stayed home all day. Miss S.O. cleaned the fish tank and I cleaned the toilet. Symmetrical, yes?

* The author received no kickbacks from Swanson's for this honest opinion. However, he's willing to negotiate.

So the "storm of the century" (as dubbed by our rather hyperbolic mayor, Greg Nickels) has come and gone, leaving in its wake, thousands of suburban assholes without the use of their internets and curling irons.

We were actually lucky here at the Panzo Ranch. For three blocks beginning exactly on the other side of the street from us, power has been out for two days. The local Safeway has been operating under emergency power and the local Fred Myer store has as well.

Personally, I've had to deal with very little of the fallout of the storm. One window blew out where I work, under the force of continuous 70-mile per hour winds. That caused a minor rain water leak into the space below (a very important Internet-related space).

The lobby of a very important Internet space flooded a bit, causing panic and the buying and assemblage of sandbags.

That also caused much pissed-offittude toward the owners of the building whom it is rumored, didn't do shit for their tenants when the panic button was pushed and held in.

The only suffering I've undergone is having to go a few more blocks out of my way for beer and suffering through watching the dumb asses of Seattle blow through dead traffic signals.

We hopes all is well with you during this last week before Christmas.

I got beer. And a mouse.

It was more than I expected. Having been expecting nothing (is that possible?), I was very pleasantly surprised.

Yesterday the Facilities lead person dude who works for the acknowledged world leader in streaming technology based here in Seattle gave me what is probably the coolest wireless mouse/receiver thingie in the entire world, a 12-pack of Alaskan Amber (out of their own personal stock, no doubt) and thanked me for all of my hard work over the last year.

It is, quite sadly, more acknowledgement than I've ever received from my own company over the last six years. Hell, my then-supervisor didn't even bring my 5-year service pin so as to engage in the requisite Shaking Of The Hand Of Management. He gave it to my "foreman" (don't ask about the quotes) to pass along to me.

The 12-pack of AA is currently nestled below a 12-pack of Pyramid Snow Cap out on my deck in the chill Seattle air. The mouse, which has the absolute best Chinglish instructions I've ever seen, will go in the bag with the laptop and work very nicely with same.

Thanks, Jimmy.

I just finished doing something I was beginning to doubt I'd ever do.

I wrote a letter of notice of employment termination.

Better known as "two weeks notice", it's actually one-week's notice.

I was hired today by the company that recently sold the building I work in.

Known in the local building vernacular as the Seattle Trade and Technology Center, it has long ceased to function as so named and instead today houses the North Campus of the Seattle Art Institute, Argosy University and, as principle Tennant, the the world leader in streaming technology, Real Networks.

For the last year-plus I've been hesitant to mention the place by name for both reasons of safety and reasons of not giving Real bad press.

I guess I'm not your ordinary janitor.

Because that's what I was. All this time I've danced around the term with saying I was in "building maintenance" but I worked for a janitorial company. At STTC I was the day porter for the company that recently sold the building and the building's new ownership.

My duties under the former were really Engineer Lite as I didn't clean terlets or stock boxes of facial tissue or clean up puke. I replaced flush valves and did exterior work, re-glued wall base and painted, pressure washed, reset fire panels, etc. (I will forever remember with pride that Real Networks trusted me enough to give me unfettered access to the heart of their operation so that I could reset the fire panel in that particular area.) However, I was still classified as a contracted Day Porter.

My duties under the new ownership have been fuzzy. Old Owners were extremely (and rightly) particular about the exterior of the building. They judge worth by different criteria than Old Owners. I am not schooled in the engineering arts. I am pretty bright and willing to learn and prideful about what I do. Given enough fundamental knowledge, I can usually puzzle out the right answer or a different answer that works just as well. New Owners would tut-tut all of that and ask if I'd "been to school".

Let me stress that there's nothing wrong with that. You can run your business howsoever you like. You may judge your workers by their choice of underarm deodorant if you want. It's not strictly a question of good or bad criteria but rather a question of style and fit.

So. Under New Owners I wouldn't be expected to change a ballast or paint a wall or patch a hole. Under Old Owners, I'd be asked if I knew how to do it and told to "go for it".

I will be revisiting this subject probably all weekend and into next week (whether or not you can stomach it) but I really want to thank the Chief Building Engineer at Old Company (which is now My Company) for remembering me as he said he would. In fact, I know he's been angling me into his employ ever since my current building was sold. Thanks, Jim.

I also want to thank my only real Lead Engineer and the only person who knows what the hell he's doing (sometimes) at the STTC. Shawn has become a very good friend and his persistence in keeping my name in front of Jim was a damn nice thing to do. I also want to thank him for his camaraderie on the job and for being an all-around good guy.

Okay, more of this will come out over the next few days.

For now, I'm an Assistant Building Engineer. Kewl!

May you all have a very merry Christmas.

But not such a merry Christmas that you forget all of the really horrible crap that's happening in the world while you're tearing the dead trees off of your overpiriced crap made by 8-year olds in Chinese sweat shops so that Corporate America can feed your children a consumerist crap culture that perverts your morals and turns them into the human equivilants of barking circus seals.

But do try to have a good time.

I just finished watching the documentary DVD "Then There Were None" by Elizabeth Kapu‘uwailani Lindsey.

I didn't want to do it. Miss Significantly Other gifted the DVD to me and wanted to watch it so I had to. I could have predicted what would happen.

The documentary is about the decline of full-blood Hawai‘ians, told around a short version of Hawai‘i's history.

It's widely accepted that the population of Hawai‘ians in 1778 when Captain Cook "discovered" the "Sandwich Islands" was around 500,000. By 2044 it is predicted that there will not be a single full-blood Hawai‘ian left on the planet.

I read the small, inexpensive book that was adapted from the documentary so I knew what would happen at the end.

I've given up Hawai‘i. I haven't been to visit in two years. I'm not listening to the music any more. I'm staying away from the online newspapers. I'm keeping away from the Hawai‘ian haunts on the Interweb. I'm trying to keep off of the food. I'm staying away from the people I know who are from there. I'm through with Hawai‘i and for good reason.

At the end of 'Then There Were None", my heart broke.

That's why I've tried to stay away from it.

What began as a "touristy" interest and devleoped into a heat in my haloe blood has ended with a pain in my heart of hearts too many times now.

As the haole's rape her and the locals lap up her tears and the tourists, too drunk on "mai tais" to hear her screams, ignore her plight, I am left with bloody palms from clenching my hands into impotent fists.

To use another analogy, loving Hawai‘i is far too much like seeing a friend perish in a burning building. I can't help and I don't want to watch.

In the end, the ‘aina, the land, will reclaim its life. After the last Hawai‘ian passes to Tahiti (Kahiki) and after the last concrete hotel foundation crumbles into dust, there will be a new Hawai‘i very unlike the last. But the ‘aina will perpetuate its life through the simple righteousness of nature.

Just leave me out of it.

I'm going to go read about Schenectady, NY.

Since every other blogsite on the Interweb is celebrating the end of the year by shunting the weekend workload onto a junior blogger, the Panzo Blog will not kick against the pricks and instead will use this run-on sentence to re-introduce to his many fans, The Plastic Action Poodle.

Hailing from somewhere east of the Oranges in New Jersey, conceived during a drunken tryst between a Coney Island sideshow freak and a Passaic shoe salesman, reared by the nuns of Our Lady of Never Ending Agony and educated in the seedier bar rooms of Chatham, the PAP was given strange powers far beyond those of mortal pups during a secret Lucent lab experiment gone horribly awry.

He hooked up with Panzo one dark night after Panzo accidently freed him from his prison deep within the bowels of the Joe Piscopo Theater in beautiful downtown Kearny.

After forming a strong bond over bar food and too many bottles of Yuengling Black and Tan, The Plastic Action Poodle made Panzo.org his home. Here he fights for Truth, Justice and Yadda, Yadda, Yah.

Okay, enough of that crap. I have to work on a frigging Sunday that also happens to be New Year's Eve Day so we're going to make it quick.

I haven't been paying too much attention over the last year on account of having my balls in a vice with several bitches from Staten Island but I told Panzo I'd give this crap a shot because I needed the money.

Big night, right? Times Square? Plenty of legs to hump, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, I'm basically looking through old copies of the Star-Ledger and its partner paper, The Weekly World News, for interesting stuff that I missed while being fucked over by the Bitch Sisters. This is stuff that matters to me, understand, because I'm the only one who frigging matters.

So here it is: The Year-End Panzo PAP-up.

The biggest story in January of 2006 was the untimely deaths of all three members of my favorite rock band, Strep Throat.

During the pyrotechnic finale of "Grind Your Mother's Balls" on stage at the Billings Marriot in that Montana town, bassist Gordy Smear's guitar-mounted Everclear drip snapped loose and sprayed 190-proof liquor over guitarist Slipknot and lead singer Flange Roaster. The spark from a nearby stage incendiary caught the bandmates on fire.

No attempt to save the band was made by either stage hands or audience members as most thought the incineration was part of the act.

Refunds were offered by the Marriot and Strep Throat's label, Puking Intestine Records, but few present that night took the offers up. As one fan put it, "It was too fucking cool!"

 

On March 4, 2006, a complete fucking idiot Irishman named Terrance Fillwither invented the world's first invisible beer. On March 22^nd, he invented an invisible pint glass to drink it from.

Here, days before his beating death on March 30^th at the hands of most of the town of Gillingswain, Ireland, Terry is shown having a refeshing something of nothing at all.

 

In April, Satanic Yin found Yan as the worst product in the history of commerce met the worst concept in the history of marketing and the Ass Donut was born.

Manufactured by the Rech-Talle Bakery in Lower Segundis, Missouri, Ass Donuts were shaped like little bottoms but, so I'm told, tasted like regular powdered donuts and not ass at all.

The donuts failed to capture anyone's attention, including the target shits and giggles market. Especially ill-received were the Choco-Stripe variety.

 

In July, the New York City Department of Health launched Operation Squash and began the wholesale spraying of the city for cockroaches. The spray, a newly FDA approved biological compound that is delivered via a DNA agent unique to cockroaches and is fatal only to the insects, is harmless to humans and all other life.

The city is forced to halt the program after only four days when it's discovered that the chemical has killed nearly a thousand lawyers.

 

In August, the Wall of Death ride opens on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights, NJ.

The ride consists of a three-foot thick concrete wall and several mid-1970's Chevrolet Impalas with their accelerator pedals held down by cinderblocks. It's closed down a week later after a lawsuit charging intellectual copyright infringement is filed in state court by a New Jersey business named, La Famiglia, LLC.

 

Finally, in November 2006, a team of Anthropological Biologists discovered that nearly every single known problem on Earth is directly traceable to a male Emperor penguin named Steve.

Thanks a lot, asshole.

 

Well, that about does it for me today. I have a few hours left here to catch a ride to to Times Square for the big party.

Happy New Year to you all.

Ciao, dirtbags!