Who drinks this crap?

Soda Pop is pure poison.

Why is soda pop poison?   Well anything can be a poison to your body, in a large enough concentration.   Eat too much salt - you die.  Drink too much water - you die (of water intoxication).

What is wrong with soda?  It is a calorie overdose - and a carbohydrate overdose - the worst kind, too.  High Fructose Corn Syrup.

I was at the dollar store the other day, and I was thirsty - forgetting to bring my water bottle that I usually have (filled with iced tap water, thank you, it's free).   So I thought I would buy a water.  But all they had was soda pop, and this Mello Yello seemed the least noxious of the group.

One swig of this vile stuff and I nearly spit up.   The two main ingredients are water and high-fructose corn syrup.   This 20-ounce (!) bottle, which is a "single serving" has a whopping 290 calories.  That's 14.5% of your daily caloric intake.

Is that a lot?  Yea, it is.   You see, out of that 2000 calories, you need to allocate for breakfast (about 450 calories), Lunch (about 650 Calories) and Dinner (about 700 calories), which comes to about 1800 calories.   This leaves you a little leeway for a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack (100 calories each) which brings you up to 2000 calories a day.

290 extra?  Well that puts you over the limit.  How much?  A lot.  If you consume 100 calories a day in excess of your burn rate, over a period of a month, you will gain a pound.   290 calories?  You will gain three.

Sometimes it is good to remember these things - and realize why I gave up soda pop for water, a long time ago.   It is the ultimate "empty calories" and is horribly bad for you - and the No. 1 reason people are turning into Zeppelins these days.

Ice Maker Repair

An ice maker, like any toy, is a lot of fun, until it breaks.

Our house came with an ice maker, and boy you wonder how you ever lived without one.  I am not talking about the kind in your refrigerator that makes those half-moon shaped cubes that are always white and, well, unsatisfying.

No, I mean the commercial kind that makes the little square cubes.

A lot of fun, like I said, until they break.  But like anything else, you can educate yourself on how to repair something, and even some "luxury" items can be pretty inexpensive to own.   On the other hand, if your only remedy is to call someone - then forget about owning junk like this.

This website has some pretty good instructions on how to repair them.  They are remarkably simple machines.

Ours stopped working, slowly, and I had a inkling of what might be wrong.   The compressor was short-cycling, which is usually a sign of a clogged coil.  I removed the kick panel and..

The condenser coil is coated with enough lint to make a sweater!

Yuk!  It could be carefully removed with a brush, and the remainder vacuumed out.  I also cleaned out the water tank and plumbing with household vinegar.  The first batch of ice smells like a garden salad, but it works again, thankfully.

I kick myself for not checking this sooner.   The unit is only about six years old, used seasonally, and it accumulated a blanket of dust bunnies already.  Ouch!

Skipping Breakfast? Bad Idea

A simple breakfast will get you going for the day.  Many people skip this important meal, or worse yet, binge on high-carbohydrate jumbo breakfasts.

Breakfast is the best meal of the day, in my opinion.   You don't have to eat a lot - just a few hundred calories - 400 or so.   But since you haven't eaten in 12 hours or more, the food seems so much better.

And yet, many folks "skip breakfast" - waking up late for work, angry and tired, and since they skip this important meal, they will be angry and tired all the way through to lunch.   Is this a way to live?

One big mistake that ambitious dieters make is to think that not eating at all is a sure way to lose weight. Unfortunately, this technique rarely, if ever, works.

The overly-ambitious dieter looks at the calorie tables and thinks, "Well, if I just stop eating breakfast, that will save me hundreds of calories a day, and the pounds will just melt off!"

The problem with this approach is multifold. First, this is not healthy, and the whole goal here is not cosmetic, but health.  If you are trying to lose weight to look sexier, forget about it.  Chances are, you are a mesomorph anyway (more on that later) and you'll never look like a supermodel or a gym rat.  On the other hand, if you want to feel better, mentally and physically, and live life in less pain, then you have some realistic goals.

And to live healthier, starving yourself is a really bad idea.  To begin with, you will end up having low blood sugar levels, which will make you dizzy and argumentative within a few hours.  Long-term starvation diets can cause organ damage and other problems.  Taking things to extremes is never a good idea.  The idea here is health, and not eating is not healthy.

A second problem with this technique is that as your blood sugar plummets, not only will slowly start to lose your mind, but you will start to become ravenously hungry.  When you do decide to eat, you will be far more likely to binge eat or over-eat and then over-consume calories.   This of course, feeds the low-self-esteem engine, which in turn chugs along with depression, leading to another cycle of over-eating.

Most websites, such as this one, suggest that a "sensible goal" to losing weight is to lose about a pound or two a week.  The idea is to make small changes in your diet, create a small deficit in your calorie balance (intake versus expenditure) so that you will slowly lose weight.  Over time, the habits of eating will change, and it will be easier to maintain a lower body weight.   But don't kid yourself, it will be a never ending struggle.

The Yo-Yo dieter tries to lose weight quickly, using starvation, skipping meals, caffeine-laced supplements, diuretics, regurgitation, or other fad techniques. While it may be possible to lose weight using such techniques (most is merely weight loss through dehydration) rarely do such diets keep off the weight.  Again, losing weight requires a permanent, lifetime change in eating habits.  As I noted in my "eating like a teenager" post, you have to become a "grown up" about your eating.

And saying your are going to skip meals is not a grown-up approach toward dieting, but rather a teenage girl's approach to weight loss.

So forget about "skipping a meal" - not only is it bad for you, it just won't work.   You'll just be tired, have headaches, be grumpy, and end up eating more at the next meal - and then feeling bad about yourself.

And don't do the opposite extreme (which is also popular in America) and gorge yourself on a carbo-centric meal like pancakes, waffles, bagels, or jumbo bowels of cereal.   It seems to Americans, it is all or nothing, quite literally, when it comes to eating.   High-carb meals will not only make you fat, they will send your blood sugar on a roller-coaster from high to low.  And like a Chinese dinner, make you hungry an hour later.



Instead, plan out a meal in advance, count those calories, and then take a nice walk.  It may take longer to lose weight this way, but the overall effects will be more sustainable in the long run.

Please Don't Feed the Animals!

Wildlife should be left wild.

We were camping near Ft. Meyers Beach and a beautiful Snowy Egret landed near our camper.  Wow!  Wildlife up close!  I had never seen one this close before!  What a beautiful graceful bird!  Neat!

The bird walked closer, and I sat motionless.  Shhhh!  Look!  An Egret!  Had it not seen me?

It had.  And it was hungry.   And for the rest of our stay, this bird literally harassed us, trying to pick through the garbage, eat food off our picnic table and even pulling a hamburger off the grill!

Some well-meaning idiot who was there before us no doubt thought it was funny or "cool" to feed this bird, and over time, they tamed it to the point where it could be hand-fed.

Bad idea.  On several grounds.

First, it is bad for the bird.   Now tamed and dependent on humans for food, it no longer fished or hunted on its own.   And human foods may not be the best thing for its digestive tract (heck, half the stuff we eat is bad for us!).

Second, wild animals, once fed this way, will harass humans, as this bird did, making life difficult.   They will steal anything not nailed down, break into trash cans, and spread garbage all over the place.

And it doesn't end with birds.   People do this with gulls, squirrels, deer - and even bears.   Usually with horrific results.

I was at an outdoor restaurant once, and some idiot was there with his kid.   And the Dad says, "Oh, look at the Seagull!  Why don't you feed him a french fry, sweetie?"

And I said, "Please don't do that!"  And he replies, "Fuck you, buddy, it's my french fry!"

To which I said, "Well, yea, but I don't like seagull shit in my food!"

So little Bubbalina is holding out a french fry and the seagull snaps it out of her hand, biting the kid in the process (lesson learned - a finger and a french fry look the same to a gull).

And within minutes, the outdoor restaurant is swarmed with a flock of thirty or forty voracious seagulls, swooping down over diner's heads, dropping poop-bombs, even landing on tables and snatching food.   Diners run into the restaurant, covering their food.  It is like a scene from "the Birds".

And all it takes is one jackass to do this, before the local bird population realizes where the free handouts are - and starts making regular dive-bombs on customers.

We were in Montauk, Long Island at a Lobster Roll place with a large outdoor seating area.  A Japanese couple was there, and bought a Lobster Roll.   So of course, the husband had to take a picture, with the wife holding up the roll in front of the sign.   A huge seagull, with a six-foot wingspan, flew down under the cafe umbrellas, skimmed over the diners, missing each umbrella pole, and neatly snapped the lobster roll from the screaming Japanese girl.

This is the end result of hand-feeding gulls.  Bad. Bad. Bad.

Squirrels are the same way.  "Oh, how cute, let's give Binky the Squirrel a french fry!" and before you know it, a flea and tick-infested squirrel is sitting on your table.  Not cool.  Or the squirrel is gnawing through your garbage can.   And once well-fed, he breeds and makes more squirrels, to the point where the place gets over-run.

At a local eatery in Ft. Lauderdale, at the State Park, idiots started feeding the birds and squirrels, and it wasn't long before they had a major raccoon problem.  Fat 50-lb racoons would waddle up from under the deck and just take food off the table, leaving families running for cover and little girls shrieking.

Raccoons carry rabies, and if you see one approach you in the daytime, it is not a good thing, trust me.

Here on the island, we have a deer problem, and some idiots feed the deer in their backyards.   One local is leading the "save the deer" protest, as there are plans afoot to cull the population through controlled hunting.  "We don't want a slaughter of deer!" they say, oblivious to the fact that some in their number have already killed deer - with their cars!   Apparently it is OK to run them down, but not to hunt them.  Hypocrisy lives.

Deer carry deer ticks - and attract deer flies.  Guess what we now have in great abundance?  Yea.  Fun.  I always wanted Lime disease.

And it is not just the protesters who are running down the deer.  Even though our speed limit is only 35 mph, people do break it (like some protesters) and hit the deer.  BAM!  It usually kills the deer, or worse, wounds it horribly so it crawls off to die somewhere.   But it also will total your car.  And in some instances, it can kill you if it comes through the windshield, or if you are riding a motorcycle or scooter.

But hey, that's OK.  Just don't manage the population by hunting them, because that would be cruel!

No really, college-educated people believe this:  OK to hit with car, not OK to hit with arrow.

Let wild animals be wild.   Trying to make pets out of them is a really bad idea for everyone involved.   Having wild birds, squirrels, or other rodents walking across your dinner plate at an outdoor cafe isn't cute or fun or spectacular, it is just unsanitary, unsafe, and in the long run, bad for the animals.

Feeding wild deer isn't helping them, it is just making them dependent on you - and turning a wild animal into livestock.  And when you feed wild animals, they reproduce and before long, you have a major wild animal problem - well, a tame wild animal problem, as they come to you for food, as the ecosystem can no longer support their caloric intake requirements.

At that point, it is too late to stop feeding them, as they would starve and die.   Talk about cruelty!

Of course, there are some folks out there who are real Darwin Award candidates, and will do stupid things like try to feed bears and the like.   Really, really bad idea.  But fortunately, usually these idiots get what they deserve.  Leave the freaking bears alone!

It seems like a pretty simple thing - you feed seagulls, you will be covered with them in short order.  And once you leave, they are now trained to follow people and harass them for food.

But a lot of idiots don't get it - they think it is somehow "interacting with nature" to try to tame it and feed it french fries.   It is not.    You are not being "eco-friendly" by feeding wildlife - in fact, quite the opposite.
 
If you really love birds, get a pair of binoculars and watch them in the wild - being wild birds.   If you want a tame bird, get a parrot.   But please, don't try taming the wildlife by feeding it.

Because I don't like seagull shit in my food!

* * * 

Note: Gulls can congregate in places, like on rooftops, and really poop up a storm.   This is a very dangerous biohazard for people, even if it makes great fertilizer.

You can keep flying birds away from your boat, house, car, or restaurant by stringing some fishing line between a few trees, or on poles mounted on the ground or on your roof.   If you run enough line, it will discourage them from lighting or landing or flying through the area.

You Can't Do That!

In any organization, there are always people who will find reasons why something can't be done, rather than just doing it.

I use the United States Postal Service (USPS) online Click-n-Ship, which is a great tool, as you can create Priority Mail, Express Mail, and even overseas customs forms, right from your computer.   Plus, you get a small discount on the postage, free package tracking, and since you are using the service online, you can drop your packages in a postal box, or leave them at your mailbox, without having to go to the Post Office itself.

Seems like a pretty keen system, right?   But in some cases, it doesn't work, as some Postal workers know less about postal regulations than the customers do.

I am not bashing the Post Office here, just using it as an example.  In any organization, there are the types of people who push papers around whose first instinct, in any given problem is, "Well, you can't do that!" even if it could be done.

For example, in sending these Priority Mail packages, I have had USPS employees return them to me claiming there was "no postage" on them.   Clearly this is a problem in training, as they don't recognize the company's own online labels as having postage.

Still others will reject the package on the grounds that "anything over 10 ounces has to be hand-carried to the Post Office!" - even though the regulations clearly state that with the online label (which tracks the source of the package) no such hand-carrying is required.

In other cases, they return a package because "You don't have four copies of the customs forms!" even though for International Priority Mail you need only one form (a sticker label).  Their gut instinct is to say "NO!" instead of just tossing the package on the pile and letting it go through the process.

The list goes on and on, but the common denominator is the knee-jerk instinct on the part of some folks to use "NO" as their first response to any given question.

There is an old saying in the military, I am told, that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.   And that saying has a lot of currency in this world (except, perhaps, when it comes to building permits).

Streamlining any organization is as simple as just getting rid of these few people, who acts as bottlenecks in any organization - stifling productivity for no apparent reason other than their own need to feel in control.   You can spot people like this when they routinely say things like:

• You can't do that!

• It's never been done that way before!

• You didn't fill out the form right.

• You'll need approval.

• I'm not authorized to do that.

On the other hand, you have an effective worker, when you hear things like:

• Let's figure out how to make this work.

• This is not on the form, but we can modify it.

• I can push this through.

• Let's do this!

The latter attitude shows that procedures, while important, are not all-encompassing.   It is not the procedure that is critical to a business, but getting the work done.   The first kind of worker focuses on the minutiae of procedure, regardless of whether it is actually a hindrance to productivity.   The second kind realizes that procedures and processes, while designed to provide safeguards, are not in and of themselves, productivity.

Of course, it could be that the problem is not with the individual, but the organization.  In some organizations, there is a culture of fear that is cultivated, intentionally or unintentionally, that stifles innovation and creativity.   Employees are told (or it is insinuated) that they have to be perfect at all times or risk losing their jobs.   And even if the slightest mistake is made, they are severely castigated.

This phenomenon was parodied effectively in the movie Office Space, where a hapless worker has no fewer than three bosses browbeat him for not putting a cover sheet on a fax he sent.   Why this is important (or indeed, why fax cover sheets were even necessary) is not the issue - he failed to follow procedures!

In my years with General Motors, United Technologies, United Parcel, the Federal Government, and various Law Firms, I ran into this sort of thinking a lot - people who were more concerned about following the Rules rather than being productive.   In their mindset, so long as all the rules were followed to the letter, it didn't matter if the department, division, or company was losing money.   And in many instances, this resulted in the downfall of the organization.

At GM, the salary employees played the game meticulously, and followed all the rules, all the way down the drain.   No one was "at fault" for the demise of GM - after all, everyone did their job, right to spec!   But somehow, crummy cars came out of the end of the assembly lines, many of them selling for below their construction cost.

I ran into this at UTC-Carrier, when I applied for a Co-Op position while on leave of absence.   You could just see the HR manager's mind start to melt.   He hauled out Volume IV of the sixteen-volume Company Procedure Manual and explained why it couldn't be done.   My bosses explained they wanted it done, and just do it.   Fortunately, real needs trumped arbitrary rules written on paper.

The Government, of course is hidebound by Rules, and the reasons for this are clear - people scream bloody murder whenever a government official even sneezes, so everyone has to be walking on pins and needles all the time.  Say one wrong thing, and well, you're toast - even if the "wrong thing" turns out later to be taken out of context!

And this is perhaps why Government is destined to fail in so many incidents - they cannot manage effectively with 330 million supervisors looking over their shoulder, second-guessing everything they do - often for partisan political advantage.   You are not allowed to make one small mistake, not allowed to innovate, not allowed to even bend the Rules, when it clearly would be to the advantage of the Country.  In short, you cannot be innovative, effective, or even efficient.  It is a setup for failure from the get-go, particularly in these polarizing political times.

It is a funny thing, but if a major-league batter strikes out at bat, he is not fired the next day.  Why?  Because in baseball, it is recognized that even the best players are effective only some of the time.   But in the business world - and in government - we paralyze ourselves with this fear of failure.   And as I have discussed before, Fear is the least useful emotion.   And failure is nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of.

And maybe that is the problem right there - the culture of an organization.   If everyone is afraid all the time, they are less and less productive, and more and more fearful of making mistakes.   And as a result, nothing gets done.

How's That Change Working Out for You? (Pretty Good, Thanks!)

You would think a guy driving a million-dollar motor coach, towing a brand-new Jeep would be happy and prosperous.  You'd be wrong about that.

On the way back from Florida, a guy passes me in one of these rock-star motor coaches, towing a brand new Jeep.  Plastered on the back of the coach and Jeep are professionally done adhesive signs saying things like "How's that Change Working Out For You?" and "Nobama 2012!"

He was doing about 80 mph.   Glad to see the recession is finally over.

What stuck me as weird is that this guy is clearly loaded - or thinks he is - and is complaining about how awful things are, and how much worse they have gotten since Obama was elected.

And then it struck me - not much has really changed since Obama was elected.   No, really.

I mean, other than some positive things - unemployment is edging down, housing prices are stabilizing, and the economy is growing.   My personal portfolio has recovered from the 2009 crash - to levels beyond its previous peaks.   Gas is, well, cheaper than in the waning days of the Bush Administration, but still expensive.  Inflation is low (no, really.  Compared to 10% back in 1979, this is great).

And taxes haven't even been raised - the "Bush Era Tax Cuts" for the top earners are still in place - and the payroll tax has been cut.

In fact, things are doing pretty well.   Not spectacularly, but you know, after 10 years of "spectacular" and then a huge crash, I'll stay "slow and steady" any old day.

So what is this guy driving a million-dollar coach 10 miles-per-hour over the speed limit complaining about?  The price of gas?  If so, why doesn't he slow down?

Of course, it could be that the fellow isn't so well off as he appears.   He bought the rock-star bus and the brand-new Jeep and financed it all, on time, thinking it was a swell investment.   And motor coaches have tanked in value - in addition to their normal depreciation - so he is probably upside-down on this "investment".

And I'll bet he made a lot of other bonehead mistakes, too, like selling out at the nadir of the market, instead of having faith that the world economy wasn't going to disappear overnight.

Maybe that is his beef.   And like a lot of folks today, the name of the game is Externalizing - blaming your woes on someone else, rather than looking inwardly at your own actions.   It is Obama's fault his motorcoach isn't worth more than he paid for it - and his investments are in the toilet.   And it is Obama's fault that gas costs so much (never mind the fact that doing 80 mph is one sure way to squander it).

But in the real world, well, Obama hasn't done much, actually.   As many Liberals note, he has pretty much been more of a "Bush Lite" than a Karl Marx.   ObamaCare looks set to be shot down by the Supreme Court, and we still have troops in Afghanistan - and prisoners in Gitmo.

And the supposed agent of Change?  Mitt Romney?  The governor of ultra-blue-state Massachusetts?  The author of RomneyCare?

Even assuming Romney could get elected, would he really change anything all that much?  

Again, Externalizing.  I suppose our friend with the bus would then haul out some other effigy to burn - some Liberal Senator or Congressman, obstructing the GOP paradise-on-earth from being enacted.

In the meantime, he seems to have a lot of money to have signs made up at the sign store.   I am not so sure that he really is hurting all that bad under the Socialist Regime of Barack Obama.

I'll bet he is real fun at parties, too.

The Real Power of Prayer

Most people think of Prayer as they would a letter to Santa Claus.   They are missing the point.

There is a small scene in the movie Driving Miss Daisy, where Hoke, the Chauffeur, is eating his lunch in the kitchen, while Miss Daisy eats her meal in the dining room, alone.   Before he eats, Hoke says a short silent prayer in thanks for the meal he is about to receive.

It is a brief scene - mere seconds on screen.   But is is a powerful scene, nevertheless, as it shows Hoke being thankful for what he has, not pining for what he has not.

Being thankful for what you have is the point of Prayer - not to ask for more.

Yet, most modern religions, particularly the new hatey-kind of Christian sects, preach the latter - that God is Santa, handing out the goodies, and all you have to do is pray for what you want.   And if he doesn't give it to you, then you did something wrong - or your country did.  He keeps a list of who is naughty or nice - and the "good Christians" will get bling and eternal life.  Or so the story goes.

My old neighbors (back in 1985) were sucked into one of these wacky "churches" that met in an old storefront or the basement of some other church.   They believed that if you prayed hard enough, you would get swag from God.   And when they bought a rusted-out 1977 Chrysler Cordoba, running on 7 of its 8 cylinders, she told me, "Jesus gave us this car!"

To which I replied, "I wonder what you did to piss off Jesus?" - because the car was a load of shit.

But that is the attitude today - not to be thankful for what you have, but to want more, and to petition God for it.   Is someone sick?  Ask God to cure them!   Is someone out of a job?  Then ask God to intervene!   Is someone poor, feeling sad, or having a run of bad luck?   Ask God for help!  And if he says "No" then you must have had it coming, buddy!

This is sick thinking of the first order.

The problem with this approach to Prayer - and religion in general - is that things happen in the world for no reason whatsoever - or at least no reason that we can discern.   So the idea that there is an order in the universe and that a tree limb falling on your house is an act of God (according to the Insurance Company, anyway) really makes no sense.

You can pray all you want, under that model, and bad shit will still happen to you.   Grandma will still die, your Cordoba will drop a rod, and your credit card bills will not get paid off.   In fact, this form of prayer is hurtful, as it fills the petitioner with false hope, and then castigates them with fault, if their wishes are not granted magically.

It also prevents them from being self-actualizing and taking initiative in their lives - when they can.  It encourages passivity and makes them easier to manipulate.

But the first type of Prayer - a Prayer of Thanks - is a very powerful thing indeed.  Why is this?  Because if you take the time in the day to give thanks for the very simple things in life, you appreciate how little you really need in life, and what daily miracles are indeed heaped on your doorstep.

Giving thanks for a meal may sound dumb, until you realize that the human brain is a calorie-hog and needs food to survive.   And food on the table is not something trivial - but something that many people on the planet (but not in this country) don't see on a regular basis.

Once you realize how blessed you are, life doesn't seem all that harsh.   And you realize that your "problems" in life are largely self-inflicted, caused not by your need for basis sustenance, but by your greed for a used Chrysler Cordoba.


UPDATE:  May 1, 2012.   Speak of the Devil!  God works in Mysterious Ways....

Today in the mail is a letter from something called "Saint Matthews Church" which has all this weird writing that is bolded and then underlined in red marker and then highlighted (and very odd words chosen to highlight!).

The upshot?  If I pray to the enclosed "Prayer Rug" (a sheet a newspaper with a picture of Jebus on it) I will have money beyond my wildest dreams!

Accompanying the "Prayer Rug" is an "article" about a woman "Blessed with $46,000 after using Prayer Rug!"

That is what God is all about, right?  Handing out money to people?

Talk about missing the big picture!

From the "article":

"Dear Saint Matthew's, My husband listed 7 things that he wanted God to do for him....He sent it off the same day which was the second day of Feb. and last Sat. GOD BLESSED US WITH $10,700.  HE WENT OUT AND BOUGHT US A CAR...Enclosed is a....donation from both of us..."

Note that bold and ellipses are in the original....

Wow, not only does God throw money at you, he acts as your personal shopper and actually goes out and buys the car!  I wonder what God looked like?  Did he fill the tank?  Does he offer extended warranties?  Sounds like a swell deal to me!  I don't know about YOU, but I'm sending my money in to this church - they rock!

This truly IS a sign of the "end times" that religions are whoring for parishioners by offering A NEW CAR! like Monty Hall did on "Let's Make a Deal!"

How about your soul for what's behind curtain number one?

Sorry, but I just had to scan this in, it is too funny (click on image for larger view):

God is giving away FABULOUS PRIZES (and so is Bill Gates!) And I won a $100 coupon for Red Lobster, at least according to an e-mail I received today.  Here is the pitch - SEND BACK the "prayer rug" after praying on it, and then, just check off what you want!  There was not check box for "New Gulfstream Jet" so I didn't send it in.

"Church Prayer Rug for tonight only!"  - no double-dipping on Jesus!   Note that the "Senior Bishop" apparently doesn't have a name - he just signs "Senior Bishop".  Perhaps he is Mexican, and his last name is "Bishop", so he is signing "Señor Bishop" and something got lost in the translation.

Freaking bizarre!