Around 130 riders started off this morning on the ACT 8 Aids Ride from Olin Park in Madison and are on their way to Baraboo where they’ll spend the night.

The 4-day  300-mile ride also has overnight stops in Spring Green and Albany before thy end up back in Madison for the emotional closing ceremony on Sunday.

The riders will be going through a lot of other little towns too..and you’re encouraged to cheer the riders on.

Click here to find a list of cheering stations..and the approximate times the riders will be arriving.

Proceeds from the ride benefit the Aids Network in Madison. Last night more than $300,000 was raised!

What would you pay???

You know I had to be a little jealous when I heard about the guy who bought a bunch of Ansel Adams negatives at a yard sale for $45 and now finds out they’re worth $200 million.

I’ve been going to yard/rummage/garage/thrift sales for years..and my problem is that I buy stuff thinking that it’s worth money and then I do one of two things: 1)put it on a shelf to gather dust; or 2)put it in a box on a shelf in the basement and never look at it again.

Quite often I buy something just because I think it’s a good deal and have seen similar items at antique stores for much higher prices. Sometimes these are not even things I necessarily like.

Here’s a list of just some of the items…I think I still have all of these somewhere..but I’m too lazy to go through the boxes.

1. Adam-12 thermos. I don’t have the matching lunchbox, but if I ever find it, then I will put them both in a box somewhere and boy will they be worth a lot of money if and when I would ever sell it.

2. Dawn dolls with carrying case. Dawn dolls came out in the early 70’s and were smaller, skinnier Barbie type dolls. I spent $4 for a couple of dolls, clothes, and the case. Steal of a deal. Would you like to buy them?

3. Patty Duke Board Game. I am actually too young to remember this TV show, but can sing you the theme song. I do have this game on display in my living room, and yes, it’ s dusty.

4. Box of straws. This was actually from an estate sale. A vintage box of paper flexy straws, with a clown on the box. This is on display on a high cupboard in my kitchen. It’s got to be worth more than the 75 cents I paid.

5. Charlie the Tuna Doll. Probably the showpiece of my collection. It’s a talking Charlie the Tuna from 1968, in the original packaging. Problem is, it doesn’t talk.  I paid 50 cents for it, and  actually had it appraised by Gary Sohmers from Antiques Roadshow at $85. It’s in a box in the closet of my spare bedroom. I can find it quickly if you’d like to make me an offer.

..they just sing a little more quietly.

Folk icon Pete Seeger has never been shy when it comes to singing out for what he believes in.  He’s against war…for civil rights, human rights, and the right to unionize.

The 91- year old is also an avid environmentalist, and just wrote a new song that decries BP and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and performed it at a fundraiser for the group Global Green USA. You have to watch the video for a couple minutes until it gets to the line “When the drill baby drill turns to spill baby spill/God’s counting on me/God’s counting on you.”

I hope I’m still as “with it” as he is at such an advanced age! (sorry you have to watch a short ad first)

Does any one else lament the loss of the old fashioned jukebox? It doesn’t have to be a Fonzie Happy Days jukebox that plays 45’s. All I’m asking for is a jukebox with a limited number of CD’s, handpicked by somebody.

Mike and I explored a few new bars over the weekend, and I was increasingly irritated about the number of bars with internet jukeboxes. First of all, it’s too many choices (any song you’d ever want..except for the Beatles). Secondly, you don’t learn anything about a new place from an internet jukebox.

I like to go into a bar and check out the jukebox…it gives you an idea of the mindset of the clientele. A lot of bars in Stevens Point had tons of the polkas on the jukebox (some of them in Polish). I could tell right away I wasn’t going to hang out in those places very long!

I haven’t been in the Harmony Bar lately…but I always loved that the jukebox included CD’s from bands who played the Harmony. So you might hear a Robbie Fulks tune followed up by something from Honor Among Thieves. You’re probably not going to hear that combination on any internet jukebox.

One of the bars we tried for the first time this weekend was was the Jade Monkey, at the corner of Cottage Grove Road and Monona Drive. They still had a jukebox that included CD’s…and when I told the bartender that I was happy to see it, he told me that he works at another bar that has an internet jukebox. Because there’s an option that lets you pay more to hear your song next, he’s seen fights break out because people pay their money and think they’re never going to hear their song!

I don’t think I’d ever resort to fisticuffs over this issue…but I do hope that internet jukeboxes are just a passing fad.

What is a septuagenarian?

That might be one of the questions on Jeopardy as Alex Trebek turns 70 today. He’s been hosting that game show since the 1980’s, and despite the fact that he can be a smug know it all and he goes overboard with the accent on French words, I mostly approve of him. (He’d be glad to know that I’m sure!)

In honor of his birthday I get to post this picture again.  It’s my dad with Alex, posing at some sort of senior citizen convention in Stevens Point.

And here’s a pretty funny Jeopardy moment, featuring Ken Jennings, that guy who won for weeks in a row a few years ago.

Here’s a story that’s creepy in so many ways. An auction house is going to sell to the highest bidder the autopsy tools used on Elvis Presley’s body after his death. (Click here for the full story).

This includes forceps, rubber gloves, lip brushes (?), eye liner and a toe tag marked John Doe (the original toe tag was stolen.)

I love this quote, from auction house spokesperson Mary Williams: “It’s really about owning a piece of the celebrity themselves … and how much closer can you get than the actual embalming instruments.”

I’m pretty sure I don’t want to get any closer than that.

Here are some other things to add to my DON’T WANT LIST:

Cathy Rigby's maxi-pads

Mamasox's old crooked teeth

Greg Allman's old liver

Were you one of the kids who ran home from school each day to watch Dark Shadows? Then you might be interested in the news that a screenwriter has finally been picked to write a big screen version of the story of Barnabas (the vampire), Quentin (the werewolf), and other ghoulish characters in that gothic soap opera from the 1960’s.

Johnny Depp will play Barnabas, and the movie will be directed by Tim Burton. So either it will be really really cool or it will suck. It’s going to be written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the guy who wrote books including Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies..so at least it’s some one who understands the material.

I was pretty young when the Dark Shadows big bit (pun intended), but I do recall dashing home from first grade to watch the show with my older brother and his high school buddies. (They all came over to our house to smoke cigarettes and drink Cokes).

The only Dark Shadows memorabilia I got during the time the show was on was a View-master reel..which I still have…but unfortunately not the the picture sleeve.

I have made an attempt though to create the collection I didn’t have as a kid…here are a couple of my Dark Shadows items.

The board game included glow in the dark fangs!

The soundtrack album, with poster!

(photos by Mike O’Connor..thanks for getting rid of the glare!)

And here’s a video to take you back..

When I was a kid I listened to the radio a lot…especially during the summer. It seems wherever I went, there was a radio..whether it was my friend Joan’s purple radio that she’d attach to the back rack on her bike…or my little gray GE radio I earned selling magazine subscriptions.

When I hear certain songs now, it takes me right back to those blissfully ignorant years of my youth.

One of those songs is “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder, which was number one on the charts early in the summer of 1977.  I don’t think I even knew it was about Duke Ellington back then. I just knew I liked it.

I just looked it up…the number one song right before it was “When I Need You” by Leo Sayer.

I like this song a lot more. It just makes me feel good.

Remember this old commercial jingle? It went something like this…”summer summer fruit…it wouldn’t be summer without it.”

The fine folks at Kimberly Clark have a new angle on that same idea. Kleenex in a box shaped like a wedge of fruit!

I saw it for sale in a recent ShopKo flyer, and said to myself–”what in the hell?’

Especially when I saw the sale price–$2.99. It doesn’t look like the nifty new packaging holds a lot of tissues, so I’m imagining people who are snapping these things up just think they’re an absolutely darling addition to their summer decor.

A blogger on a packaging website called the new design “a marvel.”

I wouldn’t go quite that far. But I will say it’s nothing to sneeze at.

Any one who knows me I love free beer (if it’s good beer). And you’ll be guided to plenty of good beer, some of it free, if you pick up a copy of the newest edition of “Wisconsin’s Best Beer Guide,” by  Kevin Revolinski.

It’s an updated version of a book he put out a couple of years ago..a book Mike and I put to use during our many beer tours of Wisconsin. The book includes entries on all the breweries, micro-breweries, and brewpubs in the state. And since a few have closed and many have opened since the last edition of the book, you really need to pick this one up.

The book gives you all the skinny about the different brews available, food options…and even other tourist-y things to do nearby.

Some interesting things you’ll learn in this edition:

*Which microbrewery isn’t allowed to picture bovine animals in its advertising

*Which brewpub is so green it’s heated with solar panels

*which microbrewery is located in a campground

You’ll also find out tidbits like alternative uses for beer cans (I actually own one of those crocheted Point Beer hats), the difference between ales and lagers, and beer history going back to the formation of the glaciers.

What about the free beer? Many of the breweries have special offers when you show them your copy of the book (like a free pint of beer or a free tour).

I highly recommend this book for beer aficionados who like to venture beyond the ordinary. It’s well written, thorough, and often funny. But I do have one warning for you. It will make you thirsty.

Find out more about the book and the author here, or go see Kevin Friday (July 16th) at the Capital Brewery in Middleton.  He’ll be selling (and signing) copies of his book there, while you listen to bluegrass from Salt Creek.