238889

I saw receipt #238889 and did some research to see what that number might teach me. My findings follow.

Goliardo

This image is exactly 238889 Bytes, and comes from a series of photos titled La Posada Del Goliardo (The Inn of the Goliardo).

Relying on various automated translation tools I find that the word “Goliardo” “was used during the Middle Ages to refer to certain types of clerics vagrants and poor students pícaros that proliferated in Europe with the rise of urban life and the emergence of universities in the thirteenth century” source)

Deferring to English reference sources I find that our English word “Goliard” has a similar definition: “a wandering scholar in medieval Europe; famed for intemperance and riotous behavior and the composition of satirical and ribald Latin songs.”

I never thought to ask how Goliard Concerts (a local chamber ensemble) chose its name. Until now I thought Goliard and Goliardo etymologically connected with words meaning church bells, though I draw a blank trying to remember the word in my mind that sounded something like Goliard and had a meaning related to bells.

Further research into the meaning of “Goliardo” leads me to the film career of Goliardo Padova. According to numerous sources this actor played the painter in the Bernardo Bertolucci movie Before the Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione).

 

 

SPFPA

Quantcast, a company describing itself as “the World’s Only Open Internet Ratings Service,” recently ranked SPFPA.org at #238,889 in its index detailing audience reach of Internet web sites.

SPFPA (Security Police Fire Professionals of America) describes itself at “The First Line of Defense Against a Terrorist Attack
Representing over 30,000 Security Police Professionals Nationwide.

According to WHOIS records, SPFPA.org is based in Roseville, Michigan. The Mayor of Roseville is Harold L. Haugh.

Mayor Haugh has been married for 37 years with four adult children and three grandchildren.

 

 

Joe Viola

Parabox Media’s Product ID# 238889 is Angels Hard as They Come, “a melange of sex, violence, leather, and souped-up Harleys with a note of topicality added in by having some of the bikers dress and behave like hippies.”

This film was directed by Joe Viola, a director who shares his name with a woodwind professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

The Joe Viola Era is an essay which includes this photo of Joe Viola and several of his saxophone students playing their instruments in a stairwell.

 

 

Beef Chocolate

Food Down Under’s recipe #238889 is for a “Spanish Roast.”

I read the list of keywords as a complete sentence, and mis-read one word and thought this tagline was “Beef Chocolate meets Spanish.”

I just ate some chocolate, and later I will eat some meat, but I am not an adventurous culinary explorer such that I would choose to eat a single concoction of Beef Chocolate, such as a Beef Chocolate Bar or a Chocolate Meatloaf.
“Chocolate Meatloaf” sounds more like the name of a 1970s acid rock band than an edible cuisine.

It reminds me of the “Meat Shakes” hoax which I and many others fell for.

Meat Shakes were, purportedly, milk shakes with various types of finely ground bits of meat mixed in. The menu included Steak Shakes, Pork Shakes, Vanilla Ham Shakes, and a Green Salad tossed with “Meaty-Mystery Bits!”

The Locations page of their web site listed a location at 51-35 Northern Boulevard in Queens, and I admit that one day on my way to the Staples up the street at 51-10 Broadway I did keep an eye out for the Meat Shake store only to find a McDonald’s at that address. The presence of a McDonald’s further illustrates the depth of the hoax: A closer look at that list of locations page shows that most if not all of the addresses actually lead you to a McDonald’s.

“Meat Shake” is a song by the band Ugly Duckling. As a promotional gimmick they set up the hoax web site for a fast food chain named Meat Shake. The song (excerpt here) parodies the fast food business.

 

 

Piaractus brachypomus

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Specimen ID #238889 is the Piaractus brachypomus. According to the USGS, “Many Piaractus taken in U.S. waters have been misidentified and reported as the red piranha Pygocentrus nattereri.”

The USGS further adds that the Piaractus is a popular aquarium fish, and its appearance in non-indigenous waters is likely the result of aquarium owners dumping the fish into lakes and rivers.

One such non-indigenous find occurred on September 5, 1993, at the retention pond at the Stoneridge Apartments in Gainesville, Florida.

It is possible though far from certain that this image, borrowed from Gainesville-Rent.com, shows the retention pond into which the USGS says that non-indigenous Piaractus was found in 1993.

What follows is a list of incidents known or said to have occurred on or in relation to September 5, 1993 (the day a Piaractus was found at the retention pond at Gainesville’s Stoneridge Apartments):

• Dave Perry read the Cleburne, Texas Times-Review
• Toastie watched some NFL football and then went to the Perkins Library at Duke University.
• Theresa A. Mullins entered the room of an elderly woman who was attempting to hold onto the bathroom sink to keep from falling
• Moishe Miller called Sally Weiss
• David V. Herlihy claims Pierre Lallement invented the bicycle

 

 

Coming in at exactly 238,889 bytes is the scanned image of the Clark, Lucinda C. through Climer, Bertha page of the Index to the Applications Submitted for the Eastern Cherokee Roll of 1909 (Guion Miller Roll).

According to Archives.gov, the Guion-Miller Index “includes the names of all persons applying for compensation arising from the judgment of the United States Court of Claims on May 28, 1906, for the Eastern Cherokee tribe.”

This index includes names of all who applied. Those rejected are on this list with those accepted.

 

 

U.L.

Comment No. 238889, in response to Zenab Eve Ahmed’s “Chastity and choice,” begins: “I’m waiting for your reply to my comments on this thread. I have no intention of disappearing. Meanwhile, you keep harping on the Quran vs the Hadith, as if the argument somehow validates your viewpoint.”

The posts ramble on in that disembodied way of most comment boards, and includes reference to a St. Petersburg Times story about a Tampa woman’s conversion to Islam.

The St. Petersburg Times is located in downtown St. Petersburg at 490 1st Ave South, about 5 minutes away from Tropicana Field.

I grew up across the bay in Tampa, but have not been to “The Trop,” which is the home of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Rays have consistently ranked among the worst teams in baseball for all of the franchise’s existence, but my baseball memories of Tampa are of a higher order.

I went to at least one spring training game at Al Lopez Field, a baseball field that I think was located on Dale Mabry Highway where Legends Field is today.

The New York Yankees play their spring training games there today, but when I was a kid that field hosted pre-season games for the Cincinnati Reds, awesomely known to my 12 year old self as the “Big Red Machine”.

At one game in 1978 or 1979 the Reds played the Kansas City Royals at Al Lopez Field.

My clearest memories of that game follow:

• Johnny Bench hit a home run, and waved to the crowd as he rounded third base and headed to home plate. For years I bragged about the all-American experience of having seen Johnny Bench hit a home run.
• A woman sitting behind me made fun of U.L. Washington’s name. Throughout the game she repeatedly muttered “Yew Ell” in a sarcastic hillbilly droll. I had a U.L. Washington baseball card, and to this day I can not see that card or contemplate Washington’s name without hearing that woman’s voice.
• Yew Ell
• I also remember my dad sitting next to me, on my left.

 

 

Tasty Pizza

Receipt #238889, the receipt which started this journey, is from Tasty Pizza. The receipt documents my purchase of a double pepperoni pizza, ordered for delivery.

I do not frequent Tasty Pizza much any more, and I have no explanation as to why. They make good pizza, and have been in business for many years now.

I probably lack Tasty Pizza in my life because they are not located on my way to anywhere else.

 

 

Summary

I hope you enjoyed this journey through the number 238889.