Bill Mann

More short items from the Mann with a short attention span: 

— Tomatoes, Tomahtoes:  A friend from Northern California recently moved to Kala Point. And she soon learned that her neighbors there pronounce it as “KAH-la Point.” Most of us “urban types” here in PT pronounce it “KAY-la.” Duly noted. 

— Seattle Mariner radio tonsil Rick Rizzs has the lamest home-run call in the game: “Bye, bye baseball!” David Letterman’s writers came up with two great ones: “Rent the room, sell the toys. This baby ain’t coming home!”; and, “This missile is headed for Moscow!” 

— Speaking of baseball announcers, I’ve recently been binging on Hulu’s R-rated “Brockmire,” with star Hank Azaria brilliant as an alcoholic/womanizing/drug-abusing baseball announcer. His deeply flawed character, despite this, is an impressive, declaiming orator. Highly recommended show, but not for the squeamish. 

— A fan of the Seahawks: It’s quite a rare treat for this dilettante birder: Spotting a pair of osprey perched over on K Street, twice. It’s unusual to see fishhawks/seahawks this far from the water. They’re the first two I’ve seen here. 

— Speaking of animals and water: That formless old cougar mascot statue over at Mountain View School looks like a kids’ sand sculpture that’s seen one too many high tides. 

— I’ve never understood why PT doesn’t collect library fines. I’m sure the Library Cop from “Seinfeld” would not approve. 

— Let’s devoutly hope we never see the kind of heat wave again we endured a few weeks ago. But it will at least get warm here soon. And when it does, if you’ve never had bubble tea, sometimes called boba tea, you’re in for a treat. I’ve only been able to find bubble tea, which features large tapioca pearls in a sweetened drink, at one place locally, Khu Larb Thai, right across the street from the Peninsula’s finest newspaper. Up in Vancouver, where boba’s been popular for years in the Asian community, the twist is … bubble waffles. Yum! 

— Speaking of Vancouver, I was excited to hear that Canada would reopen its border Aug. 9. It’s been almost two years since we’ve seen our American/Canadian son in Vancouver. But just a minute. It’s not that simple. The Canadian government is understandably cautious about heedless Yanks coming in. You need to be fully vaccinated … PLUS … you have to take another test close to your arrival date — and these things aren’t cheap … PLUS you also need to file a quarantine plan with Le Gouvernément du Canada. So don’t plan on simply hopping on the MV Coho over in Port Angeles any time soon. And the U.S. government, meanwhile, then made it even harder for Canadians to come south. 

— Welcome back today, our beloved Rose Theatre. Upbeat owner Rocky Friedman won’t have to schlep his tasty popcorn out to the street any more. 

— As someone who spent years on crutches and braces after getting polio just before a vaccine became available, I have two words for the clueless anti-vaxxers. But they can’t be printed here. 

— Among the more unique PT residents I’ve met is a guy I used to play tennis with here before my polio returned and re-disabled me. Bob S. graduated from toney Dartmouth, but he chose an unexpected career path: He decided to drive a truck for a living. Probably not too many truck drivers are Dartmouth grads. 

— Speaking of topnotch colleges, I must admit to voting for one city council candidate here partly because she graduated from the same academically challenging school our two kids did: Reed College, down in Portland. 

— Carrying a Torch: The Olympics are underway, which brings back memories of the 1976 Games in Montreal, which I covered for the Montreal Gazette. The two biggest stars of those games were the first perfect 10, Nadia Comaneci, and the decathlon winner, who was then Bruce Jenner. Sadly for Canada, those Olympics were the first in which the host country did not win one gold medal.

— Finally, The New Yorker’s peerless humorist Andy Borowitz coins this headline: “Trump Obtained Podiatrist’s Note to Avoid Serving in Own Military Coup.” 

(PT humorist Bill Mann has been a columnist at four major metro dailies. Newsmann9@gmail.com.)