via CBS: Keebler Elf Voice Dead At 81

(AP) Walker Edmiston, an actor who was the voice of many cartoon and puppet characters, including Ernie the Keebler elf in TV commercials, has died. He was 81.

Edmiston died of complications from cancer on Feb. 15 at his home in Woodland Hills, said his daughter, Erin Edmiston.

He worked up until becoming ill in January, she said.

Edmiston was born Feb. 6, 1926, in St. Louis, Mo., and moved to Los Angeles in 1947.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Edmiston had a children’s show on local television. “The Walker Edmiston Show” featured his own puppets, including Kingsley the Lion and Ravenswood the Buzzard.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he voiced many characters on shows created by Sid and Marty Krofft, including Dr. Blinkey and Orson the Vulture on “H.R. Pufnstuf” and Sparky the Firefly on “Bugaloos.”

“Walker was one of the most talented voice people in town,” Marty Krofft said.

Edmiston also had acting roles in episodes of such TV series as “Gunsmoke,” “Mission: Impossible” and “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and performed for nearly 20 years on “Adventures in Odyssey,” a radio series produced by the nonprofit group Focus on the Family.

He is survived by his daughter.

Fezzik update first: Got a call from the vet. The test results seem to show it is just an abscess. However the techs had some doubts about that result. Which means it could be an infection along with, or they are wrong or who knows. So while we are now very cautiously optimistic we are also going to do an ultrasound and more x-rays early next week.

However if it is an abscess they also now think that the antibiotics could clear it up by themselves and no surgery. So really we’re no place new and it just means more waiting.

No, this isn’t driving me nuts at all why do you ask?

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If various publishers scheduling all holds well I will have Strange Angel book 3: Revelation out in March, a zombie western story in one anthology out in April and a noir/anime/futuristic/comedy story in a different anthology come May. That’s kinda cool, yo. A rock block of APK for the spring!

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Speaking of such things as fiction: Over at the Horror Fiction News Network Crazy Little Thing was picked by Kelly Perry for her list of Must Haves. These are lists written by authors, editors and reviewers in the horror world made up of works that they think everyone should read.

Showing up on this list has convinced my publisher that he should keep Crazy Little Thing in print. So there ya go. Yeah, we were gonna take it out of print because it is an oddly hard sell. But now he is going back to press on it. So yay!

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This is also your second reminder for the Lost and Damned chat I will be doing on Monday, March 5th at 9pm. Come and ask me questions about anything I’ve ever written, published, created or otherwise had a hand in. I promise to be drinking during it. You should, too.

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Tomorrow there should be a new Talking Heads, some special stuff at thefootnote (if I have the update sched right) and for those of you who like them, a new Frank and Eddie story up. But that’s tomorrow. This is today.

Why the hell would you want to watch the new, craptastic BSG? Does the new BSG have penis headed robots repeating “booty booty booty”? I doubt it!

Even if this IS Buck Rodgers! It’s STILL a better BSG show than the new one! Take THAT! Buck Rodgers… BSG… BSG… Buck Rodgers… whatever, it was the 70s. BOOTYBOOTYBOOTY!

Not a full update but just to share a few moments:

Blood work came back and it shows him fine (a titch low on a count to indicate anemia but so low the vet thinks it’s simply from the fact he wasn’t eating). So now we wait for the results on what that mass is.

Meanwhile…

He is eating wet food, so he is eating again. He’s been more social since that, too, thankfully. Just more active, though far below normal levels. He is also on antibiotics now, twice a day. Liquid drops. A dropper and a half every twelve hours.

Remember how big my cat is. He doesn’t like the antibiotics.

Yesterday morning it took me almost an hour to get him to settle. I had him in Dunecat form, all wrapped in a blanket and unhappy. Then he decided that he could turn his head no matter what. He was kinda right.

Last night it went easy but I had a friend over so two people can dose him far faster.

This morning though he showed me he was too smart for a dropper. First of all, he saw the bottle and started to run. I caught him and set him on the couch, pinning him under my knees. I grabbed his scruff, which he always responds to. He just sits and gets calm.

Yah! Score! He was calm and settled and resigned to his medicated fate!

What I didn’t know was that he had learned a new trick.

I put the full dropper into his mouth and squeezed and he sat there and turned to look at me. And then he drooled. He just quietly drooled it out all over the couch and sat there, purring at me.

Purring at me! While he drooled the meds onto the couch!

(Afterwards I filled the dropper again and got it into his mouth and squeezed again and tipped his head back. oh he didn’t like that trick, nope.)

It must suck for anime people to get facials! Those big eyes have to be hard to avoid. This is why they go after tentacle beasts, isn’t it? The prehensile nature allows for better aiming. It all makes sense now.

First of all, thanks to all of you for the calls and emails and messages and such. Seriously. This sort of thing, as far too many of you know, can be lonely as hell. You folks have made sure it isn’t that way for me, and that is something so special it can’t be justly put into words. Thank you, also, for sharing your own stories with me. It helps keep things in perspective, ya know?

You know, writing this, I realize I used the “NY Life” tag before and will use it for this one as well. All my Fezzik posts have had “NY Life” tags on them. No special cat tags, or Fezzik tags or anything. Yesterday when I was writing that post I considered it and had to stop and think about why I would give him his own tag.

And I didn’t. And I know why.

When I discuss my life here, my goings on and all, he is a part of them. even if I don’t mention him, understand he has a part in the story. If it’s a story about being out on the town one night, you need to understand that when I get home I find him, where ever he’s decide to curl up that night, and pet him some and check in on him and end my day that way. So I might not always mention him but he’s always there, in every day.

Except, you know, when I’m out of town. Then he’s not there, cause he’s here and I’m there, but that isn’t my point.

Still. He’s a part of everything I do, somehow. As it should be. I can’t write a story without him wandering around my chair for attention, not sure why this clacking noise I make is so damned important compared to stopping and playing with him. So, all too often, I stop for a second to do just that.

Spoiled fat cat, ain’t he?

Well shit. Look, I know I’ll hit someone if they’re in my way. I know I can take a lot of pain, of all sorts, and walk it off. I can be colder and harder than many people I know and I admit it and use it when I need to (and sometimes when I don’t). But when it comes to my cat? There is no bravado. There is no standing tall and proud. You can hit me with a baseball (and it’s happened) and I’ll shrug it off (painfully) and give as good as I get. You mess with my cat, on the other hand, and I break down. He’s my weakness, ya know?

And this isn’t meant to sound down or sad or anything at all. This isn’t a fucking eulogy here. I’m just rambling because I need to, right now. I am actually fairly confident that he will be fine. He’s too much of a pain in my ass to not pull through this. He’s a fighter. Seriously. Before he collided with my life he had been in a number of bad fights and he has the scars to prove it.

His nose is still scarred from a brutal swipe. One of his paws is mangled slightly, there’s a toe that just isn’t right at all, but he doesn’t care and doesn’t limp. He takes it and keeps moving and I don’t see why this should be any different.

So yeah, he’ll be fine and he’ll go through some surgery and come out the other side of it. Yesterday when I first heard the news (after I got home, this is, I held it together fine in public understand) I was so upset I hit the floor and stayed there for a good long time. Dropped my phone mid-call to a friend who came right over. Generally collapsed. But it gave me time to think and think rationally. Not to just give into the wave of fear and panic and potential loss.

I won’t walk around like I’ve lost him because he’s right over there. And that big dumb beast is by far smart enough to pick up on my feelings and moods. I pick up on his, too. He doesn’t seem to care much. He’s just treating it like any other day, simply one hampered by a slight problem. So who am I to be a big ball of mess instead of making sure he’s taken care of, spoiled rotten and generally having a good time of it?

So, again, thank you all. This topic certainly isn’t off-limits but it also won’t be in every thing I write. Life is too short, regardless, to spend it fretting about its end instead of making sure the days between have been worth having.

*sigh*

And as I write this he is licking my toe. I am not kibble. I swear. No. Really I’m not… hold on…

Anyway. Yeah, no, that’s about it. More as it happens.

Just FYI:

Took Fezzik to the vet today cause he seemed to have a gum-type problem. They did an x-ray just to check something and found a growth. A really large one. Like really large.

It might be only an abscess. It might be a tumor. Either way it will require major surgery. Which is, of course, risky.

If it is an abscess it will be surgery, and if that goes well, then he’ll be fine.

If it is a tumor then all bets are off and no one knows where this takes us.

It isn’t good. It isn’t even close to good. But it also isn’t black, bleak and hopeless. So now I wait for test results to come back and see where this leads us.

He, of course, is confused. He got woken up this morning, put in a box, taken into the cold, moved around, carried into warmth that smelled like hundreds of other animals, taken out of a box and stabbed with needles, put back into the box and taken back out into the cold and then back home where he was crushed by me while I fretted (read: broke down) over him.

Anyway. If I’m a bit out of touch for a while and less around that would be why.

I just described porn movies thusly: It isn’t sex. It’s freaky plastic robot people making cars, with sperm.

And was understood. I love my friends.

Via The United Nations:

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have introduced a new ionizing radiation warning symbol (pdf) to supplement the traditional international symbol for radiation, the three cornered trefoil, which has no intuitive meaning and little recognition beyond those educated in its significance. The new symbol is the result of a five-year project conducted in 11 countries around the world that included testing with different population groups - mixed ages, varying educational backgrounds, male and female - to ensure that its message of “danger - stay away” was crystal clear and understood by all. The IAEA Web site contains other related resources, including a Sealed Radioactive Sources Communications Toolkit.

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The full pdf can be gotten here

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And now let us discuss this new symbol. Oh wait I haven’t posted it yet have I! Right!

Yeah that is so much better. So. Its meaning is, at least, clear to me:

The room fan blows bacon waves while you run and Pirates bask.

Wait no. Ok. I got it now.

Our death ray will make you have to dash for the bathroom or die.

That can’t be right.

Pirates and joggers can both be killed by exhaust fans.

I’m guess just not too clear on this.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you… Harry Potter and the Exposed Cock. I won’t post the image here, because hey not exactly work safe, ya dig? Daniel Radcliffe, fully nude, standing in front of that horse.

Wanna see his wand?(Remember - NSFW)
So there ya go. Ron is off somewhere crying. Hermione is… well after seeing this pic she was… well her expression and gut reaction say it all:

So there you have it. a little male full frontal nudity to start your Friday. Don’t say I never did nothing for you.

Edit: This may be a photoshop job. His mother IS jewish after all and it looks a bit odd. So decide for yourself.