We pause now in the middle of this whinge

to bring a brief moment of eye-watering hilarity.


see more pwn and owned pictures

Normal service will resume shortly. Thank you.

A Memo from the desk of Too Much Information

Me: sorry for sleeping so late. I put the sheepy sheets* on my bed last night and it was so snuggly in there i couldn't bring myself to get up. It was like a uterus. Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day eagerly awaiting bed time, just so i can get back in it.

Mom: Why don't you go back to bed now?

Me: I'm wide awake. What would I do there.
*pauses*
Don't answer that.

Mom:** You know what they say: sex is like bridge... if you've got a good hand, you don't need a partner.

Me: ...




*We're having a cold snap. The temperature was below zero last night. That's zero Farenheit. So I put the flannel sheets on my bed. My flannel sheets have little cartoon sheeps all over them. They are seriously cute.

** Mom runs a twice-weekly, ACBL-sanctioned bridge game for a bunch of nearly-dead local residents. I shudder to think where she heard this.

There's No One As Irish As Barack O'Bama

Worth Watching

This video is over an hour long, but why don't you give it a go tonight instead of Big Brother or Antiques Road Show? You won't regret it.

If I knew you were coming...

Who could have imagined that a blog with photos of cake-decorating travesties would be so fucking hilarious!

*wipes eyes*

15 minutes ago I was still a bit nervous about baking my own wedding cake.

No longer.

Why xkcd is my fav comic of All Time

link is here.

12th (wo)man

I HAD SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH A SMALL, BLACK INSECT WHO SEDUCED ME BY CHIRPING!

I LOST MY CRICKET VIRGINITY YESTERDAY!

Actually, I got thrown in to one of the Pirate's games on Sunday. One of their men never showed up and they couldn't get hold of him, so they threw me some borrowed kit and let me play. The conversation at lunch went something like this:

Skipper: "Bob" still isn't here.

Another player: No big deal, we can field with 10 men. We've got so many runs they don't stand a chance anyway.

Pirate: CB will play. (Keep in mind this is not a mixed-sex league/team/game.)

Me: I will?

Skipper (to me): Oh? Are you a cricketer?

Me: Nope! Never played in my life, but I'll give it a go.

Skipper: Can you catch?

Me: Not really. I'm afraid of the ball. I can't run for beans either and I throw like a girl. I make no promises whatsoever about my capabilities, only my enthusiasm.

Skipper: Do you have any whites with you.

Me: Nope!

Skipper: Sounds good to me. You can field at off-stump.

Me: Okey-dokey then! Where's that?

So I was handed some spare kit from a chap who's a lot shorter and skinnier than I am and sent out to field wearing what looked like skin-tight, cream-colored capri-style yoga pants. The look was further enhanced by my hair being up in pigtails. It was no end of comedy, I tell you.

It was my first time ever on a cricket pitch and the first time a woman had ever played for the Stragglers.

It was a friendly match and didn't count toward any kind of league, and the Stragglers were so far up that even if I made several catastrophic screw-ups it still wouldn't affect the outcome of the game, so they were happy to humor me.

The ball only came towards me 3 times in the whole innings. Twice it was so far over my head only Inspector Gadget would have stood a chance of grabbing it, and the third time it came rolling past me, so I stopped it with my foot and lobbed it back to the catcher, thereby holding what would have been 4 runs to only 1. So that was good. The rest of the game I just stood there, terrified that the ball would come near me. My fear was in vain, however, as the Pirate was bowling and didn't give the poor bastards batting many opportunities to do anything other than defend the stumps.

So I was heartily congratulated all around for being such a good sport and had a great time playing England's noble game with my Pirate.

(Also when the Pirate took his first wicket I got to smack him on the ass in a manly, athletic manner, which was fun.)

What's the ony thing better than mating pengies???

FLYING PENGIES!!!

If you're in the UK, watch the video. Seriously.

I *heart* the BBC.


And god do I love living in a country where the media has a sense of humor.

Manliness

So one weekend earlier this fall (I forgot to blog it at the time, but it's worth telling), Pirate and I were driving down a country road in his new/old 1973 AM Vantage. It was a beautiful, clear day; great day for a run in The Big Car.

I was dressed up, wearing a purple dress with longish (mid-calf) A-line skirt with buttons all down the front, proper stockings, and heels. (This is important to the punchline, I swear.)

I was sitting in the bucket seat to Pirate's left, my right leg crossed over my left at the knee. (There's a lot of leg-room in that car. me likes.)

We hit a stretch of open road, and with no traffic in sight, Pirate put the boot down. That car moves. It doesn't strain, it just responds. I felt myself pressed backwards into the seat from the acceleration. As the car thrust forward the hem of my skirt, which had been just resting at the top of my right knee, was also pulled backwards toward the seat, causing it to slide up my leg and reveal my thigh and the top of my stocking.

Pirate, upon seeing that the acceleration of the car was responsible for uncovering the smooth, firm, muscled flesh of my thigh, declared proudly: "I am such a man."

Why I shouldn't be allowed to live alone

I locked my self out today. In a fluey fog I left the flat without my keys, and the door locked behind me. As soon as I heard it 'click' i knew what i'd done. You know that feeling, when you realize something in the very instant that it's too late to do anything about it? Like when a deer jumps into the headlights of your car 6 inches from your hood (bonnet) when you're driving 50 mph and you have just enough time to think "well crap, i'm going to hit a deer," before you plough into bambi. Yeah, one of those moments.

Me and doors that lock automatically don't get along. I really shouldn't have them. Sadly, lots of student housing is equipped with this type of door, and since I've been a student for the last 10 years, I've had a lot of these doors. And locked myself out a LOT.

Would you like to hear about my very best lock-out story of all time? It's a good one.

I was an undergrad at Connecticut College, doing my double major in English and Botany. ('cause i'm that cool, sistah. *snaps fingahs*) I was living in Blackstone House, the substance-free dorm, where no alcohol, tobacco, or drugs were allowed, even if you were legal. (Sorry, what was I just saying about cool? never mind.) I lived on the second floor (first floor to you Brits) next door to one of my best friends, Billy-Jean. (Who just had her first baby, by the way. I WANT A BABY! WAH!)

Outside our windows was this goofy little balcony thing. It wasn't accessible by any door, and in fact we weren't supposed to go out on it at all. It was just an architectural feature of the building (which was made of New England granite and built in 1914, one of the three original buildings of the college and the oldest dorm). The down-side of this balcony was that people were constantly accidently throwing their frisbees onto it, and either I or Billy-Jean would have to retrieve them by climbing out our windows. The upside was that A) it was a great place to keep ice-cream in the winter, since Blackstone didn't have a kitchen or a freezer, and B) when I locked myself out I could go to BJ's room, climb out her window, cross the balcony, and climb into my own. This was useful since, according to college rules, if you locked yourself out Campus Safety would let you in for free once, but after that they charged you $10 a pop. Generally Sampus Cafety was pretty sympathetic to 'Stoners (the ironic, self-styled residents of Blackstone) since we never caused any trouble with partying and damaging property, but even so I didn't like to push my luck.



So one day, in my usual dipshittedness, I locked my self out. I hung my head, mumbled "for fuck's sake" and went next door to BJ's room. No answer. I tried the next room down, which was BJ's boyfriend's (now husband's) room. BJ wasn't in Tooth's room, but had some suggestions where she might be. Being a shy kind of girl, the list wasn't very long, and I tracked her down without overmuch difficulty.

I apologized profusely and asked her if she could come open her room so I could climb out her window. You wouldn't think this was a huge favor, except that she had a fish tank set up in front of the window I needed to use, and there were several plants hanging from the curtain rod above with tendrils hanging all over the place, along with numerous other obstructions in the form of furniture and clothes crammed in everywhere. She sighed but came along willingly. In total it took about 15 minutes to move everything out of the was so I could get out the window, which eventually I did.

I squeezed myself out, padded gingerly across the balcony (which was actually the roof of the living room down stairs, but we were never certain how much weight that roof would hold), threw open my window, climbed inside, crawled across the (strategically located) bed, walked to my door, opened it -- with the intention of going next door to thank BJ one more time-- stepped into the hall, and...

you guess it. Closed and locked the door behind me.

When I realized what I'd done I fell to pieces right then and there in the hallway, laughing hysterically. BJ heard the rucus, saw me in a state of impenitrable giggle-fits, immediately deduced what I'd done (I'm fairly predictable), and joined me in the chorus. I don't know how long we sat there, laughing until we cried at my sublime stupidity, but eventually we went back into BJ's room and repeated the whole procedure.

I've never lived this incident down. To this day, whenever i do something really, really dumb (which is often), BJ still reminds me of this story. And I still giggle.

Best Onion EVER

The Onion this morning was a gem. It started with a brilliant headline...

moved on to a lovely sarcastic piece about the human condition, delightfully parodied in African big game...

and concluded with this, possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen. The photo really makes it.


In other news, my parents left this morning. I'll tell you about their visit later today.


UPDATE: oh hell, it just keeps on getting better.

In the Burgh of Edin, day 1

It's time for the vacation update!!! [in Kermit the frog voice] YAAAAY!!! *waves arms in air*


We left the Preston area on Sunday August 5th and drove north. I would have liked to have gotten an earlier start, but Mrs. Pirate had made a huge sunday dinner/lunch thing with lamb and the works, so we couldn't skive off early.

The drive up was lovely: up the M6 for a couple hours, hang a right onto the A702, and voila! Edinburgh. I like driving the M6 on the norhtern stretch. It's always grey and rainy, and the moors and hills are bleak and lonely little whisps of mist and fog hang about here and there and never seem so go away completely. Pirate's been reading "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet, so to pass the time I read to him from the book while he drove. There was cricket on the radio, but the reception was shitty at the best of times, so we gave up on that.

Turning onto the A702 was a surprise. This is the major route to Edinburgh from the southward direction, and it was a 2-lane (one each way) undivided country road, twisting and winding through tiny villages and hamlet. It was grey and drippy and I was enchanted and was hypnotized by the windshield wipers and enchanted by the surroundings.

We found our B&B with little difficulty, and a pleasant French girl showed us to our room. I had been told beforehand that it was small. Small, in this case, meaning the double bed takes up fully HALF of the total sqare footage of the room. I've seen bigger prison cells.

The bathroom was down the hall, but we had it all to ourselves, and it had a FANTASTIC shower, which was a treat. (The shower in my room here is warm on a good day, and doesn't so much spray as pee.)

It was almost 6 pm by that point, and on a Sunday nothing is open at that hour, so it's a bit of a stupid time to arrive someplace, but we decided to wander in to town (about 1 1/2 miles) and see what there was to see. What there was to see, was this:

It's the Fringe, baby!

Neither of us had ANY idea we were arriving on the opening weekend of the famed Fringe Festival. It never factored in to our travel plans. I had only heard of the thing once, from a chinese student in my building telling me about it during a trip in the elevator. We selected the timing of our holiday based on when Pirate could get time off work, and I selected the location based on
a. I'd never been to Scotland
b. my brother said it was awesome and I should go
c. Sal made it look pretty cool in his blog
d. It was a convenient distance from our setting-off point
e. I know a few people there, notably Hendrix Cat and a good mate of mine from the boat club

As we walked along toward town, a man handed us a flyer. It said "One night only: Norman Lovatt reads the phone book!"
?
Normally I don't look at flyers but, being a Red Dwarf fan, the name Norman Lovatt caught the Pirate's eye. The man said he was giving away free tickets. We didn't have anything to do, so we took them. And that was how the whole thing started.

The Fringe Festival, for those of you who don't know, is a crazy cultural festival of performing arts that takes place every August in Edinburgh. It's manic. Every square inch of usable space in the city is turned into a performace venue. We saw shows in attics, in the Grand Masons' Lodge of Scotland, in a low stone-vaulted crevice under a road, in a giant upside-down purple cow (called The Udderbelly, not to be confused with The Underbelly -- that's something else entirely). We stumbled into the main Fringe info office on the Royal Mile (which Pirate referred to as "Fringe Central." Think about it for a second. There ya go.), elbowing our way through the crowds and stopping to watch a few of the myriad street performers and living statues along the way. At the Fringe info office we got a schedule of events and sat down in a pub to examine it. We were stunned.

Even Pirate had no idea the scale of the thing. The program of events is a magazine of over a hundred pages, and it's all scheduling. There are over 250 venues, with something going on in each of them from midmorning to well after midnight all day long for a month. Pirate took a pen out of my purse and we dove into the comedy section. Within minutes we had lined up a schedule for ourselves for the next three days. We then ran to the box office to get ourselves tickets.

The major advantage to going on the first weekend is the reduced ticket prices. Most shows are offering "preview" rates or 2-for-1 discounts to get butts in the seats early and spread the word. So we got tons of tickets. Hey, why not? We never did manage to see Edinburgh Castle, but that will still be there later. And I got meet Marcus Brigstocke!!! But that happened later. Right after I got locked in the portaloo with 7 other women by the giant, dead, purple cow.*

After hearing Norman Lovatt read the phone book (which was funny in one of those wierd, awkward ways were people laugh more out of nervousness than humor) and stuffing some chips in our faces we sprinted over to where some unknown guy was giving a standup called "Why All Daily Mail Writers Must DIE." We just couldn't resist the title. The show was hilarious, although it got a bit preachy toward the end. We were sitting in the front row and, being a Yank, i got riddiculed quite a bit (not for the last time that week, I might add). It was all in good fun, and by the end of the show my sides were actually aching (also, not for the last time that week).

We wandered back to the B&B and collapsed into bed.

The end of day 1.


*At the Fringe, exciting things happen even to boring, normal people like me. They just doo.

Cop out

Hi. I'm not back yet. I'm blogging from the parental home of the Pirate. This is just to say that we had a fabulous time. Details will be forthcoming.

In the meantime, I would like to suggest some entirely unoriginal entertainment. I know Billy and Spinsterella have done this, but I'll be buggered if I can find the right links in their archives. What I propose is that you all write a short post in the comments in the style of my writing. Pretend to be me. Write what you think my holiday blog post will be. When I get back I'll pick a weinner and send him/her something. Don't ask what, I havn't thought that far yet.

So for the next 48 hours you all get to be Chaucer's Bitch.

On you keyboard...

Get set...

Take the piss!

Quote of the week

Pirate: Ack!

me: you ok?

Pirate: Fine. I was just having a crisis of personal spatial awareness.
Until I figured out where my finger was.








the context? He was trying to floss his teeth without looking in the mirror. I cracked up so bad I fell on the floor while I was brushing my teeth and it took me 30 minutes to fall asleep after because I kept breaking out in gigglefits.

Listen up, my bearded and veily freinds!

For a little light weekend reading, here's an (unoffical - i typed it myself) transcript of a portion BBC Radio 4's 'Now Show," which first aired last friday, 20 July 2007. It's a commentary by Marcus Brigstock, a scathing and hilarious endictment of organized religion. Prepare to be hugely offended and laugh your arse off:


"I'd like to start this week with a request, and this one goes out to the followers of the three Abrahamic religions: the Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It's just a little thing, really, but do you think that when you've finished smashing up the world and blowing each other to bits and demanding special privledges while you do it, do you think that maybe the rest of us could sort of have our planet back? I wouldn't ask, but I'm starting to think that there must be something written in the special books that each of you so enjoy referring to that it's ok to behave like special, petulent, pugnacious, pricks. Forgive the alliteration, but your persistent, power-mad punch-ups are pissing me off. It's mainly the extremists obviously, but not exlclusively. It's a lot of 'main-streamers' as well. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Muslims: listen up my bearded and veily friends! Calm down, ok? Stop blowing stuff up. Not everything that said about you is an attack on the prophet Mohammed and Allah that needs to end in the infidel being destroyed. Have a cup of tea, put on a Cat Stevens record, sit down and chill out. I mean seriously, what's wrong with a strongly-worded letter to The Times?

Christians: you and your churches don't get to be millionairs while other people have nothing at all. They're your bloody rules; either stick to them or abandon the faith. And stop persecuting and killing people you judge to be immoral. Oh, and stop pretending you're celibate -- it's a cover-up for being a gay or a nonce. Right, that's two ticked off.

Jews! I know you're god's 'Chosen People' and the rest of us are just whatever, but when Israel behaves like a violent, psychopathic bully and someone mentions it that doesn't make them anitsemitic. And for the record, your troubled history is not a license to act with impunity now.

So, when the letters come (and I'm guessing they will), I can gaurantee that each one of those faiths will be conviced that I've singled them out for special criticism.

[In mock Arabic accent] Why did it have to be us? Islam is a peaceful faith!

[In upper class British accent] I don't see what's wrong with being Christian? We're a peaceful, loving faith.

[In affronted, huffy voice] How dare you after all we've been through! We Jews know how terrible violece can be.

You see, all of them will be convinced that they're the ones being picked on. The Abrahamic faiths are like scousers: they're always conviced they [in scouser accent} have it harder than everyone else.

And why is it that all of these faiths claim to be peaceful, when even a most fleeting glance at a history of warfare will tell you otherwise? The relationship between religion and warfare is very similar to the relationship between Ant and Deck: you could have one without the other, but I'm not sure anyone would see the point. I wouldn't actually like it, but it would be refreshing to hear one of them come out and say [in working class London accent] "Our faith's violent as you like. We love a scrap, us lot, we do. Our special book says 'fight fight smash maim murder kill fight fight.' That's why I signed up to be honest. I'm a bit naught, know what I mean?" But yet all of them claim to be peaceful religions. Yeah, peaceful right up to the point where someone takes something they think is theirs, or says the wrong thing or looks at them funny. Then it's fighty smashy kicky punchy all the way. I know this'll upset a lot of people and frankly I don't care. I'm getting so sick of religious people screwing it up for the rest of us.

Please don't kill us, seriously. As far as I'm concerned this is the only chance we get. When we die it's all over -- there's no virgins and pearly gates waiting for us, no big, beardy man saying [in deep, echoing voice and upper class accent] "Right, so how do you think that went, then? Killed a lot of people in my name I see. Not really what I had in mind. Um, tell you what, have another go as a worm."

While we're at it, I'm sick of religious people forcing their children to define themselves by their parents' faith. A four-year-old is no more a Christian than he is a member of the Postal Workers' union. [in child's voice] "We want a fair working wage, decent working conditions, and time allotted to see the new Transformers film."

This week Lydia Playfoot, who took Millay School in Horsham to the high court so she could wear jewelry to prove she's staying a virgin for Jesus, lost her case. Good. I'm glad. I don't care how many times her parents claim it was her idea, rules is rules, and if you want to wear a ring that tells everyone you're not having any sex you can get married like the rest of us. Now, the lawyer for the chaste Miss Playfoot said the question for the judge was 'What are the religious rights of school children in the school context?' Well, I'm no judge (not yet, anyway), but if you want my opinion, none. No rights. No religious rights whatsoever. Schools are for learning. If you want to have a little pray before maths so that Mr. Figures won't set too hard a test, or prevent the P.E. teacher from being a collossal pervert, then go head, fill your boots. If you want to pop on a feathered headdress and chant and dance and mumble and sacrifice something you can do that on your own time. (Or take a drama course, pretend it's art, and get a degree in it. That's what I did.) The lawyer, Mr. Diamond, argued "secular authorities cannot rule on religious truth." Hmm. Well, Mr. Diamond, I'm going to assume you're not related to Neil Diamond, becuase he rocks. Yes, I like Neil Diamond. And Prince. And I'm married -- go figure. But the point is "religious truth" is a foxy one, buecasue religion, by it's very nature, doesn't tend to concern itself with truth. There simply isn't time for truth. By the time all the singing and candle-lighting and toadying and condemning and hiding from science is done truth has given up and gone down to the pub for a pint. Here's the truth: faith is about as interested in truth as I am in hangning out with Anthony Warrel Thompson, ie, not very.

Now, I know that most relgious folk are moderate and reasonable and wear tidy jumpers and eat cheese, like real people. And on hearing this they'll mainly feel pity for me, rather than issue a death sentence. But they have to accept that they are the power base for the nutters. Without their passive support the loonies in charge of these faiths would just be loonies, safely locked away and medicated -- somewhere nice with a view of some trees where they can claim they have a direct channel to god between sessions making tapestry coasters, watching Teletubbies and talking about thier days in the Hitler Youth. The ordinary faithful make these viscious, tyrannical thugs what they are. See, I get angry that show like Celebrity and Big Brother and insert-title-of-wretched-show-here still fill our lives with vapid, pointless emptiness, and I wish the producers' development exectives would crawl back under the rocks they emerged from, but the truth is they sell stuff that people consume. Without the audience to prop it up, Heat magazine and fundamental religious fanatacism goes away. Imagine what humanity might be capable of if we had that much spare time! We could explore space properly, have decent look in the sea, find a cure for James Blunt, anything!

Thank you very much. Letters to the usual address."

Iterlude: vigettes

I'm molting. Even more so than before I feel like lobster. All the skin on my back came off last night in about 30 minutes and 4 huge pieces.


Yesterday I sat in the park for a few minutes after work to enjoy the sunshine and read a book. I got hardcore chatted up by a slightly drunk, very slovelnly middle aged chap, which culminated in a proposal (and polite refusal) of marraige. The whole thing was odd for a couple reasons:
1, unlike most idiots who run away when you tell them you're seeing someone, this guy wasn't put off in the least
2, he was very complimentary, but did not employ any of the usual cliche's. His observations of me were all rather original, which I found entertaining and flattering, despite myself.
3, he has the same name and star sign as the Pirate. Coincidence, or creepy?


Today while walking home from the office for lunch a bloke stopped me and asked, out of the blue, "If you had to choose between us (indicating his mate), who would you pick?" They looked amazingly alike. I think they might have been brothers.
I replied, "You're both so handsome I could never choose between you. I'd have to have both of you. At the same time."
At first they had no idea what to make of this, but then exlaimed "Ooh, she's filthy!" and ribbed each other with their elbows. I winked and went home to have my lunch.


I may not be able to post Part XXX today because I havn't written it yet, and I'm going to see HP tonight. Tomorrow night I'm seeing Chicago at the Hippodrome with the Pirate (for all you stalkers out there, feel free to try to pick us out of the crowd), and then I'll be gone for the weekend, as is usual. If I can write the post up today while I'm at the office, all the better, but if it's not here by 5:30, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until Monday.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

So i was out with my mom this morning walking my dog through the park and taking some photos of the stunningly beautiful autumn vistas. I mused that the only thing I don't like about the camera is the time it takes to warm it up and turn it on, and though my old point-and-shoot is considerably less sophisticated, it's handy because you can pick it and push a button and it goes off.

My mother's reply to all this was (and here's where it gets scary), "your digital must be a female camera, if it takes forever to turn it on. Obviously, point-and-shoots are male; less sophisticated and always ready to go."

And people wonder where I get it.

Presidents, golf, and evolution

The game of golf is an evolutionary inevitablitiy, invented by a woman. It has a very clear evolutionary function: to keep men from getting under foot. Ask any wife whose husband has retired if she likes having him around an extra 40 hours a week, and she will no doubt exclaim that while she loves her husband dearly, he gets in the way more often than the 2-year-old twin grandchilden, and she is perpetually having to invent little jobs and games and errands to keep him occupied and out from under foot. Golf is one such game.

This goes back to the days of Neanderthals. When an old Neanderthal grandpa (let's call him 'Ugh') got too slow to keep up with the group hunting mastadons and turned into a safety liability (proto-lawyers and insurance salesmen who had recently appeared on the neolithic scene were already displaying disturbingly successful adaptations), the hunting party left him behind in the cave to annoy the crap out of his but-ugly yet extremely capable wife, Mumph.

Ugh: what's this?

Mumph: put that down, you'll break it.

(Ugh picks up something else, fiddles with it for a moment)

Mumph: Leave those tyranosaurus bones where they are; i put them there for a reason.

(Ugh wanders over to another part of the cave)

Mumph: you kicked up a corner of the bear rug; fix it before i trip and kill myself on it.

(Ugh bends over to fix the rug and notices something)

Ugh: hey! there's a giant bug with a bazillion legs hiding under the rug! Cool! (begins poking centipede with stick)

Mumph: That's it! Out with you! Out! (thinking quickly) Here, if you take these two sticks and rub them together for a really long time, something neat will happen. I promise. (snickers to herself)

Ugh: Really? what?

Mumph: uh, it's a surprise. (smirks)

(two hours later)

Ugh: Mumph! Mumph! look! I invented fire! Holy shit, i'm smart!

Mumph: (rolling eyes) Here, you want to be useful? Take these pelts down to the river and bang them against the wet rocks until they're clean.

Ugh: (crestfallen) ok, sure.

(returns)

Ugh: here you go.

Mumph: oh, for fuck's sake. look at them! they're ruined! Don't you know you can't bang a white pelt on a red rock? And this won't even fit the baby now!

Ugh: you just told me to bang them against the rocks. you didn't say which rocks!

Mumph: I've got an idea. why don't you get Blech and a couple sticks and see how many swings it takes you to hit a rock over the cliff? He's got terrible aim, couldn't hit the broad side of a brontosaurus from 10 feet away. That should keep you busy for a while.

Ladies and gentleman: the game of golf. An evolutionary adaptation which saved the human race from premature extinction. Of course, having watched the presidential debate last night, premature extinction is sounding better and better. Hmm. one more reason to hate golf.

Karma

bit of a funny story (well, the story´s funny enough, but my telling of it may suck, so don´t get your hopes up).

i´m walking down a mountain in italy. coming up the trail are a couple of tourists. i say "buon giorno" in a passable italian accent. the tourists reply "bon jerno." americans. i roll my eyes discreetly, and they proceed to pull out a phrase book and attempt to ask me all kinds of questions, like how far is the castle, how long will it take to get there, etc... i decide to have a bit of fun and play dumb. i tell them in italian that i don´t understand, and let them sweat it out for a few more moments, bumbling along in phrasebookese. i then proceed to make up a bunch of fake italian-sounding crap, smile, and continue down the trail, almost falling off a cliff from laughing so hard. really, they were like National Lampoon´s Eruopean Vacation incarnate; it was hilarious.

Which i why i totally deserved exactly what i got from the french waiter.

on my last afternoon in arles i had time to kill, having been chucked out of my hostel at 10 am, but my train didn´t leave until 4. not wanting to spend the day walking around with 3 weeks worth of baggage on my back, around i went and found a pleasant cafe´overlooking the old roman arena (which seats 20K and is so well preserved it´s still in use for bullfights) and took a seat at a table outside in the shade. i flagged the waiter ("Garcon!"), and ordered a glass of red wine, all in gramatically correct but very poorly uttered french. there was a bit of confusion, because that particular cafe´ it seems doesn´t normally serve wine by the glass. the smallest unit on the menu was half a carafe, which was too much for me. after some more bad french and a lot of gesticulating, i got them to bring me a glass of wine. i spent an hour there, enjoying my bordeaux, writing in my journal, and admiring the scenery. an old man passing by stopped and smiled at me for several seconds and winked. when i had finished my drink, i asked my waiter for the bill, which he brought. when i had paid it he smiled at me and said in perfect english, "thank you madam. have a pleasant afternoon." Aaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!! Oh, well. I deserved it. And it was funny.

moment of truth

"The popularity of the new genres spawned or accelerated certain linguistic modifications. An upsurge in the number and frequency of intensifiers has been linked to the genres of fabliaux and satire. This may be a function of one of the major characteristics of these genres: exaggeration. Absurdity requires a certain degree of overstatement, for which intensifiers are always extremely useful."

*sigh* I love me.