Sobering story
Robyn has
some family that were in the
Tsunami. That is a seriously scary story (If you are coming here late, it is the Dec 30th entry).
Everybody should read this, and think a bit about how lucky all of us are to have been spared something like this. This is one of many thousands of stories, some luckier, but many not. The scale of this tragedy is staggering, I hope this is the last of mass loss of life we see in anything like this severity again. To have even just
seen this sort of suffering is something I wouldn't want to wish on anyone, and to actually have been involved and had to cope with, leaves me beyond words to try and empathise with.
My sincerest wishes are with anyone involved in the tragedy, and also with those having to deal with cleaning up the aftermath. I imagine that they will never get over having to recover, stack, identify and mass bury so many bodies. I hope they sleep, I'm not sure I would. The cost and rolling impact of this will carry on for years. Even if the people get their various business' up and running, although how they will get the money is anyone's guess, many of these areas depend in some way on tourism. How many years do you think it will be before any one
at all will want to go and stay there, never mind in sufficient numbers to allow them to recover their economy. It may be ten years before they are back to the style of life that they have had until the Tsunami.
I want to say something meaningful about this but it's just words and it doesn't count for shit really. I'm going to go and give some money to the relief fund, I urge any of you that can afford it to do the same, even if it's only a tenner. If that's all I can do, then at least I owe it to these people to do it.
Play time
I was pointed to
this quiz game a little while ago, and only just got around to going and having a go. It's pretty clever. It learns from the answers that you give it to try and guess an object you are thinking of from the standard twenty questions format, and I was fairly impressed. It got both of the objects that I was guessing, and the way that it works through the questions is clever, you can almost see what it is trying to eliminate as you go along. It tells you the answers it disagrees with at the end when it guesses it, and they are quite interesting. For instance, my second object was a cell phone, and the site disagreed with my answer that I gave that said that "Is it usually colourful?". I said 'No', because all the phones I have had, and those of most of my mates are all silver or neutral colours (cos we are grown ups!) but I imagine that most of the people playing the game will be younger people with all the detachable backs you can think of. Difference of opinion or experience, I guess.
Anyway. Have a go and tell me what you think.
A weeks shopping (and maybe a bit more)
A weeks shopping (and maybe a bit more)
Originally uploaded by Brock. Tell me, oh wise people, if it is expensive in the UK.
This is enough food to see me through just over a week. With wine and beer it cost me £55. I was a bit upset about that, should I move to a cheaper country?
Bah humbug and all that shite
Christmas, and some random thoughts about it. Kind of an introspective, for those that only want funny - nack off! Christmas and it's significance to Brock...
As a religious festival?
Leaves me cold. I have no religion, I have no beliefs that relate to 'higher' beings or external influences, so it has no significance to me. Meh, basically.
As a family time?
Again, Christmas always meant to me (having parents that separated when I was too young to remember differently) a time of trying to decide who to piss off the most by seeing them on Boxing Day. It was always a difficult time. Either parent always felt second best, and despite the fact that one of them definitely was, we were well enough brought up to not want them to feel that, and so felt an urge to alternate year by year. This meant that we felt bad that the parent that we actually
wanted to be with, felt second best unfairly. Hence more guilt. Hence more stress. Hence Christmas is associated with feeling shit. I really like seeing my family (particularly my Sister and her kids) but that has no link to Christmas, it's just a good excuse and there is loads of Bank Holidays.
As a festival?
I don't get it. It celebrates either something I find laughable as a concept, or is something so hideously commercial that it starts in August and pisses me off lots. What the fuck is the point of starting the build up to Christmas so early? Why doesn't it piss off the people that get enjoyment from it?
As a time for getting presents?
I never really get all that excited about stuff. I never get worked up about birthdays (well, mine anyway). Other people are different, if they are making a fuss, so will I. I appreciate other people's excitement and enjoyment for these sort of things, it just doesn't do anything for me. If no-one acknowledged my birthday (no cards or phone calls) I really don't think it would bother me. I guess that makes me weird. I never had a birthday that I can remember when I was a kid (at least after I was 7) and I was always asked, but never wanted one. It's never worked for me, I simply don't see what all the fuss is about. Most of the presents I have had since I was 18 have been functional (the stuff I need for everyday life that I can't afford, for instance). The last 3 years, my Dad has given me a flight to see my Sister, for instance. It enables me to do stuff. I couldn't give a shit if all I get for Christmas is one card with "I owe you one flight to Ireland when you want to take it". No sense of occasion, but I don't care.
Does all this make me weird?
It just doesn't get me worked up, excited - any of it. I love Christmas Dinner, I love the snow (if I ever see any), I even like the way everyone
else gets excited, it just all falls on it's arse a bit if they expect me to be excited too!
Anyway. There was no point to this. I was just exploring it in words.
Gong shower - No, really
Gong shower - No, really
Originally uploaded by Brock. This bloke was a classic example of the Hippy aspect of my town. There was a market on today, and this guy was just stood there with his gong (it was surprisingly loud and had a good sound to it) waiting for people.
He didn't ask for any money, although donations were welcome, and those that wanted to were given a gong shower...
Sounds like a devious practice, but it was quite sweet, if a little pointless for an old cynic like me. The customer would stand there with their eyes shut while our erstwhile bearded bathroom would strike the gong and pass it up and down their body.
Very, erm, spiritual, I'm sure.
The woman I saw first seemed to enjoy it, but she struck me as the type to have several crystals for all occasions. The lad being shown it in this picture couldn't oddly enough, take it seriously.
Takes all sorts, I guess.
Pre packed dinner. Now with added use of the word "Fuck"
Pick up the packet. Turn it over and read the instructions:
"Remove outer packaging and film lid, place in a baking tray (Why? You think to yourself) and cook in a pre-heated oven for 25 minutes"
''Remove" the film lid? They say it like you gaily flick it over your shoulder with no more effort than lifting a brides veil (Or her nightie, come to think of it). I mean, are they fucking joking? It has been formed with the strongest plastic known to man, and welded firmly to the tin-foil base with more tenacity than america hanging on to the notion that they are the greatest country on the earth.
For fucks sake . The instructions should be more like:
1: Remove outer packaging.
2: Take a deep breath.
3: Try and grip infinitesimally small edge of plastic (that we previously lubricated with Teflon's slippier, nastier brother) crumpling edge of foil container into an odd shape. Try and reshape container whilst grinding teeth. Repeat for 3 minutes at each of the corners until you have achieved precisely
fuck....all.
4: Next press your incredibly sharp and pointy stainless steel knife with a diamond/granite/kryptonite coated blade against the poxy plastic with all your might. Increase the force until you are standing on the kitchen side jumping up and down on top of the handle. Wait until the force is so great that the knife disappears though the entire packaging, puncturing the foil tray underneath, allowing the sauce to spill out, and the knife scratch your kitchen top. Now you know why you have to put a perfectly serviceable tin foil tray into a baking tray when you cook it.
5: Stick your fingers into the slit you have created and pull the film lid gently open nearly all the way. At the end, when all you have left is the seal along one edge, pull the film lid away from the tray. Now pull a bit harder. Now maybe just a
bit harder - that's it, enough that the tray is actually off the worktop - until the film finally gives way. Watch helplessly, and in slow motion, as the foil container flips over and deposits the contents on the side, along with the sauce that hadn't previously pissed out when you stabbed it earlier. Attempt to stop it just
after the last minute by smashing your hand onto the foil container in one swift motion, rendering it crushed flat.
6: Fume. Wipe the remnants of sauce from your face and up your nose. Grip your fists until they shake and your face goes red. Swear. First quietly, and under your breath. Then luxuriously at the top of your voice. Throw your face to the ceiling and hold forth with all the gutter terms you have ever known with a lusty bellow. It's always best, I've found, to finish these moments off with a surprisingly delicate and drawn out "Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff-uck". Hiss it with all the venom saved up from every one of those times at school you were made a fool of or bullied. Now is the moment that those times were given to you for. So you are truly able to vent utter bile and hatred at inanimate objects.
7: Very deliberately and with
great control, straighten the foil container as best you can. Flip the remains of your un-cooked dinner into the now mangled, leaky and pretty much second hand, mess you have left.
8: Fight the urge to get the take-away menu out.
9: Place tray in oven and go and open a bottle of wine.
10: Feign surprise when, at the end of the cooking time (and indeed for a surprising number of minutes before) the 'meal' is overcooked, and it's looks bear precisely NO resemblance to the picture on the top of the packaging.
11: Eat. And pretend you are enjoying it. And also that you will either not buy one of these again, or that if you do, you will open it properly. Yeah, right.
Bon appetit, kids.
If only this were true...
Received the following by email today. Some of you may already have seen it, I think it is worth boring those that have for the sake of those that haven't. I laughed a lot.
The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question:
Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.
The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."
>>THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"
Santa gets flung
Santa gets flung
Originally uploaded by Brock. Now, I am normally really so disinterested in Christmas, it's not true.
But this made me laugh.
Must be something to do with throwing a great big fat bloke across some hard ice that made me chuckle, I guess.
Thanks to Suggs for the festive find.
As an aside, witness the amount of flickr windows I have open pretty much all the time... I sense an addiction...
Never underestimate...
...the
power of the Badger!
Death warmed up...
Bloody typical.
I have hired a suit (black tie), bought a dress shirt, paid for a room at the hotel for afterwards, cleaned my shoes, re-learnt how to tie a bow tie (fake ones, are
so crap) all in all paying $100 odd for my works Christmas do.
So I feel very tired last night, I read my book for a little while, put it down, and remember thinking
"I feel really tired now, all of a sudden.."
Next thing I know, I awake with my alarm going still with the light on, still with my glasses on! I mean, I've fallen asleep with them on before, but never gone all night before waking. This may not seem all that odd to all the non-glasses wearer's out there, but it is indicative of my having not even moved during the night, as lying on your side on a pillow with glasses on is incredibly painful, and would wake the dead. I slept like a dead person, it would appear. I also woke feeling like crap, and really cold and tired. I turned the heating on, then turned it up 2 degrees higher than normal, then went back under my 2 duvets still wearing my tracksuit bottoms and my t-shirt and fleece. I woke up 3 hours later still not feeling all that warm, thank you very much, and aching all over. It's not even a cold day...
I suspect that would mean that I am ill.
So I am determined to get to my do tonight, at the very least to get my value for money from the food and the room. My previous plans for suavely circulating the room with my Dinner Suit on plying the local ladies with smooth and debonair chat may have to be shelved.
Bugger and double bugger. My life conspires against me again...
If I was feeling better, this would have been a really amusing and witty piece that I would have spent time on. I feel like shite, so it's dull and depressing. Tough shit.
Best name in the world...
I just found out a fascinating fact:
Sitting Bull - the Native american (Red Indian or whatever you want to call them) who defeated General Custer - has a secret. He wasn't called Sitting Bull, it was his fathers name that was attributed to him when he became known for some heroic tasks. He killed a Bison (the yanks call them Buffalos cos they are stooopid) at the age of 10, conducted a famously successful raid against their main rival tribe early on in his life, and of course the 'Last Stand' victory against the american army made him a highly regarded figure in his tribe.
Interesting, eh?
And do you know what his name was before he took his father's?
Jumping Badger.
No.
Really.
Isn't that fucking brilliant? Well, isn't it?
Housewarming ettiquette.
Ok. I was at a house warming party at the weekend, and there were a fair few people there (for a small flat, anyway) and I only really know the flat owner - the DIY slave driver- so I was gently mingling and saying 'hi' to people enigmatically.
Actually, that's bollocks. I was standing in the kitchen (always the best place to be for the beginning of a party) handing out the drinks and pointing out the food on the kitchen side (for the benefit of the poorly sighted, vertically challenged and terminally stupid) as people came in. There is method in my madness, you see. When people arrive, you get first look, get to appraise based on their manner with the people they know (quite easy to assess a personality like this) and if they are duller than shite (as happened a few times) you have the excuse available to move off as soon as someone else arrives or comes into the kitchen, to furnish them with refreshment.
Genius, eh?
So, I am talking to a lovely girl called Clare (or Claire - it was all verbal, and you can never really be sure from the way they say it, can you?) for some time. We chatted - as various thirsty and hungry dwarves milled gently about the kitchen trying to count to two - and we got on famously. She had a completely manic sense of humour (can't imagine why we got on, in hindsight), and is very tall, with
incredibly long arms. She was telling me about the fact that she had been to the Doctor, and he had told her that most people's arm spans are the same or slightly less than their height. It would appear that Clare has longer arms than this little snippet would suggest is usual. She was highly amused by the fact that the Doc was talking about all this stuff, and expounding on the differences in her skeletal structure compared to average, when he just stopped and, completely unprompted, looked at her over his glasses and said:
"But you're not a freak, you know."
"Thanks" said Clare. "It really hadn't occurred to me that I was. But thanks for putting the thought in my mind."
Impressive bedside manner, eh?
Anyhoo, I was chatting to Clare, and being an arty type, this required a large amount of her waving her arms about and general gesticulation. Now at this point, we had been talking since she walked in the door (about an hour at this point) and were still in 'enthusiastic conversation mode' and it was really good fun. We were leaning against two of the kitchen sides, jammed into a corner so that we were facing across each other - ie at right angles, for the mathematical among you. Clare was windmilling furiously, and I was being as charming and witty as only I know how (yes, I kept my mouth shut. Thanks for that, you lot. Bastards.). During a particularly effusive moment, Clare's previously mentioned long arms meant that mid-gesticule (I may have made that word up) the back of her hand brushed against the front of my jeans. You know. In the 'groin' area.
She was obviously a bit thrown, and a little embarrassed and tried to rush on with the story with renewed vigour whilst turning slightly pink. She was probably trying to work out who would be the most embarrassed by her little faux pas.
If only she knew...
So, Clare is furiously trying to ignore the little altercation, and I waited about 2 minutes before I interrupted her mid sentence with a completely straight, matter of fact, face:
"That
was my nob, you just touched, by the way. Just thought you would like to know, in case you thought it might have been the top of my leg."
"Errr, Was it?"- Clare turns a deep shade of crimson.
"Errr...".
"Yes. I initially thought you were just being forward, but as you didn't keep going I figured it was a mistake. Ah well."
I waited as long as I could before I laughed. I'm such a bastard.
She did, for those of you who are wondering, start laughing at this point and did make some reference to having been "warned about you". Which I feigned objection to, naturally.
Still. All's well that ends well, we spent about an hour and a half toward the end of the evening curled up on the sofa yakking away and taking the piss out of our fellow guests as soon as they stopped listening to us. Great fun. For the young ones among you that call us 'old codgers' lightweights, this was half 5 in the morning just before I walked home across town (with a random Labrador dog, bizarrely enough, whom I christened 'Barry') to go to bed.
Still got it. Cue cheesy wink...
The chat, I mean. Not the ability to walk home with a strange canine.
Do you love cats being cute?
This is the nearest I can get to having a
cat at the moment.
I think it's ace. Start
here and press the back button as fast as it can load for a fantastic cat-scade (sorry) of feline friends.
I want a cat. I can't have one cos I live in a rented flat.
Boo.
A highly cryptic, well known saying...
A highly cryptic, well known saying...
Originally uploaded by Brock. Ah well. We all have our daft moments, and so I have had one of mine.
Those that might suggest that mine are a tad too frequent than would be usual, or indeed advisable, may go and shove their heads firmly up their respective arses.
I like being silly, it suits me.
Sweet revenge
P1127_001420.jpg
Originally uploaded by frog kisser. After I posted some pictures of my holiday companion looking less than her best, it would appear that she has got her own back with this delightful shot of me being stupid.
I wasn't even drunk, so no excuses really...
:)
Mind you, at least I didn't make the pictures of her public!. So unfair, I'm never mean to anyone.
