Whoopeeeee and Yib Dab Dooblies

Excuse me while I gush over my daughter J, who just got her degree results: a 2.1 from University of Sussex. I am a very proud daddy

Mehs-ville, Arizona and UFOs

Do you ever have one of those days when you just can’t be arsed to do anything, even though you have lots of things you should or could be doing?

Chatting to J online yesterday about her UFO sighting. It sounded quite spectacular. She, G, and their two boyfriends, together with a guy called Elvis (we agreed that his presence severely weakened the credibility of the account), were returning one night from a laser gun fight in the Jura(*). A large banana-shaped set of lights became visible in the sky over Lake Geneva, and they pulled the car over to get out and take a look. As they watched, the lights on the banana went out, one by one, from the top. J said it was the weirdest thing she had ever seen. She had the presence of mind to take a photo, which came out poorly:

(contrast enhanced, and with edge detection radius 5, note the two fenceposts in the foreground)

After some research it transpired that what they saw was a set of helium-filled candle-lit balloons, tethered together, that had been released from a party in Paquis. As the balloons floated up, the candles were blowing out, hence the odd effect.

(*) The entertainment never ends. Last week they were at a foam party, which apparently involves filling the room up with foam while you party away.

Whoopie Cushions

Oh the hilarity!

Of the many little prizes being given out at the public library for children who are members of the book club, Muffet homed in on the whoopie cushion.

Ever since we got home the walls of the house have been reverberating to the rumbles of flatulence, immediately followed by shrieks of raucous laughter. She has sat on it so many times it has split in two places, and I have had to repair it with duct tape. I’ve sat on it a dozen or so times myself, pretending I didn’t notice it, and each occasion has been met with intense and earthy guffaws.

She took it into the bath with her, and so we were treated to watery farts of varying volumes and intensities. It’s impossible not to laugh along, even if it is half an hour after bedtime.

So much fun from a small piece of rubber (said the Bishop to the Actress).

I remember J & G having a whoopie cushion and getting a huge amount of fun out of it too. I think my daughters have inherited my earthy sense of humour.

Zen Xtra 40GB

I ended up ordering one of these … Creative are selling a bunch of refurbished units on Ebay for half price.

A while back I would have been leary of buying a refurbished unit, but since I got my Canon Powershot A85 refurbed, and it was as good as new, I figure: why not?

J&G arrive later today, so updates in the LJ as time permits.

Film Critique

“The Aviator” – not bad, but too long. The extended coverage of “Hell’s Angels” should have been much shorter. The parts involving the investigation committee chaired by that slimey senator were most entertaining. How could a major fruitcake like Hughes continue to run a huge corporation? Baffling. What is this over-long film disease … that directors believe they have such an amazing story to tell, and such superb technique, that it justifies a >2 hour long film? My arse starts to complain after 90 minutes. Directors should be obliged to listen to people’s arses.

The new chap in charge around here has asked us all to send him a document listing tasks and accomplishments for the last year, and objectives for the next. I used to attack such things with enthusiasm, but no longer, I’m afraid. My jaded and cynical view is that “the management” likes to be able to say that all the staff have been through this exercise, which generates some semblance of good managerial practice. Whereas in fact nobody will take a blind bit of notice of the contents, and certainly not take them into account when considering a pay rise.

J&G flew back to Geneva yesterday. Before they left, we ate in the Encounter restaurant at LAX:

I think this place would do more business if it was more obvious how to get to it. As it is, you are obliged to strike off into the midst of parking structures and frighteningly busy little slip roads, with no signs to guide you.

Guitar Center

If you yearn for the good old days when helpful shop assistants buzzed around you offering knowledgable advice, helpful suggestions, pointers to products you might not be aware of, and generally excellent service, then my advice is to bring along a couple of attractive young girls on your next shopping expedition. The results are immediate and startling: especially in Guitar Center, where young chaps with tight bottoms and big hair hover around just aching to be asked to demonstrate the Squier® Deluxe Series Satin Trans Strat® HH.

From the above you may have correctly surmised that J&G are on holiday here at the moment. A lot of the time they are glued to their laptops, MSN messaging with their chums back home. When not doing that, they are keen to shop. Hot Topic is a favourite, which bewilders me as it seems to be full of overpriced and poorly-made black trousers with copious metal stud accoutrements. Ross is another one: leave them for thirty minutes in there and they gather an armful of black t-shirts emblazoned with Playboy, Volcom, Nike, and other symbols. After a hard afternoon of shopping they like to go to Jamba Juice and stoke up with pints of pureed fruit spiked with the obligatory “energy boost” or somesuch powder.

In the evenings we have been watching a lot of The Fast Show. It’s a big hit with J&G. I know that gfrancie will appreciate the amusement of my mentioning just one word from the series: “Black!”.

With all this excitement I am not finding a lot of time to update my LJ.

Can I Be On Holiday Now, Please?

This year I have left booking J&G’s flights here for their Summer Holiday very late. This was mainly because their visit at Easter was late, and somehow arranging the Summer tickets fell through the cracks in the excitement of arranging their Easter tickets. So now I am looking at prices from Geneva to Los Angeles, and they are CRAZY. On the other hand, the prices are quite reasonable if booking for travel within the next few days (and undertaking to wear orange, on a day with an R in it, and only speaking Dutch to the flight attendants).

I am thus wondering whether I shouldn’t wait until a few days before they need to fly (i.e. around 24th. July), and try then for some good deals. Otherwise I’m faced with flight costs of around 4 grand.

Ugh. Perhaps I should design and build a prototype Star Trek Transporter.

Migros

First, a creme brulee for gfrancie and ratphooey

Then, a visit to the Migros, Val Thoiry, in France. The cheese, charcuterie, meat and fish counters. These pictures are primarily for kissmyassets, but other food lovers may enjoy them:

Bunchers and Folders

Now here’s a juicy topic for a Friday morning.

Background: every time J&G come to stay, it’s a guaranteed event that at some point the loo will block up. Why does it get blocked up? Somebody uses too much bog roll! This became such a serious problem last year that Plumber Guy had to be called (you remember Plumber Guy from yesterday, right?) and he said that the loo was a “low capacity” model and it needed replacing. $500 later we had a new loo, and one less prone to block up. But the real problem isn’t the loo, it’s the amount of bog roll being used.

Observation: some of us use more bog roll than others. Some of us pull off N sheets of bog roll and bunch it up into a ball and use it that way. Some of us (me included) pull off N sheets, and fold carefully into a single-sheet sized pad of thickness N*P (where P is the ply of the bog roll).

Suspicion: The bunchers use too much roll. In an effort to ensure that there is no possibility of the hand coming into contact with the stuff to be wiped, an excessive amount of tissue is required to obtain a large enough bunch.

My suspicion may be totally ungrounded in fact. I’d be interested to hear from broad-minded LJers (who do not find such topics offensive), what their preferred method is, and what the typical value of N and P is in their case!

Time to SNOOD again!

The arrival of J&G invariably heralds an intensive period of Snooding. I am accordingly wearing my

Snood T-shirt (kindly purchased for me by my saucy spouse sarahparah), and have been limbering up in between typing this sort of drivel into LJ.

Snood is wickedly addictive. You are strongly advised not to download it if you place any value on your spare time. If you do download it, or are already a keen Snooder, then ya boo sucks you will never beat my 35,000 points at the Evil Snoods.

PS. Jeez, I sound like I’m selling Snood.