Entertainment Miscellaneous

Two things I hate

Camping has great appeal to me. I like the idea of the great outdoors, freedom and temporary self-sufficiency but in my experience the practice of camping is always an unmitigated disaster.

The last time was a couple of years ago at Sandwood Bay in the western highlands of Scotland. It rained, it was a 5 mile walk to even get to the beach, there were, lets say, ample midges, it was deeply uncomfortable and what food we were able to cook on some crappy little stove was, not to put too fine a point on it, shit. And then, in the morning the sun shone, the tent magnified the heat of the sun making a 7am rise compulsory. At which point I discover that midges are early risers also.

Clubbing, as I'm sure I will have mentioned, is my idea of a perfect nightmare. Too many people (most of whom I assume by their complicity in the clubbing thing aren't my kind of people anyway), too loud to converse, too expensive, too much bad music. Too, too, too much.

I am struggling to understand why I thought it would be a good idea to go camping and clubbing in Annecy tonight.

Dreaming of Lager

On Monday morning I resolved not to drink alcohol for a while; a detox of sorts if you will.

Well, I presume my body and mind were staging a protest when last night they conspired to make me dream of drinking Tennents. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how good it was.

Reliable sources (MSN Astro Center) suggest this is explained thusly;

Alcohol (Beer, Wine, Liquor)

Dreaming of drinking beer, wine, etc., in moderation, under happy circumstances—with friends, at a party, etc.—indicates that success lies ahead. However, in any dream of alcohol, there is always the underlying warning that excesses can lead to trouble.

Randolph's Leap

Today was a very nice day for swimming in the River Findhorn

Favourite Shoes

Anyone who hung out for any time with me in 2003 / 2004 will recognise the shoe below. I bought them and wore them literally into the ground - there is ("is" because I kept them for sentimental reasons) little sole left and there are gaping holes. Well, as happens, I moved on and they moved on. We went our seperate ways and I now had a gaping hole in my usable shoe collection*.

So - and here's the great news - today I saw their twins in Schuh** and replaced my old ones with EXACTLY the same specification of shoe, something I should have done a long time ago. And they are giving me happiness as we speak. These shoes are far and away the comfiest shoes I have ever owned. Twice.

So, two things. First, I wish I was rich enough to buy several clones of things I like. It is rare to find perfection, you should only have to find it once. Second, there should be a unique worldwide product number or some such for every product ever made, from Cremola Foam to Koudenberg Shoes. Like an ISBN number. So you don't have to faff about with size and colour and texture and other variables. And there should be some system where you can just go to a web site which will track them down and get you new ones.

* I do not actually have a shoe "collection".
** Which until a year or two ago I thought was called sk-huh. Like sk from ask and huh from huh? Not because I'm stupid, just because I never thought about it.

Kitty's social network

Dear Anna-Lisa & Stuart,

So, Kitty was bored and decided she wanted to do some social networking and i suggested this site "catster". well, what fun she had looking at all those potential friends; she wanted a piece of the action but sadly didn't have any photos. i explained all about intellectual property but she said that although you two are her property, you ain't intellectual so there wouldn't be a problem. she promptly then ripped off photos from both your blogs. i tell ya, she's a wizz with a mouse. anyway, here's the result - http://www.catster.com/?236874 . perhaps to quicken the pace of her expanding social network you could forward that address to friends you have whose cats may have similar interests.

Paul & Kitty.

Essential French phrases

Gemma sent me these by email, not sure of the origin. Pretty funny.

* Je viens de londres. - I am from London
* Merci de me depanner - Thanks for your help
* Ou est la gare? - Where is the station?
* Qu'est-ce qui se passe? - What is happening?
* Ou sont les pompiers? - Where are the firemen?
* Avez-vous un extincteur? - Do you have a fire extinguisher?
* A quelle heure est le couvre-feu? - What time is the curfew?
* Pourquoi brulez vous ma voiture? - Why are you burning my car
* Avez-vous du feu pour allumer mon cocktail molotov? - Do you have a light for my petrol bomb?
* Les gentils Parisiens ne meritent pas ca. - The nice people of Paris dont deserve all this.

Outsourcing

This is a awesome and funny column in Esquire by A. J. Jacobs who wanted to outsource his life. An example,

One task for which Honey is thankful is emailing my colleagues. I've begun to refuse to communicate with them directly. Why should I? Honey can be my buffer from the unpleasant world of office politics. I'll be aloof and mysterious, like the pope or Mark Burnett. This morning, I ask Honey to pester my boss about an idea I sent him a few days ago: an article on modern gold prospectors.

Mr. Granger,
Jacobs had mailed you about the idea of "gold prospecting." I am sure you would have received his mail on this. It would be great if you could invest your time and patience on giving thought about his plans. Do revert and let Jacobs know about your suggestions on the same. As you know that your decision would be accepted with utmost respect.
Jacobs is awaiting your response.
Thanking you, Honey Balani

Another advantage to this strategy: My boss can't just email a terse "No," as he might to me. Honey's finely crafted emails demand a polite multisentence response. The balance of power has shifted.

Gemma's Photo Journal

Gemma now has a photo journal. This is the result of a new camera and back to back holidays in Catalonia and Scotland. Her photographs are pretty neat, go take a look.

Dear Anna-Lisa

Hi A-L,

Hope you are having fun in sunny California. I have to say though you are missing some classic Ted action here in cold / rainy / windy ("It's going to be a beautiful summer") Edinburgh. For instance, tonight he's been making me, yes making me, down shots of (by now, a whole bottle of) whisky and eat cucumber sandwiches. Ha, cucumber sandwiches. I thought that was a Merchant Ivory thing. It appears not. Anyway, the bread stops "head catastrophe" in the morning apparently. And tonight he tells me, "I no like workee women. Women no good in kitchen. One moment pleeze. Women good to bed." And now that Erica has given him the keys to lock up at work he thinks he is the "big boss".

Oh yeah, and on that holiday we're all going on to Poland in 2006 (this includes you Stu) we are not allowed to watch TV or go to the Pub. We can do that in Scotland. On holiday we are to help in the farm and paint the (f******) house. Sound like it'll be a blast, so long as I get the tractor.

Love to California,

Bye for now,
Paul.

Blissfully unaware

I've escaped the city for Christmas and with it have been two or three days behind the News. Went through to Inverness last night and boght all my Christmas presents in an hour or so. Stress free Christmas shopping at its best. The store was almost empty.

Having a good time with family and catching up with people. No time for blogging.

Have a good Christmas, hope it is peaceful.

Amusing Journals

I read lots of RSS enabled sites, for all kinds of reasons. Two recent additions which make me laugh are Anna-Lisa's friend The Mormon Pope and Giltter for Brains. A-L alerted me to the latter also. She is working towards her doctorate in finding funnyblogs.

An early bed

For the last few days I've had a nasty sore throat which has been interfering with life. Actually it might be more than a few days that I've had it for now that I think about it, maybe a week. So anyway, I was having a coughing attack - I don't get ill often so when I do I make sure to make it sounds as dramatic as possible - in the kitchen tonight and Anna-Lisa offered to phone America for some advice. "Sure," I said, thinking that American advice would probably involve therapy and root cause discovery. Her mum was a nurse ("and a damn good one") so her professional input coupled with my own mother's knowledge of how to deal with me when I decide i'm ill combined to make a formidable road to recovery. And her mum is Finn who only happens to live in Southern California so the advice was all European and, by implication, sensible.

Mrs. Sandstrum (as I call her) advised plenty of fluids and aspirin (she's obviously got me figured out as a hypochondriac) and to my relief it is still OK to sleep with the window open because cold doesn't affect it, though I should stop smoking. Advice I liked. Then she called back to let me know that it could be whooping cough, it's on the go amongst young people apparently. And I should definitely stop smoking. She probed for my symptoms and suggested I see a nurse/doctor/practitioner who would be able to listen to my lungs and tell for sure. Being a Scottish male however I am culturally obliged not to go to the doctor until I physically can't go to the doctor. So I promised that if it didn't clear up in a day or two (working days, the emergent lawyer in me assumes, so that gives me until Tuesday) then I'd definitely see someone. I'm waiting for her to call back and tell me it could be pneumonia or bronchitis.

My remedy for a good nights sleep was to drag A-L to the Northern Bar round the corner and drink alcohol. Alcohol, I heard, will kill the germs. So, no more stories for tonight it's still before 2am, and I'm having an early bed.

What would Jesus Drive?

I just remembered that the other night I was round at a friend's 'temporary abode' and was flicking through an old issue of the New Yorker. There was an article, What would Jesus test-drive?, which is an amusing (and mocking of the evangelical 'What would Jesus do?' brigade) projection of the conversation should Jesus walk into a car showroom. The bit that was most amusing though was the statistic the article is based upon -

Thirty-three percent of the public thought Jesus would not drive a sport utility vehicle, while 29 percent thought he would, 31 percent offered no opinion and 7 percent volunteered the reply that he would not drive, but walk.

Dangerous Exercise

Thanks to Gregor for sending me this link exhibiting the danger of running machines. This happened to me at the Craigendarroch Hotel in Ballater something like 18 years ago.

I appreciate that I ought not to have been using the machine at the age of 9 or 10, I was however a curious child (i.e. I was curious about things, I was not myself particularly curious) and felt a need to straddle the belt, see what speed that baby could do then jump on and ride the wave of exhiliration which would doubtless follow.

Unlike the lady pictured here tho' who kind of slides clean away, my feet were unlucky enough to find a solid wall while my head was still burning rubber at the rate of 12mph. I've got a bump on my forehead as a memento, the pattern impressed at the time has now fortunately gone. The End.

Couple of weeks to spare?

Apparently (via Metafilter) the average person spends 336 hours (or 20,160 minutes for those who kiss in smaller units than hours) of life sucking face. As to the origins of the practise,

The earliest and most repulsive possible origin of kissing is believed to be the practice of mothers chewing up food and pushing it into their babies' mouths with their tongues.

Indiana has a law on the books that makes it illegal for a man with a moustache to "habitually kiss human beings." True, moustaches do suck, but at least Indiana lawmakers were nice enough to say nothing to prevent their mustachioed residents from making out with farm animals.

Bored this weekend?

If you have nothing to do this weekend you could participate in the 2004 Masturbate-A-Thon. Yeah, seemingly it is a real thing. The actual event is in South of Market San Francisco but you can participate 'in spirit' from anywhere I guess. According to the site extension cords are available should that be necessary and there's a room where everything will be streamed live on the web.