Obsolete Technical Skills

This popped up on Slashdot recently. Mine include:

• Making a pot of tea without using teabags.
I'd almost forgotten that you could still get loose tea. Always remember to warm the pot first. Can you still buy teapots?

• Sucking eggs.
Yes, really. It's not just an expression. A good April Fool (if you're twelve) is to suck an egg, then serve the empty shell in an eggcup, as if boiled.

• Using a darkroom to develop photos.
Ah, the great smell of develooping fluid!

• Making a roach out of an IBM punched card (whatever that is).


• Using a "dictionary" to check spelling.

And you?

Flakes On A Plane

Who will ever forget the terrifying events of 25/2?

At precisely 9:45am, a crack team of tree-huggers shambled across the Heathrow tarmac and climbed the steps of an empty A320 Airbus.

The only impediment to their attack on the Boeing 777 came when one of them briefly stopped to retie his natural fibre organic spaghetti shoelaces before rejoining his fellow vegetarians.

On reaching their target, the hippies strung a banner whinging about saving the whale across the tailfin of the Cessna 172.

One eco-terrorist described the hijack as "an act of defiance against the industrial-military complex ... neo-fascists ... police state ... line in the sand ... God I feel so weak ..." before being led away by men in white coats.

Police were said to be force-feeding the dangerous criminals on
cheeseburgers and fries in order that they could stand up unassisted.



The closing date for consultation on Heathrow's proposed new runway is 27 February 2008.

No nutters please.

Farty's Marketing Tips #1

This was inspired by Jacki's post: How to Make Money on Craigslist. Her dad managed to sell a telescope for a tidy profit just before a total lunar eclipse. In a way, I'm glad I didn't buy it, since it was cloudy over here. Of course tonight would have been a different matter...

I digress. As usual. The trick is, of course, to know your target audience, or "mark". If you're selling an astronomical telescope, simply post a picture of the instrument with a human beside it to give an idea of scale. Shortly before a major astronomical event.

* $150. That's only £75. Weeps *

If you're selling a small car, make it seem larger by getting a small person to pose beside it, or better still, inside it.


And if you're selling a generator: again, put someone in the picture near it, so that the buyer knows just how big they are. It is.

Is it just me or is it hot in here?

Merkan-English Dictionary #8

Crikey! It's been a while since I wrote anything for this, innit?

Two themes this time: words that sound the same but are spelt differently and words that sond different but are spelt the same. Depending on whether you're British or Foreign. (Note: British people are never foreign, even when they're abroad. Conversely, abroad is full of foreigners.)

Firstly, Merkans hate the combination of the vowels "o" and "u". Hence their insistence on writing words like "color" or "neighbor" instead of the correct form: "colour" and "neighbour". Maybe they're just lazy? Anyway, it's now got to the stage that predictive texting on my British-boght moby tries to deliberately mis-spell words for me. Grr!

Secondly, there's "centre" versus "center". Do Merkans hate ending a word on a vowel or what?

And what's the story on "z"? The last letter in the alphabet is obviously pronounced "Zed". Just ask Zed. This "Zee" nonsense should just stop.

Or neighbors have a car the same color as their hose. They've just gone on holiday to New Zedland in the Sothern Hemisfear and left their Afghan Hond at or place. We'd like to walk her in Centeral Park, but it's too rogh. So we stay at home and listen to Zed Zed Top and that.

My brain hurts now. I'm oph phour a lye doune.

The Next Survivor Series...

The following article arrived 'as is' in my mailbox. From a woman. Who uses that crazy kind of markup? I mean apart from Bossy?

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.

He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.

He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

They will need to read a book each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

Apparently Survivor is some kind of reality TV series based on the popular song by Beyoncé and that.

J'Approve

Tagged by Cat, just long enough ago that I've managed to forget what she picked. Although I'm sure she made some excellent choices. Anyway.

Seven Things I Approve Of

1. Cleavage.


2. Chocolate.


3. Music.


4. Science Fiction.


5. Holding Hands in Public.


6. Blogging.


7. Silliness.

That was easy. Your turn.

Holly's Wallabies

Large-breasted TV presenter and lesbian match-maker Holly Willoughby had an exciting job in front of the cameras, but her private life was no less busy. For every summer, she would travel to the Australian outback to work in her Aunt Sheila's marsupial captive breeding centre.

There she would labour tirelessly, tending to little possums, wombats and that, fattening them up for Europe's top restaurants.

"Strewth, that's a lovely pair of bandicoots you've got there, young Holly," said a grizzled old billabong as he loaded another batch of koalas into the back of a waiting truck with a pitchfork.

Holly smiled and blushed at the compliment, until she realised he was referring to the twin marsupials nestled in the top of her bra for warmth.



Of course, it wasn't all fun and games down on the farm. If the young wallabies took a dislike to the milk she was feeding them, she'd get it right back in her face. (That is milk, isn't it?)


Then one day, disaster struck. I ran out of ideas for this story. The end.