Mentos and Diet Coke

Somethings are timeless: Two people trying to get through a door at the sames time, 2 drunks setting the balls on a pool table, Sucking helium and talking, seeing kids accidently hit grown ups in the crutch and of course Mentos and Coke.

2 Green Dots and 28 Green Bars

My car has a little Green digital clock. My wife’s car has also got a little green digital clock. Both the clocks in both our cars are simple four digit displays and both of our clocks in both of our cars have an additional little green dot to indicate whether is am or pm. So what? I hear you ask. Well it occurred to me some time ago that while I did spend a lot of my years, prior to this year, whooping it up, partying and carrying on etc., I don't think I ever looked at a clock that showed four O'clock and thought to myself

"Wait! Is it four in the morning or four in the afternoon?”

More to the point, anyone so confused as to not know whether it is eight O'clock in the evening or eight O'clock in the morning probably shouldn't be driving a car.


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Bazza

Dog years, cat years and now Connecticut years

We have dog years (about 7 human years), we have cat years (about 5.5 human years) and now we have Connecticut years (5 Connecticut years equals 100 human years) I’ll explain. About a month after we arrived in Connecticut a huge storm, referred to as a Nor’easter, swept through. With it came 12 hours of incredibly heavy rain. The intensity of the rain was equivalent to the short sharp tropical downbursts that happen in Florida but whereas they typically last an hour this lasted half a day and was pretty cold too. The local rivers all flooded and there was a great concern over the high tide, which coincided with the storms height as well. When all was over many, many properties were damaged or flooded and lakes existed where previously there had just been meadows.

Luckily we escaped without any bad things happening to our house and we were greatly relieved, when walking around the housing complex we live in, to notice no significant ill effects for anyone (even Speedy and Sparky survived, though I was very worried for them). As we passed the condo association office we bumped into the president of our association.

In conversation, and being new to the area, we asked him about the storm. He looked at us gravely and said:

“Oh that was a bad one,” he went on “You know it was a one in every one hundred years storm.”

“Really? Well that’s good then.” we said.

“Yes,” he said, “last time we had a storm like that was five years ago”

So there you have it, in Connecticut 100 yrs = 5 years. Therefore I am 920 years old. Don’t feel so bad about the bi-focals now.


<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>


Bazza

Ironic – No, I really don’t think so.

What do you call someone who doesn’t get Irony? American (or Canadian)!
What do Americans think irony is? Something you use on creased clothseys.

Definition: (Merriam Webster’s online dictionary) But basically think of Irony as luck with a twist.


I’m ranting about Irony because of something that really makes me MAD – that is Alanis Morrisette’s song Ironic. If you are unfamiliar with the song let me explain. The lady, who spent the three and half minutes of her first single “You Oughta know’ screaming at me because I was a man, decided to create a song illustrating that life has many unfortunate twists and turns (First error, irony isn’t always bad). I realise I’m not the first to point out some of the songs issue but like I said it bugs me.

The first verse has three examples:
1. A 98 yr old man who won the lottery and then died.

This isn’t ironic. What would be ironic is if he died from a heart attack after being told he’d won the lottery. Otherwise dying is just bad luck

2. Next Alanis tells us Ironic is a ‘Black Fly in your Chardonnay’.

Definitely only bad luck. What could be ironic is if you had spent a month searching for a specific species of Black Fly only to give up and console yourself with a glass of posers wine and there, floating on top, was the very species of black fly you had been fruitlessly searching for.

3. Finally for verse one we get: ‘It's a death row pardon two minutes too late’.

Two things to point out here: 1. It’s just bad luck again and 2. how would you know? Irony would be if you had campaigned your whole adult life to have the death penalty abolished but during a heated debate you accidentally knock over proponent of capital punishment who struck their head on the mock electric chair being used as a prop in the debate. The fallen person dies and you are tried for murder and get put on death row. Finally the federal government outlaws the death penalty but two minutes too late for you – the leading campaigner. That would be ironic.

OK this blog is going on too long but I hope you beginning to see what I’m getting at here. For instance, the chorus talks about ‘rain on your wedding day’. Wedding day rain is only ironic if you are a weather forecaster who forecasted good weather. ‘A free ride when you’ve already paid’ – then it’s not free is it? And ‘good advice you just didn’t take” again bad luck. Only Ironic if you’d taken every piece of advice offered by that person and it had all been wrong and the one piece you ignored was good.



My final complaint is the closing lines include the lyric ‘a little too ironic, don’t you think?’ This implies there are degrees of irony. Which I don’t really think there are, things are either ironic or not.

Sorry Alanis, but maybe if you hadn’t tried to make all men feel like shits in your first song I wouldn’t be so touchy about this now.


<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>


Bazza

If you want to search for the lyrics please be careful many so called lyric sites are 'honey pots' crammed with malware.

I Am Officially Old!

Yesterday I had to go to an Optician and he pronounced me ‘officially old’.

Let me explain. I have been finding it harder and harder to see, especially when driving at night. In fact after twilight I see a lot better with no glasses at all (be afraid Connecticut drivers). With this in mind I deduced that I probably needed to get some new, clear, unscratched and unfoggy glasses. And while I was going to the effort of visiting an optician I figured there would be no harm getting my eyes tested at the same time, especially as my arms no longer seem to be long enough to allow me to read properly.

So yesterday I found myself at a major optical store looking into a light held by Dr. Goldstein (or something similar). He seemed a nice enough gent and bade me to follow his pencil light or read various letters on his board etc.. He asked the usual questions, made the usual ums and ahhhs and everything seemed to be progressing quite nicely. We did the nasty puff-in-your-eyeball machine and he still seemed happy with everything. Then, out of the blue and with a staggering casual cruelty, he pronounced me as old! Over the hill, aged, almost an AARP member! I could feel the Christmas gifts of Tartan (plaid) Carpet Slippers and matching hot water bottle lurking in my near future. My descent into Victor Meldrew is almost complete. ‘I don’t belliieeevvee it!’.

Actually what he said was:
“Everything seems to be fine but you’ll need bi-focals.”

And that was it. No sympathy. No cup of tea. No offer of discount on incontinence pants. Nothing.

I broke the news to my much-younger-than-me wife, who luckily (for me anyway) didn’t immediately file for divorce (as far as I know). She did try to defend things by saying it did not mean that I was old but when I challenged her to name one young person who had bi-focals there was a long, long, long silence.

So there you have it I’m old!

Right! I’m off to complain about music from the kids next door and put my foot in hedgehog.

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Bazza

For those of you who celebrate it ...

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

Philosophers and Businessmen.

We often hear the news media refer to someone as a 'businessman' but what exactly is a businessman? We also hear the media refer to philosophers but what is a philosopher and what do THEY do?

Not so long ago, I was listening to an irrelevant news piece on NPR (Publicly funded radio to the Brits). The basic tenet of the story was simple but NPR felt it needed some 'experts' to comment on it. There were two of these learned pundits. One was a professor of technology but the other was introduced to the radio audience as a philosopher. Not professor of philosophy but an actual philosopher. I got to thinking "How did he get that job?" and what type of organisation needs a Philosopher?

How do you get a job as a philosopher? I did look on Monster and Careers.com but couldn't find a single advert for a philosopher. As this was announced as his job then what did he do all day? Who did his appraisal? How do you set criteria for goals for a philosopher?

Right Jenkins as company philosopher we need you to determine 5 new philosophies this year"
"Oh be real! You know we only managed two last year, how am I supposed to come with 3 extra"
OR
"I see. Of course all that is new is in fact old and as philosophy doesn't exist you cannot count them and therefore I may very well done the five by now"
OR
"Let me ask you if a manager sets a goal but no-one bothers to try is it still a goal?"

Enough of Philosophy though there is another job title that I keep hearing on the news media. It is 'businessman'. When a plane crashes some of the dead inevitably hold the job title ‘businessman’. During reports on crime bit-part characters seem to have that job title too. However, I fly a lot (I try to avoid the crime thing) and no one has ever introduced himself or herself to me as a 'businessman'. Indeed what does a businessman do? Presumably business. But a plumber does business and he is referred to as a plumber. A chef dos business but he is a chef. So I got to thinking anyone who worked in an office is a businessman but then I realised in our office we have IT support people, engineers, administrative assistants, managers, salespeople and some marketing people. No one has the job title 'businessman’.

Finally I worked out why no one is called a businessman! Because they are all either dying, victims of crime or in prison. So if you are ever boarding a flight and overhear someone introduce themselves as a businessman RUN.





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Bazza



BTW I believe the job title is just a lazy dumbed down media term but that is a different rant.

Examples:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7039637.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/7006206.stm
http://www.epistemelinks.com/Main/MainJob.aspx

Five Shelton Jokes

We have subscribed to the Shelton Gazette, It recently reached a milestone; its first story using just words.

The 'What’s On' section is interesting – it is a white sheet of paper with ‘NOTHING’ written on it.

We do enjoy the readers letters though; this week it was “D for Dog”

Finally we also enjoy the Gazette's weekly Crossword. Last week was a great one; it was "damn!"

In a lot of English villages at some point in the summer there is a weekend where every proud gardener in the village throws open their garden gates for all to admire their tireless horticultural prowess. In Shelton we have the same thing, one Saturday afternoon a year any rusting car enthusiast can tour hundreds of gardens looking at the tireless GMCs and Pontiacs.

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Bazza

Sweepers Swept

The 2007 MLB Postseason was a good one for people who like runs but before I talk about that something else struck me as interesting. In the postseason five out of seven of the series were sweeps, strange enough but there was a particularly remarkable chain of sweeps. As we know the Diamondbacks swept the Cubs. Then the Rockies swept the Diamondbacks and the Red Sox swept the Rockies. Sweepers swept!

Also of all the sides that went on to win a particular series only four games were conceded out of all 28 played. Compare that to 2006 when there were only three sweeps out of the seven series and of the all the match ups that were played, the team that went on to win series conceded 6 of the 30 games, similar huh?

Finally, we come to the runs scored. Run lovers would have been happier with the 242 runs or 8.64 runs per game in 2007 than they would have been with the 219 or 7.3 runs per game in 2006.

Dunno why I felt compelled to do this but I have!

What did he say?

Occasionally people say thigs and I am not sure quite what they mean. Two of these are: 'went like a dream’ and 'slept like a baby'.

In my office it is relatively easy to overhear conversations and the other day I overheard my co-worker on the phone. He was discussing a journey of several hundred miles. He said:
“Traffic was difficult for the first few miles but the rest of the trip was like a dream”.
Strange, did he really mean that once past all the other vehicles the journey became a chaotic series of disjointed and surreal events punctuated by him yelling “no no mummy, don’t put me in the cupboard again!!!” (That part might just be me). Then when he got to the destination he found he had forgotten most of the journey while realising even the parts he did remember had probably never happened anyway and he was still stuck in exactly the same bad traffic he’d started in? I did ask him but he looked confused.

Also, while in Holland I attended a presentation given to an international audience. During the introductions the main presenter asked one of the other guests, an American, how the flight over was?
“Fine,” said the American guest, “I slept like a baby.”
In this case, I wondered if my fellow visitor had meant he slept for two or three hours at a time, pooped himself and woke up hungry and screaming for his mummy. I didn’t ask this time, I think I would have confused the Dutch.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>


Bazza

Quick Note:

Made it back from Belgium/Netherlands/Germany/England. Have had a crappy cold and my shoulder and neck are hurting. Also, while in England my wallet seems to have developed anorexia. Have a bunch of things to write about if only the upper right side of my body would stop hurting. --Watch this space --

Der Falsche Herr

As I pushed open the solid white door I had a feeling something wasn’t quite right. There was an unfamiliar smell. However, it was relatively early on Saturday and I was in my third European country this week so you have to make some allowances. I moved through the small anteroom with its hand basins and into the next room. It was odd that there were only two, both vacant, cubicles but it was a small place in an out of the way corner of the Dusseldorf airport so it is possible they just used the space wisely. I pushed open the door to the nearest cubicle and locked it behind me. Once inside I looked around and realised that even in a European toilet, a disposal unit for feminine hygiene items was not normal in a man’s lavatory.

Oh boy! Now I was in trouble. I’m in a ladies toilet in a German Airport. But I was sure I had passed the door to the ladies right next to the door I had just come through. Regardless, my major concern was now ‘How was I going to get out of here’? Should I just do what I went there for and the leave? Then I realised I had my camera-phone with me – how was that going to look? There was nothing for it but to just try and get out immediately. I unlocked the cubicle door just in time to hear the click of high heel shoes approaching through the anteroom. I shut and relocked the cubicle door. Holding my breath I heard the door to the stall next to mine open and shut followed by the rustle of clothes. I decided it was ‘now or never’; I certainly didn’t want to hear anymore. I grabbed my backpack and burst from the stall. Two steps to the door and back into the small ante room - six steps across that and out!

I half expected a gaggle of people to be waiting outside laughing but luckily no one seemed to notice. Moving away from the door as quickly as possible I just had a chance to glance at the door next to the one I had just emerged from and it too was a ladies toilet.

Dammit! Caught by the old two-toilets-the-same-next-to-each-other trick! Cunning people those Germans.

Auf wiedersehn

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Bazza

Where in the world...?

This week I am (mostly) in the land of 'bread and cheese with everything' - The Netherlands. I say mostly as I arrived in Brussels, Belgium and leave from Dusseldorf, Germany.

More on the travels in due course

An introduction to Speedy and Sparky.

I was born and raised in a city and I have lived in cities all my life so coming to Connecticut has been a bit of a shock. One thing about being raised in a city is, excluding pigeons, drunks and other humans, there is very little wildlife. I did see a rabbit in Chicago once and a few rats and mice in the London Underground but pretty much that was it.

So now we live in a much more rural environment. For instance our house has a grass bank which slopes gently down to a small road about 30 yards away. From our large kitchen window you can sit and watch the trees and the occasional car. It’s a pretty peaceful scene really. Then one Saturday morning in early April, while we sat eating breakfast by the window, we were intrigued to see a small critter poking a cute reddish brown head out of a hole. We watched him for a while and then he darted away and disappeared but next day he was back again. As he clearly lived nearby I decided he needed a name and after much discussion we deemed that ‘Sparky’ seemed to be appropriate. A couple of weekends later we noticed there were actually two of the critters living in separate holes. Damn! We had to find another name. Do you know how hard it is to name a critter (that’s why the bat is called bat-e but that’s a different story)? After a lot of debate we plumped for Speedy.

Turns out that Speedy and Sparky are Eastern Chipmunks or Tamias Striatus. Throughout the summer months they have been pretty easy to spot stood, sometimes for minutes without moving, on their hind legs. Occasionally dashing at speed through the grass or crouching tremulously by their burrow entrances. They’ve grown a little and their colours have deepened to a lovely reddish brown. It took a while to get that knack of locating them but on Saturdays after the football season had ended, it was a very pleasant way to spend the breakfast half hour.

Speedy is by the tree, Sparky is to the right

I never thought I’d find watching small rodents so interesting but then maybe I’d never had to watch Connecticut local news before. Trust me after watching channel 8 News, chipmunks are the height of excitement.



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Bazza

Lets Go (away) Cubbies

Well that was all a bit unimpressive. They could at least have put up a fight!


Oh well. "There's always next year!"

Home

Not so long ago I was riding in a car with two female friends, one from Dallas and one from Chicago. One of them asked me where I felt more at home, Connecticut, Chicago or London? I couldn’t answer; in fact I couldn’t even define home. For my friends on that journey, home was obvious and I envy them. There can be few other words in this language that are so relative. Home has a different meaning for practically every human being on the planet.

For me the word home has always been strongly linked with location and I have always felt you can only have one home at a time. Therefore, home can refer to one of three locations depending on where I am. I reside in Connecticut, arrived there from Chicago but was raised, and lived longest, in and around London. Indeed a couple of years ago, on a flight to London from Chicago, the person in the seat next to me asked:
"Going home or leaving home?" To which I could only manage:
"Yes".

As stated above I currently live in Connecticut and it is taking some getting used to. This makes me miss Chicago and the life I had there a lot. Does that make Chicago home? I really miss some of the people I know in London. Does that make that home? I don’t’ miss Chicago’s flat landscape or the litter strewn, narrow streets of London though. When I am in Chicago for more than a week I find myself wanting to get back to a place that is ours and where my guitars and other pointless distractions are. Does that make Connecticut home?

Maybe it’s just that each time you really settle somewhere and then move, a little bit of your heart gets left behind (ask Tony Bennet!). Even if you choose to move, still something remains where you were. So when you do get to that next place there is not so much of a whole heart left to feel with. Maybe the meaning of home becomes a little diluted with every move.

In London I could walk to a pub but in Chicago I feel safe on public transport and Connecticut has hills and beautiful scenery. Nowhere can be perfect again because there was always something that was better somewhere else.

So home is a word I hear a lot but maybe for me, and anyone who moves and settles and then moves again, it may never be as real as it once was.


<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

BTW the Cubs actually winning something really made me miss Chicago more than ever.

Go Cubbies (Correction)

Ooooppppssss!!!!!!
As pointed out by anonymous (don't you people have names?) my last blog should have read:

Congratulations to the Cubs --- 2007 NL Central Division champions!!

Let's Go Cubbies

Congratulations to the Cubs --- 2007 AL Central Division champions!!

Little Jackie Paper - Child endangerment?

The other night I was playing my iPod on shuffle and a very disturbing song came on. It told the story of a small boy who befriends a dragon!! I was very concerned about this ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ situation.
My immediate reaction was, “Where are the parents?”
If your child’s best friend is a dragon does that not ring a few alarm bells?
“Mum, I’m just popping off to Hanalei to see my mate the magic dragon,” apparently didn’t cause a ripple of concern to Mrs. Paper. Hanalei is in Hawaii! How is little Jackie getting to Hawaii?
Also, I know their lack of existence has meant little is known about dragons but I think we all realize dragons do not make great friends for little boys. Dragons breathe fire, have scales and a big swishy tail. One loss of control and little Jackie Paper ends up resembling the forgotten burger on a July 4th barbecue. I am surprised that Mr. and Mrs. Paper were not arrested on child endangerment – must’ve been the sixties.

Another problem with the song is the reported choice of playthings that Jackie took to Puff. The singer (Peter, Paul or Mary; it isn’t entirely clear) revealed that these were “sealing wax and balls of string”. Er hello! Puff is a dragon. One belch and the sealing wax is a puddle. How much fun is that for a dragon? A careless expulsion of breath and then he has to spend hours digging melted sealing wax out of the cave’s carpet (of course dragon caves have to have carpets because dragons have soft underbellies – duh!).

Finally, there is the suggestion that due to the inevitable adolescent distractions, as he gets older, Little Jackie Paper gets bored visiting Puff. I don’t think so! Come on, your best mate’s a dragon (albeit in Hawaii) how cool would that be for pulling girls? You could arrange for your scaly pal to trap a cutie and terrorize her, then you could rescue said cutie. Later you can scare her flying around on the dragon’s back and round the night off with a lit-to-order cozy fire on the beach. Plus, when you’re even older you can get someone to ghost-write your biography about growing up with a dragon (things like scaring girls, methods for cleaning up sealing wax etc.) and go on Letterman and Leno or Desert Island Discs and be really rich and famous and everything.

Overall, I don’t think there is a shred of truth in that song. It’s very disappointing but the silver lining is at least we don’t have to hunt down Mr. And Mrs. Paper on child endangerment charges.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tag here>

Bazza

PS
I don’t believe the song is about drugs.
XT said it was an imaginary friend but that still raises deep psychological worries.
I Googled little Jackie Paper but could find no trace of the guy.

The First Post - Why Am I Bothering?

If I manage to keep up this blog for as long as I've been putting off starting it - I'll be blogging for about 9 months ... Once a week is the regularity I'm aiming for and I just want to rant or address questions the way I see them. I prefer to be ill informed as too much information merely muddies the issue and makes ranting too difficult (in the US we call this the Christian Right Wing approach - that's a joke BTW).

The number, quality and size of blogs will depend on either my diet or my travel plans. Like most people I have my best ideas in the toilet - so a dodgy diet could help. Secondly, I find airports and aeroplanes a great place to be angry or abstract. I sometimes even combine them but that just confuses people. The reason I mention this is because most of my blogging will be when I’m angry or abstract.

On the subject of airports, I read somewhere that airports are considering technology that, upon entering an aircraft, would automatically turn off cell phones. That’s a neat idea but I say they should just tag it onto the existing system, which seems to turn off the minds of a typical traveler - me included.

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Bazza