Even Dogs love Christmas

Hey!

Back from England with a bag full of oddities. But before I discuss the English Christmas lights, the fetishes of foxes or Parrots Here's that great picture from Nick of Vinny the Dog with Santa.






Have a great New Year!








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Bazza

Christmas has been Spotted

So did I find Christmas? Well kinda. As you can see from the picture, on Sunday we met Frosty. A few days earlier, on Friday, my friend Joan sent me a long and beautiful email to remind some of the things I could be doing. The same day Nick sent me a picture of his dog and Santa (I need to ask his permission before I post it). It was sad to see that some of you clearly struggle with Christmas. And also a bit relieving that more than a few of you felt like I did.

But I do know where my Christmas is. And I do know (and probably always did) when my Christmas will start. Christmas is in South-West London. One half still croaky from his first real concert visit and the other half is praying we will land in time to watch him play football. When we walk out of customs in terminal three and they are there, well that’s when it will really start. We might even have time to dash upstairs and see TikiTomb as he departs with his family, for Chicago.

But the tension is getting unbearable as the time to leave gets nearer. There is heavy, heavy snow forecasted for the day we go. Getting to the airport may take longer than the flight. But Christmas will come somehow, even if it’s delayed at JFK for a while. Happy Christmas everyone – I hope you find yours!

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Bazza


PS I am also looking forward to meeting many friends in the Black Lion on Tuesday.

WTF happened to Christmas

I’m from England - we don’t do Grinchs - so I’m left asking what has happened to Christmas this year? Here we are, mid-December, and not a murmur of feeling for it. The shops I’ve been in play Christmas music but there seems no bonhomie to go along with the tunes. I can’t even work out if this void is personal or all pervasive.

Were we put off kilter by the late Thanksgiving and the drive back from Chicago? I have not bought a single present or written one card yet and in a few days it will be too late. In our house is no tree (because we will be away) but we have put up a handful of decorations. Our neighbours seem to be decoratively muted too. So maybe it is pervasive? We have only received one Christmas card so far after all. The people we normally buy gifts for have asked us not to this year and even my boys just want gift vouchers. My wife’s family have also abandoned the grab bag draw, for so long a kick-off-Christmas tradition at the Thanksgiving gathering.

Here in my sweltering office (It’ll be freezing by two O’clock this afternoon) I just tried playing some Christmas songs and still no hint of a feeling.

So I don’t know if it’s me, us, America or the world. Soon we head to the UK and it had better be going on there. I beseech my British friends rise to the challenge; buy your trees, fill the bars with our English drunk:
I see you stand like greyhounds in your slip(per)s,

Straining upon the start. Christmas is afoot:

Follow your (holy) spirit, and upon this charge(card)

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' It’s Christmas!!!!!


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Bazza

Is Christmas happening for you? Please comment

Look for Some New Features

This week and next week I am making some changes to the blog. I'm adding some new sidebar items, some new comment features and making a few subtle design alterations.

Hope it makes the blog easier to read and to leave comments/feedback. Let me know if it works for you.

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Bazza

Spud Scores a TKO

Any parent hopes their children turn out to be smarter than them. In my case it didn’t take long to happen. Spud was around 4 or 5 and had just started taking interest in sport on TV especially WWE/WWF. I detest the wrestling sports entertainment and always have so I was reluctant to let him watch it.

On the day in question we were watching TV together while the rain slapped against the windows, when a commercial for an upcoming WWE event came on.

“Dad can we watch that?” Spud asked.
“No. I hate that stuff.” I said
“Why?” the boy asked.
“It’s just pretending. They’re play acting. They’re not even fighting properly.” I told him.

He scowled but said nothing. I made lunch and we sat with the TV on, half watching half discussing what we should do next. Suddenly the TV announced that up next would be exclusive coverage of the previous night’s Mike Tyson fight, And along with the announcement were some clips of the fight. I moved to turn the TV over when Spud looked up and asked,
“Are they really fighting?
“Yes.” I said
“Great then we can watch THAT instead of WWE!”

All I could hear was the sound of the rain on the window echoing through my head where a response should have been.

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Bazza

Updates

Sorry for the missing post last week but all creativity got used up writing a six page essay on the ethics of naked short selling. So here is a bunch of updates on previous entries

Gadget Crisis.
In go - go gadgets I discussed my over-stock of gadgets. Well one thing has changed since then. Through a bizarre series of events I found myself selling my 5th Gen iPod a few days before leaving on a trip to England. Despite my promises to cut back on expenditure I couldn’t face the airport/aeroplane routine without an MP3 player and so I took advantage of the moment and bought a 2nd Gen iPod Touch.
Put simply the iPod touch has the best UI of any gadget I have ever had. It does have its problems but I will save comment on those until I have installed V2.2. However, for music, movies and game play the iPod Touch has usurped the Palm already. Now if it only had a GPS chip … More in a few weeks.



Speedy and Sparky
Given the financial issues we are all having I have started to wonder if there is a parallel acorn crisis. Our Tamias striatus friends might have fallen foul of some drop in the fruit and nut index and had their burrows repossessed. I feel this because we have not seen anything of them for a few months now. Of course if Nostradamus is right then the update below maybe why we are not seeing them; they are busy plotting again.



The End of world (new date)
So after my South Korean soothsaying Santé Fe incorrectly announced the end of the world last May, the calendar inside the car has just been quietly and repeatedly counting up from February 0 to February 9 all Summer. Then a month or so ago I noticed it had slipped past the 9th and started up to the 28th or 29th. Then a couple of weeks after that it passed the 29th and now sits proudly on February 42nd. That means the end of world will be held on January 20th 2009. Which is awesome, ‘cos it’s after Christmas but before we have to pay the credit card bills. Party Time people!!!!





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Bazza

Goldilocks and the Three Books

We all have to read text books, schoolbooks or manuals sometimes. Most of us don’t enjoy it too much. Over the years I have discovered there are three distinct types of these books

1. Ultra sticky
2. Just right
3. Ultra slippy

Ultra sticky are the ones where each word is so sticky it takes ages to move on to the next word. Typically though, you do retain something. But god! It takes forever.

In ‘Just Right’ books each word holds you up just long enough for it to sink in. reading is fun and you feel better for reading it.

With an Ultra Slippy all the words become one long string and your eyes slide along each line without any hindrance. The words flash beneath your eyes and before you know it you have slid to the end of the line. Often you find yourself having to climb back to the top of the paragraph or even page to try again.


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Bazza

The original version of this was posted to the DePaul student discussion board September 08

Brotherly love and Sisterly affection - Philadelphia

Last weekend my wife and I went to Philadelphia – here is my stream of consciousness.

Friday Afternoon/evening

It’s great when a city has only one team and they win something – no Yankees/Mets or Sox/Cubs split. The whole town gets happy!
Those steps that Rocky ran up? Piece of cake!
Why are these bars so crowded? (see first note :) ). Yuengling, Great beer!
There’s a lot of homeless people - very like San Francisco
Shut up outside my hotel! I know the Phillies won but it’s four in the morning and I want to sleep now.

Saturday
I’m tired. Weather is beautiful.
Is that street theatre outside Starbucks or are those two fat women gonna have a fight at 10am in the morning.
Does this pub show the Chelsea game? 5-0 :):):) Yuengling.
Tourist time – a walking tour!
Oh god, the guide is in a kilt.
Liberty Bell, where the constitution was written, Ben Franklin’s house, church and grave. Bestsy Ross’s house (why the cat statues?). What do you mean you dressed as a Red Coat and demanded all the tea in the local Starbucks?
That ankle is hurting. Yuengling.
Get to Coldplay! Listen to Coldplay. Get really really close to Coldplay. Yuengling.
Have trouble getting cab – go to pub and it’s full of Texans watching College ball!! Yuengling.
Tonight we sleep Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sunday
Coffee, pack, head out.
Bye philly. Well done Phillies! Oh god! We have to drive through New Jersey and New York
No more Yuengling :(

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Bazza

Untangling the Crisis - Money 101 from NPR

Like most of us I am watching the financial crisis unfold. I do feel like I’m walking across the beach after the sea has gone away and looking at all the strange things we couldn’t see before. Things like, naked Short selling, CDS’ and Commercial Paper. I even found myself using the phrase ‘financial instrument’ not so long ago. All the time I wander on this beach, overturning rocks and digging at sand worms with my toes I am aware that it is only here because a disastrous tidal wave is coming.

My first major insight into how the crisis started came in May with an NPR radio show in the series “This American Life”. The show was called The Giant Pool of Money and even though you will have to pay for it now, it will be the best 95c you ever spent. This show, in very simple terms, explains how the mortgage crisis has impacted us and how it came about. This American Life followed up that show in October, with a show called “Another Frightening Show About The Economy”. Again 95cents but this show explains the CDS issue.

One thing in this current financial climate is the amazing speed at which things are happening. Stuff which would previously have headline news for months barely makes it to the front page. At least three high street banks have been bought for pennies. The US government and its people have shares in banks! In a run up to an election! In another time this would have been the hottest topic and would dominate the election for the entire race but now everyone shrugs and seems to accept it.

The last radio show/podcast I want to talk about is NPR’s Planet Money podcast, which is almost a spin off from the two This American Life shows. There have been a few I have really enjoyed and a few that slipped by unnoticed. However one recent show I really liked is this one. The really interesting (to me) part is the interview with the postal worker who wanders around Seattle delivering mail and reading between the lines.

Finally, just remember this: Even as this credit/mortgage crisis unfolds and as the inevitable recession, or even depression, swallows us up, we will still be loved and we will still be able to love others – money isn’t everything.

Hope this helps.



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Bazza

The Soft-dying Day

I awoke this morning in my southern New England home to the sound of the wind pushing against the house. Outside the sky was a crisp blue. The multi-colour leaves of autumn were lining up like golden sky-divers; waiting for their cue to leap from the trees and then tumble and dance down the hilly road.

The wind breathes excitement and animation outside my window. The heavy foliage of summer stops the hanging green frog from spinning over our deck. But now the fall has come and the cover is thinned, so that you can see patches of sky, the frog spins madly throwing off spirals of reflected light. Speedy, Sparky and their friends that inhabit the grassy bank, are nervous. The sweet smelling autumn wind moves everything and drowns out the normal sounds of safety. The change of air is tangible to them as they stand on their hind legs, twitching and sniffing. The small mammals are obvious now because they are the only stationary things. Ironic that they should be so exposed by the very act that helps keep them safe at other times.

In the front of the house, the verdant green canopy transforms into boney black fingers that point skywards accusingly. “The sky took the leaves, the sky took the leaves.” they say and the sky is guilty as charged.

Later, as I left the house, the wind pushed me urgently from behind as I walked, “Move along, move along. No time to hang around, it is coming.”

And later still, in the car the radio tells me that indeed, snow has fallen in the north already. I am dismayed to realise that it is dark at both the 6.30s that occur in any twenty-four hours.

The wind excites us with its news but it will be gone tomorrow leaving the horrible realisation that the better parts of the year are beyond reach now and soon the heavy cold grey blanket will replace the blue. We will retreat to our homes and burrows. The spiraling green frog will be taken down and stored along with the cheery summer lanterns that line the paths around us. Collect your firewood and admire the last few stubborn leaves then hunker down. Winter isn’t long now.

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Bazza

Title from 'To Autumn' by John Keats

Monsters and Angels

We haven’t had an embarrassing kid’s story for a while so here is the tale of Moochy and the monster under his bed.

Moochy, my eldest son hated going to bed and never more so than when he felt there was something happening that he was missing out on. In those times he would invent all sorts of reasons for why he could not go to sleep or had to keep getting up. This story takes place on one of those occasions when he was about four.

One beautiful spring evening we were staying at his Grandparent’s house in southwest London, near where me and his mother both lived before moving about 60 miles away. Anyway, we had arranged for some of our old friends to come around and hang out for a while. They were due around 8 and so just before that we put Moochy and his younger brother, Spud, into their pajamas, tucked them into bed and turning out the light, bade them goodnight.

No sooner had the first visitors arrived than a little blond four year old appeared and told us.
“I can’t sleep; there’s a monster under my bed”.

We were used to this. We told him to go back to bed, stop messing around and anyway there are no monsters in his grandmother’s house. He pouted and went back to his bed.
Five minutes later some more friends arrived and The Moochmeister was back out again.
“The monster under my bed is making noise, I’m frightened!”

We smiled, our friends were there after all, and told the itinerant boy that he wasn’t missing anything and that he should go back to bed again. More reluctantly than the first time, he went back to bed.
At this stage we were the first of our group to have children and so we were patiently explaining to all our pals that this was normal behaviour for our son and he wasn’t really scared of anything more than missing a good party. Our friends just smiled indulgently and Moochy appeared yet again.
“The monster under my bed keeps moving. I don’t want to sleep with the monster!” He announced to us all.

I stood up from where I had been sitting. His large Blue eyes filled with fear as he looked up into my face.
“Dammit child! There are no monsters under your bed.” I hissed. The room around us fell silent and Moochy’s eyes started to cry. Everyone was watching the scene.
“B b b but there really is a monster.” He said like Oliver asking for more.
“Here,” I said, snatching up a torch from the sideboard “I’ll show you”.

As expected in the pitch-dark bedroom all was silent except for the quiet breathing of his brother, who clearly did not believe the monster nonsense either. Moochy and I moved to stand between the two old wooden beds. We crouched down on all fours so that we could shine the torch under bed. I pointed the torch into the blackness and clicked it on ….

There were two huge green eyes looking back at me. Under the headboard a hiss issued from a blackness that reached from the floor to bottom of the mattress.
“Holy ****!” I said forgetting about the four year old now trembling and trying to hide behind me.

The blackness suddenly shifted and an enourmous ebony cat launched itself from underneath bed. It leapt the sleeping Spud in a single jump and bolted out the door. I ran after it stubbing my toe on the bed and adding more choice words to Moochy’s education. Back down the hall the immense cat ran and as the last of our friends arrived, it shot past them, through the open doorway and out of the house.

We never saw the cat again, our friends had us down as very improper parents but Moochy seemed to forget most of trauma and only remembered for ages how daddy scared the monster away. Oh yeah, and we never doubted his word again.


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Bazza

The Noisy Islanders

It was around eight years ago when I arrived in a Chicago suburb to live. I remember a lot of it really well. A few choice songs can transport me back to the feelings of adventure and novelty. Stumbling around a friendly area (especially the Northwest suburbs of Chicago) can be a lot of fun. Committing social faux pas or driving the wrong way around the parking lot. Those people are pretty friendly and tolerant. One of the really novel things I found was that even complete strangers would tell you their political convictions and this being just prior to the 2000 election there were a lot of people telling me what they believed.

When it came to novel ideas here was one. The circles I moved in when I lived around London a persons political beliefs were their own. No-one asked you about yours unless you advertised them. In fact I have friends I have known for nearly forty years and I couldn’t tell you which political party they root for. So having a relative (and sometimes complete) stranger telling you their beliefs felt a bit weird.

Weird definitely, but kind of liberating as well. Here was a nation so young and enthusiastic that people were not hindered by whatever bizarre awkward social unease that bewitched my London friends. I liked it.

That was eight years ago and about 7 years and 11 months ago something became apparent in the political rhetoric of all those people happy to speak of politics. They were unshakeable in their beliefs. In the eight years I have been here I have yet to see a discussion between a Democrat and a Republican where on of them said:
“You have a good point there.”

No, whenever I hear people around me talking about politics, an image comes to mind. Two small islands and atop each island is a person with ear plugs in. They are holding a megaphone to their mouth and shouting at the other person who of course has ear plugs and is just shouting back.

It’s kinda sad really. But I still like the people I am just a little less impressed with their willingness to talk.


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Bazza

Go Go Gadgets

There is one question my wife asks me regularly which no matter how often I try to explain she still thinks it’s a valid question. That question is:
“Haven’t you got enough gadgets?” What a ridiculous question to ask any man!

But here’s the thing, I do take too many gadgets when I travel (See picture below) so I need you help out there in Blog land

1. BlackBerry
2. 5th gen ipod
3. Palm T/X
4. Samsung quad band
5. Various Power Adapters
6, 7 & 8 USB memory stick, WIFI detector & Bluetooth connecter
9. Fold up Bluetooth keyboard (easier than laptop on planes)
10. Compact speakers.


Between the existing gadgets I can play great puzzle games, write blogs using the blue tooth keyboard, use a full GPS system (with a Bluetooth GPS puck – unshown). I can play music, browse the web, get and send emails, call home from abroad, read eBooks and tether to my laptop for on-the-go laptop internet connection (read it and weep iPhone users).

S0 here is the challenge. I really don’t want to lose any of these abilities. One of the gadgets must be a BlackBerry because of the restrictions from work. Palm doesn’t make handhelds anymore. The iPhone is crippled by AT&T. The iTouch is lacking Bluetooth and decent data entry. So ideally what I need is a two sim card, extensive Bluetooth support, 30 gb, quad band BlackBerry with an iPhone style screen.

Any ideas?

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Bazza

Britney Spears and Bill Gates

You know that famous video on you tube, the one with the tearful girl pleading with everyone else to leave Britney alone? Well I’m wondering if the next Microsoft commercial will be a teary eyed Jerry Seinfield pleading the same for Microsoft. Even I’m feeling a little bit sympathetic. Articles like this are still banging on about Vista.

I have already commented on my Vista experience and as I said it’s not horrible and it’s not unusable it’s just not as good as it should be. A lot of Vista’s problems come from the fact that Microsoft promised so many new features, including a whole new way to manage files, that just never materialized.

Seems Microsoft haven’t learned. I was really angered to see some of the write ups for the next version of windows (Windows 7). The write ups include long long lists of features. It is like Microsoft looked at all the complaints about Vista, even the conflicting ones, and said,

“We’ll fix that.”

And of course when the product arrives, no matter how good, it will be a disappointment again.

Come sob for us to Jerry.



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Bazza

World Music - Lazy or racist?

I have a bunch of MP3s and being a bit of a pedant they all have tag information. If I search by genre there a dozens of genres to describe each miniscule subset of rock, electronica, hip hop etc. but when it comes to music from India, Africa or South America it all gets the same genre, ‘World Music’.

You can’t tell me I need 14 different genres with ‘rock’ in them (not including metal and other rock related genres that don’t include the word rock) and yet anywhere outside of Western Europe or North America is just called ‘World Music’. Even Reggae and Soca are called ‘World Music’ in iTunes.

This is lazy but more than that, it is deeply insulting to other forms of music.

Agree?

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Bazza

PPPick up a Penguin

So there I was this morning, drinking my tea, feeling a little bit disaffected and disconnected. I was watching out of the kitchen window as the clouds bumped each other across the sky; the radio was on in the background. I slowly became aware of the music that was playing. By the time the piece ended I felt just a little more in step with this planet and its people. The piece was ‘Prelude and Yodel’ by Penguin Café Orchestra.

Who? I hear you ask. Well if you live in the UK and watch TV or live in the US and listen to NPR I guarantee you will have heard their music. It is used in many commercials, as theme music and as segment link music on radio, the music is impossible to catagorise (though iTunes uses ‘New Age’). It is sometimes whimsical and at other times dramatic. Typically it is woven from a number of simple phrases which combine for a more complex and moving river of sound. Songs will often start out feeling melancholy and end up feeling upbeat and you will realize you don’t know how you the transition happened

The founder of PCO and its main creative force was Simon Jeffes who sadly passed away in 1997 – I don’t know how musical genius is defined but for me PCO does it; elegant, apparently simple, moving and fun.

I’m not linking here to any of the sites that provide 30 second clips because it needs a little more listening than that – go on throw a few units of your local monetary currency and take a risk. I recommend ‘Preludes, Airs & yodels’ or ‘Broadcasting From Home’ for starters.


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Bazza

More From The Pedant Box

In 'Pixar need to study Elementary Physics' I introduced you to my pedant box ( things that I am fussy about). I must thank my friend Nancy for sending me this, which forced me to look into the pedant box and pull out two of the things that make me scream (occasionally laugh).

The first is, literally. This word, which has provided deep humor to ‘private eye’ readers for years, still makes me laugh often. My Collins Dictionary defines Literally as: “1. In exact accordance with or limited to the primary or explicit meaning of a word or text. 2. word for word.” Bearing that in mind when dear old Murray Walker announced that:

“… quite literally, I have my heart in my mouth!” It was a kinda gross mental image.

Another example came the other night when watching Fox61 news. The presenter quoted the leader of the Connecticut Democratic Party as saying:

“Joe Lieberman has literally broken my heart.” I wondered when Mr. Lieberman would be arrested for murder.

The second word is, Decimate. To decimate is to reduce by one tenth. (From Latin decimare ‘to take the tenth (decimus) part of anything’). So when the presenter on the Discovery show said:

“…The Chachapoya were decimated by 90%.” It was a mathematical nonsense.

Everyone’s pedant box probably has some of their own, what’s yours?

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Bazza

Welcome back Tiki Tomb

Are warm welcome back to blog land to my friend Tiki Tomb. Head over and check out his musings!

Oh and Tomb? Listening to the White Sox at 1am? At least your body will still accept beer. Try getting to the pub at 7.30am on three consecutive Sundays for the first three Chelsea games (a green plague upon you Setanta!).

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Bazza

Big Bully Truck maybe not so Tough

The Hummer press releases tell us how tough and manly the ridiculous SUV is but maybe it's not that tough... A catalog with this advert fell through my door a few days ago.

Does little Hummer need his own tenty then, ahhh didums. My Santa Fe sits outside year round and still predicts the end of the world.

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Bazza

Bigfoot? Big Con

Hot on the tail (tale) of the dog cloning, kidnapping, mormon loving Joyce/Brennan McKinney comes this story. I watched it unfurl with all the excitement a regular 'Monster Quest' watcher (albeit with normal hair) could. I suspect that there is more to come out of this but it is a great story and very very funny.

Here is the BBC’s take on it.

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Bazza

Too Good not to be True

Occasionally during our lifetime, a story will surface which is so outrageous that if a writer had made it up then it would have been universally panned as too implausible. One such story from my teens was of a petite American model that followed a rather burly Mormon chap to Surrey, England, Kidnapped him, tied him up and forced him to have sex with her. When you are a teenage boy you tend to remember stories about models kidnapping men and forcing them to have sex with them!

Well imagine my surprise when not 30 years later, I was driving home listening to NPR and they mentioned her name. A quick check online found this version of the story with its recent additions.

Every paragraph of this tale has a hysterical line but my favorites are the quote from the lawyer’s wife and the quote from detective. Enjoy!!!!

Read Times Online Here

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Bazza

I'm on Holiday

Kicking it back with my sons for a couple of weeks. But I'll be back and ranting second week of August.

Hell is Full of Online Reviewers

Five categories of online reviewer.

I occasionally buy gadgets or musical things and there is some degree of comfort in researching which item to buy. These days that inevitably means some reading of user reviews. These appear on sites such as online musical supply companies, electronics companies or even Amazon or Buy.com. I have noticed that user reviews seem to fall in 5 categories and 95% or more are written by morons.

Category one: The Honeymooners = ‘Just received it and it’s brilliant!’
This is a very common category. It is only mildly annoying because sometimes the reviewers can be cute; conveying the enthusiasm felt with a new toy. But in all honesty can you really write a review for something within the first hour? Not if it has any sort of complexity.
These people need to learn that nearly everything takes time; go back to your original review after a few months (post honeymoon period) and add some more info. It will be much more valuable.

Category two: The Flamers = ‘This $10 digital camera broke after three months …’
Sometimes criticism of a product or supplier is warranted. Unfortunately however, most of the time these flames merely illustrate that the reviewer is an idiot. Typically because they are trying to use the product for something it wasn’t designed to do or The Flamer has a very unrealistic expectation of a product.
These people (in 90% plus of cases) just make themselves look rude and stupid.

Category Three: The Frustrated Smuggies = ‘People who don’t actually own nor have ever used the product’.
This category bugs the living crap out of me and it is cropping up more and more. It is reviews by people who don’t like the hype around a certain product and so don’t own one. Yet they feel compelled to write about its various features and how everyone who has one is a fool.
Those people need therapy --- Now!

Category Four: The Show off = ‘Geeks/musicians showing off’.
This one really bugs me too. It is typified by the person who buys a gadget and boasts about how they managed to load Linux on it. Another example would be a musician name dropping or hinting about the number of gigs they have etc.
Get over it! Most people with day jobs ain’t got the time - oh and get a girlfriend (it’s a very (young) male dominated area).

Category Five: The Angels = ‘Good reviews’.
I saw one once. It was from someone who had owned the device for three months listed the pros and cons and what they meant in real terms to the average user. The reviewer had spelt its, it’s, there, they’re and their correctly all the way through too. Or maybe I just dreamed it ….

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Bazza

Narnia and Newton

Last week I was in Europe and even flew out of Düsseldorf again. I am very proud to say there was no repeat of the incident from last October.

Before going to the Netherlands and Germany I stopped off in London. While I was there I did go to see the newest Narnia film (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) with my two sons; it was kinda fun. The film had the usual religious allusions, which did not get in the way of the enjoying the story. One thing though, all the baddies in the film spoke English but had Spanish accents. These were the only human people in the film (apart from our four little heroes who were very very English). At some point we learned that the baddies had been in Narnia for three generations. But even so, surely they would just speak Spanish to each other? It couldn’t possibly have been a case of using an accent, other than British or American, to mark someone out as a baddie?

*** Pixar Need To Study Elementary Physics ***

Before the film started I did find something that clanged loudly against my ‘pedant box’*. There was a commercial for the upcoming WALL-E film. At the end of the trailer WALL-E is seen moving through space using a fire extinguisher for propulsion. Overall the concept is fine. If you believe Newton’s 3 laws of motion (and if you don't I would love to hear your reasoning), then the extinguisher would exert a force and therefore the robot and extinguisher would move forward (laws one and three see here). So far so good. However, the fire-treatment propelled robot slows down as he moves across the screen. If you understand Newton’s first law then that is complete b*****ks. A body in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by a force such as gravity or resistance. So our automated red tube rider would continue on. He would not slow down as he moved through space as WALL-E does in the trailer.

The only thing that annoys me more is the way space ships or their weapons make a noise in films. Star Wars IV (the first one for us old people) took place almost entirely in space and yet was noisy as all hell! Space is a Vacuum. There is no noise in a vacuum! There’s no carrier.


The trailer for WALL-E can be seen here – the extinguisher bit is at the very end.

*All men and most women have pedant boxes. These consist of details and facts that you cannot abide being misrepresented. My Pedant box is enormous.


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Bazza

An Unkempt History

Here is a list of The History Channel’s great programs: Ice Road Truckers – Season One, er er er er well that's about it really.

However, somehow I am attracted back time and time again to watch Monster Quest, UFO hunters and any show that deals with the end of the world (December 21st 2012 according to them but we know different don’t we loyal reader?). Each show is marked by dubious, one sided research, dodgy grainy footage and freaky people who believe in whatever they are investigating. In all the shows I’ve seen not one single episode has ever resolved a mystery. It's great!

One thing does become obvious however when watching these shows. That is that anyone who wants to be known as a sea monster, UFO, ape man or end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it expert one must first eschew any formal form of hairdressing. Not only are these people insane their follicles are mad as well.

So if you want to convince me crop circles are made by UFOs then you need to get to a barbers first.

BTW since we are talking about history. We know the Black Death arrived on a Genoese trading ship into the port of Florence in the early 13th century. We also know plague is carried by black rats and transferred in the fleas who have feasted on infected black rats and then humans. But why didn’t the rats, fleas and all the humans die on the boat in the first place? Therefore alerting the Florantines (he he. I know it’s either Fiorentini or Florentians but I’ve always wanted to use that gag) that a bad thing was on board. And rats die of plague too, so why didn’t they?


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Bazza

Gods Day Off

We all know the bible says that God created the earth in six days and on the seventh day he rested. Well lately I have been wondering what did God do on his day off. There are some challenges if you think about it. Maybe his mates came round and said:

“Alright God? Wanna go down the pub?”

“Nah, not really,” says God, “I’m already there.”

“Oh,” say god’s mates “Well do you wanna get a DVD out? Maybe the new Mel Gibson flick?”

“Oh in the name of humankind, no!” exclaims God, “I made the movie, I've seen it, anyway I'm already there. And you know Mel was a bit of an accident. My hand slipped and when I looked down there was Mel and Tom Cruise.” apologetically, God adds, “Sorry about that, lads.”

“For God's sake, God!” say his mates, “This whole omnipresence thing is really boring! Almost as bad as you being all knowing and all seeing”

“I knew you were going to say that” Says God with a straight face, “The all seeing thing is cool though you should see what Lilith is up to today."

Of course my wife, who is much more learned than me, pointed out that the bible actually says that God spent the day admiring his work.
And that in itself is funny because whenever I put up a shelf or a curtain rod and stand there admiring my work; she gives me a hard time. I asked her if god was allowed to take a day to admire his own work why can’t I? She pointed out that actually when I put up a shelf I'm not so much admiring my work as just backing away very slowly.

It would be unfair to print the witty response to that comment that I came with not 20 hours later.


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Bazza

Summer Starts When?

That same trip to Borders I was looking at an audio book version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time. I was wondering if it was read by some famous actor or would it be that computer voice the whole way through - thus proving his assertion that time does indeed lengthen. Next to the audio books were the journals. Leafing through the journals were two young ladies (I'd guess late teens or very early twenties); one young lady turned to the other and said,

"I want to keep a journal this summer; I think it is going to be a significant one. But you know what? I don't know when summer starts."

Her friend seemed lost for an answer and I caught the eye of the original speaker.

"Summer will start the day you start your journal then." I offered.

The young lady just smiled. It was a smile that said.

"What?"



Oh well.

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Bazza

The Grand Tour for Oprah fans

Back in the 17th and 18th century the privileged offspring of European landed gentry undertook what was known as the ‘grand tour’. The BBC’s excellent In Our Time* describes it as “…The idea was for wealthy young travelers to finish their education with an extensive trip to Europe to experience its natural beauties, its cultural treasures and, if they were lucky, its sexual permissiveness.” This was basically a several months, or occasionally a several years, tour of notable European cultural cities normally ending in Italy. Most historians view the Grand Tour as a general waste of time (though the entry in Wikipedia suggests otherwise). The British Aristocracy was particularly fond of the Grand Tour and a whole tourist trade sprung up to cater to visiting rich kids. As suggested above a lot of the participants behaved exactly as the British tourist would now. Stick anyone from a privileged background on a six month jolly around Europe and guess what? They behaved badly, followed the trail blindly and learnt very little.

I have a very dim view of the Grand Tour and had almost forgotten about it completely until a recent trip to my local Borders. Borders isn’t exactly the highbrow Mecca but it is a still book store. As I stood in the meandering check-out line I looked around and took in all the summer titles that were being heavily featured (pushed). A lot of them were in the form of "How I changed my life" or “Look how unusual my life is”. As I got to the very front of the queue was a large picture of all America's favorite, ever morphing woman: Oprah. Along, with her beaming image was a large tray full of copies of her book of the month. I don’t know exactly what it was but it seemed to be some tome which would allow a reader to experience someone else’s life. That was when I suddenly got an image of all these middle class woman on their own version of the Grand Tour. Those Oprah lovers slavishly following her recommendation and experiencing at a distance someone else’s life while making no change to their own....

But that does the rest of us no harm does it? Probably not but it does have an impact on what does or does not get published. Have you noticed how many of those books there are out there at the moment? To get onto Oprah’s list is to sell millions and millions of books. Surely every publisher wants a piece of that. To a certain extent Oprah has turned the high street (or Mega Mall) book store into the literary equivalent of reality TV.


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Bazza




*In Our Time, Originally aired 5/30/2002. IOT is well worth a listen most weeks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20020530.shtml
Link for full page and archived show – will need RealPlayer to listen.

Guess Who's Back?

After the discovery of the chipmunk babies (now called McSparky and McSpeedy though honestly I have no idea who sired them), I felt there was little left to get excited about for the Connecticut summer. However, last Sunday we sat in our sunroom, eating ice cream and watching the dusk close in and we saw a bird like creature flying erratically between the trees. Batty was back!!! Batty was spotted, and named by 13 yr old Moochey, last August. I believe the chiroptera is a Little Brown Bat. I was afraid that due to White Nose Syndrome Batty may not make it back to us but he is and I am very pleased.

Welcome back Batty! Now get those mosquitoes boy.

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Bazza

More info here:

Four Babies and a Woodpecker

Standing in the kitchen the morning after the drive back from Chicago, my back and legs ached and my head felt as if all thought was being filtered through a thick piece of cloth. I looked out of the kitchen window at the grassy bank that leads to the road. It was incredible how much had happened out there in a week. We had aimed the car at the sunset nine days before and when we left the three mature trees out the back and the bushes at the front were starting to show signs of leaves. Now, the neighbours downhill and to the front had disappeared behind a wall of green. And looking out to the back the mid Sunday morning sunlight was all but occluded by the green canopy from the trees. The shadows of the leaves allowed only tiny dots of bright light through, I was watching, mesmerized, at how the patterns shifted and changed. Suddenly I noticed two chipmunks quite near to the house and huddled close together. This is unusual as chipmunks tend to be territorial. As I continued to watch a third and then a fourth chipmunk appeared and I realized these were smaller than either Speedy or Sparky. These were four chipmunk babies.

I guess this was a sign of true summer. Breeding season is February to April and gestation is a month while weaning is four to six weeks. Add all that time together and we were definitely at start of summer. Our second spring in Connecticut had had its nature highlights. We spotted two or three blue jays and a very red cardinal has taken up residence in the trees outside the front of the house. We had seen other birds too; a couple of very colourful finches visited for a few days, some swallows arrived and back in early spring I caught sight of a woodpecker that was high up in a tree overlooking the valley. Finally, of course, there are always the common populations of Robins, Sparrows and overhead, Turkey vultures and falcons.

We will see what Mother Nature has for us during the summer – maybe another mountain lion like last year?



<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza
PS I discovered the really cool pictures of some chipmunks at the site below.

http://www.pbase.com/cecilg/squirrels_and_chipmunks

Leaving Home and Heading for Home

We left at ten minutes to nine in the morning. The city took sympathy on us and did its best to let us out painlessly, unlike when we had arrived seven days earlier. There is no other city I have seen where the skyline does so much to define its nature. At times it seems so compact you could imagine it is inside the glass dome of a snow-globe, just waiting to be shaken up.

As we drove down the Kennedy, the monumental buildings increased in size as we passed by their feet, until we got to Sears Tower. Then faster than they had grown they fell away again. The Kennedy became the Dan Ryan and the soullessly named US Cellular Field appeared on our right. After that it was foot down and head for Indiana.

We turned 90 degrees at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the sun shone and the lake was sparkling blue in the distance. We left Illinois via the Chicago Skyway. Sounding futuristic and romantic, the reality is the heavy industrial iron design of the bridge never allows you the feeling that you are on anything more than an interstate. Incredibly we were in Indiana in a little over thirty minutes from leaving the northern suburbs; a journey that has been known to take as much as four hours, though 60 - 90 minute is more normal.

After an hour of driving we had left the black and smoky rail connected buildings that line the Indiana banks of Lake Michigan. The terrain was green and flat. The cold sadistic reality of the mile markers read 30 and reminded us that our friends, family and other comforts were falling further and further behind. Ahead of us another 900 miles of interstate, 700 of which was to be a straight line on one road, I80. In total 14 hours of driving but with nature and food breaks 16 hours of road riding.

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Bazza

End of the World - Update

After Saturday I decided to look up the definition of anticlimax.

It said: 'An event, period, or outcome that is strikingly less important or dramatic than expected.'

And given the definition I guess the end of the world not happening could be classed as a bit of an anticlimax. The calendar did roll over to a new number (see picture) which I am assuming means 100. If that is the case then we must assume the end of the world is probably 900 days away. So the apocalypse is officially rescheduled, by my Hyundai, to a new date of October 26th 2010. I'll try and remember to remind you the day before.

Couple of other points.
There a fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims but you never hear of fundamentalist Atheists

Last night on the TV news the new reader said that Ford were recalling thousands of their trucks ‘because of problems with their ho’s’ does Eliot Spitzer have a Ford then?

In professional and school life we are taught there is no such thing as a stupid question. Bollocks!!!! There are tons of ‘em. “Do you want another beer?. “Would you like some chocolate?”, “Do these trousers make me look fat?” and “Do bears poo in the woods?” Are among the first that spring to my mind. Let’s bring some sanity. SOME QUESTIONS ARE STUPID!!!

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Bazza

Good luck for the End of the World Tomorrow Lunchtime (Central)

Just checked the calendar in the car and it reads Feb99th so just wanna wish you all the best for tomorrow. I have noticed that the calendar changes at 1pm Eastern so you Brits have got a bit more time whilst the Californians have 'til about 10am.

Anyway enjoy it - I was gonna video the end of the world but I'm not sure I can be bothered.

(Confused? See here and here and here)

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Bazza

Three Slices of the Long Haul

This week’s blog is actually three different observations on my recent flight from England to New York.

Airbus A380
Most people who travel by air a lot (especially men) are interested in some way in aircraft. I have loved aeroplanes since my childhood. I may not be able to remember much about my years at primary school (grade school) but I do remember the first time The Concord flew over our house. A few days later the kitchen ceiling in our flat fell down, my mum and dad attributed it to the amazing noise and vibration of the supersonic passenger plane.
Therefore Monday’s flight from London was quite exciting for me. To be exact the taxi from gate to runway at Heathrow was exciting. I was sat in a window seat on the port side of an American Airlines Boeing 777 as we taxied when the pilot drew our attention to the fact we were passing one of the two Singapore Airlines Airbus A380s.
My first impressions were:
‘How many wheels?’
‘How ugly?’
‘It really does look like a Beluga whale,’ and then,
‘It’s huge!!!!’
Unfortunately we took off before it did so I couldn’t see it in flight but I have to say it is a spectacular aircraft despite its sea mammal looks.

If This Is A Film – Then We’re Dead

Boarding the plane in London it was hard to miss the festive bunting and banners that the crew had placed all around the aircraft. ‘Happy Retirement’ was the theme of the day. Now I don’t know about you but in any film or book you watch or read, when it is someone’s last day, well you know what happens – they die!!!! They never make it. From Catch 22 to Ed McBain, they die.
So when the purser announced it was the final trip of Captain Bob, the pilot, it was all I could do not to scream “We’re doomed. We’re doomed!”

The Time We Stopped Moving and Everyone Forgot About Us

Somewhere over South Eastern Canada the blue outside my oval window became grey and the plane flew on. On my iPod the Thievery Corporation filled in the aural space with rich, compressed full-range sound. Out of the window I looked upwards and there was grey. I looked back and there was grey. I looked forward and down; grey. And the plane droned on. Thievery Corporation became A Girl Called Eddy, Ivy then Embrace and the plane flew on – still enveloped in grey. The iPod started on Massive Attack and I wondered if we would ever see anything again. What if ATC had forgotten about us and we had no place to land. Would we spend eternity suspended in bleakness? Was this what happened to pilots – they didn’t retire they are just held in an endless holding pattern?
When the New York suburbs did suddenly appear they were alarmingly close and were followed almost instantly by the hatched markings at the start of the runway. The ceiling must have been less than 200 feet.
I hope pilot Bob got home safely or maybe he waited until we all got off, took his Boeing 777 and disappeared back into the grey forever.

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Bazza

Spud's first Cubs Game

Last ‘my kids’ story for a while – I promise.

Back in 2002 I took Spud to his first major sporting event. It was a Cubs against the Cardinals baseball game at Wrigley Field. Spud had been playing Backyard Baseball, the PC game, for a year or so and knew enough about baseball to follow what was happening on the field.

It was a bright and warm August afternoon as the Spudster and I settled into our seats, which were behind home plate about half way up the second tier. Spud was 6 and had never been to any type of big sporting event before (closest was a single A game the year before). It was a great experience, we did all the things kids love about baseball games. We had cotton candy, soda, peanuts and I even got him the ubiquitous foam claw.

The early innings passed with Spud getting acquainted with the mechanics of a ball game. The peanut throwing, Wrigley’s skanky toilets etc. but we soon settled to watch the actual game. Almost immediately the Cardinals star batter stepped up to the plate. I nudged Spud and said.

“Here’s Albert Pujols, he’s really good. Watch!”

I watched the at bat intensely. Ball, ball, foul, ball, foul, foul, flied out right field.

Only then did I turn to Spud to see how he’d enjoyed the classic Pitcher/batter duel.

Spuds face was bright red, he was gasping for breath and tears were rolling down his face. Fearing he was choking or had been struck by a flying peanut bag I asked,

“Spud what’s up? Are you hurt?”

Through gasps he said, “Pooh holes! His name is Pooh Holes!!!” It took him the rest of the innings to recover. Even now he sniggers when he hears the name.

We won’t be going to any Cub’s games this year not unless they trade Fukudome.

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Bazza

Phrases That Make You Do The Opposite

In the blog titled 'Least Honest Four words' I talked about phrases that are inherently dishonest. Well how about phrases that make you do the opposite?. Below I’ve listed three of my favourites - along with that real world response. Do you have better ones?


Phrase: “You need to adjust your attitude”
Response: Yeah I’ll adjust my ***ing attitude you <inset expletive>!

Phrase: “Don’t look now but...”
Response: Where? Where? Where?

Phrase: “It’s a secret so keep it to yourself.”
Response: Oh boy! I gotta tell someone.



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Bazza

The Real Reason I had to Leave England

Every parent has a story of how their children have embarrassed them and here is mine.

Back at the end of the summer in 1996 I lived in a small village in Essex, England. That summer had seen the Olympics in Atlanta, an explosion over the Atlantic of a Paris-bound TWA plane and England were beaten by arch rivals Germany in the Euro 96 semi-finals. Oasis and Blur dominated the UK airwaves. By September 1996 my family consisted of my wife, a two year old boy referred to as Moochy and a six month old who become to be known as Spud. Oh, and a nameless Goldfish too. Moochy was as cute as any two year old ever was. He had a shock of white hair and big blue eyes. Overall he was a pretty happy kid. The only concern we had was that he was having some problems with talking, most of the things he was saying were pretty unintelligible but at least he was trying.

The story takes place one Sunday afternoon. Spud and his mother were both taking an afternoon nap and I decided Moochy and I should do the weekly shopping together. So I strapped the blond two year old into his car seat and we set off for the supermarket which was about 8 miles away from our village. Along the way we listened to some of the latest songs including the Oasis track “Champagne Supernova”. Up front in the driving seat I sang along lustily. “Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a Canon Ball, where were you while we were getting high?” etc. (full lyrics here).

In fact I enjoyed the song so much I played it – and sang along with it – several times.

Unusually for a Sunday afternoon the supermarket was very busy. I placed Moochy in the seat of a shopping cart and we spent a happy half hour wandering the aisles selecting our groceries. Normally Moochy enjoyed the supermarket experience but this particular afternoon he seemed preoccupied. Eventually, we joined the line for the check out with it’s beeping barcode scanning machines and the quiet buzz of conversation from the surrounding queuing shoppers.

Amid this idyllic rural/suburban scene is when Moochy tugged my sleeve to get my attention. He looked up at me from his supermarket trolley seat and asked in the clearest and loudest voice that he had ever used:
“Daddy, where was I while you were getting high?”

Every eye in the store turned on me,
“It’s just the words of a song” I said but the faces of the other shoppers showed no-one believed me. We hurriedly paid and left before the Police arrived ….

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Bazza

Picture courtesy of BBC.co.uk who seem to have gotten from Associated Press

Move over Jose, I am the Special One! (Feb 63rd)

I now realise that I have been chosen by a higher power to bring to you, my loyal readers, some important messages. My destiny is now clear and I will save you all (as long as you send me all your money. And you'd better be quick about it we don’t have long). The only other chosen ones are already in a cave in Russia awaiting the day (I’ll need to set up a virtual cave for us, obviously).

When I first ran into the calendar issue with my Santa Fe I thought little of it but I did write to my local Hyundai dealer in Milford, CT. Last night the service manger finally replied,

"I have had no other coplaints[sic] of this."

So I called Hyundai USA and spoke with Tyler. Tyler opened a problem report but also confirmed that there have been no other reports of this issue.

Therefore, I am left with only one conclusion. I have been singled out by some deity to have a message revealed to me. A bit like Moses or Noah – I hope I don’t have to build a boat though; I’m crap at building things… Lego! I can build stuff out of Lego. So if this god wants me to build an Ark as long as it’s out of Lego we’ll be good. Anyway I digress, as I was saying some greater power has seen that I am to receive this great message. Given the calendar in the car has only two numeric digits the we must assume that when the calendar reaches Feb 99 then something significant will happen – probably the end of the world. These things are always a sign of the end of the world – but it may just be a new iPod or something (Apple’s marketing seems to get everywhere).

Finally, for proof, I Googled Nostradamus (you know the French seer whose predictions are only any use when whatever it is has already happened) and I found this cryptic verse that may be trying to tell me something

Nostradamus said:
In the land that Columb found
In an eastern chariot will come a man profound
Who shall receive the special sign
In month two; day ninety nine

And that chosen one he will be saved
Upon that awful bloody day
The evil rodents shall show their hand
And Speed and Spark will ruin the land

Strange bloke that Nostradamus.

Anyway send me all you money as quick as you can and I’ll see you in the virtual cave.

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Bazza

April 1st or Feb 61st?

As you can see my car now believes it is Feb 61st - next update on Feb 99 (May 9th).

Feb 60th

In Leap years are longer in South Korea I explained about the calender in my car. I suspect that April the 1st it will rectify itself so here is the last picture of Febraury.

Let you know what happens.



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Bazza

The Least Honest Four Words in English

English is a strange language. A simple phrase where the words seem to mean esteem can actually mean contempt when spoken. There are number of phrases like this and below is the one I hate right now. Feel free to add a comment if you have a favorite of your own.

Today I was walking past a conference room at the office where I work and overheard an aggressive voice saying the phrase. As usual the aggressive voice immediately followed it up with something pretty unpleasant.

Then tonight, the phrase was uttered on TV during a phone-in, the host followed it up by completely rubbishing the callers point. The phrase ...

"With all due respect..."

Whenever I hear it seems to actually mean:

"You are wrong---shut up! You are due no respect"

It is nearly always deeply offensive so if you say it - STOP.


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Bazza

During leap years February is a little longer in South Korea

As I described in 2 Green Dots and 28 Green Bars my car has a little green clock. Well those cunning South Korean Hyundai engineers also put in a calendar. On the 12th of March my wife and I were driving back from dinner and she happened to notice the date that was being displayed on the calendar. Seems the Hyundai engineers may have missed something …





Feb 29 + 12 = 41 so at least it is right!


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Bazza

Sit Down, Be Quiet and Eat Your Poison

Last week I found myself recounting this story to a bunch of people and being lazy have decided to plagerise myself and reproduce the tale here.

When my sons were around 3 and 4 I used to look after them all weekend and so had to cook meals for them. One Sunday evening I decided to cook fish fingers (Breadcrumb coated fillets of cod - very popular with kids). The children had been playing up all day so were under strict instructions not to leave the table until all their food was eaten.

I served up their dinner and continued cleaning up the house. I checked up on the boys every minute or so but they were not eating.
I told them again, "You will go straight to bed - no story - no TV, unless you eat it all".

After about fifteen minutes I was beginning to get very angry at the lack of consumption, when the 4 year old came and found me in the kitchen.
Like a reverse of the scene from Oliver twist, in a faltering voice said , "Please don't be mad but we've eaten as much as we could, it's just we don't think these should be like this".
He held out a fish finger, which on closer inspection, was slightly burnt on the outside and still frozen solid on the inside.

We went to McDonalds.

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Bazza

Sparky reads the Blog!

When I first told my eldest son about Speedy and Sparky, the Chipmunks who live on the grass bank outside my kitchen, he said I should be careful as all Chipmunks are evil (the cuteness is just a cover) and they are all plotting to take over the world. The then 12 year old said that Chipmunk's borrows are full clever machines and computers with lots of flashing lights, some of those tape reel things that go round for no reason. I thought he was joking until recently.

Three weeks ago I wrote about not having seen either Speedy or Sparky all winter in 'Missing Speedy and Sparky'. I surmised it was too cold and harsh for them and I even expressed concern about whether they had enough food.

Just after the posting one of those machines, deep below the muddy grass bank, must have whirred into life. Speedy wobbles up to the screen and reads a blog in increasing rage: 'Too harsh? Not enough food?" He screams in a Chipmunk, "I'll show the humans!"

He waits his chance and it occurs the very next weekend. Overnight there is a snowfall of about eight inches - perfect time to prove me worng - up he pops, larger than life and clearly not starving.



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Bazza