The Bar

Yesterday I was reminiscing about the days when I used to go to the bar with my friends.  I wasn't the popular little blonde who was constantly bombarded with male attention and free drinks, so it gave me plenty of time to observe the drama, which usually commenced around 1am when most people were suitably drunk.

Oh, the actors in this drama changed regularly, but the stories were always the same.  There was the intoxicated, overweight university student sitting in the corner who became loud and obnoxious as the evening wore on.  He usually had an 'I'm-a-first-year-philosophy-student' beard,  and drank beer right out of the jug.  He would be egged on by his friends to perform some ridiculous antic like dancing on the table with his shirt pulled up over his ample man-boobs, and would invariably spill his drink on some unsuspecting girl.

Then there was the girl throwing up in the bathroom.  Two of her friends would be in there as well, knocking on the stall door and demanding to be let in so that she didn't inhale her own vomit and die.  She never did, and would eventually emerge with mascara down to her chin, bits of yesterday's supper clinging to her hair,  and would then attempt to apply lipstick in the mirror so that she could go back out and finally talk to the guy that had been eyeing her up all night. 

Finally, there were the inevitable hook-ups at the end of the night, and much like a National Geographic documentary, some of these would be fraught with danger.  Usually it ended up with two males fighting outside the bar at closing time, because one guy had spoken to the other guy's girlfriend.  I don't know if you've ever seen birds of paradise, but these guys were much the same, puffing up their chests, breathing deeply, snorting, yelling, and circling each other in a kind of territorial dance for dominance.  Then the punches would fly, and the girl at the center of the argument would try to break up the fight but end up crying in the arms of another man at the periphery. 

It was all quite fun to watch, even though after a few times, it was a bit like watching late night reruns of your favourite show. 

I'll leave you with a video I found on exercise and public drunkenness.  Some things never change.



Until next time,

Busy Busy Busy

The last few days have been crazy busy.  For a while I've wondered about setting up a shop on Etsy, but just never seemed to get around to it.  I enjoy being creative - hence the blog, I guess - but when it starts to get colder outside I like to draw and do other artistic things.  I've been drawing all my life; but, as seems to be the recurring theme in my life, I never seem to really accomplish anything.  But this week, I did.  I took the plunge, and TA DA...I'm ready to show the world (ie my 11 faithful followers :) my new shop!

This is one of the items I'm selling.  You can find it and others at http://www.etsy.com/shop/fliederfloxx

The last couple of months have been pretty exciting you know.  First I started this blog, and now an Etsy shop.  Just wait until the snow flies and I get out my hooks and start crocheting...you ain't seen nothin' yet! 

Take care,

Scavengers

I just started a fantastic book called The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson.  In the first chapter he talks about the scavengers who inhabited the city of London during the 19th century. 

There were the toshers - these were the guys wearing flowing velveteen robes who sloshed about in the mud at the side of the Thames looking for bits of metal, coins, or anything else that could hold some value.  The mud-larks were small children who followed the toshers around and gathering up their rejected items.  The sewer hunters did the same thing as the toshers, except in the bowels of the earth under London.  Once in a while a pocket of methane gas would ignite when the sewer hunter went too close with the lantern and would blow him to kingdom come.  There were the bone-pickers who spent up to 9 hours a day collecting any type of corpse, then separated any rags or metal for resale, and my personal favourite favourite the pure-finders.  They were the ones who collected dog poop.  Not necessarily what I would have thought with a name like pure-finder, but given the choice collecting dog shit sounds more appealing than the other jobs.

I guess if I'd been around then I would have been the dumpster diver, but I only take things like working microwaves or vacuum cleaners...maybe the odd bookshelf, or something else I think I can fix up.  I would never even consider picking up an old rag or a piece of metal wire or heaven forbid a piece of bone.  But think of the millions of tons of garbage we are producing every day in the world.  I bet those if those 19th century scavengers were here, they'd have a heyday.

Until next time,

I'm Not Dead Yet!

Coming back to my blog this evening after being away for the last five days made me feel quite anxious.  I can only equate it to the feeling of leaving a pet budgie for the long weekend.  You fill up his food and water, hang a nice new piece of millet from the top of the cage, and put in fresh newspaper.  You feel slightly guilty leaving him by himself for three days, but tell yourself he'll be just fine.

When you arrive home and unlock the door, you immediately hear a frantic scuffle and squawking coming from the direction of the cage.  Obviously you've startled him, and as you peer into the cage he regards you with one wide suspicious eye.  That's when you notice the horror.  In his frustration at your absence, he decided to trash his home.  He's crapped in his water and dislodged his food dish which is now upside down at the bottom of the cage.  Under the upturned dish is the fresh piece of millet.  Everything is covered in a thick layer of bird poop and bright green feathers, because it appears that your bird thought that ripping out his feathers would be an appropriate form of self-mutilation at a time like this.

To my delight, however, I found that my blog was waiting for me virtually unscathed.  I have to say it's a much better and less demanding pet. There were two comments to respond to, and although my stats have been hovering around the zero mark for the last couple of days, I guess that's to be expected when there are no new posts.  I just hope the few of you out there who do read my blog haven't forgotten about me, because I feel a bit like the old guy in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who's carried out of his home by John Cleese during an outbreak of the plague.




Until next time,

The World According to the History Channel

Long, long ago the ancient Egyptians created a great and noble civilization renowned for its architecture, a complex writing system and sumptuous art.  The most important Egyptian was the boy king, Tutankhamun, who died at the age of nineteen.  He was buried in the Valley of Kings in Luxor along with a bunch of golden cat statues.  After that, World War II broke out, and brave allied soldiers risked their lives on the black and white battlefields of Europe eventually defeating the Germans led by Adolf Hitler.

The End.

(PS.  If anyone knows of anything else that might have happened between 1323 BC and 1939, please could you contact the History Channel here and let them know.)

Thanks,

Achtung: Brand Names

I just thought of something...

In the earlier part of the last century, Rolls Royce came out with a very grand automobile called the Silver Mist.  With much enthusiasm, the British released the car in Germany, but nobody bought it.  The reason?  "Mist" is the German word for manure, and I suppose people would feel silly driving around in a fancy car essentially named 'Silver Animal Dung.'

Yet, years later, the famous British chocolate mint, After Eight, appeared on German store shelves.  Now, I have to admit I haven't done any market research on the subject, but I can vouch for the fact that this product flies off the shelves at Christmas time.  Funny really, since the German word "after" means anus.

Something about this just doesn't sit right with me.

Until next time,

Ten Things I've Learned From TLC

TLC.  The Learning Channel.  When I moved back to Canada in 2003 after spending several years in Germany, I made sure that TLC was included in my television cable package.  You see I love learning new things.  I read a lot, I take courses, I scour the internet for information, I listen to talk radio.  Learning is fun.  And so, I thought, TLC would provide hours of entertaining yet educational programming.  I suppose in one respect I was not disappointed - it's certainly entertaining.

Here are the top ten things I have learned from TLC:

1)  If you want your three year old daughter to stand still for a spray tan, promise her a puppy.  This makes you a good pageant parent. (Toddlers and Tiaras)

2)  Mall security must go above and beyond the call of duty to avoid a potential powder keg when dealing with tray-hoarding food court vendors.  (Mall Cops)

3)  The bottom layer of junk in a hoarder's home decomposes into dirt and usually contains at least one very dead and very flat cat. (Hoarding: Buried Alive)

4)  If you're a dwarf, TLC will include you in next season's fall lineup.  (The Little Chocolatiers, Little People Big World, The Little Couple, Little Parents Big Pregnancy)

5)  If I every get married again, it will be in jeans and a T-shirt.  Wedding dresses turn brides into rude, selfish bitches.  (Say Yes to the Dress, Plus-Size Brides, Four Weddings)

6)  Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar should really heed the saying, "It's a vagina, not a clown car." (19 Kids and Counting)

8)  It is possible to weigh an extra-morbidly obese person in one of the two following ways: a) implementing a winch and a scale usually reserved for large aquatic animals such as dolphins and whales or b) cutting a hole in the side of the house to extract the person, and then transporting them to a vehicle weigh station on the back of a flat-bed truck. (World's Fattest Man, World's Heaviest Teen, World's Heaviest Man)

9) If you give birth to multiples, TLC has a show with your name on it.  (Jon and Kate Plus 8, Kate Plus 8, Sextuplets Take New York, Quints By Surprise)

10)  If you're a little person and give birth to multiples, drop me a line.  I'd love to be your manager.


Until next time,

The Easiest Job in the World

(You might remember my post  last week about how to make it rich and famous as a modern artist.  Well that was last week.  I tried it, and it's going to take a longer than I initially thought.  I also failed to consider the ridicule that goes along with trying to sell pictures of scribbles for stupid amounts of money.  However, being the eternal optimist that I am, I've come up with a new career idea that I'd like to share with you.)

Imagine a job where all you do is give your opinion, and are paid well to do so.  You are in the public eye - not enough that you're being hounded by adoring fans every time you step outside your front door, but enough that it boosts your ego when some fifth grader asks for your autograph while you're out grocery shopping.  Old people and farmers love you.  And the best part?  You will be paid even if your opinions are wrong 100% of the time. 

If this sounds like fun, then you too can be a TV weatherman.

I met a TV weatherman last week actually.  His name is John Sauder and he's the meteorologist for CBC Winnipeg.  The station was having an open house, so I attended with She Who Shall Not be Named.  While we were waiting to go in, the morning show radio guy, the TV anchorwoman and John Sauder came out to chat to people in the lineup.  Even though John was by far the least personable of any of the local celebrities, the crowd LOVED him. 

      "Pretty good weather we're having, eh John?"
      "So, is it gonna be an early winter this year?"
      "Whaddya think of all that rain we've been having?"
      "Sure is a warm one today!"

This, I admit, could get quite irritating after a while.  Unless you truly love the weather as John obviously does.  He lapped up all the attention and waxed prophetically about high pressure systems, the dew point and "precipitation events" until my ears started to bleed.

And it's not surprising really.  What a fantastic job he has.  What other job could you possibly do where your accuracy or inaccuracy means so little?  The doctor?  A mechanic?  Lawyers?  Engineers? 

No.  Every other job requires too much accountability.  The weather is where it's at.  So, here goes...

Tomorrow will be cloudy with a 50% chance of late day showers.  High of 15C and a low of 4C.  This applies to all of North America and Europe.

It doesn't get easier than that!

Take care,

Me? A Blog Award? Never!!

I've been neglecting my blog over the last day or two.  Life rudely gets in the way sometimes, and rarely apologizes for doing so.  (Well...actually it's the new season of Apprentice and Grey's Anatomy that's been getting in the way, but "life" sounds much more serious and important.)

So imagine my surprise when I logged on today to find that I had won this!

It was bestowed on me by the exceptionally talented writer of The Blogger Formerly Known As... whose blog I read religiously.  Check it out if you get the chance - it's wonderful!

(When I told Stinky "She Who Shall Not be Named" about my award, she felt I didn't deserve it, because most of my posts are "just embarrassing."  That's 12 year olds for you...  She's worried that one of her friends will read it and figure out that I'm her mother.  God forbid anyone ever find out we share the same gene pool...I'd have to homeschool her for the next six years.  Oh, and in case you're wondering, the name change was at her request.)

 Anyway, I'm not going to let anyone, adolescent or otherwise, rain on my parade  So thank you Blogger Formerly Known As... for thinking of me.  Now, as is tradition, it's my turn to give the One Lovely Blog Award to some of my favourite blogs.  Here goes...

• Drollgirl
• This Mid 30s Life
• Gary at Klahanie
• Lenore at Lather. Write. Repeat.
• Blurt

Congratulations to everyone!  Please pass the award on to other deserving blogs. 

As for me, I'm going to go and bask in the glory of my first award since I came third in an egg and spoon race in Grade Two. 

Until next time,