Shampoo

Purely in an effort to be the top Google result for the phrase +"salmiak shampoo", Joel and Heather present for your edification:

Ten Bad Shampoo Flavors

1. Savory Salmiak (The Finns eat it, but we call it Windex)
   
2. Creamy Bleu Cheese
3. Zesty Garlic & Onion
   
4. Revitalizing Kimchi (or Sumptuous Sauerkraut)
   
5. Ballpark Franks (It's not summer yet!)*
6. Marmite Morning (Vegemite if you prefer, mate)
7. Durian Breeze (Wikipedia says: "The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust. The odour has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia." My personal experience has been of a strong diesel flavor with a hint of strawberry.)
8. Spicy Refried Beans
9. Mom's Tuna Casserole
10. Egg Salad
    

Bonus: Any soup. Cream of mushroom? Vegetable beef? Alphabet, even?!
Any we missed?

*Meat flavors are pretty much cheating, so we tried to limit those. Crispy BLT sounds ok to me though.

Title here

Wow, look here.

Knitters go overboard.

That's pretty cool, but I can't really imagine ever coming to a point where I've knitted so much for friends and family that I can now knit for lampposts. Although, come to think of it, maybe I should be knitting primarily for inanimate objects until I actually start to turn out some decent work...

Joel leaves, home subsequently shatters.

1. Food waste is up. Way up. So far I've had to throw away:

• a half bag of salad
• leftover couscous with sweet raisin/apricot chicken stuff
• leftover rice (it was too late for rice pudding)
• an apple
• a lime
• there's some ham nearing the end.
  

This is getting dire, folks! I need the man's belly!

1. Basil is down. Something is wrong with my adorable wee beloved cretin. He isn't as fiery as he used to be, he isn't even trying to bite my fingers when I stick them in his cage. When I hold him he doesn't resist me pulling out of his cage, and he doesn't run for my shoulders right away either.
2. These numbers are all messed up. There's two number ones and these are ALL the sort of problems no one but JOEL can fix. Let's petition for him to come back.
   

Our trip to Poland, attempt no. 1

Today we are proud to feature a guest author, Joel Shaver, posting about a somewhat new topic for this blog: travel. Seriously, guys, Heather's making me look bad, with all this 'posting about events within a week of their occurrence' stuff. Forget that - I'm all about the nostalgia. You may or may not have heard that Heather and I had been planning a trip to Krakow, Poland this past March. We were particularly excited to visit such attractions as Wawel Castle, a really nice dragon, and the Wieliczka Salt Mine (hundreds of miles of tunnels, salt chandeliers, and a salt sculpture of the Last Supper!). Not to mention all the sausage and bread we could ever want (as if Prague weren't enough). Of course, none of this happened, because we missed our flight. Instead, we hastily booked a train ticket for Newcastle, England, home of A Statue of Earl Grey (yes, the tea guy), Geordies, and a not-too-shabby Castle Keep, a distinctively castle-y square-shaped one. The town is situated on the Tyne river, and is well-known for its impressive collection of bridges. The most recent of these, the Millennium Bridge, is actually capable of moving (theoretically for ships, but really for shock value), which it does several times a week, to the accompaniment of distressing electronic music and sampled heartbeats. Other highlights included the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, located inside an art-deco 1950s flour mill, a Roman fort (part of Hadrian's wall), which we couldn't see because the visitor centre was closed, and the ocean (Heather's favorite). As usual, we got some pretty good pictures, which you can see here. We enjoyed Newcastle in spite of its unfortunate situation outside Poland, and would recommend it to potential visitors. We found a pretty good Polish deli, too. Now back to Heather...

The new digs

We moved to a new flat 3 weeks ago, but we haven't put up pictures of the new place yet. There are three reasons for this:

But, hey, it's warm, bright, and comfortable, and the view's not bad.

You Don't Even Like Me: A poem by Joel

You don't even like me.
You wish that I had no legs.
You wish I had a wooden leg.
You wish I had an immaculately manicured handlebar mustache
And an allergy to aluminum foil.
You wish I spoke the language of the squirrels.
You wish I could teach you to navigate by the stars.
And you wish that I wore a red t-shirt everywhere.
You wish I smelled like bleach.
You wish I could water-ski barefoot.
And you wish I was a professional potato farmer.

I always thought Satchel was a pretty good name.

Today in Get Fuzzy, Satch discovers anti-fun comics. Welcome aboard, Satchel!



Of course, it would be better without the last frame...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Joel, Heather, and Des'Ree! Doo doot doo...

Störung und Schadenfreude

Can this be the official comic of the Anti-Fun Society?

Depressing thought for the evening

Do a Google search for "navel reserve," and see how few of the hits are puns. An overwhelming majority are simple misspellings. Why aren't people funny, like me? Navel reserve! That's funny!

That's all.

___

10:00 pm.

Update, eodem die. Mood much improved. On my way home from 'work,' I encountered a consternated-looking 1Glasgow fox. I shared his consternation as we stood together, listening to the lush choral arrangement of 2"I walk the line" pouring forth from the window of the Postgraduate Club nearby. Our interest having faded, the fox politely excused himself and I continued on my way.

_______________________

1. Vulpes weegiensis, my first sighting this year!
2. Composer and lyricist: Johnny Cash, Choral Arrangement: anonymous, Maracas: anonymous but manifest and annoying.

OH NO!!!

Angry koalas!!!!

Too Christmassy around this place.

Too much snow.

Please pass the bureaucracy? Or have someone do it...

Here is an anecdote from my new place of occupation.

The other day, I was sitting at my desk in the Health Sciences building, working, and the phone rang. I answered it "Classroom services," as I was accustomed to do.
"Hi," said the voice on the other end. "We're having a blood drive over here in the lobby, and we can't really see what we're doing. Could you turn on the rest of the fluorescent lights for us?"
"I'll see what I can do," I answered. I asked my co-worker Joe if I could go down and do that for them.
"No," he said, "I think the Physical Plant handles lights."
"So should I call them?" I asked.
"Yeah... You could probably do that."
Then I called the Physical Plant. "Physical plant," the lady said.
"Hi, this is Joel in classroom services," I began, "and I'm calling regarding a request I've just received to turn on the rest of the lights in the Health Sciences lobby for a blood drive they're having. They can't really see what they're doing."
"The lobby? Man! I put in a work order a week ago to have those turned on."
"Oh... Right..."
"They're on break now, so they won't be able to turn on the lights until 10:00..."
"I guess that will be fine," I said, and promptly hung up the phone in amazement at the mass amounts of eerie glowing crimson tape suddenly spilling out from the phone and inundating my desk.

I wasn't going to complain

Someone told me recently that my blog is boring. It's true, I haven't posted all break. It's hard to do so when to go home means a 6,000 mile trek on foot across tundra and volcanoes, and to get anything put on the Internet you have to use a combination of smoke signals, carrier pigeons, and flares. Those flares get expensive out there! Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year's. Me, I caught malaria. Or a cold- I'm not sure which.

In light of recent comments...

I have decided to post.

Veni, vidi, volo in domum redire.
Well we had a big thing today- 18 mice all over our house, as a prank. We've caught or killed most of them and now we're trying to collect some without killing them because people want them as pets. My sister is taking two - she's naming them Cerberus and Geryon (after the giant who lowers Dante into the 8th circle of the Inferno). That reminded me of a t-shirt I liked when I saw it: Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes. It would fit her.

Anyway, we're thinking of releasing velociraptors in the girls' house (those who pranked us) as revenge. That or trouts. Pterodactyls would be too good for them.

We also went to the beach today. That was fun, unfortunately. K well that's enough for now.

And if anyone is really reading this, they should click here.

Not a real post.
This is the first post, which is not a post to the blog, which is not a blog.

I went to class today, then I came back. I had to read for a long time. Now I'm going to do laundry.

I'm getting the sinking feeling that a blog written by me will yield little to no excitement value.