What is it with Polish drivers? Why is it that on a day where an endless series of non-events, description of which would only make one look like a whinger, such as a 6-year-old who goes into slow-motion mode when you’re running late, or appointment collisions, or the mother of all cold sores just in time for your performance at the recorder recital and your trip to the States, a cold sore so large that strangers stop and ask you, “What’s wrong with your face?” and don’t get it when you say, “my parents are first cousins” so you have to spell it out for them: “I swallowed a pin”, each with a frustration quotient approaching zero combine to contradict the rules of mathematics (0x0x0x0x0 not equalling a zero affect on your blood pressure, but rather have blood squirting out your tear ducts and your tail dropping off in agitation and you want to just rip yourself in half i.e. 0x0x0x0x0 equals something approaching infinity) you end up behind a semi with Polish plates fastidiously going the speed limit? What is he hauling, illegal toxic waste? Illegal immigrants? Going the speed limit in Austria, a country whose national driving motto is, “Fuck you, buddy” only makes you look suspicious.

And the Dobl

I was at a school full of rich kids today in connection with my job, which normally has nothing to do with schools, praise the lord. There was a ceremony of some kind, attended by guests of honor including a bishop, an ex-foreign minister’s wife, people from the theater, various VIPs familiar from the media. Skinny, privileged, well-educated boys in suits ran around with ten dollars worth of gel in their hair. I am so thankful that I am the age I am, for one thing. I hated being a kid, mostly, and failed to appreciate the parts that I should have. For another, I had a mild urge [can you have a mild urge? would "weak hankering" be more accurate? "slight impulse"?] to take everyone two at a time, one in each hand, and crack heads together. Not sure why. We all need our heads cracked now and then, maybe. Unless you have a cold sore, as I do.

Mostly, I just thought, why can’t all kids go to schools like that?

He can land a plane; it’s flat.
Together they fight crime.

[Via Brian.]

Fun science activity for the whole family:
Make a low-tech telephone.

Here’s what you need:

• Silk thread

• Plastic cups
• Paper clips

Here’s what you do:

• Find an empty factory hall

• Attach various lengths of thread to plastic cups using the paper clips as anchors.
• Suspend threads in rows, in lengths between a few feet to fifteen meters in a web-like pattern throughout the empty factory hall, from large metal frames.
• Mic all the paper cups (which are the resonating chambers for the threads) and connect to amplifiers
• Place chairs around the edges of the hall, and scatter red futons around the floor. Sell tickets and play a concert, not by plucking the strings, but by holding them between two fingers and stroking them (don’t forget to wear thin cloth gloves, or you might end up cutting yourself!)

At least that’s what Stringraphy did last week when we went to their concert in Krems. It was really amazing. Sophisticated electronic compositions, and Michael Nyman, and The Blue Danube Waltz, played on a 50 foot wide plastic-cup-and-string-telephone-harp. Even Beta liked it.

Here’s an old rant, slightly updated, that I’ve posted before. Maybe now that I’m famous and influential people will finally listen.

Continue reading →

Man: Here, let me brush your teeth so we can go, finally. Say “Ah”.
Girl: [Sniff, sniff]
Man: And blow your nose. First blow your nose. Here’s a Kleenex, blow your nose.

Girl: Is that a new tie?
Man: It’s an old… don’t change the subject.
Girl: It’s a nice tie. Sure it’s not new?
Man: I just don’t wear it too often. Now blow your nose.
Girl: Uh-uh.
Man: [Sigh] If you don’t blow your nose, you’ll get all stuffed up worse than you are. And if you get stuffed up, you remember last time you got the earache and inner-ear infection and we had to go to the doctor at the hospital and your eardrum burst? If you get another ear infection like that we can’t fly, which means our trip to America to visit your grandparents is in the shitter.
Girl: Lalalalalala.
Man: [Holds Kleenex over her nose] Blow.
Girl: [Blows]

Man: Okay, let’s go.
Girl: Teeth.
Man: Gah.

Girl: What’s this on my stomach?
Man: Dude, I’m shaving! Naked! You’re supposed to be having some teen angst body crisis, you can’t go barging in on your dad when he’s shaving naked.
Girl: As long as it’s your face you’re shaving. What’s this on my stomach?

Man: What, that? That’s called an ab.
Girl: What?
Man: Ab. Stomach muscle. You’re getting defined stomach muscles. All that rowing. Like me, look: eh… ehm… here: theoretically, if the light were right, you should be able to see a wee bit of ab here on me.
Girl: Ok. [exit, stage left]
Man: Feh.