God Save the Queen!

Hmm - I saw this at the supermarket checkout last week and wondered why if the Queen really is dying and has decide to name William as her successor, no other news agencies other than the Globe have reported this fact? Oh yes, that would be because the REPUTABLE news agencies try to stick to reporting facts!

This was last week's front cover. I didn't take any photos this week, but they're still harping on about the Queen dying! Here's the image of their front page from their website:

For whatever reason, (selling papers?) the Globe has it in for Charles and Camilla (and Obama.) Here are some of their recent headlines:

 DRUNKEN CAMILLA COLLAPSES OVER KATE'S BABY
NEW MOM KATE RISKS LIFE FOR ROYAL BABY
KATE KICKS CAMILLA OUT OF THE DELIVERY ROOM!
CAMILLA'S CRUEL INSULT LEAVES KATE IN TEARS
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: OBAMA BUGGED WILLIAM & KATE
CHARLES & CAMILLA CHEAT DEATH
CAMILLA THREATENS TO REVEAL CHARLES' GAY SECRETS
DYING QUEEN QUITS - EVIL CAMILLA GLOATS
DEFIANT CAMILLA'S SHOCKING VOW TO BE QUEEN
ROYAL BABY SHOWDOWN BETWEEN KATE & EVIL CAMILLA
DYING QUEEN COLLAPSES FOLLOWING CONFESSION TO KATE
PRINCE CHARLES WALKS OUT OVER CAMILLA'S INSULT
QUEEN ELIZABETH HAS JUST MONTHS TO LIVE!
BOOZED-UP CAMILLA INSULTS PREGNANT KATE
KATE'S NEW HOME BUGGED - DID CAMILLA DO IT?
CAMILLA'S EVIL PLOT TO SEIZE THE THRONE
PREGNANT KATE FLEES ROYAL FAMILY & EVIL CAMILLA
QUEEN NAMES WILLIAM NEXT KING!
KATE'S ULTIMATE 'DIANA' REVENGE ON CAMILLA

Good grief! The sad thing is, there are people out there who believe this rubbish! 

So nice to know that the Post Office cares!

The US Post Office is in financial trouble and in an attempt to save money is hoping to end certain Saturday deliveries. I have had my issues with them - letters from the other side of the state taking 10 days or more to arrive here for example. (Yet small packages marked 'Surface Mail' regularly arrive from the UK in under a week!) It seems they are trying hard to keep our business though. Today we received a damaged piece of mail that was wrapped in a plastic bag:

Can you see through the plastic bag and tell what this precious piece of mail was?



Yes, it was junk mail - an L.L.Bean catalog that no longer had a cover. You see they aren't planning on stopping all Saturday deliveries - only first class mail. The junk mail will still get delivered - though of course it seems to be the only kind of mail we get nowadays anyway. So how is not delivering Saturday mail going to save them money exactly?

Righteous mold month

I get more spam comments than real ones at this blog. That's OK - Blogger filters them out very effectively and it takes no time to hit the delete button. Some of them are quite entertaining though because the English is so bad. I'm not sure if they are the result of someone using machine translation or not using a bi-lingual dictionary very well. Either way, they are very funny. They still don't get me to click on the link though!

"Righteous mold month I was stuck in a jammed elevator and boy was I tickled pink to beget my trusty LED flashlight so I didn't bleed for so scared."

Loooking at my blog stats . . .

. . . I noticed this entry for last night:

Maybe someone at the Department of Homeland Security was just bored at work on a Sunday evening? No returning visits (yet!) and they didn't stop around for long!

To feed or not to feed the ducks?

Blue Planet Aquarium was selling food for visitors to feed to the ducks.



But right next to the vending machine full of duck food was this sign:

Nothing that you write will be read?

I had to fill out (fill in) a form last night. When I got to the end I wondered why I'd bothered:



I do wonder though, how will they know to notify me if they are not going to read the form?

Wordless Wednesday

Independence Day Parade

As always on the 4th of July, we headed off to our local parade. There were all kinds of groups in the parade - police, firefighters, farmers, Scouts - and, as always, many antique cars. Can you spot what is 'wrong' about this picture though?

Don't drink the water!

Where in the world would you see a notice like this?



Yes, it is in the United States. In the 'restroom' of the customer services department at a large restaurant chain! I suppose it is a good thing that whoever decided the sign needed to be posted didn't also need to warn people not to use the toilets/urinals for handwashing, but seriously - who on earth in such an environment needs to be told not to drink the toilet water?!!!!

The scent of seduction . . .

. . . with a hint of flame-broiled meat - Flame - a new scent from Burger King! Apparently you can't buy any though because it's only available in the US (wonder why?) and it's already sold out. (Wonder why?) Hmm - if the date were different, I would say it was an April Fool . . .

Snack wisely

Seen in the parking lot of a Maine highway rest stop:



There were snacks for sale from a vending machine at this rest stop - but there was nowhere to buy a meal.

Huh?

The polls have not yet closed in my state, yet Yahoo's state-by state results map shows that 3% of precincts have already reported their results, and that Obama "has won" in this state. Well, yes, in this state he probably has - but it just seems so wrong for them to be announcing 'results' before the polls have even closed in this state, let alone out west!

I'm not dumb

I know these online tests of 'intelligence' are really very silly, but I still like it when I do well!



Just wondering though, who on earth would post a score like this on their blog?


Especially when with just a little savvy you can change it to one like this:


And which one was my real score? I'll let you figure that out!

Gurning

Canoez asked about gurning:


HRH isn't very good at it apparently ;-)

Ferretting around

From the November 1992 Harper's:

Mr. Reg Mellor, the "king of the ferret-leggers," paced across his tiny Yorkshire miner's cottage as he explained the rules of the English sport that he has come to dominate rather late in life. "Ay, lad," said the seventy-two-year-old champion, "no jockstraps allowed. No underpants-- nothin` whatsoever. And it's no good with tight trousers, mind ye. Little bah-stards have to be able to move around inside there from ankle to ankle."

Basically, ferret-legging involves the tying of a competitor's trousers at the ankles and the insertion into those trousers of a couple of peculiarly vicious fur-coated, foot-long carnivores called ferrets. The brave contestant's belt is then pulled tight, and he proceeds to stand there in front of the judges as long as he can, while animals with claws like hypodermic needles and teeth like number 16 carpet tacks try their damnedest to get out.

From a dark and obscure past, the sport has made an astonishing comeback in recent years. When I first heard about ferret-legging, in 1972, the world record stood at forty painful seconds of "keepin' 'em down," as they say in ferret-legging circles. A few years later the dreaded one-minute mark was finally surpassed. The current record-- implausible as it may seem--now stands at an awesome five hours and twenty-six minutes, a mark reached last year by the gaudily tattooed little Yorkshireman with the waxed military mustache who now stood two feet away from me explaining the technicalities of this burgeoning sport.

"The ferrets must have a full mouth o' teeth," Reg Mellor said as he fiddled with his belt., "No filing of the teeth; no clipping. No dope for you or the ferrets. You must be sober, and the ferrets must be hungry-- though any ferret'll eat yer eyes out even if he isn't hungry. So then, lad. Any more questions 'fore I poot a few down for ye?"

"Yes, Reg."

"Ay, whoot then?"

"Well, Reg," I said. "I think people in America will want to know. Well -- since you don't wear any protection -- and, well, I've heard a ferret can bite your thumb off. Do they ever -- you know?"

Reg's stiff mustache arched toward the ceiling under a sly grin. "You really want to know what they get up to down there, eh?" Reg said, looking for all the world like some workingman's Long John Silver. "Well, take a good look." Then Reg Mellor let his trousers fall around his ankles.

[ . . .]

Loyal to nothing that lives, the ferret has only one characteristic that might be deemed positive -- a tenacious, single-minded belief in finishing whatever it starts. That usually entails biting off whatever it bites.

[ . . .]

Reg Mellor, a man who has been more intimate with ferrets than many men have been with their wives, calls ferrets "cannibals, things that live only to kill, that'll eat your eyes out to get at your brain" at their worst and "untrustworthy" at their very best.

Reg says he observed with wonder the growing popularity of ferret-legging throughout the '70s. He had been hunting with ferrets in the verdant moors and dales outside of Barnsley for much of a century. Since a cold and wet ferret exterminates with a little less enthusiasm than a dry one, Reg used to keep his ferrets in his pants for hours when he hunted in the rain -- and it always rained where he hunted.

"The world record was sixty seconds. Sixty seconds! I can stick a ferret up me ass for longer than that."

As DH said after reading this: "Ow, ow, ow!" The ferrets' tenacity does explain why Danny wished he'd brought his ferrets on our field trip when we found the rabbit warren. I'm trying to think of any strange American 'sports' that are as weird as this, but can't right now.

Tonight's dinner conversation

Discussing the possibility of a trip at some point in the future to DisneyWorld, DH (who apparently does not find the idea of a trip to see The Rat and friends enticing) made the comment: "I think the only fun ride I've ever been on in Florida was Miss Michigan." For just a moment I thought he was referring to a trip he once made to Brownsville, Texas, when he ended up on a plane with all of the Miss America contestants. However, I know he sat next to Miss Idaho so my response was "Speak English, why doncha?" (My usual comment when he's failing to explain himself well.)

DS suddenly remembered a very important question he's been asking us about regularly for the last month or so: "Where did the first baby get born?" This question has been really bothering him as we have been unable to answer him. This time he continued without waiting for an answer: "All the scientists are trying to find the answer, but some of them know the answer. A long, long, time ago when I was three a scientist somewhere near Blue Planet told me but I forgot, and they might be wrong so all the scientists are still looking for the answer."