Saturday, August 09, 2014

Saturday goofing off


OK, so you know that thing where people sing the funny weird lyrics they think is in the song just from hearing it for years, and it's hilarious because it's all gibberish and nonsense? Well, I guess They Might be Giants thought that was hilarious too...

"I'm sick of this beeswax...I'm sick of these second-story Sleestaks..." Oh me too! (Bonus Gen-X nerd-points if you know what a Sleestak is without Googling.)

I get it, Internet, I really do. Gaza, Iraq, ISIS, ebola, Synod/schism, gay marriage, Siberian Cthulhu... it's all comin' for us. And I realise we ought to be running around outside and pointing up at the sky and screaming, and falling to our knees and begging God to spare us and stuff... but I figure if it's all going to come crashing down and we all have to go live in the Mad Max world for the rest of our unpleasant and short lives, we might as well get as much fooling around and goofing off done as possible while we still can, right?


Points of interest for the day:

- So, watching archaeology videos on YouTube you often have to watch dumb adverts that have become my main means of keeping up with the weird crap Modernia gets up to. Today's was an advert from a guy who works as a "designer" for Lego telling us all about the latest thing from Lego, which is a Lego Mini Cooper... yah, that's the latest thing the kids will love. A Lego Mini Cooper.

What the hell, Lego? Why do you even have "designers"? How come Lego now only comes in these kit things that make you build what they say. I thought the point of legos was that you built stuff you made up yourself. Now it's all "Lego-X wing" and "Lego Ferrari". What's fun about that? Why not just give the kid an X-wing?

I realise that Community is a show for Gen-Xers and ... whatever the thing is that came after us... and it's all about how none of us ever managed to grow up and we all want to go back to building blanket forts and playing paintball in high school, but srsly, do kids even still build blanket forts? Are we the last generation to know how? Do they even still make space ships and time machines out of cardboard boxes? Or is it all Lego pre-fab kits for building little models of the latest iPad?

Oh, and apparently people take this so seriously that there are a dozen "review" videos on YT by grownups talking about the Lego Mini Cooper. No, I'm not even making that up to be ironic.

Every time I can be bothered to look at it, Modernia makes me anxious and confused.

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This picture of Malta. You're welcome.

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- Wait, what?! They banned Lawn Darts? Seriously?! What's next, Croquet? Because it's a mean game and kids could get mad and belt each other over the head with the mallets?

Back in the 1970s (and earlier), parents didn’t stress about our health and safety as much as they do today. It’s not that they cared less – they just didn’t worry compulsively about it.

I've got an idea why. The parents of young children today are my age and a bit younger, and we were all raised in the Cold War thinking we're all about to die. No wonder we're all jumpy as water in a hot fry pan.

(Also, all morning I've been laughing out loud, for realsies, every time I read the phrase, "...belt each other over the heads with the mallets..." because I'm evil or something, I guess.)

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- Here's a thing about Rome's sculptural skeletons. Yep, yep, yep. These things are TOTally awesome, and they're all over the place in the Festering Old Town.

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- Also, here's something that will make you jealous. Lemon Cisk. (you pronounce the "ci" in Malti, as in Italian, like "ch" in "church.") I guzzled quite a lot of this stuff, and discovering it was a revelation. There's only one drawback (well, two if you count the sugar) and that's that it is only sold in Malta. Sorry.

Moretti makes a lemon lager that I tried the other day, but it wasn't as good. Not beery enough and too sweet.

I suppose I could buy a regular beer and add some in a glass. I realise it would be cheaper and easier than moving to Malta. But...

Maybe I'll just put lemon in my beer in summer.

(Yes, Malta is that great. In fact, wait, the video ad makes it look way more boring than it is.)

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One last thing: Hey BillyHW... you still out there, boy? Shout if you're still alive.



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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You keep changing your comment system and making it more difficult to post.

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

I totally don't. Haven't done anything to it.

Thinking of dumping the word recognition thing.

Anonymous said...

Before you could just put in a name in a blank field and post. Now you have to sign in with an OpenID account.

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

Well, that's annoying. But it wasn't me. Prob. some google/blogger thing. I'll see if I can make it go away.

John said...

Random responses:
Back in the Pleistocene era when I was young, a song called "Guantanamera" was played on the radio lebenty-leben times a day, more or less. But I'd never seen the title in print. Was it "One Ton o' Metal"? "Once on a Meadow"? "Won-ton O'Meara"? Took ages to find out . . . and who knew the title began with a G?

(2) I'll see your lawn darts and raise you bake sales, which are now mala in se here in the land of the free and the home of the deluded.

(3) Fruit in beer. Hmm. I don't know. I trust you, but there are stirrings of doubt here. . . .

Cheers,

-John-

Ttony said...

My son has just discovered that Fosters make a drink called Radlers: Australian lager and lemon: which is being heavily marketed in the UK this summer, I believe.