sweasel.com

Check out the message. The header is intact; it’s addressed to the whole internet of 1978. Well, the West Coast of the US part, which was nearly the whole internet of 1978.

Jesus! Y’all know I’ve been shoveling shit out of this house for six months, right? Just had the floors done, so 75% of the house is totally empty. Still got some half-filled boxes strewn around, but there’s essentially nothing left in here.

So the housekeeper turns up — she’s a wizened little hispanic lady — and she looks around and goes, “oh my God! Oh my God! There is nothing I can do here; I am not even going to take my coat off!”

Ummm…what? I point to things she can clean for me, and she says, “but you will hardly see a difference! You would be disappointed!”

I coax her around the house, and she’s whispering to herself, “keep a good attitude…keep a good attitude…”

Jesus. She should’ve seen the place when I started.

[…] of Spam If it wasn’t for Stoaty, I wouldn’t have anything to blog about. Her weekend post about Spam’s 30th birthday sent me to my bookcase to retrieve an old geek […]

Thanks for the giving me the subject of a second post within a week (barely). I thought you might be interested in the old Digital programming manual I’ve had kicking around forever; so I put up a couple of pix of it.

And send that wizened little hispanic lady over to my place. Guaranteed she won’t have to resort to attitude-adjustment slogans.

Are you one of those women who cleans before the cleaning service gets there?

Yes, I am.

For the first time in twenty years.

I have a friend who cleans houses and businesses, and I declined when she offered to tackle my mess. Right now I know where everything is, and if I have stuff I don’t need, it’s better than not having stuff I need.

At least it sounds good when I say it inside my head.

Oh, I have thrown away so very, very much stuff. None of it worth anything…but, oh yes, I am already going, “hey I could sure use a small screw-top jar…oh, shit. Well, how about a carrier bag? Oh. Right.”

I went to offer the cleaning lady a cup of coffee and realized I’d put all the cups in the garage ahead of her coming. I just have the one, and it’s mine.

So, is this an effort to delay putting the house on the market? How pretty does it have to be?

It’s almost done, ‘brain. I got the yard guy coming, and then that’s it.

Snif.

And then you’re gone. Over the waves to a place where they speak a furrin language.

Bonne chance, Weasel!

I’ll be right here. They have the internet over there. It’s like some kind of…international…network or something.

Then I can give reports behind enemy lines. Uncle B loves when I piss and moan about how they do things in England.

Whoa! My bad! My cleaning lady (and her husband) are Portuguese!

So I said, “wait here…” and went and got her some escudos. She was very excited. She told me which ones they had when she was a child and which they didn’t. I made her up a little care package of escudes, which she pronounces kind of like “schkudos.”

She’s a very amusing woman. I just wish she’d stop telling me how disgusting everything in my kitchen is.

Cool!

So, is the kitchen a little less disgusting now?

It’s substantially less disgusting. I think it hurts her professional cleaning-lady pride that it still isn’t House Beautiful.

I never thought I’d see the words ‘spam’ and ‘delicious’ in the same sentence. Unless it was something along the lines of – oh, I don’t know – ‘Hmm, all I’ve got in the cupboard is a tin of Spam circa 1944 with a picture of Kitchener pointing his finger and saying “What are you sitting around for? Go out and kill some Jerries for Britain!”, think I’ll go out and see if I can’t find me some furry dog eggs, which are delicious, relatively speaking.’

Mum used to ‘whizz the hoover round’ on the morning the cleaner was coming, and order us to tidy our rooms. That never did make any sense to me.

Ah, 1978. That was the year I came out. Of the womb, that is. I don’t bowl from the pavilion end or anything.

Happy Birthday Spam, you wanker.

Gibby, you’re a young’un. I didn’t realize! You have an old soul. An old, shriveled, filthy soul.

What a compliment. And my old, shriveled, filthy soul has aged, become more shrivelled and increased in filthiness since I’ve been reading McG’s blog.

Ah, the days of DEC. Good grief, I’ve been doing what for how long? I hate flashbacks.

Huh. The cleaning lady, after five hours of getting it right, has suddenly and inexplicably begun calling me “Nancy.” Which isn’t even CLOSE.

What’s the protocol?

Oh dear. She just walked through the room waving the pad she kneels on to clean floors. It’s obviously homemade.

She said, “I made this when Clinton was president, in case I got invited to the White House.”

Could it be? Is my cleaning lady a winger?

A winger? No, she obviously thought getting invited to the White House was a GOOD thing… must be Chinese in disguise.

Or Monika in disguise.

speaking of kneepads….

/gratuitous and entirely uncalled-for self-promotion

My wife and I used to do the “panic cleaning” every week just before our cleaning lady showed up. I never figured out why, but I suspect it is some sort of weird biological imperative.

That, or a simple need to keep an outsider from becoming aware of the skidmarks in one’s skivvies.

“Check out the message.”

Geez, I hadn’t realized Templeton was still around (sort of)! I never found rec.humor.funny particularly funny, though.

Stallman defending the spam IS funny.

Also, from the previous thread,

“Wonder if that is someone I know”

Could be, but then again there’s a reason I’m pseudonymous…

Actually I do sometimes wonder if some of the morons aren’t people I’ve known from other lives. Best not to look too deeply into that, though.

Please to send nice Portuguese lady to me … it would take her a week to (sorta) tackle Maxine’s wildly shedding winter fur alone …. I’m working the weekend again (I should be home vacuuming (baling? spinning?? weaving???) cat fur).

Alt.humor.best-of-usenet was occasionally VERY funny. I stopped reading it when it devolved into an endless kaleidoscope of ‘Bush looks like a chimp’ jokes.

D’you know, my new yard guy is Portuguese, too?

Does the yard guy have kneepads on?

Ya see, Weaz! And you thought my bringing up escudos was a whim. Ha!

…And I dread you being at the cleaning stage. I foresaw an image of you beating the crap out of some cleaning person – male and out on the lawn, oddly enough – shortly before you disappeared into the bliss that is Britland very shortly thereafter.

I don’t believe how young Gibby is! I thought he was my generation.

Gibby: you’re just one year older than I am. Woohoo! Age-kindred!

I guess I could have been less emphatic with the “shortly’s”, but I was distracted by my Kraft Dinner with white albacore tuna.

Kraft Dinner with white albacore tuna contains all the nutrients – except the hallucinogens – a McGoo needs to thrive. If they’d put some Mandrake root or Athelas in it, it would be nutritionally complete.

Now, I will go find Elijah, the New Bedford stewbum, and get a reading on the future of things Stoat-ish.

I see much vodka in my future. And never did weasel so thoroughly deserve (and appreciate!) intoxicating liquors.

Dare I ask what a “S;am” is?

The someone I know in NYC is, presumably, still there and I don’t think old enough to remember Templeton. And would likely twig to my nic, so it must be someone else. And that someone would not likely have let my reference to the shoju incident pass so quietly.

Obvously, I need to have some escude on hand.

Just in case.

“The Shoju Incident”

(just sayin’)

😉

Vodka.

Elijah says, “It’s what Saturday nights were made for.”

There is an old saying that goes something like, “You work for your Help as much as they work for you,” i.e. you alter your behavior and/or choices simply to maintain “appearances” in front of the Help, e.g. cleaning up before the housekeeper gets there.

The only thing I do is clean up the used syringes and baggies layin’ around. And ditch the bodies, of course.

Looks like the Ace-O’-Lanche is pooping out a bit now, Weasel. Why does looking at your stats make me feel naughty – like I’m lookin’ upskirt or sumpiin? Odd, that.

Yep. Pooping out. Until the next time, that is. Make it soon, Stoaty. That was exciting! There were strange folks here!

Put that fuzzy li’l nartist bwain in gear. Think “Olympics”. Either Chinese (now) or Brit (2012). Hey! you’ll be there!

Mus: Dare I ask what a “S;am” is?

Oh, you can dare, but are you sure you spelled that right?

(just sayin’)

I just wanna try and downplay it…

It’s not like the government really fell or anything. At least, not right away, anyway.

Gawp away, McGoo. And yeah, it’s petering out. Again, referrals are more telling than hits when trying to figure out where the ‘lanche stops and ordinary traffic resumes. My ordinary traffic consists of unknown (bookmarks and…just plain unknown, I assume), Google image hits and the morons.

I don’t plan to be ANYWHERE NEAR London in 2012. We’re a couple of hours away…if you know the route and are a good driver. In 2012, I’m going to be the farmer’s wife: shelling lambs and canning rabbits and making lupin cordial. Fuck yeah!

Oh-ho! I have just spotted the S;am! It’s in the graphic.

Well spotted, Musli. Now, bite me ! 😛

Lupin cordial! Yummy!

*It has lots of thujone in it, or at least it would have if I was King of the World.*

I always hated shelling the Fall lambs.

Twenty-two years wed to my highschool sweetheart this day. I guess you could say it has been a blissful sort of union with a shot of piss-n-vinegar (that would be me. heh.)

He would like to retire his regular job and become a farmer, which would make me a farmer’s wife too.

Congratulations to ya, PnB – and the lucky guy, too!

and the lucky guy, too!

Thank you McGoo, but I consider myself the lucky one.

And after 10 hours of driving from my once a year visit with friends of a feather (it always falls on the first weekend in May), this bean needs some serious zzzzzz’s.
Not only are the drivers insane in Georgia, but you can taste the air down there….and I thought MO pollen was bad. GAK!

Oh…I’m liking the little weasel hand up in the sidebar. Very cute.

Yep! Those li’l weasel fingertips pads are cute!

Oh-ho! I have just spotted the S;am!

Huh. So it is. Don;t you just hate having “regulars” who are unashamed of sayin; stuff like “whazzat?”

Mmmmm. Shelled lambses. Can you can ;em like runnybabbits? My great granny Mims used to put up lots of venison, great stuff. She put up 109 quarts one year…but my wife doan like mincemeat much, so not any point in me putting up a whole lot.

porknbean:

like to retire his regular job and become a farmer,

Uh, he does realize that being a farmer is like, uh, work? And not just a little, you know, lord of the manor making the rounds kind of stuff, but like that agrarian lifestyle that people love so much that they climb in ter little boats and drift hundreds of miles at see to avoid?

But congratulations anyway, even if Mr. PorkNBean is stark raving loony tunes hummed underwater. 😉

Comment from Goo-boy:

Those li’l weasel fingertips pads are cute!

They are, but they don;t answer the question:

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Oh, no, EW! Properly shelled lambs cease to exist.

You shell the lambs with artillery! Well – some say a mortar is best, but I’m a purist. Grandma used a howitzer! Heaved the shells into the breach herself until she was 89! Finally dropped a live one on her toe and that ended her trifling ways. We found her corset and her nose-ring in the next county.

How ’bout your fambly? How did they shell the Fall lambs?

That’s Mr. nBean to you, EW!

Steamboat McGoo axed (wit a double bitt timbre):

How ’bout your fambly? How did they shell the Fall lambs?

Dunno that we ever had any Fallen lambs (even if the dogs were, ah, not the most reliable in their protective duties), but generally when they got big ;enuff, everyone would remember kneeling behind the momma sheep in the dark, cold, rainy (coming down just past horizontal), muddy, miserable, Oregon February fields with the almost cold enough to freeze dirty standing water turning your legs and arms into wooden appendages reaching up inside the reproductive parts of some ewe to drag the little critter out because sheeps is too dumb to be plumbed correctly to give birth by themselves.

And then plug ’em in the brain pan with a rifled slug from a 12 ga. shotshell, cute or no.

I noticed the S;am right away, but I decided to be nice. Unlike Musli, apparently. Hmmph!

(Just kidding, Mus. In fact, I am riding Michael over at IB about a typo right now.)

Aaahh! But that is the question, isn’t it?

It’s a graphic, so it can’t be a typo.

It must – therefore – be a grapho.

It must – therefore – be a grapho.

Oooh! That sounds much … dirtier!

Congrats on making 30 Weasel, I am just a year up from you. Hmmm…. seems like there is a few conservatives in our age bracket. Excellent, means I’m not the only one out there.

Old Iron – Weaz isn’t 30. The stuff called “spam” is 30. But, given that her nickname used to be Spam, it was an easy assumption to make.

Weaz is barely out of her teens, but – since she’s a Reverend Mother with the Bene Nartists – she has all of her ancestors’ memories of centuries of drugged & drunken debaucheries and not a little bit of recreational belly dancing. And the mooning, of course.

Ah. Sadly, Old Iron, I’m nearer 50 than 30. The weird thing is, your mama wasn’t kidding, it doesn’t feel any different. Which is weird. You peer into the mirror of a morning with a toothbrush hanging out of your face and think, “who they hell is that old broad?”

It has an upside. You’ve figured out how things work by this age. You know, for example, that most problems can be solved by waving a credit card around. This is why old folks talk about their health so much: it doesn’t bow before capitalism like a busted carburetor or a city code violation.

Gibby: you’re just one year older than I am. Woohoo! Age-kindred!
Amen to that.

That weasel fist graphic is nice. Did it replace something? My, do weasel, uh, hands really look like that? If so, then they’ve basically got fingers. I guess that’s how they manage to compose black and white websites.

Thanks for the compliments. The Doan Go graphic has been kicking around my scratch folder for a while. I’m not really happy with it; it’s a little too people and not quite enough weasel. Weasels do have surprisingly long ‘fingers’ but not quite like that. However, I figured it was a good one to put up while a ‘lanche trickled away.

It replaces the “Where’s Weasel?” graphic.

Very, VERY hungry kitty.

From the looks of it, this is probably a stray. He’s really emaciated. Charlotte was about that age when I trapped her, but worse than this; way too shy and too weak for this kind of tussle.

And, no…Damien hasn’t showed up yet. Hope he’s okay, the little shitbag.

And then plug ‘em in the brain pan with a rifled slug from a 12 ga. shotshell, cute or no.

EW1(SG), you are pure evil incarnate.

Wanna get together for dinner sometime? I have this wonderful lamb/couscous recipe. They cook and taste the same, cute or no.

About all sheep are good for is eating young, wool, and… did I mention eating young? Not only are they improperly plumbed but their wiring is all hinky too. They get snagged on a blackberry bush they will just sit there, snagged until they starve to death.

Hiya Weas!

I’m an interested reader thats still hangin on post-ACEalanche…

So, Why you heading to England?, and are you checking green cards or are ya hiring illegalz?

As another post-alanche reader all I can say is that I came for the photoshop, but I’m staying for the Stoaty goodness.

Yay! Welcome. If we got any more inbred up in this blog, they were going to make us move to Austria.

Gettin’ hitched to a Brit, JT. And let that be a lesson to you: don’t EVER write to strangers on the internet.

I seem to recall an earlier discussion of the intellectual limitations of sheep. They exist for three distinct reasons:
1. Eating
2. Wool
3. Making horses look smart.

There’s a fourth reason floating around out there that involves Texans, but that one is more of an option.

Hey! That fourth reason only applies to the really attractive ones. As for the rest — mince & curry for the lot!

jwpaine – bwah hah! Ha ha ha ha! That was beautiful. And really, sheep make most anything look smart. Exceptin’ libs.

Mince, curry, shank, chops .

Steam: Hey, I didn’t mention ugly sheep for a reason. Texans can be so touchy about their, um, wimmin.

LemurKing: Why, thanks. In the words of the great philosopher: “Garshk.” For me, even Costco lamb chops are superb.

Has LK been spreading rumors about me again? It;s true that I was born in Texas, but it was an accident of birth! I’m an Oregonian, truly!

And Costco lamb chops are greeeaaaat! Saves on gunpowder costs.

//AND did anybody notice the quadruple entendre up there?? Can I get credit for that one? Can I? Can I? Please?

Uh, he does realize that being a farmer is like, uh, work?

EW1, yes he does, but it is a different kind of work. He says corporate stress is killing him. Farming is in his genes. Had WWII had not done the damage it had done, his family would still be farming the land they had farmed for centuries (it was taken from them).
He doesn’t want to do anything more than grow enough for self sufficiency (and watch the grass grow) through the warm months. No critters though he said I could get a pet pig if I wanted.
Gotta go, he’s going to help me plant my flowers. Kbai.

To experience what it is to be a “real farmer”, just have somebody wake you up before dawn (and, to simulate irrigation by water shares, every two hours on alternate Thursdays); splatter the shit from various kinds of barnyard animals on your boots, clothes, hair (a test for sufficiency of quantity is simple: if everything you eat does not taste/smell like shit, apply more); keep a dead animal nearby at all times; and go stand in the shower for hours (unless you wanted to shower, in which case have somebody throw dust in your face for hours).

[Shakes head] EW, EW, EW…No, silly, I did not say you were from Texas. I told everyone you were from California. SF to be exact. Remember, you may not get full credit for quadruples if you have to point them out. How’s about everybody go back and look for ’em?

jwpaine, you are either describing farm life or life in a fraternity, I’m not sure.

EW: Oh, I do recognize you (lgf). Just keeping a low profile.

When I first met Uncle B, he was living in the center of London — a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace — and hating it. We used to fantasize about buying a farm together.

And then one day, he got nervous that I was thinking of an actual real working farm, and he was like, “we’re talking about a nice garden and maybe some chickens, right?”

There’s a reason why people in third world countries sign up to work in sweatshops 14 hours a day rather than work the fields as their ancestors have done before them, yea back unto the mists of time. Real farm work sucks.

It’s a strange paradox, though, that many people (and I’m one of them) just can’t be satisfied with the happy product of what umpteen generations of our ancestors have striven for.

Here we are with nice, clean work, indoors, in the warm, with no heavy lifting and paid holidays. And yet the first chance we get, we’re out there doing for free what Great Grandpa vowed he’d make sure no member of his family ever had to do again.

I spent seven hours out there today, planting and watering and potting-on and sowing and digging (natch). I feel like I won the lottery.

Oh, and I have absolutely no memory of Her Ladyship and I ever discussing a farm. I must have been drunk at the time.

So where did you two first meet? On-line? At a party? In a field?

I feel like I won the lottery.

That is how my husband describes it after a stressful week of product managering. He looks forward to working in his dirt. The physicalness of it helps him sleep better for starters. He’s a simple man.

pnb, if you ask around, I think you’ll find that most of us men consider ourselves simple. Once you meet four or five basic needs (beyond air/water/food) we’re pretty content mostly.

LemurKing has it – there is a real need to connect with the fundamentals.

The number of intensely intellectual men I have known who would simply splode if they didn’t build walls or dig ditches at the weekend convinces me that we cannot (probably dare not) turn our backs on the primal.

Strange stuff, testosterone. On the one hand it drives the impulse to invent logarithms, on the other it makes us hurt if we don’t chop down trees and grow beans.

My solution was to plant a vineyard. What more could you ask for, work in the dirt then drink the wine.

Yes, Uncle, we do all bow down before Lord Testosterone.

Being pretty much laid up this last year has KILLED me. I get up, go to work in my comfy office, go home and lie on the couch… I ask you: Is THAT any way to live? No.

I actually got out for the second time in 9 months and puttered around in the yard. I mowed, raked a bit, pulled some old plants from last year. I’m going to pay and pay and pay for it, but good God it felt wonderful. To be dirty, to sweat, to grunt, to scratch. Arrrr-arrr! (Tim Allen lives not far from here, I need to keep it down or he’ll hear)

I have occasionally helped my carpenter neighbor with side jobs doing vinyl siding, fascia, etc. It took him a while to figure out why I wouldn’t accept any payment for helping him. Truth be known, I would have paid him for the privilege of helping him.

I spent decades in an office pushing a slide-rule and PC – doing design work and project mgt. I would have died young & insane if I had not had outdoor, physical, mindless hobbies and activities to satisfy my ‘get-dirty-and-sweaty’ hormones.

Far as I’m concerned, any man who doesn’t occasionally have to just go out and bust a muscle or two and get filthy is a bit incomplete.

Once you meet four or five basic needs (beyond air/water/food) we’re pretty content mostly.

This, we wimmins (most) are well aware of and wouldn’t have it any other way. Forget the metrosexual nonsense, there is nothing like a man who can work with his hands and gets dirty.
In the end, the primal wins.

Heh…case in point…sometimes when Mr. Bean is hollering at me about something….all I have to do to get him to stop and forget his name, is to flash him my pretties and run like hell. TMI? Probably, but it works.

*sniff* Mmmmm….testosterone.

We’re all adults, I think. TMI would be if you’d said that before 8pm.

And yes, pnb, that is indeed one of the four or five basic needs. The other is the remote control. The flashing shorts out our brains, the remote is a replacement for our brains.

You sure can’t beat going out and busting a gut trying to leverage a 400lb chunk of concrete out of your yard with a long section of irrigation pipe by yourself. Ok, so you’re crippled for a week or two, but you did it. How is it that this generation has managed to emasculate and ridicule men to the point where it’s (and I shit you not) possible to get snarled at for holding a door for a lady?

And to think I’ve been called metrosexual because I happen to believe that if you prepare it right, tofu can be tasty.

Once you meet four or five basic needs (beyond air/water/food) we’re pretty content mostly.

Lemme see now. That would be 240VAC to run the arc welder. A 10½ inch tablesaw, minimum. Gas torch. Anvil.

Yep, pretty much covers the bases.

And I’m not sure that cutting oil splash from the lathe or milling machine counts as real dirt, since I like to run ’em inside and warm.

/And I do hope I haven’t caused someone any difficulties. But it is good to see him, now and again.

And to think I’ve been called metrosexual because I happen to believe that if you prepare it right, tofu can be tasty.

Passable, perhaps.

/Is my week up yet?

(sigh) No, the week is not up yet. Two more days. Depends on the definition – one week or one week and one day…

Go ahead…

🙂

The testosterone comment is spot on. I was home on rotation in March and after a huge windstorm kicked up a tree was conveniently deposited on the roof of my house. I hired some professionals to chop the thing up who after they arrived and saw me with gloves on looked at me a little odd but put me to work as well.

-I loved EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

S.Weasel- I apologize for the assumption, but as I was taught from a youthful age that to underestimate a woman’s age is to quickly inter yourself in her good graces.

-Did I get any brownie points for that? 😉

Heh. Thirty bothered me. After that, not so much. Oh! Thirteen bothered me, too. I hated becoming a teenager.

There is not an ounce of testosterone in my body, which is probably a good thing from a ‘facial hair’ standpoint. You can sit me in a darkened room with a book or a video game or a small piece of paper and come back twelve hours later and I won’t have changed position. I’d have bed sores if I didn’t need to get up and pee occasionally.

PnB, we met on USENET. We’re old school like that. The stupid thing is, I felt comfortable getting in touch with him because I knew he lived in England and couldn’t possibly think I was flirting.

There is not an ounce of testosterone in my body, which is probably a good thing from a ‘facial hair’ standpoint.

Sorry, ain’t buying it. (Well, I’ll buy the lack of facial hair, but anyway.)

The “rassle” graphic didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. It may be that you put your ounce of T into other things…but there’s a little there somewhere. (Come to think of it, may account for your conservatism.)

The stupid thing is, I felt comfortable getting in touch with him because I knew he lived in England and couldn’t possibly think I was flirting.

Huh. I met my wife when I asked her to share a hotel room with me for a weekend BBQ she didn’t feel she could afford to go to (without a roomate). We were active in the same forum for a long time, but I don’t know if we had exchanged more than about two words before that.

Well, okay, I have testosterone enough that I played trombone in the Middle School band. But that was so I could sit with the boys and poke the woodwinds in the butt with my slide.

Also, I inherited the trombone from my big brother.

PnB, we met on USENET.

Which newsgroup? (Or, if you’re paranoid, which hierarchy?)

“jwpaine, you are either describing farm life or life in a fraternity, I’m not sure.”

LemurKing: Is there a difference?

Someone: I’m extraordinarily paranoid. Hierarchy: alt 😉

When I realized the Deja News (now Google Groups) database didn’t go back farther than 1996, I was a very happy weasel.

jwpaine: Very little. I lived in one long enough to grow to despise it.

“Alt”? Wow. That narrows it down to a few thousand. 😉

I’ve always wondered how you and Uncle B. met. Thanks for thbe info.

I just had to share this with you: from the comment thread of Harry Hutton’s post “Go Johnsons!”:
“norman” initially wrote:

Winchester is the capital of England.

Every year in the tourist season the town is awash with Frenchies of all ages, apparently sent on an obligatory tour to gloat and preen themselves in the place where their boy William came, saw, conquered and was finally crowned.

The French history narrative is something to the effect that the descendants of the Norman conquerers later returned to France to liberate their cousins from the Nazis!

Fucking cheeky, cheese eating surrender monkeys! It’s about time we sent hordes of chavs over to Waterloo to stage a re-enactment, and then march from Belgium into Paris blitzkrieg style. With any luck they’d stay there.

“Philip” wrote:

William the Conqueror was not a Frenchman. He and his cohorts were the descendants of Scandinavian immigrants who landed in the north of France in order to rape, plunder and steal Celtic jobs from Celtic workers.

The capital of England is E.

(Regarding the capital, Harry said the capital of England was York.)

To which “norman” responded:

Philip.

Tell that to the Frenchies. It would’nt have been so bad if all they had stolen was their jobs.

They had it away with their whole bleedin’ country.

To which “Philip” answered:

Tell that to the Frenchies.

William le conquérant n’était pas un français. Lui et ses cohortes étaient les descendants des immigrés scandinaves qui ont débarqué dans le nord de la France afin de violer, piller et voler les travaux celtiques des ouvriers celtiques.

Oh, the English are quite funny!

Oh, the English are quite funny!

They can be. They have a pet Brit over at GCP who frequently has a delightful turn of phrase.

…fired out of a cannon into a dead whale’s rectum… indeed.

So, has there been a Damien sighting lately? I really hope he’s okay.

Yes. Please tell us about Damien. I have been quite worried.

Meh. No. Haven’t seen him since…Friday, I think. Three days is the longest he’s gone before, so I think he’s officially missing now.

I’ve called the shelters and put an ad on Craig’s list. I suspect his regular territory is quite wide, but I’ve driven around a little.

Kinda shits for the birthday fortnight. Charlotte and Damien and I all share roughly the same birthday (I’m not sure the exact day either of them was born, but it has to be early May).

so I think he’s officially missing now.

How old is he now?

For a while when he was younger, Dave would go for a couple of days…the he would go out longer, and longer, somtimes staying out 4-5 days on a regular basis for a while. Think the longest he stayed out was 8 days, that I know of.

Had me pulling my hair out, as I’m sure you’re doing now, but he might just be the right age to give Momma grey hair.

He’s two. And, yeah, I certainly haven’t given up hope. He’s done three days in a row before, and I promised myself last time I’d remember that and not get too worked up about it.

All the male cats I’ve had were occasional wanderers. But all of the cats I’ve in my adult life were fully grown strays I took in, so we had a more casual relationship. Like roommates. With headrubs. The two I have now I got as kittens, hence I’m unusually goopy about them.

It’s depressing going to the lost and found on Craig’s list. All those people and their missing pets.