K8 the GR8

My, but aren’t Irish men horny on Sundays?!  I made €32 on tips alone, just by flirting behind the wheel today, as opposed to €8 yesterday and €12 on Thursday.  What’s so special about Sundays?

KA-CHINGGG!!!

I heard a snippet of news on the radio that made me giggle:  Apparently when Bertie told his co-workers he was going to throw in the towel, they “wept openly”.  Grown men?  Politicians?  I don’t think so.  I think Bertie pre-empted it.  I think he ate an extra-hot vindaloo and washed it down with five pints of Guinness the night before, then stuffed his pockets with onions the next morning before work.  It was the gas that made them cry… the gas.  Either that, or politicians are damn good actors!  Oh wait… right, never mind.

I heard a most excellent song on the radio today… several times, in fact.  It’s a version of House of Pain’s ‘Jump!’, which is a song that sparks the dancing flames into almost everybody when they hear it.  It is possibly the no.1 best song that one could hear in a nightclub and I love it.  This version is in flagrante as Gaeilge.

You Oirish readers out there know exactly what I’m talking about.  It’s Des Bishop, fair play to him… he’s learned the language in 4.2 minutes and has now taken on the coolest song known to mankind.  Here’s a link to the song on Donncha O’Caoimh’s site, Holy Shmoly.  (Don’t listen to this video if you are over the age of 50.  You will hate it.  Especially you.)  I can’t find the radio version, but I’ll buy the single if it’s released because it’s a pretty darn excellent version.

Thing is though, everything the Irish try to coolify ends up being naff in some way.  I’m eternally proud of their efforts and of the language itself, but somehow there is nothing that will entice us to relinquish that final little bit of British rule… the English language.  This song might just be enough to entice our schoolkids into pricking up their ears regarding the old Gaeilge, but that’s because they’re Irish.

As for the rest of the world… they don’t know that ‘Léim’ means ‘jump’!  All they hear is: ‘LAME, LAME, LAME, LAME, LAME!’  *sigh*  Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the definition of irony.

On a different note, a good blogger buddy of mine has been censored.  Yes!  Censored!  Read all about it here: Brianf; the hate monger blog  (Oh my lord!  Somebody else is on to us!  Kill it!  Kill it!)  Seems as though Bush -the big bad rookie himself- has found some more bitches.

Propaghandi?

On another different but equally irking note,  I read this on Going Like Sixty’s site: Bloggers are being sued out there… read all about it!  I’m pretty sure that this sueing pillock is only after a domain name, but like I say… I’m naive.  The offending site is at Neurodiversity.  It makes for interesting reading.

Bloody hell… I only came on here to write about my extra tips!  Wine is excellent blog lubrication I find.

To finish up, I would like to quote a rather insightful spam I received today;

Humph. Someone has to force me to read this post. It’s too big and boring. Brevity is the sister of talent, remember that.

Thank you, Adriana Naked Lombard xxx, I shall remember this to the end of my…

 post.

I’m officially a big fat hypocrite.  I used to love whingeing about taxi drivers, saying what wankers they were to push me out of a lane or cut me off.  I joked when people told me I’d be the same… I swore I’d remain considerate, but no, today I fell over the edge. 

Drivers dithering at the lip of a slip lane are asking for me to overtake them.  People sitting at filter arrows across from me seem to want me to cut them off, it’s not my fault.  Taxi drivers are just on auto-pilot most of the time… I am, even after only three days.  I’m too busy concentrating on the radio, my destination and other car’s bumpers for me to remember to be nice. 

So on behalf of all the taxi drivers in Ireland, we’re sorry, but if you’re dozy, we’ll just keep right on trucking.  We have to.  Feel free to bully back, it makes a nice break from the routine!

I found a video for you.  I hope it works.  It’s a rather inspiring story about an adopted African boy:

Thanks Kelly :)

I seriously love it when blokes go all taboo.  Nickhereandnow in his infinite excellent wisdom, wrote his view on hairiness (and prevention of) today.  I leaped with joy to read his post, as it’s a great excuse to have a go, especially seeing as I may just be the hairiest girl in the world.

You might have seen this face before:

This smug mug belongs to my father, who bestowed his wisdom, height, and Wookie genes upon me.  Now you perhaps will appreciate my point.

Freud would have it that I would prefer the bearded bloke when seeking a mate, but this for some reason went out the window when I chose a man with exactly two hairs on his chest.  Freud also said that a woman is either constantly running towards her father, or away from him.  If you saw my dad standing on top of his pile of tourist carcasses, you’d probably choose the latter, too.  With the exception of Gimme perhaps, bearded men are generally too ‘nice’ for me, being that I like just a pinch of bad-boy in my men.

Anyway, being that I am with a minimally hairy bloke, a lot of discussion has led me to understand that excess hair on my own self is not appreciated.  I have been asked to visit the beautician’s quarters for a ‘bald eagle’ of late  (TAT’s knowledge of the hairstyles in that region astounded me).  I refused point blank, as I have already experience pube waxing and found it not to my taste, especially when you’re being done by a vindictive cow who insists on ripping away at the same raw and bleeding patch 17 times.

Then, in my infinite female wisdom, I challenged TAT.  I told him I’d go the va-general whole hog on the day he went through with a back, crack, and sack wax.  We agreed to leave it at that, for that was good enough for this particular gander (’Bollox to that!’ he said.  ‘Exactly!’  I said).

The thing is though, you might be here expecting me to fully support this sort of image:

Not a chance, matey.  The gals at school were the first to point out what a freak I was.  Then when my best friend’s little brother began to call me ‘Dr. Zaius’, I knew it was time, and deforestation began against my mother’s wishes.

-x-

My de-fuzzing attempts are as follows:

-I tried Immac first (now Veet) which is a type of acid which, when applied to the skin, produces a very weird smell to let you know your skin is being poisoned.  Then after a while, one washes said acid off, along with scorched dead hairs.  Not so with us very hairy chicks!  We just end up with alien legs that still need to be shaved despite chemically raw conditions.  Binned.

-I tried those electric shavers twice.  The first time it was useless.  The second time came years later when I had forgotten how useless they were but they are still useless.  Binned.

-I tried waxing once when I decided for some unknown reason that the midwife in the hospital in which I was due to explode shortly at the time, might be offended by my… umm… genetic condition.  Bikini waxes hurt.  They really sodding hurt.  And, to make matters prettier, there were many craters, and much ingrown nastiness to follow.  I tried home kits a few times on my arms, but with crap results.  The pain was overtaken by the frustration of being totally unable to uproot the final 15% of the really stubborn hairs.  It was almost the death of me, so it was binned.

-I even tried one of those electrolysis machines, bought on Ebay for fifty quid.  The principle is that you hold this pen (which is wired to the mains) in your left hand.  Instead of a nib, the pen has a micro-thin wire which you insert into the root of your offending hair.  You then touch the silver part of the pen with your wet hand, and ‘BZZZZZZZT’ - you complete the circuit and get root electrocution.  It smells rotten, it feels rotten, and you’d have to do it a rotten further 15,000,000 times to kill all the hair on your body.  Binned.

My only man is your average disposable razor blade (especially the ‘new’ and ‘improved’ ones!), and a large bottle of Fruit of the Earth Crystal Clear Aloe Gel.

-x-

It takes me half an hour to shave everything (trying to shave one’s toe-knuckles with severe myopia is a serious challenge), much longer if I’m expecting a trip to the swimming pool or beach.  It sucks, but I don’t mind, because there is not a chance in hell you’d find me letting it grow.  It doesn’t feel natural, ironically, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the media talking.  If a bloke were to walk up to me and tell me that hairy women are his greatest turn on, I’d run away. 

Anthropologically, it doesn’t make sense for women to be hairy.  Sure… didn’t they get to stay in caves and nurture young?  Men of course needed hair to keep the warm and display their virility and that’s lovely… I’m a magnet to a scruffy stubble, as long as it’s only a few days old.  Men needhair, but I don’t really understand how evolution hasn’t phased it out yet for women… Mother Nature must have gotten the hint by now that it’s out-dated and un-wanted?!  In fact, this guy claims women are generally getting hairier, and yes, there is indeed a blog dedicated to the subject out there! Hairy Women Blog.

Is this one of natures oldest jokes?  I sure as hell ain’t laughing.

The following is taken from the book ‘211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do’ by Tom Cutler.  All information taken directly from the book is marked by quotations, otherwise the material is summarised by Yours Truly.

1. This is the well known trick of slicing a banana without peeling it.  If you stick a needle through a dark spot and rotate it sideways repeating on the opposite side, then do the same at various intervals, you’ll have an unpeeled sliced banana.  Leaking is involved, so it’s best to have this trick prepared in advance.  “You can leave it in the fruitbowl for an unsuspecting victim, or pretend to cut it with an invisible knife, before peeling it yourself.  Children find this particularly mysterious.”
2. Get two blindfolded partyfolk to feed each other bananas.  “This can be highly amusing, as you might suppose, and there are many interesting variations possible - which I will leave to your imagination.”
3. There is a trick you can do with either a peeled hard-boiled egg or a (partly peeled) banana, a wide-necked bottle, and a piece of burning paper.  The idea is to block the neck with the foodstuff of your choice, trapping the flame inside.  The fires need for oxygen should then suck the banana inside, thus peeling it for you.  “But, in all my years of trying this interesting sounding stunt, I have never made it work.  The amount of energy required for the job is apparently just too great.  Nevertheless in the spirit of scientific enquiry, you could try it yourself.”
4. Planning a boring day out with relatives in a stately home?  Conceal a banana up your sleeve and keep a hold of the top part with thumb and forefinger.  As you pass a small tree, turn your back to the relatives and grab a small branch, pinching the banana against it.  “With great seriousness, draw people’s attention to it saying: ‘It’s amazing what grows here now.  It must be global warming.’  Pretend to tear the banana off, then peel it and eat it.  Gets a laugh every time.”

Mr. Cutler then follows with a wee snipped of banana trivia; “A 1982 law forbade joking about Zimbabwean president Canaan Banana’s name.”

As my own personal number 5, I would like to offer Baino’s further suggestion as it is a classic… “they’re handy for demonstrating the application of a condom!”

The following is taken from the book ‘211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do’ by Tom Cutler.  All information taken directly from the book is marked by quotations, otherwise the material is summarised by Yours Truly.

Mr. Cutler gives the following advice;

• “Learn the odds, which you can easily discover with a computer search.  Once you know them upside-down you’re ready to go.”
• “Bet only when the odds are in your favour: so avoid the tables and target the gamblers.”
• “When you do win, keep very quiet but when you lose, make a big noise about it.  This is known as the reverse fruit-machine technique.”

Find a loudmouth at a craps table who is yelling about fives and seeming to be in a gambling mood.  “You know that, out of the 36 possible combinations from a throw of two dice (6 X 6), there are four ways to roll a five.  The odds are therefore eight to one that he won’t roll a five, so you say: ‘I bet you four to three is isn’t a jolly old five.’ Chances are he’ll forget the odds and bet on his superstition, and you’ll win again.”

Mr. Cutler also provides tricks which you can base certainty bets on.

• If you take a cigarette and wrap it in flattened cellophane leaving extra cellophane at the ends which you twirl shut, you can then tie the fag in a knot against belief.  You can also stamp on it and dip it into a pint without damaging the ciggy inside, thus earning you your winnings!
• Ask “Lady Luck” to choose who picks up the bill after a meal, by getting her to put several matchsticks (snapped in halves) in an ashtray.  Get your fellow diners to each take a stick in turn, the last one to pick up being the one who has to pay.  “The secret is simple: always pick first.”

The following is taken from the book ‘211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do’ by Tom Cutler.  All information taken directly from the book is marked by quotations, otherwise the material is summarised by Yours Truly.

“The Shrieking Monkey”

This is the best known trick that can be done with blades of grass.  Align your thumbs parallel to each other, then place a thick blade of grass lengthways between them.  The knuckle and heel of your thumbs hold the grass tightly in place so that it is taut.  Form an ‘O’ with your mouth, then blow through your thumb knuckles hard to make the grass vibrate, thus producing “an ear-splitting shriek.  It’s not very musical but is excellent for attracting the attention of your chums across a millpond - and for annoying your sister.”

“Magic Climbing Grass”

If you look closely at a blade of grass, you’ll see thousands of tiny hairs which all point the same way.  Holding the grass at one end very lightly between index finger and thumb, stroke the hairy side of the grass rapidly with your thumb.  “The grass will climb mysteriously upwards. (If it goes down, you have it positioned the wrong way.)”

“Catchum”

Find a blade of grass “not longer than your finger”, and attach a wee glob of mud to one end.  Dangle the grass glob side down over a friend’s extended thumb and forefinger.  “Bet him he cannot catch the grass by closing his thumb and finger if you let it go without warning.  Nine times out of ten he will fail.”

“The Nose Cannon”

Roll a blade of grass into a ball and shove it into one of your nostrils.  Draw attention to yourself, then close the empty nostril and blow the grass out, hopefully with enough velocity to carry the balled-up grass a good distance.  “Make sure your sinuses are clear before trying this; people dislike being struck by particles of extraneous nose-matter.

The following is taken from the book ‘211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do’ by Tom Cutler.  All information taken directly from the book is marked by quotations, otherwise the material is summarised by Yours Truly.

                                                                               ”Like the ability to burp at will, this is one of those things with almost no practical application.  But if you take the trouble to learn how to do it, you are always ready to wow people with a demonstration of your skill… Unlike burping, it’s more important here that you follow the instructions precisely and with care, otherwise you will hurt yourself.”

What you will need:

• An 8 or 10 inch nail
• A large piece of soft cloth
• A short wooden plank (Choose a softish type of wood such as pine)
• 2 chairs

How to do it:

1. Show the nail to your audience, holding it by its tip.  “Wrap your rag… so that it lies in the centre of the cloth, which is balled up and held in your right palm, the nail protruding between the curled middle and third fingers, at a point between the first and second knuckles.”
2. Ask an audience member to set up the plank between two chairs.
3. “Steady the plank with your left hand and raise your right hand slowly and dramatically, as high as you can reach.”
4. “Suddenly bring your hand down hard, absolutely perpendicular to the board.  You must strike it with the nail perfectly straight or it will not penetrate.”
5. “Remove your hand and unwind the wrapper to reveal the nail in the wood.”
6. You can then pass the plank around and ask people to remove the embedded nail… this should be a tough task.

I found a most excellent book today on the ‘please take me I’m free!’ bookshelf in the Murrough recycling centre.

It’s called ‘211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do’, by Tom Cutler.  It’s not as old as it looks, in fact it was only published in 2006, but there is still very much an old-school sort of style to it.

The book answers questions on ‘How to be a real man’, gives excellent science experiments, teaches you how to give speeches and behave at parties, explains tricks and cons, has pretty decent recipies… it even has an ‘everything you want to know about…’ section. 

I’ve been pouring over it for the last while and have found that there is way too much good material in there - it’s just too hard to pick my favourite questions.  So instead, I thought I’d post some of the questions here, then answer which ones take your interest in following posts!

1 - How to light a fart
2 - How to appear more intelligent than you are
3 - How to impress a girl on a budget
4 - How to cure a hangover
5 - How to drive a nail into a plank with your bare hand
6 - How to win money in a casino without cheating
7 - How to blag your way in philosophy
8 - How to do a five minute show with just a blade of grass
9 - How to make a boomerang actually come back
10 - How to fold an origami gift box
11 - How to make a glass harmonica
12 - How to stop a train with your bare hands
13 - How to cook for a girl
14 - How to tell when a girl fancies you
15 - How to judge a woman’s bra size at a glance
16 - How to walk through a postcard
17 - How to get by in Pidgin English
18 - A guide to DIY funerals
19 - How to make a pair of trousers from pub beer towels
20 - Four diversions with a banana

And… if you find the above of some interest, I might even make this book a prize for future caption competitions… YAY!

No, not underwear models… this is much more interesting.

There is a well kept secret here in Wicklow, it’s buried in the countryside, halfway between Roundwood and the Sally Gap.  It’s a very wierd peace-haven called Victoria’s Way.

If you want something different, whether it be a picnic with the family, a quiet stroll or just some good old fashioned food for thought, you’ll want to visit this place.

It isn’t very well marked, but you’ll recognise it by the painted sign on the road.  Its carpark is usually bare apart from a wooden shed with a coin slot on the side, for any donations you feel like throwing in.  From the carpark, the entrance is through the gates of hell, into a huge field full of these fellows:

Each has their own musical instrument, their music is only bound by your imagination.  From this field you have several options - there are extensive walks dotted with random sculptures to freak you out unexpectedly, or there’s an open maze, which is not so much a maze really as a set of random paths intertwining around small signposts.  Each signpost is obscurely worded and will confuse you utterly, but still manages to provoke alternate levels of thinking, which is pretty much the overall effect of this sculpture park… absolutely everything smacks of ‘WTF?!’

When you’re finished meandering, you’ll eventually find yourself back at Victor’s house, which is a tiny cottage attached to a mighty garage.  Inside this garage, are statues the likes of which you would never forget… like this starving chap:

Or this mildly upsetting but vastly intriguing couple:

Once you’ve signed the far wall, you then advance to the shop where you’ll find a wallful of totally unique hand-made jewellery.  This is surrounded by Buddha and Ganesh statues, incense burners, books and ornaments.  Everything is extremely well priced, unless you count a conversation with Victoria himself the extra cost, for it’s a conversation full of arguments like; is 1 + 1 = 1? Are you really a ’self’ or an expression of ’self’? 

Absolutely everything is confusing in an unexplainable way.  To give you an idea, here is the story behind Victoria from his book ‘Making your dream come true’;

Victoria was born Victor Langheld on April 29th 1940 in Berlin, Germany.  On Ash Wednesday, 1945, he emerged from the firestorm of Dresden a dead man walking and began a second life.  He came to Ireland in 1946.

At the age of 12 he decided that enlightenment would be a goal worth sacrificing his second life for.   So he took to heart the advice of so many spiritual masters to go east.  He arrived in India in 1964 and there studied and practiced relentlessly to make his dream of enlightenment come true.  He eventually became a Buddhist monk and, on December 1st, 1980, much to his surprise, he achieved the peak experience of awakening and release.  To his astonishment he realized that reaching the peak is easy, but that the return home is difficult.  Indeed, it would take another 18 years of toil and an encounter with a fully realized spiritual mistress before he began to glimpse the way home.

It was in honor of this extraordinary woman and in submission to her unsurpassed knowledge and power that he changed his name to Victoria.

Mr. Cool - The Nirvana Man

It’s been troubling me lately that one of my most popular posts is ‘Why do girls pee in pairs?‘.  The reason that it’s so popular is that people keep googling ‘How do girls pee?’ and finding me.  I have a feeling that this post isn’t what they were looking for, and I don’t want to let them down.

Who googles ‘How do girls pee?’ anyway?  Dodgy question, that.  You just never know these days.  It is, however, a frequently asked question apparently.  So, for the benefit of you curious young people out there who are genuinely wondering, I’ll explain it for you.

If you fall into the ‘just lookin’ for kicks’ category however, then I suggest you skip the biology lesson, and go to the end of this post.

So how do girls pee, then?

As you probably know, girls don’t have penises.  They sit down to pee because they don’t have this specialist aiming equipment, however there are several inventions out there that can help with this problem.  Very handy for long journeys and rock concerts.

The same process happens with males and females.  Food and water is put into the body, then processed by the stomach and liver.  All waste liquid then passes through the kidneys and ends up in the bladder.  When the bladder fills, a tube called a Urethra carries the pee to an external opening.  In men, the urethra runs through the penis and also carries ejaculate and pre-ejaculate during sex play. In women, the opening of the urethra is above the opening of the vagina. The opening of the urethra is very small and is not easy to see.  Here is a gratuitous drawing, which makes excellent use of the word ‘Sphincter’.

You’re probably wondering how girls handle the dripping problem, right?  The answer is toilet paper, and lots of it, after every function.  If you want to keep a female happy (apart from leaving the toilet seat down), always replace the toilet rolls when they run out.  We are lost without it.

You might also be wondering what girls do when there are no toilets around.  The answer is that they squat, usually getting a friend to provide cover. 

For the very very ultra modern girl, there is the SHENIS.  It is the ultimate equaliser.

There.  That was embarrassing.

So anyway… what were you saying?