Friday, June 27, 2008

Tentacles' tentacles

You have seen the devastation caused by natural disaster...
Witnessed the atrocities of war...
Listened to world leaders.. and leaders who want to rule the world.
You have heard from men of God...
and men who kill in God's name.
Gazed into eyes filled with hope
and seen hearts consumed with hopelessness.
Together we have followed the facts around the world!
Come with me! And see where the story takes us next!


This is, more or less, how Christiane Amanpour advertises her show on CNN. With such a record, honestly, we are too scared to follow Christian Amanpour. If Christian Amanpour is within arm's length from you right now, you must be in a rather unenviable situation. Unless you are a man of God.

Christiane Amanpour has been to North Korea and to the very tower that they have just destroyed, the cooling tower of a nuclear reactor! She has been filmed there! We have watched her interesting item, chronicling the visit of the New York Philharmonic to Pyong Yang, not long ago.

You think the North Koreans are getting rid of the tower to show the world they are not pursuing a nuclear program? Yes, but no, but yes, ... but No: It's because Christiane Amanpour has visited it, and obviously that's bad luck. Don't give us the evils!

It's a cement construction. They can complete a brand new tower before the dust settles of the old one's demolition.

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Forget Christiane. A much more enjoyable way to explore world news is, we've just discovered, Spiegel International's on-line quizzes! We recommend, for example, “Plastic Obama and the Lost Gnomes” and “Something's Burning in Germany”.

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Next on cecinestpasunebanane: Tentacles' tentacles.

Who is Tentacles?

Tentacles is an ancient Greek philosopher, who happens to be an octopus. Don't confuse him with Tentacles Tentacles, who is his brother. Tentacles Tentacles is just an idiot who likes to say everything twice in different words (he didn't get to choose his own name). He believes it makes him sound clever and lends him an aura of authority. He's right.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Grrrrrrrl Power!

You've probably heard about the so-called pregnancy pact: rumor has it that a number of schoolgirls, from Gloucester High in Massachusetts, had “a pact” to get pregnant as soon as possible and help each other raise the babies! The rumor was sparked by the observation that the number of pregnancies among the school's students had quadrupled the past year, and that, according to the school nurse, the news of the positive pregnancy-test results were invariably received with triumphant smiles and high-fives!

And everyone's shocked now. Why? Oh why? Bravo to the girls! What they are effectively saying to their parents is “guess what, if you won't give me a little brother/sister, I'll just go out and get one myself!”. Not to mention: “More labor hands to secure your retirement plan, ma!”. So save the drama!

Now that's pure girl power. No boy could ever do this!

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Our Frog Ted is participating in the Frogjob Week(s) on FrogBlogDogLog! Where he shows how he helped prepare soup for Mimi when she was sick. His story and pictures have just been published! See their post of June 25 and the very special Frog Chef page!

Frog Ted's next assignment will be to help us raise a puppy properly. We are going breeder-hunting next month! So he's reading all about it, as you can see.



Yes, of course, he's a dog, but that doesn't mean he knows how to raise a puppy! All those people who read about babies, haven't they been babies themselves?

Isn't it amazing that you need a license to do virtually anything, but they let you walk out the hospital (if you've been there in the first place) with a new born, just a couple of days after delivery, with nothing but best wishes and the bill?

Friday, June 20, 2008

There's something about Sonia

Our collection of quirky or otherwise interesting performances of Sonny (Bobby Hebb) is expanding.

The Mexican movie Sin ton ni Sonia is a silly movie. Not as silly as Aaltra. But like Aaltra, it features its own unique version of Sonny! It's actually called Sonia and it's in Spanish. We were very happy to find it on You Tube! Here is the full version (and a cropped one), with fragments from the movie!

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The following is from As good as it gets, where Jack Nicholson plays a grumpy, obsessive-compulsive author of romantic novelas:

Smitten fan: How do you write women so well?
Author: I think of a man... then take away reason and accountability.

One half of this banana is female and nevertheless found this very very funny.

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Back to Sin ton ni Sonia, where our hero, Orlando, has been pursuing and stalking RenĂ© for days and nights (and tequilas) in a row. She finally leaves her steady ex-boyfriend and before long Orlando and RenĂ© are making hot, passionate love in a hotel room. As soon as they're done, though, he turns his back to her and crashes for hours. She is not pleased of course and when he wakes up she starts complaining: Yada yada yada, “I just needed a hug!” she concludes. His eyes still trying to adjust to the light, and his brain to reality, he delivers this hilariously honest protest: “I'm sorry, I haven't slept for days! I need a hug too, you know!”

But who's Sonia? Sonia is Orlando's steady ex-girlfriend. He doesn't stand for a lot of reason or accountability either.

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Somebody we know very well has been going through an early midlife crisis:

“I am a blond trapped in a brunette's skin. I am an idiot, burdened with a nerd's brain!”

She should be glad that having your hair dyed is rather standard procedure and does not require a psychiatrist's evaluation.

In at least one state in the U.S., though, it might require the husband's approval, since legally the hair belongs to him. Neither of us can recall which state(s), unfortunately. Can anyone help us?

Well, it's not urgent. Save the research for the office bore-out and enjoy your weekend!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Sven the Cactus and Lenny the Wise

Great news!

Sven the Cactus is now also Sven the Cartoon! Sven C: such a Cool name! Here he is, the new star on FrogBlogDogLog!!!. If you ever need wise advice, on any topic, you can ask us, or you can ask Sven the Wise Old Cactus. He has his own e-mail address and his own blogger profile, thanks to our dear friends from Team Frog.

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Yes, we know, it has been Father's Day, and everybody's wounded.
As everybody knows, though,
Blood is thicker margarine than grease.

Is Sven C as old and wise as Lenny? The one who's responsible for the slanted words above? (That's Leonard Cohen, of course. But when you've known him as long as we have, you call him Lenny.)

Here's a little something from Lenny, ideal to repeat like a mantra when you feel there's somebody wishing you harm:

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, it doesn't look like me at all


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This is Lenny savoring his coffee:



... and his banana:


He must be a fan.

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Mimi is feeling a lot better. Many thanks to our Team Frog friends at the beach house for the e-card, which definitely helped! As did Roufa's soups, of course.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

To suffer in style

Where have we been? Where we still are, most of the time: Mimi in bed and Roufa in the kitchen. Mimi is sick and Roufa is busy preparing a variety of soups for her.

Although she feels lousy, Mimi gets up every morning, has a decent breakfast, and then a shower, before crawling back under the sheets. She finds being dirty and sick a hundred times worse than plain sick. She'd rather stay sick longer, if that's what it takes to stay clean. She's such a silly kitten.

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Have you ever been given advice on how to suffer in style? If not, worry not, it will come. Just keep on reading lifestyle magazines. What can it possibly mean, to suffer in style? It must mean something photogenic: Think film-noir heroine. And then the question arises. What would you prefer: to suffer in style or to be happy out of style? That's not a valid dilemma. If you can stay stylish while suffering, surely you can keep it up when you are happy too.

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Too much soup.

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And now, a little exercise. Let's try find alternatives to the famous piece of wisdom "What does not kill you, makes you stronger."

What does not kill you ...

...leaves you paralyzed.
...leaves you crippled.
...leaves you deformed.
...gives you a hell of a pain.
...will kill someone else.
...does not come in powder form.
...loves you.
...makes the jokes a lot better.
...will make you laugh, eventually.


Any more ideas?

Friday, June 6, 2008

Save the drama for your mama

... said the T-shirt of a man on the street.

We both found it very funny. Roufa was somehow reminded of somebody:

- Your mother has a very funny way of arguing... She starts it off like a game, like a little dance, kind of acting the emotions...

- Bend it like Beckham

- ...until she eventually gets angry for real. It's very weird.

- Yes, she can waltz herself into the emotions and then there's no stopping her.

- She's like a character out of a movie... Or an Azinuth book.

- Save your mama for the drama!


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- Your father, on the other hand, if you let him be, he's so calm, so reasonable... Without your mother, if he had married a normal woman, he would be so easy going!

- He wouldn't have married at all.

- Right...


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It's weekend! Again? Time flies! (Alas, during weekends too.) More coffee and waffles, anyone?

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Amelican Plesidential Elections

Our notorious friend Biko the Azinuth, as much as he loathes blogging, he can't keep his mouth shut. You know that already. But we love his silly stories – fictional or not. The other day, for example, he was telling us what it was like to watch soccer – football, if you prefer – on TV in his home country, Belgium. Suppose you are watching on Belgian TV a Dutch team play against a German team and score a goal. The speaker will, as usual, rave about the beauty of it or highlight some dumb defense mistake or whatever. You can then instantly switch to a Dutch channel and watch the jubilations and then to a German one for some moaning. Sounds like good old innocent fun over little neighborhood rivalries! It's even better if, as a Belgian, you are watching a Belgian team score against, say, the Dutch, because you can switch to the Dutch channel and indulge in the misery you've just caused them. Unfortunately, you can do the same exercise when your team loses. If you are a masochist, that is.

A Belgian with good language skills can also follow the news that are broadcast in different neighboring countries – but that's less interesting, because there are no wars anymore. Who cares when the French are on strike and whether the number of registered unemployed Germans has dropped (because many sank into poverty instead)! As long as these two bits of information have nothing to do with each other, the entertainment element is lost and you'd better stick to the affairs that really affect you.

The extinction of war should account for the success, within Europe, of football and the Eurovision thong contest (or is it song contest?), at least to some extent. Hurrah and cheers for both of them then!

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This bblogg, meanwhile, has been trying rEAl hArd to avoid talk of the American elections. Because there can't possibly be anything we could say that has not been said already. All day long, molning and evening, on TV and the pless and all alound us, Amelica votes, Amelica is plepaling fol elections. It's been years already, let's get it over with, please! Oh, it will be so great to finally have an American President again on this planet! We've been sitting on golden bananas -- and other fruit and veggies -- for ages! Why not award some already? For fear of inflation, that's why!

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We've invented a new syndrome. The PMS, as in Pre-Menopausal Syndrome – the one that makes you enjoy Shoes and the City – or is it Sex and the City? Something like that. (Sorry, fans. Couldn't hold it back.)

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Yes, we had some good coffee this weekend and we're ready for more! The only kinds of coffee that can do the trick in this heat are Italian freddo, for the refined palates, and Greek frappe, for the brutes whose top priority is really to stay conscious as the world melts into blazing numbness around them. Cool!