Going for Octopus

Here is another tip for staying young: being perpetually astonished!

And another one: have younger people visit you now and then.

And here is how to survive them.

In fact, it's been great fun having the nephew around. We told him we didn't have Internet in the house, so he had to make do with all our daily routines, from the grocery store to watching Seinfeld on DVD. We selected episodes of Seinfeld very carefully for him and now he is a fan! The Pony Remark. The Whirlpool. The Soup Nazi. And so on. What other 16-year-old has such life-changing opportunities?

We also watched The Long Way Round with him (Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman around the world on motorcycles). Two episodes at a time (three, eventually), because he became addicted. The slapstick of that series turned out to be perfect entertainment for him (the Mongolian ball soup; Claudio's Russian haircut; the guy who shot a Kalashnikov as a welcome gesture; Ewan the Manimal. And so on, and so on.)

As for going to bed with the chickens? Not a problem. He arrived exhausted from his family vacation and a long trip with his friends. In our place he's had to wake up early in the morning like we do, since he's been sleeping in our living-room, so he stayed tired. He begged to sleep. Problem solved.

We did let him drag us to numerous shoe shops. Shoe shops? Yes, shoe shops. This generation, they are worse than Carrie Whatsername from Shoes and the Clitty. He was on the phone for a half hour the other day, trying to convince his mom that he needed more football shoes. We learned a great deal about the negotiating might of a teenager.

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And now, your banana moment of zen:

Condoleezza Rice said:

“This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can invade its neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed.” There will be consequences!

A real journalist would have asked:
Can you be more specific, ma'm??

Her Russian colleague Mr Lavrov declared:

“We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States,” he said, “but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership with Russia.”

What can we say? Indeed, if you can be partners with the real macho, who gives a dime about the shitty little balalaikas in between?

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Leave of Absence #5

Dear readers, it is time for our long deserved vacation. This bblogg is going to take a long break! We are going to have ourselves baked in Greece, the birthplace of Tentacles the Wise Octopus, as well as his retarded brother Tentacles Tentacles, his cousin Testicles of Sypholos Island, and Icicles and Bicycles the conjoined twins of Mount Colymbos! But don't you worry! Come September we will be back with many silly pictures of Frog Ted in Athens! We'll try to convince Tentacles to pose with him, but we can't promise.