SvenStadium

Relativity is not for octopuses.

Tentacles the Wise Octopus of Sopholos rarely looks up in the sky. But when he does, his disdain for the Theory of Relativity takes the better of him. He observes:

They say that if my vision was infinitely sharp and I waited long enough, I could look far into the sky and see the back of my head. If I turned around, I would still see the back of my head. Left and right and in between, the back of my head is ahead of me. I am surrounded by the back of my head. This can't be right.

And who can argue?

And the reason is allegedly that space is curved. So if I walk straight ahead I will arrive here. Not in my lifetime! Not on these tentacles!

Certainly not.

If space is curved, then time must be curved too; and the arrow of time is bended and taking us back in time!

He has a theory as to why there is more matter than antimatter in the Universe:

... assuming that the Big Bang did happen, antimatter moved backwards in time and into a backward Universe!

Greek philosophers are not what they used to be.

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The first journalists arrived in China to cover the Olympic Games. Only to discover that their Internet activity is being monitored. These people are responsible for keeping us informed and they had to google “how to get to Tien An Men Square from Hilton Hotel” to find out that – if you can believe it! -- Internet in China is censored! We don't have enough leaden cucumbers to offer them.

We do have a very informative article to recommend.

Speaking of the Olympic Games, we have a suggestion as to what the London Olympic Stadium for the 2012 Olympics should look like.

This is Bird's Nest, the Olympic Stadium in Beijing that looks like a Bird's Nest:




And this is our suggestion for the 2012 Olympics:

Empty Nest Syndrome

As you all know, Marina the Nut lives and works in Germany, Europe, Third Rock from the Sun.

So many of her co-workers are Cancers and Leos, apparently, that for the past two or three weeks there has been cake almost every day on the occasion of somebody's birthday. They've been pulling a Laney on her! (That's short for Elaine Benes, obviously.)

Not that she minds!

Anyway, yesterday morning she received this e-mail from a colleague, sent to the whole floor:

Subject: Can it be true??

Yes it can!
Cake today at 3 p.m. at the usual place.

By 3p.m. the following sign had appeared hanging on the door to the “usual place”:

Cake we can believe in!

Who said they didn't have a sense of humor?

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So the price of oil has been going up and up and up and tumbling down and up and down. Ask any smart-ass like us and they will tell you that, obviously, there are forces at work using aggressive speculation to push some players out of the market and create some kind of powerful elite or whatever. Nothing to do with real-time supply and demand. So now we told you and the world is smarter. So what? So what?

Can we do anything? No. Can you? We didn't think so.

Does this sound uncharacteristically depressing?

Oh, don't mind our moods. Something else is bothering us, really.

Nine months of labor on this blog to make Sven famous and... voilà. Mission accomplished. As you know, he has his own blog now. He's out there on his own! He doesn't need us anymore! ***sniff***sigh*** We need a purpose.

Should we give a golden apple to George W. Bush for saying Wall Street was a binge-drinker in a bad hangover? When he thought the world was not listening? Naahhh.. That would be like giving U2 a leaden cucumber for a second-rate bootleg recording.

The Mantelpiece Fruit Guide

...for dogs, cats, children, and other curious creatures.

We interrupt this blog to bring you a special feature: The guide to our fruity awards. You know, the metal fruit we give now and then – you can find the laureates on the right column on this page. Golden Bananas and Leaden Cucumbers have been confusing to Frog the Dog, who did not hesitate to stand up and courageously ask for explanations. Many adult people pretend they understand things and then you ask them to explain something and they get angry and call you stupid, just to conceal the simple fact that no, they themselves don't know.

So let's start with something easy. The Golden Apple. A golden apple can only be good, right? An apple is an interesting round fruit, very nutritious, and some would say seductive. And it smells lovely. A golden apple is an apple made of – or coated with – gold, which is shiny and expensive and looks gorgeous. A golden apple can also be an orange, which is very tasty and juicy. We can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to have a Golden Apple! If we give one to somebody, we must have liked or approved of something about them.

A cucumber is a very silly vegetable. Some would say offensive. Children rarely like its taste and adults tend to object its shape. Unless you are into silliness, like we are, bearing a cucumber is not very pleasant or decent. A leaden cucumber is a very heavy and dark cucumber. Nobody wants to display a leaden cucumber on their mantelpiece or to have to carry one down to the basement. The Leaden Cucumber award can only be a form of punishment.

And what about the Golden Banana? Is it good or bad? It's not very clear, is it! A banana has a beautiful color and smell, it is very nutritious, and everyone loves the taste! But like the cucumber, the banana also has a silly and some would say offensive shape. To peel and eat a banana in public looks very stupid indeed. Only apes do that and nobody wants to be associated with apes. Well, a golden banana, although expensive and shiny, has all the shape of the banana, but none of the flavor and nutrients. And it's deceptive too: Gold is a very tempting thing to own!

If you've earned yourself a Golden Banana, chances are that you've said or done something you thought and probably continue to think was very clever and cunning and would serve your purpose or your image, but actually, to us at least, appeared like an ape biting into a golden banana in public, breaking his teeth on it and giving us a broad, ugly smile. You will be tempted to display your Golden Banana on the mantelpiece. Because it's Gold! Are you supposed to be ashamed of Gold??! Since when is Gold an embarrassment?

Well, that, our friend, is your drama, and the genius of it all.

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We hope this has been helpful, Frog! In any case, do try and have your five servings a day, but make sure no metal has been added to the fruit by humans! Or dogs. Or Obi-Sven.

In Bed With Chevron

It's weekend, dear readers – almost. We are lazy. Laziness cannot produce a good post. Like goodness, it is a reward in itself and we will indulge. So we leave you with some more one-liners, made in our household. It's been a while! If you don't like them, scroll down, we still have some fruit and veggies to give away!

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On TV: A cricket player's hand is injured and he needs surgery.
RTG: What happened? He burnt it on a cup of tea?
ML: A heavy cup of tea?

A movie on TV, the Matrix-genre. Looks crappy.
ML: What is this, Matrix 215?
RTG: Matrix – the Inverse?
(It was The Matrix.)

CNN: “To close Guantanamo would be a logistic nightmare for the US. Especially, what to do with those detainees, who the US believe to be senior Al Qaeda members?”
ML: ...based upon?...
RTG: They are older.

London, the sign reads: New Scotland Yard.
RTG: What's that: Scotland Meter?

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Finally! The moment we've all been waiting for! Another Golden Banana! Our fresh Golden Banana goes t o Chevron. An oil company, who is proud to be “part of the solution”, pioneering alternative energy, because “we live on this planet too”! Plans to manufacture their own planet failed badly and now they have to keep this one clean.

Chevron's advertisers are not content with a golden banana, so they had to take it one step further. The ad voice-over, a male, is aware that it's all about everyone's future, “for YOU [image of 11-year-old pretty girl in nightgown] and for ME [man in his 30s taking shower]”.

Leaden Cucumber along with the Golden Banana. Bon appetite.

A Leaden Cucumber for Us?

We were planning to just say a sweet goodbye-and-see-you-soon before our upcoming

Leave of Absence #1,

that's a 7 to 10-day period, during which we will be on the road and possibly not in a position to post... and then it hit us again. You may think you're done with the blog, but the blog is not done with you.

It was such a heart-warming message that the French Minister of Agriculture was conveying through our very TV set. So they do know it's Christmas after all! He was going to loosen certain restrictions and allow French farmers to cultivate a larger portion of their land, because there are people in the world who starve. They're all waiting for the French grapes to arrive!

It just so happens that a couple of days ago we read how they solved their famine problem in Malawi. After one more disastrous corn harvest two years ago, they were indeed facing serious starvation problems over there. And then the new president Bingu wa Mutharika decided to henceforth ignore the suggestions and free-market preachings of the EU, the US -- and perhaps other U's we may be forgetting and the World Bank of course -- and subsidize fertilizers, which farmers there could absolutely not afford otherwise. Alas, no more free market in Malawi, they could go straight to hell! Well, they are now exporting corn to Zimbabwe. And the food aid that arrives there is being forwarded to Uganda.

The aforementioned U's do subsidize their own farmers. They just wanted Malawi to continue to export, say, tobacco and use the money to import their food. In that way U's would get the tobacco and the money U's would have paid for it. Hypocrites? U's?

This is not a Golden Banana anymore, this calls for a Leaden Cucumber up U's.

Aaaaanyways!

Dear Very Honorable Readers, as we said already, we'll be gone for several days. Posting is not guaranteed. Have a nice time this weekend, and let us remind you that you should air yourselves sufficiently -- physically and mentally.

By the way, as all Reading Heroes know, reading is a good way to air your mind, and helping Santa is another great one too! Dancing is highly recommended as well - it seems to keep Ms Quarks sane, sometimes. If you'd fancy some brain jogging, try and memorize the name of the Malawian President, see above. If you're German, you know what to do, we call it hiking.

In any case, be sure to enjoy whatever money you're making. If you absolutely can't, at least let somebody else enjoy it.