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.

Hard science

Apparently our spying activities have been very inspiring! In revealing them online, though, we are running the risk of blowing our cover! Our computer remembers everything we do and announces himself at every place we visit; the dastardly bastard would rat on us without a second thought or the faintest trace of remorse.

If you ever engage in illegal or otherwise objectionable activities, do not let your computer know. Look what happened to poor Melanie McGuire of Brick, New Jersey.

MacGuire was convicted last year of murdering her husband William by shooting him with a gun obtained in Pennsylvania. The following search terms had been entered into Google and MSN search engines “on a computer belonging to her family” (we could be quoting Harper's magazine here, May 2008 issue, p.30, or maybe we followed the trial – it doesn't matter, does it?):

instant poisons
undetectable poisons
instant undetectable poisons
pesticide as a poison
insulin as a poison
insulin overdoses
toxic insulin levels
fatal insulin doses
euthanasia
tranquilizers
barbiturates
state gun laws
purchase guns
how to purchase guns illegally
how to purchase guns illegally in nj
how to purchase hunting rifles in nj
where to purchase guns without a permit
how to purchase guns in pennsylvania
how to commit murder

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Luckily The Atlantic's articles are available freely online. But maybe they are less fun. In any case, in the spirit of espionage and international dealings, if you would like to read long articles regarding how to and more importantly how not to, say, smuggle enriched uranium out of Russia, that's the place to go. But not on your own computer, obviously!

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Could you help us resolve a little dispute?

Today Roufa declared, for some reason: If science was like sex, we would have solved everything two thousand years ago. Which Mimi countered with: If science was like sex, we would be living in caves to this day! What do you think?

You don't have to cast your votes yet! Let's all ponder this over the weekend! Have fun!